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Post #2481
We were experimenting with underground tunnels and things like that long before you arrived. We decided to scrap the idea a few months ago.
The collective "we."
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Did Garry actually give you guys any reasoning why he doesn't like it anymore or did he just say he doesn't like it anymore?
Maybe some of those things were what Garry had liked about this map as they made it stand out a bit more from the other generic GM_Construct maps. Yeah, the current version still has new features that make it better than the older GM_Constructs, but it still has a somewhat generic feel. Just my interpretation though.
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I personally lost interest in the direction of this map long ago, so I'm not surprised Garry had issues with it.
For me, it wasn't so much that it was a bad map, just that everything was being executed poorly. The entire thing just seemed like a clusterfudge of ideas thrown into a map that didn't fit, constantly with nothing being refined properly and stupid amounts of time taken on simple unnecessary things.
The authors had some interesting ideas, but several didn't belong in the map at all.
I came back to this thread when I noted that the map had been updated to remove such things as the silly tunnel system and submarine area as mentioned before me, but even then it felt like the map was going in circles and not really becoming anything special.
That and as Max has said, there was so much dramatic behavior involving the treatment of the map.
Garry showed an interest and as a result the authors were giving every update post an "UPDATE" banner at the top, and responding to everyone like they're technical support at some video game company. The icing on the cake was the massive apology paragraph when Max took over.
Given Max's history (I still adore his 3D mountains for TF2 as an example), I'm actually once again looking forward to this maps development, and worrying less about the authors themselves.
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I agree, this map in its current state just doesn't feel like Construct anymore.
Max, my biggest request is a complete makeover of those buildings. Preferably custom textures based off the original static model. Their current textures look VERY off. As for soundscapes..the ambiance would be nice but I'm personally against it.
Feel free to contact me if you need some help with this project.
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... no they don't
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Bugs!
This is the building nearest the spawn, facing the entrance. On the left side, the roof has a lip on it. On the right, it doesn't. Just a minor inconsistency.
The whole wall here seems to have reflectivity inconsistencies.
This is extremely nitpicky , but some of your changes to the map made the dark room less dark. Here are original images next to touched up versions, because I've found that if your monitor isn't calibrate correctly it shows up invisible.
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yeah that's because i added fog
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some veary nice shades of black and grey you have there.
also its not that some monitors aren't calibrated correctly its the contrast ratio on them, newer monitors have a better ratio so its easer to see.
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That's some yellow-ass fog in that one area then.
Edited:
Standing inside the darkroom exit looking out at the map, this skybox error happens. I can't replicate in any other spots.
Maybe a bug with garry's new sky shader?
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oh nah, that's my mistake, I'll fix itThat's some yellow-ass fog in that one area then.
Edited:
Standing inside the darkroom exit looking out at the map, this skybox error happens. I can't replicate in any other spots.
Maybe a bug with garry's new sky shader?
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New build coming up in an hour or two — I fixed some more things, and I added soundscapes!
They're entirely custom (no HL2 sounds etc), and they're fairly weak in terms of volume... hopefully enough to not be complete dead lifeless silence, yet not too much to not be distracting :)
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Eh, my old CRT had better light/dark contrast ratio then my current ASUS monitor.
Hell, my old main monitor had better contrast ratio (Albeit it was a studio-quality monitor made for editing and it required it)
As people get more obsessed with different things, color quality and contrast has gone to garbage; One of the main reasons I'm still searching for a reasonably priced 16:9 1080 (or higher) CRT.
Or, for OLEDS to become the main format, because they change color / brightness almost instantly (in nano-seconds as compared to 2-10 MS current ones do) and they have a REALLY, REALLLLY nice contrast ratio and color quality.
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Are you recording and mixing your own custom soundscapes? If so, what hardware/software are you using? Just curious, as I'm going into audio engineering.
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Another new build uploading right now
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gee thanks
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Source's soundscapes are mostly written, my suggestion to you is to look into the soundscapes files already in source.
As for recording; since you'll be doing a lot of ambient sounds I suggest a non-dynamic microphone, be it ribbon or condenser.
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I mix some public domain sounds from freesound.org along with my own field recordings, made with a philips recording and a sony MD
i use audacity and sony vegas with a few custom vsts
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why was the water texture changed to use cubemap shaders?
was the previous texture's shaders unable to handle the new skybox system
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i rarely use dynamic mics but yeah I've been in contact a lot with mike morasky and members of his crew.
Edited:
awesome, thanks.
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This was reverted two days ago.
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Some minor modifications were made to the map, most notably, the mirror room lights are now static. This effectively shrunk the map size by half compared to the prior map builds.
Screenshot taken in Ep2, because gmod 13 is currently broken.
Some adjustments to the credit room were also made, but very very minor stuff.
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It was literally doubling the file size?Some minor modifications were made to the map, most notably, the mirror room lights are now static. This effectively shrunk the map size by half compared to the prior map builds.
Screenshot taken in Ep2, because gmod 13 is currently broken.
Some adjustments to the credit room were also made, but very very minor stuff.
Was this recently discovered or something that those working on the map have been aware of?
It seems really silly to keep a feature that does something like that if it's purely cosmetic,
so I'm pleased to see it go in favor of something more practical.
In addition; forgive me for asking, but are you back on the project?
Your post sort of gives the impression that you did this.
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Colton and I were never removed from the project, Max was added to the team and did a lot of good work.
And the file size issue was just us not realizing it until the toggle lights were removed.
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My bad. I suppose I misunderstood.
I just assumed based on the snipped dramatic post, that you guys had been asked to step down from the project. If anything that posts purpose makes even less sense to me now than before.
Regardless, with Max's guidance and your previous works on the map, I'm sure three heads will be better than one. We're already off to a good start by effectively cutting the file size in half.
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the build that's shipping with today's update in a few hours is the one right before colton's change there, though
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To me, and probably a good bunch of people, this was not a recent realization; it was a necessary evil to deal with when having dynamic lights in the mirror room. Since we opted to remove the dynamic light functionality from the Mirror Room, the HDR -final (only) compile of the map was 28mb.
With Cubemaps built, it was about 47mb. (We are looking into probably removing cubemaps all together (somehow), they increase the map size, and don't have enough pros to outweigh the cons.) ((Map doubling in size when we buildcubemaps, and odd reflective surfaces being where they shouldn't be, etc.))
So all-in-all, if we go ahead and keep cubemaps out of the map (somehow), or disable specularity on just the map (somehow), the map size will be effectively around 40mb I suppose, with full LDR and HDR lightmaps baked into it.
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I'm gonna remove reflectivity from the outer walls and lower cubemap resolution, that should do the trick
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For every 1 light that you have it must be calculated. If you have 20 lights all on they are calculated together. But if each of those lights has a on/off setting the mapsize increases hugely because it has to calculate with each one off/on.
Light 1 on, light 2 off, light 3 off, etc.
That's why the valve wiki recommends to use as few toggling lights as possible.
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Well, the random reflections are being caused by the normal maps. The only get reflective in the shadows. To fix this I'd suggest making the normal map into the bump map. (just editing the vmt)
Cubemaps are good. Just place the ones you need, where you need it. water requires one for simple reflections. As for cubemap size, you can also make the ones that don't really matter, a small texture size like 128, or 256.
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I was mainly just confused as to why a feature doubling the file size was being kept in the first place,
rather than wondering what causes it.
But thanks for the interesting breakdown.
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Do people find it even remotely interesting to have water in the mirror room?
Just coming up with design ideas to further the room.
P.S. As you may have guessed, having water and the mirror in the same room causes the mirror to pork up.
(Water doesn't render in mirror. Mirror doesnt render when water is on-screen.)
Removed the water.
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Why bother? Usually when you have water in the same PVS as the reflective glass it causes rendering issues because they share the same reflective texture. Unless garry added a new buffer image for the reflective glass. It does seem pretty useless though.
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How does a small tunnel-loop connected to the mirror room sound? For trains, and the sort.
Edited:
I'm currently revising the geometry of every archway in the map. Nothing visually different, just how they are shaped.
Changing every one of these:
Into these:
This is groundbreaking development right here everyone.
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Seeing that it makes no difference post-compile, isn't it just wasted time and effort to switch from one person's preferred way of making brushes to another?How does a small tunnel-loop connected to the mirror room sound? For trains, and the sort.
Edited:
I'm currently revising the geometry of every archway in the map. Nothing visually different, just how they are shaped.
Changing every one of these:
Into these:
This is groundbreaking development right here everyone.
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Less faces.
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Removing cubemaps would be stupid, just reduce the number and manually select what faces they should apply to when they look "odd" or "Broken"
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This was my idea, and we used to do that. I might end up doing it again in the very final stages of the map.
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The birds are lovely additions to the game. But just like real life they don't shut the fuck up.. Maybe some pauses between the sounds or just a few less birds
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Hey guys, love the work that's going on here. Made this comic earlier, thought it'd be relevant. Kind of. Also I was to lazy to make a proper ending.
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I think we should leave well enough alone. It's too close to the end to begin adding new rooms and features. I think these final weeks should be spent on optimization and polish.
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Zing x 1
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Artistic x 5
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