Dude, what the fuck is with those beams?! 
Anyway, ya the torn bathroom is nice and makes the pad placement logical. It’s really gonna add the sense of destruction this area currently needs. Don’t forget to keep you xenofauna in the shade…they’re gonna dry up in the sun.
Overall, I think the cosmetic fixes to C2A5H are actually going to be simpler to implement than the previous section cuz everything here is more enclosed.
You’re the worst kind of person. You give excellent, constructive, thoughtful feedback, but you also make me want to strangle you! I am, of course, joking.
I think C2A5H will be simpler too. It’s more detailed cosmetics rather than overhauling outdoor areas - as far as I can tell nowhere outdoor on C2A5H needs serious overhauling, just some destruction here and there.
The hardest bit is going to be the room with the Alien Grunt which throws the marine through the wall. This is because I’m having to play with a large variety of factors here. To put it simply, I think I’m going to have it so that area’s closed off, and then the wall is destroyed leading onto the street. This allows the player to get a quick look at the area around the Alien Grunt, and it means I can use sound to make the player hear there is a fight going on outside, without him having to see it (thus incurring rendering costs before my scripted sequence even starting). This has the added bonus of making the player feel like the fight was happening before he got there, whereas before it just randomly started as you arrived.
Does anyone know if there’s a cinephys model where a whole wall is destroyed by an explosion? I’ve hunted and hunted and couldn’t find anything. Cinematic physics is almost certainly a must here, I don’t want to have to make one myself, as I’d need to learn all about XSI which will be a lot of time spent when I could be doing stuff I’m actually good at.
As for the furnace room, I actually don’t think I’m going to completely overhaul it now. I like its current flavour. I will make the puzzle as simple as turning off the valves and maybe finding one which has fallen off. I will also rearrange the pipes so they make some kind of sense. I’m not so sure anymore a puzzle is really what the game needs here - just a quick breather to let the player take a break from constant action.
Gasworks - not sure what else needs to be done here. I think the jumping puzzle is adequate and I’ve long since made the route the player needs to take more intuitive. The largest bit of work I have for this bit is making the security office the Barney is in far less sparse.
Hah, joking about the good feedback of course. The new iteration of the grunt scene sounds like a good idea though I think your original version really wasn’t that bad, even if it did seem like the tank battle happened when you arrived.
With regards to the furnace room, the changes you posted seem pretty reasonable. The main thing with the satchel tunnel was that many posters thought it looked unnatural coming out the marine side. You could put a sealable door, like an autoclave door, on the marine’s end to make it look like he could actually keep it closed during the explosion. Are you planning to overhaul this area at all or just dress it up by making it look shittier? Personally, I perfer the latter option, since it’s easier.
I still think the size of the furnace could be made larger to account for the gigantic blue flame that comes out of the blue pipe, but otherwise yeah, no major fixes needed here. Maybe make the blue pipe more curvy so that it’s not as ugly looking but this is not critical and I recall that it’s hard to do.
The gasworks itself is pretty much perfect. Maybe add some debris coming from the ceiling after the Apache crash and 1-2 vortigaunt corpses on the alien side to show that the marines actually killed something before getting slaughtered. The main issue here is just getting the Barney VA to come on board and help with the lines. Are you planning on contacting him?
@Textfamguy I would like to note some small suggestions regarding other levels of surface tension that you have mentioned that you wish to alter or update.
The level transition marker for the very start of surface tension should be moved back away from the blast door to further back down the corridor in the end of QE
The message should still display when the door opens though
The warehouse by the dam has lighting issues quick fix on this please
The Alley with the dumpsters before the scientist gets shot by the sniper has not enough debris or physics props… Please litter this area as it’s too HL not enough BMS like.
Improve the timing on scripted sequences involving mantas throughout the chapter. I missed most of them and ended up seeing them on youtube.
Obviously up to you but I don’t think the marine falling in the destruction at the damn would be an improvement… It was a good oh shit momment for the player… I’ll ask you now to leave that one as it is
and as far as the tentacle in the desert goes try to make a new area for this and introduce something new if possible. perhaps a cliff edge on one side where you will have to drop off and climb back up and repeat until passing the hazzrd… Obviously something could get knocked off the cliff also like a APC or other land vehicle. and could make for some good excitement
Destructible wall cine-physics
Goodluck with c2a5h I have just the thing for you… In the chapter from ST with the first Abrams tank and the water filled base area there is another garage area… On the corner there is a very nice destructible wall to re-use that the tank destroys. it is possible the player has never seen it depending on which route they take through this area so no big deal on the re-use
Hope this helps you out…
I’m very impressed with the video’s. I especially enjoyed your commentary, since it explains your thoughts behind the design.
Keep up the good work! Can’t wait to play it!
I only plan on changing the parts of Surface Tension which I mentioned.
As for the destruction question, I’ve looked around that map and haven’t found what you’re talking about. You’re talking about the part where you have the multiple tunnels/ladders and can keep climbing up different ones, right? The “whack-a-gordon” part? Where exactly is this wall? What does it look like? I can’t find it.
EDIT: Okay, I found it. It’s not cinephys but it still looks like it could work okay. They actually used a similar solution to the one I used with the Grunt throwing the Marine through the wall! Great find Ronster.
You have to look you know
Just kidding hope it helps
Some concepts for when you start dirtying up the war zone in C2A5H.
https://www.coroflot.com/sribatchha_routray/Virtual-Environments1
https://abcnews.go.com/Archives/video/sept-14-2004-inside-war-zone-14519272
For the images, pay attention to the debris layout and coloring schemes on the wall. The video gives you an actual look inside the Iraq war zone, you’ll have to skip some of the interviews, but there’s some nice stuff in there.
some thing that would be a cool minor detail, have the lamp post in the tow courtyard be destructible, so that if the player hits it they do not have to worry about hitting it again, wouldn’t say to remove it as it adds to a challenge and prevents players on easy from just firing 2 0r 3 shots before the a-grunts can react.
In honour of Conti’s incredible photoshop mockups I’ve gone and done my own, for my redesign of the furnace area. I’m going ahead and doing this unless anyone has any reasonable major objections. As far as I could think, this is the absolute best compromise between keeping the existing layout and making it make sense.
If you climb across the grill while the flames are on, you will, of course, get burned. The hatch is supposed to be like a maintenance hatch or something, I’m sure it can be explained easily in-universe. Whaddya think?
In other news, the redesign of the area with the Alien Grunt has gone well. All the destruction on the map is looking top notch now, methinks. Potential media release for C2A5H tomorrow or Monday. Don’t expect to see C2A5I until alpha release day (not because there’s going to be any great surprises, there won’t, but it’s not really worth showing seeing as it’s just a touched up version of BM’s Garg Chase).
looks/sounds like a good idea.
Layout wise, I think it’s perfect. I’d recommend reshaping the black walkway surrounding the furnace though or move the furnace more to the right of the linear section of the walkway. The circular design looks a little unusual when it’s so adjacent to the straight path, like it kinda cuts into it. For some reason it reminds me of a cookie cutter shape or a girl’s dress. Don’t forget to add some handrails to this area as well once you’re done.
For gameplay purposes, make sure that the valves the player needs to find/turn are for pipes on the lower floor, since the player is initially coming from the top floor. If you don’t do this, then there would be no need for the player to explore the lower area. Perhaps the inaccessible blue pipe could be set lower.
Edit…lemme clarify my 1st point. Currently it look like the walkway was DESIGNED AROUND the furnace or that the furnace was EMBEDDED IN it, which wouldn’t happen in real life. Instead, the walkway should be made to ACCESS the furnace.
I do think this was the best compromise. Remaking the entire furnace area would be a huge waste, and I’d quite like to stay true to the original here. The way I figure it - there are 3 fires in the furnace, so 3 valves - 2 on ground level and 1 on the walkway somewhere. Works well.
Now all that’s sorted out, I just need to make the exit pipe for the Satpipe scene make more sense, as well as the entry. Not really sure how to do either of these! The dropdown I’ll either have to make it like HL1 where it’s a rainwater grate on the roof but I find that to be a bit unclear and crappy looking. My other idea was to have a pipe running along the roof which is broken up and you can climb into - but it ruins the sniper scene a little as it’s perfect cover. All I know is my original way of doing it didn’t make any sense (the hatch on the roof).
Satpipe exit is probably easier.
As for the walkway around the furnace, I kinda like it. I know it’s not realistic, but I like the way it looks. A square walkway seems like it’d be a bit boring in comparison! I don’t think this is going to be a deal breaker for anyone, at least I hope not. I’ll leave it this way for the test and if I get multiple comments I may change it. I have, however, expanded the walkway out a bit.
So in fact, if we tell u something doesn’t look right, u gonna overhaul parts of ur map?
No, that’s an exaggeration of what I said. This is my mapping endeavor so ultimately I’m the one who makes the decisions.
But there’s no point in me making those decisions if the community at large doesn’t agree with them, because I am planning on releasing it for them. However, they are still my maps and I will do what I think is best - in an informed manner, which means considering the opinions of others (especially my testers), and weighing them up against what I think. Sometimes I’ll compromise, sometimes I’ll override, sometimes I’ll concede.
What I’m saying is, I’m not going to do everything I’m told. And I’m almost certainly not going to overhaul anything. Overhaul is a big word. It means big change. Total redesign. Probably not going to happen no matter what my testers say, unless the consensus is overwhelming and clear. I will take suggestions on board, however. It’s all about the work to reward ratio. At present I can’t see anything on my maps which would get major reward from major rework. We’ll see how it goes.
think I know a way you can make the entrance to the satchel pipe area make sense, it could be a water trap to keep gasses in the pipe from back tracking the system (like in a sink, only in this case its the gasses from the furnace… still would need to find a reason that its there.
Agreed. This will make the players explore the lower floor.
Unfortunantely, none of these ideas are very good. The rainwater grate would be horrible for your building layout because it would allow for collection of water INSIDE the building. The busted waterpipe sucks too, because climbing into it would mean you would need to redesign the water area to look like the inside of a pipe, which I think is too much of a departure. Plus it messes up your rooftop layout.
The easiest solution would be to keep the hatch and make the water area function as a maintenance access. You could put a sign that says “Maintenance Access” and a BROKEN ladder leading down into the water (that way the player can still fall but have no way of climbing back to the rooftoop). To explain the water accumulation, simply have a broken pipe running horizontally inside the access and add some water droplets coming out of it. Problem solved w/minimal redesign…and much better than rainwater accumulating in the middle of the desert. I mean, WTF is up w/that?
If you want to keep the rounded walkway, you could add a little space between the walkway and furnace to get rid of the embedding effect. Have handrails in place on the walkway except over the pipe crawl access area and it should look good. Residue Processing is a great reference map to look at for logical walkway layouts.
Actually, the water pipe idea did make sense seeing as that area’s supposed to be a water tank of some sorts. In the original HL it was also a water tank but it was fed from rainwater, that was the reason for both of my ideas.
But yours works out nicely, I will use that.
As for the walkway, we’ll see. I’ve set everything in around there now and it’s gonna be a pain in the arse to reorganize. I’ll see if others find it to be a problem, cuz that’s at least half an hour’s work there. No exaggeration.
NP. We’ll see how it looks in the actual vid. Since you’re not gonna do one for C2A5I, I’d like to add a couple more suggestions to the ones I made previously for this section.
Is it possible to make the garg have a slight lean forward/tilt animation when the player is in the pool? Having it make eye contact with you while you’re swimming is intimidating yet sexy and much better than him peacefully gazing off in the distance.
Is it possible to beef up the garg such that he is killed with two direct artillery shots on hard mode? He doesn’t seem very meaty now and you can make him give a good roar when he’s hit.
Also, as a fantasy for myself and other posters, in the original HL, the garg had a stomp animation that created a beam of fire toward the player, which was stupid. How long would it take to give the BMS garg its own stomp animation, only this time it cracks the ground and causes the player and HECU to lose balance (e.g. player is jolted and looks down w/non-weapon hand outstretched)?
wangman, the garg is killed by one shot from the mortar because they are triggered to kill it, not because of the damage, at least that’s my understanding.
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