<!--quoteo(post=2032667:date=Nov 23 2012, 04:26 AM:name=Lofung)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Lofung @ Nov 23 2012, 04:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2032667"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->please keep up with the clean style :D this is what we lack now and we used to have it in tanith/eclipse/veil..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
With the current art assets it's hard to build a clean style theme that doesn't in some way directly look like Veil, we are trying to keep to the clean style as much as possible while attempting to 'grunge' it up a little. I'm personally really excited to finally show what we have come up with and will be updating the forums within a few days hopefully with the updated marine spawn.
Hey guys. First of all, apologies from both of us for slow updates! Have been exceptionally busy with work/life/etc.
Together we have been working to find a unique theme for our Hera. We decided to each design a room to polish and bounce our styles back and forth with a few detail passes periodically.
Truthfully neither of us wanted to do the Marine Spawn but scenes as I designed the front facade with something in mind for inside I was lumped with the challenge.
MS probably needed the most redesign work of all rooms. I have opened it right up and added some marine-friendly play spaces. The large space also helps eliminate the corridor crawl of 'Maintenance Corridor', too. I have done my best to retain some of the original Hera details including the catwalk over the door and the three ceiling crossbeams.
It's not quite finished but close enough for a few screenshots to keep you in the loop until the rest is done.
As with any remake, you are always walking on thin ice so our fingers are crossed you are happy with what you see so far!
FlaterectomyNetherlandistanJoin Date: 2005-02-03Member: 39643Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
<3
Great work, I love what you guys are doing. Hope I can approach your quality with Caged once I get to the detail phase, but I doubt it. I'm excited, I hope I can run around this map some day soon.
fmponeJoin Date: 2011-07-05Member: 108086Members, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=2046443:date=Dec 15 2012, 08:37 PM:name=alibi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (alibi @ Dec 15 2012, 08:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046443"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hey guys. First of all, apologies from both of us for slow updates! Have been exceptionally busy with work/life/etc.
Together we have been working to find a unique theme for our Hera. We decided to each design a room to polish and bounce our styles back and forth with a few detail passes periodically.
Truthfully neither of us wanted to do the Marine Spawn but scenes as I designed the front facade with something in mind for inside I was lumped with the challenge.
MS probably needed the most redesign work of all rooms. I have opened it right up and added some marine-friendly play spaces. The large space also helps eliminate the corridor crawl of 'Maintenance Corridor', too. I have done my best to retain some of the original Hera details including the catwalk over the door and the three ceiling crossbeams.
It's not quite finished but close enough for a few screenshots to keep you in the loop until the rest is done.
As with any remake, you are always walking on thin ice so our fingers are crossed you are happy with what you see so far!
<!--quoteo(post=2046721:date=Dec 16 2012, 04:54 PM:name=Jekt)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jekt @ Dec 16 2012, 04:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046721"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Booo cargo containers. The geometry is more than suitable that it just becomes clutter. Otherwise looking good.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's there for a reason, to vis block players from seeing all the way across marine spawn as well as into the landing pad.
Are you basing the marine start off any of the NS1 iterations? Because I'm having trouble recognizing any part of it (with the exception of the landing pad). Otherwise, I like the geometry. The props at this stage do seem cluttered however, vis-blockers or not.
<!--quoteo(post=2046787:date=Dec 16 2012, 07:55 PM:name=Supernorn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Supernorn @ Dec 16 2012, 07:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046787"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Are you basing the marine start off any of the NS1 iterations? Because I'm having trouble recognizing any part of it (with the exception of the landing pad). Otherwise, I like the geometry. The props at this stage do seem cluttered however, vis-blockers or not.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As we stated previously we are redesigning quite a few areas of Hera, some sections will be more similar to the original than others, obviously marine spawn was completely redesigned from the ground up but we have kept a very basic layout of the original, for example the maintenance access is still in the same general area, the path to reception is roughly in the same area, the walkway above the door is still there, the elevator at the rear of ms is there.
We are attempting to create a map that is more our own rather than a direct HD remake of the original like Eclipse or Veil.
As for cluttered props, please be specific as to what you are referring to so we can make adjustments, this is just the first detail pass that we have completed.
Thanks for the feedback! <b>fmpone</b>: Humbled. Worth mentioning, many design pointers have come from Veil to keep at least some visual connection between the two from the originals.
Appologies for the container. It has to stay. The rest of the little boxes are just there to compliment the whole Shipping Bay thing. Nothing is final. Anyways, I don't think containers in a shipping bay are a bad thing? hehe :D The most important thing about Hera is the story behind the rooms so we want everything to feel as real and honest as possible.
But yeah, the room is large, probably the largest room in the map. Even if we were making a direct remake, the original MS was already too cramped to comfortably fit a TP.
Words do not suffice to describe how badass this looks. For some reason the striped texture under the cable in the second shot gives me the vibes. ;) This is how ns2 maps should look like.
Hey! This looks like my future favorite map :o ;) Nice atmosphere guys.. The colors really work well together and the brushwork and texturing are superb :)
InsaneAnomalyJoin Date: 2002-05-13Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Excellent work!
I agree that it's a little visually busy in places - it might be ok in-game, but just make sure that key elements like techpoints and doors are easily noticeable at a glance.
By the way have you guys got a layout for this map yet? You really should have something in mind before you go about detailing the whole thing! Get it playtested lots and I'm sure it would be considered to be added officially!
Looks amazing, but I'm also unable to recognize marine start from those screenshots. Maybe it's just the perspective, but the original was a pretty simple open room design whereas this one seems very busy and claustrophobic in comparison.
<!--quoteo(post=2047139:date=Dec 17 2012, 03:35 PM:name=PogoP)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PogoP @ Dec 17 2012, 03:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047139"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->By the way have you guys got a layout for this map yet? You really should have something in mind before you go about detailing the whole thing! Get it playtested lots and I'm sure it would be considered to be added officially!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We have a layout sorted which is slightly different from the original layout as you can tell, marine spawn is one of two sections that we decided to detail along with reception, once those are completed we will finish off greyboxing the map and release it on steamworks.
The only reason we detailed marine spawn was simply to establish a theme for the rest of the level, we haven't detailed much of anything else and are unlikely to until the map has been playtested and any potential layout issues have been fixed.
Really good work! You have cut down my level designer self esteem, again :-) I really admire your geometry-flow and trimming. The lighting is also excelent. There isn't really anything wrong in those screenshots. Judging from previous work of both of you, I see Alibi's geometry awesomeness synergy with Janos lighting excelence :)
So from an objective point of view there isn't really nothing to criticize about. It just my subjective feeling, that I don't dig this "Docking" style too much. Also for me, I had Hera always connected with dominat yellow color, dunno why. In fact there is no well done NS2 map with dominant yellow lighting scheme and Hera could had been an opportunity to fill this gap. However achieving that would require a new texture and prop set of its own. The point of consideration here is, that Hera was such important and iconic map for NS universe, that UWE should really consider to devote some proffesional support to this project.
But these are only my subjective ramblings. This is your project and your vision and so far you have executed it flawlessly so continue the direction you feel most comfortable about :)
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
<!--quoteo(post=2047613:date=Dec 18 2012, 06:46 AM:name=Rudy.cz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Rudy.cz @ Dec 18 2012, 06:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047613"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So from an objective point of view there isn't really nothing to criticize about. It just my subjective feeling, that I don't dig this "Docking" style too much. Also for me, I had Hera always connected with dominat yellow color, dunno why. In fact there is no well done NS2 map with dominant yellow lighting scheme and Hera could had been an opportunity to fill this gap. However achieving that would require a new texture and prop set of its own.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have to agree with this. The shots look awesome. Superb. But if it's not yellow, it's not hera for me. :) Hera went through so many iterations over the years that with the exception of a few key locations, the only thing I think is important to its identity is it's style. Lots of yellow, and lots of difference between the polished upper level and the industrial underbelly.
The texture sets you are working with are pretty neutral in hue, so I'm pretty sure you could pull it off if you want to without any new texture work. My suggestion would be to take all your blue lights and make them an extremely warm and saturated yellow, almost an orange but not quite. The original hera had yellow/green lights shining on a pink texture set. To achieve the same thing, you'd need to bring the pink color into your lights. Either have a separate set of yellow spotlights with orange regular lights below them as a sort of "ambient" lighting, or combine the two colors together into the spots.
Comments
With the current art assets it's hard to build a clean style theme that doesn't in some way directly look like Veil, we are trying to keep to the clean style as much as possible while attempting to 'grunge' it up a little.
I'm personally really excited to finally show what we have come up with and will be updating the forums within a few days hopefully with the updated marine spawn.
Indeed, but we are hoping to create some custom 'holo' props for Hera in the near future.
First of all, apologies from both of us for slow updates! Have been exceptionally busy with work/life/etc.
Together we have been working to find a unique theme for our Hera.
We decided to each design a room to polish and bounce our styles back and forth with a few detail passes periodically.
Truthfully neither of us wanted to do the Marine Spawn but scenes as I designed the front facade with something in mind for inside I was lumped with the challenge.
MS probably needed the most redesign work of all rooms. I have opened it right up and added some marine-friendly play spaces. The large space also helps eliminate the corridor crawl of 'Maintenance Corridor', too. I have done my best to retain some of the original Hera details including the catwalk over the door and the three ceiling crossbeams.
It's not quite finished but close enough for a few screenshots to keep you in the loop until the rest is done.
As with any remake, you are always walking on thin ice so our fingers are crossed you are happy with what you see so far!
Techpoint:
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8210/8276580590_76edcc0436_b.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
View across to the door showing the ceiling height, TP location, ramps up around the door, and access toward cargo/reception etc.
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8275518279_0627e55e66_b.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Close up of the power node play space which also gives access to the catwalk:
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8345/8275518137_61df43be92_b.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
...and the catwalk as viewed from outside. Have changed a lot of textures to theme with inside.
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8341/8276580194_bb41fbf14c_b.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
More soon!
Great work, I love what you guys are doing. Hope I can approach your quality with Caged once I get to the detail phase, but I doubt it. I'm excited, I hope I can run around this map some day soon.
First of all, apologies from both of us for slow updates! Have been exceptionally busy with work/life/etc.
Together we have been working to find a unique theme for our Hera.
We decided to each design a room to polish and bounce our styles back and forth with a few detail passes periodically.
Truthfully neither of us wanted to do the Marine Spawn but scenes as I designed the front facade with something in mind for inside I was lumped with the challenge.
MS probably needed the most redesign work of all rooms. I have opened it right up and added some marine-friendly play spaces. The large space also helps eliminate the corridor crawl of 'Maintenance Corridor', too. I have done my best to retain some of the original Hera details including the catwalk over the door and the three ceiling crossbeams.
It's not quite finished but close enough for a few screenshots to keep you in the loop until the rest is done.
As with any remake, you are always walking on thin ice so our fingers are crossed you are happy with what you see so far!
Techpoint:
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8210/8276580590_76edcc0436_b.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
View across to the door showing the ceiling height, TP location, ramps up around the door, and access toward cargo/reception etc.
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8275518279_0627e55e66_b.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Close up of the power node play space which also gives access to the catwalk:
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8345/8275518137_61df43be92_b.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
...and the catwalk as viewed from outside. Have changed a lot of textures to theme with inside.
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8341/8276580194_bb41fbf14c_b.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
More soon!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't been around too much, but I wanted to compliment you on this
Some areas are perhaps a little too visually noisy though. Especially in that second shot.
Keep it up, this is looking badass!
It's there for a reason, to vis block players from seeing all the way across marine spawn as well as into the landing pad.
As we stated previously we are redesigning quite a few areas of Hera, some sections will be more similar to the original than others, obviously marine spawn was completely redesigned from the ground up but we have kept a very basic layout of the original, for example the maintenance access is still in the same general area, the path to reception is roughly in the same area, the walkway above the door is still there, the elevator at the rear of ms is there.
We are attempting to create a map that is more our own rather than a direct HD remake of the original like Eclipse or Veil.
As for cluttered props, please be specific as to what you are referring to so we can make adjustments, this is just the first detail pass that we have completed.
<b>fmpone</b>: Humbled. Worth mentioning, many design pointers have come from Veil to keep at least some visual connection between the two from the originals.
Appologies for the container. It has to stay. The rest of the little boxes are just there to compliment the whole Shipping Bay thing. Nothing is final. Anyways, I don't think containers in a shipping bay are a bad thing? hehe :D
The most important thing about Hera is the story behind the rooms so we want everything to feel as real and honest as possible.
But yeah, the room is large, probably the largest room in the map.
Even if we were making a direct remake, the original MS was already too cramped to comfortably fit a TP.
:)
I agree that it's a little visually busy in places - it might be ok in-game, but just make sure that key elements like techpoints and doors are easily noticeable at a glance.
We have a layout sorted which is slightly different from the original layout as you can tell, marine spawn is one of two sections that we decided to detail along with reception, once those are completed we will finish off greyboxing the map and release it on steamworks.
The only reason we detailed marine spawn was simply to establish a theme for the rest of the level, we haven't detailed much of anything else and are unlikely to until the map has been playtested and any potential layout issues have been fixed.
So from an objective point of view there isn't really nothing to criticize about. It just my subjective feeling, that I don't dig this "Docking" style too much. Also for me, I had Hera always connected with dominat yellow color, dunno why. In fact there is no well done NS2 map with dominant yellow lighting scheme and Hera could had been an opportunity to fill this gap. However achieving that would require a new texture and prop set of its own. The point of consideration here is, that Hera was such important and iconic map for NS universe, that UWE should really consider to devote some proffesional support to this project.
But these are only my subjective ramblings. This is your project and your vision and so far you have executed it flawlessly so continue the direction you feel most comfortable about :)
I have to agree with this. The shots look awesome. Superb. But if it's not yellow, it's not hera for me. :) Hera went through so many iterations over the years that with the exception of a few key locations, the only thing I think is important to its identity is it's style. Lots of yellow, and lots of difference between the polished upper level and the industrial underbelly.
The texture sets you are working with are pretty neutral in hue, so I'm pretty sure you could pull it off if you want to without any new texture work. My suggestion would be to take all your blue lights and make them an extremely warm and saturated yellow, almost an orange but not quite. The original hera had yellow/green lights shining on a pink texture set. To achieve the same thing, you'd need to bring the pink color into your lights. Either have a separate set of yellow spotlights with orange regular lights below them as a sort of "ambient" lighting, or combine the two colors together into the spots.