[BETA] CP Platform 1 - Almost done!

[Ian_Suffix]

Hello, folks! Tonight I present a project I began in late summer, and am only about a third of the way done. It's Platform 1, another one of those 'reversed role' Dustbowl-spinoffs. Before I whittle away its neatness too much, however, let me tell you that Platform 1 is different. It's nowhere near the desert-- it's in the middle of the ocean. In Stage A, RED starts out in a nifty landing craft, which I designed before even opening Hammer. The rest of the story is for you to fill in, but there's lots of curious little details thrown throughout the map.

UPDATE! > Jump to current post

DOWNLOAD < this is updated if you don't want to see new screenshots

Notes for tomorrow: decrease skybox height, section off more of stage 2, add pushing stuff and overlays underwater to make it clear people are going the wrong way, perhaps make the final control room not all black

[Rits]

Looks pretty, I don't know much about maps..but I know a good amount about aesthetics. And, I say it looks pretty, like the water the most.

Looking forward to another villun map!

[Mad-Hammer]

I like the look of it. Use of textures looks really good. I'll give it a download and check out your work.

[Ian_Suffix]

I only wish I could find a way to make the main building look better (the light blue paneling is the best I can think of).

Please do check it out, as I need suggestions from more than just Captain Jim's brief tour. Speaking of suggestions, might you know how to change the map intro screen? That is, where it explains the game rules. Also, I need to figure out how to make the HUD alert about "You are now attacking!" or "You are now defending!"

EDIT: Problems I Just Found
- Roof texture orientation problems on the flow control room
- Cheesy-Shield™ doesn't turn on automatically
- Metal panel on Pt. 2 is too dark (change shadow settings)
- Stand-in column @ fence uses a prop texture (perhaps)
- Texture irregularities on the crane

[itchy]

How's it run? Putting lots of water in a map is dangerous, especially for lower-end machines.

[Mad-Hammer]

the map intro screen? That is, where it explains the game rules.

That one is easy. You need to create a "game_info_text" for your map and pack it along with your .bsp. It's easy to build, just create a text document and save it to your map file with the exact name given to your map. If worse comes to worse, do like I did and look in your map file for the text documents on your downloaded maps.

If you want the cool photo to go along with the map like Valve does it, take a look at this tutorial on TF2 Maps.net

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=135

It's a tutorial on creating menu_photos for your map

[Buzzy Beetle]

Looks spiffy! I'll give 'er a run. =D

Love the creativity!

[Shifty]

Looks great. Finally away from all that hot and dirty sand! The look of this map kinda reminds me of Deep Blue Sea.

[Ian_Suffix]

fallout.itchy: I tested the map on my own laptop (definitely low end) rather than the monsters at my workplace when I made those most recent error notations. It worked perfectly-- better so than many other maps I checked out that day.

Mad-Hammer: Thanks, I'll try to get a vtf/vmt in there with the map file by the time I link the 'final' version of the first stage. How does one extract the texture to the end user's computer with the map at the same time, though? Or do servers do that automatically?

EDIT: I tested out my vtf/vmt just now. I followed all the directions to a point, ensuring all filenames were correct and the like. Sadly, however, space wasn't even allocated for the pictures when I got to the briefing screen. Any ideas as to what I left out?

[Rits]

Are you supposed to be able to go into the water? I actually got stupid and tried to swim under the map

The one cp that is near all the rocks jutting out of the water...there seems to be an invisible ramp from the water back onto the platform? If you're in the water you have to play around while facing the rocks and you can find an invisible ramp/staircase that goes back up onto the platform. Didn't know if that was supposed to be there.

Otherwise, I don't have anything else to say. I looked around and tried everything out. I liked the boat leading up to the platform!

[Ian_Suffix]

The water's free for all, be it a sneaky Spy* or a smoldering Soldier. It's region locked in a manner that prevents you from sneaking underneath the entire building to get to the second point. I also kept a little (also enormous) secret from the development process in the water.

I did encounter the slightly difficult task of clambering up the rocks to the point, once. Being that it's nearly impossible to go over the rocks from the boat-side, however, it's not a real problem. In fact, I'd go so far as to call it a feature.

There's only one problem on my list left to call this a finished stage. Any new problems found will help! I also need help (from experience, preferably) about inserting the custom pictures on the briefing.

[sup]*Bear in mind, people-such-as-Infusions, that the landing craft has a fairly loud proximity alarm that rearms every 15 seconds. Spawn-hawking isn't as easy as submerge-surface-stab.[/sup]

[Ian_Suffix]

I apologize in advance for the double post, but I'd like to announce that the final version of Stage 1 is uploaded and ready to be play tested.

[Devastator]

Yay men looks great I'm anxious to try it

[Dog]

Sorry for taking so long Ian.
We will be using TV10 as our test map server, so I have uploaded it on there.
If it is deemed a worthy map by Villuns, then we'll also move it on to TV4!


Maybe tomorrow night we can have a test of a couple of new maps...Citadel and this one.

[Ian_Suffix]

Excellent! Too bad I can hardly play any TF2 during the weekdays. I'd like to see how both of them go.

...I suppose if we scheduled a time after 9:00 PST I could run over to the Gannon-Goldsworthy lab and get going. If I've finished my Calc III homework.