THE_SHIP_FAWLTY_TOWERS ROADMAP ------------------------------ Table Of Contents: 1.0 - How Did I Come Up With The Concept? 2.0 - How Long Did I Work On The Map? When Was It Released? 2.1 - What Was The Hardest Part? 2.2 - What Was The Easiest Part? 2.3 - If I Could Go Back, What Would I Change? 2.4 - How Would Those Changes Impact The Map & Dev Time? 2.5 - Who Did What Exactly? 2.6 - What Software Packages Were Used? 3.0 - How Did The Map Get Valued By People? 3.1 - View & Download Counts? Any Noteworthy Credentials? === 1.0 === I tried The Ship during the first free weekend of the game and absolutely loved it. However the game's maps are a little bit similar, all taking place on ships that don't differ to much from each other. So I got an idea... Fawlty Towers was the perfect environment for the game so I took CS_Fawlty_Towers and ported it to The Ship. Unlike the Counter-Strike Source version the furniture is now an integral part of the overall gameplay, not just for ornamental purposes, that really makes an enormous difference! When watching the show, did you ever want to take a dump in the hotel's toilets? Neither did I... but now you will! I also set this version during the night, to heigthen the tension-value that The Ship already has plus it helps differentiate between the CSS version and allows me to light the map with great ease and make it look good too. === 2.0 === Approximately 80 hours during the scope of approximately 4 months. Including CS_Fawlty_Towers: Approximately 300 hours during the scope of approximately 7 months. Release Date: 02/09/07 (MM/DD/YY) === 2.1 === Getting the unofficial The Ship SDK set-up and working. That did take a little while until all the issues (cubemaps, shader files, dlls) were resolved and everything was functioning as it should. Although this isn't all bad, this does give the game some protection from rookie designers looking to turn the game into one it shouldn't ever become. === 2.2 === Tweaking. Just adding/removing some brushes, models, textures, sounds that worked, would work or plain didn't work in the CSS version. Since I knew what I wanted to see added or removed, that was I guess the easiest part. === 2.3 === I actually took the liberty to chance some of the CSS version's flaws. Since the level now takes place at night it's wonderfully lit and the slower pace of The Ship makes the furniture blocking almost a null-issue. I suppose all I can think of is generating the normal maps for most wallpaper textures, not that wallpaper really has depth to it... but because of their inherent low-resolution it would've helped make it look better. I did delete some textures in The Ship's version that were in the CSS version that looked TO BAD... but normal maps wouldn't have hurt for the ones that still made it in though. === 2.4 === On both counts, very little. === 2.5 === Brushwork: 100% Materials: Many standard materials were used but also many custom materials. Most of these though were not created by hand, rather they were extracted from the show and processed with Photoshop. Quite tricky! Models: Were done by Hooni, a person from Finland who offered to do the models since I (at that time) still wasn't very comfortable with modeling. Turned into a nice partner-ship, but I couldn't have relied on him for future projects since he doesn't have that much time these days. Sounds: Some standard sounds, all soundscapes are standard too. A good chunk of custom sounds, none of which were created by me however, they were either extracted from the show or downloaded from TheFreeSoundProject website. Lighting: Done by me, calculated with the compiler (CSTBSP) a tweaked version of the one supplied by Valve. Optimization: Done by me, calculated with the compiler (CSTVIS) a tweaked version of the one supplied by Valve. BSP Tree: Generated with the compiler (CSTRAD) a tweaked version of the one supplied by Valve. === 2.6 === Hammer Editor Autodesk 3D Studio Max Adobe Photoshop GoldWave Boutell MapEdit === 3.0 === Feedback was very good. Although the amount of servers running it was disappointing, just like for CSS but for another reason, the bots tended to crash the map and many servers like to run with bots when the server vacates. I won't make the same mistake again! === 3.1 === FPSBANANA: 4,403 Views 573 DLs 1 Favorite