[Deity Link]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHMbDkMBgBY



map download (Game Banana): http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/174423
map download (TF2maps.net): http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=5367

The Palanquin Ship comes from the Touhou Project universe, it flies in the skies of Gensokyo, and is piloted by Captain Murasa. It also doubles as a buddhist temple.

You know, when I make a map, I often wonder "hm, how should I setup the lighting? The sunset looks so pretty, but I'd like to make a night time version as well" so this time I said "Screw it! I'm gonna make all at once!"

So the skybox is entirely made of models, even the sky is a model that changes its skin depending on the time of day (which is randomized every round). And that's not the only thing that's randomized, the weather has a 20% chance to be rainy, and a 10% chance to be stormy. Under stormy weather thunderstrikes will hit the ship at regular intervals, mercenaries better stay inside the ship.

My next issue was where I would put the spawn rooms, in a previous map (that I never completed) I had the RED spawns scattered across the map. But since the ship isn't that large I can't just put the boss right onto it, so I came with another plan: the boss spawns from a random corner of the map and be pushed toward the ship with trigger_push. This allows the boss to easily fly back on the ship if he's thrown off (while RED mercenaries still fall to their deaths).

The goal of the Alpha Test was to see if that setup was viable, and it was! Players were having lots of fun, though the boss sure is at an advantage against disorganized mercenaries.

Then I focused on making the map look good, add a scrolling skybox, make sure that the map's size doesn't skyrocket too much, working on soundscapes, custom particles, etc...

And finally, after adding a handful of easter eggs (one of which allows player to manually change the timeofday/weather) I decided to call it a final release.

I'm open for questions

[Wliu]

Woot, definitely going to try to get this on our server

[Donski]

1. FPS lag. I even experienced drops from 300 to 30 (based on net_graph) when outside, and I'm on a 680.
2. Too bright.
3. Spawn doesn't work for duo-bosses (FF2). One of the boss gets knocked off the map (outside the ship).

[BBG_Theory]

Originally Posted by Donski 1. FPS lag. I even experienced drops from 300 to 30 (based on net_graph) when outside, and I'm on a 680. 2. Too bright. 3. Spawn doesn't work for duo-bosses (FF2). One of the boss gets knocked off the map (outside the ship).

I have to agree with this and confirm Donski's findings

[Deity Link]

1. About 30% of players or less complained of fps drop. Sadly, the origin of this lag is that the whole ship is rendered at all time, and I cannot use area portals because almost all the ship is made of func_detail. The Source engine wasn't optimized to support giant flying ships.

2. Most people love the lights, only a few complained, to those I suggest to disable HDR.

3. The map was tested with the Touhou bosses, I didn't even knew there were duo-bosses, but I had the chance to test the Seemen today. And if both bosses can't reach the ship on the first "UFO swing", the boss that manages to reach the ship can jump off the boat WHILE STAYING CLOSE TO IT, and he'll fall down until he touches the floor of the map. Then both bosses can jump at the same time and return to the ship together.

[Donski]

We have several duo bosses, Sonic-Tails, Seeldier-Seemen and some others. What you provided is a band-aid solution, and not a really good one at that.

Quite sad we had to remove it from the server as it's a good (kinda) map.

[friagram]

1) Design your maps using occluding geometry so that you can limit visibility. Understand how visleafs work, and how you can limit visibility by shaping their volumes. Use hint brushes, areaportals, and occluders where appropriate, and plan for their use in advance. Reduce the size of empty volumes that are not needed, and break up areas where visleafs are unnecessarily large.

2) Plan for both HDR and LDR light schemes. Build the map in LDR and then adjust the lighting for HDR. Insert and configure an env_tonemap_controller.

- also from your screenshots I can see that your lightmaps are not aligned. Either fix your geometry so that the meshes/verts can weld, or if they are welding, align the textures (face) and force the lightmaps to align so texture seams do not occur.
- as for extremely large/complex geometry (especially if it is non-interactive, or only needs simple physics), do not make it out of brushes, use models. They will provide better performance, and can have much higher levels of detail (and multiple levels).

[Deity Link]

I appreciate you telling me these basic mapper tips that I've heard for the last 4 years (they are totally right), but as I said, players can go all around the ship, and there are so many windows and openings that cutting visleaves properly isn't really an option (and func_details don't cut vis_leaves, so areaportals aren't an option either). I knowingly sacrificed the CPUs of lower configs for the looks of the map. I'd argue that over 70% of players approve this choice, but I'll totally understand if some servers choose to remove this map if they care about the frames of their low-config players. I can respect that.

About your second point, I did config the tonemap so that the bloom and exposure limits are lowered when the map is at noon. You'll notice it if you play with the Weather Station, you'll notice how things in the shadows get brighter at twilight/night.

As for models on the map....wait did you actually play the map? If anything, what I should have added would have been draw distance on the small models that are inside the ship.

[Wliu]

Deity, are you going to make a hotfix so that double/triple/quadruple (yes, some servers that edited the ff2 plugin can support as many bosses as they want) bosses work? We're waiting on that before we add this map in.

[friagram]

Originally Posted by Deity Link I appreciate you telling me these basic mapper tips that I've heard for the last 4 years (they are totally right), but as I said, players can go all around the ship, and there are so many windows and openings that cutting visleaves properly isn't really an option (and func_details don't cut vis_leaves, so areaportals aren't an option either). I knowingly sacrificed the CPUs of lower configs for the looks of the map. I'd argue that over 70% of players approve this choice, but I'll totally understand if some servers choose to remove this map if they care about the frames of their low-config players. I can respect that. About your second point, I did config the tonemap so that the bloom and exposure limits are lowered when the map is at noon. You'll notice it if you play with the Weather Station, you'll notice how things in the shadows get brighter at twilight/night. As for models on the map....wait did you actually play the map? If anything, what I should have added would have been draw distance on the small models that are inside the ship.

You see that is the problem. There are simple things that could be done. 2d skybox on the inside of the windows, or 3d on others.. making them non-transparent so areas can be sealed. There is no real gain from being able to look into the windows from the outside, as most tf servers disable free spectator. use observer points in good areas instead. Building shapes in such ways that they are not all func details.. After 4 years, one should have mastered this. Again occluders can be used when all else fails.