Topics

1

Mapping Tutorials / Age old mapper conundrum...is there ANY answer please

« on: November 08, 2013, 01:59:05 PM »

Aight, so we know that tf2 doesnt like to hide things behind its skybox, leaving you with something ugly or unprofessional looking, like exhibit A:



it would be far nicer if you couldnt see the room past the hole i've made.



i've skyboxed the whole wall that is the "problem wall" ... to no avail.


so it seems like a lost cause right? lemme throw a wrench in the machine


exhibit B:

notice how there is plenty of map above that last curved ramp. that last ramp is surrounded by skybox



so why, tf2jump, why when i pass a certain point near that last ramp, does it hide the course prior to it? this is what i've been wanting to do for exhibit A but CANNOT get it to work. is it because exhibit B is surround up-down-left-and right  by skybox and exhibit A is not? I'm aware there was a thread about this issue from a long time ago. But I just wanted to see if anyone know what the fuq to do, if anything.

peace and love

(PS: all the outside of the map is nodrawed of course, except for the "problem wall" which i tried skyboxing (had it nodrawed prior to this, no luck on that either))

2

Whatever / hey

« on: October 19, 2013, 05:20:10 AM »

Just wanted everyone to know that you are awesome, even you, I don't care if you hate me. Stay classy. No reply necessary. Pictures very unrelated.

3

Whatever / skip tracer

« on: September 24, 2013, 10:33:18 AM »

I showed him all the secret trails to my map, but every time i spectate him surfing, he skips the tracers. :/



Thanks for playing

4

Surf iT / SuSurf iT / new map - surf_nac finally finished

« on: September 16, 2013, 08:35:22 AM »

Took like 3 hours a day for 2.5 months (give or take some) to create this map. I been adjusting it since midnight (it's now dawn), making minor fixes and tweaking the lighting for the low-brightness folk. newayz


surf_nac

4 stages
2 bonuses

6 secret rooms w/ a trail for each. o:

The stages range from 7 ramps (longest stages, s1 & s4) to 4 ramps (short s2). Takes roughly 1:30min to finish. If I had to say difficulty I'd say it is a challenging t3 or ez t4, but truth be told I'm not the best to judge it's difficulty (tested the map 100's of times). Regardless, it would be more suitable on surf_iT. Stage 1 and stage 4 are the hardest, stage 2 probably the easiest, stage 3 can be a run-ender on any day of the week. nac is short for Nacogdoches, my hometown. (omg wow)

multiple versions of map files to appease the masses:


.bsp

http://www.mediafire.com/download/o91blgqwysnxdgs/surf_nac.bsp

.rar

http://www.mediafire.com/download/trq8bm1d6vsc188/surf_nac.rar

.bsp.bz2

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9f21aodrardmcrp/surf_nac.bsp.bz2


and that's it. it's over. we're through here. fin. Oh yeah there is 35+ custom textures (read: pictures) for you to stare at, and a special cameo for bonus #2. enjoy the slopes :>


a few teaser screens in spoiler.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

5

Mapping Tutorials / numplanes + fakeplanes >= MAX_MAP_PLANES... vrad error

« on: September 13, 2013, 01:01:55 AM »

I've encountered a pretty unfortunate error for my map. It happened once I added the final bonus to it. After looking around on the internet for a quick second I understand that this error occurs when there is too much complex geometry in the map. func_detailing doesnt really help in this case. I read some shit about this "propper" plugin that may help, but I havent done anything with that yet. I'll keep searching for a solution, I just wanted to post here to see if anyone knew.

 plz and thank you

EDIT: fixed problem, doing a number of things (if anyone cares) :

-removed a few light entities that weren't needed
-had some faces that were on the outside of the map (no one sees them) that weren't nodraw textured, applied nodraw texture to them
-had a ramp that was just for show (certainly was "complex geometry") got rid of it.
-clipped off extraneous walls hanging off the visible stages
-changed  lightmap scale to 64 (select all > ctrl +A)
-lined up two of the stages with the brown grid lines on the TOP view. I read that it helps one way or the other.

TL;DR: just the result of bad mapping, move along.


** Executing...
** Command: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\bin\vbsp.exe"
** Parameters: -game "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf" "C:\Users\bohboh\Desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.vmf"

Valve Software - vbsp.exe (Aug 30 2013)
8 threads
materialPath: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\materials
Loading C:\Users\bohboh\Desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.vmf
ConVarRef mat_reduceparticles doesn't point to an existing ConVar
Patching WVT material: maps/surf_nac_a3/dev/dev_blendmeasure_wvt_patch
Patching WVT material: maps/surf_nac_a3/nature/blenddirtgrass008b_lowfriction_wvt_patch
Patching WVT material: maps/surf_nac_a3/brick/blendcobbletocobblesnow001_wvt_patch
fixing up env_cubemap materials on brush sides...
ProcessBlock_Thread: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
ProcessBlock_Thread: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Processing areas...done (0)
Building Faces...done (0)
Chop Details...done (1)
Find Visible Detail Sides...
Merged 4592 detail faces...done (3)
Merging details...done (0)
FixTjuncs...
PruneNodes...
WriteBSP...
done (2)
writing C:\Users\bohboh\Desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.prt...Building visibility clusters...
done (0)
*** Error: Skybox vtf files for skybox/sky_tf2_04 weren't compiled with the same size texture and/or same flags!
Can't load skybox file skybox/sky_tf2_04 to build the default cubemap!
*** Error: Skybox vtf files for skybox/sky_tf2_04 weren't compiled with the same size texture and/or same flags!
Can't load skybox file skybox/sky_tf2_04 to build the default cubemap!
Finding displacement neighbors...
Finding lightmap sample positions...
Displacement Alpha : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Building Physics collision data...
done (11) (1978158 bytes)
Placing detail props : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Compacting texture/material tables...
Reduced 821 texinfos to 668
Reduced 83 texdatas to 72 (2312 bytes to 2004)
Writing C:\Users\bohboh\Desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.bsp
22 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\bin\vvis.exe"
** Parameters: -game "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf" "C:\Users\bohboh\Desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3"

Valve Software - vvis.exe (Aug 27 2013)
8 threads
reading c:\users\bohboh\desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.bsp
reading c:\users\bohboh\desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.prt
2606 portalclusters
6389 numportals
BasePortalVis:       0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
PortalFlow:          0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (24)
Optimized: 1895 visible clusters (0.44%)
Total clusters visible: 425880
Average clusters visible: 163
Building PAS...
Average clusters audible: 332
visdatasize:400671  compressed from 1709536
writing c:\users\bohboh\desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.bsp
24 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\bin\vrad.exe"
** Parameters:  -game "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf" "C:\Users\bohboh\Desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3"

Valve Software - vrad.exe SSE (Aug 30 2013)

      Valve Radiosity Simulator     
8 threads
[Reading texlights from 'lights.rad']
[34 texlights parsed from 'lights.rad']

Loading c:\users\bohboh\desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.bsp
Setting up ray-trace acceleration structure... Done (4.10 seconds)
25185 faces
numplanes + fakeplanes >= MAX_MAP_PLANES

** Executing...
** Command: Copy File
** Parameters: "C:\Users\bohboh\Desktop\mapping\surf_nac_a3.bsp" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\maps\surf_nac_a3.bsp"

6

Surf iT / SuSurf iT / I has a new map.

« on: July 27, 2013, 04:46:07 AM »

After 3 or 4 months of learning Hammer basics I finally have produced something of value.


surf_zbig


7 stages
2 bonuses


According to a few people's opinions it is a t2/t3ish map. It's made for beginning surfers, but they'll still have to put in work to complete the stages. Stages 1 and 2 are relatively easy, 3 and 4 more difficult, and 5, 6 & 7 are the most difficult. It takes roughly ~1:45 to nofail the map. Overall, it'd be more suitable for susurfit.

LINK: (EDIT: recompiled with capture point and func_respawnroom, providing new link.)

.bsp:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/39c94afa8wqm939/surf_zbig.bsp

.rar:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/qu7qpxm8zaa64eq/surf_zbig.rar

note: you'll have to turn sv_cheats on and use hurtme -100000 if you try it in a local server or something. From what I've experienced, I'm under the impression (su)surf_it's cfg has some kind of god mode or something similar. (hopefully lol :> )

feel  to try it out, give criticism, critiques, opinions, what have you, all I ask is you keep in mind I'm relatively new with hammer and still an amateur mapper.  If this doesn't get noticed in a while (I know this post may not get read immediately) , I'll try and get in touch with klanana.

inc screenshot dump