WoLD: Gameplay Challenge - Oilcake

[Oilcake]

Cool, thanks for the comments! So, that window is weird... Hasn't ever done that to me before. And what's with the survivor skins in that screenshot? Odd. Haven't had any texture issues, either. Are there specific spots that do it all the time? The zombie trying to spawn under displacement message I knew about, but forgot to fix! Oops...

I've found a couple of other weird things are happening, seemingly only when it's played from the .vpk? For instance, the C4 Detonator model (that starts the event) moves a bit to the left after being pressed. That didn't happen before...

Anyway, I'm gonna get back at it! 8-)

*EDIT* I'm interested in this post... Wondering if that's why my fog got all crazy... Maybe I should be retaining my original settings and waiting for Valve to fix...
*/EDIT*

[Nexusdog]

Cool, thanks for the comments! So, that window is weird... Hasn't ever done that to me before. And what's with the survivor skins in that screenshot? Odd. Haven't had any texture issues, either. Are there specific spots that do it all the time? The zombie trying to spawn under displacement message I knew about, but forgot to fix! Oops...

I've found a couple of other weird things are happening, seemingly only when it's played from the .vpk? For instance, the C4 Detonator model (that starts the event) moves a bit to the left after being pressed. That didn't happen before...

Well, hope it helps with the window, if you found where it was.

The survivors are this season sporting the natty Killing Floor skins, found here - http://ubtri.blogspot.com/2010/02/left- ... -swat.html

For the stylish L4D'er, there is also the MW2 skin or a range of other intriguing skins available to suit your personal taste. :mrgreen:

I also noticed the detonator moving, but forgot about that.

[Oilcake]

Yeah, I totally knew where the window was, I just can't seem to reproduce that error!? If you play through it again, can you let me know if it happens every time?

Is this the texture nastiness you're talking about? If so, I'm getting it, too. So hard for me to tell what's up with graphics set this low...



Keep it coming! I'm going to work on inserting some audio and custom overlays today, I think... :? Haven't messed with audio that much yet, so it should be interesting.

[Nexusdog]

Yeah, I totally knew where the window was, I just can't seem to reproduce that error!? If you play through it again, can you let me know if it happens every time?

Is this the texture nastiness you're talking about? If so, I'm getting it, too. So hard for me to tell what's up with graphics set this low...

KK, I'll give it another go when I have a chance.

The texture in pic, no idea cos it's so dark. However, I was finding it was in corridors with red brickwork, perhaps a few other places, but it wasn't consistent which was the odd thing about it.

When you come to your next texture pass, give the buildings more identity instead of generic red brick, but I know you already know that. :mrgreen:

Are you happy with the layout?
Are you happy with the flow?

[Oilcake]

So, I didn't get any work done on the map yesterday. After some thought, I decided to spend some time playing through a load of other community-made maps. I haven't done this in a while, but have been meaning to. It's always good to have a look at what others are doing, I think. Helps with ideas, etc., and you can learn a ton about what to do and not to do...

The texture in pic, no idea cos it's so dark. However, I was finding it was in corridors with red brickwork, perhaps a few other places, but it wasn't consistent which was the odd thing about it.

OK, so that texture crap I was getting is nothing more than the way my machine is working these days. As I mention below, I tried a bunch of other maps out yesterday, and they all look the same. Please Valve, give us back our high shaders...

When you come to your next texture pass, give the buildings more identity instead of generic red brick, but I know you already know that. :mrgreen:

I'm not sure how much more detailed I'm gonna get on this one. I'm not going to use it for anything else at this point, other than the challenge, so I dunno. More about this below...

Are you happy with the layout?
Are you happy with the flow?

Yes, quite, on both counts. Although it's probably considered quite backwards, for this challenge I started with the layout (and flow, really) and left the rest until later. So, I built the basic block layout, then moved on to building the interiors to connect it all together. I've actually changed the flow very little from the initial layout. After all that was done and had undergone some basic nav testing, I moved on to how the whole thing was actually going to look. So, the concept of what the map actually is didn't come until afterwards. I wouldn't normally do this, but it seems appropriate for this challenge. I've noticed most people started with the concept and went from there, but I really wanted to start with a layout that worked for the challenge, then worry about making it look nice and fit into a concept after the fact. Anyway, I'm definitely happy with how it has turned out. I've tried to use lights and some textures to help guide the survivors through, but only you guys can tell me how well I did with that... Did you get lost at all? Was it hard to find you way through? Was the event hard to understand? I'd love to hear some others' thoughts on all this...

There are some issues that definitely need to be addressed. There are also some I have no idea what to do about: That window that you saw, nexusdog, is weird, and I still haven't been able to recreate that one. Also, another friend of mine had issues with a certain door that started locked and indestructible (to survivors only, it seems), and he could only move on after infected had knocked it down. Happened to him only once... I've been testing the map at his place a bunch, but not in vpk format, and it never happened until then. I think there are a bunch of glitches, then, that are being caused by packing into a vpk. I bet if I put a package together where people manually placed all the files (maps, models, textures) and ran the map from the console, none of this would be happening. Like, the C4 Detonator doesn't move to the left a tiny bit after activating the button unless it's packed in vpk. So weird.

-----

Which brings me to what to do next. A lot of this is still very much Valve's problem, and I won't be able to have any effect on it, even if I wanted to. That fog thing is really annoying me, for example. I know for a fact that custom audio is screwed up across the board, so it's pointless to try any of that. I'd considered having a radio in the start room that gave the survivors basic instructions, to be used in combination with some custom graffiti directions on the walls. I can still do the overlays, if I want. I can try to dish through 18 million lines of dialogue to find the lines that would/might fit into this map.

The question is, how much more polish to put on something that won't be undergoing further development. Now that Valve is starting to host community maps on official servers, as well as setting up organized play-testing sessions, I'm desperate to start on a full campaign. Got a artist/modeller lined up already, considering bringing on more team members. If nothing else, this map taught me that I'm sick of using only Valve stock meshes. I found that Parkdale kind of got away with it better than this one, maybe because of the snow? Made it feel different to Valve maps? Anyway, whatever it is that we build, it's gonna have a ton of custom models and textures. I really want to do something different and special...

At the end of the day, I could polish this map 10-12 hours a day until the deadline. Unfortunately, it's not gonna work very well anyway, certainly not in vpk format. I'm leaning towards waiting until after the weekend, to get as many comments as possible, then spending a couple more days making changes and adding a few final things... Anyway, I have a raft of stuff to deal with today outside of mapping, so I have another evening to think about all this more... What do you guys think?

Cheers! 8-)

[Nexusdog]

Makes me wonder how the guys who modded & converted the original l4d maps for l4d2 got the exe installer set up, cos it seems a far better way than messing with vpk's.

[Oilcake]

Well, i got back at it today, finally!

Made a bunch of changes to the event. Basically it's no longer broken...

I found that for some reason you can "use" an env_explosion, even though it's invisible and, well, not really there at all until it explodes. Or so I thought. But, as it turns out, you can hit E while pointing at where it is, and it triggers the explosion. Needless to say, this broke the event if you were clicking around the C4 charge at the top of the fire escape... So, instead i made a point template that force spawns them only right before they go off. Works quite well, I think.

Also, even though I was sure I had my logic relay telling the C4 Detonator model to stop glowing, it wasn't working properly. Tried a few different things to get it to work, but no luck. So i basically did the same thing there. Killed the one with the glow on trigger, and at the same time force spawn a second one in the same spot without the glow. Seems to work as well, although I'm not sure if this is ideal. This also stopped the issue of the Detonator model sliding to the left a bit after pressing the button. I'd already fixed this by un-parenting the button model from the actual brush button. Not sure why I had it that way in the first place, but it was definitely the invisible button brush that was moving, the model only moved cause the button was it's parent. Either way, killing the first button and replacing it would have fixed it as well!

Fixed a few infected ladders, one pair in particular right at the start that the survivors were able to use, too. Somebody was talking about this on these boards fairly recently, I think. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why this was going on. I deleted them and replaced them with a set I knew worked. Now they're fine. So weird, because I could see no difference at all between the pairs...

Made some changes to the courtyard and last rooms right before the safe room. Looks a little better now, and I think the nav works better. Still seem to be getting the infected spawning in the safe room right before you get to it, even though it's marked checkpoint, which technically shouldn't allow any infected spawning, ever. I assume this has something to do with the gauntlet script I used... Not too sure really.

Anyway, I'm hoping to do a few more things tomorrow, and then produce a final. That should come in VPK form, maps packed in. That should work just fine for a coop/sp map, and I don't think I'm gonna implement VS for this map, so it's better off that way. I'm still thinking hunters would have a hard time with that low skybox...

Cheers!

8-)

[T-Willard]

I've been having problems with the infected ladders being usable by survivors.

Have you been having trouble with the env_explosion generating pink and black squares instead of normal fire? Pipebombs and gas canisters work normally, but for some reason every time the env_explosion fires it throws up purple and black chunks.

[Oilcake]

Hey!

I've been having problems with the infected ladders being usable by survivors.

Here's my best advice. As long as you have at least one that you know works, copy and paste it and replace the ones that don't in Hammer. You probably shouldn't even have to redo the ladders in your nav. I'd love to know why it happens, but that's my fix.

*EDIT* Think I figured this out just now while making a test map... Make sure your non-working ladder has been tied to a func_ladder. If you just have a regular nodraw brush with the infected ladder texture on one face, it appears as a ladder that everyone can climb, I think... If that's it for sure, I dunno how I didn't notice this earlier! :lol: */EDIT*

Have you been having trouble with the env_explosion generating pink and black squares instead of normal fire? Pipebombs and gas canisters work normally, but for some reason every time the env_explosion fires it throws up purple and black chunks.

Yes, I have. I don't remember it being that way, but I haven't messed with explosions and stuff much since L4D... Here's my fix:

Wherever you have a env_explosion, add an info_particle_system right beside it. I have my Particle System Name set to gas_explosion_pump, but you can change it to whatever. Here's a list of the L4D particle effects. Not sure about a L4D2 list, don't seem to have one bookmarked! Anyway, you'll need to name this as well, so you can start it at the same time as you trigger your env_explosion. Make sure you leave Start Active set to no.

Now go back to you env_explosion. The only thin you have to worry about in the Class Info section is the name and Magnitude. I have mine set to 100, but you can play with that... That's going to decide the force/damage of the explosion. Now, go to the Flags tab. Here, I checked off No Fireball, No Smoke, No sparks, No Fireball Smoke and No Particles. I'm not positive all of those are totally necessary, but it certainly doesn't hurt, seemingly.

Now go back to your Logic Relay, or whatever it is that you trigger the explosion with, and go to the Outputs tab. You should already have something like OnTrigger explosion_name Explode set up in there. Add another output pointing to the info_particle_system: OnTrigger particlesystem_name Start. Make sure if you have a delay set, you make them both the same.

So now you have an explosion where the particle system does the job of making it look nice, while the env_explosion handles the damage. Again, I'm not sure that this is by any means the ideal method of doing this, but it works for me! :lol:

Oh, yeah, I noticed you were talking about fog over in your thread... Mine is really kind of screwed up right now, too, it seems. like, there seems to be far more than there used to be on the same settings. As with the explosions above, it might have something to do with the fact that I can't run shaders above medium right now, but who knows? A bunch of people are having this prob, it seems... I have no idea what's up.

Anyway, hope that helps a little! Let me know if you have any issues with it all.

Cheers! 8-)

[Oilcake]

On a side note, I've been thinking about this, and figured I should clarify now, before I submit the map this way. Some of the shapes in the 3D skybox are not longer exact tetris pieces... Basically, I cut off the pieces on the backsides which can't be seen from inside the map anyway. All in the name of optimization: as I understand it, whenever you're looking at a section of the 3D skybox, it renders everything in that section, even if you can't technically see it... Anyway, if I'm gonna get dinged badly for doing it, I'll add the extra bits back in so they're proper pieces again. Can you guys let me know about that? Thanks!

[Smog]

Worry not, Andrew, You're fine :-)

[T-Willard]

Works great, thanks!

Don't feel too bad about the blocks thing, I didn't see that we couldn't use those little pieces, and I used them at the edges of the map for ruined buildings, and used the square one for a small little Quonset hut.

[Oilcake]

OK, amongst other things, I did a ton of optimization today. I wasn't going to bother doing much, then I kinda got into it. It's far from perfect, but a whole lot better that's for sure. Finished VPK tomorrow!

[Oilcake]

OK, here it is! Download gameplay_oilcake.rar here. Please let me know ASAP if you have issues with this VPK. Thanks!

NOTE: Check out the README file! If you downloaded and installed the first version I uploaded, you'll need to remove the old bsp and nav files (gameplay_oilcake.bsp & gameplay_oilcake.nav) from your maps folder after placing the VPK in your addons folder. This version is all packed up in the VPK, as campaign mode alone will work like that. It's in .rar format just for compression.

Sorry, no screens for now... Pointless the way medium shaders look on my machine. I can't even tell what my skybox and fog actually look like. I'll try to take some on a better computer than mine and add them later on. For now, check above this post if you need to see what you're getting into...!

So, it's far from what a final version would look like, but I'm good with it for the purposes of this challenge. I'm terrible at releasing anything, to be honest... I never want to say anything is finished! In any case, it is a fairly solid little mapping experiment. By no means was I trying to reinvent the wheel with this one. Basically, I tried to keep it simple: gameplay, flow, event at the end, all of which aren't and can't be broken (I'm sure they can be, but I haven't figured it out yet!).

I'm really happy with the way the path/flow worked out. I was pretty sure while placing the blocks that it would work, and it pretty much did what I wanted it to do. I tried to make use of as much of the allowed space as possible, in order to achieve something like the length of the first map of a campaign, which went really well. I really tried to use height as much as possible in this regard. Also, a lot of windows to let the survivors see ahead and behind themselves. I found this helped to keep it feeling as open as possible. The nav has worked out really well. I'm very happy with it. For the most part, bots work great and the zombies come from all over the place in interesting ways. The event seems quite stable now, which is the way I like events to be! As usual, it took me a while to get all the I/Os hooked up properly and timed correctly, but that's all time well spent.

The skybox is a bit thrown together, like a lot of the texturing, overlays and props it's not really polished to the point a final campaign should be. The optimization is not as good as it could be, either, although the work I did on it yesterday improved it a ton. I would have liked to do all the exterior ground in displacements, just to give it that extra little bit, but it was just extra time, and I wasn't sure this map needed it to get its point across. I would do that were it going to be released, for sure. As, I'm sure, I would do a ton of other things! But for now, this is done.

Again, I'm sure there are bugs still. Feel free to post them here. I'd love to know, in fact, even though I don't imagine I'll be doing further work on this one, at least not for now. I finally had a glitch like you had with that window, nexusdog, but it was a painting right near the end. I think that's just random VPK weirdness, but I have no idea. It was the only one like that I got, and I ran the damn thing many, many times.

There it is, then! Not sure what else to say, so I'll shut up now! Hope you guys all like it! Cheers! 8-)

[Oilcake]

Congrats to everyone that entered!