Beta Map KF-Abandoned-Base-BetaV30

[THEDDLE]

Map Name: KF-Abandoned-Base-BetaV31
Author: =TCH=THEDDLE
Playable: Yes Single and Multiplayer
Pictures: See below.
Music By: =TCH=THEDDLE
Description of map:
The American Government decides to step in and aide the British Army and Royal Forces as they loose
their foot hold in London to Patriarch and his hoard of children. Several American Soldiers have
deployed to the London from a near by Air Force American Base south of London. While all available
personal are away, helping take back London, the Patriarch and a his children force out all remaining
personal on Base. Leaving behind equipment and a very crucial deployment point for all armed forces
involved. Your job is to take back the base and kill all who stand in your way before all equipment
and the base is destoryed.
Map Download/Download Size: 16.04

UPDATED TO FINAL. CLICK HERE. FINAL



This is my second map a way updated version of V1. Should be very playable unless you have low end computer. I have learned a lot from my first map and have redone this one several time. First time making music. So there is 2 songs. I made them with Acid 7. Great little tool.

Screen shots are darker then actual map. It is very fun and hard to play. Watch out for things that blow up. Weapons and ammo are hidden so you will have to find the secret spots.

 

[dextronaut]

youve made quite a bit of improvement since silo of despair. i specifically remember seeing your first hallways, and now to see this, youre a quick learner. good job theddle.

ps: holding out in the bar is the most fun part of this map.

 

[xyrz]

How big is the map?

 

[THEDDLE]

Hello.

Hello.

Hi guys. Just an update. I have been told that it is to easy to hold the hanger. I will work on a fix for this. Make the door damage by zombies more or something.

Also I forgot to add the ogg. files to the first thread. This has been fixed. However if you only need the music see link below. This is only the 2 songs I made for the map.

How big is the map?

Not that big sir. The file is so big due to I tried to be unique as I could with in my knowledge. 95%+ of the textures I made. Thanks for all that have played it so far.


Music Only For Abandoned Base

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey

Hey

youve made quite a bit of improvement since silo of despair. i specifically remember seeing your first hallways, and now to see this, youre a quick learner. good job theddle.

ps: holding out in the bar is the most fun part of this map.

Thanks Dex. I am going to make holding out in the bar a little tougher on you now.

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey.

Hey.

Ok guys. I am not getting any feedback. So is this ready for final? I think I will make 2 versions for people. The way it is plus one with the zone light up a little for those who like more light. However I could still use a little feedback on any exploits you find. If any.

 

[Ricky(SCO)]

I will give one piece of advice, which is relevant to all mappers. Dont go and make a Final already, unless you absolutely know that there is nothing wrong with your map. There is no hurry. Leave the map as a Beta for awhile and let people play your map, and see what they come back with. Your map doesnt become better because it is labelled as Final. Leave it as beta for a month, work on your next one and gather all the comments (if any) that your map gets. Play it on servers with public players, and see what they say. I was going to upload it to one of the AKA servers and get the AKA clan to test it this evening, but this map is so huge that I wont upload it, and I am guessing that is why you havent had any feednack.... very few have bothered to play it.


Edit:- Ok having downloaded this monster of a file and uncompressed it, I see that you have several problems with your map. For a start, It is too large a file size. This gives you 2 problems. As a server Admin I am not going to spend ages uploading your map and its textures onto my server, when it is still at beta stage. And players who do join a server with this map running, are not likely to stay around to complete a download, because it will take them ages.

I have had a look in the SDK and the first problem is that you have left the textures as RGBA8. This is why your file size is so massive. Go into the texture browser, click on "In Use" and compress every texture you have. If you have made textures that are transparent or have Alpha channels, convert them to DXT5. For all other textures choose DXT1. Highlight a texture, click on compress, and choose the type of compression. Do this to all of the textures that you have created. This will at least make the file size smaller.

When I played it in game there is massive FPS problems for a relatively simple map. The bar area for example has way too much bottles all neatly stacked. The grass outside seems to be giving big lag issues, so I tried removing some of it and it worked better. The overall map is way too dark. Some folks might like that, but the majority of people wont. Everything in the map looks very structured and bland. The amount of rooms with the same bland wallpaper for example. If this is your own texture, I would suggest replacing it with a stock one which has more detail, and it will also mean that the file size again becomes smaller.

Now thats the problems with your map. I would love to give some indication on how it plays, but I will let you carry out changes first before I upload it to my server. Just as a point of reference, I will not put any map that is larger than 30mb uncompressed onto the server, unless it looks spectacular, which makes me break my own rule.

I know this sounds very critical, but if you make these changes then your map will become instantly better, even though you havent actually changed much, because the file size is smaller.

 

[avp2501]

From the instant i started this i got major FPS issues. I'm not an expert but this does need fixing.

Almost every window in your map has glass in it (147 of them). From what i'm seen in some other maps glass movers cause major slowdown - it might be worth boarding up some of these as if someone tried to defend a room or maybe have shutters down. I deleted all the glass and tried playing that, still slowdown but in some areas like the bunker i was getting 70fps but when i came out and looked at the hanger i'd get around 25/30fps - so theres probably a drain of resources comming from over there.

The sky is great and lots of darkness - darkness is great but i think the lighting needs fixing in the lit areas. Have a look at the stock maps and you'll notice that even little rooms have lots of small lights in them.

I like the toilet humour in the bothrooms and you've got your hands on a ton of great static meshes i don't know if these are yours or not but they are great - probably the best feature of the map.

Sadly this map is very exploitable - i'll upload some screenshots later when i get the chance to point them out.

Behind the counter in the mess hall - With the door open the scrake can't get anywhere near me - Also none of the other zombies would go around so i could just stay there and pick them off at my leisure.

The toilets by the showers in the bunkers - opening this door makes an almost imprenetreble shield

 

[THEDDLE]

Hello.

Hello.

Now this is good feed back. As far as the darkness. I liked it that way. On release I will have another version that is the same darkness and one that is level info light on 1. This way both can enjoy the map. Those who like the darkness and those who do not.

For the doors not sure what to do with them. I will look into compressing the files. I was unaware of that feature.

As far as the fps I usually run 40-90. I average 60. I have had this map out for a little while. The V1 version could not even be played on multiplayer due to the 1000 breakables I have done.

The bottles and mugs should not cause any issues. I have all the collision turned off on them and a zone block around them. I did this all over the map on things like this. Even in the cafeteria.

I tried with the glass gone and with it there did not notice much of a difference.

I also have all the collision off on the grass.

Please keep up the feedback so I can work on these issues.

For people downloading the map it takes less then a minute on my servers. I have redirect on my servers built in. So if you do not have redirect then yea I could see it having issues.


I will work on the issues you have mentioned.

 

[avp2501]

are you playing this on your server / solo or using the "play now" button in the sdk?

I found that i can play the most extremest maps no probs with everything enabled in solo. However playing online on using the "play now" button makes everything mega slow - this is due to shared movement information shared across the networked pcs (because of things like glass movers)

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey.

Hey.

Thanks Ricky on the tip on the textures. My file went from like 111k to 14k. I am hoping this makes an impact on performance on the game also we will see after rebuild.

are you playing this on your server / solo or using the "play now" button in the sdk?

I found that i can play the most extremest maps no probs with everything enabled in solo. However playing online on using the "play now" button makes everything mega slow - this is due to shared movement information shared across the networked pcs (because of things like glass movers)

I have 2 dedicated servers for KF. I have had my maps on my server for some time now. I have been testing it with others. Plus people I do not know due to being public. Only ones with lower end machines had a couple lag issues. However they said it was rare and could still play it. Over all they like it very much. Especially things that break. New players came in very quickly. A minute or so. I have redirect through my server provider. Costs my $5 for all the servers have no matter how many how many I rent.

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey

Hey

Ok I have deleted all of the glass breakables just to put aside it may be that why some people get lower frames per second. Lower end computers. Well it did not change the fps. I am going to remove all KF doors and see what that does. Other then that I have no clue what may cause the problem. I have redone the environment several times. Put it in a smaller map box a few times. Eliminated a lot of emmitters. Turned off several static meshes collision. Plus zoned block off some items and turned of collision in the map area. After doors I may remove all the grass and try that. Even though I have tried it before. Please keep the input coming.

Also while I am thinking of it. Yes I made most of the textures. Remember this is my second map. So I have learned quite a bit in a little while. I liked the textures and thought they where cool. Sorry if some do not. I will improve over time.

 

[Ricky(SCO)]

I know exactly what you are referring to in relation to the texturing. The pattern you have is great, and it is seamless from what I noticed. However, it is too perfect. No blemishes or marks on the walls, like the stock ones that come with KF. I am also learning the joys of mapping and the associated texturing etc. It takes time. I would love to learn 3DS max and start making my Staticmeshes in that, but the reality is that I will have to continue making all of my SM's with the BSP brushes in the SDK.

More experienced mappers may be able to correct me or explain this better, but I believe that in relation to the room with the bar, the issue may be that you have too many individual Static meshes. I seem to recall reading somewhere, that it has to do with the way the engine renders each static mesh. At the present moment, when someone moves around your map, the engine has to work out every single change for every single bottle etc. If all of the bottles were combined into one static mesh, then the engine only has to do the calculation once. It therefore uses far less processor power. It doesnt look any different to us, the player, but the engine handles it differently and more efficiently, and hence a big increase in fps.

I used a great deal of grass on my map for Red Orchestra - Valienatos. There was a lot of tweaking of the thickness and amount of grass detail so that it didnt affect the fps. Since your map is so dark, I reckon you could half the amount of grass easily, with no big difference in the look of the map.

Breakable glass really seems to have an effect on fps, as does loads of emitters. Not sure of the reasons why that is the case. As far as the darkness of the map goes, that is entirely up to you. My first map was very dark, but I added a great deal of light sources. Eventually when folks told me it was too dark all the time, I realised that too dark isnt to everyones taste and I did actually lighten the map quite considerably, and most preferred it that way.

Good luck. I look forward to giving it a try sometime.

 

[dextronaut]

i personally think you shuold keep it dark. it really brings back the sense of danger and fear that KF once had. plus it helps the zombies by giving them SOMEWHAT of a chance to get the players. take KF-Farm for example, without the zone fog and tall grass, it'd just be a leveling map. KF Abandoned Base is the same way, its wide open out there, barely any obstacles, so the only way to challenge the players AND give the zombies a chance, is to darken it up a bit.

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey.

Hey.

I am getting 90 fps in the bar. I have all the collision turned off on the meshes in the cabinet for the bottles and mugs. So it should not be affecting that much. I tried removing it all. Doors, glass, and grass. Doors and breakables did not have any effect. However Grass did. I like the look of the grass however I gained a few fps by getting rid of it. I then brought the box up to level with the asphalt and buildings so it looked more smooth. My main texture on the bottom of the box is the grass dirt effect. So I am sure this will be ok.

For the lighting. Like I said I will release 2 versions. The same and one with a higher light zone. I am currently working on both. Plus another map while I wait for it to build. LOL

For the textures on the wall I think I understand. There are no tears or rips. So on.

For the map I am working on now I took one of tripwires and modified it and changed the coloring a little. I am using this as my main wall pattern. It is a chipped paint. I will figure out how to do it someday.

I am looking at going back to school part time. I noticed they have a 3d computer drafting class. I may take it. It is along the line of what I want for school and helps support my gaming habit. LOL.

 

[dextronaut]

For the lighting. Like I said I will release 2 versions. The same and one with a higher light zone. I am currently working on both. Plus another map while I wait for it to build. LOL

do you mean a dark version and a little less dark version? if youre going to do that, id do a night version (the one you already have), and a PURELY daytime version: sunshine etc etc.

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey

Hey

I thought about daylight one. I would have to re do textures. They look to bright in daylight lighting. Might be a project for later.

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey.

Hey.

Updated to V31. Have a lighter and the darker map. Also with the conversion of textures the file size is way smaller. Also tweaked some more lag problems should not be as much if at all.

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey.

Hey.

Just to let you know. I am working on putting all my textures into mylevel. Lots of work however I think it will be worth it for those guys that do not know how to put appropriate files where they need to go.

Also from now on my new maps should all be mylevel. Playing with that alone has taught me a few more tricks to make mapping easier.

 

[THEDDLE]

Hey.

Hey.

I have not seen anymore comments for awhile. We beta tested a version newer with out grass and a couple more tweaks. No one had lag. I have converted all the textures over to mylevel. So it will just be the .ogg files and the .rom file. I am tweaking it some more to improve performance and trying to get some grass back in. Trying some different ideas. I have been running frames on an average 60-70 mark. Highest in the 90's. A couple of dips into the 50's. We will see. I also made the doors larger. 2 large the first time had to rescale again. Talk about a lot of redoing zoneportals. LOL. If there are no further comments on glitches i will be going to final soon.