V2: Fixed some texture bugs and control points
V1: Initial release
This is my first TF2 map, and it harkens back to the Q2 days of level editing and design, from the maps actcity2 by CryptR and city by Ruskprick. I updated the textures and lighting as well as added some areas, expanded some, and turned two AQ2 maps into one TF2 Control Point map. It's easy on the eyes and the system, so download and check it out!
Scalability is an important issue if you are running top of the line hardware it might be a good idea to check it out on a bit of a low end grade, I had to do that with mine and force some effects to be downgraded gracefully (reflections are dropped for low end hardware so they never dip below 30 fps)
Also if your skybox is too dark you need to add light_enviroment to your map, the skyboxes never emit light by themselves and if they do they usually don't achieve the effect your going for you need to create an entity that tells the skybox to emit light.
About your wierd lighting just remember the rule "every light has a source" and try and use point lights as little as possible, oh and no artificial light is pure white. There's nothing more annoying than entering a room and spotting a giant glob of overexposed light flooding the ceiling that looks completely unnatural. If you must use point sources learn how to adjust the quadratic, linear, and constant parameters of the equation to achieve a soft light that prevents obvious circles.
Great lighting can really give personality to a level, I stuck over 100 lights in my level it takes long to build them all but I wouldn't trade the effect for anything.
Thanks for a more detailed assessment, I think I can respond to most of these.
I'm still not sure what's up with the FPS, perhaps it's something that isn't visible that's doing it.
All of the textures are from HL2 and TF2, but like I said before if I plan on releasing a final version of this I will definitely texture a lot of areas.
I'm not exactly sure how to make stairs that don't look blocky, otherwise I guess they would be ramps, but the angle of which they go would make ramps impossible to scale. I'm not sure how to 'unblocky' stairs.
Yeah that's a lighting issue I have to resolve. Hammer is terrible at this so I will have to experiment a lot to figure out lighting arrangements.
I suppose some more arrows pointing in the direction of the tunnel will help, that will come with a retexture.
Yeah again those are actual textures in the HL2 library, but I can always remove them or put something nicer looking there.
This is a bug and will be fixed, every cap should increase time exponentially and you shouldn't run out of time that quickly.
There's a bug in Hammer that won't let me create a spawnpoint that is attached to a neutral capture point, and whichever team caps that point owns that spawnpoint, so I'll have to research a way around it or do something more drastic.
This is the 'more drastic' portion of the #8 fix. I am contemplating a defense/offense map where Red is the defensive team as they have the high ground and raised capture points, and Blue could be the offensive team with a spawnpoint much closer to the tunnel.
Thank you for your constructive feedback, this is good stuff. I should have these bugs squashed in the next iteration of the map, and perhaps I will convert it to a defense/offense map since the two sides are lopsided.
Alright, here's a more detailed assessment of your map. I had two others to go through as well and figured I'd go through and make some notes for you so you know where problem areas are.
I get 20fps in spawn by myself. In other areas of the map I get over 100 and in some areas, I mysteriously drop to 40. Again, this is entirely by myself - so this indicates to me there's some kind of issue.
All of your textures look like HL1 textures which is not very impressive. Maybe it's the lighting.... but it's unattractive.
The stairs and walls are blockly (kinda like HL1 maps).
There's weird lighting areas where suddenly the walls get bright and then will get dark again (especially if you move close or far from the area). I specifically noticed when I tried the BLU side on the way to the RED side and then in some ammo/health areas on the map.
There's no real direction (at least on the RED side) and it's incredibly hard to find your way to the BLU side of the map. I ran in circles forever trying to find my way. I even ran through it twice on the RED side and still had problems finding the middle point.
The tags for resupply and the battlements look horrid. I saw them in another map so I don't know if they come with the SDK or what - but ick. I could make better stuff on PAINT. :\ This is the least of your problems, but they've got that baby blu background against some ugly HL1 texture dark blu stuff and well - just looks bad.
I ran out of time on RED playing by myself. I got down to 38 seconds to spare capturing the last point. Can't imagine that the RED could EVER win this in a normal game.
There's no forward spawnpoints. You die at the 4th point, and you go all the way back to the beginning and good luck finding your way back.
The sides are not fair. BLU and RED sides are not identical. There's tons of area on the RED side and almost none on the BLU. When I tried BLU, I captured with 5 minutes to spare - but on RED, I had 38 seconds. That's a problem. Plus, I could have sworn I captured the 2nd point on red super fast and then as blu, the 2nd point took a lot longer.
And finally - it doesn't add time when you capture a point. So no matter what you do, you end up with tons of sudden death type play and 6 minute rounds.
I hope this helps you more than my initial assessment.
Indeed, most Q2 maps won't make a very good TF2 map, and this one probably won't either, seeing you have to release some sort of map of Biblical proportions in order for it to get on a server, but I digress.
Hammer is just a pain in the rear end to work with, especially when it comes to lighting, since there's no preview mode for lights. If I could see the lights as they are put up I think it would be a much more pleasing map to look at, but as it stands I'm not going to sit through 1000 compiles to see each light render.
As for the lag issue, I don't know what that would be. My two main playtesters have rather weak cards (6800GT and a an X1600) and they didn't notice anything wrong with it. Is it FPS lag all over or is it just in some places?
Anyway, this may not hit every server, in fact it may not hit any, but I did want to make a contribution to the community even though Hammer was a painful experience.
I have a 8600 GT - so maybe not as good as yours but still plenty good to recognize there's some sort of lag issue.
As for it being a Q2 map - well, unfortunately, not all maps from other games work well in TF2 (just check out the bf map). That doesn't mean it can't be remade to work better. After all, you're still in beta with the map. If you want more constructive critizism I'm more than happy to run through the map and make more details notes for you. I normally run through several at a time and I know that just a few minutes on yours told me it wasn't making it to the server. Hopefully future versions are better.
I don't know how 'good' your video card is, but I regularly pull around 150fps on an 8800GTS all over this map, as have many playtesters, so I can probably say this lag issue may be completely subjective based on your rig.
Secondly, I realize it is a dark map, because there's a bug in the Source SDK that won't let me use the TF2 skyboxes. Once that bug is fixed I will be using a much brighter skybox and the lighting will be much nicer.
Thirdly, the notes state "It harkens back to the Q2 days of level editing and design", because I took references from two very popular Action Quake 2 maps. It's supposed to be function over form. Perhaps when the skybox issue is resolved I will go back and retextureize some things.
Pros: Um..... Cons: It took me all of 10 seconds to tell this map was not making it onto my server. I really don't want to be mean here, so hopefully you'll just fix the problems and them release a new map. First, the map has some sort of lag issues. It lags my fps horribly. I have a decent video card and if it's lagging me, it's going to lag everyone else. No one wants to play a laggy map. Second, the map is unattractive. No offense but no one likes a dark dull looking map. There's nothing special about the map. And finally - why does this map look like it was made for CS 1.6? Improvements: Everything in the cons.
If you find ANY bugs or glitches regarding ANYTHING, please leave a message here or message me on Steam, my account is darksaint@mac.com
I will fix them and bring a final map out when the majority of them are fixed.
