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[little 00]

   Can you slide on the ice?      makes for a slick surprise

[CCsaint10]

Yes, the ice is nice and slippery.

[mookie]

It seems like the snow everywhere has a pinkish tint, which I assume comes from the sky light. This looks good and reminds me of the mood of the surface level on the darker time, but it doesn't seem to match the skybox well. From what I can see, the skybox is a cold grey every way you look.

The pond does seem too blue, but that could be partly because the snow looks pink. The apparent blueness of surface water is mainly a reflection of the sky; if the pond looks much different from the skybox the effect looks unnatural.

It seems like the dirty snow texture could have a ruddier/muddier color. If I remember right, in the original it was more towards beige; I'm not sure if that's a direction I would go, but a yellowish color would make the snow seem a little bluer by contrast. If it's convenient, blending the dirty snow into actual mud in a few places might be a nice look to try.

Before you release, you should try to adjust the helipad decal and the snow on the helipad so it doesn't look like the snow's been painted over.

It's hard to tell from these screenshots, but it doesn't look like the floodlights are casting an appreciable amount of light.

The positioning of the cagelights opposite the huge pipe in your last screenshot and (presumably) right by the body armour seems strange; they look much too low to the floor. The inside area seen here also seems like a place that could be more distinctly different from the outside, with deeper shadows and warmer (yellower) light.

If I remember right, the original surface was basically triskelion-shaped (i.e. acyclic). It looks like you've stayed pretty faithful in most respects, so if the layout is the same I hope the perimeter of the map is very playable, and the snow goes up and down enough to make some areas around the perimeter feel like isolated areas.

Looks great, would love to be able to get a BSP to walk around.

[CCsaint10]

Mookie, THANK YOU FOR THE CRITIQUES! I really appreciate it. By the way, I read them a long time ago, just forgot to respond. I have incorporated a lot of your suggestions in and you can expect an update within the week (as long as something gay doesn't happen and i need to fix something I broke lol) But yeah, just wanted to let you guys know that I am still working on it making it better for ya.

[[GE:S Com] DF Ank1]

yeah 

[CCsaint10]

UPDATE!

A little post-Halloween update for you guys. A lot of cosmetic changes are going on in Siberia right now, things that have kind of been bugging me for a while (little annoyances). So, with the wonderful help of Mangley, I was able to get work out some of the kinks. Here is a little preview of some of those things I have been working on.

First, I was never COMPLETELY satisfied with the skybox previously. Mostly because of the lack of blending in all areas of the map. That was a boo boo I forgot to fix when I made the custom skybox to begin with. So I went back to photoshop and did some work. After the second try, I finally got it to where I feel pretty solid about it. With my recent implementation, I am finally able to have the fog PERFECTLY blend with the skybox so it is impossible to see where items stop rendering at (far z plane). This makes for a more solid experience while exploring the level as props and buildings aren't just appearing right in front of you on the map (due to the fog not creating a "foggy" disguise when it comes into rendering range). Anyways, enough talk. Here are some images. Mind you, I am still doing minor tweaks here and there with the fog settings, so this might go through some new changes here soon.




Another task I wanted to tackle was the lighting inside the satellite. I found to be too plain and blue before with no cold and dark feeling to it. (see image below)


Due to the simplicity of the light, I wanted to add some variance to it as stated above. This is the first time I have experimented with indoor lighting so much of this is work in progress as I am still trying to learn how source handles linear, constant, and quadratic formulas and what not. It isn't a hard concept, its just learning what is appropriate for the right settings so you don't have to compile 100 times to get it to look right in the future. Anyways, without further waiting, here is a very early WIP image of the satellite inside.





Other things implemented by request from the community:
- Added a tinted blue color to the skybox to help add a slight variation
- Changed the environmental light to be a very very light green instead of pink, as requested
- Changed flood lights to be casting more appropriate amounts of light
- Cage lights removed and replaced by more appropriate looking light props

Things to Come:
- Rework ice texture and change some properties around, where applicable
- Rework helipad snowdrift blend modulate texture to look more natural

Thanks guys. Progress is still going, just slower since school is in session. Thank god this is my last year. This will have to suffice for now. Peace

[Mangley]

Looking really nice, I'm loving the fog blending, it helps to give much more atmosphere.

I recommend disabling shadow casting on those wire fence props, as you can see in the first screenshot they cast a solid shadow on the ground.

[namajnaG]

Thanks for the update, I was looking forward for one.
These looks pretty great.
I love the lighting you added on the satellite building, And the fog gives a more "wintery" effect.
Excellent work, Keep it up!

[killermonkey]

The only thing with the fog now is it reminds me of the fog after it rains and the ground is warm (ie summer fog). It does not remind me of a fog in the winter (ie blizzard fog) which is usually more dense with particles (snow flakes). It might be a bit too thick, soupy.

Otherwise, I like the rest of it.

[CCsaint10]

hmmmmm..if it helps at all KM...there is a lot of snowfall when you get on ground level. I feel like with the snowfall and fog together, it feels more like "winter" fog. Not sure what I could really do though to make it feel more like blizzard fog for you. I was also thinking of trying to make it a little denser....but we will see. Not sure if that would help or not. Not sure what I want to do exactly yet.

[Rodney 1.666]

An update surfaces.

[mookie]

Maybe it's just the free-floating position of the screens, but the trees sticking up at an angle really don't look right.

It's hard to tell exactly how close they are together, but the hill between the first and third screenshots (right where there is one lonely tree) looks like a good candidate to have a notch cut out that you can walk through. It depends of course on the overall layout, but the area with these cabins was pretty much a dead end in the original. As it is, this hillline looks too flat from the cabin side and could definitely stand to have its height changed somewhere.

I can't tell if some of the snowbanks are too steep to go up or not, but if not, that's an opportunity to create a major gameplay feature by turning some of the snowbanks into (very short) cliffs that you have to go around if you want to get to the top. A good aesthetic rule for that might be rivers: where they make a sharp curve, they carve a very steep bank on the inside of the curve, and a much flatter beach on the outside of the curve.

Based on the overall look of the sky/fog, I'd say the light should shift some away from direct and towards ambient. The shadows seem (a little) too deep. The overall light could use a slight blue shift IMO (which it might get just by strengthening the ambient).

I'm not sure if the telephone poles are custom, but if you have access to the skin it might be good to put a dusting of snow on the lower part to help blend them in to the ground. In your fourth screenshot, the telephone pole is right in the middle of the path; that seems implausible. People will tend to go around a pole sticking out of the ground (possibly leaving a small island of undisturbed snow if it happens to be in the middle of a path). A few of the other telephone poles that are right on the edge of the snow/path could probably stand to be pushed a little further onto the snow.

Looking at the cabin at the far left of the fourth screenshot, it looks like something weird is going on there (glitch?). If that's the way the building is shaped, maybe it could use a pillar under the corner of the roof.

Overall, the fog seems a little too sudden, like maybe the end distance should be further out. The only spot though where a fogged object seems to be visible in silhouette is the top of the antenna. Good job with the fog/skybox in general.

Getting rid of the shadows being cast by the fences somehow would be good.

No idea how much of an issue optimization is here, but lowering outlying parts of the map (i.e. changing the playable area towards a reverse-bowl) might make it easier to use the snow to block visibility at a long distance. Probably though a fairly extreme move for not much gain.



The (long) light on the wall (second story) above the pit and the two decals (above the ammo crates in the screenshot) don't really fit in with the rest.

The (big) metal beams on the ceiling look good, but they make the same (flat) beams running up the walls look bad. They really need to pop out of the walls instead of being slightly recessed, or if they need to stay flat, just disappear and do something different with the concrete.

The concrete extending out from the walls around the ceiling looks a bit odd. If anything, the topmost part of the walls could probably be recessed rather than extended, as whatever beamwork supports a ceiling will tend to rest on top of the walls rather than run between them.

It looks to me like there's (a little) more light getting back up to the ceiling than necessary. Often, if the light hitting the walls and floor is strong enough (and the floor is not a dark texture), the ceiling doesn't need much direct light hitting it.

Some kind of hazard-striping might be good around the edge of the pit.

A lot of times, I have to set the linear on a light to between 50 and 100 (quadratic 1) to really get much of an effect. Constant is pretty extreme as it means the light will maintain its strength no matter how far it goes.



Looking good. Some more overall-type screenshots would be good to get a better idea of how the gameplay is looking. Tough with the fog, but cl_leveloverview should be an option.

[CCsaint10]

Holy crap mookie lol...thanks for the post That was way more than I expected. Looks like I got a lot of work to do

As for the lighting in the satellite, I have a feeling a lot of it will change drastically due to the fact that it was my first compile of it. Many of the quadratic and linear ratios are all skewed. It probably won't look the same at all next time I post a screen as I have been learning more through other levels made by our developers and through the valve wiki (and luchador/mangley).  So I have a bunch of good resources to go off.

As for a level overview of the map, I have had that request from several people due to the fact that the level is so large (even after eliminating 25% or more of the level and restructuring since luchadors version) and many wanted to know how the weapon spawn locations/keys/armor and whatever else are set up. I plan on doing an overview picture with a grid showing where all these are so that people can chime in suggestions on changes that might help balance gameplay. All in due time.

Thank you for you statements above, although I don't agree with them all, it is still REALLY helpful. I liked your idea of implementing the step walls to where you have to go around and get up...although I am sure sure if I want to really implement that or not. It might create an interesting dynamic...but I will have to give more thought to it.

You think the fog is too close to the player? Its ends at around 4200 units..which isn't that close..but maybe I can move it back a little to like 4600 or so..what do you think?

I will think about the rest of the suggestions as I go. By the way, that far cabin is fine....I am not really sure what happened with that screen shot. It appears like the roof is hanging in mid air lol...odd

[mookie]

Maybe it will be different at ground level with snow falling, but the change from visible to invisible seems abrupt. Maybe a better option than pushing out the end distance would be bringing in the start distance, but either way it seems like there should be a slower change between clear and invisible. The reason why I suggest pushing out as the first option is that if the fog comes on faster, there is more chance of a tall fogged object being close enough to you to go above the fog line.

Unless you're getting a performance benefit from the fog though, I would say pushing out the end distance to 4600 would probably be good. KM is right on; this fog looks more snowmelt than snowfall.

In case you don't use EntSpy, you might want to try it for testing the fog, as I expect the fog is 100% done at runtime.

[Ruone Delacroix]

Hey, this map is looking great. I can't wait to try it out and even get back into the game.