Skulk-friendly Walls
WarpZone
Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6264Members
Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6264Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Is this a little TOO easy?</div> Another little tidbit I'm working on. I'm going to add more details, machines, etc. to the walls later. This is just the simplest form of the corridors, so far.
I like the way the lighting is coming along, and of course, I'm proud of the r_speeds, which are generally around 400 and peak (so far) at about 520 (Marine view)
The main thing here is, I've designed the walls specifically to be skulk-friendly. You can literally run 360s around on the walls with no real effort, and that double pipe along one of the walls is just right for a skulk or lerk to nest and have a clear shot at the middle 50% of the walkway.
Obviously, the entire map can't be like this. I'll probably have some of those impossible square walls with girders around the marine start. But I did my best to make this particular group of hallways a skulk's wet dream. Do you think I succeeded? <i>Feed me criticism!</i>
[Edit: Darker pics.]
I like the way the lighting is coming along, and of course, I'm proud of the r_speeds, which are generally around 400 and peak (so far) at about 520 (Marine view)
The main thing here is, I've designed the walls specifically to be skulk-friendly. You can literally run 360s around on the walls with no real effort, and that double pipe along one of the walls is just right for a skulk or lerk to nest and have a clear shot at the middle 50% of the walkway.
Obviously, the entire map can't be like this. I'll probably have some of those impossible square walls with girders around the marine start. But I did my best to make this particular group of hallways a skulk's wet dream. Do you think I succeeded? <i>Feed me criticism!</i>
[Edit: Darker pics.]
Comments
e/ as far as textures go i think it'd look alot getter if you added a different texture as a sortof border around the bottom. Then it'd look great. maybe have it stick out of the wall just a bit because it'd still be easy to climb up as a skulk.
red: where a nicec border texture might be good?
blue: a nice walkway texture?
green: the ceiling would look cool with a darker texture.
keep up the good work
It's true that pipes in our houses are usually built to right angles, but you sometimes see curved pipes or hoses, in industrial places like oil refineries or especially on sci-fi shows, you sometimes see curved pipes. Besides, it looks too awesome and works too well for cover to change it now. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
The hallway is supposed to look like it was built using pre-fabricated sections with a curve at the right angles, like the elbow joint of a pipe.
I dunno about adding a lip at the bottom. We'll see about that. As we saw in my sewer screenshot, I could always just split up the walls to make them curvy instead of angular... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Basically if you have a wall and a tube in the center, BSP or CSG cuts up the wall horribly. However, if you put a entity like a func_wall between the wall and the pipe the wall dont get cut up. Entities dont cut up world brushes.
[edit]also buffers like those look good if you do them right.[/edit]
But all the pipes you see in that screenshot that are in red hallways are entities already, thanks. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
[Edit: Oh! i see what you're saying... they should block light, but have flanges that don't block light... I get you... good idea! hmmm... now to implement it...]
I turned off the gamma entity, and uploaded some non-edited images. As you can see, it looks very dark now, yet you can still see what you are doing. How's this look for skulkiness? (Not the pipes with lights right above them; the red areas.) I refuse to remove -ambient .003 .003 .003 from my compile settings; no part of this map will be pitch black.
NS maps should <i>look</i> dark but not actually <i>be</i> dark. Far too many user-created maps (I don't just mean funmaps, but also serious maps like the first attempt at 11th hour) are mostly pitch black with just a few lights in them, which actually makes it harder for the kharra to navigate, because the marines are the only ones with flashlights. Also, they look bad and are a strain on the eyes to look at.
Just add some pretty details and I'd say you are well on your way to one nice lookin map.
However, if you put a entity like a func_wall between the wall and the pipe the wall dont get cut up. Entities dont cut up world brushes.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Zuh? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Adding a brush entity to a map doesn't affect the main hull (the brushes from entities #1 and up <i>aren't reconstructed into a hull</i> before the worldspawn BSP tree is built), so "adding a buffer" won't have an effect one way or the other on the r_speeds from the worldspawn. The buffer you describe would be stored separately from the main hull and moved into position for lighting calculations and at runtime--both take place after the final geometry has been calculated.
Making the pipes themselves entities (which WarpZone has done) is the way to go if you're looking to minimize cuts from the interaction between the pipes and the wall. If you really want to absolutely minimize the number of faces, making individual pipe segments into distinct entities would lower the face count further since the pipes form a concave shape and therefore cut themselves, but that would sacrifice lighting quality and entity count so it's not worth it for this application IMHO.
EDIT: italicized area revised for accuracy: used to say the brushes weren't examined -- CSG does make a face list for each entity before trees are constructed by BSP
Quark can do that? <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo--> I did this in Hammer! <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Either way you built it thought, that room pwns. Cover it in some infestation and away you go. Too bad the clip texture doesn't interact well with wallclimb, otherwise we could add in all the details we want and still not have any problems. BTW: does anyone know if that has been addressed at all for 2.0, or even if it's a possibility?
IIRC, skulk/clip interaction isn't changing for 2.0.
<i>The following is speculation, not fact:</i> I haven't had confirmation of this from Flayra, but I suspect that the wallwalk code requires the skulk's bounding box to be touching the vis hull so it can determine how to light the model--I know he wrote custom code to make skulks an exception to the floor light value system. If that is the case, the clip texture is ignored when creating the vis hull, and it wouldn't be possible to solve the problem without fairly major changes to the wallwalk code because the clip texture doesn't generate faces in the vis hull.
Okay, so just change the code so that if the skulk can't determine the lighting color of the wall it's currently climbing, it uses the last known value of a wall it touched. It won't look entirely graceful, but it would be better than not being able to climb certian walls. Alternatively, it could assume an arbitrary light value such as color 128,128,128. Not perfect, but generally better than fullbright.
Hey, you don't need to download Phyton: The latest alpha version does no longer need it. It is all inclusive and up to date with some new toolbars (that can be disabled in the menu).
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=38339' target='_blank'>Here is the forum post about configuring QuArK for NS</a>
<a href='http://quark.sourceforge.net/download/quark-win32-20030725.zip' target='_blank'>The very lates QuArK Alpha from Juli 25th, still hot!</a>
Most people still use 6.3.0 because they have not found the alpha yet. And the Alpha version on the homepage is an older build that still requires Miniphyton. So uninstall your miniphyton, you wont need it any longer.
@Everyone: Feel free to join the QuArK group at www.yahoogroops.com. It will also keep you informed about the latest alpha and beta versions.
Nerd the Third, can you direct me to any websites that will instruct me on how to set up Quark to find my Half-Life directory, my ZHLT subfolder, and where to specify command line parameters for the compile tools? And then, you know, how to actually use the darn thing? The Quark options menu seems even more obtuse than Worldcraft's was the first time I saw it, if that's possible. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Anyways, setting quark up... let's see.
Edit-> Configuration: Select half-life in box on the left. You can specify your half-life directory by clicking the periods to the extreme right in the Directory of Half Life box. Then click on installed add ons. It will go through and process everything in the half-life addons directory and come up with a list. Select then click ok on each of the NS add ons (order doesn't matter).
From here you can specify compile settings if you'd like (even has room to add in things besides the default four, like opt_plns) or you can leave those settings alone and run it through a batch compiler. Under map editor settings you can select default textures for new polyhedrons. (polyhedrons or polys are quark's way of naming brushes)
While you're in this menu you should familiarize yourself with the mouse and keyboard settings found under the Map menu. Quark has fairly different controls from hammer, which takes some getting used to but is really no less intuitive.
After you're done you can close this window, which puts you back in the default quark window. From here clicking the new half-life map icon (first icon on the right of the "?" button) lets you start a new map.
While staring at your new map screen the first glaring difference you'll notice is that quark only has two view panels. Clicking layout then selecting one of the four view layouts from the bottom of that menu will remedy the problem. (I use 4 views b, as it's similar to my hammer config). Other than this my only advice is to use the directory tree as much as possible. It holds a list of every single item you've placed in the map, and a good organization of it is STILL faster than hammer's visgroups. In addition the directory tree is used to select faces. (although there may be an easier way that I don't know of) From here you can use the infobase that quark supplies, as well as a search of the quark yahoo group to find explanations of all the nifty tricks quark can do for you. (you don't need to register to perform a search) Some important highlights are the duplicators, diggers, negative brushes, and tagging. There really is just too much to describe at once (as well as a lot I just don't know) but this should get you started.
The new picture looks amazing. You captured this 'big abandoned industrial area' feeling quite well.