gm_tornadohighway - Tornado chasing in Garry's Mod - Developers

If the test I'm running right now comes out good I'll throw in a progress video. Already had one issue - Too many displacements, so I had to sacrifice some of the skybox "foreverness" to make the level work. Water also crashes the map, so the water was taken out. Rain was too much for the engine to handle, it was taken out. I'm doing the best that I can to make the level epic and realistic, but the source engine is starting to say no to a bunch of stuff. Doing what I can guys! :)

If you guys want rain, grab the Weathermod and make it rain. It's a pretty good effect. It works for me lol Keep up the great work! You're making awesome.

Problems that have been officially tested and are not possible at this point: - Rain. Too much for the source engine to handle - More displacements. We're at our max, one more displacement and it will not compile. This effects our realism issue, but there's nothing I can do about it. Keep sending the suggestions, the final progress video is being processed. This is it. Release on Saturday.

So, how will these particles run on a somewhat older machine? Any specs needed?

environment particles getting sucked up by the tornado. Should work by using the pull toward control point in the particle forces.

The whole map should run just fine on everyone's computers as long as it wasn't made in 1945. There will not be any more than 1 tornado active at any given time, due to the massive lag and instability of the map in relation to the engine. The progress video explains it all: [b]FINAL PROGRESS VIDEO:[/b] [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d2be4g-ufs[/url]

00:07 I love the way that windmill rotates. Made me burst out laughing for some reason. Looking sweet! And I like that you changed the way the tornado dissipates.... At least I think you did? instead of going into the ground etc.

[QUOTE=Evil Dead;34365640]And I like that you changed the way the tornado dissipates.... At least I think you did? instead of going into the ground etc.[/QUOTE] That's all Vman. I simply made the trigger_push and the moving track.

[QUOTE=Rory;34365746]That's all Vman. I simply made the trigger_push and the moving track.[/QUOTE] I'll go rate him as many applicable things as I can. :eng101: And I found that my tornado probe gets -really- unstable when I use lights... I'll have to find a workaround of that.

Thank you for the new progress video. All we need to do is wait. :D

Last update for today, I gotta go to a fire dept. training, so until next time: - Windmill rotates the correct way now - Fog is now more dense, hiding far away objects (helps with the lag) - Fog is now more dense, hiding the level edge to make the map feel endless - Gas station explosions work correctly - Doppler radar works correctly. Testing has begun. The map is finished.

[QUOTE=Rory;34366352]Last update for today, I gotta go to a fire dept. training, so until next time: - Windmill rotates the correct way now - Fog is now more dense, hiding far away objects (helps with the lag) - Fog is now more dense, hiding the level edge to make the map feel endless - Gas station explosions work correctly - Doppler radar works correctly. Testing has begun. The map is finished.[/QUOTE] Yay, you fixed the windmill. xD I'm Tundraboy on YouTube, just wanted to tell you. :dance:

This as far as I have gotten on making dorothy in gmod. [IMG]http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz265/neenja222/gm_tornadoalley_final0081.jpg[/IMG]

Where'd you get the hazard bars? That's one thing I am missing.

[QUOTE=Evil Dead;34367422]Where'd you get the hazard bars? That's one thing I am missing.[/QUOTE] Oh I took the box from the specialized constuction tab and used the material stool to change it to the hazard pattern.

[QUOTE=Rory;34360732]Weeks at the most. I'm making a warehouse right now, then I've got to make the area less "flat", while still keeping the "midwest flatness" feeling. After that, I have to touch up the 3d skybox (which is going to be a pain in the ass because I did it last and not first...) and then I just have to bug-test it. All the tornadoes and special effects are already in.[/QUOTE] just don't make hills.

Myself, Vman, Evil Dead, BobbyFNDuke, and Firegod have all started testing. Map will be released on Saturday, unless I have problems in real life. [Edit 01/24/2012] The map testers specs will be posted on the first post to give people an idea of what to expect for how the map runs.

As Rory said, we ran it for about 4 hours, building, destroying, spawning, etc. With no server crashes. Ran pretty stable for me, a few lag spikes here and there but that's because I'm running it on a laptop :P (specs are on the first post) A lot of fun with wire mod, setting up probes and launching them into the tornado (Yes, YOU can be the probe if you want haha) All in all, amazing map, I know I'll have a lot of fun playing on it in the future.

Great can't wait for this! :dance:

It was fun as hell. I got disconnected twice but that's because I run off a hotspot :\ The first time we played, the F3 dropped on my -face- TWICE. It really is scary at times. The factor of not knowing where it'll strike really adds to the atmosphere.

And if no one hits the siren, then you'll never know it's coming.

[QUOTE=Evil Dead;34382674]It was fun as hell. I got disconnected twice but that's because I run off a hotspot :\ The first time we played, the F3 dropped on my -face- TWICE. It really is scary at times. The factor of not knowing where it'll strike really adds to the atmosphere.[/QUOTE] just imaging a server full of people on this map, and the craziness of everyone chasing and running away from tornadoes. This map is going to be epic.

4 More days...

add a proper 3d skybox [editline]25th January 2012[/editline] also the tornado doesn't blend in with the skybox and doesn't look like an actual tornado. [editline]25th January 2012[/editline] or at least add a vortex that makes it look like it blends with the skybox like the citadel's vortex on episode two. [editline]25th January 2012[/editline] this is far from finished. you could add so much more but instead you're rushing for a release. i say take your time and make this look way better. if you want, i can help you. i think you'd be glad to have me helping you out on this. here's some of my work: [img]http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/11/10775/of2_city_020002.2.png[/img] [img]http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/11/10775/avenue_moddb.png[/img] if you want, i can make a few farm buildings and we can work on making them destroyable.

Trust me, they look like tornadoes. At least in my opinion.

I would menter, but it's already teeter totting on the edge of lag, and getting clustered. The map is the size of the grid, with mostly displacements, too many entities, and tons of props. The compiler is already starting to throw "too many" errors at me. I'd love to make it more detailed but it's being pressed already. Your maps look amazing, though. The problem is, the source engine wasn't made to handle this much. Almost every piece of each building are all func_breakable and func_physbox, there's hundreds of props, thousands of displacements, three tornado particles with 100 path_tracks, rain, custom textures, custom sounds.. It can only take so much. Adding more stuff and more detail is just going to make it stress the engine. Our best players can't get more than 35-50 FPS on this map as it is.

[QUOTE=MenteR;34383781]also the tornado doesn't blend in with the skybox and doesn't look like an actual tornado. [editline]25th January 2012[/editline] or at least add a vortex that makes it look like it blends with the skybox like the citadel's vortex on episode two.[/QUOTE] The problem is, the Ep2 vortex coincided with the skybox texture, which already had the vortexing clouds. In our map the tornado is moving around, and isn't in the skybox. It can't look like it's reaching all the way up to the cloud ceiling and the skybox texture can't look like it's swirling around the tornado.

Rory, could you release the vmf before you enlist in the army?

[QUOTE=Rory;34384798]I would menter, but it's already teeter totting on the edge of lag, and getting clustered. The map is the size of the grid, with mostly displacements, too many entities, and tons of props. The compiler is already starting to throw "too many" errors at me. I'd love to make it more detailed but it's being pressed already. Your maps look amazing, though. The problem is, the source engine wasn't made to handle this much. Almost every piece of each building are all func_breakable and func_physbox, there's hundreds of props, thousands of displacements, three tornado particles with 100 path_tracks, rain, custom textures, custom sounds.. It can only take so much. Adding more stuff and more detail is just going to make it stress the engine. Our best players can't get more than 35-50 FPS on this map as it is.[/QUOTE] can it not be optimized any more? the way it looks right now looks far from finished

[QUOTE=The Vman;34384884]The problem is, the Ep2 vortex coincided with the skybox texture, which already had the vortexing clouds. In our map the tornado is moving around, and isn't in the skybox. It can't look like it's reaching all the way up to the cloud ceiling and the skybox texture can't look like it's swirling around the tornado.[/QUOTE] hmmm well can't you try to add a vortex texture or something to the top? the tornado itself looks gorgeous. [editline]25th January 2012[/editline] by the way, you could make the building's debris a ragdoll with separate parts. as soon as the tornado passes the path track near the house, it should enable the ragdoll's motion and the building's parts should start coming off. that way you avoid brush entities and you can detail your map a lot more.