Wow great work Howser! It looks great already, thanks for the hard work. Should the screenshots be of the portal or as if you're looking out from it?
I've already dropped the volume in the circus a bit and will cut it down once more. I'm also quite concerned as I have also noticed people avoiding gravity hub - the concept is very cool but not very functional.
I will add the files and test it out in a few days once I'm back home. Thanks again to everyone for the hard work!
Carnage the map is up you can test it out now, but it's missing 4 rooms and the portal effect will obviously change.
I've some planned changes for gravity hub due the issues mentioned ( onos, exo etc etc). Namely the center portal. I plan to create a funnel in the center that drops you to the bottom floor. So one can create traction before jumping into the gravity field. I've recently moved house and are looking for a new job also so I've not a lot of spare time for mapping currently. My hobbies are taking a backseat for the moment. But I'll make sometime to fix this issue shortly.
I've some planned changes for gravity hub due the issues mentioned ( onos, exo etc etc). Namely the center portal. I plan to create a funnel in the center that drops you to the bottom floor. So one can create traction before jumping into the gravity field. I've recently moved house and are looking for a new job also so I've not a lot of spare time for mapping currently. My hobbies are taking a backseat for the moment. But I'll make sometime to fix this issue shortly.
No worries. Sounds good, but real life always comes first. Hope you find a job soon!
Here is a link to my room fixed. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_co_portals.level
If you can use this as your master file from now on as I've added in my custom OCC and tweaked a few things on my room only. I've used the latest workshop version and just edited my room.
So if you want to just swap out the .level file and do a publish and let me know what you guys think of the changes.
Fixed Gravity hub to have no gravity in the eye of the gravity well. (When coming through from marines you fall and hit the ground and can then run and jump into the gravity well.)
Lowered Portal and effects to the center of gravity well. (for easier access to portal and looks better)
Added the custom OCC to my room.
Realigned some textures
Few other tweaks.
I've only spent an hour on these fixes as i'm pretty busy and haven't been able to do loads of testing on them. Let me know how it works out.
Evil_bOb1Join Date: 2002-07-13Member: 938Members, Squad Five Blue
Man, I'm really not lacking stuff to do, but I might be able to come up with something quick for #6. Its a bit of the same situation as the other room I did. Well, leave that open, if someone else want to go at it please do. If no one manifests and I put my heart to it and do something, I'll speak out.
I'm still having issues with writing certain elements of custom shaders. I'm trying to get the Normal maps alpha channel to mask the transmission colour. My best guess (that doesn't work) is in the spoiler.
As we may have some abandoned rooms and Evilbob was putting his hand up to maybe take one. It got me thinking.
I've countless abandoned level files over my learning career of map making in spark. Maybe you do too ?
Maybe if you guys want we could easily cut out sections from past abandoned levels to make quick rooms for ns2_co_portals.
So I took a trip down memory lane in my maps folder. While I've heaps abandoned levels I thought these 3 abandoned maps might have some interesting sections if a portion was cut from the map for a portals room.
So brace yourself for some shocking mapping as many hard lessons were learned while making these maps.
All these maps are playable. Or just view them in the editor.
My first map. ohhh how many mistakes I made in overzealous grandiose bad planning. It was ment to be for classic ns2 play. Purely visual creation with no regard for things like OCC, long lines of sight and countless other NS2 mapping no no's.
But as first maps go, I'm still proud of it even though it will never be played as the map I hoped it would one day be.
Have a look. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_old_nest.level
Another map long abandoned. The same map as my first map re-imagined trying to better plan, Which again I made countless mistakes but eventually inspired a 3rd re-make which is now the ns2_co_nest combat map running on some servers.
Have a look. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_nestGBRSPROPS.level
This map I think might have what it takes to make a great room for co_ portals if we cut out a section. The Original version of my map ns2_co_assault. If you're old timer in combat you might remember this one.
Have a look. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_assaultGX9.level
Do any of you guys have abandoned levels that a section could be taken from to maybe quickly finish an abandoned room ?
I'd love to have a look at some of your guys abandoned levels.
Thanks for sharing, WorthyRival, it's fun to see rough drafts. I've played that assault map on a Faded server. A segment of that ought to work fine for a 2-portal room. Old_nest looks pretty cool but either of the nests would as much work to make a new room as it would sorting anything from those into a room.
My own collection of scraps are all snippets of theme testing, and layout ideas. Not much that's close to a finished room. Maybe a few hallways.
I have been working on Circus for past few days, mostly creating cel-shading capsules and reexporting them trough Blender. Also tweaked the geometry, and tuned that circus music down to 0.15.
Unfortunately that extrude covering the hole in the tent won't work, because it is blocking the light from outside. Will have to stay open despite the Occlusion problem :-/.
The map has been updated with both Worthy & Rudy's updates. Thanks for the great work guys!
@Howser I'm not much help there. In fact it seems that with this way I'll need to make a new model for each portal, unless there is an easy way to swap the texture? Help me figure out how to do this, unless you really want to create one of those for all... 26 portals. It looks seriously awesome! Better than I could have possibly even asked for.
We can safely assume that we need replacements for #1 Marine Start and #6 which is just a two portal room. Please let me know if you are interested. @Evil_bOb1 you can claim #6 if you want it. Using old rooms that people have made is a great idea!
I think they really need some cinematics that match the current effects. I'll have a look into that if the fancy takes me. Unless there's someone else who knows what they're doing with the cinematic editor?!
I'll do it for all 26 portals... shouldn't take long as long as everyone gets the images for me and names them correctly.
If you could name them by the room number its in, then the room number for where It leads, followed by M or A depending on whether its towards marines or aliens respectively.
The current images are at 1024* I'll down size to 512 to save some memory.
I've been thinking about making a kinda Portal (as in valve software's game set in the aperture science laboratories) themed map. I'm just waiting for a layout to pop into my mind then I'll make a start! Shouldn't take more than a few days with such simple geo.
I think they really need some cinematics that match the current effects. I'll have a look into that if the fancy takes me. Unless there's someone else who knows what they're doing with the cinematic editor?!
I'll do it for all 26 portals... shouldn't take long as long as everyone gets the images for me and names them correctly.
If you could name them by the room number its in, then the room number for where It leads, followed by M or A depending on whether its towards marines or aliens respectively.
The current images are at 1024* I'll down size to 512 to save some memory.
I've been thinking about making a kinda Portal (as in valve software's game set in the aperture science laboratories) themed map. I'm just waiting for a layout to pop into my mind then I'll make a start! Shouldn't take more than a few days with such simple geo.
I can take the screenshots and compress to 512* and send them to you, once all of the rooms are in. I can send you a dds for each if that would be easier for you than jpg. I think the easiest way to name them is the same name as the teleport_trigger like Rudy did on his screenshots - this would mean you use D1 where D2 is though. Is it easier if I name them to match the name of the portal? e.g. D1 named like teleport_trigger but showing view out from D2.
That's a cool idea but this would make the naming scheme confusing. Should this map be named something like co_teleport instead?
@Howser I'm not much help there. In fact it seems that with this way I'll need to make a new model for each portal, unless there is an easy way to swap the texture? Help me figure out how to do this, unless you really want to create one of those for all... 26 portals. It looks seriously awesome! Better than I could have possibly even asked for.
Well, if I am right, to create new portal, only thing you need to do is to duplicate the corresponding model and its .material, change the name of both and change the albedomap in material. All the other things are shared by all portals. Only complicated thing is to change the material information inside the model, but that could be done theoretically via Notepad++ (it will open the model in hex format and the material name is somewhere at the end).
If you want, I can look in to this matter next week.
We can safely assume that we need replacements for #1 Marine Start and #6 which is just a two portal room. Please let me know if you are interested. @Evil_bOb1 you can claim #6 if you want it. Using old rooms that people have made is a great idea!
Well at given condition, I think reusing/modifying someones old room will be the most effective way.
with builder It would actually be quite easy, just involve exporting the same model 26 times and making the 26 different portal images, writing 26 .model_compile files and modifying the same .material file 26 times.
Shouldn't be too hard :P
This was quick and dirt copy pasta of an abandoned room for marines spawn just to see it would work.
I only spent an hour and a half on this so feel free to use or not.
I took the latest portals build and just added it in. It has OCC. and I get a steady 120 - 190 fps in the room.
It has a few holes due to my dirty custom OCC.
Take a run around. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_co_portals_marines.level
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
my hive room's completion will unfortunately have to be postponed a few weeks as i'm in hospital. hopefully i can do those final finishing touches when i get home, though that'll involve moving my computer downstairs as goin up and down stairs is currently a long term plan.
This was quick and dirt copy pasta of an abandoned room for marines spawn just to see it would work.
I only spent an hour and a half on this so feel free to use or not.
I took the latest portals build and just added it in. It has OCC. and I get a steady 120 - 190 fps in the room.
It has a few holes due to my dirty custom OCC.
Take a run around. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_co_portals_marines.level
Interesting start. Clearly needs to be cleaned up a bit - the outsides need actual hallways or something blocking, and portals need to be in a place that you can't sit behind them & camp. There's a lot to work with here, thanks a bunch!
my hive room's completion will unfortunately have to be postponed a few weeks as i'm in hospital. hopefully i can do those final finishing touches when i get home, though that'll involve moving my computer downstairs as goin up and down stairs is currently a long term plan.
Oh no I hope it isn't anything very serious! Hope you feel better soon.
Thanks DarkSeraph. I agree it needs a lot of work, I just didn't want to spend long time on a room I was not sure to commit to. If you guys like it enough I'll continue with cleaning it up. Or if you think another section from one of the other ones I offered up could be better. Let me know and I'll copy paste it and work it.
Get better soon Flaterectomy sorry to hear about your troubles.
LokiJoin Date: 2012-07-07Member: 153973Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
if you want I could submit a RR which would work as MS but it will need finishing you will need to pm me via steam tho if you want it and will discuss what it is in further detail
I got started on a new marine spawn made from scratch tonight.
I gave up on the copy paste.
It's not finished but it's close considering I've only done a few hours of work.
Let me know what you think.
Level file for a good look https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_co_portals.level
This is great work. I really like the room; it's just the right size & feel. Aren't you supposed to be finding a job?!?
I will eventually move it up to the same height as Gravity Hub - and then move the skybox so that the planet lines up nicely for both views.
In the meantime, our marine start is published! Check it out and give feedback.
I also added a couple tests of the new portal in the ready room. The issue so far is that because the models concave back it is clipped in some situations (see the marine side of the rr).
Comments
http://naturalselection2.pl/news.php?item.537.1
I've already dropped the volume in the circus a bit and will cut it down once more. I'm also quite concerned as I have also noticed people avoiding gravity hub - the concept is very cool but not very functional.
I will add the files and test it out in a few days once I'm back home. Thanks again to everyone for the hard work!
Carnage the map is up you can test it out now, but it's missing 4 rooms and the portal effect will obviously change.
No worries. Sounds good, but real life always comes first. Hope you find a job soon!
If you can use this as your master file from now on as I've added in my custom OCC and tweaked a few things on my room only. I've used the latest workshop version and just edited my room.
So if you want to just swap out the .level file and do a publish and let me know what you guys think of the changes.
Fixed Gravity hub to have no gravity in the eye of the gravity well. (When coming through from marines you fall and hit the ground and can then run and jump into the gravity well.)
Lowered Portal and effects to the center of gravity well. (for easier access to portal and looks better)
Added the custom OCC to my room.
Realigned some textures
Few other tweaks.
I've only spent an hour on these fixes as i'm pretty busy and haven't been able to do loads of testing on them. Let me know how it works out.
I have not been able to contact draktok or ritual and might need to give their rooms away. I might be able to take on one but not both...
I'm still having issues with writing certain elements of custom shaders. I'm trying to get the Normal maps alpha channel to mask the transmission colour. My best guess (that doesn't work) is in the spoiler.
<inputs>
<input name="normalMap" type="texture" address="wrap" />
<input name="transmissionColor" type="float3">(1, 1, 1)</input>
</inputs>
<code>
<![CDATA[
float3 DecodeNormal(const float4 texNormal)
{
float4 n = texNormal * 2 - 1;
//return float3(n.a, n.g, sqrt(1 - dot(n.ag, n.ag)) );
return n.xyz;
}
void MaterialShader(in Material_Input input, inout Material material)
{
float2 offset = float2(time, 0);
material.transmissionColor = transmissionColor ( tex2D(normalMap, input.texCoord) ).xy * 1* input.color.a * ( tex2D(normalMap, input.texCoord).a);
material.ssDistortion = DecodeNormal( tex2D(normalMap, input.texCoord) ).xy * 1* input.color.a * ( tex2D(normalMap, input.texCoord).a);
}
]]>
</code>
</shader>
Is this even possible? Any help would be much appreciated. Feel free to fiddle and improve.
All files attached.
I've countless abandoned level files over my learning career of map making in spark. Maybe you do too ?
Maybe if you guys want we could easily cut out sections from past abandoned levels to make quick rooms for ns2_co_portals.
So I took a trip down memory lane in my maps folder. While I've heaps abandoned levels I thought these 3 abandoned maps might have some interesting sections if a portion was cut from the map for a portals room.
So brace yourself for some shocking mapping as many hard lessons were learned while making these maps.
All these maps are playable. Or just view them in the editor.
My first map. ohhh how many mistakes I made in overzealous grandiose bad planning. It was ment to be for classic ns2 play. Purely visual creation with no regard for things like OCC, long lines of sight and countless other NS2 mapping no no's.
But as first maps go, I'm still proud of it even though it will never be played as the map I hoped it would one day be.
Have a look.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_old_nest.level
Another map long abandoned. The same map as my first map re-imagined trying to better plan, Which again I made countless mistakes but eventually inspired a 3rd re-make which is now the ns2_co_nest combat map running on some servers.
Have a look.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_nestGBRSPROPS.level
This map I think might have what it takes to make a great room for co_ portals if we cut out a section. The Original version of my map ns2_co_assault. If you're old timer in combat you might remember this one.
Have a look.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_assaultGX9.level
Do any of you guys have abandoned levels that a section could be taken from to maybe quickly finish an abandoned room ?
I'd love to have a look at some of your guys abandoned levels.
My own collection of scraps are all snippets of theme testing, and layout ideas. Not much that's close to a finished room. Maybe a few hallways.
Unfortunately that extrude covering the hole in the tent won't work, because it is blocking the light from outside. Will have to stay open despite the Occlusion problem :-/.
The file is again available here
Also I have been streaming a bit so you can check the cel-shading process by watching this.
@Howser I'm not much help there. In fact it seems that with this way I'll need to make a new model for each portal, unless there is an easy way to swap the texture? Help me figure out how to do this, unless you really want to create one of those for all... 26 portals. It looks seriously awesome! Better than I could have possibly even asked for.
We can safely assume that we need replacements for #1 Marine Start and #6 which is just a two portal room. Please let me know if you are interested. @Evil_bOb1 you can claim #6 if you want it. Using old rooms that people have made is a great idea!
I'll do it for all 26 portals... shouldn't take long as long as everyone gets the images for me and names them correctly.
If you could name them by the room number its in, then the room number for where It leads, followed by M or A depending on whether its towards marines or aliens respectively.
The current images are at 1024* I'll down size to 512 to save some memory.
I've been thinking about making a kinda Portal (as in valve software's game set in the aperture science laboratories) themed map. I'm just waiting for a layout to pop into my mind then I'll make a start! Shouldn't take more than a few days with such simple geo.
I can take the screenshots and compress to 512* and send them to you, once all of the rooms are in. I can send you a dds for each if that would be easier for you than jpg. I think the easiest way to name them is the same name as the teleport_trigger like Rudy did on his screenshots - this would mean you use D1 where D2 is though. Is it easier if I name them to match the name of the portal? e.g. D1 named like teleport_trigger but showing view out from D2.
That's a cool idea but this would make the naming scheme confusing. Should this map be named something like co_teleport instead?
Does it draw what is actually on the other side of the portal or is it just an image?
Well, if I am right, to create new portal, only thing you need to do is to duplicate the corresponding model and its .material, change the name of both and change the albedomap in material. All the other things are shared by all portals. Only complicated thing is to change the material information inside the model, but that could be done theoretically via Notepad++ (it will open the model in hex format and the material name is somewhere at the end).
If you want, I can look in to this matter next week.
Well at given condition, I think reusing/modifying someones old room will be the most effective way.
Shouldn't be too hard :P
Kalopsia : It's just an image
Or edit the material info manually within the .dae, 26 times (<library_images> tag). If you provide me with the data I can do the monkey job
I only spent an hour and a half on this so feel free to use or not.
I took the latest portals build and just added it in. It has OCC. and I get a steady 120 - 190 fps in the room.
It has a few holes due to my dirty custom OCC.
Take a run around. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_co_portals_marines.level
Interesting start. Clearly needs to be cleaned up a bit - the outsides need actual hallways or something blocking, and portals need to be in a place that you can't sit behind them & camp. There's a lot to work with here, thanks a bunch!
Oh no
Get better soon Flaterectomy sorry to hear about your troubles.
I hope you get well. I can wait to see this map finished.
I gave up on the copy paste.
It's not finished but it's close considering I've only done a few hours of work.
Let me know what you think.
Level file for a good look https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_co_portals.level
Enjoy
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32942522/ns2_co_portals.level
This is great work. I really like the room; it's just the right size & feel. Aren't you supposed to be finding a job?!?
I will eventually move it up to the same height as Gravity Hub - and then move the skybox so that the planet lines up nicely for both views.
In the meantime, our marine start is published! Check it out and give feedback.
I also added a couple tests of the new portal in the ready room. The issue so far is that because the models concave back it is clipped in some situations (see the marine side of the rr).