de_desolation near finished (new screens May 24th)

[[JFG]Propaganda]

that reminds me to do your sky!

Yeah source better hurry before chop does it

[Shrinker]

The atmosphere could be greatly improved with a little bit of haze, and particle effects to simulate sand being blown around by the wind, like in the Favela Special Ops map in CoD 6. Other than that, it is a nice variation.

[[JFG]Propaganda]

Still plugging on this, getting it slowly detailed, adding a few props here and there, made some signs and some palm trees, although they aren't spectacular the effect works I suppose. Still a fair bit to do though, skybox models, sky etc.

(Edit screens removed see first post for latest screens)

[Fedora]

This is looking really nice. The new trees are much better.

The only advice I could give is on prop lighting. Check out the lighting on the palm trees in pics 3, 7, 9; the bases are lit and shouldn't be. The rocks in pics 7 and 9 also have weird lighting.

[skoften]

Get some Overrrrrrrlays inthere. It looks way too clean, it's scary. Source can handle a fucklot of overlays so just spam it full i'd say. If it looks nicely, ofcourse. I'm sure it would.

[source-maps]

working on your sky atm yo

[[JFG]Propaganda]

Check out the lighting on the palm trees in pics 3, 7, 9; the bases are lit and shouldn't be. The rocks in pics 7 and 9 also have weird lighting.

Yeah I know tweaking this the problem with vertex lit shit, maybe I will put my light source at a higher angle. The problem is if the vertex falls outside of the shadow the whole model inherits the light source.

[mookie]

Looking pretty good all around; especially like the close look at the ground in the first screenshot.

Looking at the second screenshot, the edge between the water and the sand seems too sharp. A clearer water might look better, although it might be more expensive too (not sure). Blending to a much darker (wet) sand there might work too.

The yellow building seen in the third and fourth screenshots sticks out a bit too much to my eye. Maybe the colour is right, but it's just too saturated. I'm not really sure. The displacement coming up against it, that blends from sand to rock then back to sand a the top, looks a bit odd. The color of the domes over this building looks off as well.

The tile floor visible here looks noticeably too bright/saturated to me, compared to the walls around it.

In the third screenshot, about a quarter of the way in from the left, it looks like there's something weird going on with the shadow/lighting on the wall. That wall seems to be facing the sun nearly right on, so it doesn't seem like any shadow should really be hitting it.

You mentioned about the odd lighting on the palm tree models. It may seem like cheating, but in a few places you may be able to just move the trees or move the ground so that the whole tree is in light. e.g. The one here in the third screenshot, it looks like it's in a dead area (i.e. there is nothing but wall around that left corner). If that's so, raising the displacement there could put the base of the trunk in light without really affecting gameplay. Of course if you can solve the issue by adjusting the model this suggestion is moot (I know hardly anything about modeling).

Looking through the fourth screenshot out to the skybox, there seems to be a fairly dead space there. Something in the distance (buildings, hills/mountains) would help, just anything to break up the horizon. Of course this could be off since this is just one angle.

Looking at the fifth screenshot, the building on the right. I'm not sure what to call these, buttresses or columns. To my eye they look a bit fat and it seems odd that they go all the way to the top of the wall.

The alpha blending around the rock seen in screenshots 6, 7, 9 looks unnatural since it's so regular/circular. Maybe it'd look fine if the displacement was raised up more to make it seem like a big chunk of rock coming out of the ground. Right now it looks to me like a few rocks sitting on a patch of rock ground that's been swept clean.

The dust crates in screenshot 8 stick out to me. The piles of bricks seem to blend in fine though.

[Major Banter]

I don't understand why the checkpoint sign faces out to the lake/sea/water/whatever.

Just a random thought.

[[JFG]Propaganda]

All good feedback Mookie, some thing's you mentioned were in my mind as well, that rockpile isn't working I had crates there before, I need to either tweak it or try something else. The dust crates will be going away soon, they are placeholders, lot's of people figured they should go away. That empty skybox area is just that, I haven't started it yet, my plan is to make a slight incline with rooftops and buildings into the distance to give it a volume urban look, kinda like warby did with de wanda. I will make a model for it though, or maybe I can ask warby for his skybox house set and reskin them, either way I have some ideas there. As far as the dust domes perhaps a reskin? I really don't mind the color of that yellow building, ingame it's not so bad and adds some contrast, but I did perhaps saturate it a bit too much, perhaps I could tone it down. I am really burnt out on this project, it's been off and on for well over a year. I am inclined to just hurry it up and get it done, but I put way too much work into it already to have some of it look like shit.

I don't understand why the checkpoint sign faces out to the lake/sea/water/whatever.

Just a random thought.

The checkpoint is facing the land, there is no skybox yet to differentiate, it's like an oil port town.

[mookie]

BSPZip it up and release it as a beta, let it play for a month or two then find out what really sticks out to people. Even if you perfect the visual now, gameplay problems will be missed in the initial release.

[[JFG]Propaganda]

BSPZip it up and release it as a beta, let it play for a month or two then find out what really sticks out to people. Even if you perfect the visual now, gameplay problems will be missed in the initial release.

Might be a good plan, IMO gameplay should be solid will post an overview when I get home from work.

[[JFG]Propaganda]

Still honing model skills, this is for skybox.

[mookie]

It might just be the shading model of the program you're using, but the red and blue part looks too smooth. Otherwise looks good if a bit phallic.

[[JFG]Propaganda]

Well this is going into beta, I am very close on this, trying to get it done before my daughter is born in June as there will be absolutely no time for mapping. I have changed the name from desperation to desolate, thanks to Chizbone for the suggestion. I have massively reworked the layout after the first beta, it was slightly too big and CT's could defend too easily. I made a few more custom props, made a new full HDR sky using Vue 8 (thanks to Mr. Chop for helping me with the HDR). I have been working on this off and on for over a year now, most of the content is custom, 90% of the textures are, lots of the props are. The lightmap is set to 12 for a softer look. I still may play with the lighting a bit. For the final I will have custom crates, I am just running out of gas on this. Anyway enough blabbering time for some screens.