I've been plodding away in Hammer for a while now and decided I should finally show the world a map I've been working on. It's a Basic 5 flag map with a bridge choke as the central point. It's vaguely inspired by the old cr44 and other bridge style maps.

Here's some screenies!

http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=layout2pb.jpg
http://img323.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00004oh.jpg
http://img104.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00045tr.jpg
http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00057ry.jpg
http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00064so.jpg
http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00071gd.jpg
http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00085cd.jpg
http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00098fm.jpg
http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00109bj.jpg
http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00110zc.jpg
http://img240.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00124bh.jpg
http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=layout2pb.jpg

Brucke dorf means 'bridge village' in german.

I think I still have at least a few weeks of work to go on it, but might release a beta soon for play testing etc.

Thanks.
Lard.

The overall impression I get is empty and square..

Most of your detail comes from prop-models, but the brushwork lacks detail.
Also you have long walls that look monotonous because of 1 texture being tiled without vartiation with overlays or different textures..

There are also quite a few realism errors..
- There is a door on the outer wall on the second floor of a building in the first screenshot (skipping the overview), no traces of a balcony or other possible room..
- The bridge seems pretty pointless, it leads to the church but ends there, I think that there should be at least a road to continue after the bridge, not just a churchsquare and a smaller street a bit further..
- When a wooden floor breaks, it falls apart in planches, not a huge piece of wood (that happens to concrete, not wood)

Also, keep in mind that you're working for the source engine.. With this I mean that you should use the possibilities to extend the dried up river so it fades away in the distance, not just stop with a few rocks (that's very HL1-ish)

Also, be sure to and at least 1 env_cubemap, because I think that the lack of this entity causes the windows to cast purple/red "reflections"..


Overall it's a good start, but be sure to add more detailed brushwork (and not just propmodels), fix the realism errros and make the overall look look less empty..

Thanks Bolteh, good constructive criticism is exactly what I wanted, and I agree with everything you said.

I haven't placed many overlays or decals yet so they will add quite a bit, and I also haven't approached the skybox geometry either so that should fix up the river to nowhere problem.

The realism issues, Yup, the road might need a little map re-arranging, but nothing I can't handle.

And brush detail, yup will do!

Thanks for the feedback!

Agreed with Bolteh, and additionally, I'd like to point out two more things:

the church tower spike is too small in comparison to the rest of the building, it makes it look weird because off scale.

The purple reflections in the windows aren't caused by the lack of a env_cubemap, they're caused by you missing one of the textures it calls for usually called by the same name and ending with "_spec". Check that out in the vmt

Sorry, my bad =) thought it might be that, since water needs an env_cubemap, or else it shows purple stuff :)

But listen to Furyo for that one, he knows better ;)

Thanks Furyo, I'll tweak my spire :)

Also the pink bits, The vmt for that texture just has:

"LightmappedGeneric"
{
"$basetexture" "concrete/concretewall013b"
"$surfaceprop" "concrete"
"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
"$basealphaenvmapmask" 1
"$envmapcontrast" 1
"$envmapsaturation" 1
"$envmaptint" "[ .6 .6 .6]"
}

There's no _spec version of that texture in the gcf. any ideas?


Also I have another problem. With HDR lighting, Some lightmaps brighten and darken even tho they're nowhere near where I am in the level. EG the building on the far side of the bridge will go black when you're inside the church. What causes this? I have a lot of env_cubemaps's placed, could it be too many? not enuff?
===================
Fixed the funky lighting problem.....
textures from the models/ directory are EVIL!!!
===================
Thanks again,
Lard.

I was refering to these windows here:

http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dodbruckedorf00098fm.jpg

Surely the vmt doesn't refer to a concretewall? Are those windows custom (meaning extracted from the CSS gcf?)

Back in the dod source beta days when I had extracted everything off gcf files for Dijon and I had these pink reflections, it was the spec textures I hadn't included in the right folder.

As for lightmaps, I wouldn't know the first thing about them as I always leave them to default (16)

Having too many env_cubemaps is very hard to achieve I found. Not because you should use a lot, but because I've never seen cubemaps causing a problem no matter how many I had at one point on Dijon (in the couple hundreds). They are accessed in game though, so you should really only put them where they're needed as opposed to everywhere on the map.

Originally posted by Lard
Also I have another problem. With HDR lighting, Some lightmaps brighten and darken even tho they're nowhere near where I am in the level. EG the building on the far side of the bridge will go black when you're inside the church. What causes this? I have a lot of env_cubemaps's placed, could it be too many? not enuff?

I've had some weird lighting issues with func_detail brushes. I converted them to regular brushes and it fixed the problem. It's a simple thing to change, may even solve your problem, who knows !

:)

It's better when you call the map DOD_Brueckendorf not DOD_Bruckedorf

hehe ok, my german language skills are just whatever babelfish can give me :)

Is Brueckendorf a better translation?

well the proper spelling is "brück" not bruck (which would be pronounced brook)

Seen as weird characters (accents and what not) are a no go for map names, you could settle for the other spelling: "brueck" where the "e" replaces the "¨"

So if you mean to say "the bridge village", then yeah brueckendorf it should be.

The problem being that only german speakers will remember how to spell your map in the console when they want to change it to that. A good rule of thumb is to keep map names simple for votes and what not.

Also keep in mind that "cool sounding" names will get more votes on the vast majority of servers.

That's it! I'm calling it dod_I_0wnzN00bz! :)

Bruckedorf has a better ring to it, and is easier to remember....I can't remember map names like dod_nimjamamanenen or dod_hhkblitzkrieggenwaffenschnitzel :D

But I am the simpleton prince of the noobs.

Haha....I agree that dod_bruckedorf is better than some silly, cartoonish name. At least it has something to do with the map AND the era.

But dod_bridge_village could also work wonders, even though it's a big long-winded.

Looking good. I agree with what the second poster said. That and a little beautification and u have a good map. Try and give it something new tho because there will be a lot of maps like saints cr44 etc so you need yours to stand out above the rest.

Originally posted by Lard

Brucke dorf means 'bridge village' in german.

Lard. [/B]

Correct German would be "Brückendorf" ;)
As flomatic mentioned!

Looks promising,....

Decided to rename my map to dod_stug for several reasons:

easier to remember
easier to spell

and!


http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7978/stugflat8jw.jpg

It's a German Stug 3 (ausf G). I'm still unwrapping it, and will get onto the texture real soon.

I'm also slightly modifying the level layout to better cater for a the stug and a workshop around it. More screenies soon...

Ahh, that's what that is. There's a Stug in the Band of Brothers Foy episode. May have to borrow that for the b2 or final :p

Good name, dod_stug. Has a nice ring to it.

Sure once it's done and out there feel free to use it. Hope you're not in a rush tho, I'm exactly the fastest texturer on the planet :)

Maps looking nice, so is that model.

EG the building on the far side of the bridge will go black when you're inside the church.

I dont know if youve figured that out, but check to see if the building thats going black is using a prop texture. i was having that problem about a week ago.

Yup that was it, I figured it out a while ago, I had used quite a few texturesd from models/, once i fixed that up it was all pretty :)

Reminded me, I made a stug tank a couple years ago, forgot about it 'til now.



:)

Just posted an update of the stug at

http://www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64771