Huge outdoors displacement based map

[snah]

Ok, so ive been working on this again over the past few weeks, made some big changes. Made new trees, rocks and added them in with my friends custom made prop placer that allows you to just enter a height map and the number of props you want placed and it randomly scatters the ground with props, you can also set it to place them at random angles on the X Y Z axis, pretty useful for this project.

(under 1000 polys each with 4 lod models ranging down to under 100 polys)

I also optimised the skybox a lot better added some tree billboards to it so that looks a bit more like the rest of the level:



here are some screenshots in the level, with some atmospheric effects, clouds that move over the skybox, a big moon. I had to edit in photoshop to boost the levels to make it more visible.



The map runs at FPS ranging from 60-70 when you are looking at the WHOLE thing to 150-200 when you are looking at half of it. I also got 5 of my friends to test it on their pcs and had the following results:



What do you guys think? what more does this level need? Would you play it?

[marnamai]

What do you guys think? what more does this level need? Would you play it?

Gameplay.

[snah]

please expand on your input, what game would you like to see this level in? counter strike? DODS? HL2? EP2? TF2? What style of game mode do you think would benefit from this map? I have already made the level a DE_ map with 3 bomb points and a dod_ map with 3 flags but ive yet to test either properly.

[MayheM]

It looks really nice but I think what marnamai is saying is a map needs gameplay.

As for what kind of game would lend itself to a wide open layout... Well several, it depends on how well you can add objectives into the mix. However take CS and a DE map for instance. If a map is wide open the T's can attack from any point and surround the CT's. This would give a big advantage to the T's. It would also expand round times. Most multi player games are linear to some extent for this very reason. It is good to give the illusion of wide open but still limit the movement of players to be sure they are not just running around randomly.

I'm not saying it would not work, but it would make things a lot different. The only way to see if it would work well is to test it. My first though is that is would work well as a DM map or a capture the flag map. You should definitely test it out and take some video to show the results.

[Smurftyours]

I want a tutorial.

[snah]

It looks really nice but I think what marnamai is saying is a map needs gameplay.

As for what kind of game would lend itself to a wide open layout... Well several, it depends on how well you can add objectives into the mix. However take CS and a DE map for instance. If a map is wide open the T's can attack from any point and surround the CT's. This would give a big advantage to the T's. It would also expand round times. Most multi player games are linear to some extent for this very reason. It is good to give the illusion of wide open but still limit the movement of players to be sure they are not just running around randomly.

I'm not saying it would not work, but it would make things a lot different. The only way to see if it would work well is to test it. My first though is that is would work well as a DM map or a capture the flag map. You should definitely test it out and take some video to show the results.

Ok cool, thanks. I think what i need to do is get quite a big server maybe to test this. Since it is very large, ive played it 1on1 with a friend and unless you tell eachother where you are going you can walk about for anything up to 4-5 minutes and not even bump into eachother. Maybe it would work as a GMOD map in roleplay? Ill try posting it over on facepunch and see what they think. Thanks again.

In reply to the tutorial im not sure ill make one. Im writing my dissertation on the process of building this level, i have to hand that in on monday, ill upload the PDF and post it here if you really want?

[Mr. Happy]

Make an open world adventure game! Singple player exploration focused!

[MayheM]

Happy, that's a great idea. Come up with several puzzles that you have to figure out and o in a specific order. Solving one gives you an item that will help solve another type thing...

[srredfire]

Using this method you are on the right track to making something along the lines of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in a sense. At lease Shadow of Chernobyl. It had large areas that lead to loading points and what not, so you could have some pretty expansive gameplay options available to you. The only concern I would have is that while you may have good optimization now, you have to keep that in mind the more things you add, but it seems like you know what you're doing, so it doesn't seem like it'd be too much of an issue.

I second with Mayhem, you could make some pretty cool half puzzle, half exploration maps with this.

In a nice way it's cool because you've got something that works good here, and it's basically a template for whatever you want to make of it. This could be a CS:S map, a DOD:S map, a ZP:S map, hell, it can be anything. I'd definitely like to look at this map up close in person just to see the possibilities.

[cz_squishy]

my friends custom made prop placer that allows you to just enter a height map and the number of props you want placed and it randomly scatters the ground with props, you can also set it to place them at random angles on the X Y Z axis, pretty useful for this project.

^^WANT^^

[Ark11]

my friends custom made prop placer that allows you to just enter a height map and the number of props you want placed and it randomly scatters the ground with props, you can also set it to place them at random angles on the X Y Z axis, pretty useful for this project.

^^WANT^^

^I must also have it!!!^

[Botolf]

I can't help but think this could be a great Left 4 Dead 1/2 map. Lots of wandering around, maybe some scavenging of items, etc.

[Groxkiller585]

GMOD, IMO. Unless you make a mod, I cannot think of a source game that would work with this.

1. Too big for CS:S. (MP + large maps = usually bad, you already said you could get lost finding the enemy.)
2. Too big for HL2/EP1/EP2 (add in buildings/combine/entities and trust me it's gonna lag)
3. Not right style/too big for TF2
4. Obviously won't work for AS (can you even make an outdoor map for AS?)
5. Wrong format (though that can be changed) and too large for L4D/L4D2 (again, MP + large maps = usually bad, they could get lost trying to find the safe point.)


Gmod has maps that use the whole freakin' hammer grid and are somehow optimized behond belief, so this should work. However the ammount of props used has me worried about lag; with all MP games, lag is 3X as sensitive:

1. The player himself
2. The server the player is on
3. Other players ON the server the player is on

normally it wouldn't do much but even disabling shadows on all the rocks should help with lag. Since 95% of the geometry is displacements you can use func_viscluster to cut your map up, if you haven't already.

[marnamai]

^ grox said exactly what I meant with gameplay ... I don't see any of the valve games suitable for such a level, usually it's best to think over the gameplay and then design the map around it. Anyway if you pull it of and make it into a proper level, I'd take my hat off to you.

[Gary]

It could work for L4D, plenty of places the zombies can spawn and as long as there are markers, you shouldn't end up getting lost too often. Same goes for other game types, I am also for the GMOD idea. Really is too bad there aren't any multi-passenger vehicles is most Source games(besides GMOD).

You could add fade distances to props, if there are enough trees, you should be able to see a prop from to far and you could always add more fog.


As for the tool, I would also like to try it out.