de_survivor - a project blog (56K warning)

[Dr Sadako]

Me and Whitey have started on yet another map project and we thought that it might be of interest to share how the project evolves and develops. The idea is to show how the building process of the map goes on and hopefully both we and you will learn something from it.

To keep this thread relatively banter free please post any comments in this thread instead.

Thanks
Doc and Whitey

[Dr Sadako]

I have always liked de_survivor and it was one of my favorite maps back in the days of cs and cz. I have kept looking for a CSS version of the map but there haven't been one until about 2 years ago when de_survivor_j was released. Unfortunately this version is so bad that the original version is better.

A few weeks back I told Whitey that I knew what we should do as the next project (after the alien map) and when I presented a remake on survivor Whitey was all for it. However, we both knew what it would mean to do a remake of survivor. Displacement surfaces. For those of you who don't know what displacement surfaces are it is nature like ground e.g. hills that aren't rectangular blocks.

I started taking a look at tutorials on displacement surfaces and so did Whitey  (still working on alien map). I started making some basic structures and once I got a hang of those going into more complex shapes. de_roadhouse then became the testing ground from those experiences and a result is that more than 50% of the map have been rebuilt from scratch (playtest is close by).

Simultaneously Whitey ported the old CS version of survivor using the program BSPtoMAP which creates a *.map file. This file was in turn opened in Crafty and then exported to a *.vmf (Valve Map File) which can be read by Hammer. However, the vmf of ported maps are a mess. Most of the map is deconstructed into planes e.g. a solid cube in the original becomes 6 planes of the faces of the old cube. Do that with all brushes and you end up with a lot of faces all over the place. Add to that the textures are not ported and if you are lucky you only end up with one dev texture on all faces. Now why would you want this? Well, if you clean up the mess you will have the scale of the map instead of guessing what it could be.
So Whitey spent many hours on cleaning up the mess And here is what it looks like after all those hours.



At the same time as Whitey was cleaning up the mess he closed off the map room for room instead of creating one huge skybox enclosing the entire map. The good thing about that is the map build (compile) time will be much shorter. On the other hand you should be very careful not to create any leaks.

[Dr Sadako]

At this stage me and Whitey met up on Baltar and had a run around in the very empty map. I had presented some ideas to Whitey regarding changes to the map to make it more realistic and we had a discussion about those and some new that developed while running around on the map.

One thing that we both agreed on quite early was that we wanted to add more realism to the map. For example on the original there was a part of a river near T spawn that started and ended in nothing (see below). I wanted to make that area including T spawn into an outdoors/nature area where you can see e.g. trees on the horizon etc. Also having a river that goes out of the map to increase the realistic feel of it.




We both agreed that pulling the river into the T spawn area and placing ice on top of it would make it work. Immediately the idea of see through ice and flowing water came up and both agreed that it could look very cool (no pun intended) but it was something that could be done much later on in the project.

We then came to the conclusion that it could be interesting to have e.g. a boat on the river from which the Ts could have jumped off and thus spawning in front of the boat on the ice. The boat could be stuck in the ice and we could have large ice flakes at the front of the boat. Here is a result of what Whitey have done so far. No ice so far but it will be added. You can also see that some displacements have been made around the river.



After running around on the map we realized that most of the map would be made up by displacements. This is both good and bad. The good thing is that if made right it will look really good. The bad thing is that you need to plan a lot to make sure that the displacements fit correctly.

[Jabbs]

de_survivor - a project blog (comments)

I thought I'd write some comments here to stop the clutter of the 'real' thread here.

I'm really really looking forward to this one!  bringing de_survivor up to modern CSS mapping will definitely be a big bonus.  A bonus for us players and I beleive for the wider gaming communitty too!

I love the idea of making the river more realistic (it had to be done).  Having ice on the river is also a good idea.

I see what you mean about displacements too.  These will make for much better realism and while I'm not a mapper, I would vote for going for it big style!

Let's also hope that the hours of effort put in to convert from the old to new in an attempt to maintain scale is well palced.  A good idea IMO.

Bring on more screenies please!

[Dr Sadako]

de_survivor - a project blog (comments)

I thought I'd write some comments here to stop the clutter of the 'real' thread here.

I'm really really looking forward to this one!  bringing de_survivor up to modern CSS mapping will definitely be a big bonus.  A bonus for us players and I beleive for the wider gaming communitty too!

I love the idea of making the river more realistic (it had to be done).  Having ice on the river is also a good idea.

I see what you mean about displacements too.  These will make for much better realism and while I'm not a mapper, I would vote for going for it big style!

Let's also hope that the hours of effort put in to convert from the old to new in an attempt to maintain scale is well palced.  A good idea IMO.

Bring on more screenies please!

Good initiative Jabbs! Thanks for starting it.

[Penfold]

OOOOO I love this map

Certianly an old favourite :yahoo:

PEN

[Jamoe]

I remember playing this on NESW Server many moons ago. I think some of you here might recognise that old community (I think they are still going as well)

A great map to bring back, I really will look forward to playing this one

[Blunt]

I'm really looking forward to this map as I loved it in 1.6 or whatever.

I don't want to clog up the blog thread so I'm posting here (it would be cool if the two threads were somehow linked)

I don't know a thing about mapping, but I do know a good map when I see one (de_Train for example)

You obviously have the aestheitics covered, but what I really liked about the original was the scrunchy snow sounds and the Eagle trigger sounds.

It would be really cool if the sounds were sweet.

I'll leave it there for now:D

[Lee]

Didn't play many maps other than kz_ on 1.6 but I used to really like this map on the off-chance I did play it. This should be good!

[DuVeL]

I remember playing this on NESW Server many moons ago. I think some of you here might recognise that old community (I think they are still going as well)
 
A great map to bring back, I really will look forward to playing this one

NESW is thinking of a namechange but there forums are still up and a few familiar names are still up there; http://www.northeasternswat.com/
 
Good idea Jabbs, I'll be looking forward to the map.

[Whitey]

The crunchy snow is there and the sound triggers will be too.  I just need to find a good Eagle sound

[T-Bag]

Nice, I don't remember playing this one, though my memory of alot of 1.6 maps are hazy until I see them again. As for what you've done so far, sounds like alot of work, I just hope you're getting some fun out of it.

[Zootoxin]

The water you have made looks really good, I think if you are going for realism you'll have to change the boat model as that thing wouldn't move 10 feet.

But as I said I am most impressed with the water.

[Anonymous]

I just need to find a good Eagle sound

What about Tequila Sunrise or Hotel California

[Dr Sadako]

What about Tequila Sunrise or Hotel California

And here, Ladies and Germs, is the reason for a separate comment thread.  :roflmao: