MasterLagger wrote:
I learned that no matter how hard I try to make a map perfect, someone will spot something wrong or have an "issue" with something so tiny and insignificant.

It's call standard.

By the time you are 40 years old, you will have higher standard too.

BrainstoneX wrote:
I don't care about point entities I set them once with the entity tool and afterwards they will stay where they are. I often have strange brushwork going on and I love the destruction theme even if it takes very long to build. I don't nodraw the outsides of my map. My desk is messy, too. ^^

hears satchmo faint

I am not really that obsessive with my mapping. I do make sure everything is aligned brushwise, and entities etc are near the brushes etc they are working with.

BrainstoneX wrote:
I don't nodraw the outsides of my map.

It's not necessary to do that anyway. It happens automatically during compilation.

(Just thought I'd mention this, since it seems to be a common misconception that you have to make all outside walls nodraw in order to improve performance.)

HMW wrote:
BrainstoneX wrote:

I don't nodraw the outsides of my map.

It's not necessary to do that anyway. It happens automatically during compilation.

(Just thought I'd mention this, since it seems to be a common misconception that you have to make all outside walls nodraw in order to improve performance.)

I thought this before but I realised that it will not draw it outside the leafs. The only reason may be is to make it look neater when you are making rooms. That way you can toggle nodraw using the button on the menu bar on the end to easily select and see what is inside your rooms.

I align pretty much everything to the grid. I have pack-rat OCD, so it wouldn't surprise me if I'm a compulsive perfectionist as well. You'll also notice that every single map I've made is clean. I also obsess over 1-pixel texture alignments. D:

On the other hand, my desk is incredibly messy. I have little level concept drawings laying about, empty cups sitting around, and even some food wrappers.

My desk in 2010:

Some things just don't change.

P.S. I'm sorry to say, that lamp is a little more of an angle than the other picture...

Quote:
P.S. I'm sorry to say, that lamp is a little more of an angle than the other picture...

The light_spot effect is optimized by adjusting the height and grid position so that the most commonly used surface of the desk is illuminated.

I optimize each of my maps with successive versions, so my desk logically has different updated versions too.

2010 version is the most updated one.

MasterLagger wrote:
I mean the person actually took a photo show the wall tiles being half cut near the floor, it was also aligned with everything else in the room. I fixed the entire map so the tiles were whole tiles and aligned but still, I've seen tiles cut in stranger places.

I think we have a few OCD Players as well.

I've done a similar thing on someone else's map, because misaligned textures are my real bug-bear. I don't care how good the chamber is, if I see one misaligned texture it isn't getting over a 3 (maybe 4 if the puzzle is excellent and the misaligned texture can only be found after hours of searching), because that texture needs fixing. And while it's clearly not as bad as some people (I really don't mind much about point entities, but I do like them to be near what they affect)...

raises hand As far as textures and alignment of models is concerned, I'm pretty OCD. Which is why I find misaligned textures so annoying in other maps. Also, indicator lights have to fall either exactly on a crossing point between tile lines, or equidistant from tile lines. And this is why I get so bugged by misaligned textures in other maps...

HMW wrote:
BrainstoneX wrote:

I don't nodraw the outsides of my map.

It's not necessary to do that anyway. It happens automatically during compilation.

(Just thought I'd mention this, since it seems to be a common misconception that you have to make all outside walls nodraw in order to improve performance.)

DAMMIT!

I now have a leak round all of my lights trying to optimize by nodrawing evertyhing... and it's taking ages to fix.

Also - being a little nerdy here - you could make a "neat" destroyed map by using ratios like the Golden one (1.6ish) and other simple ratios to place features at positions in the room where they appear aesthetically pleasingly. For example, placing a drip 2/3 of a way down a corridor (2:1), or a plant 3/8ths of a way into a room (3:5). People tend to find those unconsciously pleasing.

Vordwann wrote:
Actually, indicator lights fill up one of the four "quarters" length/width of squares in a texture. They should not be on the lines or equidistant from them because this creates problems when passing from some walls to others in corners. This is why offsetting the texture to the left or right from the center/sides by (i think, havn't had access to hammer in a few days) 2 units, creates the same effect and works neatly no matter what orientation of lights you are having. I'm sure I could upload an image step by step tutorial.

You are absolutely correct. Just look at any of Valve's official levels as a reference. The grid should be set to "8" when you're working with indicator overlays. Each overlay without stretching should fit into a 64 unit brush. When you are adjusting the dimensions of the overlay (stretching or shortening), you have to adjust the "U End" value accordingly. A calculator is very handy for this purpose, just measure the brush length, and divide the value by 64 to get the proper "U End" value.

The indicator light spots should never fall on a tile seam.

satchmo wrote:
You are absolutely correct. Just look at any of Valve's official levels as a reference. The grid should be set to "8" when you're working with indicator overlays. Each overlay without stretching should fit into a 64 unit brush. When you are adjusting the dimensions of the overlay (stretching or shortening), you have to adjust the "U End" value accordingly. A calculator is very handy for this purpose, just measure the brush length, and divide the value by 64 to get the proper "U End" value.

The indicator light spots should never fall on a tile seam.

You don't even need a calculator to figure out the values. Just turn off Texture Lock and stretch it accordingly.

morrock wrote:
lol, the powers of 2 thing is usually just for memory limits and whatnot. Though I remember reading somewhere that the bsp algorithm in Source is more optimized if you try to constrain room sizes and and wall widths to powers of 2. I believe that. Also positions are always saved to 32 bits, regardless, so snapping to a grid shouldn't save map data. The origin isn't 0, it's 0.000000. It's compiled into a bytecode anyways, so it's actually 0x000000.

I map like a programmer, so no, my maps look good once compiled, but they're a mess otherwise. Non-visible point entities are placed in a logical fashion, but never too organized.

Source BSPs actually don't use a binary format for numbers. Everything from doubles to strings are... strings.

Omnicoder wrote:
Source BSPs actually don't use a binary format for numbers. Everything from doubles to strings are... strings.

Somehow the renderer has to be able to do 29.3 + 4.7, and there's no way in hell that calculation is being done on strings.

Hober wrote:
Omnicoder wrote:

Source BSPs actually don't use a binary format for numbers. Everything from doubles to strings are... strings.

Somehow the renderer has to be able to do 29.3 + 4.7, and there's no way in hell that calculation is being done on strings.

They're converted to floats when loaded. I was talking about the BSP format not the memory format.