_________________________________________________________________________________________ Yardrats_Halloween Yardrats Originally created by SpiLL[HCH] Updated, with Halloween decorations and sounds by qUiCkSiLvEr 31Oct2002 RMF compiled with all fixes and updates implemented 17Jan2003. _________________________________________________________________________________________ This map is a complete recompile with extensive decorations and sound files. A number of problems were fixed with great assistance by the awesome Grimlock. This map is wonderful with 6 players or more and lends itself to many different styles of play including stalking, sniping, camping, running and gunning, and just hysterical fun with the low-gravity suit (idea shamelessly borrowed from OneSneakYmouse's map RestroomRats). _________________________________________________________________________________________ Description: This map is an outdoor fun map in the Rats scale genre that has been extensively decorated and animated for Halloween (but fun to play year around!). The map is very tall with a large open central yard area and many levels of play, from the rain gutters and shingles on the roof down to the drainage area under the grate in the floor. The yard is stocked with a large toolshed, a water cistern with water flowing down from the rain gutters on the roof, a large green trash can, a clothes line with a moving basket, a tree stump that is a bounce pad (catapult really!) and a shootable light fixture over the door. The toolshed is stocked with all sorts of implements, and as one would expect there are a few spider webs and spiders in there. Like many rats maps, the walls have corridors and ladders as well as lifts and warps to greatly enhance connectivity. (did I mention a few secrets too?) For a little additional fun, a low-gravity suit is provided that will let players fly across the map in a single bound, but don't fly too high or your wings will get clipped! The Halloween decorations include: large pumpkin warps on the ground, a disappearing ghost tree over a stump in the ground, a cross for a buried pet "Fido" (don't wake him up now!), ghosts, a full moon overhead with a witch that flys by from time to time, an occasional lightning bolt, green and red glow sticks courtesy of Grimlock, animated (and scary) spiders running on the webs, and two flying bats playing over the water cistern. The Halloween sound effects include ghosts shrieking, the witch laughing, a very scary voice saying "You can't see me, but I can see you" (quite appropriate for this map!), deep eerie chuckling, a woman screaming, thunder cracks after the lightning and a dog barking whenever a player joins the map (dogs should bark when strangers come by!). In addition, a button will play the music "MonsterMash" for a little added entertainment while players are sniping and fragging away! The shootable light fixture creates two very different light levels from spooky moonlight to a bright wash of light across the yard to reveal those lurking campers and snipers. There are many, many places to hide and snipe and camp but the central area is just great for running and gunning across the sculpted ground (thanks Grimlock!) and pumpkin warps as added escapes or accidents depending on your strategy. The lifts are all very fast reacting and have catcher warps at the top to prevent players from getting stuck on the gore. Don't try to put tripmines in the shafts though or you will be surprised! All in all this is a very novel, entertaining and challenging map for Half-Life Death Match. Map Source: SpiLL was great and sent me the original RMF for this map, YEA! Decorations: All the decorations were fully tested and run using the original Yardrats map using Botman's awesome Stripper2 program. Fixes: Complete central area ground and walls retextured by Grimlock. Many textures re-applied, several transparent textures were cleaned up, several stick points were fixed, warps were added in all the lifts to fix the problem of players getting stuck on the gore. The warps in the pumpkins on the ground greatly enhanced connectivity on this quite tall map. Grimlock graciously went thru the map and fixed some serous stick points on the ground and in the gravity lift shaft as well as tweaks and adjustments to optimize the map for better R_Speeds. Compile: The updates were all done with Valve Hammer and Zoner's great tools. The map compiles (full vis with extra radiosity) in about 13 minutes on an 850Mhz P3 under WinXP. Other Tools: Wally, MilkShape, HLMV, MSImager2, MGI Photosuite SPRwiz, BSP_view, Quark, and anything else that I had that would do what I needed to do. Weapons and ammo: Everything! Lots of ammo and weapons all over the place. Lots of health and batteries (for HEV) Spawn Points: 13 (of course!) arranged somewhat to minimize sequential respawns Skybox: The skybox is custom modified from a skybox called "backalley". Please note that only TGA's were available so players running low-res in software mode probably won't see the skybox. WADS: The WAD file was extracted from the original Yardrats and several transparent textures were cleaned up. Models: There are two custom models here. One is a tree originally from DOD that I rescaled to fit the map. The other is a really nice pumpkin model originally created by Jeffrey R Chaplin (a.k.a. 'CASE') for the QuakeCon 2001 Map Object Model Contest. I converted and recompiled the model for HalfLife. In addition, a sprites model and a skull model are used from the HL distribution. Enhancements: Decorations, sound effects, sprites, animated sprites, models, extra weapons, health, armor, low-gravity suit, music, secrets ... Overview files: A custom Spectator overview image and text file is included. Download Time: The basic map BSP is typically a 5 to 10 minute d/l but the monstermash music is largish and adds an additional 5-10 minutes. The entire package (map, models, sounds, sprites and overview) is a longish download about 20 to 25 minutes for a reasonable connection. I recommend that servers that wish to optimize their d/l time delete or rename the sound/halloween/monstermash.wav file and let players download the music offline as part of the zip distribution package. Further d/l time savings can be acheived by commenting out the two overview files in the Yardrats_Halloween.res file. Testing: This map has been extensively tested by TEAM USA including: Abie, X-15, Rev, MrT, Darth Sailor, Peace Keeper, eljefe, Sniper, Shadow Santa and Seanasty. Dedication: I want to thank all the Team USA group including Grimlock for the endless encouragement and ideas and time ... I made this map for them to have a unique place to play and have fun and grow together! _________________________________________________________________________________________ notes: Servers running this map must set the CVAR mp_allowmonsters 1 for the models to appear. because of an odd initialization quirk in the HL engine, the server must be restarted at least once for this CVAR to take effect. The map has a great many entities that are visible all the time from one player position. Some slower computers and graphics cards may not like this very much. Players may still (very occasionally) get stuck on the lifts at the very bottom. Because tripmines in the lift shafts may cause the lift to jam up, a low-level hurt is implemented in all lift shafts to blow the tripmines up. Above all, HAVE FUN! This map can be run year-around, not just for Halloween. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Install: put the Yardrats_Halloween.BSP, Yardrats_Halloween.RES and Yardrats_Halloween.TXT files into the valve/maps directory. put the Halloween??.tga files into the valve/gfx/env directory. put the sprite files (*.spr) into the valve sprites directory. put the two overview files (Yardrats_Halloween.BMP and Yardrats_Halloween.TXT) into the valve/overview directory. put the model files (*.mdl) into the valve/models directory. put the sound files (*.wav) into the valve/sound/Halloween directory. The zip archive is set up for easy install from the valve directory using pathnames. Enjoy! qUiCkSiLvEr Questions, comments, attaboys, problems, all are welcome: Email: ottalini@mindspring.com Web Page: http://www.mindspring.com/~ottalini/qUiCkSiLvEr.htm If you get a chance, please visit qUiCkSiLvEr eXtReMe Half-Life Server too! (HLDM only)