[MAP] Broken Canyon

[restcoser]

Although having done years of mapping in both SB and RE, this is my first release... "Broken Canyon" (Don't ask me why I chose that name, no clue lol)

Compatible with all modes, but really just makes sense in smaller groups, duel works quite well as well as small scaled ctf and instagib matches.

The theme is desert-canyon-ish, apart from the bases, which interrupt the landscape with industrial/light-sci-fi themes.

All weapons are present, Grenades and Rocket set to not-survivor, not-duel.

Waypoints have been made, they are maybe not perfect, the nature of this map needs power launches and wallclimbs for full efficency, which is why bots wont reach the rocket or know many attack ways into the bases.
Geometry glitches/small griefs/accidents might be still present, as this map was made mostly in coop-edit, please screenshot any you see.

Credits for texturing the alpha base goes mostly to Unnamed, thank you for providing creativity when I'm running out of it .

Attention: This map is intended for svn ONLY. If you download it for older then the most recent svn, not only will you encounter some texture errors, but you will also be spammed with particles, which might lag your system considerably. In svn, less particles will be spawned.
If you still want to test it in non-svn, /emitmillis 1000 is your friend. (Just set it back to normal after this map)

[Lyberta]

Not bad at all. I liked it. :P

[restcoser]

Bump in the form of an update! v.1.1
Expanded blendmapping to the upper Canyon area, now instead of the compressed stone texture, its compressed stone with sand blended on it.
Added dust particles to represent sand being blown, exchanged cycadas sound for more wind sound.
Added much outer detailing to lessen the feeling of being in the box, other canyons can now be seen from the map.
Fixed many geometry glitches and lighting glitches.
Lowered ambient and added more lights to get better contrast.
Added some details around the omega base.
Made the roof of the alpha base accessible in order to balance the control from above over the map.
Smoothed out quite some ugly corners I came across.
Skytextured most faces not visible from within the map.

And probably something I forgot about

[qreeves]

Looking good, but for some reason the scifi bases look out of place in a the desert setting. The contrast is extremely high between them, maybe it is just the blue on the alpha base.

[restcoser]

So what is your advice? make a version where the alpha and beta bases are more made out of mud and wood? Possible, but I'm not sure of it, I find the map would get very 1-colored. (Which it already is, it is not easy to keep some colour contrast.

[Dawn]

I quite like it. I don't agree that the bases being scifi is a bad thing. A space colonising people would build there buildings wherever they could. Perhaps Quin thinks it should be more spartan or something, but I don't mind.
I'm not sure if the map flips teams after 5 minutes, and I'm not sure how to do that, but I think it should. The layouts of and around the bases is pretty tactically different. Also, I jumped into the alpha base's window repeatedly, since it looked like a hole. I'm not sure if it's just that I'm missing textures or am using the lowest settings, but it should look like glass if you want glass there.
I was gonna say that the rooves looked tempting to jump on, but it sounds like you changed that in the update, which I am downloading right now

Anyway, it's a really nice map :3

[restcoser]

You NEED svn in order for the alpha base to look correctly... for the window, im unsure, for me, the window is pretty obvious with in-the-face style glare, but maybe its not really visible with glare off, ill check it. I'll also blend the desert a bit more into the bases, meaning ill have some interaction with sand and rocks in both bases. (It's unlikely that they would stay free of the sand anyway)
Edit: I checked it, even if your glare is off, the window should still look like a window, as theres a pretty heavy envmap on it... not sure if i should do anything about it not being well visible w/o envmap and glare.
Edit2: I forgot to set the map to rotate, mapbalance is now 2 (that should be the var for it i hope), this fix will be in the next update.

[qreeves]

Try setting the shaderparam "specscale" to something like "0.1 0.1 0.1" if it is too shiny for you.

[restcoser]

small update: v1.2
-made the alpha base less intrusive: changed the window, blended some sand in the floors
The only thing blue about the alpha base is the lighting, so i changed the lighting on the lower floor to be orange.
-made things look nicer that i came across...
im still not sure what the problem with the alpha base is...im happy with the map right now how it is.

[qreeves]

Distribution of items is fairly sparse for an arena this size, I'd add a few duplicates and more grenades. Note that I don't normally honour something like "not duel, not survivor" either, because that is a gameplay choice (and fairly redundant on the rocket, as its variables no longer let it spawn in these instances).

Lightmapping error, there are a few of these around. It's something you're going to have to work around by changing the area (either the geometry, or more source lighting in the area).

There are a lot of these little bits around that contribute to the blocky feel (as they get highlighted even more after lighting the level). There are also some instances where the texture changes from red rock to sand/stone done in a blocky manner. I assume you figure nobody will see them as it is at about the same level as the clip, but SpecTV will most likely throw more viewability on it.

I applaud that you even tried to skybox the outside of the map, but.. well, you missed a spot.

On top of this, I think that the map should probably have "numplayers" of at least "10" and "maxplayers" of at least "20". Your "mapauthor" field should not contain "& Unnamed" in brackets. If anyone else feels I missed anything please chime in now, this map is release worthy.

[restcoser]

Now approaching is the next and most likely final version, apart from hotfixes, if needed, of course.
Changelog:
Fixed all of quin's points.
Detailed some cornery geometry.
Next to the nades (that are still ns,nd) there is now one nade (that only spawns in duel or survivor) above the place where normally the rocket is. This assigns to the powerful duelweapon grenade a cost.
hf
I will update the main post with a download link.
PS: Lighting errors are EVIL :P

[Ulukai]

Cool setting, I'm glad we see another map in the style of Erosion! Outdoors are always nice. You made the rocks look good, the area looks natural to me and that's not always an easy thing to do with the Cube engine

Some remarks:
- Where is the red flag for CTF?
- Waypoints could indeed be improved a bit.
- Nice use of sounds.
- Nice blendmap.

Cool effects on this pusher! They might be copied from Emission, but it still looks amazing and very RE :) Sometimes it is a little hard to get through the hole from the first time though.

Missed a spot?

I'm not too fond of the textures used for trim on the windows and doors. They look rather weird. Maybe the bases could use a little bit of extra details to spice them up? Personally I like red better than blue atm...

I really like the map so far and it would be great if it could be fixed up for the next release! Good job restcoser!

[qreeves]

Next to the nades (that are still ns,nd) there is now one nade (that only spawns in duel or survivor) above the place where normally the rocket is. This assigns to the powerful duelweapon grenade a cost.

You need to keep in mind that grenades in SVN are no longer Over-Powered. They actually take quite a bit of skill to use now, due to their abundance in maps (their radius was halved and the damage was brought back down in line with 1.3 settings).

[ballist1c]

Next to the nades (that are still ns,nd) there is now one nade (that only spawns in duel or survivor) above the place where normally the rocket is. This assigns to the powerful duelweapon grenade a cost.

You need to keep in mind that grenades in SVN are no longer Over-Powered. They actually take quite a bit of skill to use now, due to their abundance in maps (their radius was halved and the damage was brought back down in line with 1.3 settings).

Yeah, i've been re-arranging grenades in my maps and others for SVN for this reason. good stuff ^^

[restcoser]

Alright.
-The red base is missing? O_o Should be there, I think ctf was one of my game play tests...
-Nades... I'll remove the central nade and normalize the others, might remove one pair of nades though. (as there are quite many atm)
-Blue details... Ill probably end up putting some glass tanks there or... adding something else
-The waypoints... I actually think they are decent, but they are really old, meaning that most waypoints are now under a new patch of sand or in an area that is clipped... In my tests bot seemed to be fine with them. Don't you like the waypoints from looking at them or from playing with them? If the second, please detail a bit more. Did they get stuck and suicide? :P

I won't be able to work on this map for the next three days though... most likely, so don't expect an update before that.

[Sniper-Goth]

Looks like the map didn't got a Green Light from my Glitch finding tests :v
And i really dislike some clipping choices -.-

[qreeves]

Map has been up for two weeks, you had plenty of time to review it. Vaguely stating you don't like something isn't constructive either.

[restcoser]

Yes, indeed, each clip has been put thought behind. If i spent time making this map, you can as well spend time telling me where clips are wrong in your opinion. There is not much clip to begin with... And don't expect me to find every single slope-bug there is, but thanks for revealing an area that might need fixing.

[Sniper-Goth]

I just really got time to review the map by yesterday, as im really focused on modelling/texturing/creating maps for... I.F.
Anyway, there are some really strange design choices, like not being able to stand in the top of the Red Base, clipping that has no reason to be there..