Every mistake is a learning experience 👍. I'd reccommend making stuff like tents and pillars in blender if you can, the mesh tools in hammer are quite similar to modelling anyway but in a more limited form.
Dang it's starting to look much better now. Personally I think you should use Hammer for larger building such as the temple, but for smaller building that are going to be in the village you should use Blender. It doesn't seem like Hammer can make fine details with shapes, so Blender is definitely worth learning. For the smaller houses remember to add slight variety, just so the town doesn't look as cookie cutter, so you can shift door to the left, move a chimney, etc. The landscapes also look really interesting, especially later when you add more details like grass or small rocks around it should start to fill itself in. Until then you should try experimenting with different shades of textures to try to enhance the ground. It'll help mask the fact that the terrain is made up of 3 different textures. Finally you should try to keep parts of the map unique with landmarks or different layouts. Especially as a starter area, you should make the initial area very unique to allow new players to keep track of where they are so they won't get lost. Runescape's Lumbridge is a good example keeping it easy to understand where you are.
Ahh I’ve Spent a lot of time in lumrbidge ;) great tips! I’m also Hoping when I have s&box our shader / textures will be way more in depth but I’ll try variations more Also when u say make the home unique, so like keeping textures strictly to that area only kind of thing?
@@codecakeee While that may help with variety, such as using a certain material for a set of buildings, the structure itself should have something different about it so that ideally not one building is the same. Having a door that's shifted to the left side on a slightly wider house does wonders for making an area look more complex. Once you add smaller props as scenery those will help but for now just slight shape differences will do. Having less buildings will probably help you here, as unless you intend to make the starter area the main hub, having less resources available will encourage players to go out and explore. You should also focus on what you intend to have in your village/ what the MMO is focused on. If you intend to make the game combat focused like WoW or Elder Scrolls, then have room for basic quest npc's and training area/ armories. But if you want a skill based MMO then you should have smithies/workshops and a market type design for players to train/ sell goods. Once you have an idea then you can theme the area around that. Trust me it's a hell of a lot harder to squeeze in new infrastructure once you have some buildings already placed. On another note, If you decide to use models for the buildings you might be able to use them to help with performance. In Source 1 you could set a render distance to props to make them reduce level of detail (LOD) or to have them fade away at a distance. I'm not sure if Source 2 supports this, if it supports it with such large models, or if it already supports it with the basic meshes that you were already using. If it does work, it could help reduce the workload for those with old/cheap computers that can't run the game as well.
Do you keep any sort of poly count or something in mind when making a map this big? I've been playing around in Hammer and I feel like I don't really have a point of reference for how my maps/models should be optimized, but a lot of your displacement meshes look much more detailed than I've ventured to try making as of yet.
as I get better I realized that It's all about using as less polygons as possible whilst maintaining a nice look. I try to compare my file size also, Our map is currently at 40mb ( not including textures and models ) Final fantasy X entire game was 3gb whilst FFXII was 12gb. The difference is in Polygon count(and others things). Do you want high quality characters and a low quality map or the other way round, Its all about file size and finding a balance and the more polygons you have ( literal faces / using the subdivision levels that I show in my displacement tutorial ) then the more hard work your computer has to do. Whilst my displacements look detailed some are Giant faces at sub level 1 still with 4 edges but are 512 units in size and highly displaced which is not much heavier then a regular 512 face thats flat and simple! stay at a low sub level as best u can
@@codecakeee Thanks for the tips, especially about using filesize as a reference. I found myself feeling weary about over-bevelling edges to smooth out the models I've made so far, so I think it'll help me most to refer to models from other games to get a better feeling for what I should be aiming for. Maybe if my models aren't as complicated as I thought I could even see if I could spare some space for higher res textures.
Every mistake is a learning experience 👍. I'd reccommend making stuff like tents and pillars in blender if you can, the mesh tools in hammer are quite similar to modelling anyway but in a more limited form.
Dang it's starting to look much better now. Personally I think you should use Hammer for larger building such as the temple, but for smaller building that are going to be in the village you should use Blender. It doesn't seem like Hammer can make fine details with shapes, so Blender is definitely worth learning. For the smaller houses remember to add slight variety, just so the town doesn't look as cookie cutter, so you can shift door to the left, move a chimney, etc.
The landscapes also look really interesting, especially later when you add more details like grass or small rocks around it should start to fill itself in. Until then you should try experimenting with different shades of textures to try to enhance the ground. It'll help mask the fact that the terrain is made up of 3 different textures.
Finally you should try to keep parts of the map unique with landmarks or different layouts. Especially as a starter area, you should make the initial area very unique to allow new players to keep track of where they are so they won't get lost. Runescape's Lumbridge is a good example keeping it easy to understand where you are.
Ahh I’ve Spent a lot of time in lumrbidge ;) great tips! I’m also Hoping when I have s&box our shader / textures will be way more in depth but I’ll try variations more
Also when u say make the home unique, so like keeping textures strictly to that area only kind of thing?
@@codecakeee While that may help with variety, such as using a certain material for a set of buildings, the structure itself should have something different about it so that ideally not one building is the same. Having a door that's shifted to the left side on a slightly wider house does wonders for making an area look more complex. Once you add smaller props as scenery those will help but for now just slight shape differences will do.
Having less buildings will probably help you here, as unless you intend to make the starter area the main hub, having less resources available will encourage players to go out and explore. You should also focus on what you intend to have in your village/ what the MMO is focused on. If you intend to make the game combat focused like WoW or Elder Scrolls, then have room for basic quest npc's and training area/ armories. But if you want a skill based MMO then you should have smithies/workshops and a market type design for players to train/ sell goods. Once you have an idea then you can theme the area around that. Trust me it's a hell of a lot harder to squeeze in new infrastructure once you have some buildings already placed.
On another note, If you decide to use models for the buildings you might be able to use them to help with performance. In Source 1 you could set a render distance to props to make them reduce level of detail (LOD) or to have them fade away at a distance. I'm not sure if Source 2 supports this, if it supports it with such large models, or if it already supports it with the basic meshes that you were already using. If it does work, it could help reduce the workload for those with old/cheap computers that can't run the game as well.
From what I've seen, S2 Hammer works just about the same as blender for smaller objects. It's not like Source 1 where brushes can only be so small.
I can watch this for hours, I really appreciate your hard work man!
I am really hyped to play this when it’s eventually finished keep doing what you love man
I love the old ps2 feel to it!
Not forever! Just until we get s&box then we will up the texture quality but not to extreme :D
The trim materials are looking nice, definitely a giant improvement over the original temple adaptation. Keep it up!
You are doing good, keep up the good work. You are still learning but I am sure you will be an expert at this soon. Keep practicing.
Source 2 has a physics simulation thing to help with cloth but I’m not sure if it’s available here
In s&box the map size is not limited so that's pretty good.
I love this series
Do you keep any sort of poly count or something in mind when making a map this big? I've been playing around in Hammer and I feel like I don't really have a point of reference for how my maps/models should be optimized, but a lot of your displacement meshes look much more detailed than I've ventured to try making as of yet.
as I get better I realized that It's all about using as less polygons as possible whilst maintaining a nice look. I try to compare my file size also, Our map is currently at 40mb ( not including textures and models ) Final fantasy X entire game was 3gb whilst FFXII was 12gb. The difference is in Polygon count(and others things).
Do you want high quality characters and a low quality map or the other way round, Its all about file size and finding a balance and the more polygons you have ( literal faces / using the subdivision levels that I show in my displacement tutorial ) then the more hard work your computer has to do.
Whilst my displacements look detailed some are Giant faces at sub level 1 still with 4 edges but are 512 units in size and highly displaced which is not much heavier then a regular 512 face thats flat and simple! stay at a low sub level as best u can
@@codecakeee Thanks for the tips, especially about using filesize as a reference. I found myself feeling weary about over-bevelling edges to smooth out the models I've made so far, so I think it'll help me most to refer to models from other games to get a better feeling for what I should be aiming for. Maybe if my models aren't as complicated as I thought I could even see if I could spare some space for higher res textures.
so very pog👍
This looks really good
I cannot wait to play this
Just maybe don't give up on the queue just yet because I think it's finally moving or so it has been consecutively for 3 days
you should probably try to version control your stuff so that you dont end up losing stuff like the house you accidently dragged
next implement some vr capabilities and you are set my dude ahah
Id love to see this map in s&box if you want you can send it to me id love to show you how it would look :> keep it coming along!