The Official Interlopers "Map Pimpage Thread"

[Major Banter]

Not to add insult to injury, but didn't I very briefly join in on the collapse of it? I don't even know if I was considered a really member, but I did attend a couple meetings and remember Hollows departure which sort of snowballed into the team falling apart. Sad to see it all go, but its good that you have found a way to continue with the project solo and someday it might still get done.

Hah, hardly an insult Smurft, don't worry.

Yeah, you along with a couple of other people were part of a fresh recruitment drive - you're accurate with what you're saying there. It shows how the loss of Hollow brought the whole thing crashing down to reality, and no matter what we did it was the start of a rapid collapse. People such as you were meant to be propping it up but I did a crap job. To be honest, it was for the best. It's why I didn't make a post-mortem, it was embarrassing.

Got spoken to by the mighty Schofty actually, who brought FZ up. I'm not sure why we generated so much interest (300 watchers on ModDB) but I'd love to know why you guys were so intrigued by it. Drop me a PM.

[joe_rogers_11155]

no need to drop a PM on the matter - it sounded and looked really freaking awesome. it was going to explore some of the outer limits of the Half-Life 2 planet. That's always been one of my goals - to try and represent Combine occupation in non-European areas (my mod is set in the united states). Your mod was gonna do that for deep russian territories, from what i remember.

[Zecrah]

Edited a bit. Bit darker, new custom sounds, new custom graffiti, changed water a bit, added a table prop, lowered a model and did that lil corridor at the start. ^^ Only issue is that the rain sounds need changing, but that'll have to wait until cordon is off and I can sort of put them around.

Would you mind giving a quick rundown of how you got that spiffy rain storm set up?

Sorry, I never even saw this! And yeah, sure.

I used this as a basis:
http://www.tophattwaffle.com/?p=1471

And then tweaked it a lot. It basically involves a few strategically placed 'light' entities, with a huge brightness (Mine are 18,000) and a constant of 1. You name all these light entities the same thing, and then use a logic timer to trigger them. I set it to use a random time between 10 - 18 or so, though I've continued to tweak it since the video so just play around.

Place a bunch of ambient_generics around using the various thunder sounds (Filter for 'thunder' in the sound list, and look for 'raw' sound types. There's loads of stock ones) and again use logic_timers to trigger them at random times.

Use a logic_auto to start the timers all off 'OnMapSpawn'.

I intend to use particles to create splashes, refractive/scrolling textures, puddles, and clouds. ^^

Edited a bit. Bit darker, new custom sounds, new custom graffiti, changed water a bit, added a table prop, lowered a model and did that lil corridor at the start. ^^ Only issue is that the rain sounds need changing, but that'll have to wait until cordon is off and I can sort of put them around.

oh god, so good.
okay one step further; try putting a brush textured solid white that is fullbright and have it flicker with the light.
im not sure if that will look right or not, but id like to see haha.

I don't really think it will. Plus this will be for multiplayer, and people will be at different points and the brush probably won't look right from all views

[Kanine01]

I made a simple map for a Latin project at school. Sorry about the quality.

[Major Banter]

Haha, love the original take on a lesson. Nice work Kanine, that's pretty neat. Definitely an original approach to a project.



Obviously Wip. Crits?

[Major Banter]

HERE COMES A DUMP

Got two new lighting schemes. Picky picky.

[Gambini]

very good both of you.

@kanine: that "simple thing" looks more complex than your other project actually.

[Stormy]

@mb, second one looks better, more contrasting light values and sharp angles make it look more dramatic. It draws more attention to the railcar too, so I hope that's what you're going for.

[sakna]

did you use brushwork for the tunnel support beams (idk what else to call them) or did you port models?

[Major Banter]

The support beams are a combination of two things.

Firstly, I built the level using nothing but brushes - tunnel braces included. Naturally, this gave me a fucking ridiculous brush/plane count, so I had to bring it down. I dumped a brace into a separate file and used Propper on it. Because Propper can't handle hollow things such as this when it comes to collision (and using arches would double the model count) I just disabled collisions and shadows on it when I imported it back to Hammer and used blocklight where I had to.

Easy.

The brace support beams running along the tunnel are just func_detailed brushes.

[stoopdapoop]

is there a reason you aren't using -staticproppolys?

[Major Banter]

Compile times.

[Smurftyours]

Can we get a screenshot without the brightness tweaks? Its hard to really get the feel of something when its edited.

[Major Banter]

The issue is that everyone has different monitor settings - I crank everything's contrast up because I like MOAR COLOUR, so things appear darker than usual on my screen. Other people have it stupidly bright, others stupidly dark.

Best to play it safe and simply brighten it up a bit. Trust me, it's a tweak for screenie purposes. If you want a feel for it, you have to play it.

Final version will probably get a darkness slider. Dark's important, and I know how to use it properly, rather than having a typical 'dark is scary' thing going on.

[Teh Frog]

Just finished this:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=35329

Otherwise am working on salvaging a 3 map mod I lost along with my HDD. I saved the first map. Other than that, nothing. :/