[MAP] Erosion: Post-1.4 fixes (1.6)

[greaserpirate]

Two fortresses stand next to each other on a sheer cliff, connected by a rocky plateau and a network of caves.

More screenshots (slightly old)

I'd like to submit this map for inclusion.

This map is fairly large, for 8-14 players optimally. It works for CTF, STF, BomberBall, and multi. It features a sheer cliff edge with plenty of large rocks for cover, some caves, and a "rush gate": when someone on your team stands on a trigger in the enemy's courtyard, a door opens and your teammates can teleport from the base to the courtyard. I added it to speed up games, and it works fine without it, but I want to see how it would affect gameplay. (The courtyard is still significantly far from the enemy's flag.) Also, I made a "hazard hallway" for each base, where if you're really talented you can get to a good position using parkour, but there are death traps on some of the walls. If you can find an easy way to get up there, tell me!

Also, please feel free to use this map on your server! I really want to test out the "rush gate" with humans and see how this map works for parkour.

UPDATES:
-Improved fronts of main bases
-Added a frame and a more fitting glass tex (There's no glass material now.)
-Smoothed out rocks
-Changed lightprecision to 64, increased blurlms to 1 so shadows are smoother
-Shifted teleporters down (they bump you further too)
-Removed some weapons
-Planted flags in ground
-Minor tweaks to door triggers and lights

v 1.2:
-retextured wallrunning panels
-textured top of buildings (minimap still looks& works fine)
-deleted backup "shockball" texture
-fixed texture error in the window to the cave
-planted last flag in ground
-added PVS
-minor lighting stuff

v1.3:

-fixed bases for BB (no bombs in buildings, bombs on green/yellow flags except in multi, new bomb spawns), DTF (removed 2: where the CTf flags are)
-fixed waypoints
-made rocks look more natural
-added texture to 1-way barriers
-hoodoos hoodoos hoodoos. A drop-off with absolutely nothing beneath is lacking, needs more pillars of rock rising out of mist.
-added obits (death="took a wrong step",lava="had a nice hot lava bath",water="... I don't even...")

v1.4:
-Improved cover rocks and hoodoos to look more realistic.

v1.5:
-moved entrances of "rush gates"
-minor texture fixes
-added sounds

Sorry about the delay; I learned the hard way that if you're editing on a server, you should save every 5 seconds in case the Internet glitches on you.

BTW, I forgot to mention: this map looks best with /bloom 0.1 to /bloom 0.2.

[Ulukai]

From what I've seen on the screens, ther map is looking really nice, and set in an original environment. Reminds me a bit of the dusty maps in Half-Life
Looking forward to test, I will leave some feedback later.

[bonifarz]

This looks very nice in my opinion.
I have not really seen yet what you mean with the "good position" past the traps. But the design potentially allows to enable time trial on the map, where some instanced mapmodels (eg rocks) block certain passages in trial mode only.

Btw, a texture is missing for me on the wallrun-"bridge".

[4rson]

This is a very nice looking map. The texturing reminds me a lot of total recall in some ways.

I also get a texture error on the wall-run bridges. Are you using a custom texture for these perhaps? I also noticed that you use a rock-like texture on the large windows overlooking the outside area. This looks a bit strange to me, and something more artificial looking might work better.

I'm not too sure on the weapon layout at the moment as the clustering of weapons together might make it less fun when there are only a small number of players. However, I haven't tried it online yet, so it might be ok.

[Dratz-_C]

greaserpirate,
Please upload your pictures as attachments to your post or I cannot see them. My internet content filter prevents many image hosting services from working for me. You have my thanks in advance.

Upload_attachment_00.jpg

Edit: yes I can see the one picture now.
Cheers

[Ulukai]

I have taken a close look at the map. It plays great and is really beatiful overall. I like the apart setting in the rocks, the caves and the buildings inside are nicely detailed. Thumbs up for that!

So I like it very much and would love to see it in a future release of RE, but some points of feedback to improve it a little:
- If you want the map to get included, you must lower the lightprecision. Your LM is now 25! Lower the LP to 64 or 128, that gives you a LM of 9 and 3.
- The rocks could use some more love in some places. I include 2 pictures here. Simply pushing some corners in makes a big difference. This is nitpicking, but really not hard to do and it gives you map a more finished look. So fly around you map and be critic for yourself.

- The glass material used here looks out of place indeed. Try using one of the black and white textures down in the texture list, or take a look at other maps to see which kind of texture fits best here. Also, I think the glass looks weird here because it has no geometry profilebuild around it. Maybe you could try to "put it into something"? Looking at your texturing across the map, I also believe that you can do a more detailed texturing job for the red and blue bases fronts.

- Some weird use of skybox material here... Why are some pieces skytextured and other parts not? IMO you don't really need to use skytextures for the top of this map. Please correct me when I'm wrong.

- With the rush gate, do you mean the doors that are only partly closed? Because you can even get under them when they're not open... And when you get teleported, you fall down from the air on the ground again (only a little, but very noticeable), you can lower the teleporters so that you immediately start to walk instead of falling down a little first. I suggest to review and extensively test all the doors and teleporters again because they are important in your map.
- You should align the flag affinities so that the bottom of the flag touches the ground. They float in the air now.

Can I ask how you did the flashing electric textures on these parts? I have seen similar things in other maps and don't know the commands to do so I hope I can learn something from this.

And how did you create the parts where you can go through in one direction, but not the other?

[greaserpirate]

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm really glad you liked it!

The reason there's skytexture on the top is for the mini-map. (radarstyle 3). Some places are left textured to indicate walls.

The entrance to the rush gate is high enough to crawl under so that people who try to go through when it isn't activated won't get stuck. When the trigger on the other end is activated, the entrance doors go up too to show teammates back in the base that it's open. I've made sure that the doors work, but I haven't tested it online yet.

I used the "particles/shockball.png" image for the lighting. Here's the code for it:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

setshader pulseglowworld
setshaderparam glowcolor 0.1 1 0.1
setshaderparam pulsecolor 0 0 0
texture c "particles/shockball.png" 0 0 0 1
texalpha 0.01
texscroll 10 10
texture g "particles/shockball.png"

Some people were telling me earlier about a texerror in that area. Is it possible they might not have that texture, or have it somewhere else? I've included it just in case.

The one-way cubes I got from Quadropolis; not sure where exactly, but I've had them in a sketch map for ages. I used them on Overdrive originally. Feel free to copy them and use them in any of your maps. I've found they're really helpful since it's hard to make places in Red Eclipse where you can't get to with parkour.

[Ulukai]

Thanks for the upgrade, that was quick! I will give your map another spin this weekend and pay attention to your changes and the rushgate. I'll let you know.

I don't know if many players use radarstyle 3, I never tried it. Well, I'm glad it has a reason why you did it but it looks kinda weird when wlying over the map. Dunno if you can get so high with a jetpack, will try.

[bonifarz]

The one-way cubes I got from Quadropolis; not sure where exactly, but I've had them in a sketch map for ages.

Very interesting, I was about to ask the same thing when Ulukai did so.

I don't know if many players use radarstyle 3, I never tried it. Well, I'm glad it has a reason why you did it but it looks kinda weird when wlying over the map. Dunno if you can get so high with a jetpack, will try.

I think its a good idea to have a good layout on radarstyle 3, which I find useful in particular for editing and trial. Maybe there is a way to get it done such that it does not look weird in spectator mode, though. Some trial tracks seem to be placed inside black boxes and still the minimap of radarstyle 3 looks perfectly fine there.

[Ulukai]

I would also like that the map looks good in spectator mode, if there is a better way to fix the radar issue, it would be worth it.

The texture you included is not the one that is missing (I have the missing texture issue too). I used RE 1.3.1 to test the map. We can't see the striped texture you used on the wooden boards that hang over the cliff sides, on which you can wallrun (see the screenshot in your first post, at the utter left). It doesn't happen to be one of these, which I have found in the changelog of RE 1.3.1:

Removed kitchen and kitchen1 textures from trak4 (unused)

[arand]

I would also like that the map looks good in spectator mode, if there is a better way to fix the radar issue, it would be worth it.

The texture you included is not the one that is missing (I have the missing texture issue too). I used RE 1.3.1 to test the map. We can't see the striped texture you used on the wooden boards that hang over the cliff sides, on which you can wallrun (see the screenshot in your first post, at the utter left). It doesn't happen to be one of these, which I have found in the changelog of RE 1.3.1:

Removed kitchen and kitchen1 textures from trak4 (unused)

These were removed since they were based on material from CGTextures, which has a questionable license, I know that TraK has also removed these from newer versions of his texture packs as well.

Please don't use these kitchen textures (or derivative versions of them).

[Ulukai]

I've taken another look and the missing textures are indeed the kitchen textures, you can see it in the console after loading the map.
All your changes make the map much more enjoyable, it's really great! I think it's a high quality map that deserves a place in RE. The texturing is much better now and the glass frames and materials are very cool.

I still did find some minor details that are off, just wanted to let you know:
- You have a texture issue there, maybe you pushed the wrong sides of the cube?

- There is still a flag floating in the air.

I voted to keep the rush gate, I think it's original.

[greaserpirate]

The texture you included is not the one that is missing (I have the missing texture issue too). I used RE 1.3.1 to test the map. We can't see the striped texture you used on the wooden boards that hang over the cliff sides, on which you can wallrun (see the screenshot in your first post, at the utter left). It doesn't happen to be one of these, which I have found in the changelog of RE 1.3.1

I see now. I thought at first people were talking about the hazard area for some reason when they were talking about the "wallrunning bridge". I don't really know why I made that assumption, and I probably should have read it more carefully.

I've updated it again. (Probably the final one, unless people have more suggestions.) I also textured the top, and you were right: the minimap is fine. I've started hosting it on my server.

By the way: how did you get the playermodel to show up on the spawnpoint in editing? Is that a SVN feature, or can you get that with 1.3?

[Ulukai]

To show the spawnpoints with a playermodel use the following command. It has always been available, but I believe the default value has changed during development.

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

showentmodels 2

Because you speak of a final release, I have tested v1.2 and again I have some remarks
- In BB mode, the bomb is closer to the red base than to the blue base. I would place it at the cliff where your green team has their base. You can specify an other location for multi games with the mut property (set its value to 1 for multi games) of the BB affinity.
- When playing DTF, 12 flags show up! That's an awful lot, you should limit it to 6 or 7 imo for the size of your map.
- Some bots got stuck for a while at this place. After half a minute or so, they got free and continued their way, but they find it hard to jump up here.

- Use seperate affinities for each game mode. Instead of adding a generic affinity for red, blue, green and yellow where you don't specify the game mode, try to make a seperate affinity for each game mode. For example: red needs an affinity for the CTF flag and a seperate affinity where you want the BB goal to spawn. You''d want this to be a bit above the floor, because now your red affinity flag is planted in the ground which is good for CTF but not for BB. It results in this:

So try to create seperate CTF affinities, seperate DTF affinities, seperate BB affinities and determine which ones you want to be enabled in multi and which not. It is a bit more work, but you will have a better way to control what happens in every game mode and makes it easier for you to manage the map. If you need any more help, I'll be here or on IRC or take a look at some other maps how they did it. It's not applied everywhere like this, but which a big map that supports multi like yours, I recommend it.

Thanks for the quick revisions, great job!

[greaserpirate]

Thanks for the tips about the affinities.

I got a bit of feedback on Quadropolis. Among the things mentioned was more realistic rocks; I made the rocks on either side less flat-topped, but does anyone see places where it looks fake?

[Ulukai]

Rocks could be improved a little, but it was already pretty good so I didn't mention it. Here and there where you put some rocks as cover on the walkable surfaces, the texturing seems a little off because you probably used a large grid size to do this. You could try to use a smaller grid size and carefully craft those rocks again. Make sure you push the correct sides of the cubes in so that your texture nicely fits.

[ZeroKnight]

This is a REALLY cool map. I really love what you did with the wall hazards, it gives us with parkour magic a little bit of a challenge ^^ The grunt "statues" in the courtyards were a really unique and awesome looking touch IMO. The layout of the map is a bit puzzling at first, but I easily familiarized myself with it. It's a great map for medium-large scale team battles, or huge FFA matches.

As I occasionally fiddle with the RE Editor...I must ask how on Earth you got that one-way cube! I can't describe the level of awesome that they are! From what I can tell it's definitely an exploit with the engine, but one that's extremely useful! From what I could somewhat tell, it looks like you have the sky texture on one side, and an alpha material with a plasma like texture?
Just a guess. If you don't mind sharing how you did it, I'd love to know; I'm very curious :D

Again, I LOVE this map. I'd be very happy to see this map officially included in RE :) Honestly, there are so many things I've never seen in any other RE maps all packed into this one epic piece of work...I really believe it could jazz up RE even more :)

By the way, are you going to do any more finishing touches on this map? If not, I'm totally hosting this map on Wazu servers!

[Dratz-_C]

greaserpirate,
I like this map also. The smooth igneous rock theme, parkour, grunt statues, rush gate, and multi make a wonderful map. It looks like it has high replay value as well.
I have scrapped a few map designs because I thought there was no method for 1-way walls. Please consider explaining to us how to put this attribute into practice. I thank you in advance for your comment.
[EDIT: Thanks for the link Ulukai. I was just worried I wouldn't know where to look on Quadropolis so I forgot that greaserpirate said it and when Zeroknight posted his question I too jumped on the train.]
Cheers

[Ulukai]

Like he said earlierin this thread, he found it on quadropolis. Maybe this can help: http://quadropolis.us/node/1484

[greaserpirate]

Updated again, this is probably the last one. Sorry about the delay.

By the way, just so you know, I'm fine with people copying any part of this map, including the one-way cubes, for use in their own maps. (Just be sure to mention me somewhere). And again, feel free to use this map on your servers. I've brought back my Killer Mode server, so I won't be hosting it any more.

[qreeves]

Map is now inlcuded in Red Eclipse, as per request on "Submit your content for inclusion". Please maintain further updates from the SVN branch.

[ZeroKnight]

Awesome! Congrats greaserpirate :) I'm definitely hosting this along with cutec on the Wazu servers until the maps are in main circulation on servers :)

[Ulukai]

That's great news! Looking forward to playing it online...

[raiden]

Congrats, I had no time for a view, but I'll give it a shot for sure .

[Dratz-_C]

greaserpirate,
I like Erosion. I'll have to take a look at 1.4 as well. Congratulations on getting the map into the game.
Cheers