Mapping Tips and Useful Links
Pressing 1? As in on the keyboard?
Yes.
EDIT: I think it controls the visibility of distant brushes, and 2 does the opposite.
Also, if you're map has custom music, like a melodic track or whatever you want to keep playing while you're in a funnel, put it in sounds/vo/cavejohnson.
Fun facts:
1. Before you take images of your map, set your shader detail high and everything else high temporarily.
2. Mat_fullbright 2 lets you see bumpmaps! (It doesn't turn on fullbright though).
3. 3DS models (models in PTI) turn black when Mat_fullbright 2 is on. Weird.
Combine balls and energy balls calculate where they will bounce before they hit it. This means that when they hit a texture like grating or glass, there is a chance that the bounce particle will appear on the wall behind it rather than on it.
Aperture Science: We do our science asbestos we can!
Some day, (where i was experimenting) i put some energy balls in a cube made of grates.
And then it looked really strange, because the bounce decals were on the outside walls,
Just my opinion, maybe helpful:
- Please waive lobbies where you're standing in front of an entry-door of the test chamber and you first have to wait 5 min. long because GLaDOS voice must listen to before the door opens and the test starts, something like that can be annoying and I think GLaDOS has nothing against to speak while you're in the test.
- We all know that the Env_projected_texture in motion gives a super great light. But sometimes it is just unfitting to put a moving Light/Shadow in really every room, at least I sometimes think that the sight of a 'silent' (meaning Light) room is much nicer.
- And please do not map unrealistic. For example, if walls are broken, or things are ripped out, you sometimes ask yourself how can this be happening. Therefore, please do not just map something destroyed at every place where is space for that. Or if a ceiling has collapsed, but the bottom is totally empty, or in the other way around. Just try to imagine what can happened to your testchamber (Overgrown/Reconstruct you know). This will make your map a little bit more realistic.
- BTS or Office parts, (i personally) dont like it that there is really every time "randomly" only one way the player can walk. I mean when the player is outside the testchambers, let the player explore a little bit. Also dont forget to detail hallways, or rooms, it is sad when long hallways are just empty without anything.
|Just my opinion|
EDIT: Ups, sry for double post, didnt saw that the last was mine.
That's the message that requires spreading, especially to those people who don't optimize their "PTI stage maps".
For visuals, when I am done with a map, I screenshot everything and then go over each screenshot. On every one, I come up with all ways that it can be improved and write them down. When you do this, don't think about how long it will take to do the changes, just do them. it will make your map a lot more realistic and fun to play.
Musical website Moddb