Peripheral Consciousness: released!

[zwzsg]

I had started that map a long time ago, but never finished it, until today!

Peripheral Consciousness



Some screenshots, click to enlarge them:



Yes it's a metal map. Sorry about that. But since everything in that map indicate so plainly it's a metal map, I hope nobody feels deceived upon finding that, gash, horror, it is indeed a metal map.

The features are 3do, but I promise that I'll study s3o for the next map.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: This map is only 579Kb! That's right, while some map makers waste FU bandwitdh with 50Mb maps, my map doesn't even weight a meg!

[Molloy]

Cute name. I like it.

It's a pity the metal tileset looks so shit in Spring. Why hasn't anybody tried making a new one? Or going for a different look that comes out better.

[Maelstrom]

I used to think this was an oxymoron, but this is actually a good looking metal map! The features really make it look great.

Oh but i beat your .5mb map, with my own .4mb map! Ha!

[Cabbage]

aslong as the metal output is similar to that of metalheck, and wind isnt permanant +25, i see nothing wrong with this map

[Molloy]

I mean, someone could make a metal texture that looked more like smooth, tarnished metal or something.

http://images.google.ie/images?q=metal+ ... rch+Images

[PicassoCT]

I tried with a rendered Metall Version... and ended 50 MBs...
Metalltiles aint easy going. The Moire Effect is always waiting

[zwzsg]

Molloy, your pics reminds me of C_A_P's Oxigen 7 tileset (used for instance on the Detention Center map).

But I wanted people to be reminded of old Total Annihilation metal maps when playing on this one. So, while my map isn't copying the layout of any map, I made sure to stay within the style of Core Prime maps. So the texture is taken from there. The central mound shape is inspired by Central Plaza (Arm penultimate mission), while its texture is taken from the Core Command Dome (Arm ultimate mission). The large ramps with sharp edges were a common trait of OTA metal maps, so I made some. The moon in the sky (it's called "Dump") was taken from the OTA briefing .GAF. Also, on TA metal maps there's always many weird rusty metallic devices, which are usually useless (they're worth too few metal to bother reclaiming on metal map) besides decorative role, and I made sure to copy both their name and shapes. Well, I admit I got the comm uplink wrong, as they're much more discret in TA, but the pipes, seismic monitor, and thermal regulator are much closer to the originals. Sadly, while in TA those features blended perfectly in the background, in Spring they stand out a lot, especially when placed in the middle of a flat low-fi textured ground. I tried using duller texture, grouping them, and putting them near edges, but they still don't look enough like they belong there.

So trying to capture the essence of all TA metal maps, without copying any in particular, was one of my aim when making this map. Another was to make a map with strong denivelation, where there really is a sense of depth between lower and higher levels, while still having so much flat ground you don't feel hampered by the relief everytime you build or move. I mean, maybe you're familiar the rendered mountainous map syndrom, where you have to spend ages checking with the mouse pointer every inch of terrain to find the one square flat enough to find, and then you'll agree it must be avoided by all cost. So I have some nice slopes, but they're clearly defined, and leave much space open to roving and building. The ramps are large, and the general layout studied to have no bottleneck. Finally, a third goal was to make use of features, but by now there's already many maps with much better looking features. Well, there's also map with better looking textures, better looking ramp & plateau systems (I'm thinking of IceXuick maps), but I had this map in the work for very long and just felt like finishing it.

As for gameplay, the plain and surrounding ramps gives 0.8M, the central mound gives 2 something M, and the cones even more (but it's hard to build on the cones). So the center gives more metal. However, at each corner are four geo, so the corners give more energy, and anyway on a metal map, controlling metal rich area doesn't matter, since you can just built more mexx anywhere if you haven't enough M. It should be noted that, while vehicle have to take the ramps to access the central plateau, kbots are able to climb directly, albeit very slowly (for XTA, and any mod using similar "MaxSlope" values). However, for the surrounding cliffs, both kbots and veh will be forced to use the ramps. Btw, these surrounding walls were created mostly as a trick to hide the brutality of the map edge, but, thanks to their easily accessible ramps, can also be used if for instance you want some building to be be protected from the mayhem of the plain below, and to give more interest to the map outer edge in general. Wind is null, and tidal doesn't matter. Gravity is pretty high, I'd be interested to see how it modify the gameplay. Ideally, artillery would play a smaller role, and laser a larger role, which should give Core an advantage.

[AF]

20 cookies to zwzsg

[Quanto042]

This looks like a true QUALITY metal map, excellent job, i'll love to do some FFAs on this one!

[Buggi]

Just had several games on this map. spectacular!

Though, are metal maps supposed to deform? Maybe jack hardness WAY up?

Otherwise great gameplay.

*edit*
Maybe extractor radius could go up a little... :/

[mufdvr222]

Metal maps will look better once the new map format is finished, allowing bumpmapping of the texture

[zwzsg]

Metal maps will look better once the new map format is finished, allowing bumpmapping of the texture

That's a naive view. Maps quality won't suddenly jump if a new format is released. Because to taking advantage of bump mapping (and any other fanciness the new map format will allow) would require a lot more talent and work from the mappers, and few are going to take the time. I mean, just look at the current maps, how many use the custom ground overlay texture, or the custom water surface texture?

[Forboding Angel]

Metal maps will look better once the new map format is finished, allowing bumpmapping of the texture

That's a naive view. Maps quality won't suddenly jump if a new format is released. Because to taking advantage of bump mapping (and any other fanciness the new map format will allow) would require a lot more talent and work from the mappers, and few are going to take the time. I mean, just look at the current maps, how many use the custom ground overlay texture, or the custom water surface texture?

Z, you're wrong. Bumpmapping your textures takes very little time as opposed to the current format which you have to beat with a steel pipe and let your comp shit all over itself while rendering.

The new map format either requires more talent or less, it could be looked at both ways.

Speaking of using custom detail textures, you need to remove the detail texture on this map. It looks absolutely horrible. Download Martian battlegrounds and steal the detail tex from that, then simply use

detailtex=mydetailtexfilename;

BTW custom "overlay (detailtex)" is nothing even related to bumpmapping. Not sure where you got that idea.

[Forboding Angel]

btw as far as the map itself, it looks very nice ( - the detail tex).

[SwiftSpear]

Metal maps will look better once the new map format is finished, allowing bumpmapping of the texture

That's a naive view. Maps quality won't suddenly jump if a new format is released. Because to taking advantage of bump mapping (and any other fanciness the new map format will allow) would require a lot more talent and work from the mappers, and few are going to take the time. I mean, just look at the current maps, how many use the custom ground overlay texture, or the custom water surface texture?

I've looked into the new format a fair bit. I'm excited about it, I think I could do far better work with the new format then with the current format where I have to spend endless hours trying to get rendering software to do what I want it to do and play with 10s of thousands pixels by 10s of thousands pixels textures in photoshop/gimp. Good mappers will pick it up really fast because of it's ease of use.