MSG Mapping Comp- Sector 9 "The Cytherean Outpost"

[kaustic]

Here is an update- Changed all of the floor textures. Removed all of the circles in the floor ,I had not
intended them to be weapon markers but just a way to embellish the floor. Applied decals to the floor.
All weapons have a stain under them ,so consider them markers. For the sake of giving it a name
"The Upper Running Ledge" has been completely rebuilt and retextured. Added a hole in the floor(with grate)
just above the lightning gun and you can fire weapons through it although I wouldn't recommend Rockets
. I had really considered suggestions about some vegetation in the map but to be honest its supposed
to be on Venus ,a very dead ,inhospitable place.
New pk3. - removed. Making some changes. Already fixed the missing textures(forgot to change them back
after I figured out the phong shading issue).

[AEon]

Comments:

• The new window inside frame textures/aty3dm9/atypdw_crete.TGA is missing.
• I love the new wood texture on the floor... looks way better.
• Extra JP on the upper ledge helps, though I don't really see why anyone would run the paths up here. Now if you put the RG up here, away from the APs, then folks might actually put in some effort to get that weapon. For ammo I doubt anyone would run the paths up there, other than for fun maybe.
• Your ad banner up between the towers looks nice. Though I doubt you will be able to get away with an ad switching... if you do, good thinking.
• The stripy texture on all the upper ledges is OK, but not "great", IMO. I'd completely drop repeating that texture on the outside walls. It is completely enough to just use it on the edges where you can drop down. On the outside walls those stripes not only look ugly, but IMO are redundant.
• The orange/black stripe texture, I only now noted. is the only texture presently that does not fit the overall colours in the map, it is too cartoony, whereas the rest of the textures are pretty realistic. I'd drop that texture and replace it with the stripes seen on the walls. More subtle and fits the colour scheme better, IMO.
• Sigh... around the LG, the triangular geometry shape of the light crete texture looks way too low-polygon, ugly and unnatural. Please create some rock formation or anything else that has more detail here. By far the most un-aesthetic part of the map. I am pretty sure this will bring down an otherwise positive rating of the map.

Update, after playing against bots:

• I actually did go the ledge path from the MH to the RA, and that was fun "camping" from up there.
• Bots use the AP to the MH, from what I could tell. Not sure about the rest of what is up there is used by the bots.
• Gameflow-wise this might be late, but personally I think the GL area level needs an extra JP up to the AP level, as a direct path up there. Presently you rocket jump from the GL (I don't) or need to take the long way around via PG and stairs. IMO, this would also add more "bouncy-ness" to the map, i.e. verticality in fighting.
• The water in the lower level area makes that part of the map even more unappealing to me, it slows you down. Personally I try to avoid using that part of the map at all costs, and the bots do too. I know this is brutal, but I am really wondering of completely scrapping the cellar area. Or it needs some really creative rework. Compared to all the above ground which is tons of fun, the lower parts I actually hate. Sorry to be so blunt, but that area has been annoying me from the start.
  
  Maybe the cellar part needs to be sped up to make it more fun, e.g. use several APs down there to get you from one side of the map to the other via cellar in a fast way, i.e. to outflank players taking the above ground path. E.g. PG cellar entry has a TP that exists on the RL cellar exit (TPs are both ways).
  
  Or you need to cut a big hole in the ground, i.e. where the RG plaza is, to connect the bottom of the map with the mid level more, thus adding more vertical fighting as well. Anything along those lines would be better IMO.

Sorry again that I am bashing the cellar so much, but I actually really like playing the map, but as long as about 1/3 of the map - the cellar - is no fun to me at all, it really brings down the potential of the map.

[kaustic]

The view from up top. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaustic/95 ... otostream/

[kaustic]

I'm too tired at the moment to go through everything I've done. About ready to fall asleep at my computer.

Was about to face plant my keyboard last night . Anyway , I added an alternate route
through the lower level. Extended some of the upper ledge. Added a small area in the upper
area. Moved/added some items/ammo. Added a JP in the GL area. Added a TP (look for it
you'll find it). Removed the water from the lower level and changed the lower half of the walls.

Edit: I have found these bots seem to work better in the map. Xaero ,Visor ,Tank Jr ,Razor ,Patriot
Phobos ,Hossman.
Also Grunt ran the upper ledge. From the MH he went right to the JP then to the RG area before getting fragged.
Cadaver went from the MH to the left ,he got as far as the corner where you turn into the GL area before getting
fragged.

Anyway here is an update . D/L - http://www.mediafire.com/?bx7x12pufcufx9b

[AEon]

Holy cow that really turned into a frenzy... in a good way

• The GL JP IMO really helps make that area more fluid, used that JP all the time.
• The subtle TP is IMO a good thing.
• I like the RG up there and the extra RL too. The bots seem to avoid running around up there though. Maybe add 2 or so bot only spawns up there, to "motivate them" somewhat.
• The new cellar path is a bit quirky, but kinda nice, I like the way you JP up to the med level of the map. IMO a good thing too.
• The biggest technical issue seems to be the fog that is just under the PG spawn point. It looks strange to have fog so close under you waking level. Hmmm... no idea what you did before but in the last release the fog worked better. Alas I cannot help here, since I never use fog. Lowering the fog by 1-2 step-heights might help.
• Another "biggie"... since the upper level ledges is pretty much developing into a full set of paths I would suggest pushing back the outer walls by 100% of the current path width, this way the paths up there would be double the width and can then be considered *real* paths. A bitch to do since all your night geometry up there would have to move out too. But might be something to think about. Presently the paths, though fun, will not really be taken seriously due to the lack of path width, IMO.
• In the cellar, near the LG you have two stairs coming in. Between those in the corner you will most likely get stuck. Maybe extend the steps of both stairs into the corner, to fill in the gap, or add some clipped deco here.
• LG area not looks very flat and boring... maybe add a metal grate tower here in the middle of the room, or some other neat demo... maybe water under an interestingly grated floor or something other that is nifty. Or a statue?

Map is coming along nicely.

Update:

• Noted it yesterday but forgot to comment. The RG and the upper RL have a wooden floor as "respawn pads". The floors in wood are OK, but I'd add a trim line around the wood to better accentuate if from the crete up there. Suggested trim: The metal edges near the lower RL should do.
• Losing the outer wall stripes up on the ledges definitely looks better now.
• I really like your metal towers and the wind howling up there.

[kaustic]

The Fog, I may have had it down a bit before. I had moved it when I was working on the
decals. I did notice it was looking different and I hadn't done anything with the shader
for it. I was actually thinking those wood floors up there needed some kind of boarder
because the crosscut edges have no shadow to them and it doesn't look right. As for
pushing those upper walls out to extend the ledge, I'll have to try it out in one section
to see just how much work it'll be. It could turn out to be easy enough.

[AEon]

If the pushing back should be worth the work, you might want to look into adding little "bridges", basically some form of metal grating like your towers that connect some of the ledge areas from the outer walls to the more central ledges so that the bots can actually navigate those areas. This should make the map up here look slightly more interesting, but keep the overall "danger" of falling or of letting folks up there shoot down. IIRC you added a few bot-only spawns up here? 1-2 player spawn points might also be good, to "integrate" the upper area more into the map, then. E.g. between the RA and the upper RL, and to the sides of the RG might work (the latter maybe not, to keep the RG special).

[kaustic]

Well after checking if pushing the upper section out would be possible without a lot of major work ,I come to the
conclusion that it would be a lot of major work. On the other hand I did however extend them a little inward, which
has helped with the bots. In the main area I had a pillar that had a small wall and roof section on top and I had put
lightning ammo and health there. I removed the wall and roof and it is now a platform which Grunt jumped to after
snagging the Railgun. Grunt also took the long way around from the Red Armor to the Haste by way of the ledge.
I added another TP which is in the main section. I added some trim around the wood floors as suggested. I fixed
the fog. The fog is absolutely perfect. It blends in so well.(When I was messing around with the shader for it I
had left a digit off of the last number for the RGB and I got this neon blue glowing looking fog. I made a copy of
it for future use). I raised the floor by a couple of steps under the LG and put a statue in the corner between the
steps(its weapon clipped). Add some clipping and fixed some texture alignments I had missed. Adjusted some of
the lighting. The bots are using the JP's/AP's regularly now. Phobos went after the RL (above the GL area) via the
ledge after grabbing the RA. They are using the Lower passages too.(What I do to observe bots is to set the frag limit
to 90 ,the bots to 5(nightmare) and use 4 or 5 of them, then start the game and go spectator and just watch what they do).
Anyway here is the latest pk3. . D/L - http://www.mediafire.com/download/vv5pi ... sc2013.pk3

(The file is quite a bit smaller due to removing sound files I no longer needed).

[AEon]

Changes, IMO, look good.

• Fog looks great again, nice and subtle.
• The wider ledge paths now feel a lot more like real paths, so that worked pretty well.
• Floor trims around the RG look a *lot* better now.
• The new TP opposite of the Haste was a surprise. I am not completely sure about it, though. When you go LG, LG TP, to then go Haste TP you teleport twice, adding a lot of "skipping". Also you walk into the Haste TP, but exit on top facing 180° in the exact opposite direction. That had me a bit confused. Even though the Haste TP does look nice there, I wonder if it might not be better to exit the LG TP right up there on the platform. And either drop the Haste TP, or make it exit in the cellar? This is just me thinking... I usually have trouble with good "use" of TPs (changed them around numerous times in AEdm7).
• The new platform, the one you Haste TP exit (near the RG) looks a bit out of place IMO. All the other geometry up here looks in place, but the platform looks like someone simply cut up geometry. Does that make any vague sense? Not sure what you can do, anything to make it look less flat on top, slightly more detailed would help. Add some wood with metal trim maybe.
• When standing at the Haste, looking towards the TP, on the ledges on the right, you will note them angling upwards to meet the ledges under the ad towers. I completely understand why they angle up, but navigating them has been weird from the very start. Not sure what you can do here. Maybe add steps up here as well (maybe not). Anyway I am mentioning them because I tend to get "ramped" off the ledges up here, and then fall.
• This is pretty much nitpicking. But your interesting JP textures (on round patches AFAICT) would IMO look a bit more interesting if they would "bulge" up a bit to give them some 3rd dimension. Something subtle like your APs would do the job. Presently they simply look very flat, though one expects them not to be.
• Another idea regards the cellar. The statue in the corner helps and so does the clipping, though the two stairs still look a bit out of place. I was wondering if making the cellar a multi-height-level area (not huge heights mind you) could make the LG area less rectangular but asymmetrical. I was thinking of carving a bit into the PG tube and the Haste tube where they join the LG area. Just to make the combat area slightly less "tubey" and slightly more like several platforms. Helping to make the cellar slightly less flat. This might also help the "steps" here, better fit geometry-wise. And could possibly help make the combat area here slightly larger.

I thought I had nothing much to comment... so much for that, sorry.

[kaustic]

I figured out what was messing up the fog. I had somehow deleted a structural brush and it caused the map to
leak. I replaced the missing brush ,did a leak test to make sure I had it fixed ,ran a build on the map ,gave it
a run through and the Fog was as it was before (I had this happen to me 2 times while building this map. The
first time I didn't realize it was the leak that caused the fog to look like crap).
Also I've still been working on the map. I'll have an update soon.

[kaustic]

The Updated Map - Removed due to changes.

[AEon]

Well the extra SG path certainly was a surprise .

• The new SG path used angles on the floor edges that then angle up to where the JP throws you onto the upper level. I noted that your triangular edges when standing up there, are pretty dark and cut off at their top ends. You might like to put your triangular lights texture on those (see the lights at the top of your tube from the PG into the "cave".
• Still not so sure about the TP opposite of the Haste. IMO it leads you you continuing running, falling towards the Haste. Gameflow is quirky here.
• The sit into the wall alcoves on the top floor are interesting. Give the upper area more breathing space. But every one is a dead end (except the new SG path JP one). Well... guess they are OK.
• Your JPs now are 3D... that certainly helps.
• I still feel that the JP near the GL needs some geometry that "organically" integrates into into that part of the map. You lower RL JP in the corner uses the Q3A standard concave into the wall... maybe some asymmetric rounding (only 1/4 a circle) on the right wall would help. Presently the JP near the GL looks like someone dropped it by accident... if you see what I mean.
• I like the glass windows.
• Not wanting to rock the boat, but when you go the path from the lower RL, to the GL you will encounter a narrow quite cosy path. I like it actually, only from previous bot games this is pretty much a literal bottleneck in the map. So I am wondering if making is 30% wider would not improve gameflow here. One could of course see it as a deliberate place to RL wall-spam to get kills that way. Which would be a rarity (usually RL spams floors only).
• Interesting sky, and "halos" around all the lamps. Maybe tone the halos around the lamps down a bit, i.e. make them more transparent.
• Over all I really like the texture choices and colour of the map. Looks very nice.
• Again not wanting to rock the boat, but when I take the SG path up the JP and towards the RG, you have these wider med level paths, to end in pretty narrow top level ones. I always find that disconcerting since I feel I might easily fall off. I admit this is a skill thing. But still, IMO, makes the top level gameflow feel gimmicky. Just a feeling, and other than moving a huge amount of brushwork there is nothing to be done about it. See this just as a comment.
• I am still confused what paths to take and why to take them... but that could be a good thing, that the player has to work them out for him/herself. Potentially increasing replay value.

Hope that makes some kind of sense.

[AEon]

Update: Played against Hardcore bots...

• I had thought the platform where the Haste TP exits would be a dead end for bots, well I did see Grunt actually jump from the RG to that platform. Interesting. But I did notice that none of the bots ever use the Haste TP. Still think some grated bridge-like structure would help navigation to and from the platform/pad.
• It just occurred to me a grated (flimsy by all means) metal bridge between the exists of the LG TP and the Haste TP would significantly help navigation up here. And cut down on all the "wall clinging". Another short bridge between the RG and the Haste TP exit platform would complete the path up here.
• Overall movement on the top level around the RA towards the upper RL works very nicely. As a player you can stafe around up here and still keep focused on the action below. Neat.
• Noted Xaero using the JP to the MH, then take the JP to the RG all on the top level... so this area is being used by the bots.
• The exit of the LG TP seems to be pretty much where you have a player spawn point... that could be slightly problematic, i.e. telefrags.

[mrd]

I had a run through with some bots. Neat map. Nice to see the haste power-up... kind of a rare one. It felt pretty balanced. Maybe having the RL a bit more central would be an idea? They both felt a bit out of the way, but perhaps that is on purpose to promote map-flow.

I think the glares coming off the lights on the walls look a bit goofy. Perhaps they could be toned down or just removed. They just look out of place to me.

Otherwise,

[kaustic]

Been working on it here and there. Picked up a cold a few days back and haven't been feeling up to doing much of anything.
I had been messing around with the light beams for a while. Still not being completely happy with those in the lower(foggy)
portion of the map I decided to take MRD's suggestion and just removed them. Should be an update soon. The TP's and bots
are iffy. The TP across from the Haste I've only seen 1 bot use it and that was Slash. As far as the other TP goes the aas log
shows its target position as being "in solid", which I take as it thinks its inside of a brush. A player can teleport through it with-
out getting stuck so I don't know what's up with that. I widened a couple of ledges I hadn't done earlier. Merged a bunch of
brushes ,got rid of some useless brushes and rebuilt a few structural brushes.

[AEon]

There is another reason I could understand the bots not using the Haste TP... there is no point for them to do so. To them (or most of them) it is a dead end, and on that platform there is nothing to pick up, so they ignore that path seeing it as a dead end. If there were "bridges" up here they might go for the RG via Haste TP...

[kaustic]

Well I took a guess as to why the bots wouldn't use the TP by the haste and it turned out to
be a good guess because they now use it quite regularly to go after the items on top of the platform
and the railgun. I placed a bot clip under the target position but the only problem is they on
occasion use it as a jump off point, which looks kinda weird. So I my end up changing where
the target position is because to expand the platform in that direction just would not look right.
I have experimented with a few different grates but as of yet I haven't seen one I would like to use
in the map. Still have some ideas though.

D/L removed , updated in latest post.

Edit: Found a grate texture I like so I added a section of framing and grate under the target
position which doesn't look totally retarded. Also I was just playing the map and the bots are
now using the TP in the LG area. I had raised the target position up by 8 units and moved a
info_player_deathmatch off to the side of the room. I guess it helped because the aas log no
longer has the TP destination as "in solid".

[kaustic]

I believe I'm going to call this one done.

Edit: Well maybe not so done after all. After reading the comments from the Judges I'll make some adjustments.

[AEon]

Turned out nicely, IMO.

[_DOOMer_]

kaustic, congratulations on winning the contest!

[AEon]

Neat winning (apparently)... I may maybe pad myself on the back oh so very slightly... well... not really...

[kaustic]

Thanks DOOMer . AEon, Crayfish and mrd, I would like to thank you for your suggestions during the course of this build.
They gave me plenty to think about and I certainly appreciate it. Have to admit that I was surprised at the results and
there is already 1 person that pretty much outright stated I don't deserve it so it kinda puts a damper on the whole
thing.

[mrd]

Haters gunna hate.

[fKd]

Grats

[Hipshot]

Yea, congrats!