Hey my fellow facepunchers, it's been a long time since i've frequented this site but I wanted to present to all of you a map i've worked on in the past and want to get back into
working on. As the title states it's called rp_roadside. The map takes place on a beach roadside in which you have the following.
Features:
An old 1800s style hotel
4 houses that you can live in
A prison
A police station
A schoolhouse (not included in the current download)
A small food store
A farm
And lastly a 3d skybox fitted around the map.
Images:
[img]https://i.imgur.com/a0H4QBz.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/D46y3l8.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/TbyrhzU.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/brhX1SC.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/5BzCxfi.jpg[/img]
Requests:
I really would like to know how I could improve this seeing how it's been over a year since I ceased working on the project. I'm pretty much out of ideas atm. Thanks.
Download:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1338152955
Make hill height more random and add more details to it.
Add more houses, just copy style of c17 buildigns and u're done.
Plenty of things to improve on. But you'll need a lot more time and practice to really make something appealing. If you want, I have some ideas for you to work on and possibly learn from.
I'll work through each image:
1
-This buildings is too much like a single block. Take the fairmont hotel for example. Sections of the building stick out more, making it more visually appealing.
-Cant really see how the roof is designed in the pic but it should have some sort of overhang. Not very many buildings have a roof flush with the wall. See fairmont again for a good roof example to use
-You should try to make the giant windows up top manually with brushes for the frames. A 2D texture on something that big will very rarely look good
-The white building in the background on the left has some alignment issues with the window textures.
-If you want the parking lot to appear well worn out and wavy like that, consider using a blend texture on the displacement where you can blend dirt and concrete to accent the parts where the concrete would have broken to wave like that
-Use door props for your double doors. Give them identical targetnames so they open simultaneously.
-Those basement windows are partially covered by the stairs. Have you ever seen those engineering fails memes? It happens but I don't recommend you replicate it unless you're making a easter egg or something funny.
-It looks like the bottom of one of those blocks beside the stairs is floating above the ground.
-The texture on those stone walls has a nice flat top part to it to accent where the top of the wall should be. Simply shifting the texture up until the parts align or using align to top on the texture tool will allow you to use this to your advantage
2
-It almost looks fullbright in here. Maybe your light is set differently? Only use Liner and Constant settings when you really know what you're doing, otherwise they should almost always be 0. If that's what's making it look like that
-The hallway on the right with the arch. Maybe make a frame for this so it's not just a hole cut into the wall. I see you kinda had an idea for pillers of a sort on the sides. Make those stick out a bit (ie. if your wall is 8 units thick, make the pillars 12x12 or 16x16)
-Give the desk a top brush so there's overhang on all sides
-The shelves in the back could use a couple vertical pieces along it so the planks dont look like they'd sag in the middle.
-Find out why those chairs and that box thing on the left aren't casting shadows.
-Possibly find a different floor texture to give some dynamics to the colour pallet. Maybe something darker would look better?
3
-The base of the lighthouse seems to stop abruptly. Maybe split this brush near the bottom and give it a texture that has a bit of dirt and grunge near the bottom so it blends better instead of looking like a block placed there.
-The texture on the stairs is repeating too much. It may be too far away to tell how you did it but if you can make at least 4 steps in a row look unique in regards to texture, you should be able to copypasta them together and look much better.
-All the roofs here minus the convenience store need some overhang
-The parking spaces made out of blocks seems strange. I recommend using overlays and painted lines instead.
-Them hills need some foliage and a blend texture
4
-This store is very spacious. If you plan to have players put things in these spaces, you should clear the shelves so it looks more usable. Otherwise, you should add more bins/product in the open spaces to make the store look like it'll provide more to its patrons. Players only need about 64 units to walk past something comfortably.
-Give these bananas a bit more diversity by facing them and giving them each a little rotation left or right in no particular order so it looks like someone placed them there while restocking shelves.
-Optimize the edges of that box using the vertex tool. This reduces the number of faces drawn by the player and will help with texture alignment. I recommend this technique for any and all walls that have a 90deg corner. It will improve framerates. Here's an example of what I mean
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/285360/21fc60dc-ca9c-47b9-b79f-61628b7eeb97/Capture.JPG
5
-Turn these 2 bneding roads into a single horse u-shaped bay, then have driveways leading up to the houses.
-You're probably tired of hearing this but give them roofs overhang. The house on the right has exactly what I mean by overhang. Just do that to the others too
-There's a actual farm windmill prop you can use here from HL2. It'll look much better than the one made of blocks
-If you can, try making the roads flush with the nearby land. Realistically roads are raised a bit, but driving in gmod is the worst so making them flush means less angry players.
-Make sure your 3D skybox lines up with the rest of the map
-Add more to the 3D skybox to give the illusion that there's a whole world outside the play area whether it be by adding more to the city or hiding the horizon with hills and trees. This is key to immersion.
-Use a skybox that accurately represents the angle and position of your sun, or adjust the sun accordingly. It looks like you have the right yaw but the pitch seems too high for where the sun is shining in the skybox. If you go here, you can see a list of default skyboxes and their ideal values for the light_environment
General Tips
-Take time to work on a good layout for future maps. A straight road with everything on it means a lot of things, if not everything is going to be rendered at once. It's no fun to have one single road either. You kind of hop in the map, look left, then right. Pop into a few buildings and go "Huh. Guess that's it". Players love to explore maps. Giving them more diversity in buildings and areas will give them something to explore. I get this is meant to be a beachside road but you could add a few roads darting towards where the hills are right now and connecting them, adding a few more streets and areas that you can hide from the rest of the map.
-Find ways to break up repeating textures be it by splitting brushes and giving the new half a different texture, using blend textures on terrain, hiding repeating areas with things like foliage, or using larger textures
-Get some more textures. HL2 textures have a very specific theme and are difficult to work with when trying to make city RP maps. You only have a select few that actually work out. If you can, get some CS:S or L4D textures at the very least.
-Don't upload your map to the workshop if it's not ready. Unless it's a private map or you have a good reason to do so, uploading it too early means once you improve on it, you'll have to upload another version to get it seen by players. Most people don't want your WIP version. Most people here know how to properly install a map into gmod manually so if you're looking for critique, you're better off uploading it to some sort of file hosting website like mega or dropbox.
Now for the good stuff
-I like the curbs on the roads. Ideally, if you're making a large or complex map, you'd want to use a single texture that has curbs, but you'll need a custom one to do that.
-You use a few props here and there which really make things seem more detailed. I recommend you really sit down and go through all the models available to you and use them as much as you can. With new gmod limits, you really need to be excessive to hit the entity limit.
-Doorframes are something people forget all the time. I'm glad to see you making them already as they are a necessity.
-Those white fence models are great. Keep using them.
-You seem to have an idea on how to use decals/overlays. Don't be afraid to use them more for things like signs and graffiti.
Don't let this critique discourage you. I see potential in your work and quite frankly, practice practice practice is all you really need to make something spectacular. I found watching hammer tutorials, even on things you already know, are very beneficial to improving and forming a good workflow for yourself. If you haven't already done so, I recommend you do this now as you are at the stage in mapping where you know how to use the program but need to learn the full potential of this dinosaur.
I hope this helps. I spent way more time than I planned writing this but I feel that if you really put the time in to perfect your skills, you can make great things. Keep posting here if you want more critique on this map in the future. I've subbed to the thread. More people likely have different or better ideas too.
-Your critique was very helpful. I 've learned in the past not to take criticism too personal but yours I will definitely take in mind. The version I uploaded is a little outdated to the one I've worked on
for a few months now so I will probably upload the newer version on my dropbox for you to try out in the near future.
Responses to some of the criticism:
I was thinking of adding more roads and such and even adding a schoolhouse to the map, just got to add more areas toward the back of the hotel and barn area for players to go I guess.
The doorway to the hotel was a bit hard for me to figure out how I was going to construct it so at the time I just left it as is but now that you say I really should work on more detail/archway on that.
Bananas I don't even know why I didn't think of rotating them around. I've worked with the creation kit for fallout 4 and rotating props to make the layout look symmetrical is something i've done a
lot.
The only thing with the parking spaces is that I used the hl2 hammer editor and I couldn't find any default texture for a parking space line. Counter Strike Source's hammer editor has
one but not hl2. Guess I could find a custom texture for that.
Welp, guess it's time to get cracking. 🥚🍳
I'll see you guys in a week or so and hope it turns out great for players to run around, have fun, and maybe be the next Downtown_v4c or Evocity!
I like the trend you're in, but still a bit blocky. Use displacements to add some hills and round of the roads so they're not super straight.
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