A year later...
After some time off, a move and looking into some other projects, I've gotten off my ass and have _b6 pretty well ready to release.
There haven't been any major changes and everything that did change will be addressed in the release thread.

Before I release, I'd like some feed back on where you guys notice FPS drops.
I know the hedges cause problems for a lot of you, so I'm looking at replacing some of them. But until we get some higher FPS models or the engine is able to render them more efficiently, not too much will change.

The open nature of the map has inherent problems with frame rates. This was one of the trade offs I accepted when trying to achieve an original style of game play.

I will post a few SS when I get home tonight.


[907th] MrGrubby

Some small lighting changes, and graphical tweaks, less but more strategic overlays, blend textures. Basically I'm polishing a bit. There are some more updates that aren't displayed in these shots. I'm in the process of rearranging the interior and slightly modifying the accessibility of the exterior of the church.

Woohoo! One of our servers' fav maps
We are in

I, for one, have never noticed any frame drops on this map. My C2D E6700/8800GTS eats this map up, as it should. But even when I had my A64 3400+/5950Ultra I never saw any frame drops, and I have played a good many, many hours on this map. I could see where some of the hedges could be replaced by brick/stone walls, but as long as you don't change the map so much that the game play suffers. I think this map has a rare blend of open field combat, close quarter combat, evenly balanced and it is a larger map, but has the right amount of choke points so that you aren't running all day trying to find someone to cap/kill.

Also, I was wondering if getting on the church roof was considered an exploit, if access from the bell tower? I don't know if this point had been address in an earlier post or not, so I was just wondering.

I've always loved b5, and it's been one of the smoothest running custom maps on my 2.6 GHz P4/6800GT. And I think you should leave the roof as an area you can reach, maybe even make it so you can reach it from both windows, instead of the one on the Axis side. Unless someone gets an MG up there, it hasn't seemed to be a problem on any of the servers I've played b5 on. :D

excellent news MrGrubby! :)

Churchyard is a much loved map, and is in one of my top 3 for sure. I can remember hanging out for news of any further updates to it heh.

I personally also dont find any fps drop areas. I have decent specs though and run from 120-60fps on your map, with 60ish being the average and it spikes to 120.

re the church roof... i would like to see access to it cut off, somehow. It is tricky to get onto it and i havent before ingame as i do see it as an exploit and we treat it as such on our servers; but i just tried now locally. After about half a dozen tries i can now perform the exploit and it can give view over the whole map including almost into spawns and definitely over both spawn exits.
Additionally, people waste time trying to get up there ingame, which essentially takes them away from their teams chances to capout, which is hard but a wonderful and achievable challenge on this map, but it does require teamwork. Removing the chance to exploit keep them useful on their team (yeah ive seen 4 people from one team trying to get up there at once)

Cheers for such a great map and heres to any future work ye do :D

Yeah, Churchyard has been a favorite on MANY servers, so this should well anticipated.

Good news, it's a fantastic map. My only hope, much like the others, is that the church roof is closed off. It's a real pain having an MG up there rattling away into US spawn. It's been used in every campaign of ViE so far, and everyone seems to like it, although the 1st campaign the church roof was allowed, and it was a nightmare. After it was made off limits it felt much more balanced.

It's a great map - everyone at TnP loves it - so we'll look forward to a new version!

We too consider the church roof off-limits, so we'd welcome some tweakage on that ;)

I'm currently struggling by with my old system - a Shuttle 2500XP + Radeon 9700, and obviously it struggles a bit, but I can't remember any particular areas that cause more problems than anywhere else.

Woohoo this will make it even better for ViE! Its one of the favorites for both armies, and now with better FPS, definitely will be one of the top ViE maps.

*Bump*
I've added some new screen shots.

The Church roof was just an oversight by myself, I didn't extend the player clip far enough because when I was making it, func_details (which include the roof over hang) were not turned on.

The same clipping that causes you to slide down the side of the roof next to the tower has been extended the entire length of the roof. So you will not be able to access the main roof any more.

I really like this map. A suggestion for server admins: Ban snipers and limit Riflemen, as they can seriously make this map a snipingfest... (Personally I don't like to snipe all that much :P)

I really like this map. A suggestion for server admins: Ban snipers and limit Riflemen, as they can seriously make this map a snipingfest... (Personally I don't like to snipe all that much :P)

A suggestion for Dash: sneak in and punch them in the back of the head. That oughta teach em. That's what I do :D

love love love this map. glad to see you've picked it back up again grubbs

cc-c-c--c cool :)

Any time table for the release? Other than soon?

Can't tell if you fixed it or not from the screenshots, but your fog color is nonsense. If you make it the same color or darker (because less light hits the haze thats between your eyes and all other world geometry) than the sky behind it then it should appear much more real.

A suggestion for Dash: sneak in and punch them in the back of the head. That oughta teach em. That's what I do :D

I try, lol.