nmo_boardwalk_v3 [NMRiH map]

Reveal what you have made so far and get feedback on development.

nmo_boardwalk_v3 [NMRiH map]

Postby jgoodroad on Sat Sep 13, 2014 12:04 am

Hello Gents, long time no see.

I've been working on a map for the free-to-play zombie-survival FPS game No More Room in Hell. And since most of you lovely folk have a strange knack for generating critical-yet-constructive feedback, I was hoping you could all lend a hand in polishing this map. It's just about the best I can make it, so any feedback at all would be a considerable boon for me.

I wanted to make a short but challenging map (the candle that burns twice as bright, if you catch my drift) that had a very gloomy, somewhat oppressive atmosphere that would naturally push the player down the boardwalk and out to sea. As if it was a beacon of life in an otherwise dead world. Features include randomized "events", alternative objectives (with several solutions to said objectives) and a kind of hybrid experience between the standard "objective" mode (where the players must complete tasks to progress) and the "survival" mode, where the goal is just to stay alive long enough to escape.

But enough talk, here's a trailer so you can get the gist of it.

http://youtu.be/kpal4g1lpMk

And a few pictures:

Image

Image

And here's a download link:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/fpbps ... rdwalk.zip

You need No More Room in Hell to play it, of course, but it's a free game, so that's a plus.

I've got a synopsis and such on the NMRiH forums, so I'll link to that too, just for fun I guess.

http://www.nomoreroominhell.com/forums/ ... opic=11388

And a dev journal, for those of you who are into that stuff.

http://www.nomoreroominhell.com/forums/ ... 336&page=1
===[]"

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current projects: nmo_boardwalk, nmo_asylum
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Re: nmo_boardwalk_v3 [NMRiH map]

Postby Stormy on Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:04 pm

I played through it by myself just to check the map out and it looks pretty good. It was awfully dark at the beginning but I guess that's the nmrih thing. I like the little hidey holes you have in the map, a good way to reward exploration. I also recorded some demos of me playing through it. I left mesages in game instead of recording voice.

I felt like the BSP has been half rushed. There are some areas that are really high detail and some areas that are super blocky. Not sure what your budget is but on a small map like this I think you can really go nuts. I talk about it a bit in the demo files if you get that far. The yellow building itself looks half rushed too. You have some good details, the roof extruding out and the strip of stonework for instance, but it doesn't look realistic for some reason. Is it based on reference? I think the yellow texture is inappropriate somehow, like it should be a different material. Perhaps weatherboard, like the Maria Sol on the Santa Monica pier:

Image

Image

I didn't get all the way through because I kept getting my nuts chewed off by zombie kids, but what I saw was good. I think the skybox needs some love and the fog needs to be fixed. The falloff is so sharp now it looks like a bad masking of a short draw distance, but I assumed you did that because it was a wip. Nice work so far man!
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Re: nmo_boardwalk_v3 [NMRiH map]

Postby jgoodroad on Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:12 pm

Black_Stormy wrote:I played through it by myself just to check the map out and it looks pretty good. It was awfully dark at the beginning but I guess that's the nmrih thing. I like the little hidey holes you have in the map, a good way to reward exploration. I also recorded some demos of me playing through it. I left mesages in game instead of recording voice.

I felt like the BSP has been half rushed. There are some areas that are really high detail and some areas that are super blocky. Not sure what your budget is but on a small map like this I think you can really go nuts. I talk about it a bit in the demo files if you get that far. The yellow building itself looks half rushed too. You have some good details, the roof extruding out and the strip of stonework for instance, but it doesn't look realistic for some reason. Is it based on reference? I think the yellow texture is inappropriate somehow, like it should be a different material. Perhaps weatherboard, like the Maria Sol on the Santa Monica pier:

I didn't get all the way through because I kept getting my nuts chewed off by zombie kids, but what I saw was good. I think the skybox needs some love and the fog needs to be fixed. The falloff is so sharp now it looks like a bad masking of a short draw distance, but I assumed you did that because it was a wip. Nice work so far man!


Firstly, I'd like to thank you for playing through the map, even if NMRiH isn't your forte, exactly. I've watched your demos, and you bring up several good points that I will attempt to address in my next patch, such as tweaking the fog, adjusting the lighting in the first area, and improving the detail the best I can (Although it's really a product of optimizing it at this point, and I am cautious about loosing frames as the area you pointed out as being under-detailed was actually one of the major "FPS-drop-zones" that other players noted. Still, there's more that can be done to improve the performance, so I'll see what I can do.)

Secondly, and this is more of an aside than anything, the main building is actually a composite of three different buildings. I wanted to capture the vibrant colors of most boardwalk buildings, but more weathered down. Hence the mildew yellow color. But I will experiment with other colors to see if something works better.

Again, thanks for providing the thoughtful critique, I greatly appreciate.
===[]"

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current projects: nmo_boardwalk, nmo_asylum
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Re: nmo_boardwalk_v3 [NMRiH map]

Postby jgoodroad on Sat Sep 20, 2014 7:36 pm

I've worked on the lighting and main building some more.

Image

I don't know what to do about the fog though. I can't bring it any closer (or else it'll clip through the interiors) and pushing it away doesn't improve it much either.
===[]"

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