My first thought was, "ooh, cool room." I like the dark-blue/grey and yellow theme and how consistently you applied it. There's a few light grey trims that I feel could have been used more. The general silhouette is solid, with that nice angled section on the left where those windows are. (Though part of me was hoping I could sneak between the windows on the left side in those screenshots and that central structure, the recess between the two seemed to invite me to go there.) The intact teal panel and the broken red panel add a nice touch, as does the cabling. I would have expected the light that fell to the floor to not be lit, but I suppose there are nanites at play.
As for the theme, the room is literally snowed-in through the doorway, but I would have liked to see more of an indication of an icy exterior, perhaps having the top third of the doorway be open and revealing more of the exterior. A skybox would have helped as well.
So generally solid geometry, but I feel you could have picked out some more props to let them do the detailing for you. There's a few elements you built that, simply because they're geometry, feel a little like they ought to be in NS1 rather than NS2. For instance, the two yellow-sided bar structures underneath the teal/red-lit panels are nice conceptually, but come out looking a little low-def. The middle of the central structure also invites some additional prop-work/greebles to give it that high-def detail. I noticed you trimmed the recessed segments on the sides of those pillars with some raised geometry, but the faces intersect each other and the texture you put on them is a flat grey, so there's little definition there. You could have achieved a higher level of detail on them without raising them, and putting trim textures around the recess--the new 'Angle From Longest/Shortest Edge' function in the texture alignment options makes this super easy now. Trimming the floor around the central structure would also tie them together better. The 45 degree struts (for lack of a better word) reaching from the pillars to the ceilings look a little strange,e specially where they connect to the pillars. You have some distorted planes there. I would have opted for simplicity, and made them like 4 or 8 units narrower than the pillar on either side, and just have them sticking out of the main body of the pillar. That way you also have those 4/8 unit sides to trim.
The lights spilling in from outside through the gratings are pretty good, but I would have set the atmospheric value a lot higher. This is a visual exercise, and there aren't going to be any players getting their vision obscured in atmospheric soup, so feel free to have those rays coming in hard, especially those spilling in from the right. The lighting scheme is pretty good, mirroring the yellow and blue/grey textures used.
Thanks for the feedback. I was focusing on practicing more geo-heavy detailing so I tried to keeps props to a minimum. The floor light is supposed to be more of a.. light stick? not a fallen light I thought about restyling the struts and the doorway, but I wanted to get it submitted. Besides the points you mentioned on the outside light, would you do anything more/differently with the lighting?
@Flaterectomy i realy hope there will be another competition!
I Will reinstall Windows soon so let's hope that fix the issue.
But otherwise thank you very much for doing this it's been ALOT of fun!
FlaterectomyNetherlandistanJoin Date: 2005-02-03Member: 39643Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
@malx I played around in the editor a little, but the lights came out pretty similar to yours, aside from tweaks due to changing some of the geo/props (mostly some changes to the pillar on the left.) and opening up the snowy entrance a bit. I can send you the .level later so you can have a look, if you want.
@lussebull Yes, there will be more. I think I have the theme for SDE#2 figured out, just need to do some preparations. I'm wondering how much time between the end of the last exercise and the start of the next one would be tolerable. Anyone have any ideas?
FlaterectomyNetherlandistanJoin Date: 2005-02-03Member: 39643Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited January 2016
I finally got around to editing and rendering the recording of how I made my entry. It's in four 30 minute parts and a 45 minute finale. They're a little edited, I cut out parts where I navigated to another window and such. No narration, just me at work.
InsaneAnomalyJoin Date: 2002-05-13Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
This is really cool! I wish I'd seen this when it happened. I found it quite inspiring so I thought I'd take a crack at it myself, even though it's months late.
I spent about six or seven hours on this. I cheated a little - the main floor area is a little larger than 256x256, since I needed the extra space to get the architectural forms I wanted. It was a lot of fun to come back to the NS2 editor after all this time, and the new trim tool is fab! There seems to have been a few changes that I can't get my head around. For example the orange lights behind the wall panels appear much brighter in the editor; I don't know why they don't in game. Anyway, the shots:
InsaneAnomalyJoin Date: 2002-05-13Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Very possibly! The one problem with that as an explanation, though, is that everything else is as bright/dark as I would expect (the bright spots on the floor for example).
Very possibly! The one problem with that as an explanation, though, is that everything else is as bright/dark as I would expect (the bright spots on the floor for example).
Ah, hmm... weird. Did you duplicate the light accidentally?
FlaterectomyNetherlandistanJoin Date: 2005-02-03Member: 39643Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
@Insane That looks fantastic, I love the lighting. Especially how the shadows create the sense of detail on the floor while that floor itself is sparse.
Comments
workshop:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=545111813
I'll take late!
My first thought was, "ooh, cool room." I like the dark-blue/grey and yellow theme and how consistently you applied it. There's a few light grey trims that I feel could have been used more. The general silhouette is solid, with that nice angled section on the left where those windows are. (Though part of me was hoping I could sneak between the windows on the left side in those screenshots and that central structure, the recess between the two seemed to invite me to go there.) The intact teal panel and the broken red panel add a nice touch, as does the cabling. I would have expected the light that fell to the floor to not be lit, but I suppose there are nanites at play.
As for the theme, the room is literally snowed-in through the doorway, but I would have liked to see more of an indication of an icy exterior, perhaps having the top third of the doorway be open and revealing more of the exterior. A skybox would have helped as well.
So generally solid geometry, but I feel you could have picked out some more props to let them do the detailing for you. There's a few elements you built that, simply because they're geometry, feel a little like they ought to be in NS1 rather than NS2. For instance, the two yellow-sided bar structures underneath the teal/red-lit panels are nice conceptually, but come out looking a little low-def. The middle of the central structure also invites some additional prop-work/greebles to give it that high-def detail. I noticed you trimmed the recessed segments on the sides of those pillars with some raised geometry, but the faces intersect each other and the texture you put on them is a flat grey, so there's little definition there. You could have achieved a higher level of detail on them without raising them, and putting trim textures around the recess--the new 'Angle From Longest/Shortest Edge' function in the texture alignment options makes this super easy now. Trimming the floor around the central structure would also tie them together better. The 45 degree struts (for lack of a better word) reaching from the pillars to the ceilings look a little strange,e specially where they connect to the pillars. You have some distorted planes there. I would have opted for simplicity, and made them like 4 or 8 units narrower than the pillar on either side, and just have them sticking out of the main body of the pillar. That way you also have those 4/8 unit sides to trim.
The lights spilling in from outside through the gratings are pretty good, but I would have set the atmospheric value a lot higher. This is a visual exercise, and there aren't going to be any players getting their vision obscured in atmospheric soup, so feel free to have those rays coming in hard, especially those spilling in from the right. The lighting scheme is pretty good, mirroring the yellow and blue/grey textures used.
I Will reinstall Windows soon so let's hope that fix the issue.
But otherwise thank you very much for doing this it's been ALOT of fun!
@lussebull Yes, there will be more. I think I have the theme for SDE#2 figured out, just need to do some preparations. I'm wondering how much time between the end of the last exercise and the start of the next one would be tolerable. Anyone have any ideas?
Link to the YouTube playlist with all 5 parts
I spent about six or seven hours on this. I cheated a little - the main floor area is a little larger than 256x256, since I needed the extra space to get the architectural forms I wanted. It was a lot of fun to come back to the NS2 editor after all this time, and the new trim tool is fab! There seems to have been a few changes that I can't get my head around. For example the orange lights behind the wall panels appear much brighter in the editor; I don't know why they don't in game. Anyway, the shots:
Could it be the gamma settings? There's a slider in the editor, and a slider in the game, and they don't automatically sync up.
Ah, hmm... weird. Did you duplicate the light accidentally?
Doesnt really qualify and its a abit late but heres a snowy area im working on for my new map