de_desolation near finished (new screens May 24th)

[Chopium]

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.

Sexy! I love it!

[[JFG]Propaganda]

Thanks Chop

[MayheM]

I think the lighting looks good and I like the detail. My only big crit is with the arches. They could be made of a few more extra brushes. They look very sharp right now, and could stand to look a lot more rounded. Other than that, and this one is a hard one to do... I see you got rid of a lot of the crates in the map and that good. But try and find other things to put in the map other than those pallets of blocks. The only reason it looks out of place is because everything is finshed. There are no broken walls where those blocks are needed. Lastly I would say try putting some detail sprites like dead grass and stuff like that.

But all total, it looks pretty solid...

[Undead]

Wow this is looking amazing.
Love how realistic it is, the sky is awesome.
Like the architect used.
Nicely done :]

[Noodles]

I think the lighting looks good and I like the detail. My only big crit is with the arches. They could be made of a few more extra brushes. They look very sharp right now, and could stand to look a lot more rounded.

That's the first thing I noticed when I looked at the map also.

[Ich 666]

Beautiful

[Psy]

The only thing letting this down are the terrible de_dust rock models.

[[JFG]Propaganda]

The only thing letting this down are the terrible de_dust rock models.

Maybe so Psy, unfortunately I just don't have much more time to spend on this our baby could come any day. If someone wanted to give me a hand with some new rock models that would be great. Otherwise I have to leave it as is.

[moroes]

I'm impatient to test your map! It changes about the usual "desertic map"

I think you can increase your lighting on your models with these compile's commands in expert mode...do that and test if you want :

In hammer :

1 - F9 and go to the expert mode
2 - Choose HDR Full Compile -Final (slow!)
3 - In window "$light_exe", put this (replace the existing things by this):

-staticproppolys -staticproplighting -hdr -final -game $gamedir $path\$file

I think it can easily resolve some lighting problems like this :

[Vilham]

Indeed do a final lighting compile using the commands moroes pointed out or get your self vbct and tick the correct advanced options.

[[JFG]Propaganda]

Thanks guys I will do that on final compile.

[[JFG]Propaganda]

In hammer :

1 - F9 and go to the expert mode
2 - Choose HDR Full Compile -Final (slow!)
3 - In window "$light_exe", put this (replace the existing things by this):

-staticproppolys -staticproplighting -hdr -final -game $gamedir $path\$file

I think it can easily resolve some lighting problems like this :

Hey Moroes, when I compiled using what you suggested and open the map I get a full bright lighting issue and in console:

Code: Select all

Level unlit, setting 'mat_fullbright 1'

Any ideas?

[Dives]

In hammer :

1 - F9 and go to the expert mode
2 - Choose HDR Full Compile -Final (slow!)
3 - In window "$light_exe", put this (replace the existing things by this):

-staticproppolys -staticproplighting -hdr -final -game $gamedir $path\$file

I think it can easily resolve some lighting problems like this :

Hey Moroes, when I compiled using what you suggested and open the map I get a full bright lighting issue and in console:

Code: Select all

Level unlit, setting 'mat_fullbright 1'

Any ideas?

I think moroes made a mistake there. Change -hdr to -both.

[moroes]

In hammer :

1 - F9 and go to the expert mode
2 - Choose HDR Full Compile -Final (slow!)
3 - In window "$light_exe", put this (replace the existing things by this):

-staticproppolys -staticproplighting -hdr -final -game $gamedir $path\$file

I think it can easily resolve some lighting problems like this :

Hey Moroes, when I compiled using what you suggested and open the map I get a full bright lighting issue and in console:

Code: Select all

Level unlit, setting 'mat_fullbright 1'

Any ideas?

I think moroes made a mistake there. Change -hdr to -both.

Oh hell yeah ! Sorry dude

[mookie]

When you use cl_leveloverview, it only draws what's below you. So if you've got time for it, you can take screenshots at a few different heights and blend them together to get rid of things like palm leaves, domes, and dragons' teeth on top of those walls on the way to A. You could also do a blend/transparency to get the underground areas onto the radar in this way.

T spawn looks nice, but the ground seems a little to smooth and neat looking. A few decals or something in the darker/greener sand/dirt, maybe even something as subtle as impressions from where heavy crates or some kind of tripod had been put down. Rust stains coming off those lights might look good.

On the outside wall on the outside route to A, the rock/dirt textured displacement makes a very hard edge where it hits the wall. Something sandier and more weathered-looking would probably be much better here. Or maybe just push the blend between sand and rock to be across the wall instead of in front of it.

It seems like the only thing getting much fog is the boat, so the fog could probably be weakened and made to match the skybox colour better. Right now it seems pretty ugly sitting out there as basically nothing but a silhouette. But if the fog was weak enough that you could see the colour of the boat and whatever containers might be sitting on it it would probably look better.

I have to agree that the arches look like they could use a few more vertices.

The sloped tile floor going up out of B and the tiled porch at CT spawn look like there too shiny and might need a cubemap sitting right on top of them.

The platform at bombsite A looks too flimsy, like it should have beams and joists holding it up on top of those posts.

In the room/hallway with the rugs and high ceiling, the white tile in the gaps seems distracting.

In the underground tunnel, the overbrightness of the lights up close and the lightglow/sprites are combining to be too much. Maybe these lights should be more linear (maybe 50 or so?).

The more I look at different areas of this map and how they fit together, the more I like it.