[WIP] Observatory

[MetKiller Joe]

I know this map could use improvement, so I'm posting these screen shots along with the .map file in hopes that I'll get some feedback on what I did right and wrong.


http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/MOD_01.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/MOD_02.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/MOD_03.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/MOD_04.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/MOD_05.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/MOD_06.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/MOD_07.jpg

I just used stock textures except for the ground texture, which is why some pictures (like the one above) may have inadequate UVW mapping or poorly placed textures.


http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/wire.jpg

Face count: ~20K

Link (http://dodownload.filefront.com/12003627//49c2d9d7faa5526041ecc9bd98388e5288d8dfb4d398d9e573 0a7100734e0140869b5c9c5f1235fe)

[supersniper]

Too big.

[PopeAK49]

Looks intresting. That forerunner damn looks preaty cool too but your terrain and uv mapping needs some work. Not to mention that i see polygon waste on the top cliffs, you may want to optimize those. The forerunner looks fun but its not too intesting in the design category. Seems like it would be kinda fun, and i like how you have a path that goes behind the base, but you may want to add some rock cover. Like on blood gulch for example. Keep up the good work.

[MetKiller Joe]

The forerunner looks fun but its not too intesting in the design category.

Which part? The bridge?

[PopeAK49]

Bridges are good, i was thinking more of the bases. I know you used inset on the bridge, but the good thing about it is that you didnt over due it too much.

[Sel]

It all looks okay to me. Theres a lot that could be better, the cliffs, the bases, the bridge, pretty much everything actually, but really not much you can do at this point in development, so really you would do best to finish this up and release it, and then just continue building on your modelling skills by creating more complex, and accurate objects from scratch.

[Higuy]

I like the layout, needs some work with the terrain and a bit with the forerunner but looks really fun. You got my download.

[Rentafence]

Needs more texture variety. Everything is the same grey metal texture.

[jngrow]

While the bridge isn't perfect, I definitely like it.

[TeeKup]

I think it looks fun. But it needs a lot more flora scenery.

[supersniper]

Meh I think you should shrink the size just a little but one thing I would suggest is yes more scenery and especially rocks or this map will be snipe camping galore. Or at least some cover spots from the high grounds.

[MetKiller Joe]

I would suggest is yes more scenery and especially rocks or this map will be snipe camping galore. Or at least some cover spots from the high grounds.

That I can still do, and, from what I've heard, cover scenery is in deficit.

Since it is a huge map, the game play was meant to have a somewhat heavier reliance on the sniper and rockets, which is why I thought that, even putting as much scenery as I did, I would negatively affect the game play.

But, again, thanks for the input. It is one of the things that I will change.

[Con]

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/1057/mod01qa2.jpg
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/2374/mod02mx9.jpg
http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/6976/mod03ck2.jpg
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/5623/mod04qb7.jpg
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/6541/mod05ll3.jpg
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/9494/mod06am8.jpg
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/3882/mod07pb4.jpg

[jngrow]

H-H-H-H-HOLY SHIT
Best crit on modacity of all time perhaps?

[Sever]

Definitely. Everyone +rep Conscars. Also, get on aim, Mr Serious Cat.

[Heathen]

Very bleak. Looks really unnatural. Wtf ground texture.

[Rob Oplawar]

I was gonna post my crit, but i think connie got it all.
"You must spread some reputation around before giving it to Conscars again."
Joe, listen well to Srs Cat.

[supersniper]

It just shows he wants you to succeed Metkiller Joe.

[NuggetWarmer]

I like the map. Reminds me of the old days...

Do what Connie says, he r smert!

[MetKiller Joe]

Thank you Conscars. I really appreciate that. This will help me immensely.


I am not at the computer that has the HEK on it, but just wanted to say, I cheated somewhat on those beams for the bridge. I used water and its respective shader to get a fluctuating energy look. Now, the shader is transparent (and I don't like that), and I was wondering how I could get the same effect with a shader_environment tag. Now, this might or might not affect light emitted, but I have been fooling around with the water shader and have not been able to make it glow a nice light/blue color. Any advice on how I could do that (keeping the animated fluctuation).

Again, thank you Conscars for putting so much effort in the criticism.

[Con]

Rip some of the shaders from the actual SP map, or use the ones from gephy. They don't glow, but they might be good enough. I think they just need to be brighter, and as you said, less transparent.

[MetKiller Joe]

I'll use the ones from gephy then. For some reason I have an incomplete set of b40's shaders, so, unfortunately, I can't use that texture.

But thank you again for reminding me of gephy.

Alpha channel of the map's ground texture:

http://www.modacity.net/forums/%5BURL=http://imageshack.us%5D%5BIMG%5Dhttp://img352.imageshack.us/img352/7092/alphael4.jpg%5B/IMG%5D%5B/URL%5D%20%5BURL=http://g.imageshack.us/img352/alphael4.jpg/1/%5D%5BIMG%5Dhttp://img352.imageshack.us/img352/alphael4.jpg/1/w1024.png%5B/IMG%5D%5B/URL%5Dhttp://www.modacity.net/forums/%5BURL=http://imageshack.us%5D%5BIMG%5Dhttp://img352.imageshack.us/img352/7092/alphael4.jpg%5B/IMG%5D%5B/URL%5D%20%5BURL=http://g.imageshack.us/img352/alphael4.jpg/1/%5D%5BIMG%5Dhttp://img352.imageshack.us/img352/alphael4.jpg/1/w1024.png%5B/IMG%5D%5B/URL%5Dhttp://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/alpha.jpg

The alpha channel for my ground texture is just the dirt layer of my ground (so the paths have their own layer; I copied that into the alpha channel, which Photoshop automatically converted to gray scale). It seemed too easy, so I'm wondering if this is an incorrect method of editing the alpha channel for ground textures; in the past, I've only seen black and white, but not grays. Obviously, it doesn't seem to affect the texture very negatively, but I'm wondering if there is a subtle difference that you or somebody else can see between the two techniques.

E @ post below: Rob, yes, I understand what the alpha channel does (opacity of the different detail maps applied to the texture via fade in/out of black to white and vica versa), but I just wanted a definite on whether the technique was acceptable, which, from your post, the answer seems to be yes.
& I'll have to re-download the tagset.

[Rob Oplawar]

If you don't already have it, I'm sure you can find the complete Halo CE tagset on Halomaps.org. It's handy to have all of the game assets available in your tags folder.
e: looks like you already have the tags. nvm then.
ee: It's better not to think of Alpha as literal color like greyscale, but it's not a two-value thing like black-and-white either; it's a range of values. Normally you would look at it in greyscale. But yeah, the key thing is that you have the full range available for various types of blending.

[Con]

The grayer it is, the more mixed the detail textures will be. I'd go with a lighter white.
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/4696/dgrounddeg7.jpg
http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/1090/agrounddek2.jpg

This should give you an idea. It's not perfect, I did 6 or so of these for Killa one night and you can see some areas that should be blended more or areas with the wrong alpha. I just used the colour range selection tool, but using the dirt layer works too. You just want a good representation of where the dirt is.

[rossmum]

The map design itself is good but the ground is oversaturated and your terrain modelling and texturing in general needs work. There's a lot of stretching and in places the edges of cliffs and the like are too sharp, making it look really, really unnatural.

I do like that huge structure though.

[MetKiller Joe]

The grayer it is, the more mixed the detail textures will be. I'd go with a lighter white.
http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/1090/agrounddek2.jpg

This should give you an idea. It's not perfect, I did 6 or so of these for Killa one night and you can see some areas that should be blended more or areas with the wrong alpha. I just used the colour range selection tool, but using the dirt layer works too. You just want a good representation of where the dirt is.

By comparison it seems to be a lot sharper.

I messed with the levels of gray/white/dark. I also used the smart sharpen filter. I like the result:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/theone2kill/secondalpha.jpg
Given, there are still areas of improvement, but I hope it is an improvement.

Edit: Other than manual editing, is there an easy way to create a ground texture so that one does not have to correct skews in the UVW mapping from the get-go?

[MMFSdjw]

Edit: Other than manual editing, is there an easy way to create a ground texture so that one does not have to correct skews in the UVW mapping from the get-go?
I"m not sure if I understand you correctly but, if I do, there is no way to correct bad UVs with the texture.

[MetKiller Joe]

Sorry, I did not phrase that correctly. How do I create my texture so I do not have to remake it if I see a path is not properly aligned to a specific piece of geometry?

[Con]

What's the area in question?

[MetKiller Joe]

What's the area in question?

It is a problem I encountered during UVW mapping, which is why some of areas look skewed (ground not cliffs). I just wanted to know if there is a technique for getting the texture aligned properly with the geometry the first time.

[Con]

You mean you were just painting it and hoping for the best? Save the UV projection as an image and paint over the mesh

[MetKiller Joe]

You mean you were just painting it and hoping for the best? Save the UV projection as an image and paint over the mesh

Yes and no. I used print screen when editing the terrain UVW Mapping, cropped out the terrain in photoshop, then painted my ground texture on that, and it came out skewed because I didn't do what you just said and project the terrain onto a texture. This was sloppiness/laziness on my part. I just downloaded the textporter plugin for Max, so that should help in the future.

Also, I apologize for asking so many [seemly obvious] questions, but most of my techniques come from Kirk's tutorial and messing around.

[Kalub]

Max has a built in UVW-to-RenderMap tool. Just a fyi




I would suggest using a soft edged brush and working from blurry to detailed on your texture; by hand. Of course that doesn't mean you can work with filters, just don't rely on them.


(Yours looks too.... stressed, and the paths don't look right)