how are the maps for ESF Final made? Hammer and Modeling :)

[Painkiller]

Hey guys
I'd like to know what exactly the new maps are
If they are models, can't you simply make the model and import it in hammer? Hehe..
:cry:

 

[Sicron]

You don't use Hammer anymore. You just make an .obj file in whatever model editor you want to use. That is your map, as far as I know.

 

[Painkiller]

That didn't make much sense to me.
Would someone please explain with most detail how they're done :S

 

[Sicron]

Only the team knows exactly. But they won't tell us exactly how yet. We only know that the maps can be made in any model editing programme that exports .obj files (3dsMax, Cinema4D probably too, maybe Blender). Other than that, it is probably exactly like modelling anything else. Except for certain map specific stuff of course, like spawn points. These have to be added using...coding files/text files/xml files? or something, not sure about that.

 

[Painkiller]

kkthx Gonna wait then o.o

 

[Grega]

Its simple. You remove hammer out of the equasion.

You make terrain in a modeling program. Once you are finished you export it as an .OBJ file. After that all you need to do is make a foulder with the model files, copy an existing .BSP file and rename it to your map name and use our XML tool to set up light position, skybox, light level and all the other setting. Entities ofcourse are allso handled by the XML manager. You can allso use it to call up special effects like weather changes and such stuff inside the mapname.xml file using the XML manager, to call up effects after a certain amount of time has passed.

But the basicsl is that you need to MODEL a map instead of using hammer to do it.

 

[Darth Revan]

so simple i figured it out the first time i saw the new maps

 

[Damaera]

Its simple. You remove hammer out of the equasion.

You make terrain in a modeling program. Once you are finished you export it as an .OBJ file. After that all you need to do is make a foulder with the model files, copy an existing .BSP file and rename it to your map name and use our XML tool to set up light position, skybox, light level and all the other setting. Entities ofcourse are allso handled by the XML manager. You can allso use it to call up special effects like weather changes and such stuff inside the mapname.xml file using the XML manager, to call up effects after a certain amount of time has passed.

But the basicsl is that you need to MODEL a map instead of using hammer to do it.

Actually, you can still map in Hammer, but it'll be so much more complicated. You'll have to create the map in hammer, export it as a DXF file, import it into Max, delete unneeded polygons and then either add on to the map (past the Hammer boundaries) in 3dsmax or just UV everything, make textures, and then finish the map. The latter is useless because of the lack of size.

Like I said though, it's just so much more complicated and not even worth it, so I just recommend creating your map in a modeling program.

 

[sub]

I hate hammer so much, I don't know why anyone would want to use it if they had another option.

 

[Sicron]

I wonder though, someone of the team might be able to answer this one. But what about map file sizes? The new maps are much larger, contain more models, better textures than the old maps. So I assume the file size must be quite a bit larger as well. What happens then when you try to join a server with a map you don't have. In 1.2.3, Half Life/ESF would just download the map for you, sizes weren't that big. But with new, bigger sizes, I must imagine that downloading will take quite a bit longer, and must cause a lot of lag on the server?

 

[Grega]

Yea looking at the namek island foulder it says 92Mb which should mean round 46 when not in SVN format.

Meaning downloading them VIA game itself might be a tad problematic ^^;

But ofcourse most of that are texture files. The map file itself is only 4Mb in size ^^

Allso there are a bunch of redundant files in there. So not really sure what the final size would be ^^;

 

[Fusion]

When is a big lag, when you add a forest:
-with tree by tree...that mean you will have too much models;
-or you make only one model with entire forest?