New map: Levels

[tinnut]

Such an original name eh?

Probably best as 3v3 up to 5v5, north vs south. The map is made up of three distinct levels and a mountain.



















The map has features (trees and rocks), but for some reason when I play in a Windowed mode then often don't show up. This is normally not a problem for me as I only "play" in that mode for screen shots

Download from FileFront

Edit: Updated URL with fixed version of map (fixed slow loading times)

[smoth]

neat map, I'd play it.

[NOiZE]

Nice map, only the starting positions are a bit weird imo.

[genblood]

It's a nice map ...

Looking forward to playing a few games on-line
with it ..

[tinnut]

Thanks for your positive feedback guys

I forgot to thank LathanStanley for making publicly available his set of features, of which I used a few of the rocks.

The height map was made with The GIMP and the texture with Povray.

[Nettogrof]

Couldn't play it as the map took way too long to load for everyone (too many players quit) and when it finally loaded it was deemed rather dark in colouring before we decided to change another map.

[tinnut]

Thanks for that info Nettogrof.

I think that the number features I have is slowing the loading of the map. I'll try a few things and see if I can make it faster.

I'll also look at how dark it is.

[ralphie]

It's possible you made your 7z as "solid". That completely borks loading times.

[tinnut]

Thanks ralphie, that seems to have been the problem.

I re-compressed and made sure it wasn't a solid archive and the loading times are much faster.

I'll upload the fixed version later today when I get the chance.

[tinnut]

I've updated the version of the map on filefront so that it loads in normal times:

http://files.filefront.com/Levelssd7/;9 ... einfo.html

My apologies to anyone who downloaded the original version

[Decimator]

Ok, did you change the internal file names? If you don't make it levels_v2 or something like that, there will be nothing but grief when people try to play it.

[tinnut]

Thanks for the advice Decimator.

So I'd need to recompile it in mapconv with a new name as well as giving the sd7 file a new name? I'm afraid that I didn't do this, but I'll do that tonight and remove the current download until I do.

Thankfully no-one has downloaded it since I put up the updated version.

[Nettogrof]

Uhh... someone did download
I just overwrote the older version and it loaded nice and fast.
Still a little dark appearance though. Makes a tad hard to discern the levels.

[SirArtturi]

What program u used making textures ? And what compiler. Map looks really nice, id like to know how you made the textures...

[tinnut]

I've uploaded a "fixed" version (fixed for loading, but not yet for brightness):
http://files.filefront.com/Levels+v2sd7 ... einfo.html

The two of the three texture "tiles" I used came from this program Genetica Viewer, which is pretty good and I'd recommend everyone to take a look at it.

The texture used for the map as a whole was done using Povray, which is a freeware raytracer that has been around for quite some time. It has a scene definition language and one of the many object types you can define in it is a heightfield. I'll have a go at throwing some instructions on how to use this for this purpose.

[Erom]

I've used Povray a few times in the past and found it cool. I'd love a little tute on how to use it for Spring maps.

[HeavyLancer]

I've used Povray a few times in the past and found it cool. I'd love a little tute on how to use it for Spring maps.

Try the wiki. One of the map tutorials there has a guide and script for POV-ray rendering for spring maps.

[Erom]

Um, really? I just went through all of the tuts in the map development section, and I can't seem to find it. I guess I'm going blind - help me out?

[HeavyLancer]

I think it was one on heightmaps. It was an example of rendering a heightmap in POVray though, it might not be what you are looking for.

[tinnut]

I've just uploaded a new wiki "howto" for using povray. I created a new thread for this as it is not so related to this map

I believe that the tutorial that HeavyLancer is reffering to is RogerN's one here.