Interlopers.net - Half-Life 2 News & Tutorials

by **RabidGoat** on Sun Apr 03, 2005 6:12 pm

alright, so this is officialy my first map pimpage.....of course it is in the very early stages of development. Its all dev textured, but I just wanted to show some of the layout and the arcitecture. It is a model of a parking garage in Orlando that I park in everyday to go to work. Thought it would be a fun thing to make a DM level out of......also, I will be destroying it a bit later on in the mapping process. Any suggestions would be nice.

http://www.geocities.com/jcaton206/rabidgoat01.jpg
Picture of the walkway leading to a building (the building will not be able to be entered) Stairs on the far left and elevator shaft next to the stairs

http://www.geocities.com/jcaton206/rabidgoat02.jpg
Bottom level of garage, security area on the first door on the left in the background, the other opening is for the elevator, and of course the stair case

http://www.geocities.com/jcaton206/rabidgoat03.jpg
2nd level of garage, planing holes in roof and/or floor, parked cars around, making the ceiling look lower through horizontal concrete beams

http://www.geocities.com/jcaton206/rabidgoat04.jpg
looking down a stair case from an unreachable location, thinking of destroying a little bit of the stairs also? but leaving enough so you can still climb them......

that is all so far, very much still a work in progress. Should I func_detail all the concrete "poles" around the side of the garage? I did it to the stairs.......should I do it to the poles also?

Your friendly neiborhood Hammer n00b
-Rabid Goat

by **zombie@computer** on Sun Apr 03, 2005 6:33 pm

i would yes

by **Dead-Inside** on Sun Apr 03, 2005 7:32 pm

Okay two things: 1. up/down usually is thinner and has one at either side of the garage instead (So that you can drive down, browse, and drive up, etc etc...). It looks to wide, that's what I'm saying.
2. The "bridge" or whatever it is in the 4th pic looks really quierky if it's going to remain straight like that.

by **RabidGoat** on Sun Apr 03, 2005 9:05 pm

yea, our garage is weird in Orlando, that is seriously how it is set up. its wide to allow to cars to go up and down simultaniously with parking on each side. strange, but true. I should take some digital shots of the garage and then post them.

can you be more specific about the bridge looking odd?

there is also a catwalk very simular to it that goes from the parking garage to the office building, but it is covered. should I make some of it covered and some of it looks like it was blown off?....thats a good idea! :smt115

or I might angle the bridge out from the parking garage to the building? or did you mean to add supports under it?

all good feedback, I just need to know what you think would look best now

We floridians have everything all f'd up :lol:

Your friendly neiborhood Hammer n00b
-Rabid Goat

by **Dead-Inside** on Sun Apr 03, 2005 9:13 pm

I meant to make it seem more real, architecture wise. Making it blown off is good, but then the whole map is a warzone, with holes in the walls every now and then and blown off supportstands (I assume you have those), etc...

by **RabidGoat** on Tue Apr 05, 2005 5:57 pm

thanks for the suggestions I will post new pictures when I have made some changes to the architecture, but before I texture......

is that the correct way to map? or should I do lights before I texture?

hmmmmm......

by **Dead-Inside** on Tue Apr 05, 2005 6:05 pm

Well geometry first, like you have. Then it's pretty much free choise.

For my latest map I textured first, then before I added too many areas I threw in an light_environment to see how the textures blended with actual light.

It's up to you though, whatever works for you.

by **RabidGoat** on Sat Apr 09, 2005 10:52 pm

alright, so all of the basic geometry is complete, besides the destroyed sections, which I think Im going to do after I texture the map.....

just wanted to show a few pics of my progress, and get some more feedback! thanks in advance

http://www.geocities.com/jcaton206/dmmap01.jpg
Showing off some of my texture work, and some of the new geometry inside of the garage, mainly the support beams.

http://www.geocities.com/jcaton206/dmmap02.jpg
the new and improved cat-walk area. there will be major destruction to this later. Im trying to make atleast a few things round, I know a lot of the level is square blocks, but thats seriously how the garage in Orlando looks like...

http://www.geocities.com/jcaton206/dmmap03.jpg
more texture work, does anyone like the leaves and gutter looking area along the walls? I know its all plain now, but I will be adding decals and so forth later on.....

Please let me know what you think!

by **Spartan** on Sat Apr 09, 2005 10:57 pm

NEVER MAP USING THE DEV TEXTURE!!! I don't understand why people do this. Its much easier to just pic out your textures to use as you build the map.

by **RabidGoat** on Sat Apr 09, 2005 11:36 pm

oh, well I figured, make all the geometry in with the dev texture

go around and texture everything

and then do a quick change dev texture into the nodraw texture for instant optimization

besides that, any other comments on the map?

by **Signy** on Sun Apr 10, 2005 8:58 am

Don't listen to spartan.

Map how ever you want, just make sure your verts are tidy and your nodrawing is tight.

Personally i map in no draw, with colourd poly view in 3D window. After im happy with the brush work and made sure its neat. No brush's clipping other brush all vert snapped to grid etc. I move on to dev texturing, just to break up the level. Then i playtest with a group of 6 - 12 people tweak my make according to gameplayand crits. Once i am 100% finally sure im happy with the layout i move on to eye cnady.