Otherwise I'm happy my ladder prefab was a success. It looks good but still needs some tweaking since they block passage off the roof. So I'll try adding more width to correct it.
Monday, March 3, 2008
CoD4 Radiant: ladder prefab
Otherwise I'm happy my ladder prefab was a success. It looks good but still needs some tweaking since they block passage off the roof. So I'll try adding more width to correct it.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
CoD4 Radiant: update
I still have a bit more tidying up to do, meaning fixing the terrain patched and adding the missing ones. Now that I know from other peoples experience that the performance cost for the size of map I'm making shouldn't matter, should make the job easier.
Progress is coming along, I've still been concentrating on terrain and alpha textures and am nearly ready to move on. I was having a difficult time adjusting patches to the curved and banked road that I implemented, especially because it's off any of the simple grids (adjusting stuff in grid ~0.5 is a pain).
As for new stuff, I've added some brushes as templates for my structures. I still need to work out the design issues for the map. I've gotten some portions of the map worked out as of now but I'm still lacking other the other parts of the layout. So as soon as I work out the design kinks and get all the templates on, I'll begin prefabbing my structures using the templates as models.
1. CoD4 Radiant: advanced patch editor tutorial
2. CoD4 Radiant: performance constraints of detailed terrain
Sunday, February 24, 2008
CoD4 Radiant: MP_MidEastUrbanNeighborhoodOhNoh
Here's a pic I'm using as inspiration.
In other news I've been spending lots of time playing on a modded server that has on rotation many of the better looking custom maps that have been posted on the ModsOnline and InfinityWard mapping forums. Most of them look pretty good and are a lot of fun, so that would explain why I keep on playing on it.
Here's what i got so far, a main road that I'm elevating over the ground level similar to mp_ambush, but this won't be the main dividing feature. That's what I intend the wash to do. Spent most of my time tonight aligning terrain patches along the road because of some changes I made, alot of my work falls off a standard 4 unit grid so I have to do a bunch of switching between grid sizes, not that its too hard, but I'd highly recommend sticking to as large a grid as possible to make your life easier. Another tip, "Crtl + g" is useful for aligning what you have selected to the grid size you are working on.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
CoD4 Radiant: texturing
Actually the pics I put up last were from Saturdays work, and well, since I have a bit more done tonight I thought I'd show off the sad results of my texturing. Although I don't really believe results have feelings.
As you may have already known (Ryan!) texturing your map is a big deal, it means the difference between having a map that looks like a lego playset vs. something so damn realistic that you lose yourself in the action. Actually I take that knock on legos back... check this out
So despite my weak analogy, hopefully you get what I'm saying. Back to mapping!
I mainly focused on the walls of the wash, with the goal of blending the concrete, brick, and plaster primary textures together. The big problem of the night was making the blends appear less repetitive and finding the right decals to do the job.
Note: I think Ill make another run through the CoD4 single player with a more cautious eye towards map detail.
Monday, February 18, 2008
CoD4 Radiant: Still mp_unknown
In another note, I figured out what the problem was when I play tested my maps and rather than having the body of a Marine or OpFor, I was floating red text (FX). Turns out I didn't update my zone file "correctly," meaning I didn't do a thing.
If you're having this problem, it's an easy fix. When you update, you have to manually copy and paste what’s in the "Missing Assets CSV" column over to the other and finish with a save. That's all there is to it! Well hopefully I've helped you or I’m embarrassed for not knowing something that was ohh so clear in the first place. :-)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
CoD4 Radiant: MP_???
Radiant's fun now, so I decided to try putting some of my own ideas into perspective and see how they played. The first challenge I had coming into this was scaling the map. Luckily the IW wiki contains a very useful resource with Radiant measurements for common objects, such as roads, prone cover, or ceiling height.1 Also very useful to this process is adding the model "mw_scale_soldier" as a reference piece, it's surrounded by two circles that are indicative of submachinegun and rifle range. Yet in spite of having the odds in my favor, the scale I finally decided on was too small. The map played fine but ended up being a better size for 4v4 than the 16v16 TDMs I'd like to accommodate.
In addition to that problem, I ended up with rainbow colored hands because forgot to add a light grid, but I did find an explanation on how to do that.2 You might also notice I added a bridge with an arched passage way, woohoo a new tool!3 The tool I used to make the triangle on the other hand was something I accidentally figured out. So here's my explanation... Step 1: make a brush. Step 2: Hold ctrl and RMB click outside of the brush. Step 3: Keep holding ctrl bring the mouse to the other side of the brush and RMB click. Step 4: Let go. Step 5: You should see a preview of your work. Step 5: press Enter and say bye bye to that useless piece you just cut off! Hope that helped.
1 COD4 Radiant: Gameplay standards
2 CoD4 Radiant: Creating a grid file
3 CoD4 Radiant: Making arches
Note: Here's a short vid that helped me understand the mapping process.