Back At It

That's about it.  Holidays are over for another year.  Had a ball, glad to be home and back at it.

Counter-Strike Map Update

I haven't been posting anywhere near as much as I wanted to, mostly because I've been so involved in the production of this map.  It's come a huge distance in the past week.  The top down view you'll see below is (for the time being, anyway) the final version.  It went through several iterations and many hours of bot testing.  This version seems very balanced, with bot team scores like 18-20 and such.  I'm hoping this translates well into human play, but not having done anything like this before, I honestly can't say how that will work out.

I'm into the beautification process currently, at the same time as optimizing.  For the most part I'm done work until after the holidays.  No idea how long until I have something actually ready for release, but I think it should be fairly early in the new year.

This map (so far) has been built almost exclusively with the stock textures and models from the Dust maps.  It's not ideal, but until I learn more about modelling and making textures, it's going to have to do.  As with the Left 4 Dead campaign, it's forcing me to work within certain limitations, which I don't think is a bad thing in terms of honing my mapping skills.

So here is the new top-down view, as well as 3 other screenshots that give a bit of a feeling of the map...

 

 

 

Counter-Strike Map First Iteration

Wow.  This has been a crazy couple of days.  I barely managed to eat.  Anyway, first version of the map is finished, and I've just finished watching bots kill each other in it for a couple of hours.  Hrmm...  Yeah, I killed a few of them, too.  It seems quite CT heavy at this point, but I already have (what I hope are) the solutions.  Tomorrow I'll make a bunch of changes.  As well as pick the final 3 screenshots for the mapping competition...   :)

I have to say at this point that I can't quite imagine what I've accomplished in the past 3 days.  Long way to go still, though ...  :)  That said, here are some screens.  First one is a top-down layout, which I'll do often as things change.  Everything is in nasty mode, but this part is really only about getting the game play right.  Beautification can go on later...

 

 

 

 

Enjoy!

Untitled Counter-Strike: Source Map

Starting work on a CS:S map now as well.  Got some good ideas going on, I think.  The section below is loosely based on this photo.  Ideally, it will end up looking more like that!  Here are a few (very) early screens...

 

 

 

11 Final Shots - All Souls Night

So here are what (I think) are the final 11 screenshots for the mapping competition.  Have to get this down to 3 shots for the official entry, so if anyone has any preferences, let me know...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now to pick 3...

Colour Correction Fail!

Been messing with colour correction all day.  Getting no love at all...  Ugh.  Maybe I'll have some more screens later on when I can get it going on.

*Edit*  It all works just fine in Counter-Strike: Source...  No idea why it won't happen in L4D.

Stop All Work - A Cat Is Sick...

So yeah, one of our cats, Oliver, managed to jump off something rather too high for him and put his back out.  Because of this, not a hell of a lot has been accomplished round here in a few days.  That, and we just got Counter-Strike: Source.  Oh, right, THAT's where a lot of the time went...

Anyway, got back at it today and made a ton of updates.  Finished (at least for now) the 3d skybox.  Added a few little things and messed with lightmaps a bunch.  Into the last stretch now, which is good, cause the deadline is approaching.

Some screenshots:

 

 

 

 

3D Skybox Added

Today's job was to add the 3D Skybox.  Not done yet, but it's coming along.  Here are some screenshots of how it's shaping up...

 

All Souls Night - New Screens

Here are a couple more shots.  Most of the main props are in now.  Time to start on the 3D Skybox, I think.  The first shot shows some of the area just completed (other side of river), and the second is view from above which shows the whole layout.  The water doesn't show because I'm so far up out of the skybox to take this shot.

 

Three New Things

So, apart from all the other new stuff I'm learning doing this project, I've decided I really need to work on light maps, shadows and colour correction.  I think if I can get better at these, it will improve the atmosphere of the scene a ton.  I guess we'll see how that goes...

Moving Stuff Around More...

I've moved the stone circle in towards the church quite a bit.  In the first shot you can see that it has moved in from the left of frame.  Also moved the bridge lamp to the other side of the road and made a few other minor lighting changes.  Now for some more work on the far side of the bridge...

 

Moving Stuff Around...

So I moved the big oak tree.  It was kind of annoying me where it was.  Added a ton of other things, too, as well as working a little on lighting...  Burnt out, must sleep.

 

 

Bridge Added

Here's a new shot including the bridge I'm working on.  Changed the sky as well, think I like this better...

Map Battle 41 - Even More Screens

Here are a few new screenshots.  You can start to get an idea of the whole scene now.  There will be an old stone bridge crossing the river where the plank-looking thing is right now.  Ton more work still, but coming along nicely I think.  Still thinking about changing the skybox...  Also, the water is giving me some grief, but I'll figure it all out eventually.

 

 

 

Saxon Church Updates

Two new screenshots...  The lighting is still very rough, but main construction is pretty much done.  Texturing is kind of iffy, too, but I feel like I'm improving at least.

 

Back to building now...

Map Battle 41 - More Screens

Here's a couple of shots of the Saxon church I'm working on for this scene.  It's based on Escomb Saxon Church in northern England.  Needs a ton of work, but it' a start.  Gotta sleep for a bit.  More tomorrow...

 

First Screens - Map Battle Project

Alright, as promised here are the first screens from my Map Battle 41 project.  For those that didn't click the link in my last post, Map Battle 41 is called Map Us A Song.  To start with, I chose a Loreena Mckennitt song, All Souls Night.  Oddly (or not) it's freely available on YouTube...  You can read the lyrics here.  You can buy it here or get the song alone on iTunes for $0.99...  Kithiero's suggestion was Angel Of Death by Slayer.  I think I'm gonna try that, too, after I'm finished this one.  Figured I'd start with the Celtic/World thing and ease on into the Metal later on...

For the record, all of this is built in Hammer using the Left 4 Dead SDK.  All props and textures are stock.

In any case, on to the screens...

Ignore the skybox crap in the second one, haven't finished that bit yet.  They kind of give an idea of where this is going, though.  I'll post some more tomorrow as work progresses.