The Official Interlopers "Map Pimpage Thread"

[Epifire]

What's with the blurring right in the center?

[Major Banter]

Anomaly. Play moar STALKER.

[Epifire]

Anomaly. Play moar STALKER.

I would if it was not so repetitive. If you are trying to capture that post apocalyptic feel then add in some demolished/crumbling buildings for you skybox. With maybe some higher buildings to break line of sight here and there I say it is coming along fine.

[Gary]

If anomalies are mapper-placed, there should be scorch marks and broken stuff around them. To better bring them into the world. Know what I mean?

The world geometry looks good so far. But do you have AF or texture quality on low? Seems a bit blurry.

[Armageddon]

The AK looks like it has a mipmap on it which is a big no.

[HoliestCows]

So its the first time ive mapped since I released Aberration. Also my first try at making something outside.

Right now I know there isn't much to cc, Im mainly asking what you think of the textures and stuff.

[Major Banter]

If you are trying to capture that post apocalyptic feel then add in some demolished/crumbling buildings for you skybox. With maybe some higher buildings to break line of sight here and there I say it is coming along fine.

Intention is to add a forest skyline to the right-hand side, and a mountain range to the front.

If anomalies are mapper-placed, there should be scorch marks and broken stuff around them. To better bring them into the world. Know what I mean?

The world geometry looks good so far. But do you have AF or texture quality on low? Seems a bit blurry.

First; obviously this is very WIP, but I'm hoping to add craters and so on regarding the grav anomalies. They've already got some nice particle effects. Just struggling to really get them to 'feel' right, y'know?

Second; running Ep2 in dev mode straight from a Hammer compile. Tends to make everything a bit shit.

The AK looks like it has a mipmap on it which is a big no.

It doesn't.

So yeah. Thanks for ideas - I'm about to shift gears from orange map to detail pass and wanted to see what you chaps would come up with.

[joe_rogers_11155]

do the anomalies travel the map at all? if so, there is all kinds of room for semi-scripted events that would totally freak the player out and generally destroy his sense of safety (sucking up bricks from the ground, catching and killing birds in the electric field, ripping through walls, tossing stuff, localized heavy fog, strange music emanating from the center, etc). Also, are you implementing the bolt toss method for detecting anomalies?

as for the mapping, i think it is too WIP to comment on, other than to state that it looks too horizontal from a gameplay perspective. But hey, just keep up the good work so that it looks like the other images on the Mod DB page and you will be fine.

[Major Banter]

do the anomalies travel the map at all? if so, there is all kinds of room for semi-scripted events that would totally freak the player out and generally destroy his sense of safety. Also, are you implementing the bolt toss method for detecting anomalies?

as for the mapping, i think it is too WIP to comment on, other than to state that it looks too horizontal from a gameplay perspective. But hey, just keep up the good work so that it looks like the other images on the Mod DB page and you will be fine.

Nah, the whole 'randomly placed anomaly' thing never seemed necessary in what is ultimately a linear game. I had ideas about randomly placed anomalies, but fact is the player will only play through this once or twice. May as well make it a better experience the first time than a replayable one. However, there ARE moving anomalies...

Same applies with the bolt-toss. Might get implemented later, but just isn't necessary. It's pretty entertaining watching what happens when grenades go into a grav though!

Thanks. Yeah, there's a fair amount of verticality in the buildings and the map drops off to the right. Might add a few more heights to move around on.

[Hollow]

So its the first time ive mapped since I released Aberration. Also my first try at making something outside.

Right now I know there isn't much to cc, Im mainly asking what you think of the textures and stuff.

So...yellow.

Textures don't make much sense.

First pic - The yellow brick wall and the 2 storeys above it do not compliment each other in any way. In fact the middle storey is actually a texture used for the ground floor of a building (hence the white concrete portion).

Not sure if the green corrugated metal building is meant to be sat next to the other building like that. You would only use a texture outdoors like that for possibly a warehouse or one of those temporary offices at building sites. And they wouldn't be connected to anything else. The two building types clash right now in the composition of the area.

Second pic I really can't read much from because it's so goddamn yellow.

Third pic, building on the right is either too clean a style, based on the surrounding buildings to look decent duplicating the texture over three floors. You need to break it up becuase it looks pretty boring as it stands.

When it comes to designing areas, you need to think contextually if all the buildings compliment each other, not only in location and aesthetics, but subtle storytelling that's weaved into the level design itself. Because in the end, pretty environments don't meaning anything if they don't serve a purpose to the overall mechanics of the game/mod (be it level flow, MP balancing, dynamics, attack points etc etc). So you have to strike a balance.

[HoliestCows]

Some small singleplayer map im working on. My goal for this is to really work on the pacing and get smoother gameplay.

[Dives]

What you're using as a ceiling texture isn't a ceiling texture.

[Major Banter]

I've seen Valve use it as one. Search me why, but they do.

Pretty map; excellent lighting and much more subtle colour correction. Good progress.

[Armageddon]

Your lighting is much better, even if it does have the super-duper bloom that's fugly.

[joe_rogers_11155]

@Holiest cows, I think it looks better than most of aberration. Keep it up. Don't forget to do a limited playtest with your closest buds to test the gameplay.

Are you making use of light_spot? You can reduce the amount of bloom on the walls by moving those generic light entities away from the wall about 32 units. also, light entities and spotlight glows have an HDR bloom setting...where 1 = 100%, .5 = 50%, and 0 = 0% bloom. set the bloom down to .25 and see if it makes things look better.