[WIP] Otter Falls

[jngrow]

Well, I've been working on this map for a while now, and I'm sort of stuck.

First of all, I want a waterfall>pond(where the cave is)>river(2x, that chunk of rock splits it down the middle)>
waterfall down the middle of the map, but I just suck ass at getting this water stuff right.

Also, it's really hard to see how it's all gonna turn out in-game, since full
radiosity always gives me out of memory errors, and I can't build-cache-files what-so-ever.

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3507/otterfalls1li2.jpg

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/3295/otterfalls2ve6.jpg

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/805/otterfalls3gw0.jpg

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7462/otterfalls4ju2.jpg

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/4875/otterfalls5yi3.jpg


The idea I had was to have that waterfall cover that little cave in the middle, for secret awesomes. I'll probably add some Forerunner doo-dads for some extra detail. Also, first attempt at a ground texture, looking for advice on that. Looking for suggestions, crit, and waterfall/river advice.

Oh yeah, that extra chunk of land on the left side base will most likely be walled off with boulders/invisiwalls, otherwise that base will have way too much extra space. Oh, and the map won't be that yellow-y saturated.

UPDATE 8/26

New in-game screens, only on test radiosity. Check page 3 for wireframes. Cliff UVs updated lots.
WARNING, HELLA BIG IMAGEZ.

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6100/otteringametest1rd9.jpghttp://img187.imageshack.us/img187/3228/otteringametest2cl9.jpg

UPDATE 8/29
Check Page 3.

[LinkandKvel]

And you use tool.exe for radiosity?

[legionaire45]

I don't think those shots are from in game yet.

Looks nice so far, although the forerunner stuff seems a bit off.

[LinkandKvel]

Oh I know, I asked because he said radiosity always gives him out of memory errors.

[Sel]

I'm really liking the terrain here, unfortunately the forerunner is not as hot.

Try reviewing this to make your forerunner have more interesting patterns, mind you it is not bad forerunner, but the top part of those pillars are really ugly, and just look like an inset, bridge, then chamfer.

http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10229

Use the cut tool to make a more interesting pattern.

Also gameplay wise, I hope there is something there I can not see, because right now I see one way to the other side, and that's the one thin rock bridge, which does not look like it would be too gameplay friendly.

Otherwise looks like a good start.

[Corndogman]

I was the thinking the same thing Sel, it looks like the interior may also lead to the other side, but i cant really tell.

[jngrow]

Yeah, I use tool for radiosity. As for connection between the two bases, there's the rock bridge in the middle, two paths down to the "river" area, and a little cave that goes from one base into the waterfall zone, since that base's ramp area is a lot more cramped and harder to use. And yeah, I know that top half of those pillars are ugly. I had some great forerunner stuff goin on another map, but the whole thing got deleted, really pissed me off.

[Rob Oplawar]

Heh, that actually looks pretty good. Although the UVWs on the cliffs are :bleargh:.

e: I'm assuming you're gonna put scenery trees and rocks in the middle area for cover, yes?

[Higuy]

Looks like a pretty good start, just work on your forerunner.

[Inferno]

I like it. Could be a fun map.

[jngrow]

Heh, that actually looks pretty good. Although the UVWs on the cliffs are :bleargh:.

e: I'm assuming you're gonna put scenery trees and rocks in the middle area for cover, yes?

Yeah I know, and yep.

[Malloy]

um. may just be me but the green of the grass seems to sharp, maybe saturate/tone it down a little?

[jngrow]

um. may just be me but the green of the grass seems to sharp, maybe saturate/tone it down a little?
You have no idea how long I've been working on that. I just can't get it right :/.

[Malloy]

look at Valhalla for a user friendly grass tone

[PopeAK49]

good level is good. Also for your forerunner panel things that are in the base try to make it alittle more forerunnerish like the panels on the level the ark. Im not asking that you do something exactly like it but something that follows those lines.

[jngrow]

good level is good. Also for your forerunner panel things that are in the base try to make it alittle more forerunnerish like the panels on the level the ark. Im not asking that you do something exactly like it but something that follows those lines.

That's actually sort of what I've been going for, I'll definitely check the map out again. The Ark has my favorite forerunner interiors evar, so yeah.

[PopeAK49]

Ya its a great level for forerunner refrence.

[jngrow]

Pillars changed. You have to see it in 3d to notice all the details.

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/3028/otterpillarnewqj9.jpghttp://img398.imageshack.us/img398/859/otterpillatnre2xy0.jpghttp://img398.imageshack.us/img398/6036/otterpillarnew3uq7.jpg

Suggestions? I want to get more detail in on that middle "chunk", but for now I'll move on to another part of my mapz.

e:holy shit I must have had something retarded on for rendering in my OP, cliffs look hella tite now

[Higuy]

The pillars do look much better, but the top of it looks a bit wierd.

[jngrow]

The pillars do look much better, but the top of it looks a bit wierd.
I know, player won't see the top though. It was kinda just finished up real fast.

E: HOLY SHIT IM GOING TO CRY, BUILD-CACHE-FILE HAS WORKED FOR ME FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS, AND ALSO FULL RADIOSITY!!!

[OmegaDragon]

Hmmm this maps look very similar to a map I once played. Looks good though, keep it up.

[Rooster]

the terrain is very good and organic. But i dont like the actual structure. It looks... weird. Keep woking on it, it might just be the lighting.

O, what do u use for ur terrain. Mudbox, Zbrush, or just Max?

[jngrow]

Just max.

[Apoc4lypse]

can we see a wire frame of the model? It looks pretty good, but could use improvement, the terrain looks a little awkward for how its textured, not to mention bad uvw's don't help.

On a side note, the layout reminds me of the base area for one team on a map i was working on over the summer, just smaller, and sort of different.

[jngrow]

What do you mean by "terrain looks awkward for how it's textured"? Could you try to explain a little more, because I think you're onto something.

Anyways, here's the wireframe.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/7936/otterwireframefw8.jpg
It looks a little like I'm wasting polys, but it's a bigger map than it looks, I tried to cut it down a bit but I lost some of the cover I wanted, and it looked bad in-game. The whole thing is only 5k polys though, so I have plenty to spare.

[007useless]

cool

[Lateksi]

cool
Yep. i liek explain well how dats cool do i?

[jngrow]

New indoor pillars, almost totally UV'd bases, some changes that aren't note-worthy. Also, in-game.

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/2090/otteroutshotnew1ty1.jpg
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/2660/otterbase2hd6.jpg
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/4111/otterspankinnew2vd7.jpghttp://img512.imageshack.us/img512/981/otterpillarspakninoa5.jpghttp://img512.imageshack.us/img512/1062/otterbaseinterior1cq8.jpg

I need some tips on lighting up this indoor zone.

E: also, kinda weird question, if i have a valid cd key H2V but lost my cd, anyway to get the game installed again? I wanna see how this map would look in teh updated enginez.

[Bastinka]

Hmm look at the part of Halo 3 on the last level where you run into the control room, the big path with the big doors should give you a good idea. I'm loving it so far.

[jngrow]

Gameplay update?

This map is definitely different than your average Halo map (if it isn't completely off-balance due to some huge flaw that I haven't tested yet, of course.) Crouching is going to be a crucial part of winning. Even though the map is small, the relatively open spaces combined with large amounts of cover (should) make a quick trip across the map pretty much impossible. Slow inching is what I'm looking for a CTF map, and across-the-map battles with lots of cover for Team Slayer.

[Higuy]

Looking good. Keep up the work.

[Apoc4lypse]

the ingame images look better then the renders I think, what I meant before was UV errors from the renders, but I could be wrong I guess, idk...

Also the terrain sort of reminded me of a map I'm working on that is mostly going to be icy and sort of sharp cliff ed looking, but it looks nice the way it is.

E: Also I think you can go lower polys on the areas that the player probably will never see (top of the cliffs and such). It'll help save polys in the long run especially if you plan on doing anything special with base structures or w/e.

[Corndogman]

Those pillar things would look better outside imo, to me the look out of place where you have them.

[jngrow]

Yeah I know, I've been havin some trouble with that..

[jngrow]

Last I heard, topic creators can bump their topic if something is new, sorry, if that's not the case.

Ok, so anyways, I was worried I would never run full radiosity on my map, but then I realized ALL of my shader_environments were set to high. Not good. Also, dynamic lights rule, and while it doesn't sound awesome, huge inaccessible area is almost finished, and it looks pretty cool. Also, few new screenies.

http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lightingplus21jo0.jpghttp://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8309/lightingplus21jo0.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/772/lightingplus20qt8.jpg

Stumbled across Halo 3 cover art lighting :P.
http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lightingplus20qt8.jpg

[PopeAK49]

Nice job, this map looks like its going to be tight.

[jngrow]

Ok, crap, anyone know what happened? I ran this at full radiosity and it came out looking like this:

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6497/dickassshittyradiosityrsr4.jpg

Is it important to make sure my sky is square? Because... it's not.

E: Ok, that wasn't it I'm pretty sure. But I did make radiosity a million times faster, somehow. :/

[Evil_Monkey]

Ok, crap, anyone know what happened? I ran this at full radiosity and it came out looking like this:


http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6497/dickassshittyradiosityrsr4.jpg


Is it important to make sure my sky is square? Because... it's not.

E: Ok, that wasn't it I'm pretty sure. But I did make radiosity a million times faster, somehow. :/In your shader_environment tag make sure that "Simple parametrization" is checked, its located at the top section of the tag.

[Sel]

Looking good.

[MMFSdjw]

Ok, crap, anyone know what happened? I ran this at full radiosity and it came out looking like this:

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6497/dickassshittyradiosityrsr4.jpg

Is it important to make sure my sky is square? Because... it's not.

E: Ok, that wasn't it I'm pretty sure. But I did make radiosity a million times faster, somehow. :/

I've gotten that error when I've had too many consecutive faces shareing the same smoothing group.

[jngrow]

Thanks for the tips, trying it now, except tool just mega fagged out on me giving me fake ass errors that didn't come up before. Like the map has been exporting fine then all of a sudden tool has a problem with a bunch of parts of the map that it never said anything about before. Ugh. FUCK
FUCK FUCK FCUK THIS BUILLLLLLLLLSHIT.

Sorry, had to get that out.

Also, it only gives me the bad uvw error in when i run radiosity, not when i export the mesh.

Its gives me the (bad uvws, check cyan geometry), but i can't find any cyan geometry. Just red and green stuff (the stuff that worked fine before and spazzed out). Also, when I run lightmaps, does the error file export in the "debug" wrl, or the "mapname" wrl?

[Evil_Monkey]

Also, when I run lightmaps, does the error file export in the "debug" wrl, or the "mapname" wrl?

debug.wrl