Map release: Subway_beta2

[Ausman]

Well here's the next release of my Subway map. Its been a long time between release's for this map but finally I've found some time to get working on it. There are a few changes but nothing too overwelming in the graphics deparment. Have a good play and by all means tell whats wrong, gameplay issues, anything. Download from here http://www.pcgamemods.com/9729/ . Oh btw this will be the last beta before a final release so go test crazy

==Problems Fixed==
- Clip added at top of east station bridge
- Dynamite problems during transfer to chamber eliminated
- Terrain changed from vertex to lightmapped

==new things included==
- All train models now have spraying head lights on them
- Allies spawn changed to 20sec, Axis spawn to 25sec
- Looping trains made quicker for allies spawning (1 loop = 40sec approx)
- We chamber explodes, damage is now pushed out
- More models around the city
- All constructibles now have flags with them
- Ambient sound added around whole map
- Generator has sound as well as door close on chamber
- Voice command system implemented
- Individualised stations more, new architecture, textures
- Spawns increased from 16 to 32 players
- Some other stuff I can't remember

==issues still==
- The train models still need a bit of polish, fix the normals etc.
- train script movers aren't fluent, this is really hard to fix due to the length of the trains, tried playing with dampin dampout but it doesn't work too good when you have curves which span multiple splines
- still having problems with disappearing attached models. Due to the portals and my subway layout, not sure this will ever be fixed

Here's the link to the first release with all the map info http://www.wolfensteinx.com/surface/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1102

==Screenshots==

http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/west_sub_small.jpg (http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/west_sub.jpg)http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/north_sub_small.jpg (http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/north_sub.jpg)
http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/esc_small.jpg (http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/esc.jpg)http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/east_sub_small.jpg (http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/east_sub.jpg)
http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/city_square_small.jpg (http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/city_square.jpg)http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/city_street_small.jpg (http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/city_street.jpg)
http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/south_top_small.jpg (http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/south_top.jpg)http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/southeast_top_small.jpg (http://rowan.esiteconnect.com/wolf/subway/screenshots/southeast_top.jpg)

[Detoeni]

Sorry about the jpg's, I forgot to compress them
Ausman check your pms

So far the maps look very good, not too much to worry about. I will come to the vanishing model problem in a sec but first a few problems with construction.

I decompiled your map and moved the hull into a new file. Only to get leak after leak because I copied the brush work at grid 8 where as you made the hull on grid 4, when Iv moved the brushwork to the new file some brush planes have moved. Anyway this showed me where all the little problems were, so it had its use. Detail brush brushwork can be any shape, but you hull must be kept simple with the minimum of planes not aligned to the grid and you should try to keep it to grid 8(we'll have to live with 4, as thats what you have been using so far), it keeps things simple and the brush work stable also keep all clipping to grid (vertex points to grid). The first problem areas with unstable brush work are the tunnel corners.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_001.jpg
Iv remade the section, keeping it as simple as possible, where I have had to clip the brush work at an odd angle, the top brush has been over-lapped across the side brush to insure the hull is kept tight, even if the brush work shifts.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_002.jpg

Elevators......first problem, lots of clipped brushwork.....

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_003.jpg

..... second problem, lots and lots of un-needed portals.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_004.jpg

By re-working the section to as simply as possible, we are left with one big portal, which makes hinting and vis control work a lot better.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_005.jpg

There are a lot of points in the map with this type of construction, once all of them are changed your map will have a lot less leaf nodes (there is about 16 leafs been made at each set of stairs not sure how many sets of stairs there are, but you have quite a few).

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_006.jpg

You have a hull brush within another here, this should be avoided, this section needs remaking like the above bits.
Ok now the model problem, which looks to be portal related. Iv looked at two point in the map where there is this problem, the first is at this corner.

here ends post 1

[Detoeni]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_007.jpg

As you can see the portal layout is quite a mess, when you script mover passes through a very small portal it vanishes from view. The problem is with portals that are smaller than players or very thin.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_008.jpg

Q3map2 cuts your map vis into small squares 1024 x 1024, this can make quite a lot of un-needed portals. Adding key "_blocksize" value "0" to the worldspawn will stop this. It will still cut the map vis along the 0 axisies, its best to build you map clear of the 0,0,0 axis, in your case were stuck with it, as moving the map at this point is not an option I would recommend.
When I first compiled the hull, it had about 900 portal-cluster, by adding blocksize this came down to 400, but as you can see the portal layout is still quite complex with a good few small portals.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_009.jpg

removing the hints dropped the portal-cluster count down to 200, some where in the map the hinting is not working as it should, we'll get to that latter. Looking at the above, it much clearer although we have two small portals which can be removed quite easily by changing the hull (I would remove the hull from below the platforms as its only making extra leafs).

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_010.jpg

Here we have the second point at which the model vanishes, again the leafs/portals are small and some with quite odd shapes.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_011.jpg

Here Iv remade the section without the slopping floors, reducing the hull to the simplest shape possible. This should solve the problem, if you want to check to see if it is the portal before you change the hull, add "-debugportals" to the bsp section of you compile. This will draw the portals in game so you can see exactly where they are and if the model vanishes when it enters a small leaf.

By making the above changes to the hull and smoothing off a few bits that sick out here and there it should be possible to get a very good portal/leaf layout, faster compile, smaller bsp and a faster running bsp.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_012.jpg

I see what your trying to do here, this wont work, if you cant see into the leaf, then the contents wont be drawn, see the map for changes.

I will get back to you on the hinting once Iv had a look at what you've got at the moment and found out why the hinting is making so many extra portals.

Compile -sample make shadows sharper where as -filter blurs shadows, you should use only sample's, if the light-mapping on the terrain gets blocky then we can tweak the sky shader to correct
that.

Hope this helps

That it for now more latter......
:D

[Ausman]

Holy Christmas batman, Det once again you've given out some great advice and gone into some great detail:cool: . First off its amazing looking back almost 6 months ago when I finished the hull to all the errors I made.
To start off most of the hull was created in grid8 but for some angles I did go into grid4. Looking at the tunnel corners I was never that happy with the angles that they were at and you've shown me a much better way to do it. Now when I square the hull at the outter edges of the corners, should I then also expand the detail brushes to fill the gap created between detail and hull (and for everything else I will be squaring up)? As for the esculators, now I look it now there is just too many brushes which won't do anything but create more portals.
Next for the blocksize, should all maps have a blocksize of zero, or is it based more on if the map has tight corridoors and rooms?
What I'll do now is I'll fix up the hull and if you could have another look at it, it would be most helpful.
Just a minor note, any chance u could compress the pics, my 56k(omg yes i'm still using 56k) modem takes 2mins for each pic to download.
Many thanks for all the help, and hopefully this map will be at its prime for the next release(mmm should it be final or beta3:confused: )

[Detoeni]

should I then also expand the detail brushes to fill the gap created between detail and hull?

no need, you would only need to fill voids if you working with bots.

should all maps have a blocksize of zero, or is it based more on if the map has tight corridoors and rooms?


In most cases it can be a good thing. Large open maps using fog would need the block size set smaller than there culling distance, but if the structual layout of the map has been designed to acomidate the fog then you would go back to 0.

I'll fix up the hull and if you could have another look at it, it would be most helpful

By all means, it will make surgesting hint placement a lot easier.

any chance u could compress the pics

done.

should it be final or beta3?
lets see how well the bug crunching goes first.

[Detoeni]

Ok, it might be an idea to look at the train paths before you do to much work on the corners. By moving the hull back you should be able to do each corner with two spline points at each end and one control in the middle. There are some corners where this is not an option so you will need to use two or three control points (not splines as you have atm). To get a better movement to the trains you are going to need to move the origin points, like bellow. This will need to be set up using the "attatchtotrain" script command. I've been playing with this over the last few month and I have had a few problems using "attatchtotrain". The second part of the train never follows the first train at the set distance (right pain). To get round this I have a dummy script mover (not drawn in game, its an origin brush, within a trigger brush set to non-solid) as the first train and all the other parts (bits the player sees) follow this.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/ausman_013.jpg

You will need to tweak the "length"setting to get the back of the train to sit over the rear bogies,

Iv had a quick look over the train model, there are a number of issues, the lighting problems on the sides are because each object in the model is being lit, where as you need the surface to lit as one unit, also there are mesh smoothes across corners where the should none.
There may also be problems with some of the shaders you have used (you really should used custom shaders for stuff like this). ummm, do you mind if I have a play with it? Be warned, it might look a little different the next time you see it though.

[Ausman]

Go for your life Det, the train was the first model that I created and it shows, I originally created the model in GMAX then exported to Milkshape and textured it but milkshape texture editor is very woeful. The model really does need a complete overhaul.

[Detoeni]

No worries, is there anything you want changed?
I was going to keep all the sizes the same apart from the wheels which will be changed to fit the rails better.

edit
can i move the light about 12 to 16 units higher?

[Ausman]

The whole model is a bit too square, i think rounding the face of the front a bit would help that, as for moving the lights , yeah that shouldn't be a problem, just try not to change the overall height, length and widths of the model, anything else is welcomed :).

[Detoeni]

Something like this? (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tina.smith8/screenshots/train_pre.jpg)

[Ausman]

I'm liking that Det:D Much less boxy, the joining hook looks much better than my attempt and I like the idea of the top panel where the train number can go. Also just noticed the lights in the bumper and the stoppers, great work!

[Detoeni]

thanks :)

Iv optimzed it so its just over 1900 verts (not too many I think, the original was 1200).

With the train numbers, I can make up three tag blocks with that panel added so each train has a diffrent number.

Run into a small problem with moving the origin, when the body is in the right place, parts of the model sit out side 512 limit (limit is 1024x3, or 512 from the origin). This means the file wont export as md3.

It looks like it will have to be scaled down to export (rescaling is a pain in the b***), and enlarged in the map.

so no worries.

[Detoeni]

and now Iv found another problem, for some reason I cant get a scriptmover with model2 set, to work with "attatchtotrain". Works fine with brushwork, add md3 and et crashes(which made debugging so much fun). It looks like best solution is to keep the new origins and use three movers for each train.

I was hoping to use "attatchtotrain" and md3's in my own map, my mine train has to deal with switch points and diffrent paths through the map, attatchtotrain made it quite easy to set up, doing the same with normal script movers is not my sort of fun.

Anyhow I going to see if I can find a way round this problem.

edit Iv got it to work...............sort of.............by using three script movers I'v got it near perfect.....all I need to work out now is why the train wont turn to face the direction of the spline path..... atm it goes round the test track backwards :mad:

once this small problems sorted, I'll send you the beta train models so you can get them in the map and tested. Once your happy that alls well, I'll do the uv mapping and textures.

[WeblionX]

faceangles 0 0 180? :x

[Detoeni]

No, it looks like a problem with the followpath conmand I was using, changed it to followsplines and it worked fine.

[Ausman]

OK Det i've squared up the whole map as much as possible and got the portal clusters down to 270 and only takes 4 seconds to VIS compile, look in your PM for the map of it. I've noticed though that my attached models are still disappearing which is damn annoying. Also noticed that a fair bit of hinting will have to be used, I also removed all my hints to start afresh.

Oh btw just had a look at the train map you gave me, Bloody Unreal:D :D , the train runs as smooth as a baby's bottom, can't wait to get it into my map.

[Detoeni]

Having a few problems getting the file from your site (server not found) I'll try again a bit latter.

270 is still a bit high, I should be able to get that down a bit more.

Glad you like the train, it needs a bit of tweaking and the rear bogie needs to be set up so it turns (its attched to a tag atm). Also you will need a little bit of scripting to turn the spark effects off when the train stops moving (shader needs a bit more work).

[Detoeni]

Originally posted by Ausman
...........and got the portal clusters down to 270 and only takes 4 seconds to VIS compile,

Got that down to 216, with about another 50 I'v seen that can go.

Are the models vanishing at exsactly the same places as before?

edit: 186

[Ausman]

For some models they're dissapearing in the same place (eg. when the dyno train turns and ascends up to the second dyno), and there are a couple new spots, eg. when the dyno train exits the subway into the open air. The lights generally disappear on the loop trains when they enter the corner portals, but they don't dissappear at the same spots for both trains, also they don't disappear on all corners either:confused:

[Ausman]

Well Det I put your train model in for one of the loop trains, changed the clip, script and paths, and I noticed that the attached headlights to your model never disappear :p :D but the headlights for the other loop train still disappear . So it must have something to do with my dodgy model since both loop trains are using the same script, on the same path, but different model and clip. I also patched the walls on the four corners and inserted your patched tracks and my god these subways are starting to look good:D .

[Detoeni]

Great stuff, I'll have an updated hull ready for you latter, you will have to edit in any changes. There is only one area where vert count tops 10000 (that not alot really, beach is 14000, battery 23000), and that can't be hinted down (open air station). Iv not hinted the tunnel corners that one you can play with, it should be quite a simple job.

[Detoeni]

check pm's mate