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Betamap thread said:
Topic updated to reflect released status of the map.
[REL]The_wall
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Topic updated to reflect released status of the map.
Re: [WIP]The_wall
I think u should do some towers on the building ahead or something now it seems somewhat strange.
Maybe change the texture on the wall to make it look old, some moss or some plants that have taken root on the walls, ground.
If i remember right the time when lor malgoriand army was on the move was hundreds of years ago, correct me if im wrong.
Otherwise it looks good, keep up the good work.
I think u should do some towers on the building ahead or something now it seems somewhat strange.
Maybe change the texture on the wall to make it look old, some moss or some plants that have taken root on the walls, ground.
If i remember right the time when lor malgoriand army was on the move was hundreds of years ago, correct me if im wrong.
Otherwise it looks good, keep up the good work.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
The textures is where I have some problems - I'm not an artist and my abilities end at applying filters and hues to already existing textures. I already have several examples of the decreptitude of the wall (not in shots) and some extra decoration. For the sake of ease of mapping though I am aiming to have a sort of "sleeping" wall - rather than outright eroded. It's something which exists having served it's purpose but otherwise left alone, frozen in the northern wastes.
The textures is where I have some problems - I'm not an artist and my abilities end at applying filters and hues to already existing textures. I already have several examples of the decreptitude of the wall (not in shots) and some extra decoration. For the sake of ease of mapping though I am aiming to have a sort of "sleeping" wall - rather than outright eroded. It's something which exists having served it's purpose but otherwise left alone, frozen in the northern wastes.
Re: [WIP]The_wall
Yes the textures is fine and not strange when i came up with a possible explanation of why its so good quality still.
The history could be like this.
For many years ago when the wall was built a great wizard who feared that Lor Malgoriand whould destroy everything in the "world", he decided to assist in the protection of the wall by making a protecting shield that would make the wall undestructuable by any way(or siege weapons only) and protected from the power of time.
But something went wrong and the great wizard bound his soul to this place witch made him resort for darkmagic to free himself, but in the making of trying to set himself free his mind was poisoned with evil.
Now the place is haunted by great evil that the wizard has spawned forth.
Your quest is to free the wizard from his prison, it is said that a great treasure is inside gathered from tousands of warriors that have tried to get rid of this evil.
I guess this is pretty good story but u can probably correct some of my spelling
Yes the textures is fine and not strange when i came up with a possible explanation of why its so good quality still.
The history could be like this.
For many years ago when the wall was built a great wizard who feared that Lor Malgoriand whould destroy everything in the "world", he decided to assist in the protection of the wall by making a protecting shield that would make the wall undestructuable by any way(or siege weapons only) and protected from the power of time.
But something went wrong and the great wizard bound his soul to this place witch made him resort for darkmagic to free himself, but in the making of trying to set himself free his mind was poisoned with evil.
Now the place is haunted by great evil that the wizard has spawned forth.
Your quest is to free the wizard from his prison, it is said that a great treasure is inside gathered from tousands of warriors that have tried to get rid of this evil.
I guess this is pretty good story but u can probably correct some of my spelling
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
The official lore is what I'm going on right now. The wall is supposedly a relic of the elves, who built it in an attempt to keep Lor Mal's forces at bay. It's meant to now be a bastion for the undead rogue forces. The beta map uses this map as the link between Hunderswamp and the Caverns of Frost, so the general impression I'm going for is rocky/mountainous + frozen. I'm still not sure how I'm going to go about any boss or scripted mobs though as I've got no idea how that part of this works.
Travella said:Yes the textures is fine and not strange when i came up with a possible explanation of why its so good quality still.
The history could be like this.
For many years ago when the wall was built a great wizard who feared that Lor Malgoriand whould destroy everything in the "world", he decided to assist in the protection of the wall by making a protecting shield that would make the wall undestructuable by any way(or siege weapons only) and protected from the power of time.
But something went wrong and the great wizard bound his soul to this place witch made him resort for darkmagic to free himself, but in the making of trying to set himself free his mind was poisoned with evil.
Now the place is haunted by great evil that the wizard has spawned forth.
Your quest is to free the wizard from his prison, it is said that a great treasure is inside gathered from tousands of warriors that have tried to get rid of this evil.
I guess this is pretty good story but u can probably correct some of my spelling
The official lore is what I'm going on right now. The wall is supposedly a relic of the elves, who built it in an attempt to keep Lor Mal's forces at bay. It's meant to now be a bastion for the undead rogue forces. The beta map uses this map as the link between Hunderswamp and the Caverns of Frost, so the general impression I'm going for is rocky/mountainous + frozen. I'm still not sure how I'm going to go about any boss or scripted mobs though as I've got no idea how that part of this works
.Re: [WIP]The_wall
Shouldn't be a problem to use my store couse i dont think how the wall was created stand in the official lore.
The elves created it but i think if they was so afraid for malgoriand that they builded this wall why shouldnt they try to make it as strong as possible even if it meant a wizard got inprisoned.
I think the my story provide u with the information off how it could become a bastion for the undead forces.
I guess thothie could help u with the boss part
Shouldn't be a problem to use my store couse i dont think how the wall was created stand in the official lore.
The elves created it but i think if they was so afraid for malgoriand that they builded this wall why shouldnt they try to make it as strong as possible even if it meant a wizard got inprisoned.
I think the my story provide u with the information off how it could become a bastion for the undead forces.
I guess thothie could help u with the boss part
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Yes, please use the lore story, it is official Lanethan lore... During the Time of Blood, this is where the Elves held the line against Lor Malgoriand's armies. These days it's just stuffed with undead inside and out (especially on Lor Malgoriand's former territory's side). The line is held there, but without a leader, the various meandering undead aren't that much of a threat, so the elves make no risky efforts to clear the place out - and just snipe off the dead that wander out too far. The massive Elven armies of old simply do not exist now, so they likely lack the manpower to clear and man the facility in any case.
What are you using to edit textures anyways? I can go over with you how to gradiate between textures in Photoshop at least...
I wouldn't bother with the towers, not worth the leaves, clips, nor wpoly they would cause... It's either an oversized Wall of China type construction or a series of conjoined fortresses, so it wouldn't make much sense, architecturally, anyways. Presumably the thing's already tall enough for archers, and look out towers wouldn't be much use with the winding canyons and mountains nearby - if anything, they might have signal towers dotting cliffs further away.
Looks good so far... When ye get about half-way done, send me a WIP source and I'll start on scripts for it. (Hopefully I'll have Rickler's scripts done by then.) It'd be nice to have some elves guarding the south side entrance parameters that'd warn the players of the danger. It'd also be nice to maybe have some renegade Torkalath elves holding up inside. I will use Little-G's damned Warcraft models for them, if we don't have any new elves in by then.
Yes, please use the lore story, it is official Lanethan lore... During the Time of Blood, this is where the Elves held the line against Lor Malgoriand's armies. These days it's just stuffed with undead inside and out (especially on Lor Malgoriand's former territory's side). The line is held there, but without a leader, the various meandering undead aren't that much of a threat, so the elves make no risky efforts to clear the place out - and just snipe off the dead that wander out too far. The massive Elven armies of old simply do not exist now, so they likely lack the manpower to clear and man the facility in any case.
What are you using to edit textures anyways? I can go over with you how to gradiate between textures in Photoshop at least...
I wouldn't bother with the towers, not worth the leaves, clips, nor wpoly they would cause... It's either an oversized Wall of China type construction or a series of conjoined fortresses, so it wouldn't make much sense, architecturally, anyways. Presumably the thing's already tall enough for archers, and look out towers wouldn't be much use with the winding canyons and mountains nearby - if anything, they might have signal towers dotting cliffs further away.
Looks good so far... When ye get about half-way done, send me a WIP source and I'll start on scripts for it. (Hopefully I'll have Rickler's scripts done by then.) It'd be nice to have some elves guarding the south side entrance parameters that'd warn the players of the danger. It'd also be nice to maybe have some renegade Torkalath elves holding up inside. I will use Little-G's damned Warcraft models for them, if we don't have any new elves in by then.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Orcs and undead don't get along without Lor Malgoriand to guide them - so no, no orcs here. No living ones at least... Maybe some Marogar orc zombies wandering about though - I suppose they might foolishly wander in or try to take the place for themselves, and wind up joining the ranks of the dead.
Orcs and undead don't get along without Lor Malgoriand to guide them - so no, no orcs here. No living ones at least... Maybe some Marogar orc zombies wandering about though - I suppose they might foolishly wander in or try to take the place for themselves, and wind up joining the ranks of the dead.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
On the subject of monsters it would be nice to have some skeletal archers of some form. The only archers I've seen in game are the orc ones, but I don't know what you have planned in that direction.
I'm currently just using paint.net and it's various filters and adjustment parameters to change the textures at as basic level as possible. It serves it's purpose but means I'm left with a map entirely composed of 1-5 textures. It's alright for brushwork at the moment and good for generating a general feel but I imagine it will need a lot of polish and detail later on. I'm currently relying quite heavily on the skybox to generate an actual feel of height/space.Thothie said:
So far I've got a linear construction along the wall of sorts. Each section of the wall is currently detached from any "main" part of the map, and it's worked okay so far for keeping the wpoly down. I'm planning on having as much as possible of the map actually as parts of the wall or various fortress structure interiors with as little as possible on mountains or ground-level. This is all subject to change though. I'm not entirely sure how to keep track of the clips but so far everything is running fine. Only had a couple of problems due to rogue leaks and vertex errors (clip tool ftw)
The current structure is that transition from the swamps will lead into a mountain cave system (not mapped) which then leads directly on to the wall. There would be space to have maybe a checkpoint before the main of the wall but from a mapping point of view it makes more sense to worry about connectivity and flow on the wall then getting the players onto it. Once the player is on the wall it's essentially a gauntlet across and through into a linear map. I will send you the WIP when I've got half of it done.
On the subject of monsters it would be nice to have some skeletal archers of some form. The only archers I've seen in game are the orc ones, but I don't know what you have planned in that direction.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Well, we've no archer animations for skeletons (dunno if someone wants to work on that?)... In all honesty, animation is about the hardest part of modeling - we've no dedicated animator - so it's the least likely thing to get done.
We do have Orc Zombies (as I mentioned)... On mscave, the orc archers stop using their bows when they go zombie, because, persumably, they're too mindless to use anything that complicated, but I suppose an archer who's either been an archer so long his reflexes are dedicated to the act of shooting arrows, or been a zombie so long he somehow figured it out... In anycase, the script edit would be very minor.
There are some undead who fire projectiles... Although, for some reason, with the exception of the lightning buggers and bile zombies, they escape me at the moment. I'd mention the Mummies, but there's no tomb or catacombs here, so they wouldn't make much sense - only a few have projectiles in an ycase.
The Torkaloth elf models we currently have (*shiver*), however, include a fully animated archer, and a wizard.
Well, we've no archer animations for skeletons (dunno if someone wants to work on that?)... In all honesty, animation is about the hardest part of modeling - we've no dedicated animator - so it's the least likely thing to get done.
We do have Orc Zombies (as I mentioned)... On mscave, the orc archers stop using their bows when they go zombie, because, persumably, they're too mindless to use anything that complicated, but I suppose an archer who's either been an archer so long his reflexes are dedicated to the act of shooting arrows, or been a zombie so long he somehow figured it out... In anycase, the script edit would be very minor.
There are some undead who fire projectiles... Although, for some reason, with the exception of the lightning buggers and bile zombies, they escape me at the moment. I'd mention the Mummies, but there's no tomb or catacombs here, so they wouldn't make much sense - only a few have projectiles in an ycase.
The Torkaloth elf models we currently have (*shiver*), however, include a fully animated archer, and a wizard.
Re: [WIP]The_wall
I could animate the skeletons to shoot arrows.
I could animate the skeletons to shoot arrows.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Schweet... I just hope the submodel set can handle the addition of a bow and arrow (or at least a bow, if I make them shoot magical bolts). If not, I guess they can just be a seperate model.
When I tried to add two more auras to the mummies, I hit the submodel scramble bug sooner than usual. I had to switch it up so the auras used skins instead. :/ (PS. I'll get my mods to you when I finish with the last few mummies.)
Schweet... I just hope the submodel set can handle the addition of a bow and arrow (or at least a bow, if I make them shoot magical bolts). If not, I guess they can just be a seperate model.
When I tried to add two more auras to the mummies, I hit the submodel scramble bug sooner than usual. I had to switch it up so the auras used skins instead. :/ (PS. I'll get my mods to you when I finish with the last few mummies.)
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Updated screenshots. Wpoly is running a bit high for my liking at the moment and textures still need a lot of work but progress is being made.
Updated screenshots. Wpoly is running a bit high for my liking at the moment and textures still need a lot of work but progress is being made.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Sprite based lighting is a good way to kill stability on your map. If you have a lot of those, I'd try to switch em up with some sort of texture based lighting (such as crytals, uplight braziers with the top out of sight, or what not.)
As for Wpoly - it might help if your outside was not so often visible from the inside - judging by the screen shots.
Sprite based lighting is a good way to kill stability on your map. If you have a lot of those, I'd try to switch em up with some sort of texture based lighting (such as crytals, uplight braziers with the top out of sight, or what not.)
As for Wpoly - it might help if your outside was not so often visible from the inside - judging by the screen shots.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Aye, some form of airlock system might be appropriate... I'll play around with some hint brushes tomorrow.
Aye, some form of airlock system might be appropriate... I'll play around with some hint brushes tomorrow.
Re: [WIP]The_wall
What are hint brushes!?Skillasaur said:
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Temperamental little things than 9 times out of 10 cause more lag than they resolve, especially if you don't use them *just* right - in addition to at least trippling compile time.
Given the efficiency of the newer compilers, these generally aren't worth the trouble - and a lot of people use them just plain wrong, which causes a LOT more issues than it solves. What's worse, is that there's a lot of tutorials out there that teach you to do it wrong. The two I've linked there are the rare exceptions. (Granted this isn't very surprising - just about every Hammer tutorial out there has you start by hollowing a box.)
If you do play with them, be sure to check your wpoly counts before and after - don't just assume they are working, cuz they are probably not.
Temperamental little things than 9 times out of 10 cause more lag than they resolve, especially if you don't use them *just* right - in addition to at least trippling compile time.
(See also: Pyramid Hint Brushes - just as much a pain to use, but I've had a *little* more luck with them.)The Novel of TL;DR said:
Given the efficiency of the newer compilers, these generally aren't worth the trouble - and a lot of people use them just plain wrong, which causes a LOT more issues than it solves. What's worse, is that there's a lot of tutorials out there that teach you to do it wrong. The two I've linked there are the rare exceptions. (Granted this isn't very surprising - just about every Hammer tutorial out there has you start by hollowing a box.)
If you do play with them, be sure to check your wpoly counts before and after - don't just assume they are working, cuz they are probably not.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
I can see the logical functionality of the hint brushes - and pyramids make a lot more sense than simply boxes so thanks for that tutorial. I've only ever had a couple of attempts at using hammer on a larger scale than simply some experiments (this is my biggest project to date) but as long as you're careful hint brushes seem easy enough at first glance.
Edit: On closer experiment hint brushes are no where near as efficient enough as I need to optomise - My branching rooms were not corridor-like enough to have the hints have any real effect.
Edit2: Success! Through some minor redesign and overhaul on optomisation that 1k+ wpoly area now runs at pretty much constant 600-700.
I also want to shoot any tutorial author that starts off a tutorial by hollowing a box.
I've got an alpha-build of the map ready for you to look at if you want to Thothie.
I can see the logical functionality of the hint brushes - and pyramids make a lot more sense than simply boxes so thanks for that tutorial. I've only ever had a couple of attempts at using hammer on a larger scale than simply some experiments (this is my biggest project to date) but as long as you're careful hint brushes seem easy enough at first glance.
Edit: On closer experiment hint brushes are no where near as efficient enough as I need to optomise - My branching rooms were not corridor-like enough to have the hints have any real effect.
Edit2: Success! Through some minor redesign and overhaul on optomisation that 1k+ wpoly area now runs at pretty much constant 600-700.
I also want to shoot any tutorial author that starts off a tutorial by hollowing a box.
I've got an alpha-build of the map ready for you to look at if you want to Thothie.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
PM it to meh (via filefront or whatever.)
But yes, Hint brushes, no matter how good anyone is with them, are no substitute for well designed VIS blocking architecture.
More of a message for the newer mappers than for you, but as a rule of thumb, if you can bounce a line between where you are and another point, without making more than one 90 degree angle, everything where that line ends will render (See also VISblock section of Yonder Noob Tutorial.) And remember entity brushes (ie. doors), and in some cases, sky brushes, do not block VIS - so they don't count when drawing that line.
PM it to meh (via filefront or whatever.)
But yes, Hint brushes, no matter how good anyone is with them, are no substitute for well designed VIS blocking architecture.
More of a message for the newer mappers than for you, but as a rule of thumb, if you can bounce a line between where you are and another point, without making more than one 90 degree angle, everything where that line ends will render (See also VISblock section of Yonder Noob Tutorial.) And remember entity brushes (ie. doors), and in some cases, sky brushes, do not block VIS - so they don't count when drawing that line.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
Might wanna add that pic to the novel of TL;DR . I've sent you a pm with a link to the latest alpha build.
Might wanna add that pic to the novel of TL;DR
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
*inserting my obligatory request to provide you with some music, recycled or not*
*inserting my obligatory request to provide you with some music, recycled or not*
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
I'm not sure at the current time whether I'll ever get the map finished. I've kinda reached a blank spot, and although the map is about, say, 90% completed I just can't seem to find the time to work on it any more. For this reason I think it may not be worth making music for it. I will send you a build of the map though, if you want to have a look through it and if it inspires you at all.
I'm not sure at the current time whether I'll ever get the map finished. I've kinda reached a blank spot, and although the map is about, say, 90% completed I just can't seem to find the time to work on it any more. For this reason I think it may not be worth making music for it. I will send you a build of the map though, if you want to have a look through it and if it inspires you at all.
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Re: [WIP]The_wall
I've almost got your damned elves done, given the time invested in them, when I coulda been working on Rickler's scripts, ye'd better send out a source. >_>
I've almost got your damned elves done, given the time invested in them, when I coulda been working on Rickler's scripts, ye'd better send out a source. >_>
