Map/ School Project

BulletHead

<div class="IPBDescription">Turning mapping into a grade</div> Hey, just thought I'd let you all know that I have found a way to make mapping a usefull school thing. As part of the Central PA Computer Fair, representing Central Dauphin High School, I am going to be building, for the artwork division, a 3d virtual walkthru of my school's new building using Valve Hammer Editor. However, I will need the enlist the help of many. I have the TOP DOWN LAYOUT of the building, and am looking into getting the BLUEPRINTS... however, I need someone to make me some custom textures as I am unable to do so. I will be taking pictures via digital camera of the school for what I will need. Also, if anyone is interested in helping out, I'll gladly give credit where it is deserved- this is a HUGE project for me to tackle alone, and my buddy, who is also helping out, is going to be my "apprentice" of sorts... which is going to be tough as I am still relatively new to mapping myself. So any and all help WILL be much appreciated


Thanks for reading

-BulletHead

TOmekki

i realised about a year ago that my high school layout would, when modded, be an awesome co map :D

but i was too lazy back then.

KungFuDiscoMonkey

You have undertaken an immense challenge especially since HL doesn't scale quite right to real world units and you will probally have some difficulty with los issues when HL starts cutting off stuff that's too far away. Not to mention the ammount of custom textures you'll probally have to use.

brute_force

<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->which is going to be tough as I am still relatively new to mapping myself<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you been mapping for almost a year now?

BobTheJanitor

You may have to get really creative with vis blockers. Your average school is all long hallways that will make it so you can barely walk around the map without huge frame loss. Either look at very undetailed textures stretched until they're not recognizable, or invent some sort of vis blocker in the middle of the halls.

BulletHead

True brute, I started mapping well over a year ago

HOWEVER, I had to stop for about 7 months due to a bug issue that kept me from compiling ANYTHING, and, eventually, even opening VHE. It was resolved when I re-formated about 3 months ago <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->

as for vis blockers... hmm... good point. I don't know how important this will be, as I doubt it'll ever become an official map (if it does, I'll add stuff to make vis blockers) but is rather just for use at the computer fair.... which reminds me that I must be able to run it on a laptop of *ahem* older days

GiGaBiTe

well in lines of vis blockers, you could use fire doors, the high school that i went to had them. just instead of making the fire doors usable, keep them as worldspawn so you dont have to render so much.

and as for the vis limit, thats not a problem, you can set the max vis distance in the map properties menu.

for custom textures, i would look at mappers for the quake 3 engine (meat pack) i have gotten some really great wads from q3 textures and you dont have to worry so much about cuts because most of them are 256x256. pm me and i can get you set up with custom textures, and if you need any help on the mapping part, i will do what i can to help you out.

MrRadicalEd

As for custom textures. You could find yourself a digital camera with a tripod and take some pictures of bare walls, and use those pictures to create some tileable textures. Could prove usefull for floors or bulletin boards

BulletHead

Mr.RadicalEd, could you right me explicate instructions on how to do this?

GiGaBiTe

well its rather hard to do that, but here are some basic rules to doing that

when taking a picture, make sure there are no shadows on the surface that its on.
try to get the camera as flush as you can so the texture is tileable
(goes with first guideline) take the pictures at full light when the surface has equal amount of light on all of it.

BulletHead

lol, and I do this in a small, student filled hallway how?

Lol, duh, I could stay after school *smacks self for being so dumb*

Anywho, what do I do once I take the photographs?

GiGaBiTe

take the picture you took and paste it into paint or something and tile it several times and see if it lines up and looks correct. also if it was a big picture, scale it WAY down to a maximum of 256x256, because you dont want huge textures in your map because you will run out of texture memory very fast.

MrRadicalEd

I pm'd you the instructions, but I mean if you said you were going to map it, it's only fitting to use textures based on the construction material used in your school. For plain walls you can always select a thin portion of the left or right leading edge, copy, and paste it on the opposite leading edge and blend the pasted portion in with the rest of the image. You can get away with this most of the time on fairly clean and simple walls or floors.

BulletHead

aha... our school took great care to NOT be simple ... <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->


Randomly spread about they have diamonds with names of ppkl in the school on em, for one thing

TyrNemesis

Pardon me for being a jerk, but how does this relate to Natural Selection Mapping? Don't you think this would be better off in one of the Off-topic forums or the Mapping Help forum?

BulletHead

Not really, as I will be releasing a MODIFIED version as a playable NS map


<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->


Anywho, I'm using the NS fgd and hulls and all that, so... yeah. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->

BulletHead

*******UPDATE*******

Okay, I just got permission to start photographing the school, and as such tomorrow I am hoping to get some good shots of the gym and cafeteria. I still have a request to go out- can anyone make the textures for me... I tried making some rudimentary ones... and uh... ahem... let's just not go there <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo-->

BulletHead

Hmm... I just ran into a small problem...

my laptop resolution is about half of what my PC resolution is... as such I can't use as small a grid... is there any way I can work around this?