de_KuKulcan_EcGGO

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de_KuKulcan_EcGGO

Postby EcGRooster on Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:54 am

Hi, im Shawn and as you probably guessed im new to the site, this is the first map i made to learn how to use Hammer Editor, i tried a little bit of everything and i am still adding and testing several versions of it. i really like playing the map but i get lots of negative feed back from the community i made it for, i do have 1 problem and thats optimizing the darn thing. ive been jumping around from section to section trying to break up the monotony of working on the same problem over and over.
some known problems are the map it too dark, seeing that i made it to be a nightime map i made it as light as i thought it could possibly be for a night map, unfortunately CS players dont really care about eye candy, and the map is laggy, which is what ive been trying to work on as of late, and some people had concerns about pathways to bombsites, i am not quite happy with site B, it seems to be T sided and too hard to get to from CT spawn, however i have played the map with as many as 8 vs 8 and the end result was pretty even so i have mixed thoughts on it.
i would love some feed back from anyone to get a different perspective and maybe some new ideas will arise.

hope you enjoy

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EcGRooster
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Re: de_KuKulcan_EcGGO

Postby cpl. punishment on Wed Jan 22, 2014 4:50 am

From the screenshots, I can surmise that the biggest hit to your FPS is probably the smoke volumes you appear to be using. IIRC, those can cause quite a bit of slowdown, especially if you use them a lot. Hide them, and see if your FPS improves. Otherwise, you're going to have to use areaportals (search YouTube for some decent tutorials on that).

Some nitpicks: you've repeated the same tree model numerous times in the same area. I would recommend using different variations of those models, or if none exist, at least rotate a few of them so it's not the same exact tree all over the place. Also, your skybox fog doesn't match the color of your skybox. Turn on cheats (sv_cheats in the console), and type fog_gui and you should get a slider that will allow you to change your fog parameters. Third, I would highly recommend not having an area that players can get that can see above the boundaries of your map, unless you have a seamless 3D skybox behind it. That tall pyramid structure appears to be able to allow players to see into your (sparse) skybox.
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Re: de_KuKulcan_EcGGO

Postby EcGRooster on Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:47 pm

cpl. punishment wrote:From the screenshots, I can surmise that the biggest hit to your FPS is probably the smoke volumes you appear to be using. IIRC, those can cause quite a bit of slowdown, especially if you use them a lot. Hide them, and see if your FPS improves. Otherwise, you're going to have to use areaportals (search YouTube for some decent tutorials on that).

Some nitpicks: you've repeated the same tree model numerous times in the same area. I would recommend using different variations of those models, or if none exist, at least rotate a few of them so it's not the same exact tree all over the place. Also, your skybox fog doesn't match the color of your skybox. Turn on cheats (sv_cheats in the console), and type fog_gui and you should get a slider that will allow you to change your fog parameters. Third, I would highly recommend not having an area that players can get that can see above the boundaries of your map, unless you have a seamless 3D skybox behind it. That tall pyramid structure appears to be able to allow players to see into your (sparse) skybox.


Hi cpl. punishment, thanks for replying.
I have used Areaportals from the start (breaking the map into 3 main areas), and did not have any lag issues at first even with the fog/smoke, i have tried it w/out the fog/smoke and its still gets choppy just as bad so i ruled that out, i have also used 4 Torus brushes at bombsite A but i have turned them into func_details so i would imagine those would not effect the fps so much, i have not tried to change them out with an alternative but i will be doing that as well.
BTW i like nitpicks, i find that doing a level with lots involved you tend to miss things and its always good to have a fresh perspective, as far as trees go i kinda rushed through dressing it up with models due to learning how, remember this was just a learning process for me in each department of hammer, and i have removed quite a lot of models since that was one negative feedback i got from the community. it has changed quite a lot since the original and i figure it will be changing even more before i actually release the map.
The large Pyramid structure is not climbable to the top, i made a secret room inside originally and in another ver i have actually cut the entire structure out and put it in the skybox, and as far as i could tell there was no difference in fps either. still gets choppy. the only area that brings you above the wall line is the snipernest in A site. i have managed to block any view that shows outside the map or any seams, although there are a few areas that need work.
Now the skyboxfog issue, im not sure what you mean by it doesnt match the skybox and im eager to check this out so if you could elaborate a bit more, i didnt even know i had fog in the skybox.
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Re: de_KuKulcan_EcGGO

Postby cpl. punishment on Fri Jan 24, 2014 5:34 am

What I meant about the fog color, is that it doesn't match the lighting and skybox color. If you have a 3D skybox and a sky_camera entity, there is a setting for fog in the sky camera, so check and make sure that's not enabled. It could also be a fog entity in your main map if you have that. Or, it could be the forest texture being poorly lit.

To run down your FPS issues, try net_graph 3 in your console, which will bring up information about FPS, and IIRC choke (if it's not 3, then try net_graph 2 or 1). You can also use mat_wireframe 1.
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Re: de_KuKulcan_EcGGO

Postby EcGRooster on Fri Jan 24, 2014 11:31 pm

hah i didnt know this and thanks, i have opened the properties and fog is enabled, and the primary color was 171 205 203 so i turned it off and ran the map and it seems pretty evenly smooth,although i still did not see any visual difference or how you knew the fog was wrong. i have also added some hint/skips that i think did a lot of improvement and yes i have already been using net_graph 3 and mat_wireframe 3, i was told that wireframe 1 and 2 were for other things that hackers used for walling or some crap IDK but i have always used 3 because when i use 2 or 1 it really drops my FPS a lot throughout the map and its hard to scout around the map for areas that need work. there is still a lot i need to learn about mapping so thanks for the info.
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