Damn you’re really giving those entity limits quite a beating, huh?
That’s what I would call “resourcefulness” 
[COLOR=‘Red’]Update: Released! Only 4 days later than promised![/SIZE]
Latest Version: OaR Uncut Alpha 1B1. Download here.[/SIZE]
As always, please report missing textures/models/sounds to me immediately.
The zip file contains the B and B1. THE PREVIOUS VERSION OF OAR UNCUT IS REQUIRED FOR THIS TO WORK PROPERLY. It can be found here.
[COLOR=‘Red’]Note: Installing this alpha will make it impossible to finish On a Rail properly in a real playthrough, as B now leads into B1, which leads into nowhere, as B2 isn’t finished yet. Strongly recommend that you back up the old B map so that you can restore it once testing is complete.
Video is in the making and will be ready in 10 hours or so.
Well, here it is guys - only a little bit later than promised. The delay wasn’t quite as bad as it was for the A Alpha. This map has been hell for me, it really has. I spent weeks and weeks simply stuck on inspiration for it, and with university having hit its peak (me being in my final year) I simply had no time to work on this. This is why it’s come so long after the A maps alpha, and why there’s no B2 to go with it. I then spent a few days redesigning various areas, trying to inspiration, redesigning and redesigning, until you’ve finally got what’s here today. It took me 6 hours alone to get just the turntable working. It’s been development hell.
However, I am very proud of the end product, I think I’ve managed to turn HL1’s D (last part) and E maps into a very memorable and unique game segment for Black Mesa, both thematically and gameplay wise. I think the new lighting scheme used on the B maps is a welcome HL1-esque departure from Black Mesa’s lighting and though I was initially quite on the fence about it as an idea, it’s really grown on me a lot. Visually, I’ve gone for an overall cleaner, brighter, and colder look with the B maps. I’m really pleased with how my revamped gameplay elements and scripted sequences have worked out, particularly the turntable room ambush.
On the subject of the turntable room ambush, I want to give massive thanks to my good friend, The Empire, for writing the track “Lights Out,” for me. He’s been working really hard on it and we’ve collaborated a lot over the past 2 weeks to refine and fix up the track. I absolutely love it, though of course I’m biased. It may not seem an obvious choice for a battle track at first, but its subdued nature with menacing undertones, I feel, really fits the darkened, creepy ambush extremely well. My biggest concern is that it’s a bit too quiet in game to bring out the subtle nuances in the track itself. Please, feedback is particularly welcomed here as this song is still a work in progress too. However, I will ask that you be nice. The Empire is a really good personal friend of mine and he’s done me a great favour by writing this track for me. I’m sure he’ll be happy to have the critical eye of the public turned on his work, but as always, please be thoughtful of the hours upon hours of work that he’s put into the track.
In terms of the feedback I’m looking for, consider it to be basically the same as the A maps - but perhaps with a more general stance, as I will consider general feedback when mapping B2… Firstly I’d like some general feedback on the new lighting scheme I’m using for the tunnels/interiors. Tunnels = Light blue/white lighting (Default BM = Rust red/orange). Interiors = Dull orange lighting (Default BM = Very light red / yellowish lighting). Bear in mind the interior lighting is mimicking the setup used on the early tunnels from Apprehension, so it IS NOT inconsistent - that is not a concern of mine.
Of course I will prioritize massively gameplay/serious visual concerns, as well as pervasive design issues. Though feedback in that department is welcomed (Dadster!), bear in mind that smaller issues and visual glitches do not currently take precedence. I will no doubt strive to fix everything I can, but in my limited time (uni starts up again in just over a month and I still have a dissertation to write), things will slip through the cracks - so it might be worth making my life easier by placing greater focus on more important issues.
I would also ask that everybody read the “known issues” part of the readme before posting feedback. If it’s on there, reporting it is unnecessary - I already know about it!
Thank you again everybody for your continued patience and support. Your words of encouragement have helped spur me on through this admittedly trying development cycle. I really do appreciate it. I will do my best to get this damn project finished and completed to a high standard. I’m hoping to absolutely blast out B2 in 2 weeks time or so, though as always, this may just be an overtly optimistic estimate. We’ll see!
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That is gorgeous
das a looooooooootta explosive boxes.
Would you be able to include the loops in the layout?
Uh…what?
There’s already 2 loop mods out there, go use one of both of them. The B maps don’t need any loops.
Great work, man.
EDIT: And oh my god…your friend’s music…is so FANTSATIC! It fits perfectly in the mood!
Hi TextFAMGUY1. This is my first time posting here and I just wanted to let you know that I thought your B1 map was really good. Can’t wait for B2!
I have find some feedback for it.
Feedback for On a Rail Uncut Alpha (Map B1):
- The window in the beginning of this map was too bright. I don’t know which light was causing it though. Here’s 2 images of it on both sides. https://i.imgur.com/kziy15l.jpg https://i.imgur.com/EqOQkSR.jpg
- Part of the handrail here was too low. I suggest you raise it up a little.https://i.imgur.com/qK9rbM1.jpg
- This structure looked messed up here. https://i.imgur.com/yANETmB.jpg
- Z-fighting on parts of these rails. https://i.imgur.com/EjxAI7k.jpg https://i.imgur.com/5V8o4j0.jpg
- After the ambush (great job on this part of the map by the way), this light in front of me was flickering on and off while I was moving around. https://i.imgur.com/JNqPzX6.jpg https://i.imgur.com/7uRmSRR.jpg
- The turntable part of the rail was not aligned properly. https://i.imgur.com/iy794vU.jpg https://i.imgur.com/igaeNzk.jpg
- In the same area, this was floating in mid air. https://i.imgur.com/EjnLwVw.jpg
Edit: Here’s some more things I found.
- The last trip mine is lower than the 1st and 2nd trip mine.
- Please have this door closed so that it doesn’t spoil the TOW launcher attack. https://i.imgur.com/hqRBmoH.jpg
- This part near the end of the map didn’t look quite right to me. Edit: To clarify, I was referring to the track. https://i.imgur.com/EWrqpzG.jpg
- For some reason, one of the buttons on this switch is missing. https://i.imgur.com/jvnimSz.jpg
- If you kill the HECU soldier before he has a chance of using the TOW launcher, the Vortigaunts will never appear and the two soldiers in the enemy tram are stuck in this position here. https://i.imgur.com/anZDy1p.jpg
- When I used the enemy tram shortly after killing them in #12, the tram spun around before I was able to move it towards the turntable ambush.
Here’s a video for both #12 and #13.
- When reaching the end of the map, I saw this friendly thank you message blocking my way to get to B2. https://i.imgur.com/yFy6tF6.jpg
- I believe the barnacle where the 2 HECU sodiers are chasing an officer with a tram needs to be removed. If you kill the HECU soldiers on the tram, the barnacle could either grab one of the already dead soldiers or it’s tongue gets pushed around. In both cases, it suddenly starts reacting like it’s being attacked. After several seconds, it dies, making it look like it killed itself.
Version 1
Version 2
Edit: One more thing…
- Could you get this laser to turn off when the 1st and 2nd turret are destroyed?
That’s all the feedback I can come up with for now. I’ll add a little more if I find anything else.
- = Just kidding.
Will you be adding a ladder alongside the turntable elevator at the end (I think all the other turntable elevators in BM have a ladder)? Currently, it’s possible to become trapped on the lower level if you trigger both the turntable elevator and the standard elevator and step off of them, unless I missed something. Another option would be to simply add a call button on the lower level.
Good idea. I couldn’t get my tram onto the turntable. So I walked over to the cargo elevator and while standing in front of it, I tossed some det packs on it and sent it up. End result was I had to use noclip to get myself to the uppermost level. The similar cargo elevator in HL1 had a call-back button.
Hey Text, played the map a while ago. First impressions are that it is looking gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I loved the look of the turntable room.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOOQ4SaUYYY
I went ahead and made a video of myself playing through the maps, and have attempted to provide live commentary. Sadly the audio is poorly out of sync so you’d be a bit hard pressed to know which reactions go with which situations. I really wish I could do something about that.
I assure you in any case that the reactions you will hear are completely genuine. Even if alot of it is me dying in the turntable room. I think I lay out some of my thoughts as I go along as well, and they may help you.
You can likely ignore some of the fight outcomes, because I edited my cfg so that aliens are stronger.
At the time of this posting the video is still uploding so anyone that tries to watch it at this moment won’t be able too. Shouldn’t take too long though. And besides, it’s a 40 minute video (but again, half of it is me dying) and I’m guessing everyone here has already played as well so you won’t be missing out on much.
I will probably go back through the map tomorrow and look for finer details, and I’ll post pictures for them just like I did with the A maps alpha, as well as give a more detailed review. Once I’m not falling asleep at the computer, that is. 
There’s two? If one of them is mine…
Where is this other one and why haven’t I heard of it? 
Just played AlphaB1. Brilliant! You CONTINUE to amaze me with your SUPERLATIVE work. Some highlights for me:
a) The tram with HECU’s chasing you know who.
b) The ambush in the tram turntable area was massively enjoyable. I couldn’t believe all that was going on around me. Even when I thought it was over, I found it wasn’t.
c) Even thought the filing cabinet up against the window in the first security office was cool. When I saw that, I thought “yeah, I’d do that if I was a security guard at BM dealing with hostiles”.
d) The lighting fits just fine, both in the tunnels and in the offices. With your upcoming tweaking, I’m sure you’ll nail it down even more.
e) Loved the verticality in some of the areas. Maybe in the turntable ambush area, place a HECU up-on-high, in addition to what you have now.
f) Didn’t find any level design issues. Found my way around just fine. Only tiny nitpick is in the control room overlooking the two toll gates for the parallel tracks. After throwing the switch, the green light kept blinking and you’d continue to hear the button usage sound every time you engaged it. Also, getting stranded in the tram elevator/cargo elevator, mentioned a post or two before this one (post #1112).
Now for the painful part. As far as feedback is concerned, it’s a lot of the “same old”. One thing that I noticed that has more frequency is lights being imbedded into straight walls. The amount that they do varies. I can see that you’re using some existing BM assets, which may already include some of the feedback issues that I’ll bring to light. As usual, I’ll report them and you can take whatever action you see fit. I’m not going to break them down into urgent and trivial. I’ll report them as I find them. You can decide what level of priority each one deserves. And for goodness sakes, as a whole, please don’t lose track of them and let some fall through the cracks. It should be easy enough to check each one off, as they’re taken care of, whether now or in your future polishing/tweaking phases.
I’ll submit my feedback to you on the 'morrow. It’s time for bed.
There’s your c2a2a map, and Text’s c2a2a1 map. That’s 2 loops in 2 different maps. Hence, B1 does not need any loops.
Oh! Phew! I had almost thought that some other mod elsewhere had cropped up and all my work was wasted. Actually, I was hoping you had been talking about OaRUncut.
Also, video is loaded. Off to bed.
That looks amazing.
I might wait till the maps are done so they transition into the game entirely (just for the full feel of it). I especially love in the screenshots how you do a comparison to what you’re re-imagining, since I’m kind of derpy and don’t realise it myself unless it’s a really really obvious scene.
Can’t wait for the video (assuming you’re making one).
Great job on B1, I love it. The ambush is difficult but not impossible, although the Vortigaunts on the upper level really get annoying.
Tunnels Area:
This signal is incorrect, it’s using the ‘switchable’ branch signal rather than the ‘no access’ signal.
If possible, disable shadows on these doors.
This door says “Mat. Trans A” but this wall in the next room lists it as “Mat. Trans B”.
Instead of an alarm at this door, how about the sound of grinding gears and metal stress, indicating it’s jammed?
I’ve had issues with this barnacle trying to eat the soldier. Namely it either cannot and the soldier stays stuck below with the barnacle’s animation frozen, or the soldier’s ragdoll is forced into the roof and begins spazzing out.
Just outside the turntable room, this forklift was found floating on one of my playthroughs, and grounded on another. A short investigation revealed that it is tied to this lift for some reason.
Turntable Room:
It is possible to get stuck underneath this lift. Also, that pallet is incorrectly placed on the forklift. The way it is placed, it would have had to be lifted onto the forklift, defeating the purpose of using a pallet in the first place.
Hitting the turntable switch a second time will revert it to it’s original position, but will not turn the tram with it this time. The tram’s path is unaffected.
Strange rope bug, haven’t noticed when or what causes it, only seen it after the fight is over.
This door cannot lead anywhere because the electrical panels from the Elevator area are right behind it. It’s not a very minor issue and not noticeable without noclip or an inhuman level of awareness, though.
Lighting issues: these tracks appear pitch black. The lift (pictured twice already) appears pitch black on the undersides, and in the dark while elevated this crate glows.
Elevator Areas:
These walls probably don’t need to be coloured because it’s just a maintenance area.
Unidentified object clips into the world slightly. Noclip reveals it’s some sort of frame around the elevator that clips with the world.
It is possible to get stuck here, as mentioned above. You can also get stuck on the second floor if you jump off the tram elevator. If the elevator is down, it is possible to fall down and get stuck ontop of it.
The elevator will stop just short of the bottom if you call it back down. At the top, there is a gap between the roof and the roof.
There are a set of tracks underneath the tram elevator for some reason. Also the tracks on the tram elevator are not solid. Sometimes the Tram elevator stops just short of the top, leaving the tram floating slightly.
The moon at the top follows the angle of the players camera and stars can be seen through it. Honestly it looks kinda bad, suggest removing it or placing it off to the side. https://i.imgur.com/nen1Dvyh.jpg https://i.imgur.com/p4fSNrSh.jpg
Might I suggest [url=https://puu.sh/2oPVi]moving those containers to the side and adding a set of rails to the edge to foreshadow out venture to the surface?
How did this Bullquid manage to eat half a body before getting killed if his buddies were up there?
Marines on this elevator have a tendency to fall through.
My path at the end appeared to be blocked by a giant thankyou note! It is the friendliest bug I’ve ever encountered.
(just kidding)[/SIZE]
Anyway that concludes my feedback for now. I apologise for any errors in my post, it’s almost 7am and I’m very tired. I probably should have waited until after I slept to do this, ah well. I will be going to bed now, g’night!
OaR Uncut B1 Alpha Video (Commentaried)
Turntable Room Ambush Video (No Commentary)[/SIZE]
Thank you everyone for the feedback I’ve received so far, and thanks for playing! I hope it was an enjoyable experience for everyone. I was certainly very excited yesterday when I realized it was finally ready!
I’ll address some of the feedback in greater detail.
This was kinda my reasoning for removing the loop on E (B1) too. There’s going to be a usable loop on B2 as well (F), don’t want to overdo it with that element. I liked B1’s original loop, but in the end it was unnecessary and repetitive.
Thank you sir. He’ll be delighted to hear that.
Thank you, I appreciate the feedback. A quick checkback:
- Can and will fix that. The specularity on the blinds makes this weird glowing effect.
- I know about this but might not be able to do anything about it. If I move it up the top part of the rail starts to float. That’s the nature of using modular rails, but sadly there’s no alternative. I’ll probably just put a crate there or something to hide it rather than actually fix it.
- Lots of those are. I know about them, don’t worry. They will be fixed in future versions.
- Should be easily fixable.
- That light is meant to flicker. It’s faulty.
- I know about this, and it’s an annoying bug which will require an almost total redesign to fix! I know that sounds weird, but the 4 track quadrants around that room are ever so slightly misaligned, so when I placed the turntable in the dead center of all of them the whole thing ends up out of line. I’ll wait and see in future versions if I can stomach moving the whole room around.
- Made that a static prop when it should have been a physics prop. Easy fix, thanks.
I actually realized this myself on my very last playtest before shipping the maps. At that point I was very tired and had really had enough of that map (seriously, I’m sick of it!), so I lazily, I must admit, just thought “ah, fuck it, I know about it, I can fix it in future versions”. A pretty serious flaw to leave in, but I can fix it by having call buttons on each floor. I won’t include a ladder, because that takes away from the uniqueness of having the lift in the first place. I actually initially did have a ladder there but it was always the best option, so I removed it.
Thanks for the feedback and video. I’ll check it out when I have a bit of time. Once my video’s uploaded I’m gonna kick back, relax for a bit, then enjoy the rest of the day without stressing over mapping. That can come tomorrow! Will definitely take a look at your vid though, I enjoy watching other people play my maps as it gives me an idea of a different perspective. It’s very easy to get stuck thinking your way of approaching things is the only way of doing it when mapping.
Thank you Dadster. If you honestly couldn’t think of any major design issues (save the lift problem at the end), then I welcome the detailed feedback. To save yourself some time, you probably don’t need to mention all the individual instances where there are clipping lights, just mention general areas and when I’m doing the clipping pass (as I’ve so affectionately named it), I’ll just check all the lights in those areas. Heck I might even end up just checking all the lights on the entire map at some point. As for breaking things down into urgent and trivial, it would be most helpful if you just underlined, or highlighted in red the more important issues as you went along. You don’t have to categorize them and post them in order, but it’s helpful to me, especially when I already have to sort through the 300 points of feedback for the A maps. If you don’t want to, fine, but it would be helpful to me! I look forward to having your insanely (have I mentioned I think you’re insane, but in the nicest way possible?) critical eye turned on B1. I’m sure I’ll end up crying with my head in my hands at some point at just how many little things you’ve noticed, but in the end, it’s all for the best!
Heh, the comparisons also help show just how far gaming has come in the past 10 years or so! Some of the rooms aren’t as obvious as others, I figure the comparison can never hurt.
Thank you for the extremely detailed and well written feedback, as always, Mr. Someguy. You’re always very descriptive and thorough with the way you report feedback and I appreciate that, pretty much everything you’ve listed here I agree with and will endeavor to fix when the time comes around. The only issue I can see which may potentially not be solvable is the HECU being eaten by the Barnacle. There’s nothing I’ve done here, Barnacles just don’t seem to play well with Marines! It may be because he’s on a tram, but I’m not certain.
As for the deal with the moon, I used the same setup that Black Mesa uses, not sure why it’s playing weird, and I definitely didn’t notice it. I’ll try and fix it, though I’m not actually sure what I can do!
Just watched the vid, the song blends well like if it were always there, great job.