wip [W.I.P.] (SP) Star Wars - Republic Intelligence

[Lazarus]

Again, postponed, not forgotten. Worked actually last Monday on this for a few hours, cleaning up a lot of brushwork on this , and started on the side part that connects the main area (where the "mission giver" is) to the soon upper part, with the crashed ship (you have to gather parts there) 

 

Nothing wortth noting really, but for the sake of arguement, this is a WIP threat after all

 

[Lazarus]

bah, all my pics gone? noooooo, now i need to reupload all pics or... i can just start adding new pics to it worked todya on it, no screenshots, but making progress on a side inlet is not really WIP worthy

[Lazarus]

Actually did some shader work offscreen (since the water is now a bit animated, slightly bobbing, and i fixed the sun shader where light was cast in the wrong direction)

 

Started to lay down the mountain work on the other side of the inlet you have to walk out to get to second area, in here you have to climb up some rocks  (may need to do a puzzle of some sort here, not sure yet, but my main goal is to fix the mountain on that side, since it will be the divider beween those two areas. The inlet will lead you arround it.)

 

And since this is a wip. Here are the first (darkish, due to shader shadowing) of the inlet

 

[Lazarus]

The thing with this is, that we are at the moment at just 2516 brushes, where maybe 100 of them have nothing to do with the terrain (i gotta add that dot2product needs a brush on the edge points that tells what percent of blending happens) and they need to be manipulated by hand in order to make this look natural. For each brush group of 10 i place, i have to run bobtools to clean up the brushes (i get a lot of odd looking planes, and the occasional phantom brush, plus not to forget, brushes with no origin points so when i try to save, it fails and i have to go through all the brushes i just placed to see which one is corrupt) it's a tedious job, but one i believe has a great reward in the end when i finnish this up. 

 

So updates may be slow and it will look like its just a few minutes of work, but trust me, between saves, test compiles and cleaning up the map constantly, it takes much more. 

[AshuraDX]

The thing with this is, that we are at the moment at just 2516 brushes, where maybe 100 of them have nothing to do with the terrain (i gotta add that dot2product needs a brush on the edge points that tells what percent of blending happens) and they need to be manipulated by hand in order to make this look natural. For each brush group of 10 i place, i have to run bobtools to clean up the brushes (i get a lot of odd looking planes, and the occasional phantom brush, plus not to forget, brushes with no origin points so when i try to save, it fails and i have to go through all the brushes i just placed to see which one is corrupt) it's a tedious job, but one i believe has a great reward in the end when i finnish this up. 

 

So updates may be slow and it will look like its just a few minutes of work, but trust me, between saves, test compiles and cleaning up the map constantly, it takes much more. 

Radiant sounds like such a pain to use.

Mind sending me your .map file? I'll try to spot anything that is off and see if I can fix it for you.

No promises that I can but I'll try - alternately I could try to port your work into 3ds max and do a clean reexport of your brushes hoping that that fixes it.

[Lazarus]

 
Update, inlet is shaped and done, as well as the far wall, where on the other side a couple of mission objectives will be placed. (this rock formation also helps me seperate areas and contain hopefully some decent ramerate). Also I'd like to thank @@AshuraDX for looking at the map file and trying to help me resolve a terrain issue, where i would occasionally get an ERROR:: Build Brush Points: Point in brush (technically the brush itself cant be loaded.) This prevents me from saving and running a compile. It uses for the compile an old save in where the error did not contain. For now, when i get this error, I simply select a group of brushes i think this problem exists in, delete them, check with brush cleanup tool from bobtoolz if its gone, if so, i undo that action so the brushes are back. For some odd reason it will correctly add the vertex back on the right spot.

[RAILBACK]

I know you hand blended that terrain. I think you can do better to get rid of that 'wallpaper' repetition. You can add totally separate brushes covering your terrain at random spots. Small groups of tri-soup, here and there.

[Lazarus]

I can do that, but I like to finnish up first the overall layout before I start playing with extra textures. I agree that especially the grass does feel repetitive. Thanks for the feedback.

 

I do have to add I am working to get dense grass sprites ready to place at random spots in the map with other weeds as well, plus trying to add bobbing plants in the shallow waters.

[Lazarus]

i started on the indoor warehouse (map 2) of this mod, i left the outdoor for what it was and are working on the general layout now. No screenies, since i just started, and put this mod to rest for the last 4 months, to prepare myself mentally for the second kid. just 3,5 more weeks (max 5,5) till a new sithspawn arrives

[Lazarus]

Oof, did i not touch this for over a year again? 

 

Well, since a lot has happened in my life, this is not on my prio list. hehehe. However, being a dad of 2 now (my gf gave birth last year october to my daughter - had already a son who will turn this october 3) its hard to find time to do something with mapping. Anyway, I found all of the sudden again inspiration earlier this evening, and been looking through the map again. I might pick this up again and work on it. Something i wanna finnish now.

 

So yea, i am back  

[Lazarus]

 

 

 

While being today a day off, decided to do some terrain shaping, first part of the ring and loop arround is being constructed.

[z3filus]

the milk of my people, how it kisses my eyes

[Lazarus]

more wip, the bend is further shaped, placed part of a mountain there to work arround it, fixed the ledge.

 

[RAILBACK]

You hand-shapin' fool you! 

[Lazarus]

 

 

 

More work in progress, the S bend is completely laying out, started on the inner mountain that separates the upper from the lower side (it makes sense if you have a height map, safe to say in the S bend, the right side is the upper side, the left side which i am connecting now is the low side). Mind you, this is a long run, so mountains will be clipped. No vehicle here (maybe as a reward for a sub objective, not yet sure, tricky with the depth of the water and a swoop)

[Lazarus]

Work caught up on me the last year, as you can see of the posts i made in here... which are pretty much zero. However, nothing is lost! I am still here and hoover occasionally here around on the forums, lurking.

shht, i havent forgotten this. New computer though, but got it all running again. Wips Soon again!

[Lazarus]

First WIPS in a while, i am adjusting the ground level under the water, to create a more shallow area. Some parts you ll have to swim rather than walk, and since its an in led of sea level (not sure how i am gonna do that part yet) its quite important, we creating little higher up land parts within that,  Dont mind the texturing, i am gonna work on that as soon as the mapping part is finnished, i may gonna use more dot2product with 3 point shadering, but for now, this works to give me a sense of area.

There is a part you dont see, still caulk, but i am rounding up the mountain on the first picture, so it gets connected. The little trench will be an optional road you ll have to unlock. Else you gotta take the long way arround the mountain. I tell you, its quite a walk, and since you play a non-force user, i am actually inclined to see if we can unlock a speeder or something. The mission i ll have to work still on it, but i got in a seperate file already objectives made on what needs happening. 

Also added a lot of clip brushes, so you cant climb up the mountains anymore

[Lazarus]

Okay, I been tweaking this thing for the last month, and started with repairing the entities, which were half broken all of the sudden, thus i removed all of non essential entities for now and do the lay out first before i am going to add the scripts and entities.

Also revised a part of the map where the end fight will be and started laying that out. Also decided i needed to make an entree point so i started working on that area too, but due to the fact i have been busy with work, hospital visits and i need to be administered soon for a kidney stone that has to be removed and also other interests, things go slow. I started also to play with the shaders a bit, especially the sprites i wanna work with, so that patches of grass will be filled in with sprites, etc.

[Lazarus]

I remoddelled some of the side of the map, so i could seal it, but realized I have to play also with the environment, so i decided to see if i could "sculp" out of brushes a cave entrance

i d say i dont think a model could do better of this inregular, not symetric, skewed cave entrance. 

As above picture and below picture also dictate, i covered up the edges of the map with rock, so it looks actually enclosed as well, rather than stopped somewhere lose if you are standing in the map itself, give it a sense of an squared of open area. 

When i get this part done, i ll probably add another cave somewhere in the map for maybe a sub objective, i dont know yet (its SP after all)

I need to figure out a way to see if i can create some highres better images for this, cause i want it more vibrant. Also i need to dive again in some 3d modelling program to see if i can create plant models, trees, etc for the map to start filling it up. 

[RAILBACK]

Love it. You should come up with some unique and interesting plant life. Maybe I'll help with some sketches.... 

[Lazarus]

On 4/16/2021 at 5:20 AM, RAILBACK said:

Love it. You should come up with some unique and interesting plant life. Maybe I'll help with some sketches.... 

Always welcome. I need to learn myself to spend time in blender / 3d max to get myself models made for it.

[Lazarus]

i am sorry I havent been able to spend some time on this. However, good reasoning.

• Bought a house in RL, marketprices in the Netherlands are a bitch btw, and its an overheated market, easily 400.000 euro's for a house. However, we got a lucky break after viewing 29 houses and place a bid on 13 of them.
• As some of you know, I have 2 kids, which already give me trouble finding time to do something with this project. Just to top this off, number 3 will be arriving somewhere half January.
• Work in RL is a bitch sadly too, punching a lot of overtime, but also with good prospects, since I will be promoted to a management position within the company I work for now coming November. Means litterly that my workload is being reduced.

So I may actually find this time some time to start the scripting phase and wrap up designing phase. Also need good tutorials on how to start of modelling  

[Lazarus]

The project is not dead, no worries, but a lot of shit on my mind. I am still here  

[Lazarus]

Just a quick radiant screen. I started today on the expansion towards the landing area where the map starts.

 

A screenie from Radiant. I launched today for the first time since October last year the map, and started expanding towards the start area of the map (what i have in mind) 

I actually have an idea how to incorporate a bit of Kyle Katarn / Rosh Penin in it, as a cut scene, but thats music for the future.

[Lazarus]

I have been toying with shaders a bit, and mix and match on the surface sprites for my grass, which now looks decent. Its build on a seperate layer on the terrain since i didnt want it to be added to the blending... I now will see if i model either reeds or make use of a sprite texture here as well...