Make Money Fixing My Map

Long ago in the days of yore I started a TF2 map. It got it to an alpha version and I was pretty happy with it. BigLou and some other graciously tested it and helped me make it better. And then I hit a major road block in the form of effeciency. I struggled with this for a while, but then Life got super busy and I haven't touched the thing in 4 months. Unfortunately, Life hasn't subsided and I'll be lucky to be able to put in even an hour or so playing TF2 over the holidays. But, I would still very much like to see my map make it to the public stage.

Thus I'm offering money to anyone who can get my map working! I'll pay $200 to anyone who can do this for me, with a bonus $50 if it can be done without drastically changing the flow of the map (ie cutting out a portion to make it smaller). The current problems with my map include:

 - "Too many t-juncs!" This can be solved by converting a bunch of my func_details to world geometry, but i imagine that also increases Vis run time.

 - If I do a Normal Vis compile it takes rediculously long. Like, maybe 24+ hours? Something is clearly wrong so I need an expert who can go through and optimize to make this a more rational number. Alternatively, if someone is good with hints and could carve up the whole thing appropriately so that a Fast Vis would work, that's an acceptable solution.

 - There are some lighting artifacts (weird dark spots) scattered throughout that need to be cleaned up.

And that's it. If there are any custom props that need to be created I can definitely handle the modeling / texturing inside a 3d program (3ds Max or Maya), but you would be responsible for exporting and getting them into Source.

You can see some screenshots of my map here: http://xombie.redjustice.com/display.php?id=skull_island

You can download the current bsp here: http://rapidshare.de/files/41117017/cp_skull_island_broken.bsp.html

Note that this was compiled with a Fast Vis and thus has virtually no vis groups, meaning the frame rate is low and there are certain points where objects flash in and out of view.

So, if anyone is interested please let me know. Please include a link to a TF2 map you have done yourself, as I don't want anyone who doesn't know what they're doing just stumbling through it. If you seem competent I'll send you my current VTF for you to take a look at (I'm not going to ask anyone to agree to anything before they see what they're working with). From there I'll ask you to give me an estimate on when you think you could have it finished and then let you get to work! If you have any questions just let me know.


Alright, much thanks in advance!

Hmmm... my finals week is this coming week.  I may have a big opening to help out.  $200...?  SHYAH!

Tell you what, if you can get me a copy of the .vmf I'll take a look at it to see how much of a beast this thing will be to fix.  I have a feeling though, it'll be like I recommended to you during that playtest and need a complete new build.  I'm not worried about money, I'll just take a look to see how feasible it is.

Awww. Skull Island was absolutley amazing, I remember that map test. You had a great map going. Best of luck getting things sorted out!

damn they beat me too it

From what I can tell from running/noclipping around the map, it doesn't really look like it needs a rebuild. One or two things about the outside area would worry me a little though, like the big underwater window, lines of sight to the boat, and maybe the amount of tree models. Those huts look like they should be models, which would help, too.
Most of the indoor areas have better frame rates, and don't look to need too much work, but it's hard to say how long it would take to get playable fps throughout the map without seeing the .vmf

Hey guys,

First off, thanks to everyone for the input!

I've posted my vmf here: http://rapidshare.de/files/41124092/cp_tower_72.vmf.html

(as a side note, if anyone knows a better free upload place please let me know)

Again, to get that vmf to compile: convert all the func_details to world geometry (it doesn't have to be all of them, but at least a good portion) and then run it with fast vis.

For Fishy's comments, moving the boat to make it not potentially visable from the skull is definitely fair game / should be pretty easy. If lowering the tree model count boosts performance that's fine. Currently each of the huts is one giant func_detail. Would it be less of an engine burden if they were static props? What about the underwater window is a problem?

Anyway, there's the VMF. Take a look, see if it's possible, let me know if you're interested in helping me out.

adding fog can sure help, but I would have to look at it alot more to see. the t junc are displacements I think too many triangles in small area I bielieve. as for the huts leaving them func_details should be fine.

From what I can see, compiling on fast vis won't really make frame rates much worse, as most of the map is potentially visible from almost everywhere anyway. You can see what I mean if you go to the visgroups 'auto' tab, and hide the displacements, water, tool brushes, entities, and world details. What's left is what vis can work with, but what you can see if you do that, is that the map looks like a giant swiss cheese, with holes and gaps everywhere. That's what worried me about the window. It's a giant portal from one area into another. The same holds for the big laser position on top of the hill.  That building needs to be re-worked to stop any line of sight through the mountain.
I made some headway with the t-junction problem, but not quite enough, by hiding the huts. Replacing all the stairs that I could find with models helped some more, but I still had to turn some func_details back to world brushes, but they were confined to details from a corner of the underground tunnels system. I'm pretty sure that the t-junc count can be dropped enough for these to be moved back to details, by modeling one or two of the other details (tunnel supports?) that are repeated throughout the map.
The only things that I think really need to be re-mapped would be the big window and the laser house. The window could be retained (it's a nice feature, after all) by enclosing it with a cave or something. Maybe have a small dock for a mini-sub above it, with a vis-blocked tunnel leading to the main body of water, and another leading into one of the base tunnels to give an underwater/alternate route. The laser house needs a little bit done to kill potential visibility, and to smooth the edges with other visblocking.
The huge box around the map also has to go, but I'll wait until I've sealed up the swiss cheese before I try that. (I hate fixing leaks )
On the whole, though, I'd say that none of the problems are serious enough for despair. In fact, the map looks like it chould end up with fairly good fps.

Hey Fishy,

For the windows (the one underwater and the ones in the mountain bunker that can see the big laser) is it possible to use area-windows (forget the exact terminology) so that you can only see through them when you're next to them? My intent was that, take the big laser, that from the first stage on the beach you could see the big laser, and then from the second stage in that bunker you could also see the big laser and the sky above the beach, but you couldn't actually see the beach, and equally from the beach you coulnd't actually see into the bunker or the crater area around the tower.

Hah, I realize that used a lot of map-specific geography, but hopefully it made sense.

Anyway, I'm glad the situation doesn't seem too dire. I suppose the main point of this whole thread though was that I don't currently have the time to go through and make all these fixes, which is why I've offered up the bounty.

So Fishy, have you already started working on this? I need someone who's going to commit to finishing it through so I can let everybody know. (i.e. I don't want you to be working on it and then Big Lou too and then a month from now I have 4 people saying they've cleaned up my map). Alternatively I don't want four people saying they just want to work on it for free and then a month later they all lost interest and I'm back where I started.

Anyway, thanks again for the comments / interest!