Making domes and terrain

[gman19]

I'm making a new map inspired by Whiskey Outpost from Starship Troopers. What I need help with is making domes and bumpy terrain. Here's a picture of the Whiskey Outpost set for Starship Troopers, the image I'm using to make the map:



As you can see, there are a few dome-roofed buildings in there, plus the outside terrain. What I'm wanting to do is recreate those buildings and terrain. The human base will be made inside one of those buildings, and the alien base will be across the map in a network of caves (like in the final scenes of the movie) I'm not trying to blatantly ripoff the movie set, but I'm trying to get it very authentic.

Thanks for the help!

[Survivor]

Domes = brushwork + clipper/vertex editing if you like

Bumpy ground, vertex, terragen or something. Also ask dasprid how he did it in his safari map.

[Pat AfterMoon]

For the cavern you could look at the "Pyramid of the Magician" by Simon "sock" O'Callaghan
http://simland.planetquake.gamespy.com//pages/q3maps/pom.htm

From the same author there is a lot of useful tutorials. If I remember well, Dasprid has talked about these tutorials in a post about his maps.
http://simland.planetquake.gamespy.com//pages/articles.htm

[Dersaidin]

Domes = patches.

Make the texture bumpy (alpha faded in around the sides) and leave the terrain relatively smooth with some rocks and stuff scattared around.

I suggest you add some tunnels aswell to make the map a little bigger, better gameplay.

You could also extend the outpost into a bigger base by adding a building on the back.

[Radiohead]

Yes tunnels would be really good.

Try to keep both races slightly even in their bases.

[DASPRiD]

True, for nice terrain, take a look at Sock's terrain tutorial. It takes a bit before you really understand the alpha-fade + dotproduct2 technic, but it's worth. This method also saves many fps.

[gman19]

By the way, tunnels ARE going to be included in the map. For those that have seen the movie, I am going to include a tunnel that leads directly into the heart of the base, like the one the Arachnids used to attack the mess tent.

There will be the outpost at one end of the map, then a large canyon that goes from the Outpost, winds around, and ends at a cave entrance leading to a network of tunnels, with a large cavern and the alien base in back.

Throughout the canyon, there will be a few (4-6 at the most) tunnels that open into small caves. These caves will be burrows, for the most part, that an Advanced Basilisk can barely squeeze into (I will make the openings/tunnels about 3 units larger than the basi's size). That way, dretches/basilisks can jump down onto unsuspecting hummies, but rants and goons can't rape anyone. The openings won't be large enough for a basi to evo into a rant, so that will block those that try to outsmart the layout.

In the aforementioned tunnel into the human base, there will be a trigger_class variable that makes the floor drop out PERMANENTLY when an alien moves over it. This makes it where strategy on the aliens' part is required, as a dretch screwing around in the tunnel near the base will drop the floor and let the humans chaingun the tyrants that could have decimated the entire base later on with a surprise attack.

Also, I'm going to look into making a trigger that releases some sort of gas into the cavern/tunnel system that kills any alien structure/alien organism that it comes into contact with. The effect would be like that of a dretch with an alien booster on the map; a human bitten by a poison dretch loses health constantly until they use a MedKit or Medistation. The same effect goes for the aliens; trigger this system, and any alien or structure would be poisoned like that and slowly lose health while inside the caverns. However, to further balance that, the effect only lasts for 15 seconds and cannot be reused in that game session. Like I said, this hasn't been implemented yet and is still in the "Idea" box, not the "Reality" one. If there's a way, I will try to fix something like that up.


And that's the gist of it. Seeing that Winter break starts at exactly 11:50 AM CST tomorrow, the first beta of this map should be out around January or so. The work on Outpost P (working title, suggest something better please) will happen mainly between December 21st and January 2nd (I go back to school on the 3rd). So, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Also, screenshots from Radiant will be uploaded later, nothing has been textured yet; still doing brushwork and layout.

Thank you all for your support!

[Survivor]

One warning in your gas idea. It has been proven that in the current version it is very hard to damage multiple people simultaneously. You might want to adjust that part.

[gman19]

Ah. Crap, well, I'll have to figure something else out to balance out the map; with the tunnels leading directly into the back of the base, the map leans way too far into alien's favor. Maybe something like a defense platform, where a button is pressed and huge tesla-like generators activate to kill any alien that comes near the outpost. If you've seen Hero of the Federation (Starship Troopers 2), you'll know what I'm talking about. They're these things, basically suped-up tesla generators, that instantly fry any incoming enemy. These would be limited to base defense only, with only the front flank being protected. The internal tunnel would still be vulnerable, though.

And, here's some screenshots for you (WARNING: These are still untextured, with only the default blue "Shader not found" covering. The mass of blue might hurt your eyes, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.)



The tower (ladder is not complete, possibly make gun emplacements if possible)



Stairway leading to parapet, allows humans to stand and shoot at enemies from a good range. There is another one to the left and rear.



Ramp leading up to parapet, complete with barrels below (left-center, under top section of ramp)



Overview of current stage of outpost, definitely NOT complete. Final version will have more buildings in back part, TEXTURES, and a lot more awesome effects.



Overview of alien base, hardly under construction. Still requires tunnels and texturing. The pink stuff is caulking, primarily to prevent leaking from the complex bumpy texturing I'm gonna do for that area. The main room will be linked to the surface by a tunnel, which ends in a cave in the side of a mountain. The yellow area is where the canyon sands will be. I'm going to put the alien base in the far left-bottom cavern. There will be a few tunnels linking off from a room or two that lead to the human base's underground trap, and the others will open up in the canyon walls, where dretches/basilisks can jump down onto unaware humans approaching the tunnel system.


I hope I don't lag anyone's slow connection with those images, but I apologize and will fix it if I do. Give me any feedback, if possible. I appreciate it!

[techhead]

Suggestion, use a flat gray shader, easier to see the shapes of the models that way.

[KnightBear]

nice work so far.  how do yuou plan to do the tesla like thing that kills the aliens?

hmmm, does this even have a trigger_hurt,,,,,  must look into that

[gman19]

Hey, sorry; I haven't had much time to work on this. Getting SOCOM 2 for Christmas and playing FreeSpace2 on my PC have kinda gotten out of hand. I will resume work on it soon, as in, a few minutes from this posting. I read your questions, and here's some things.

1) Okay, I'll find a gray shader to fix that. Too much blue for ya? Ha ha.
Also, why is it that my ladder shader comes up with a "Image Not Found" red texture? Is that normal or not?

2) I'm not sure exactly how I'll do the tesla-type things, but there must be a way. I'm thinking something along the lines of a trigger_hurt that's button activated or something. Maybe flesh out the effects with a particle system. I'll look into it.

Well, I'll get to work on this map. I've got until Wednesday to work on it, then it's back to school. Unfortunately. XD

[kozak6]

Make sure the map is well balanced.

Big huge open wide spaces are really bad for bugs, and the Tesla defense thing you mention sounds like it could be as well.

[gman19]

BUT...I still have a way to go. Still, balance is kind of off. What exactly can I do to get the map a little more balanced? Here's the special features so far:

HUMANS:

Open canyon, hard to ambush by aliens
Tesla-style one-use system in front flank insta-kills any alien, from dretches to tyrants

ALIENS:

Underground tunnels lead to back of human base, floor drops out and aliens have instant flanking access to the base
Other tunnels open up in canyon walls, allowing for aliens to jump down onto unsuspecting humans below


So, what should I add to balance it out? Or is it fine the way it is?

EDIT: Also, does anyone have some pointers on how to incorporate a dropship into the map? Like, after a while, a button becomes available that summons a dropship to fly in and pick up the humans. The wait time for the button to become available should be like 15-20 minutes or whatever, then the dropship takes an additional 3 minutes to fly in. How exactly could I do this? It would be a model/brush (maybe) that moves in after a timer/button event and waits for so long, then takes off and flies to a pre-determined area. I could also make it 2-bladed by having it with a random generator that sometimes makes the ship fly away, sometimes makes the ship crash. The crash effect would be spiced up with particle systems and custom sounds. How's that?

[n00b pl0x]

You can always think a map is balanced or unbalanced, but you can't really know until you've played on the map.

[AKAnotu]

BUT...I still have a way to go. Still, balance is kind of off. What exactly can I do to get the map a little more balanced? Here's the special features so far:

HUMANS:

Open canyon, hard to ambush by aliens
Tesla-style one-use system in front flank insta-kills any alien, from dretches to tyrants

ALIENS:

Underground tunnels lead to back of human base, floor drops out and aliens have instant flanking access to the base
Other tunnels open up in canyon walls, allowing for aliens to jump down onto unsuspecting humans below


So, what should I add to balance it out? Or is it fine the way it is?

EDIT: Also, does anyone have some pointers on how to incorporate a dropship into the map? Like, after a while, a button becomes available that summons a dropship to fly in and pick up the humans. The wait time for the button to become available should be like 15-20 minutes or whatever, then the dropship takes an additional 3 minutes to fly in. How exactly could I do this? It would be a model/brush (maybe) that moves in after a timer/button event and waits for so long, then takes off and flies to a pre-determined area. I could also make it 2-bladed by having it with a random generator that sometimes makes the ship fly away, sometimes makes the ship crash. The crash effect would be spiced up with particle systems and custom sounds. How's that?

the devs are working on a mission map for 1.2, with the exact same principle (dropship) do a thread search, it was by err:overflow and has a lot of pink bunnies