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You know, with a little bit of recompiling, this map is really pretty. In all honesty, Crow had a really good map going here, he just didn't know it due to the way he assembled it.
This is the ALPHA remake of highlands. I say alpha because it has some serious visual issues. It should be, more or less, fully functional though. It's still using the single player monsters, so it'll be way too easy for multiple players, or a single high level character. I'm just distributing this to show the map's potential. It actually looks better than most (if not all) of the Vanilla MS maps.
Screenies:
http://www.thothie.com/ms/highlands2_alpha1.jpg
http://www.thothie.com/ms/highlands2_alpha2.jpg
http://www.thothie.com/ms/highlands2_alpha3.jpg
It's really pretty. I was floored. All I did to it was trim it so it would compile right.
Issues (all but one of which are entirely my fault):
- Can't get to primary jumping sequence without bowing (will fix)
- Didnât lock trees back to walls properly when I sliced them (will fix)
- Hole in roof of spider cave (d'oh, will fix)
- Castle top stretches into sky (will raise sky and fix)
- No way to access spider key without bowing (will fix)
- Several bushes no longer touching ground (will fix)
- Screwed up some textures (will fix)
- Inner Spider Caves need more lights (will fix, but not my fault)
I get 100fps everywhere on this map, the poly counts are more than tolerable, and it looks really nice the way all the mesa's cast their shadows. Even in its alpha state, it's really beautiful. Hats off to Crow here.
What I've done so far:
- Completely deleted the floor - which was made up of about 200 brushes.
- Replaced floor with one single huge brush
- Raised all mesa ceilings to same height, lowered all mesa floors to same height
- Search & Replaced all sky textures (dont make partial sky brushes!)
- Deleted Sky (again, made up of about another 200 brushes)
- Added new sealed sky (1 skybrush on whole map)
- Simplified a bunch of objects
- Got rid of most all 2 pixel thick walls (DON'T DO THAT!)
- Added red lighting hints to spider key and spider cave entrance
- Removed several tiny shape 'fragments' (so many I wonder if the RMF is made from some decompiled BSP? Not sure where they all came from)
- Total time spent (save for compiling): 45 minutes
It still takes HLVIS about an hour and a half to process the whole thing because I haven't touched the spider cave (and don't think I need to, aside from lighting). The insane compile time is due to the fact the map is made up almost entirely of cylinders, most of which overlap (DON'T DO THAT!). Lots and lots of tiny little crevices it has to calculate.
This was JM's job, but he gave up, I guess, so I took over. Morale to the story: Fix map compile problems before adding new ones.
Download: http://www.thothie.com/ms/highlands2_alpha.rar
(Includes map AND source)
Rar unzipper here.
_________________
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead
Saint Thoth
This is the ALPHA remake of highlands. I say alpha because it has some serious visual issues. It should be, more or less, fully functional though. It's still using the single player monsters, so it'll be way too easy for multiple players, or a single high level character. I'm just distributing this to show the map's potential. It actually looks better than most (if not all) of the Vanilla MS maps.
Screenies:
http://www.thothie.com/ms/highlands2_alpha1.jpg
http://www.thothie.com/ms/highlands2_alpha2.jpg
http://www.thothie.com/ms/highlands2_alpha3.jpg
It's really pretty. I was floored. All I did to it was trim it so it would compile right.
Issues (all but one of which are entirely my fault):
- Can't get to primary jumping sequence without bowing (will fix)
- Didnât lock trees back to walls properly when I sliced them (will fix)
- Hole in roof of spider cave (d'oh, will fix)
- Castle top stretches into sky (will raise sky and fix)
- No way to access spider key without bowing (will fix)
- Several bushes no longer touching ground (will fix)
- Screwed up some textures (will fix)
- Inner Spider Caves need more lights (will fix, but not my fault)
I get 100fps everywhere on this map, the poly counts are more than tolerable, and it looks really nice the way all the mesa's cast their shadows. Even in its alpha state, it's really beautiful. Hats off to Crow here.
What I've done so far:
- Completely deleted the floor - which was made up of about 200 brushes.
- Replaced floor with one single huge brush
- Raised all mesa ceilings to same height, lowered all mesa floors to same height
- Search & Replaced all sky textures (dont make partial sky brushes!)
- Deleted Sky (again, made up of about another 200 brushes)
- Added new sealed sky (1 skybrush on whole map)
- Simplified a bunch of objects
- Got rid of most all 2 pixel thick walls (DON'T DO THAT!)
- Added red lighting hints to spider key and spider cave entrance
- Removed several tiny shape 'fragments' (so many I wonder if the RMF is made from some decompiled BSP? Not sure where they all came from)
- Total time spent (save for compiling): 45 minutes
It still takes HLVIS about an hour and a half to process the whole thing because I haven't touched the spider cave (and don't think I need to, aside from lighting). The insane compile time is due to the fact the map is made up almost entirely of cylinders, most of which overlap (DON'T DO THAT!). Lots and lots of tiny little crevices it has to calculate.
This was JM's job, but he gave up, I guess, so I took over. Morale to the story: Fix map compile problems before adding new ones.
Download: http://www.thothie.com/ms/highlands2_alpha.rar
(Includes map AND source)
Rar unzipper here.
_________________
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead
Saint Thoth