Shit lol, I just got up to the sniper in ST uncut in my BM playthrough. Gonna have to replay Surface Tension again just to try this release.
Based on Text’s ramblings on, gotta’ feeling you’ll thoroughly enjoy it, Bloodshot!
Hoping I don’t have to wait until tomorrow to play it. BD
[COLOR=‘Red’]Update: Released![/SIZE]
Latest Version: 1.0 RC3 - Final Release Candidate. Download here.[/SIZE]
I would ask kindly that any very serious issues, such as missing textures/models (missing models will be a giant error sign, missing textures will be purple and black checkerboard) be reported in this thread ASAP. I’m absolutely exhausted and am only going to be hanging around for another 30 minutes, so I’d like to be able to push out a hotfix before bed if it’s needed.
This is the final release candidate (for real this time!) for ST Uncut. The current plan is to VERY QUICKLY process feedback and release the absolutely final version either tomorrow or the day after.
At this point, it would actually be UNHELPFUL for me to be receiving reams and reams of feedback from everyone. That’s not to say that feedback is unhelpful, but at this point I’m looking for minor, easy to fix issues. Anything major, or thousands of suggestions, are now out of scope. Sorry, but a line has to be drawn somewhere, and at this point I am very satisfied with the finished product. I would kindly ask that testers report their feedback as soon as possible, as I’ve already said - the very absolute final version will be out tomorrow or the day after (more likely the day after). After that my involvement with ST Uncut will end, excluding sorting things out when the BM Devs eventually update their game. Please show me minor issues which need fixing. Design flaws and objections are probably out of scope at this point, I pretty much just want bugs/glitches now.
Thank you for taking the time to download and play this. I think this is the best version by far and I worked extremely hard on it. I’ve brought it to a very high level of polish, I think. Take a look at the changelog, you’ll see what I mean.
01/01/13
==1.0 FINAL RELEASE CANDIDATE (RC3)== <–Surface Tension Uncut - THIS REALLY IS THE LAST RELEASE CANDIDATE, PROMISE - Edition
Assorted/General
-Final layers of polish, bugfixes. There is nothing left on any of the maps anymore that bugs me personally.
-Clipping errors - clipping errors everywhere. Won’t comment on them all - only the prominent ones.
-Used propper (GREAT tool by CFoust) to convert some problematic brush based details (mostly lathed objects such as the big red wall on C2A5G or the furnace’s base) into models. Should eliminate seams and bugs.
-Fixed all sparks (hopefully) so they no longer clip through walls/the floor. Note to any mappers reading this: do not allow the origin of the env_spark to intersect anything, like with lights it seems to break them a bit and make them not calculate proper collision.
-Painted a lot of rocks onto the sandy displacements to try and reduce instances of plants (procedurally placed by VBSP) growing into things. Should be significantly improved, but not eliminated.
-Did a lot of standardization. All buttons for doors should now be standardized across my maps in terms of distance from door and height. All health/HEV chargers now match the standard height used in Black Mesa, 38 units.
-Worked a bit on the somewhat crude laser beam effect from the Mantas. Added secondary lightnings and a tesla effect on the impact area. More impressive now.
-Fixed up security cameras. Some should now be fixed but facing logical directions.
-Fixed up a lot of railings on my maps.
-Added quite a few cubemaps to every map to make reflections more accurate.
C2A5G
-Increased lightmap scale a bit near the level start - the BM Dev team had it really low here for some reason, making some blocky lighting. It’s weird because that part had high scale lightmaps on C2A5F.
-Fixed a few misplaced objects in the generator room (BM Devs faults, not mine!). Connected an i-beam to the wall, connected the pipe to the wall.
-Edited up the generator activation a little, mostly reducing/moving the sounds so it’s a bit less in-your-face.
-Reduced the brightness of the green lights by the stairwell in the parking lot to be more consistent with the rest of Black Mesa.
-Changed two Crownvics from static to dynamic props. This bug was causing them not to show up in the game before, when I wanted them to. Should make the ground floor more interesting now.
-Tidied up some of the concrete by the holes a bit. It will be nearly impossible at this stage for me to remove some of the Z-fighting which causes flickering textures, but it should be improved a bit.
-Fixed a bug with the lighting which caused the pedestrian exit on the ground floor to be lit in a bright reddish tone when it shouldn’t be.
-Significantly improved, but didn’t remove (engine limitation) the light-bleeding under the stairs in the stair well. It’s now very negligible.
-Tidied up the barrier used to eliminate Ulrik’s early spawning in the street bug. It’s now uniform and less intrusive. In addition, I’ve eliminated the bug by making the triggers more conservative.
-Removed all but one of the blueish lamps on the top floor, to signify the structural damage. One has been replaced by a dangling, sparking cable with the light on the floor underneath it.
-Added a red light near the entrance to the vent. It now has a really cool glow which serves as a directional hint but also looks great.
-Rotated the lighting decals 45 degrees to match the light cages. Now looks correct.
-Adjusted the light at the top of the ladder in the vent so that it no longer intersects the curved section. Looks much better.
-Made the lighting at the drop-down more uniform and less strange.
-Swapped the Crownvic on top of the carlifts in the garage for the joop in an attempt to eliminate a rendering order bug by the windows. It didn’t work, but I prefer the jeep’s look anyway, so I kept it.
-Fixed a clipping rope by the ambush explosives.
-Moved the marines around a bit to make the fight more exciting, and alleviate a bug where a marine would get stuck behind the ambush debris.
-Attached a floating light by the TOW to the wall.
-Made the Harrier takeoff about as good as it possibly can be. Added a jet contrail, and a subtle sound to go with its launch. It now takes off at a much more acute angle, making its transitions less sharp. It’s still not perfect but it’s the best I can do.
-Rotated the barbed wire fences 180 degrees so that their function is now to keep people out, rather than keep people in. Works much better, functionally speaking.
-Fixed up the railings by the marine on the balcony, so that they no longer abruptly end on the 45 degree bend.
-Switched out most of the rock models on the road to the helipad for alternative ones (also made one of my own from displacements). The old ones were Black Mesa models with no back faces, so to work around this I’d clipped them into the wall, which looked dumb. Should look an absolute tonne better now.
-Quite significantly rebalanced the LAV fight. It’s as close to perfect now as it can be. It was a bit extreme before - too many survivors on either side. I’ve now balanced it so there -should- only be 2 - 3 survivors on the winning side, which is nearly always the aliens now. I did this by making it so the 4 running marines now nearly always run over to the helicopter, rather than 2 hanging back like they did before. This significantly increases the chance that they’ll die to the Manta beam, which removes somewhat the random factor of there being extra Marines when the LAV comes charging out. To make the second wave a bit fairer on the humans, I fixed a bug where the LAV would try to shoot the Grunts that were attacking it, but couldn’t - because they are in his “dead zone” where his gun can’t fire. He no longer tries to engage those aliens. Instead he’ll normally take down 3 - 4 other aliens before always going down himself, whereas before he used to kill 1, then try and shoot the grunts attacking him, and end up doing nothing.
-Fixed a bad seam at the bottom of the stairs.
-Added another wall to the invisible barrier surrounding the helipad. Debris falling down and blocking the paths (also confusing the AI!) should now be EXTREMELY RARE, if not completely eliminated.
-Fixed a seriously bad bug where if you backtracked from the helipad at a certain time, you’d go past where an invisible trigger was supposed to spawn which starts the TOW courtyard rendering again, allowing you to walk into nothingness. Shouldn’t happen anymore.
-The two Marines providing covering fire up on the helipad used to spawn in plain sight. They now spawn further back and run up to their positions.
-Cut up/added a few displacements around the army tent by the helipad to add more foliage. Area should seem a bit less bare now.
-Eliminated a displacement seam I was covering up with a plant which clipped into the pavement. No more!
-Moved the cactus by the minefield to give a better view of the skybox.
-Overhauled the railings around the helipad. They look MILES better now. Used curved ends for the railings, and now the only weirdness in the railings is by the stairs, which I cannot do much about.
-Messed around a bit with the hangars. The doors at the back of the main hangar now open symmetrically and are open a lot more, to give a better view. The background hangar has been revised - the Harrier no longer clips into the ground, the horribly harsh blue light has been changed, and a back has been added to it (the old one somehow got deleted, I definitely made one before though). You can no longer see rock at the back of the background hangar.
-Changed the emergency light at the end of the level for one used previously in Blast Pit.
C2A5H
-Made the first window by the dead Barney level with the door frame (OCD Mode: Activated).
-Fixed the horrible pipe Z-fighting near the start of the map by moving the pipe so it clips into Barney’s break room rather than through the other pipe. To counter this visible clipping, added a vent system to the break room which entirely engulfs the pipe, so you can’t even see it.
-Fixed a light which was almost entirely merged with the wall by the Marine-Wall-Throwing-Angry-Roaring-Alien-Grunt (my affectionate nickname for him).
-Added a playerclip brush to the destroyed wall which activates when the player jumps out. No more backtracking up that way.
-Extended the Manta’s destruction to slightly under the tank, though results may vary. The tank doesn’t always go to the same place.
-Fixed some fairly serious missing faces on the wall by the small building on the street. Looked awful.
-Fixed a visible seam between the road and the wall near the gasworks.
-Swapped out all the beams on the red wall for model based variants - should improve performance marginally.
-Removed the giant tree of doom from the skybox, replaced it with some more normal looking trees instead.
-Fixed a bug in the skybox where some of the windows on buildings in the distance weren’t rendering, and you could see the sky through them.
-Removed 2 signs from the front of the security hut, and stacked the ones inside vertically.
-Replaced the control panel in the security hut with one from Blast Pit. Looks a lot better. Also moved the illuminated button to a more prominent position and brightened it a lot.
-Fixed some texture seams near the jump pad.
-Added a missing bit of fencing to the enclosure near the jump pad.
-Made a new rock by the jump pad, replacing the placeholder Xenian one. Blocks the player from jumping onto the jumppad at an angle which crashes the game.
-Added a connector to the vent by the snark spawn so it no longer looks like the broken vent was connected to solid metal.
-Moved around lots of the plants in the wrecked bathroom to solve clipping. Gave the Xenian purple stalks default idle animations.
-The Zombie now auto-dies once you drop down into the satpipe, to prevent players from being able to hear him all around the map.
-Rotated the powerboxes the player can use for cover 180, so they face the right way.
-Changed the enclosure on the roof to a layout which makes sense.
-Replaced all the i-beams leading up to the rooftop with new, better designed brush based variants. No more seams in their design and there’s no more clipping, either.
-The Zombie’s room now has a more logical design - the powerboxes are no longer obstructed by the door when open.
-Added a third light to the satpipe tunnel, and changed their properties a little.
-Lined up and changed around the signs at the exit of the satpipe tunnel.
-Reduced the spawn timer on the headcrab-HECU war just a little, so the players can’t sprint in and see them spawn in.
-Replaced the lathed base sections of the furnace with newly made model-based variants. No more seams on the furnace. Hooray. This one’s been bugging me for months.
-Unfortunately, had to tone down the reddish lighting effect in the furnace room. The interaction of the flickering red light on the 1 unit/luxel lightmaps I used in parts of the furnace room was SERIOUSLY tanking the framerate. Looks less impressive, should run a lot better.
-Increased the sizes of the two other levels of fire in the furnace, to seem more impressive and obstructive.
-Eliminated a bug where water drops were falling out of the water tank into the furnace room.
-Added a new pipe in the gasworks which connects to the 6 valve pipes which were attached to the walkway, seemingly for no reason and no end. Looks a lot better and ties the room together nicely.
-Due to the new blue/greenish pipe, switched the colour on the large pipe back to blue. I only had it the blue/greenish colour before because I thought it looked good.
-Adjusted the sparking light by the window a bit so it’s more obvious and less buggy.
-Fixed a cubemap bug which gave the blue pipe’s 90 degree bend a red glow.
-Removed a magical floating light from the gasworks.
-Removed a few objects here and there from the gasworks. Should add some frames and make it a bit less cluttered. I’m happy with the gasworks now, it has that perfect claustrophobic feel all around that I wanted, without being too excessive.
-Added yellow caution stripes to the stairs (about half the stairs on Surface Tension have them). Should make the way up just that little bit more obvious. Some friends of mine were playing it and it took them far too long to see the stairs as they’re a bit tucked away.
-Increased the scale of the window cubemaps so the reflections no longer look like an opaque blob but rather resemble the actual gasworks layout.
-Added some boxes/military equipment around the sandbags - partially to cover up some bad clipping. The clipping itself isn’t solvable without widening the road by about 16 units - which is FAR more work than it’s worth.
-Removed one of the fires on the walkway to prevent the aliens that spawn there from being dumb. They should engage far more intelligently now. The Vort on the ground floor is still really dumb and I have no idea why. An added bonus: absolutely tiny framerate gain.
-Fixed the lasers for the tripmines in the security office. They now terminate in the correct place.
-Standardized height of the gun racks.
-Heightened the light on the stairs in the security office.
-Fixed a bug where Barney would still press the button in the security hut even if you pressed it first.
-Removed the white door at the end of the level which supposedly led to the new room, but had no counterpart in the new room.
-Fixed up the railngs a lot at the end of C2A5H/start of C2A5I. No more gaps, less dumb joins.
C2A5I
-Removed the railings on the stairs. Lots of complaints about them.
-Rotated the cage light decals 45 degrees so they fit the cage’s design.
-Swapped some red lights above doors for white ones (BM Dev’s doing, not mine!)
-Lowered a rope in the tunnel a little so it doesn’t clip with the ceiling.
-Fixed up the lighting on the double doors in the tunnel a little, though it still isn’t perfect.
-More rock painting around the Garg coutryard. Less plants growing in things.
-Moved one of the water towers back behind the barbed wire fence. Freed up some space in the courtyard and eliminated some bad clipping.
Yayy! 
I’ve already provided feedback by means of the fifteen items outlined in my “[COLOR=‘Orange’]Preliminary Feedback For ST Uncut v1.0-RC3”, which in fact was based on additional issues found in RC2. Text, if you haven’t done so yet, please review this list (I’m sure you’ve done so, already). This was done to provide Text with as much of a window as possible to act, or not, on making corrections, due to the narrow time frame before the release of ST Uncut v1.0 FINAL.
In keeping with the same concept, here are my feedback issues for RC3. Again, this feedback is based on RC2, but I’m very confident that these problems will still exist in RC3, as they have not been previously reported by anyone.
Text, at this point in the process, don’t short change yourself and take the easy road. I know you’re ill, tired and badly wanting to put ST Uncut behind you, but now’s the time where you need to bear down and see this project through to it’s end, with the same vim and vigor you had when you first started out. Don’t lessen, but maintain your initial standards and, most importantly, be true to yourself and revel in the many positive comments, compliments and accolades that you’ve received, you damn well deserve and have earned them. This is due in large part to your patience, openness, dedication, thoroughness, respectful and professional attitude and speed and quality of work. I’m proud to have had an opportunity to contribute, in my small and irritating way, to raising the already high level of quality and standards that ST Uncut has reached. You done good, kid.
Now go work your magic, where you can, and bring this baby home!!! (and then it’s on to more augmented BM goodness with On A Rail Uncut)
Feedback For ST Uncut v1.0-RC3
- Garg Tunnel - On the first raised walkway, there’s one instance where railings have gaps in them. https://imgur.com/rgyr0.
- Garg Tunnel - All the mounting brackets for these two large pipes do not make contact with the wall. https://imgur.com/khAXV and https://imgur.com/dp84i.
- Garg Tunnel - Similarly, all the mounting brackets for these two large pipes do not make contact with the ceiling. https://imgur.com/R2Sv8 and https://imgur.com/q4RLb. Text, this is the fourth instance where this has occurred, Maybe check all instances where these types of pipes are used and effect repairs.
- Garg Tunnel - The light fixture above this blast door does not make contact with the wall. https://imgur.com/mPIZh and https://imgur.com/RizDB. In the other two instances where this light is similarly used in the Garg tunnel, the lights fractionally do not make contact, with their respective walls.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Start of C2A5G - Place a light above the blast doors immediately behind the player spawn, as this area is overly dark. It will also mimic the light above a similar blast door, immediately around the corner to the left.
https://imgur.com/uSjXL and this is me with my trusty crowbar drawn for battle https://imgur.com/CItrF. - [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Start of C2A5g - Too many lights in the vicinity of the storage/utility room door. Suggest moving this fluorescent light to the left, centered between the two corners on this wall. https://imgur.com/UJZtx.
- Carpark - Lighting pattern dispersion between levels G and 1, outside of stairwell does not seem to be comparable, even though fluorescent light on level G is not illuminated. https://imgur.com/aElO3 and https://imgur.com/vIXcz. Doesn’t look natural.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Carpark, Level 1, hole in the ground - Texture flicker found here. See attached images below for a clearer view of the problem.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Carpark, Level 1, hole in the ground, another texture flicker found here. See attached images below for a clearer view of the problem.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Carpark, Level 1, hole in the ground - Texture flicker found here. https://imgur.com/hwM4O and https://imgur.com/inGRR.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Carpark, Text, can you please slowly walk around the perimeter of the holes in the ground on Levels 1 and 2 and address the texture flicker issues that exist there, as I have reported earlier. As you walk around both holes, you’ll easily see the numerous texture flicker anomalies. Thank you in advance.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Garage Yard - Set up the two door control boxes to be identical in height and position. Use the one on the left, where the crates are to help access the vent, as a template for the other control box, to determine position and height.
- Service garage, after vent collapse - If I stay crouched, everything is normal. However, if I stand up, I see an alternate reality. https://imgur.com/iOdXM and https://imgur.com/wiwaf.
- TOW Yard - Can this dark shadow be removed, as there is no direct sunlight to support it. https://imgur.com/DvZuD.
- TOW Yard - This security camera sweeps too far to the right. Its view would be blocked by the blast door sidewall. The images show its maximum sweep range. https://imgur.com/dDVsC and https://imgur.com/dNXOd.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - TOW Yard - Grass clipping through Humvee rear left tire. https://imgur.com/vkgDG.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Tank Yard - Grass clipping through sidewalk. Two other similar issues in the immediate vicinity were corrected, but this one was not. https://imgur.com/jt7M2.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration Road to LAV - Plant and grass clipping through concrete half-wall. https://imgur.com/vasdL. Grass clipping issue is slightly further ahead.
- LAV Road Start - Texture seam issue on right side wall. https://imgur.com/sDoJa.
- Tank Yard - Solidify end of shortened railing on roof, adjacent to large pipe. See item #31 for better details and images.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Road to LAV - Plant clipping through concrete half-wall. https://imgur.com/KEnp3.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration LAV Yard - Plant clipping through destroyed truck step. https://imgur.com/8l1b3.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration LAV Yard - This radar dish does not rotate. However, if it did, it would clip into the adjacent tower due to its close proximity. Move it sufficiently to the left. Ideally, real-world, in order to maximize its distance and sensitivity range, position it on top of the tower it’s next to. This will mimic the radar dish that’s situated across the yard from it. https://imgur.com/JUZrV.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration Start of C2A5H - In bay outside of the security room, suggest adding two fluorescent light fixtures on the wall across from the two existing ones. This room is too dank and dark.
- Start of C2A5H - Hallway and plant textures disappearing/winking out. Seems to occur more readily when standing on the rubble. https://imgur.com/yBwbf and https://imgur.com/OdIqd and https://imgur.com/J4bTn and https://imgur.com/iM8we.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Break-Leisure room - Can the dead Barney be raised any higher? Please re-add the blood decal on the top of the left desk, that’s been removed. Here is the bloodied desk from a previous build https://imgur.com/CdWWU.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Tank Yard - Remove this darker texture so that the face of the wall for the large doors is uniform. https://imgur.com/Rhg4x.
- Tank Yard - A metal bar sticking out of a metal beam. https://imgur.com/jO2u6.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration Tank Yard - Have these three power lines connect to a wall terminal, as done elsewhere in the tank yard, instead of clipping into the front of this AC unit. https://imgur.com/ZlGGg.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration Tank Yard - This triangle shaped rubble texture is still flickering. https://imgur.com/u3XZ7 and https://imgur.com/vgB3Y.
- Tank Yard - Can these railings be solidified similar to the ones you corrected in the TOW yard? As you can see, the end piece goes missing when viewed from a certain direction. https://imgur.com/yZzRS and https://imgur.com/A8mcU. Here’s what you did in TOW yard, from this https://imgur.com/lP0kq to this https://imgur.com/ebZRl.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration Tank Yard - Ladies bathroom - This texture glitch is still apparent. https://imgur.com/OaGPw and https://imgur.com/aWCAa.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration Tank Yard Rooftop - Light bleeding through the underside of the slanted roof. https://imgur.com/psDXx.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration Furnace Room - Timing for furnace flame out is still reversed. Lower chamber first and then the upper chamber a few moments later.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration Furnace Room - Please reconsider grouping the fire alarm switch, the fire alarm bell and the fire extinguisher arranged together in this corner. Right now, the fire extinguisher is around the corner. Logistically, this doesn’t make sense. https://imgur.com/GC1eg and https://imgur.com/j1uVU.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Gasworks - Dead HECU in abnormal death pose. https://imgur.com/8P5xZ.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Gasworks - Move this gray pipe support frame to the right or left sufficiently enough so that it clears the crossbeam that it’s clipping into. https://imgur.com/Gb82R.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Gasworks on upper metal walkway, this railing still has a gap in it. https://imgur.com/NzfvM.
Although there are loads of plant/grass clipping issues throughout the Garg yard (not your fault Text), I’m going to identify those that should be addressed, if at all possible. This pertains to items 39 to 43.
39. This pipe has two instances of plants clipping through it. https://imgur.com/X1iEu and https://imgur.com/GIpiC.
40. This pipe also has a plant clipping through it. https://imgur.com/FOjvW.
41. This shorter pipe has grass clipping through it. https://imgur.com/FCO9f.
42. This short pipe has grass clipping through it. https://imgur.com/RJTFN.
43. This tire has grass clipping through it. https://imgur.com/CNHag.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Garg Yard - Shift this fence assembly to the left to eliminate all of the clipping issue with the adjacent wall. https://imgur.com/TWeud.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Garg Tunnel - Last door on raised walkway has a texture seam issue at the floor. https://imgur.com/WTmVJ.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Garg Tunnel - Wall texture seam issue on raised walkway. https://imgur.com/HcICG and https://imgur.com/ovphj.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Garg Start - Both blue trash bins, on either side of the roadway, clip into horizontal crossbeams. https://imgur.com/dgfXN and https://imgur.com/W5hsK.
- Garg Tunnel - I strongly suggest that all the looping wires that run from light fixture to light fixture all be removed. They are not necessary and really serve no purpose. They’re not evident in the tunnel the Garg enters from nor the tunnels in C2A5G. Their installation looks amateurish (No, not you Text, I’m referring to the electrician who did the work). It will also drop the entity count. Every little bit helps.
- Also, on that note, have you considered my suggestion about removing some quantities of the props used in the Garg starting area?
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Room at end of C2A5H - Upon entering the room the door control box has a green illumination. Once the door closes, the box shorts out and starts to arc, yet it’s illuminated red. Once the control box becomes defective, it shouldn’t display either color, as it’s broken.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Garg Start - Please place a light above this door to mimic the same type door that’s across the roadway. https://imgur.com/N36bn.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Tunnel Garg enters from - There’s a texture flicker on the wall on either side of the blast door. https://imgur.com/NzeFt and https://imgur.com/zCZ4V.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Security room with Zombie - The monitors (12 of them) don’t display anything. Kind of weird, in that it’s a security room, which should be monitoring things. Can some display at least a test pattern or colored bars or static? https://imgur.com/r4Jrm.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Tank Yard near Security Hut - Suggest moving the light closer to the door by halving the distance. It looks peculiar being that far away. https://imgur.com/5dgj4.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Tank Yard at Gasworks large door - If you don’t mind, please move this door control box to the left at the position shown by my pistol crosshair, cetered within the panel. This will coincide with the one on the other side of the wall. Make this ones height the same as the one on the inside of the building. https://imgur.com/qSlmO. Thanks Text.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Is there a fix for Barney levitating above stair steps and the sidewalk in the newly reworked area of gasworks? https://imgur.com/fc2Jn and https://imgur.com/fyu9m.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Gasworks - I’ll point out again how weird these wires look coming off of these machines. https://imgur.com//YkDUm It looks haphazard and messily installed.
- Rooftop Storage room - Great realignment of the electrical boxes and panels, Text. However, I think it would look better if the smaller rectangular boxes with the grille had been kept where they originally were. Maybe you misunderstood me, but I hadn’t asked that they be moved. I think it’s best if there’s nothing behind the door when it’s open. https://imgur.com/abkBz.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Tank Yard - These wall vents don’t have corresponding vents on the other side of the wall. https://imgur.com/gj9Dj.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Gasworks - This pipe terminating into a beam seems illogical, considering all the other logical and elaborate piping that you’ve built into gasworks. Suggest shortening it, bending it downwards and feeding it into the boiler below it. https://imgur.com/Hc1aM.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Tank Yard near Security Hut - Can this set of props in gasworks https://imgur.com/a6qMt be used to replace this set of props https://imgur.com/7xq5a to address the gap issue between the rear of the cage and the adjacent large gray vertical vent?
- Carpark - The texture used at the foot of this door on level G doesn’t look right or appropriate here. https://imgur.com/fiWcn.
- TOW Yard - Texture/lighting pop-in with ammo crate to the right of sandbags. https://imgur.com/EvoYt and https://imgur.com/EvoYt.
- TOW Yard - Can this railing set, up above and behind the cooling unit, be solidified as well. https://imgur.com/pjBsz and https://imgur.com/FSOZF and https://imgur.com/YgMLw and https://imgur.com/9jL79.
- Road to LAV - Don’t know if you can address this wall texture issue, an angled straight line, just past the large door from TOW yard. https://imgur.com/PTA7S.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - LAV Yard - Just a reminder about this security camera, above the hangar doors, that sweeps too far to the left. https://imgur.com/w3SR1.
- Gasworks - This straight section of piping has a lighting/coloring issue, compared to the other sections of this pipe. https://imgur.com/OUHDo and https://imgur.com/BJicy.
- Gasworks - On the upper metal walkway, near the security office, there’s a spotlight effect, but no source of light. One railing post upright is also illuminated. https://imgur.com/XfY7F and https://imgur.com/keXU7. "Attention shoppers, our special “spotlight” item of the day is railing post uprights, on display in aisle… "
- Gasworks - Glad to see you’ve reigned in the sparks and drips that were flying through doors and walls. However, sorry to tell you that some come through the lower door/wall of the security office. https://imgur.com/yXNdJ.
- Entry doors to C2A5I - Upon engaging the button on the security panel to open the large doors, while the doors are opening, the player is slowly pushed back away from the control panel. Weird. You start here https://imgur.com/OjohO and end up about here https://imgur.com/YCXVG.
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Start of C2A5I. To mimic and be consistent with other similar doors, please place a light above this door. Also brightens up this corner. https://i.imgur.com/vEq2A.jpg.
- Garg Yard - Garg chunks clipping into and getting hung up on the targeting tower. I can push it along through the grating and once it reaches near the edge, it releases and falls down below. A little odd, no? https://i.imgur.com/JngZx.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/lEBx0.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/boC9o.jpg. Time to fire up the bar’b!
- [COLOR=‘Orange’]Reiteration - Garg Yard - Suggest that once these doors are opened, that the red indicator light change from red to green to acknowledge the change. You could install a dual-light type fixture instead. https://i.imgur.com/9VH47.jpg.
- Garg Yard - When the tunnel to FaF is open and the shelling starts, I saw the red Caprice take a direct hit, yet it sustained no damage. Now that’s the kind of car that I want. https://i.imgur.com/jzHO4.jpg.
- Start of C2A5G - In the storage room - Consider having the cover for the switch control box on the ground, or leaning against the wall. https://i.imgur.com/qjLXA.jpg. You can see it here, on the table, at the start of FaF. https://i.imgur.com/jFCOO.jpg.
- Start of C2A5G - In the storage room - It’d be a nice touch to have one of these light fixtures start arcing, once the power is re-established. https://i.imgur.com/hA4N0.jpg. Hmmm… six lights… plus one in the switch area… are there too many lights represented here? Entity count?
- Start of C2A5G - In the storage room - A texture flicker problem is located here. https://i.imgur.com/GKjSy.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/2q6YN.jpg.
- Carpark - Another “spotlight” type issue here on level 1. https://i.imgur.com/HEhgC.jpg.
- Service Garage - The support wires for the two rightmost lights, don’t make proper contact with the ceiling girders. One is actually floating and the other one is partially. https://i.imgur.com/e8hgn.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/uVoSU.jpg.
- Service Garage - Reporting two issues here.
a. Lighting in the corner without a light source. https://i.imgur.com/DZ6gq.jpg. It continues on to the right past the light above the double doors. https://i.imgur.com/7j65A.jpg.
b. Top of this support pillar has a texture glitch at the ceiling. https://i.imgur.com/b8Xbn.jpg.
To be continued… (for a very short period of time only).
Doing a playthrough now heres my first bug, in the car shop vent where you fight your first snarks, after you collect them and drop down into the ambush theres a split second where nothing is renderd and then when you look up you see the skybox.
Edit:
On C2A5H when you enter the bathroom after using the jumpad, you kill the headcrab then theres a dead zombie guard with a headcrab latched on him. Is he suppose to be like that or was the headcrab you just kill supposed to have been attached to him at on point in the past? with just those 2 things I finished my playthrough and must say very VERY VERY!!! NICE JOB. I think fixing the railings and adding plants everywhere really gave it that “REAL” polished feeling it was lacking in the past.
PS. look forward to your next project of On a Rail Uncut.
Yeah, that was the only real issue I saw during my playthrough. The see-through vent in the car shop. The rest is damn near perfect! From little details like making it easier to move around on the rooftop, to the massive performance gain in the furnace, this is the best version by far.
Any suggestions I could make would be reallly minor. The only little thing that bugs me a bit is there are a few leaking pipes around the maps that don’t have the sound of dripping water coming from them. Apart from that, bravo sir!
Found the same thing.
Alright, just ran through it a couple times, and I have to say it looks lovely. The Airfield Battle plays out much nicer now, and doesn’t leave a dozen aliens for the player to face alone anymore. I won’t report the vent issue, since several people already have, however I have noticed a few things old and new, and they are listed below:
Garage:
The ramp does not make contact with the floor, even in the lowered position. I suggest you swap the extended ramp model with the retracted model. That way you don’t have to alter the height of the ramp or the window to accommodate the change.
Steamworks:
This door clips the stars below it.
Garg Chase:
-
Snark Pod is on it’s head! Not sure if that’s on purpose or not though, I thought it was kinda silly
- The Crown Vic near the exit changes direction when it is destroyed
- When you destroy the tower with the artillery strike, it is possible to get trapped inside if you attempt physical interaction before it has stopped moving (in this case, attempt to jump on it too soon).
Minor Suggestions:
- Add a crate beside this truck to allow easier access to the bed, it’s an optimal place to set up the turret gun but difficult to reach with it.
- Add additional battle sounds (gunfire, helicopter, an occasional manta) to the background in the outside areas.
- Perhaps a friendly airstrike could ‘accidentally’ destroy the LAV in the second battle? It’s weird that it just gets punched to death (okay, this one might be pushing it a bit, I apologise if it is)
All things considered, this looks fantastic. You did an excellent job, and without you, my favourite part of Surface Tension wouldn’t exist.
Nice job w/RC3.
Some tips for the final release
-Might wanna post the final here and give it a day before you upload on ModDB just to make sure there isn’t missing textures or other lame BS. 1st impressions count.
-Add a creative commons license
-Make a note of any lingering problems in the readme (e.g. bad handrail models, shitty garg pathing). This will serve as a reference for yourself. Should this mod be integrated into BMS proper, you could bring these issues to the attention of the devs
-Consider making a playthrough of the FINAL version and upload to youtube and ModDB
-Upload you ST_uncut development videos to ModDB or provide a link; this can be helpful for other modders and will teach them about the development cycle
-Post a link to Leak Free on your ModDB page; again this will help other modders by allowing them to trace developmental Hx and how to effectively use feedback/criticism. This will also hype OaR uncut.
-Make a note on ModDB that you will also do OaR uncut
RC3 critique
C2A5G
.50 cal vort shootout
Illumination is better at the first light by the bend but new texture seams are present. https://imgur.com/K7AxF
Garage
Delete all vents on the stairwell side of the garage from floor G to floor 2, the associated sounds, and floor 2 the reflecting vents on the outside of the building (stairwell side; the lower floors do not have outside reflections). It’s really now about improving performance more than anything else…the garage is awful.
Barely a sliver of light on the G floor zombie ambush now. Eliminate completely if possible.
Road coloration mismatch (lighting). This is most noticeable in the ramps of floor 1 going both up and down but can be seen to some extent on all floors. https://imgur.com/hguce
Decal misalignment on floor 1. Also note the gray triangle (just left of center) that should not be there. Where the hell were you Dadster? https://imgur.com/uOirL
Texture seams still present on floor 1. This tends to be a problem surrounding the large hole. https://imgur.com/HxtHN, https://imgur.com/cPUZT
Both near and far columns need a second parking line on floor 1. https://imgur.com/4DKKD
The black pavement area on floor 2 needs to be elevated and striped to keep consistency w/floor 1. https://imgur.com/ygDzZ. You can see what I mean on the left side of this image: https://imgur.com/hguce
Bizarre prism lighting effect of floor 2. https://imgur.com/BOKgI
White car is not affected by window opacity effect. https://imgur.com/NLweR
TOW courtyard
Incompatible texture at the junction of building and petrol station fence. https://imgur.com/481Vg
Road to LAV courtyard
Road coloration mismatch. https://imgur.com/RoCvy
Osprey/LAV courtyard
Maybe narrow both the main hangar and rear hangar doors a touch (e.g. 20%) as the opening’s are too wide (OCD).
Team leader Michael Jacksons (i.e. walks backwards) his way to the helipad crates to provide cover fire. Make sure both he and his buddy strafe toward the crates while FACING the aliens. https://imgur.com/IU7GI
Bunker rooftops need same dark gray texture as the rooftops in C2A5A/rest of ST (for consistency) as these areas can be seen w/o noclip. https://imgur.com/uy0q1
Decrease the zombie’s pounding speed by 33-50% at the junction of C2A5G/H…he moves way too fast compared to all other zombies in game.
[b]C2A5H
Tank battle[/b]
Aliens win but it’s always by a wide margin (5 or more). Consider delaying the tank-killing manta by ~5 sec to increase HECU dps. Make sure to test this a few times before it goes into the final release.
The white window covers above the gasworks exit look awful and are extremely out of place. Note that this element is not reflected in the interior of the gasworks and while it’s perfectly centered above the building, it looks incredibly awkward when compared to the off-center gasworks exit. This has got to go. https://imgur.com/S9mKi
Too vent happy here…the original two at the center are enough. https://imgur.com/M576u
This part of the blue pipe must have a bend: https://imgur.com/f74MF.
Not sure how I feel about the bathroom vents…they make the snarks plausible but EXTREMELY clutter the vertical space of the room, making the player feel like he’s too tall. Note the moss clipping through the vent https://imgur.com/tZhbt
Satpipe/Furnace
Decrease the bounce from the pipe underneath the satpipe. It’s really unnatural currently and shoots you out of the water. A little crouch jump never hurt anyone…they should have figured it out this late in the game.
Furnace battle tends to favor the HECU a lot. Suggestions: 1) reposition them so the headcrabs/zombies can get a full surround 2) decrease health of the soldiers
This part of the blue pipe must have a bend: https://imgur.com/aeFaw
Both the blue and yellow pipes need a bend here https://imgur.com/rZHU8. Make sure to check carefully in the furnace and beyond for any similar jagged turns of these 2 pipes.
The giant tank you’ve introduced behind the furnace is too big and realistically would have been impossible to place, especially w/the obstructing T-junction. Restore the barrel storage area behind the furnace and add the associated sign. This is a perfect area for them. https://imgur.com/TwW8E
The rusty pipes extending into the large green pipe look strange because they CURVE into the pipe. Either 1) make them go STRAIGHT into the pipe or 2) delete. The other rusty pipes in front of them are fine https://imgur.com/0DdEw
Gasworks to end
Recolor the blue pipe beneath the grill to match the orange color of the pipe connecting the other LC generator. The blue should only be reserved for the pipe that extends from the Xen jumppad to the gasworks. https://imgur.com/S8XcU
Color mismatch at the busted end of the beam and the busted area above it. https://imgur.com/8ZBDo
Both vorts are still stupid. My only other suggestion would be to delete them and replace w/a low ground Agrunt. If you do this, make sure to test carefully…the dps might be too much.
Road color mismatch before C2A5I. https://imgur.com/tDj8R
[b]C2A5I
Garg chase[/b]
It seems like the flicker effect I mentioned in the last critique is due to the garg getting near you. Try to fix if possible or perhaps make a note of it in the readme as a lingering problem.
Garg still makes stupid little circles by the long reservoir. Perhaps note it in the readme as well.
Much of the debris mid tunnel and end tunnel (closest to door) is still blue. Make sure to recolor properly for the final release. https://imgur.com/Loagh
FaF
The garg firing nonstop into the door is a little unrealistic. Perhaps give him a default glaring/staring animation and trigger the flames to go off when the player is close to the door. If you do this, make sure he can still chase you in the FaF tunnel and revert to the set animations once the player is back in FaF proper.
Just woke up (3pm here). I feel like a proper university student now. I’ll address feedback and then get to work. I actually will go point for point on everyone, but I will be brief. I’m doing this so the same points don’t get re-iterated again.
For reference, if I say BM Devs, it means the BM Devs did it. I’ve been a bit lazy I guess with checking their work as I just ASSUMED it would be perfect. A mistake on my part, I’ve found lots of mistakes on their maps. It may have been caused by the decompilation process, but I doubt it.
- Will fix. BM Devs.
- Will fix.
- Will fix. BM Devs. Actually nearly all instances of this so far, except for 2, have been BM Devs.
- Will fix. BM Devs.
- Can’t fix. Cannot address issues in the transitional area from C2A5F --> C2A5G. The light would simply pop into existence upon loading C2A5G, which would look really strange.
- BM Devs. But I like it like that.
- Will fix. The light for floor G is inside the sign, for some reason, causing it to be blocked on the right.
- I know about this, will try and fix, but can’t guarantee anything. That’s the problem with model based destruction, it’s difficult to set it up so they don’t overlap anywhere.
- As above.
- As above.
- AS ABOVE.
- They…are identical. They were nearly identical in RC2, and now they are identical…
- Been reported. I think the areaportal bugged out. I’ll take a look at it.
- Yep.
- Will fix.
- Can’t fix without painting rock under humvee, which would look awful.
- Will fix.
- I’ll take a look at that one. 50% chance I can fix.
- Hammer’s poor quantization. The problem here is that I can’t really make the red wall model based as the process has too many downsides for an object that large.
- …what?
- As above, 50% chance of fix.
- Can’t fix.
- I like it like that. If I move it anywhere else it blocks the aerial vehicles too.
- Designed like that. Room’s meant to be dank and dark. I like it like that.
Thank you. I numbered your suggestions to make it easier to reply.
- Will fix this. The ramp is nice as a climb up to the lift. I will lowe it a little.
- Will fix. Can’t believe this hasn’t been noticed before.
- You probably shot it/threw an explosive, which knocked it over without killing it.
- Physics bug. Can’t fix bugs with the physics engine, sadly.
- Might be able to fix this with point_push, like I did in other places where you can get stuck. Will take a look.
- Ech, works fine either way. Might fix.
- I’m using Surface Tension’s default soundscapes. I don’t particularly want to edit the sound scripts. I can, but it might mess up other ST maps.
- Nah. It’s fine as it is, I reckon.
I’ll address your more important points.
- I know. Might be able to fix, but have had trouble with it.
- Will not improve performance even slightly (each vent is literally 5 faces, while a pillar alone is about 30) and I like the vents how they are. Nobody else has complained about performance in the garage, either. Weird.
- Probably can’t. Lightmaps are fickle mistresses.
- All the road colouration mismatches I’ll attempt to patch up, it’s just the textures being misaligned. Aligning textures on curves is an absolute pain in the goddamn ass, however.
- White car - This is a VVIS bug. I might not be able to fix this, I don’t think I can.
And…crrap. I’ve just been interrupted by some business in reality. I’ll finish up my addressing of your criticisms later, Wangman. I’ll just post it here so everyone else can read how I addressed their stuff.
- Add candy machine next to the two other vending machine in garage
- When u go up in the garage with the way the cars normally take, the lines on the road who goes up, doesn’t match the lines with the flat road
- Emergency exit in garage, make the sign broken, cause now it looks like there is a way out, cause u can see the light working on it (stairroom)
- Where u need to jump down to get up the crates so u can enter the vents, before jumping down it seem there is no glass in the roof, cause u see the car in his natural color and not with the color of the glass
- In furnace room, my hands look like they are made of metallic
- The holes made by the soldier in service room need to disappear faster
- Before u jump down in the service room with the three cars on the lift, there is a little gab above the vent (new bug)
- Where u have those tripod sentry gun, u need to go down the stairs to meet those security guard, well it’s a old man now, so we cannot call him Barney, unless it’s a fixed person here
- A bit stupid he’s the only person who can open the door, after he used the switch
- Last part, add a block on turning the wheel, cause it keeps turning (where u need to open the two big metal doors add the end of those level)
It is as almost as perfect but your map need a few correction (critical are in [COLOR=‘Red’]red) :
c2a5g
-
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582166 There is some clipping with the texture at the entrance of c2a5g
-
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582203 You should add battle sound as you did for the door in tow court or at the beginning of c2a5h. The player will know he have to go to this door.
-
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582239 and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582316 Bug with the trucks, it is possible that it is just me.
[COLOR=‘red’]4. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582268 When you return as you want to go out, the texture disappeared in the vent just before the garage.
-
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582381 I never noticed that these props are on windows… If you have time and desire to correct that.
-
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582412 The Harrier at the back (skybox) is way bigger than the two others.
c2a5h
[COLOR=‘red’]7. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582446 The Alien grunt didn’t do his growling animation
[COLOR=‘red’]8. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582510 The jumper is not oriented, I fell a few times on the first floor, not on the top and hurt myself.
- https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582525 In the tunnel to go to the furnace room, a weird light appeared at this point.
[COLOR=‘red’]10. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582554 and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582594 Clipping with the fire at the back.
[COLOR=‘red’]11. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582626 The door is in collision with the stairs
c2a5i
- https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582663 , https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582721 , https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582766 , https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582829 and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582892 Collision with plants
[COLOR=‘Red’]13. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117582969 Where is the car ?!
General
- Could you add subtitles to the “Shh quiet” sequence, the radio in the tow court and the radio on the mortar tower ? I wrote you a little tutorial few post before. I tried to do it but my pc crash when I want to compile. You could also see how Hezus did on the Uplink mod.
Might be a little odd w/a single crate. Crates makes sense by the M35 cuz it transports supplies but don’t w/this vehicle. If you go through w/this change, maybe add a few crates to reinforce the design.
@Text
Ya the garage is awful performance wise…even though it has the fewest NPCs of all the major battles, it’s by far the worst for me ~5fps.
Dadster had already pointed that out, there’s nothing text can do about it:
Maybe there should be some fighting sounds just before you open the door leading to carpark. It’s odd that all that shooting starts JUST when you open that door
Yes, such damped sounds!!!
Cause it’s a heavy door, so the sounds are not bright!
Got stuck here, had to use noclip to free myself:
TextFAMGUY1 I can’t seem to download the RC 3 because it has been blocked because of duplicate headers. Can you make another download link?
Okay, it’s now working thanks.
Bug report: Testing RC3 I’ve got a couple of crashes that didn’t happened in the previous versions. The message after the crashes: