General WIP thread

[Gary]

Next up, breach and plant c4 lol

Erg, now look what you made me do.

[destiny]

lol gary looks nice.

[MaestraFénix]

Comented in Youtube.

Good job.

[fug4life]

Turned the huge brush temple I made a while back into a model and a skybox model (sky box version is much more optimised).

I'm really pleased with what you can do with propper, I hit the max model polycount trying to make something yesterday

A 4096x4096 temple and a weee .0625 skybox version


A 4096x4096 temple and a weee .0625 skybox version

[Tysn]

Valve should really just make their own supported version of propper (IIRC propper is just a modified vbsp.exe that outputs to a .mdl rather than a .bsp, hence some of its oddities). It is without a doubt the most useful third party tool for mapping for source. While some people whinge about how you could just use a modeling program, the speed at which it allows you to turn a chunk of architecture that has been perfectly fit in with the rest of the map into an optimized, instanceable, vertex-lit model is unbelievably useful.

Considering how a lot of other engines/games are based almost entirely around using models instead of bsp geometry I really wish valve would look into something like this. Though there is some interesting stuff in the alien swarm sdk with .vmf instancing within maps.

[Gary]

Sadly, models are only vertex-lit and lightmaps can't be applied to them. Models also don't block visibility like brushwork does.

Though many game engines use models now, Source is quite behind, excluding the Portal 2 version which is now on par with other modern engines.


Propper is quite useful if you need a model every once and a while and don't want to learn a modeling program.

[Tysn]

Propper is quite useful if you need a model every once and a while and don't want to learn a modeling program.

I've made prop models in XSI for a long time and I still use propper. The fact that propper takes care of all of the associated file editing/renaming/moving with both the model and it's textures makes it far more efficient in terms of map production than using a modeling program for architectural details. You can literally take a group of brushes and turn them into a usable prop model without closing hammer in under a minute.

Vis blocking? Considering how most of the things you would use propper for would be func_details anyway I don't see how that's a problem. Vertex lighting can be a problem, but the -staticproplighting parameter works fine as long as you don't go overboard trying to use massive walls/pillars as models. Not to mention vertex lighting can be a good thing if what you were normally going to use as brush entity was going to be moving through differently lit areas (elevators, for instance).

[Gary]

Very valid points there.

Talking about this makes me want to map, but I just don't know, I find joy in mapping some stuff, but if I don't like the way something is coming out, I give up on it and throw it in the trash. If I could only finish one thing, it would be zombie survival, but I've tried a bunch of different settings(swamp, snowy and now coast) and different layouts, it seems nothing is really making me happy. Hopefully coast theme will turn out well.

[fug4life]

Agree with Tysn Propper should be just included with hammer, I know its limited, but for what it can do, it does very well indeed. And the speed, of doing things (even just planning) whilst in hammer, just makes life so much easier.

Edit, I mean just look at the lovely displacement stuff you can make:



For someone who can just about open xsi or max, before, I could only dream of modeling stuff like this.

[Axel_m3sh]

meep

spring break for me means fun tiem!
[BBvideo 425,350][/BBvideo]

[Shana]

Its so dead here so im gonna dump some safe WIP screens in here more often.

Most likely won't be showing new areas, only rehashed old areas.

[LivingWithGames]

You update the broken escape maps...very nice.

I can see you changed some things in the maps,but I'm not sure.

If you can put a comparison,it will be very much appreciated.

[fug4life]

[Keychain]

[fug4life]

Looks like a 'storm the fortress map' I like the trees in the center, may I ask where you sourced them from?