Family Style

[epstein]

I'm proud to announce the release of my first official map bucket, Family Style. It's currently posted on Simplici7y. I'm pleased that I managed to release it before the 7.7.07. Hee hee.

I'd be happy to entertain minor feedback (ie, weapons and ammo, sounds, spawn places, specific texturing things, etc.) or be aware of anything you consider to be "flaws" (ie, flow impedence, technical errors like smears or sticks, etc.). The deluxe version of the maps will contain the revised (if necessary) versions of these maps, and include some special treats.

Also, provide feedback on Leftover Chitlins. I don't mind having two versions in the bucket, but if one's clearly superior I'd rather just keep that one.

Thanks, guys and enjoy! Don't forget your Moisty-Nap.

[RyokoTK]

My thoughts:

Leftover Chitlins -- The fixes you made from the original are awesome, for sure, making this a pretty well-rounded dueling map. But it seems to me like it's a little shy on ammo, or at least the regular version does anyway. I could be entirely wrong, here, though. Also, the terminal doesn't function; is that intentional? Lastly, it seems like you have no sound objects.

Little Red Pill -- The lack of sound objects is extremely disorientating. Again, the terminal doesn't work. The changes made from the Victory Dance II version of this are pretty substantial, and I like it a lot now. It looks like a damn fun map. One major issue: heading along the south border of Polygon 99, trying to enter the teleporter, I got permanently stuck on something, and I can't tell how.

CTFY -- Terminal, etc. Can't say I'm a fan of this one. The irregular floor really makes it confusing, but that's just a personal caveat.

Optical Deficiencies -- Terminal, etc. I didn't like this the first time around, and I don't like it now. It just seems like there's no ammo. The layout is alright, but I just don't like it.

Misdirected Affection -- I don't like this one either. The lava texture on the ground is completely immobile, which makes it look really crappy. The lack of sound effects I suppose is minor, given the size of the map, but it seems like it would be an issue with spawn-killing, especially with the rockets. And the terminal doesn't work. Did you mess up with Hex or something? The map actually looks kind of cool, but it does not seem to have been executed particularly well.

Percolate -- Now this one is neat, and probably my favorite of the pack. Everything seems to fit together here for this one, giving it a cool old-school feel. I won't mention the terminal -- oops -- but I will mention the distinct lack of grenades. Intentional? Very good map anyway.

[irons]

He will add the terminals in the "Deluxe" version, when he is allowed to put the contest map in.

[epstein]

Ryoko, thanks for the look-over. Sorry I didn't explain about the terminals in my post above; they're going to have "commentary" when I release the Deluxe pack.

Thanks for checking the sound. I often forget to put those in my maps, and especially the ones I "remade" often lost the sounds that were in there (due to deleting polys, etc) and I never noticed. I'll be sure to go through and add those in.

My feel for ammo could be better; I'm hoping some people will playtest these and let me know if they run dry. I'll take your comments for what they're worth atm and plan on tweaking.

Little Red Pill -- One major issue: heading along the south border of Polygon 99, trying to enter the teleporter, I got permanently stuck on something, and I can't tell how.

OOPS. Thanks for finding that; I'll look into it. If I remember correctly, I fought with a sticky with this map - I hope it's not still there. I'm glad you like LRP more now - so do I.

CTFY -- Can't say I'm a fan of this one.

It's not one of my favorites, either, but it grew on me. I like the progression it's made since its original incarnation, and I think the pfhor textures suit it (though they're tricky). I'll see what others say about details to make it less confusing. Maybe it's a little too dark?

Optical Deficiencies -- I don't like it now.

That's fine. I can't expect everyone to like every map. I played some of my most fun 3-person LAN KOTH games on that map, so it's just what it is. In KOTH, the ammo doesn't need to be as great because one rarely gets through more than a few clips before dying, though I'll take another look at it (note earlier comment about ammo).

Misdirected Affection -- I don't like this one either.

I didn't clean this map up at all - your point about the floor tex is well taken. It's a pure 1v1 SPNKR level, not meant to be that great (I'll explain in the commentary). But for what it is, I'd like it to be as good as possible so I'll take your comments seriously.

Percolate -- Now this one is neat, and probably my favorite of the pack.

Glad you like it. I'm not sure whether the grenade lack was intentional or not. I'll have to check my notes.

[kineticturtle]

Leftover Chitlins has a bouncy side on poly 131; the side with the blue textured pillar.

Generally your texturing, texture alignment and lighting seem to be exceedingly haphazard; random blinking and fading lights, misaligned textures with clear borders; that's really the main thing that bugs me in this pack. It strikes me as a aesthetic nightmare, but it does still feel quite playable for the most part. I'm sure we'll go through your pack on Saturday; and, of course, your contest map!

[epstein]

Leftover Chitlins has a bouncy side on poly 131; the side with the blue textured pillar.

OOPS. Good catch. I'll be sure to fix that.

Generally your texturing, texture alignment and lighting seem to be exceedingly haphazard; random blinking and fading lights, misaligned textures with clear borders

Well, my "old style" of texturing was very plain and boring, while my lighting had lots of random blinking and fading lights. I guess these days I try to use more textures but haven't changed my lighting style much. I like random blinking and fading lights, because it gives me something to look at and/or move toward when I'm playing... but you're probably right in thinking I overdo them in the pack. Maybe I'll tone them down somewhat.

I try to catch misalignment but sometimes they slip through; if there's a particular location that bugs you in texture, alignment or lighting let me know. Specific examples will help me know what to look for (as I indicated in another thread, I have the fashion sense of a blind giraffe).

EDIT [UPDATE]: Version 1.1 is up. It's not a major overhaul, but I have addressed the major issues brought up above (ie, the sticky and the jumpy). I've also cleaned up Misdirected Affection and put some sounds in the quiet maps. Thanks to KT and Ryoko for being so quick to find the bugs. They're a little more enjoyable now... I hope your LAN gathering is awesome!

[kineticturtle]

Thanks for the bug fixes!

I try to catch misalignment but sometimes they slip through; if there's a particular location that bugs you in texture, alignment or lighting let me know. Specific examples will help me know what to look for (as I indicated in another thread, I have the fashion sense of a blind giraffe).

In general, use your funky lighting to accent things, rather than just randomly; put it in doorways, on the hill of a map, on sniper ledges (you do this once very well on "LRP,D", but then other objects in view have the same lighting effect on it which looks weird). They also don't ALL have to be flickering, yaknowwhaddamean? Try a slow-steady blink, a pulsate, or even a series of timed blinks and pulsates.

Leftover Chitlins: the "grating" texture over the sliding texture above the sewage falll is not centered. You might consider stretching that line a bit until it matches up with the width of the texture better. Also, the border texture above it doesn't line up with the left edge of the line it's on. Also, the corner of polys 167, 168 and 129 makes a corner that's a little too sharp for my tastes. Finally, most of your use of the "strip of lights" textures could stand to be lined up more accurately, but that's probably a little nitpicky; it's those little details that count though!

Little Red Pill, Deluxe: You use the "panel of light" texture here a little too readily; particularly on polys where it doesn't line up well (poly 106, for example). To a lesser degree, at polygon 50 leading up to the staircase next to it, you've got it on a ceiling that's 2.5 wu's wide, which looks a little funny; if you split the .5wu edge into it's own poly and gave it it's own texture (perhaps the red texture to match the pillars) it would fix the alignment problem and give this part of the map a nice accent.
From poly 81 to poly 65 really doesn't need to be a step down; this will look cleaner and fix the alignment of the "grey panel" texture in the hallway with the platform. 65 is another poly with the light texture on a very not-lined-up ceiling.
Also, looking into this hallway, to your left you'll see an appropriately aligned horizontal texture, and to the right you'll see the same texture used for the same thing, but inappropriately aligned.

C.T.F.Y.: You really like to use the white brick texture on the edges of your stairs and ceilings in the round hallway that goes around the map, but it doesn't line up with the stair heights at all, so it looks sloppy. Try something else or change your step heights.
The diagonal doors from the hallway, such as polygon 23, all have those funny, skinny angles. You can fix this by taking the side lines of those doorways off grid. Then you can accent them with a bright texture or perhaps a fancy light. All of the brown paneling inside the main arena is off (align it to the ceiling, since that's the "top" of the structure, the bottom is forgivable since all the floor heights are different). All the door textures on this map are off too (even though they're not generally used for doors). Just make sure that one of the edges is lined up with something.
I also dislike your use of the "pfhor goo" texture. I hate it when people use that on walls. I would also avoid having only one quarter of the hill flicker like that; give the whole thing a slow pulse of light, perhaps.

Optical Deficiencies: poly 97 has another one of those "something and a half" lines with a clearly defined 1wu texture on it. Next to that is another misalign next to polys 93 through 95, on the wall. This should probably be lined up at the top, or even better, use a split poly to put two textures on the wall and avoid the problem entirely - and make it look really classy!
The texture you used for the side of the hill is a little funny, I think, and this map has the usual lighting problems, but the texturing is really generally alright. I think that's mostly because everything is pretty big, there's not a lot of room for errors in details.

Misdirected Affection: Your misuse of the lighting panel texture is similar to that in Little Red Pill. I also really don't like your choice of wall texture for the outside wall; it's got lots of repeating details, which makes it a bad choice to cover such a large area. I'd split poly that wall all the way around, perhaps, and use that only as a stripe, and something more normal for the rest.

Percolate: Easily the best textured map you've got, although still not perfect. More of the same; clearly "square" textures on a non-square surface on that "brick of light" in the main room, one of the big green pillar things is broken between panels, and stair misalignment.

The only other thing I'd comment on is that the timing in your random sounds is pretty bad; things like thunder seem to happen way too often, way too regularly.

Looking forward to seeing these things clean up, hope this helps!

[epstein]

In general...

KT, I really appreciate the time and effort you put in critically looking at the maps. I'll spend some time going through and looking at what you're advising. Hopefully I'll learn from doing it some and get used to the sorts of things you're indicating. I usually work off the grid (though not all of the maps are, 100%). The doorways on C.T.F.Y. were off the grid but they might have gotten bumped into a weird alignment - I'll re-evaluate the angles. Also on C.T.F.Y. the door textures on the inside ring were supposed to indicate partially-opened doors, hence the difficulty in aligning them to something that looked good.

I didn't really do split polys until recently (I can't remember if my contest map has any, but Percolate does), so it's not surprising that they'd help lots in those areas.

Plus, I had strongly reduced the thunder frequency in MA; I know what you mean. I'll check it in the other maps too - the default is 60, which throws me off because that's so darn frequent.

These sorts of touch-ups aren't worthy of a seperate release, but I'll combine them with ammo advice and the general Deluxe release (which, unless I need another intermediate release for some reason) should be the final version. I'll let you know if I need more advice (re: tex and light) between now and then.

Enjoy the party!

[kineticturtle]

Also on C.T.F.Y. the door textures on the inside ring were supposed to indicate partially-opened doors, hence the difficulty in aligning them to something that looked good.

Some of the alignment problems suggested to me that you might not know about ctrl-dragging textures; it lets you move a single panel of a texture separately from all the connected panels. Try it, you'll see what I mean. It works wonders.
Also for those doors in C.T.F.Y., even though none of them are real, I would suggest adding polys and/or changing ceiling heights to keep them from looking like doors that open into the sky.

Plus, I had strongly reduced the thunder frequency in MA; I know what you mean. I'll check it in the other maps too - the default is 60, which throws me off because that's so darn frequent.

Yeah, ticks are a weird thing to work with. 30tics/sec, so 60 is only two seconds! I usually use times in the 400s or so for things like thunder, a little lower for jjarro ship creaks, and rather frequent for dripping water. Don't forget to give them a change time, it makes a huge difference in those sounds feeling natural!

These sorts of touch-ups aren't worthy of a seperate release, but I'll combine them with ammo advice and the general Deluxe release (which, unless I need another intermediate release for some reason) should be the final version. I'll let you know if I need more advice (re: tex and light) between now and then.

I dunno, if you really changed as much stuff as I've suggested, I think it may very well be worth a new release; but fixing the ammo stuff as well would definitely make it more worthwhile.
Drop me a line any time you've got questions or need suggestions; it's really exciting to help someone with their projects who shows promise and is actually intelligent, yet irreverent and funny! Keep it up.

P.S. If you make any improvements to your maps between today and tomorrow, e-mail them to me (kineticturtle@gmail.com); we could gather some of the fixed versions tomorrow, resulting in both a) good times and b) playtested suggestions for improving them more!

[epstein]

Some of the alignment problems suggested to me that you might not know about ctrl-dragging textures; it lets you move a single panel of a texture separately from all the connected panels. Try it, you'll see what I mean. It works wonders.

omg ponies. How did I not know this? I think I knew it a long time ago, but I failed to activate that resource in my brain area.

Also, thanks for the explanation of tics. Helpful - as is your approximate range. I'll play with them and see what I like.

I dunno, if you really changed as much stuff as I've suggested, I think it may very well be worth a new release; but fixing the ammo stuff as well would definitely make it more worthwhile.

I had said this mostly because I can't figure out how to "upgrade" files in Simplici7y to a higher release number, and the process of uploading and telling people to look the other way on the old ones seems to be more trouble than I want to go through more than possible. If someone knows something I don't, please fill me in!

Drop me a line any time you've got questions or need suggestions; it's really exciting to help someone with their projects who shows promise

Again, thanks! I'll try to take you up on that... I made maps a long time ago, back when minimalism was required (loading times and objects in view were a Big Deal back in the 90s, and careful texturing wasn't since everyone was on low-res anyway!), and I've had a hard time breaking those old habits.

Specifically about revisions before tomorrow, well, I might get around to a couple maps. I'll be sure to send them if I do.

[interion]

Is this pack still publicly available? I've seen a few people host it recently but it appears to be gone from S7 and I didn't see it on fileball.

[epstein]

Is this pack still publicly available? I've seen a few people host it recently but it appears to be gone from S7 and I didn't see it on fileball.

It's not publicly available at the moment. I took it down quite a while ago, intending to make some relatively substantial adjustments to it and haven't gotten to them yet. However, I've put it back to the top of my queue, and given that I need something to do for an hour before bed each night, I'll try to get a new (but probably not much improved) version of Family Style that will include all of the old maps except for the non-shotgun version of Chitlins and my two most recent maps (the two contest submissions). It will probably be re-ordered, and it will likely have a special bonus feature.

Thanks for your interest. Hopefully I'll actually do this.

[Switch]

Thanks for your interest. Hopefully I'll actually do this.

I know the feeling. If you don't get it done, can you at least repost the original?

[$lave]

I hope you manage to do this, and I look forward to it; I've really been enjoying your maps lately!

[epstein]

I hope you manage to do this, and I look forward to it; I've really been enjoying your maps lately!

Thanks for the encouragement! I'll certainly do what I can, and if in some reasonable time frame (a week or two) I don't feel I'm making any progress, I'll just post the original.

[epstein]

Thanks everyone for your patience. I am pleased to announce the release of Family Style 2.0. It contains 9 maps: most of the maps from Family Style 1.777 are included, with a couple newer ones. I hope you enjoy!

[attachment=2527:Family_Style_2.0.zip]

[effigy]

Thank you, kind Sir!

Misdirected Affection and Leftover Chitlins have been among my favorites to host.

[Saseydon]

Anyone else consider making a WB map/mod organization for sc2? I realise that we dont know anything about sc2s capabilities yet, but those of us browsing here know how to map/mod.

I figured why not do starchitecture sc2 style? If people wanna join, I think we can begin discussion on our first project, and get some order of who can do what.
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[tehWastedJamacan]

My God! They are getting smarter!

[CryoS]

indeed they are, thus i saw though it in 1/5th of a second

[tehWastedJamacan]

indeed they are, thus i saw though it in 1/5th of a second

like sc2?

[Shadowbreaker]

Sc2's editor wont have levelling heroes

[Drictelt]

Thus is probably the english language's most frequently misused word.

[Shadowbreaker]

Thus is probably the english language's most frequently misused word.

That's what she said.

[irons]

Thus is probably the english language's most frequently misused word.

Thank you.