Wall Worm Forums

Hah, I figured those hint brushes would help at least a little. Was a good learning experience though, I want to enter more contests later on now that I've got a decent amount of the workflow down. (And get to play around with models!)

We definitely need more entrants next time, instead of whittling down to "top 3 out of 4". I'm eager to see what kinds of new things people are gonna make with the tools.

There we go. Updated the file paths, packed all the materials in the BSP, toned down the number of cubemaps (which fixed the optimization issues, thanks for the idea, Shawn!), and updated the player spawns and map name for GunGame.

This is the last update for the competition, any more to do with the map will probably come later in off-time when I can use models and such.

There, finally fixed the issue. My installation of CSS was still full of residual files from before the steampipe update. So it was likely compiling with an old version of VBSP or messing with the file structure (or something, still not sure what). I just backed up my old directory and reinstalled it completely.

Anyways, the materials should work correctly now. I also attempted to do some optimization which helped, but there will still be world flickering issues for players on the catwalk or near the front windows when looking towards the main area.

I also figured I should half the bumpmap resolution to keep the files from eating too much disk space for little visual tradeoff.

Let me know if anyone has any more issues.

Everything should be included in the ZIP, I didn't bother packing anything into the BSP because it usually gives me issues. I am having to recompile to fix some lighting errors among other things though, so you can feel free to redownload it and try again when that's done.

EDIT: I've updated the map to fix lighting issues and a bumpmap I forgot to add to the ZIP so grab it while it's hot. Beware, there are still optimization errors from too many verts being rendered in the more open areas. I'll have to look into it later.

Alright guys, got my (still WIP) entry finished enough I hope. Here's a link to the level thread: dm_lobby
Let me know what you think. <3

Ooooh, it's nice seeing an attempt at rounded structures in Source. It can still be tough getting the engine to swallow it, but actually building something like this would probably make Hammer users cry and beg for mercy.
Contest or none, keep it up!

This is a WIP symmetrical arena-styled deathmatch map, set in a large corporate lobby sometime in the future, and my current entry for the Old School Level Design Contest.

From the start I wanted verticality to be a focal point, and having 3 floors of balconies connected by staircases seemed appropriate. I also wanted the central area of the map to feel open while still providing decent cover. Players would be able to drop down from one to the next to change things up during what would normally be a horizontal firefight scross the central area.

There are rooms on the first and second floor in behind the walkways for a bit of added depth as well. on the third floor there is an open catwalk that links the sides together and passes what will be an elevator to/from the ground floor.

Really this map was more of an experiment with using a clean, angular, high contrast "forward" looking visual style that I've wanted to try for a long time. Due to the time constraints I did have to sacrifice a lot of the more "organic" flowing lines I would otherwise have wanted to integrate, but I'm still happy with the result.

This is also my first time using proper subdiv-geometry baking for generating custom textures. I think it turned out pretty well.


To-do list:

- Add an exterior 3D skybox
- Fix light luxel density
- Make lights into proper integrated elements, e.g. refine walls and ceilings
- Add functioning elevator
- Clean up UV mapping
- Add better weapon spawns, possibly retool the gamemode entities
- Add some greenery
- Fill out rooms in more detail


Download here for Counter-Strike: Source: gg_futurelobby

EDIT: Updated name and spawnpoints for GunGame.

Feedback and criticism is welcome!

I'm making an attempt at an arena/DM style map to see how it turns out.

Hoping I don't get more hung up on the design than the playability because this will be the first map I try that isn't just eyecandy. Though I think brushes only will work well with the angular artstyle I've got in my head.

Wow, you're fast with responses, thank you. :P

Irony though; I think the dev build was part of the problem. I had the latest official build installed until I installed the dev build (aka: the one you just linked, but I had gotten it before I noticed this problem again). That build had the issues with exporting normals, so I downgraded to the official build again, only to have the exact same problem.

Any other ideas you might have?

On another note, I was also curious what the normals are actually calculated from. are they taken from smoothing groups exclusively, or does it allow smoothing groups to be abandoned altogether in favour of specific per-vertex data? (I'd really rather not have surfaces be auto-smoothed with smoothing groups on the occasion I need to hand-edit normals.) :V

EDIT: I unchecked "Rotate Origin" in the compile panel and it seems to have fixed that strange twisting normals problem (possibly a bug you could look into?), however the faceting problem is still there. I'll keep you posted.

EDIT again: I tried using "Explicit Normals" in combination with having "Rotate Origin" disabled and it seems to work perfectly now (albeit with the compile time being 3-ish times longer). I may test again with the dev build just to see if the same method will work there and it's just me being stupid again. This is exactly the reason I don't like bugging people for help, I always end up figuring it out myself. xD

Final Edit: The dev build of v1.9453 works just as well now that I have the correct settings as stated above. The new "Auto" normals function seems to act much the same way as "Face Render Normals" in my case. And I'm glad that the "Explicit Normals" setting now adds no extra time to the compile. Buuut there's a different problem now... The car is the size of a die-cast toy, it seems about 1/16th scale, give or take.

I may have just done something wrong again, but I think I'll just call it a day. I'll use the last stable version to avoid fighting with the scale issue in the dev build until you feel it's ready to be released.

I apologize for bugging you, as normally I try to work these things out for myself and/or scour for information, but it's sort of a recurring issue.

I'm trying to export a model of a car (in prep for a large asset pack I'm attempting to put together), however, only some of the vertex normals actually export correctly.
In Max, I drop an "Edit Normals" modifier ontop of the geometry to double-check that they are pointed the correct direction. However, when the model is compiled, some elements of the geometry are either faceted or pointed off to one side strangely, while others are perfectly fine. I've checked the smoothing groups applied to each sub-object in the model, and everything looks completely correct, so I'm quite baffled. I had attempted to use the "Explicit Normals" export method in the dropdown, but all of the vertex normals ended up completely distorted as if the entire object had been twisted or something.

I remember having this exact same issue several versions of WWMT ago, but a recent build had fixed it, only it's now returned again for reasons beyond me. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong after having tried so many different possible solutions for it to behave like this, and frankly, it's driving me nuts.

Any help would be appreciated if you can spare the time. I can also post some screenshots if it would be of assistance.