Alright, I'm sure we've all seen someone try and do an outdoor area, obscurity, painful shadows. Usually these areas are flat planes, a few logs in the ground and trees with a skybox. Pretty shit, usually very small.
I plan to change that.
The area for AWE that is outdoors already dwarfs any other outdoor map yet created, yet offers detail and beauty and true landscaping without custom models or terrain, and to that scale. It utilizes custom trees and that's it.
The planned area for this map is about the size of the plains of whiterun, and I will fill this area with kool, beautiful aesthetics and stuff to do. Challenging, yes, but I'd say I'm the best mapper for outdoor areas for Amnesia.
Now, the sheer scale of this outdoor map will push HPL2 to it's limits - maybe even beyond, seriously. I originally tested it with very simple maps that had a plane of about 200x200 size and they worked well, performance wise etc yet I was very unsatisfied with mapping, hence how good it has become. Keeping it up for massive areas will be the challenging part, but it will be worth it.
"Alright, I'm sure we've all seen someone try and do an outdoor area, obscurity, painful shadows. Usually these areas are flat planes, a few logs in the ground and trees with a skybox. Pretty ****, usually very small"
I hope you dont see this as hate or anything like that, but you should know that...
You're out on brittle ice. I have created a story with outdoor environment but luckily you do not use my story as an example. I realize that you want to have high expectations and want to get us excited to play, but you should be careful what you write. Using such examples can be regarded as quite offensive because I know with certainty that they put a lot of work into their stories. I know I would have been offended if you used my story to one of those bad purposes. You can instead write like most with high expectations makes "highly / professional designed maps" or something like that. Just saying.
So you're saying a flat plane, with trees on either side of a linear path and a couple of stuff on the path is a good outdoor environment? I'm sorry, but if you think for one moment I should change my opinion just to make other people feel good about themselves then that's wrong. I have criticized Obscurity's mapping openly in it's thread, and the maker is aware of this. And why is it lucky I did not mention yours?
I chose theirs because they are 2 well known mods with outdoor environments. There are far worse environments out there yes, but even theirs are not good. The best outdoor environments yet seen in Amnesia in a released mod has been Through the Portal. If you disagree with that then you really haven't played enough mods. Poisonous, also had decent outdoor environments - they at least were not using flat planes. However, due to the fact that every mod maker on this site seems to think he is entitled to some respect for making an outdoor environment at all there will never be improvement in outdoor areas, and this is the matter of it. People need standards for outdoor areas as well, and it's no excuse that "engine doesn't support it". People can make stunning outdoor environments even now, and Horizon, Through the Portal and hopefully mine as well will prove that a lack of standards for outdoor areas is a very bad thing.
I think you missed my point completely. My point is that it is extremely disrespectful to use other people's stories as examples of "bad areas". What would you think if someone typed "A winter's Eve" has a pretty "******" enviroment? I never said what I think about them, just that you should think about what you write. Therefore, it is, for me, lucky that you did not use my story as an example because it is really unkindly.
You dont have to make other people feel good about themselves, but you should not make them feel bad about their work either.
I'd think they're bullshitting because it's not out yet. And it's extremely disrespectful? If they get upset because of me criticizing and viewing their environment as **** they're following the wrong profession. Seriously, people are far too oversensitive on moddb and at the first sign of criticism get upset. If they care what some random modder thinks about their mod's environment to that extent, they need to grow up.