The forgotten outpost - RELEASED

[evilsquirrel]

Well, now that I've finally gotten my hammer to work (for the most part), MiB and I will be working on a new map set which *could* be connected to the current world (If thothie wants to connect it ;-) )

It is currently planned to consist of at least 5 maps, the first of which is "The forgotten outpost".

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In recent years, the orc attacks on our country's castle have vastly increased. This brought forth a need for defences far away from the castle, as to keep the orcs from laying siege to our fair city.

Because of this need, the wall was erected in a narrow pass that the orcs favor using, without control of this pass they will have to make a long trek through the southern regions of daragoth, where they are often attacked by adventurers.

However, the orcs are not going to give up this pass without a fight. As soon as the wall was errected the orcs began a siege on the wall, and a outpost was quickly errected to fend off the orcish invasions. There is only a slight problem, the outpost has a severe lack of manpower.

Thus, the need arises for them to recruit the help of willing adventurers to defend against the orcish hordes.
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This map is set up similar to the old version of helena. The players will have to defend an outpost under siege, and keep the outposts supervisor alive...or face the consequences...

OMFG DOWNLOAD BUTTON
OMFG DOWNLOAD BUTTON #2

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[Orochi]

Interesting idea. If Thothie takes to it, I'll whip up a "leader" model.

 

[evilsquirrel]

thanks

 

[Thothie]

I can get ya key_treasury, a lock that responds to it, and an NPC, but you'll have to tell me blow-by-blow what you want the NPC to say/respond to.

I *think* I said this before - but anyone making a map that needs a basic NPC, monster, or even an item or weapon (that is well within reason) I'll set it up for ya.

 

[evilsquirrel]

It seems that vertex manipulation hates us. We are using it to try and make cliffs for the side (just a little pock marked for realism, nothing fancy), however, at every compile, certain vertices go insane. They tend to move themselves far from where they were in hammer (Result being a large indent, missing wall, or cliff overhang)

Does anyone know how to fix this or have a better suggestion for making cliff faces?

 

[Thothie]

You need to use ALT+P and make sure you do not have any invalid shaped objects before compile, to begin with.

Terrain + Vertex manipulation is a tricky business. Sounds as if you've already read the usual tutorial that so oft leads to bad things.

Generic advice I can give:
1- Use a large grid, snap to grid, and make sure every vertex aligns to the grid.
1- Use a large grid, snap to grid, and make sure every vertex aligns to the grid.
1- Use a large grid, snap to grid, and make sure every vertex aligns to the grid.
(seem to have trouble getting this point across sometimes)
2- Use VERY simple shapes. Wedges with 5 Vertexs preferably. Blocks with 8 can be more troublesome. Forget about cylinders or spikes made up of more than 4 vertex.
3- Split odd shapes with clipping tool to simplify them. If you have a trapezoid - split it into a square and two triangles, similar with rhombuses. Make sure every vertex is aligned to the grid before you attempt that, and draw your split originating at a vertex, and similarly locked to the grid.

 

[evilsquirrel]

First screenshot of the WIP map, i'm not quite happy with the hills/mountains in the back yet, but thats what i'm working on right now.

(the pole will be a guard tower)

Also, since multiple people on a single map doesn't work well, MiB should be starting "The Badlands" sometime soon, once we get his hammer functioning properly.

 

[Thothie]

I've no idea when I'm going to get around to remaking the MSC Mapping Tutorial at this rate... But I did clip this bit out of one of Crow's maps, added a bunch of stuff, plus notes. It demonstrates most major MSC entities, and decent map design. Sadly I obviously need one that demonstrates terrain deforming, reflections, and how to avoid splitting brushes, and the like... But you may still find this very useful:
http://www.thothie.com/ms/msctutorial_alpha.zip

Oh yeah, and the 10 sacred mapping commandments:
-Thou shall not hollow anything, ever
-Thou shall not carve anything, ever
-Thou shall not use cylinders without aligning every vertex to the grid
-Thou shall not scale spikes, and thou shall make sure each vertex of a spike aligns to the grid
-Thou shall not overlap brushes
-Thou shall not scale or rotate complex nor oddly shaped objects nor rooms nor hallways
-Thou shall not build a box around your map to avoid leaks (nor for any other reason)
-Thou shalt always snap to grid
-Thou shalt always align to a large grid (x16+) when not drawing details
-Thou shalt follow the omni-present law of KISS

 

[evilsquirrel]

=\


my adobe wont open that file...

the problem i'm having now is just annoying...the map wont compile because there is a "brush outside world" error, though i haven't placed any outside the world...

at the moment im trying to track down these brushes in notepad...



after i've fixed them, i'll get back to pimpifying those mountains...

 

[evilsquirrel]

also...i've already broken half of those >___________>


kind of needed to carve to get that gate to look proper, and it didn't add too many extra brushes...

used hollow for my temporary skybox (for testing sections of the map without massive compile times)

need to snap a few things to the grid >_>

cylinders....theres probably only going to be two in the map...(guard tower pole and platform)

i'm good on overlapping, i clip the part that overlaps usually...

scaling spikes...dun have any spikes, but i wont scale them


KISS ....gonna be a bit difficult there, i'm used to source mapping where i can use uber detailed displacements with ease >_______>

 

[Thothie]

my adobe wont open that file...

It's an RMF - ie. A HAMMER file - Adobe Acrobat hijacked your associations, so you'll have to open it from inside Hammer.

the problem i'm having now is just annoying...the map wont compile because there is a "brush outside world" error, though i haven't placed any outside the world...

Can also be caused by a solid entity type used as a point entity. It should give you a brush number you can track down with Map->GotoBrush# though. The skybox may also be causing it, if the map is large. Sadly, it can also be caused by carving, particularly with cylinders, spikes, and arcs...

kind of needed to carve to get that gate to look proper, and it didn't add too many extra brushes...

You never need to do it that way... But the arc has too many sides to it as well, which violates KISS and may cause some issues. Suffice to say, you need to take each brush on that arc, vertex manipulate it to the grid, and split the box it cuts into accordingly anyways, so no need to carve and make weird issues and lag.

In the sacred words of Saint Tommy14

(guard tower pole and platform)

I've not gotten into brush splitting - but keep the #sides of such a decorative cylinder too a minimum, and it's a good idea to draw a boxed clip brush around it, so it doesn't generate a clip plane for every face it has. Finally - if it touches a large flat brush, it'll split the brush it touches during render into the same number of planes as it has sides... So, either leave a 1 unit space between it and the brush it touches, or split the brush it touches to form a box around it, or make send the whole thing to func_wall - as entity brushes do not split solids they touch. Even if you do func_wall it, you still need a player clip brush around it in HL1, to prevent the extra clip planes. If this was another mod, I'd say just turn the whole thing in a func_wall - but that means more entities the CPU has to deal with, and that adds up real quick in MSC - so the 1 unit gap is your best bet.

Pic of two Cylindars, the left is a solid, the right is an entity
Illustration of how evil cylinder on left splits floor:
http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/images/5/5 ... eframe.jpg
Illustration of how evil cylinder on left splits air (clip nodes):
http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/images/f/f ... glview.jpg

Just note in HL1, instead of func_detail, we use func_wall... And note that, leaving a 1 unit gap at the bottom of the left cylinder, eliminates the floor splitting, while surrounding it with a player clip brush prevents the 'air' splitting. Combine the two, and you solve the problem, and save the server's CPU one more entity to keep track of.

In MSC you pretty much always want to favor the 1 unit gap over the func_wall due to all the active ents.

More info in this source wiki:
http://www.hl2world.com/wiki/index.php/ ... il_Brushes

Think I'm done with little G's scripts - yours are on the way.

 

[evilsquirrel]

i've fixed the "brush outside world" with the lazymans approach (select all the things i want, cut, select all, delete, paste). this caused my mountains to be lost to the void, but i've already made new ones, which are MUCH simpler and better looking.

as for the guard tower, i'll just move it up one unit...and surround it with a square player clip...soon as i figure out where that is >____>

the ladders will DEFINATELY need a player clip around them...since they're a bit detailed...


and as for the gate, its only got 8 sides or so =\

 

[Thothie]

and surround it with a square player clip...soon as i figure out where that is >____>

I quoteth from the sacred book of Tommy14:
CLIP- a special texture that when applied to a brush makes an invisible clip plane/wall, that a player cannot move thru, but can fire thru. Often used with transparent textures to make them "solid", or in rough map area so a player does not get "stuck" in play.

In otherwords - a box with a CLIP texture ( ) on all sides, is a player clip brush.

I also provide this image from the archives of ZHLT on reducing clip node lag caused by complex objects/cylinders by using a clip brush:

Clicky to enlarge

the ladders will DEFINATELY need a player clip around them...since they're a bit detailed...

Don't build ladders from boxes... Way too many brushes. Use two box-shaped poles, and then use a {transparent ladder texture on a func_wall set to rendermode:solid at renderamt:255. {Tree_Ladder is a good one, included in mastersword.wad.

 

[evilsquirrel]

so, that method of making ladders will cause it to look as though there are two wooden poles with metal bars going inbetween them, correct?


also, thanks for the clip info

the only problem i've got now (very minor), is that half life wont draw distant objects (player has trouble seeing the mountains in the back)

its not too big of a problem and i'm trying to work out a fix to the massive area where the outpost is located.

edit: if only there was some sort of distance fog i could use to make it less ugly...

 

[Thothie]

so, that method of making ladders will cause it to look as though there are two wooden poles with metal bars going inbetween them, correct?

Yeah, looks like this (inside hammer) in highlands_msc:

The AA brush running up and down it is the func_ladder

Remember, with func_wall's, func_illusionary's, and other visible brush entities, to paint the unseen sides of the object with a texture called NULL - otherwise HL1 will render the unseen sides, eating up valuable FPS.

the only problem i've got now (very minor), is that half life wont draw distant objects (player has trouble seeing the mountains in the back)

Map->Map Properties will give you access to the worldspawn entity. Change the MaxRange (Max Viewable Distance) property. Don't set it any higher than absolutely necessary though. See more = more lag.

edit: if only there was some sort of distance fog i could use to make it less ugly...

I'd say use a script entity to make the rain-style fog - but it drains the hell out of people's FPS. I don't see us getting Spirit of Half-Life anytime soon - seems even the simplest changes to the code prevent us from recompiling just now...

 

[evilsquirrel]

alright, i've fixed (most) of my ladders...but now it looks odd...instead of the ladders background drawing clear (ingame) its black...

and thanks for the tip on draw distance, though it is still the same for people who join the map (not the listenserver host).

could be caused by my non-rad/vis compile i guess...

 

[Thothie]

Perhaps, it's almost certainly the cause of the ladders being black - unless you have the render settings wrong.

 

[evilsquirrel]

i'll get that later...as for now, hammer locks up when hlvis.exe starts going...


all that is required for the mountains now is some moss and vines growing on them, to take away from the monotony.

 

[ceriux]

leak?

 

[evilsquirrel]

no, pretty sure the problem is my temporary sky-universe

 

[Thothie]

Instead of using the Cordon tool and resizing a skybox - you can compile sans the HLVIS/HLRAD temporarily... Or you can use fast compile settings, like so:

hlvis -low -fast "%1.map"
hlrad -nopaque -bounce 0 -smooth 5 -chop 256 -texchop 256 -low -estimate -nolerp -notexscale "%1.map"

This will make a compile that won't be *too* ugly, and be a bit laggier than a full compile - but it'll be functional, will give you a fair idea what the final will look like, and should compile fairly quickly.

 

[evilsquirrel]

i'll keep that in mind, just taking drews advice and adding more detail terrain to the mountains...


on a side note, if anyone joins my map while i'm testing...you'll need to delete the map before you can join again once i test the next time...

you see i can only compile if the map is called smksmart@aol .... >____>

i'll change the name in the final compile, but for now you'll just have to deal with it.

 

[evilsquirrel]

New screenshot:

Who thinks there should be a wooden fence on the hills around the tower?

I'm trying to make the hills less 'blocky' without using vertex manipulation...its turning out to be a very long process...

 

[Jester]

I like the part where you highlighted everything for the screenshot

 

[evilsquirrel]

well, since the mountains are all the same texture...it would just appear as a grey blob if i didn't (since its a jpeg)....

anyways, i compiled that and there were some really bad bugs with the mountain that the guard tower is on...bugs that make it easier to delete parts and redo them...