Da_streets

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Da_streets

Postby Stormy on Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:53 pm

So this is the first time I have ever actually posted a topic in this forum. I have finally got something to show.

I'm working on a little mod called Double Action: Boogaloo as the artist. I have spent most of the last few weeks polishing one of the maps in rotation, da_streets. But before the wall of text, have some screenshots:

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So this map already existed in the mod but it lacked shine. It was fun to play and worked well with our gameplay elements but it never really had visual appeal. I decided that with a little spit and polish I could make it look better, so I have been working on it for a few weeks now. I have never really done much work in hammer, I have always made my models for mappers and they use them in their maps. It's nice being able to make your own models exactly as you need them, and then using them in ways you hadn't planned. It was also eye opening to see just how hard hammer is to use, but once you get over its quirks it really is an amazing tool. I never knew the player interaction with simple triggers could go so smoothly when everything else I have done in source has been a hard slog uphill through shit. I'm excited to do more stuff like that in my new maps.

I have never done much lighting in source either so I'd appreciate feedback on it. I think I went too dark which is a rookie mistake but I really wanted to emphasize that dark night city feel. Like when you're in a taxi and all the colourful lights go spinning by. I also wanted to avoid any washed out colours. Double Action takes its cues from a mix of tacky 90s action movies (like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard) and cool smooth stylish movies (like Oceans 11 and Desperado) so I wanted to emphasize that 'Neon Miami' feel, while having more calm areas as well. I paid particular attention to breaking up areas into lighting groups, so the player can navigate the map and recognize areas easily.

For instance, the inside of the construction site is a warmish orange glow, because I was thinking of wood and tools stuff in there. However the car in the alleyway uses a low-angle white spotlight to illuminate the scene, giving the alleway a colder feel and a different profile in the players mind. There is an area with red and green traffic lights which is easy to recognise and near the truck crash I used more orange and red lights which seemed appropriate for the scene. In Double Action players spawn immediately into the firefight at times and I wanted to make sure they always knew where they were.

I could work on this map for months to come but DAB is releasing soon! I'd appreciate it if you guys could play the mod (and this map) when it comes out, and give me some feedback. I'm trying to develop a bit of a portfolio and I need all the criticism I can get. There's heaps of custom content and the game is super fun. Also we are trying to get on greenlight so we can distribute through steam and add achievements etc. Vote for us to support mods on steam.
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Re: Da_streets

Postby [Steve] on Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:17 am

Wow, I was quite the critic of this mods appearance before! its looking great now!
You have done a fantastic job on drastically improving this map.

I think you could ship it like this but here's some suggestions that imo would make those exteriors as awesome as the interiors.
Main thing would be some the areas look too clean. A model for the sidewalk trim (like in l4d) would help it pop more and break up the blockyness. Also perhaps some puddle models on the road.
Interiors look alot more detailed than the exteriors and look great. :smt023

You could probably also add some floodlights infront of the building pointing up at it.
As for the lighting , it looks pretty good, but hard for me to tell with out actually playing, I think a new skybox would improve the atmosphere and fit the lighting better imo.

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You could ignore those suggestions and it would still be awesome, looking loads better, cant really give much more feedback with out playing it, cant wait to see the other maps reworked!
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Re: Da_streets

Postby Stormy on Tue Jul 29, 2014 10:39 pm

Man that is an awesome paint over thank you so much. I never throught of the detail stripe. I need to brand up the building a bit I think so that would fit right in. I think I'll be making small changes to this map post-release in any case, which is why it would be so much better to get on steam greenlight.
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Re: Da_streets

Postby Armageddon on Wed Jul 30, 2014 2:05 am

I'd remodel the streetlights to be custom just so it gets away from Half-Life, and a simple pole with a curve is really easy and fast to make. Also maybe make a separate attachment model for these:
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The other main issue is the HL2 cars, they're ugly. Cars are a lot of work to model I know but it would really help with the final touches. Or just port L4D cars since they looks pretty decent, maybe reskin them to be cleaner. I'd also reskin the orange traffic cones to be cleaner and the really scuffed up barricades so they match the super clean road, and if you add the simple yellow line to the building it'll all look pretty good, low noise textures.
The grudging up of the barricade also makes it noticeably tiled, being cleaner/simpler would fix the problem. And the normal mapped is really jacked on the barricade too.

As pointed out handrails are definitely missing but I understand the DB gameplay isn't very susceptible to stuff like that, could get very annoying so I think it's forgivable to have none, maybe just the stair handrails would look good.

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Cars really need to be replaced. :)
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Re: Da_streets

Postby Stormy on Wed Jul 30, 2014 10:22 pm

Epic paintovers. Thanks heaps. I def have daddy eyes on this by now. I really do need to swap out those cars, they are totally out of place.
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Re: Da_streets

Postby Stormy on Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:03 pm

I have been running out of time before our release and working on other things mostly, but I managed to put a bit of time into this. Pretty much just targeted what you guys mentioned, although not all of it yet. I also worked on the skybox a little.

Pics:

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