ns_machina

[ken20banks]

holy shit, the stereoscopic shots are awesome haha

[-Stratesiz-]

Spectacular design! Stunning brushwork and lighting! I like it a lot!

[hamst3r]

I would try the stereoscopic shots, but I have a feeling they'd mess up my contacts and it would hurt.

[General Vivi]

haha 3d effect killed my eyes XD!

[e-freak]

The 3D-Screens are f*ing awesome!

[Zacker]

I totally don't get any kind of 3d effect nor sailboats.

[Psyshokiller]

Harhar awesome 3d effect! (awesome map too ofc)

It works great, once you figured it out.

[KIIIA]

A true beauty! Innovative architecture, probably more beautyfull than most stuff i`ve seen for Source!

[Belgarion]

mmm fantastic. I remember seeing pics of this around two years ago! or maybe 1.. i don't remember. it was a while ago. I'm glad to see you've finished it.

[merkaba]

Hi Belgarion :] It could easily have been two years...I checked the creation date of the first RMF I had saved of this map, and it was something like 750 days ago. I was working on the map for a long period of time, BUT I also was not working on the map for a long period of time also. Basically I was at university and so only worked on it when I happened to have HL installed and was bored enough to give it another bit of attention.

So the map is kinda pieced together from bits made over 2 years ago, and also bits made at intermittent times inbetween. It also had a LOT of stuff thrown away in that time; I probably have enough cut material to start a whole new map.

This is what the 'chasm' (and the laser) looked like at first:

But at some point I decided it just wasn't cool enough, so I deleted that and made the huge big chasm that is in Machina today. Of course it wasn't -quite- like that; at first I built the chasm and then tried to link it to that above area somehow. Then I decided that just wasn't going to work for gameplay reasons and pulled the above out completely, replacing it with a simple roof-mounted laser that pointed straight downward. That laser stayed in the map for a long time, but ultimately I felt it looked way too Half-Lifey and also somewhat phallic, so right near the end of development I switched it over with the blue laser seen at the start of this thread, that has tons more style and also looks like it can be rotated back and forth, which was something I was scratching my head about when trying to figure out how to make the previous laser look like it can do that.

[i hate it when what seems like a short thing to edit in turns into a bloody essay. Anyway, back to the thread...]

The creation of the chasm was actually kinda a rebellious move against the claustrophobic nature of NS maps; one of my driving forces in making machina was that most NS maps don't really offer much that is new, perhaps through mapper's fear of being adventurous and risking it not being an official map as a result. So, being an NS developer I was free to pretty much do whatever I wanted and have it an official map regardless, so long as the gameplay wasn't terrible. And thankfully it seems the gameplay isn't actually bad at all! It's struck a chord with the playerbase who are after more interesting immserive NS experiences than the gameplay-solid (ie, predictable and easy) competetive style maps.

[Mr.Ben]

Ahh merkeba :]

The NS clanner in me says stay well clear of this map it's fucking huge and it has one big fuck off pit of doom but you know what, fuck it, the mapper in me says fuck me I don't care because this is an amazing piece of work. I really, really, really like this map and every time I play it I discover something new that leaves me in awe of your ability.

[merkaba]

Hi Ben ^_^ I don't think anyone has even attempted to play a competetive game on this map, but in its current state the marines might walk over the aliens anyway due to an abundance of res nodes in their quarter.

I've been working on a folio website the past few days and I have the machina section done (and hera). I'm only posting this here to make this reply somewhat related to the topic.

What's new:

Most of the images have the ambient sound in that area playing, to give a better sense of the atmosphere.

Some of the images are 360 degree panoramics (these pictures are indicated in their thumbnail).

http://www.archwolf.net/merkaba/html/machina.php

It's my first serious website and I'm very happy with it so far Except for the spelling, which is in need of some spellchecks.

[ifO]

Spectacular. Very impressive indeed. Great to see there's still a few people squeezing the last drops of juice out of good ol' HL1. Kinda makes me want to install NS just to try it.

[Fearian]

a few weeks ago I got back into NS and im addicted.

Its bad. I have freakin exams and Im up at 1am organising a JP/SG rush.

NS machina.. I love it. its buitifull. I spent my whole time walking around aimlessly going.. ooh.. ahh.. whats down there.... ooh...

So I always die naturally. but I love it. my favorite map, and its the one im worst at.

[Phobos]

good stuff man, many thumps up....