This map is amazing, visually stunning and your endurance and passion on it very impressive.
Great work!
Thanks for the kind words! I'll use them as a blurb on the boxed edition. Glad to see you back on the forums too, hope you can pitch in on some more maps that are being worked on.
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
CHANGELOG [24th of april 2016]
o Began detailing the Shipping-side exit of Ventilation
o Replaced dirty pipes in clean rooms with shiny blue-ish pipes
o Placed a red light over the Sewer - Purification vent entrance in Sewer
o Improved Occlusion Geometry in Purification
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
Short changelog this week, but lots of time and work invested in them.
CHANGELOG [8th of may 2016]
o Began detailing Ventilation, changed its layout somewhat - still loads of greybox
o Replaced clean catwalks in dirty rooms with dirtier catwalks
o Added collision geometry to the fan in Stability so jetpack marines cannot fly outside the map anymore (thanks Flinkfuse!)
If you follow me on Twitter (what, you don't? ) you may have seen yesterday's previews. Here they are from today's in-game perspective.
ZavaroTucson, ArizonaJoin Date: 2005-02-14Member: 41174Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
I think Ventilation's catwalks need to be expanded for comfort and utility. They are really, really narrow which typically makes engagements very difficult, especially with the holes you can fall into with the pipes in the corner there. I'm also not sold on the railings, as the exacerbate the narrowness.
Otherwise, I'm a big fan of the room, and how much better it is for aliens. You do need to replace those ventilation crates with some sort of prop that would make more sense in a giant air vent. Perhaps large fan parts?
Every time i see or play this map, im thinking it needs to be OFFICIAL NS2 MAP and each time im more and more convinced. such detailed map and great layout! my favorite custom map of all times!
We had almost a 3 hour game on woozas server 21 vs 21 battelling it out taking bases & Arcing stuff, onoses raping commandstations, baseswapping..this mapsize is perfect for massive games!!! it was incredible both team came to readyroom happy talking about all the stuff that happend during the game after it was over even during the start of the next map when it loaded up.
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
edited May 2016
Here we go!
CHANGELOG [15th of may 2016]
o Completely detailed the corridor between Life Support and Ventilation
o Completed detailing the connection between Shipping and Ventilation
o Further detailing in Ventilation
o Japanese text on toilet signs, gave aliens a place to do their business in the ready room's Random join portal
o Fixed small holes in Purification
o Moved chair in Upper Wasteflow to prevent getting stuck behind it
o Fixed occlusion geometry in Lower Wasteflow making the door under the vent entrance blink in and out of existence
o Fixed error message regarding a missing texture
EDIT: Whoops, some big occlusion geometry fixes needed in Ventilation, and a prop poking through the Ventilation-Shipping vent. Will fix.
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
edited May 2016
A shorter list than intended due to a family birthday and a power outage, but I will make up for this next week, dammit!
CHANGELOG [22nd of May 2016]
o Improved and fixed some occlusion geometry in the ready room
o Continued detailing in Ventilation
o Tried to make the transition from Life Support to Ventilation a little smoother with trash decals, dirty props and gentler lighting
EDIT: Published a hotfix to seal off the inexplicably non-collidable wall in Ventilation.
A shorter list than intended due to a family birthday and a power outage, but I will make up for this next week, dammit!
CHANGELOG [22nd of May 2016]
o Improved and fixed some occlusion geometry in the ready room
o Continued detailing in Ventilation
o Tried to make the transition from Life Support to Ventilation a little smoother with trash decals, dirty props and gentler lighting
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
edited May 2016
Plenty of progress in Ventilation this week!
CHANGELOG [29th of May 2016]
o Further detailing in Ventilation and the air shaft towards Purification
o Re-added the vent between Ventilation and the corridor leading to Life Support
o Fixed a whole bunch of little bugs (thanks IeptBarakat!)
EDIT: Derp, just quickly published a hotfix to unblock one of the Ventilation vents.
Lol it was indeed pretty annoying sometimes but I always thought it was more a NS2 bug than a mapping issue.
It's because of where the world origin (0,0,0) was located: 20 units above the floor in Main Hold. I moved the whole map up 128 units, so now the origin is outside the map, and that fixed it. It's an NS2 bug more than a mapping bug, but can be fixed with mapping.
Lol it was indeed pretty annoying sometimes but I always thought it was more a NS2 bug than a mapping issue.
It's because of where the world origin (0,0,0) was located: 20 units above the floor in Main Hold. I moved the whole map up 128 units, so now the origin is outside the map, and that fixed it. It's an NS2 bug more than a mapping bug, but can be fixed with mapping.
Hi, flat is this still the case? As I played caged recently and would still get hovering casings, I'll test it again tonight just to clear things up.
Also try entering the parts below purification with an Onos, there's some weird collision stuff going on. (You can go through some pipes but not all of them)
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Congrats on going offical!
Definitely deserved and well done.
I'm not sure why the map was apparently rushed into the recent patch, because there seems to be quite a few issues, let alone the performance issues and lack of low lights.
You better get this fixed before everyone gets their fancy new skin achievement or this map wont see much play, sadly.
I think it's amazing how some parts of the map haven't changed at all. Looking at you, Satan's butthole.
Well, the environment didn't change. The names did
Sooo... I plugged in a CRT today. One of the things I did was boot up Natural selection and just have a look around some old maps, Caged included. Bear with me a bit as this is a bit rambling, but I'll get to a point.
The game still looks stunning on a CRT regardless off the very low texture resolution and low geometric complexity. I had forgotten just how good it looked before the great LCD plague hit. Usually if you look at something like the original Far cry a few years later it looks so much more bland and unconvincing than you remembered it. In this case I wasn't wearing rose tinted glases, but something more jade coloured.
What was really striking was gamma correction, which was only supported on analog displays. This allowed light sources to appear very bright, similar to the way HDR with tonemapping looks (without reflections and other shaders, correct HDR has no big benefit). Toghether with the very soft, natural looking shadows and indirect lighting from radiosity it looks fabulous.
What I'm seeing here is is slightly too bland lighting. What you can try to fake this appearance in NS2: Make a narrow, bright spot, creating an oversaturated spot on the ground. Then put a wide angled spot beneath it, inside the floor, such that it's cone just intersects the original light at the floor and give it a fairly wide reach with a soft light. If the floor is coloured the reflected light needs a slightly different tint.
NS1 levels are much more colourful; not just coloured lighting. Caged in particular had browns (rusty metal plating, rusty metal gratings, pipes), blues (walls that look painted blue, as well as a very bluish metal texture) and pink (the wall_lab set that practically defined all the 1.0x levels) as well as some greens. What I'm seeing here is only different shades of grays with ocasional yellow-black warning-trims to spruce things up. You might be busy making sure the map is balanced and playable right now. But please, consider adding more colour in the future.
Simpler alterations of existing prop and level textures I believe I can help you with if you want. The map needs something that's not gray. It also makes sense as a mnemonic device; it helps new players learn the levels and see where they are. They go "ah, I'm near marine spawn, because the walls are pink-ish and matte-paint/ceramic looking near marine start", or "ah, I'm near the sewer, because everything is rusty and degraded".
Comments
Not too sure about the texture on them yet, but it'll do for now.
o Began detailing the Shipping-side exit of Ventilation
o Replaced dirty pipes in clean rooms with shiny blue-ish pipes
o Placed a red light over the Sewer - Purification vent entrance in Sewer
o Improved Occlusion Geometry in Purification
CHANGELOG [8th of may 2016]
o Began detailing Ventilation, changed its layout somewhat - still loads of greybox
o Replaced clean catwalks in dirty rooms with dirtier catwalks
o Added collision geometry to the fan in Stability so jetpack marines cannot fly outside the map anymore (thanks Flinkfuse!)
If you follow me on Twitter (what, you don't?
edit: Hm, something about a map? I forgot...
Otherwise, I'm a big fan of the room, and how much better it is for aliens. You do need to replace those ventilation crates with some sort of prop that would make more sense in a giant air vent. Perhaps large fan parts?
We had almost a 3 hour game on woozas server 21 vs 21 battelling it out taking bases & Arcing stuff, onoses raping commandstations, baseswapping..this mapsize is perfect for massive games!!! it was incredible both team came to readyroom happy talking about all the stuff that happend during the game after it was over even during the start of the next map when it loaded up.
CHANGELOG [15th of may 2016]
o Completely detailed the corridor between Life Support and Ventilation
o Completed detailing the connection between Shipping and Ventilation
o Further detailing in Ventilation
o Japanese text on toilet signs, gave aliens a place to do their business in the ready room's Random join portal
o Fixed small holes in Purification
o Moved chair in Upper Wasteflow to prevent getting stuck behind it
o Fixed occlusion geometry in Lower Wasteflow making the door under the vent entrance blink in and out of existence
o Fixed error message regarding a missing texture
EDIT: Whoops, some big occlusion geometry fixes needed in Ventilation, and a prop poking through the Ventilation-Shipping vent. Will fix.
EDIT 2: Fixed the issues above and published.
CHANGELOG [22nd of May 2016]
o Improved and fixed some occlusion geometry in the ready room
o Continued detailing in Ventilation
o Tried to make the transition from Life Support to Ventilation a little smoother with trash decals, dirty props and gentler lighting
EDIT: Published a hotfix to seal off the inexplicably non-collidable wall in Ventilation.
excuses excuses
CHANGELOG [29th of May 2016]
o Further detailing in Ventilation and the air shaft towards Purification
o Re-added the vent between Ventilation and the corridor leading to Life Support
o Fixed a whole bunch of little bugs (thanks IeptBarakat!)
EDIT: Derp, just quickly published a hotfix to unblock one of the Ventilation vents.
CHANGELOG [30th of May 2016]
o Fixed the ancient bug where bullet casings would float in mid-air
It's because of where the world origin (0,0,0) was located: 20 units above the floor in Main Hold. I moved the whole map up 128 units, so now the origin is outside the map, and that fixed it. It's an NS2 bug more than a mapping bug, but can be fixed with mapping.
Hi, flat is this still the case? As I played caged recently and would still get hovering casings, I'll test it again tonight just to clear things up.
Read a couple posts ago, it should be fixed since monday.
o Sorry... temporarily out of service
-Made the map official, no biggie
Flickering part:
White pixels (not airtight):
Missing collision geo:
Occlusion geo:
Console errors:
Also try entering the parts below purification with an Onos, there's some weird collision stuff going on. (You can go through some pipes but not all of them)
Definitely deserved and well done.
I'm not sure why the map was apparently rushed into the recent patch, because there seems to be quite a few issues, let alone the performance issues and lack of low lights.
You better get this fixed before everyone gets their fancy new skin achievement or this map wont see much play, sadly.
http://imgur.com/a/WcytE
You need to replace the workshop version of caged with that version for Sunday!
Well, the environment didn't change. The names did
its old enough to have grandchildren
The game still looks stunning on a CRT regardless off the very low texture resolution and low geometric complexity. I had forgotten just how good it looked before the great LCD plague hit. Usually if you look at something like the original Far cry a few years later it looks so much more bland and unconvincing than you remembered it. In this case I wasn't wearing rose tinted glases, but something more jade coloured.
What was really striking was gamma correction, which was only supported on analog displays. This allowed light sources to appear very bright, similar to the way HDR with tonemapping looks (without reflections and other shaders, correct HDR has no big benefit). Toghether with the very soft, natural looking shadows and indirect lighting from radiosity it looks fabulous.
What I'm seeing here is is slightly too bland lighting. What you can try to fake this appearance in NS2: Make a narrow, bright spot, creating an oversaturated spot on the ground. Then put a wide angled spot beneath it, inside the floor, such that it's cone just intersects the original light at the floor and give it a fairly wide reach with a soft light. If the floor is coloured the reflected light needs a slightly different tint.
NS1 levels are much more colourful; not just coloured lighting. Caged in particular had browns (rusty metal plating, rusty metal gratings, pipes), blues (walls that look painted blue, as well as a very bluish metal texture) and pink (the wall_lab set that practically defined all the 1.0x levels) as well as some greens. What I'm seeing here is only different shades of grays with ocasional yellow-black warning-trims to spruce things up. You might be busy making sure the map is balanced and playable right now. But please, consider adding more colour in the future.
Simpler alterations of existing prop and level textures I believe I can help you with if you want. The map needs something that's not gray. It also makes sense as a mnemonic device; it helps new players learn the levels and see where they are. They go "ah, I'm near marine spawn, because the walls are pink-ish and matte-paint/ceramic looking near marine start", or "ah, I'm near the sewer, because everything is rusty and degraded".