Hardcore Unicorn Castles by JEL Lindsey and Twilight Sparkle

[Clipz]

This map has a ton of problems. Why the hell do you have the cliffs fall 20000000000 feet to die? The texturing inside the base is horrid. The rainbow bridges... this isn't mario. Do me a favor open the maps carpathian, pbcup_pforest, mystique, castle1, midnight and look at how much better looking they are. The looks of the maps are important and no offense this looks terrible. The flying things are IMO, terrible also. Take your time and make the maps look good before you release them. I once released maps quickly too the release them but they didn't look that good. I then decided to take my time with them and it made a major difference.

Don't take this as me saying you suck. Take it as constructive criticism... don't give up!

[twilightsparkl]

It looks terrible because of fullbright.

are the textures too repeated

[Clipz]

It looks terrible because of fullbright.

are the textures too repeated

It looks bad because it is bad.

Listen to Rick, Myself, Jitspoe, Terrorist, Chef or Robinhood if we give you advice... its for the best.

[twilightsparkl]

It looks bad because it is bad.

Listen to Rick, Myself, Jitspoe, Terrorist, Chef or Robinhood if we give you advice... its for the best.

Not liking rainbows and unicorns is more of a personal preference than anything else. That said the maps you mentioned look nice but they all tend to have the same theme. Playing the same thing over and over is okay but I want to try something new. Advice that I can agree with is solid, artistic or technical stuff like saying too many texture repeats, not enough contrast or using certain geometry doesn't look that nice but there's nothing I can do for you if you simply don't like the theme of my map, that's like saying my map I made in a jungle is bad simply because it is set in a jungle.

[Clipz]

No, anyone who plays this castle map will think its trash unless they are a newbie and have no clue what a good constructed map in dp is. I didn't say I hated rainbows or unicorns. We want DP to take steps forward and have APPEALING maps for NEWER players. A map like this looks like its from N64. This map is not taking steps forward. This is taking 1000 steps back. My maps are not perfect, they are not the best. But they are not from fairy tales. If you want the Rainbow bridges go for it JUST MAKE THEM LOOK BETTER. The flying unicorns..... What the the blue hell are those for. They fly into the castle and if you jump on them on the castle they stop.. how about making them go to the edge like it should be. Make it more appealing. The pillars look like excrement being all white.. try metal with a color outline from what base it is in. The rocks above the supports.. when the hell have you seen a rock ceiling or floor. The trees.. try using some models. The look horrible and unrealistic.

Anyways try fixing these problems. I promise you will be happier with yourself and will have a chance at seeing your maps played. Try using better textures!!!!!

[JMR]

Message removed.

[twilightsparkl]

No, anyone who plays this castle map will think its trash unless they are a newbie and have no clue what a good constructed map in dp is. I didn't say I hated rainbows or unicorns. We want DP to take steps forward and have APPEALING maps for NEWER players. A map like this looks like its from N64. This map is not taking steps forward. This is taking 1000 steps back. My maps are not perfect, they are not the best. But they are not from fairy tales. If you want the Rainbow bridges go for it JUST MAKE THEM LOOK BETTER. The flying unicorns..... What the the blue hell are those for. They fly into the castle and if you jump on them on the castle they stop.. how about making them go to the edge like it should be. Make it more appealing. The pillars look like excrement being all white.. try metal with a color outline from what base it is in. The rocks above the supports.. when the hell have you seen a rock ceiling or floor. The trees.. try using some models. The look horrible and unrealistic.

Anyways try fixing these problems. I promise you will be happier with yourself and will have a chance at seeing your maps played. Try using better textures!!!!!

This is more of the kinda review I am looking for.

If you want the Rainbow bridges go for it JUST MAKE THEM LOOK BETTER.

The reason they don't look so great is I set the the texture scale to 256x256 only. I didn't know if putting it any higher was a bad thing. Let me know if I can set the texture scale to say, 2000.

The flying unicorns

I couldn't figure out how to add a delay so they have to go through the castle in order to hop on. In case your wondering, they stop because I enabled block_stops so they can't kill the player. Yes it would be much cooler if I figure out how to make them delay, that way I can just nest them on the edge for a bit and not have them clip through the tower.

The pillars

I was going for white pillars, it isn't what I wanted but that was the best texture I could find. Maybe with actual lighting it wouldn't look so bad, because I can see your point.
.

rock floor and ceiling

its medieval, they are glued together rocks anyway. Didn't they have stone ceilings in castles those days?

The trees

Aren't the best but I've seen worse. Like the oh so common lollipop trees found in many popular maps, including shock2. Personally I think lollipop trees are cute. As for models, whenever I go into a server they never work, I just see a 3d diamond shape, so I stay away from those. Mind you, if I've never been able to see a custom model on any server, and some of these servers are pretty popular, then I'm guessing some other people probably have the same problem as me. Even if it's a few people, those big pine trees are essential to the gameplay of the map and if I replaced them with models well, there's gonna be a few people wondering why that guy is standing in the middle of nowhere and why their paintballs are colliding with a gigantic invisible wall.

Same goes for textures. Half the time I just get a gray white grid thingy because either the server for some reason wont give or doesn't have the textures, though I dont know why they would host a map they don't have textures for. Whats worse is when they have dozens of HiRes textures all custom. By the time you enter the room the game is already half over. If I ever switch to custom textures it'll be good ol' 4kb 64x64 for me.

[ViciouZ]

For delaying func_trains, select the path_corner you want them to delay at, and add a key "wait" with a value in seconds (milliseconds?).

To get rid of MAX_PATCHES, you want to make those cliffs a whole lot shorter (and I don't mean just move the water level up), which will eliminate a _massive_ amount of useless texture surface area. This will probably also help the VIS compiler cope better.

To get VIS fully working, you need to detail everything in the map that is unlikely to obscure a player's view. This means basically anything that you can see around if you're standing about a metre away and facing it. Pillars, the weird wood bars on the ceiling, the fencing on the middle island, trees, everything like that. That should also help reduce wpoly a bit if you're lucky, on top of the gains you will get when qvis3 can actually cope with your map.

[twilightsparkl]

For delaying func_trains, select the path_corner you want them to delay at, and add a key "wait" with a value in seconds (milliseconds?).

To get rid of MAX_PATCHES, you want to make those cliffs a whole lot shorter (and I don't mean just move the water level up), which will eliminate a _massive_ amount of useless texture surface area. This will probably also help the VIS compiler cope better.

To get VIS fully working, you need to detail everything in the map that is unlikely to obscure a player's view. This means basically anything that you can see around if you're standing about a metre away and facing it. Pillars, the weird wood bars on the ceiling, the fencing on the middle island, trees, everything like that. That should also help reduce wpoly a bit if you're lucky, on top of the gains you will get when qvis3 can actually cope with your map.

thanks, i guess i will have to part with the long cliffs, they added much artistic value.

[MyeRs]

It looks bad because it is bad.

Listen to Rick, MyeRs, Jitspoe, Terrorist, Chef or Robinhood if we give you advice... its for the best.

Fixed.

[BASEBALLDUDE]

Fixed.

no offense myres but not all of your criticism is constructive. too often, you make broad generalizations like "this map is awful" instead of specific criticism like "the lighting is too bright in the mid and too dark in the bases"

[Rick]

I know this map has technical problems I was talking about my other maps. What does your sewer map have to do with anything?

Anyway I'll probably redo the castles from basically scratch, and use octagonal towers instead of 16 sided towers. Just to be sure the reason you don't like the water is because its just a block that overlaps, right?
Also how does it handle func_trains in the vising process?

Anyway i deleted most of the castles and trees and other stuff including sand and water and I still get max patches.

Your other maps most likely have technical problems if this map does. Do you use split in your other maps? I was providing my map as an example for which you can learn from. You can have technical brushes, if you know how to use them right.

Good idea, the less sides the better. I never even said anything about the water?
I'm not too sure about that, I have not really used func_trains, I'm sure Jitspoe will be able to answer this.

If you want to put trees in your map, try using the models like I did Look way better. Your map is still very complex, too complex for the compiler. (You need to try to avoid really open areas). That's why I only constructed the base, I can't really see the whole thing ever being able to compile.

[MyeRs]

no offense myres but not all of your criticism is constructive. too often, you make broad generalizations like "this map is awful" instead of specific criticism like "the lighting is too bright in the mid and too dark in the bases"

Generalizations are the best criticism. It saves everyone time. It tells the mapper that the map is awful, therefore too many mistakes for 1 individual to point out. Thank me later.

[omni]

Right now twilight I can see what you mean. This is something you have spent a fair bit of time constructing and you have put effort into it, so to see it hated and thrown away you feel like people are being nasty.

However

The amount of time that goes into maps like Carpathian, the really, really, well constructed ones is about a million times more than has gone into this one; be honest - how long did it take you? Was it months like some of the greatest maps.
Did you plan it? (Not have an idea in your head to go off, but actually sit down with pen and paper and draw?) When a mapper makes a map they see it as an achievement (or at least I do). So when they see a map like this (no offence) they know exactly how hard you have tried.

The community here is passionate, we don't want bad maps to be played, but they are. It's not that ou have bad ideas its just that you can't execute them. The lack of detail on the basses, the metals on the floor, (in medieval times they did not use metal) When you think of medieval you think of dark, old stuff. This seens more fantasy to me than medieval.

Don't take this personally, I believe your biased because you made this map yourself, but to the rest of the community who know what effort is... Basically you haven't on the grand scheme of things.

Seriously take a step back, look at a well constructed map; look at yours there is a huge difference.

You idea may not be bad, your execution is and it shows this is what you need to practise on.

No hard feelings?

I don't plan at all (but it doesn't mean you shouldn't)

[Clipz]

Fixed.

Forgot to add in the king of the world Myers.... I hope the community can forgive me!!

[Foxhound]

what community?

[twilightsparkl]

Right now twilight I can see what you mean. This is something you have spent a fair bit of time constructing and you have put effort into it, so to see it hated and thrown away you feel like people are being nasty.

However

The amount of time that goes into maps like Carpathian, the really, really, well constructed ones is about a million times more than has gone into this one; be honest - how long did it take you? Was it months like some of the greatest maps.
Did you plan it? (Not have an idea in your head to go off, but actually sit down with pen and paper and draw?) When a mapper makes a map they see it as an achievement (or at least I do). So when they see a map like this (no offence) they know exactly how hard you have tried.

The community here is passionate, we don't want bad maps to be played, but they are. It's not that ou have bad ideas its just that you can't execute them. The lack of detail on the basses, the metals on the floor, (in medieval times they did not use metal) When you think of medieval you think of dark, old stuff. This seens more fantasy to me than medieval.

Don't take this personally, I believe your biased because you made this map yourself, but to the rest of the community who know what effort is... Basically you haven't on the grand scheme of things.

Seriously take a step back, look at a well constructed map; look at yours there is a huge difference.

You idea may not be bad, your execution is and it shows this is what you need to practise on.

No hard feelings?

I don't plan at all (but it doesn't mean you shouldn't)

Thanks. Personally I don't like Carpathian except I think the porn room is funny. I do like some of the other maps like green_park and eclissi. It took me a few days, I asked Clipz how long it took him and he said from a few hours to a few days. This map wasn't actually my idea my friend thought of it and I made it for him, with a couple things I had to change such as adding two rainbow bridges instead of one, a island in the middle and a crocodile moat. It is more like a fantasy setting but I don't believe I used metal for any floor?

Rick my other maps don't use split and such, they are tiny maps, you shouldn't make assumptions without actually checking them out first. My labryinth map had problems but jitspoe pointed them out and I fixed everything.

As for tree models no server I go on displays them properly, all I see is a 3d gray diamond shape. But shrubs load for some reason.

[Foxhound]

Eclissi is garbage. And if I think I know what greenpark is, that is garbage as well.

You don't like carp probably because you suck at it and its not on speed servers.

[twilightsparkl]

Eclissi is garbage. And if I think I know what greenpark is, that is garbage as well.

You don't like carp probably because you suck at it and its not on speed servers.

i suck at carp but i think the graphics are boring also

[Foxhound]

you call the anthills, the mid section, the houses, the spawn areas boring? that map has more going on it in less space than your whole map.