frozen [Update 6A: January 2015]

Redon | 2009-04-24 17:50

[

180

points ]

(21 votes)

Starred Content

Blurb A small DM map with snow, ice and metal constructions

Screenshot frozen [Update 6A: January 2015]

Get original file (113KB)

Detailed description

Another extensive update, and hopefully the last like it. However, I expect some smaller fixes to follow soon. There's a big chance I missed something somewhere.

The map is currently saved as "frozen6a" to avoid conflicts with the current release version. Please try to playtest the map with friends and give me feedback on the changes, any further suggestions are welcome.

Thanks to Frosty for spending a lot of time on the map, helping me with good ideas, and lastly for his contribution in the cave (:
A big thanks also to swatllama, Fatality, starch and everyone else who helped out with feedback while I was working on the map.

2015 January - Update 6A:

- The lighting on the map has been completely redone. The light of the lamps shifted towards a more orange color.
- Changed skybox to meister/uzze
- Added more fog and a fogdome
- More skylight, less sunlight: The sharp shadows are gone and instead the map has a cloudier, gloomier atmosphere.
- Added snowflakes
- Added mapsounds and sound effect for jumppad.

- Added slippery ice (thanks to Frosty)
- Changed the hue and opacity of the ice texture and removed the specmaps from the snow texture.
- Cleaned up the texture cfg to remove duplicates
- The shabby old mountains have been replaced and new sections have been added
- The mountains use two new rock textures from the terrain_soc set
- Blendmapping has been renewed and some were added to the snow and metal floor

- The platform near the yellowarmour and the surrounding area has been redesigned to make movement easier
- The section around the bigger staircase has been created from scratch because the old version was very lazy
- The point where the staircase disappears into the ice has been done from scratch without the snow in the way. Looks a lot nicer this way.
- Countless other improvements to geometry and texturing to make the map look a little prettier. Like this.

- The healthboost and greenarmour have switched places: More cover for the GA, more risk for the HB down on the ice.
- Reduced number of health pickups from 6 to 4.
- Added two additional ammopacks: shells and grenades.
- Some shells and grenades have switched places.
- One of the bullets packs near the jumppad was removed. Bullets near the lower teledest were moved down to the ice.
- Added a lot of playerstarts and adjusted existing ones (from 8 to 27)
- Cleaned up clipping after all the changes

- Of course I forgot to mention the wider corridor near the YA. Arguably one of the most important changes.

Old

After memento, this is another small deathmatch map for which I focused on the flow of gameplay, this time with a snowy theme. Again, the map didnt take too long, but a bit longer than memento. I started it 2 days ago, and now it's done with waypoints. I'd like to hear what you think about it, and if you have any suggestions for improvements, write a comment :)

2012 January - UPDATE 5:
- Most importantly: The water pits have been removed. The entire area is now covered with snow and ice, providing the map with a central area for fighting, without getting stuck in the holes.
- Increased width of two hallways, giving the players more space
- Changed the double jumppad gap to a continous path, with a platform on the side to climb up
- Moved teledest to greenarmour spot
- Added healthboost at old teledest location
- Moved greenarmour to new location
- Added stairs in front of yellowarmour for people with walking disabilities
- Added some details in the lower area

Thanks to Suicizer and Misan for the help!

UPDATE 4: Clipped/Noclipped a few things, changed Screenshot and Mapimage
UPDATE 3: Changed the snow texture, Changed Jumppad Texture
UPDATE 2: Fixed a clipping error and removed the pistol ammo
UPDATE: Removed Deathclip in the Water, removed some snow, changed jumppad texture and improved the ice texture

Map file frozen_update_6a.zip (1.58 MB)

Rating

180

points

(21 votes)

Comments

Redon | 2009-04-24 21:00

I removed the deathclip in the water because the falling into the water itself already slows the player down enough. Thanks viruz for helping me with the ice texture, it looks way better now! :)

dairyking | 2009-04-24 23:30

I fapped to the screenshot, looking pretty sexy my German friend :D

mIscreant | 2009-04-25 01:28

I really like this layout and style, it reminds me a lot of some of the old cube maps. My only suggestions to you were going to be to remove the death material and light the tall jumppad more, but I see that those changes are already in svn.

Good job!

Redon | 2009-04-25 02:56

Thanks for the comments, the map has been added to the new release of Sauerbraten! :)
I posted a link to a little Demonstration Video for those of you who don't have Sauer SVN.

Suicizer | 2009-04-27 12:34

in some way, this map reminds me to old forgotten maps :D!

it seems to have a good flow, nice detail (better then those old forgotten maps ;D), good geometry and cool ligtning!

dont understand me wrong when i give a 5/5 :P!

KI113R | 2009-04-27 22:19

It seem a lot lately that Redons maps are based mostly on flow and game play. This one does exactly that, it gives good game play and great flow, along with a classic kill factory design (with his own little snow feature) All packed into this small map is some amazing geometry as well. The bonus moded textures give a great feel as well. I had a great time in instagib on this map. (28 me - 36 Redon something like that?) any way, there are alot of quick shots and ample amount of strategic gibs moments. As always said, I look forward to seeing more from you.

Your friend,
KI113R

rocknrol | 2009-04-28 05:35

You made some very nice stuff here, really. Not much to say about your map, only negative imho is that it is very small, but that's just a matter of taste. Didn't playtest it yet, and just "explored" it a bit, and had a look at the great details.

4/5 at least, and congrats for inclusion :D

Redon | 2012-01-28 05:54

Update 5: After almost 3 years, I updated the map today to adress some complaints and suggestions. For the changelog, read the node description.

RaZgRiZ | 2012-01-28 06:16

An update? Something i didn't expect to see. this means i'll have to move all the clipping, texturing, geometry, lighting fixes over to your version. Aargh. Hours of work lost.

Redon | 2012-01-28 06:36

Oh! Well that obviously wasn't the intention. If you want, we can look at your improvements together some time and find a good way to merge them with the map. :P

RaZgRiZ | 2012-01-28 07:13

It's mainly fixes as i said. But lots of them. You have a habit of leaving holes everywhere and then copying them all over.

Redon | 2012-01-28 12:08

I'm asking because I'd be willing to take that work from you, but for instance, what are the holes you're talking about? After taking a look around the edges of my map, I wasn't able to find more than about 4 little ones.

Suicizer | 2012-01-28 12:38

As I already suggested when I was helping you with the update, skytexture things which aren't in sight of players. I see you already did outside the map, but don't forget to do just the same on geometry inside walls (like the downside of the grate inside the pillar. Can't be seen from any angle for players, while it still having triangles -> total waste). This looks way more professional and also reduces the triangles a lot (which would make this map have a lot of detail, while still being playable even for people with low graphics (or a high ping).

Also, it's pretty interesting the map has a file-size of 2Mb, while it's previous version only was 600Kb?

RaZgRiZ | 2012-01-28 17:04

previous was about ~940KB. my update raised it to 1.06MB. i will get working on an update for the svn when i get the time.

Suicizer | 2012-01-28 17:20

Untrue, as this screenshot will show.

RaZgRiZ | 2012-01-28 17:51

In SVN:
800 KB (819.871 byte)

My update:
1,08 MB (1.137.912 byte)

Redon | 2012-01-28 18:52

You should know that skytexturing the outside parts has nowhere near that much influence on the filesize. A large part of the filesize comes from the lightmaps. Calculating the lights with lightprecision 64, I ended up getting some weird light bugs in the blue hallway, with 32 it looked okay-ish, and with 16 it looked perfect, so that's what I went with. However, this has a quite dramatic effect on the filesize - to illustrate my point:

Without lightmaps, the map is 174KB.
With lightprecision 64, it's 604KB. - Here, the weird light bugs occur as I mentioned.
With lightprecision 32, it's 993KB. - Still looks odd on a closer look, but much better.
With lightprecision 16, it's 2,1MB - The shadows look perfect, no more weird bugs, but at the cost of twice the filesize. However, it's arguable if 2 MB are really that bad, a lot maps are around that size. Of course, something in between would be an option, like lightprecision 24, which results in a filesize of around 1,4MB.

By the way, I did skytexture the invisible edges of the map.

Redon | 2015-01-03 01:28

bamp

Doko | 2015-01-03 18:15

Beautiful and very playable map. its perfect.

Zoocata | 2015-01-03 23:52

Incredible! A MILLION times better than the original for sure.

Only thing I noticed though was that in this spot near the envmap on the icy floor, you get stuck trying to jump up on the platform if you're walking too close to the wall. That's crucial since you slip and slide every where (nice touch by the way!).

Rating it 9/10 :D

Also, nice mapmodel party x)

Suicizer | 2015-01-07 22:13

Very nice improvements!
Innovative way to create the feeling of being on ice actually. Also great that it doesn't seems to affect the flow and gameplay dramatically as like on siberia (although that has been added like that on purpose).

I've noticed some small envmap error on the ice near those stairs which lead to the teleport. Not sure if it should be like that or can be fixed or prevented.

I've never been a big fan of the snow10 texture so replacing most of the snow snow7 feels good to me.
Nice to see you found out about the mix-command. Personally I think it's still quite tricky to use, but seems like it worked out well for you.

Is there a reason why some of the playerstarts on the ice are positioned higher than the rest of the playerstarts towards the floor?

I guess you added those spaces in the maptitle at the start on purpose?

Seems like some sweet updates which the map tended to ask for.

Redon | 2015-01-08 01:15

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

I really like the slippery effect on the ice myself, though it was tricky to get it to work like that without it interfering with the way grenades interact with the surface. It's still not perfect, but at this size I managed to reduce the chances of grenades spazzing out to the point where I hope it's negligible. It's generally only noticeable when you roll them flat along the ice sheet.

The envmap error should definitely not be like that. However, nothing I tried managed to fix it, even without envmap ents, those borders are still visible. If you know or find any solution for it, let me know.

I'd forgotten I even changed the snow texture, but I agree - the new one looks much nicer.

About the playerstarts, I hadn't noticed they were at different heights, perhaps the no-clipped sheet of snow tricked me. Will be fixed in the next update. As will the maptitle.