Oh man, oh man, oh man. I knew that this process would be long and involved, but damn! It's been a while, but I didn't want to post again until the beta was finished. Guess what? IT'S DONE! That's right, the core gameplay layout is complete. I'm sure it will change through feedback, but now I can finally share my early efforts with the public. I've learned a lot since the last post, including things like optimization, lighting, functionality, and getting the prop pipeline to work the way I want it to. Making custom props and materials is probably the most fickle process I've ever embarked upon, hands down. Getting materials to show up, models to compile, collision to work, it's all just about done. Once I understand lighting a little more and I can get specular maps to work, I think I'll finally be ready to begin conceptualization and start making those first few assets. Actually making art, who'da thunk it?
As for specifics on testing my map, I uploaded the BSP to tons of file sharing sites, so you can find it on just about any legit, free hosting site. TF2Maps.net and FPSBanana are the ones that I am using the most, however and I would recommend those. I have uploaded the map to be played on the official server for TFMaps.net, and I'll have to wait and see when and if it gets played. For those who are interested, the IP is 72.233.93.233:27015. We have a game day event on Saturdays where we go through and play each other's maps from 3 to 7 pm, but other than that I'm not quite sure when everyone gets on to play. Speaking of which, I would like to thank everyone at TF2Maps.net for all of their help. It's hand down the best TF2 mapping community site out there, and I wouldn't have had a clue how to do half of the stuff I've done without them. It's full of great, patient people that are always willing to help the clueless, and you can tell that they love to do what they do.
I 'm gonna try to update more once I get the process spinning a bit more. Expect things in the future like reference photos, concepts, and production pics as they come. The pics I'm giving you for this post are for the beta as it currently stands. Not pretty of course, but functional for gameplay, so that's all that matters, right?
