Hello !
Well, I don't have really many things to say, just that I was very bored so I just mapped a room.
But I had an idea with this room, why not make a NS map ?

Ns_Toccata
Contents :

• 1 CC
• 3 Hives
• 20 Locations Total : Here are the main areas (16)
  • Marine Spawn - Technical Support Bay
  • Crossroads
  • Machinery
  • Hive Location - Central Computer
  • Long Corridor
  • Yet Another Corridor
  • Mess
  • Last Hope
  • Warehouse
  • Ventilation Shaft
  • Aux. Ventilation
  • Cargo
  • Ore Extractor
  • Hive Location - Ventilation
  • Observatory
  • Hive Location - HyperSleep System
• 10 func_resource total
• 10 skulk ducts total
• 2 weldable doors (closed at start) and 3 weldable vents

Story :

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TSA Outpost 4562 XO
Sender : Lt. Kurdt
To : Adj. Adrian
Subject : Mining Ship Toccata in Jeopardy near your system.

Hello my friend ! We received an incoming transmission from the mining ship Toccata 5 hours ago. The ship seems to have some problems !
It's near your system now, we told them to go to the KT-20 shipyard, next to your outpost.
Please, enter in the spaceship and evacuate all the staff, it seems that a virus contamined some of the people who works on the ore extraction.

Cheers, your friend Lt. Kurdt

END OF THE MESSAGE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TSA Encouter Team 6, System Alpha 850, KT-20 Shipyard, Toccata Mining Ship
Sender : Adj. Adrian
To : Lt. Ian
Subject : Successful entry in the Toccata.

Hey man, I told you, we've succeeded ! You must give me 10 credits ! Please rejoin me in the Hall, we must briefing our troops. Something is wrong inside the ship...

END OF THE MESSAGE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TSA Encouter Team 6, System Alpha 850, KT-20 Shipyard, Toccata Mining Ship
Sender : Pvt. Jones
To : Lt. Ian
Subject : HELP NEEDED !!

All units ! Please help us ! Some intelligent hostiles are atting us ! Ple hp us !

END OF THE MESSAGE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Well soldiers, we've lost the communication with the Adj. Adrian's team. We must enter the ship and discover why they don't answer to our calls.

Mapping :

For the moment, I just started a room with a couple more rooms. It's just a test. The map uses the classic textures and its purpose is to look like ns_bast in appearence, cause I really love this map (textures, architecture design, etc).

Here are two screenies of the Marine Spawn :

Got a few comments on these screens

- I'm concerned with those pipes in the background, Now I can't see it clearly due to jpg compresstion and them being on the other side of the room. But it looks like they are overlapping brushes on the bend in the pipe?

If so that will cause you problems with clip hulls (ignore this is I'm mistaken)

- The light texures at the ceiling are casting light yet they themselves are not lit/on

- Did you compile with the ambient light parameter? I see the same light strength troughout the area, with the exception of the light textures where its brighter. Might want to turn the ambient light parameter off (if you have it on at all that is) and work with some spotlights perhaps. Creating bright areas and dark areas troughout the MS.

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Love the story/idea, even if it short or a first draft. I wish you good luck on this project sir

New screenshots


Better ?











No, there's not any overlapping brushes on the pipes. Maybe the texture do this effect



I don't know exactly. Im currently compiling with Batch Compiler, and this option doesn't exist anywhere

Thanks for you comment

I really like your screens, nice architecture, nice lighnting. It looks very "left spaceship/facility"-like what is really cool for ns maps, since the whole alien vs marine thing is about that feeling. Id like to see more!

Nice looking map, much better than anything i could ever do. Ive always been awwed by the amazing abilities of mappers and maps, especially this one. I hope that all maps don't need to be so detailed, or I'd give up on mapping (i wouldn't have the patience to do it )

I hope to see this map up soon, I'll be one of the testers

Thanks for the comments

Here are a couple more screenies.


Redone Warehouse access to Fondery, very lost-ish


Auxiliary Ventilation area.


The Cargo, next to the Aux. Ventilation, the Ventilation Hive and the Ore Extractor.


Aliens !


The Ventilation Hive. Weird minimap


Another view.

There is potential here. Possibly great.

Right... Your map needs more light. It seems you are aware of light_spots from the Aux Vent room. Use them more. Usually light_spots work best in a tight cone like 20/22 and brightness like 210 210 255 300 for white light (slightly blue, but pure white light ends up grey as it fades). Use them all over the place and I don't really think people mind if you don't put a source bulb somewhere. Are you using texlights? They are usually 90% effective and 90% less effort than lights in front of textures or shader brushes. You should try tweaking your compile too. On rad, put -gamma 0.6 .. It reduces the length the light is thrown, making your map much darker but meaning that the place a light emits from is brighter and stronger. Mineshaft was compiled with -gamma 0.9 and texlights at ten times their original brightness value, if I recall correctly.


Big rooms, aliens have a hard time in. Thought of adding some details to cut up the size of rooms and provide some cover? And no, I don't mean crates! I mean engines, generators, pistons, support beams, cryo-pods, tables, computer banks, pipes, maintenance hatches and anything else you can dream of. Detail is usually very welcome if it is structural. I mean that walls can go in and out and in again like castle tops. but... vertically. Plus structure like that can provide for ample lighting locations.

Most of all, good work. Keep mapping and keep improving!

I love the design and the layout from the screenshots you provided, but i agree with everyone else when they say work on the lighting. Great job, looks great and i hope to see this map for download soon!

Thanks for your comments.
I've just tested the gamma and i'm now on 0.6 for darker ambience, but better lighting is my purpose for the moment.

Here is a the layout map for the moment, the map is approx. 35 % total made.



The red arrows are the next ways to come.

By the way I've some pics.

The Observatory's RT
(This area is kinda empty )


The Ready Room.

Wuh-wuh-WOOT! Nice rr.

I love the last two pictures you posted including the readyroom, but im still curious to know if the lighting is still that badly dark, or if its just the gamma of your game making the screenshots out to be way to dark? If not i would deff work on the lighting, this map has great potential and is looking sexy though!

Well, I've bad news.
I can't compile the map for the moment, due to an f***ing compile error : Mermory Allocation Failure.
I'm currently trying to fix this problem (i'm on it for 2-3 hours), but I don't know if it will work.

EDIT : Wow, now hlrad is crashing without error messages, around 70%...

Did you try alt p in hammer? I guess you have a some texture error. Check the vis log too...

That's ok for the moment, but this error will re-appear in the developement i think.
The only errors I have are the func_conveyor troubles (that aren't troubles at all).

I succeeded in compiling the map, and I've some screenies.


The Cold flux control, that feeds the cryogenic system.


A corridor..

That's it. Now the Cargo is linked with the Observatory by the Cold flux control access.

Well, I can't finish the compilation for the moment, this problem is very irritating.
But I've also finished a greeeat part of the map.

The Warehouse is now linked with the Last Hope location and the Crossroads (which is linked with the MS).
I've also finished the second hive.
The lightning has been increased in some parts and I've reduced a bit the Observatory (way too big)
Here is a Hammer screenshot



I don't know exactly what I'll do in the future with this map..

How the hell do you all do this crazy insane nice stuff?! Looking great, keep it up and hopefully you'll figure out the errors too!

What compile settings are you using?

Got any leaks?

Try copying the whole map to a new .rmf file. Sometimes that fixes weird stuff.

Oh and if all else fails try making a test copy of the map and delete sections of it to localize the problem.

Watch out though! We don't want to lose that gorgeous map.

Here are my batch configurations :

CSG : Not any wadincludes, All options unticked.
BSP : All options unticked too.
VIS : Full.
RAD : Sparse, No Opaque Entities, Bounce, Gamme = 0.6.
Shared : Chart, Tex Data = 9000.
Batch : Copy .prt and .bsp after compile.

That's my usual compilation batch, and I never had this trouble before.
I don't have leaks, because I'm very careful in my mapping
I'll try to copy the .rmf file into a new this afternoon.


Thanks

why texdata 9000? I pretty much exeeded all limits in my map except of this one and your map doesnt look like it uses so many different textures yet...
Did you also make sure that you use the latest ZHLTs (version 3.4).
I dont how expierenced you are with compile errors but log-posting sometimes does miracles