byteframe6-Concealed_Conservatory

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byteframe

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Published on July 8, 2024 11:07:19 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkmH2HanGtA

Game:

Counter-Strike: Source (2004)

Duration: 5:25

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Ride the elevator to the top, and water my plants! Magic grass must grow in the clouds. I half-assed, maybe quarter-assed this, but it ended up displeasing me less than I thought, and is close to the idea I had in my head for the interim since my last submission. I just don't have the endurance to polish off these outdoor areas, even though I'm still absorbing and getting better from practice.

I was really intent on detailing a very small space before the elevator, but of course didn't realize I would have to fill out a bit more space than that to make enough of an expanse to view when up top. I think I envisioned more of a cloud city up there, but it would probably be best to not have the ground and really go all out up in the sky. This is more down to the Earth than I imagined, but I still like it. Maybe I could have made the elevator shoot all the way up to the sky, and maybe auto hide the ground past a certain point, and with enough fog/clouds it would have worked to have the transition.

Speaking of the elevator, thanks to Rectus's guide and github! His VR portion was easy to figure out, but i never made a elevator, or any moving brush in a game before as far as I can remember, and had to look at his map source. Like the example map, this is a func_door. Cursor glances at internet searchings showed the source 1 games using some kinda of pair of train_track entities or whatever, but it didn't seem to be here and was probably over my head so I just more or less aped his tutorial.

I didn't use a button panorama pane, and just wanted the elevator to be automatic and simple trigger based. I'm not sure why it goes down right as it goes back up, and why it fires the OnTouchStart and OnTouchEnd events without me moving out of the volume. Likely I screwed something up. The result is a bit of an over-achieving elevator and you might find yourself stuck at the top with the elevator (and the trigger volume) down at the ground floor. It's okay you can now tele-jump down with your VR controller and you won't get hurt I promise.

Shooting the shiz on discord (and plying Boneworks) prompted my idea to try the 'destructible' wall you see there. It was hard to get the right props (with all the collision and problems) and I tried various scenarios you can see in the screenshots. It was hard to get them to stop shaking and they still do a bit. I assume I don't know what I'm doing, but also that this physics stuff in this SteamVR home engine is a little weird and not working right. The shovel to the left you see there was intended for the user to push the blocks away, but it doesn't have the right weight or whatever and doesn't do what I want. However. the tools you can spawn actually can be used to push the blocks away. Or you can pick them up and move them. Good enough, but I'm still almost entirely ignorant on how the physics in any of this should work, at least from the perspective of the level designer.

I did notice tons of new HLVR and Grabbity glove strings in some of these entities, but the physcis seems the same still. No clue. I noticed other small improvements in the editor though! Cool prop selection glows, rotating edges and some other stuff all seem new to me, or maybe I missed it. tl;dr, valve is updaing this product right now! Woo!

I was going to maybe restrict the player movement with a TP mesh to avoid my sparse outer areas, but I don't really like to do that, and I dont think its a big deal (as I did before) if the user can see the edge of the map and the sky box and that. I'm starting to consider these just lil interactive dioramas, and their use as SteamVR Home places makes it less of a big deal than if it were a level for a game.

It ended up coming out better than I thought it would, and given the minimal effort and time, I'm fairly satisfied! I really do just have this one ground texture with it's three layers, and some various plant/tree props (which are quite good I think), but I wonder if I would have more fun and complete more polish if I had more grass and earthy materials and such, or hell, maybe try the desert assets. I have one more crappy level left (you'll see) to go before I prolly just make sexy apartments and that kinda VR going forward - which is my favorite VR to consume anyways.

Anyway, played with the physics, got an elevator of some kind working, and got some more practise on the outdoors. This is trashy but not terrible.

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