[Cloistered] [the Half-Life Grand Central Terminal] [the Real-Life GCT] [Custom WAD] [Half-Life Mapping]

Download the latest alpha-map; ver.99 8/9/02 (3.3 Mb)
(comments welcome)

Launch the Grand Central Screenshot Viewer
(designed for 800x600; uses Javascript in Netscape 4.0+, or I.E.4+)

GENERAL:

Passing through Grand Central Terminal each day for several years, I often wondered what was behind the walls and down the various tunnels. It seemed like it would make a perfect map. If only it weren't so huge. WIth a dozen levels and a few square blocks it was a bit much for the gaming engine to ahndle. Add in two levels of 70 train tracks and any attempt at accuracy is a lost cause.
I've made repeated attempts at this map. I've restarted 3-4 times. While the map is decent and sometimes very good, the r_speeds were always a problem. The design of the room does nto fit the capabilities of the Half_life engine. However, I really had to learn about brush construction and compiling to get as far as I did.

The map works pretty well and I've put some good work into it. I have floor plans and plenty of pictures and info. I've taken photos and have created textures based upon the real world building. I'm happy to say that 95%+ of all textures you see are original. All the walls, doors, stairs, roofs, windows--all original. The only Half-life and other textures I used were on thing like railings, ladders, lights, basic colors(white), etc. I will replace any significant textures with originals. I've had some good experiences working textures around.

UPDATES:

August 9, 2002 - NULL, HINTS and web updates
Applied NULL and a few HINTS for speed optimization. I've done some brushwork. Redid screenshots, updated the viewer and the download map.

August 3, 2002 - long time coming
Well it has almost been a year since I updated this page. I worked on GCT every now and then as a distraction. Thanks to Merlin's modified Zoner Tools my clipnode % went down about 10%. He optimized it by truly ignoring func_illusionaries. He also included a NULL texture but I'm not sure that gets truly ignored yet. Anyway it bought me enough headroom to put some train tracks back into the map. Can't have a train terminal without trains! I just did a nice run through with HINT brushes and cleaned up some poor VIS points. My towers are still an issue. I'm looking at them now. I plan to change them significantly. Whatever it takes to get a playable map. If I can clean up more I may include lower level tracks or more uppers. I have a new PC finally so my compiles are painless now.

November 27, 2001 - RAD takes forever with -extra on, but moving along still
The extra switch in RAD really takes forever. 22 hours! Almost the entire exterior is complete, at least major components. Two towers are done(kinda okay), the oyster bar, second ramp and two more escalators to the lower level. I'm using darker lighting settings and even opened a door from the high ridge to the catwalk. I updated the download, and I should get some new screenshots up soon.

November 21, 2001 - Moving along
Well I've finalized a tower construct. I'm satisfied with the floor levels and the vising. I've copied it out to another tower and linked the. I've cleaned up the outside in coordination with the floor, windows matching, etc. Cleaned up textures all around including the six big windows. I still have to decide what the glass in them will look like. I'm experimenting with lights, so this map is much darker than before. I still have some open walls which are hurting VIS, but until I finish the two remaining towers that stays. I have an invisible wall on the west esclators to the lower level. Halfway up there is a clip which stops you on the escalator. You can duck under it to proceed. I didn't spot a clip there. I'll have to double check I wasn't hiding any brushes.

October 30, 2001 - Pure recreation
Mapping has become a recreation now, something to relax with. GCT may never be releasable with this engine but I still give it a few hours every now and again. I didn't like the way the towers were coming out so i gutted all the insides and I reworked a single one. When done I will copy it out and tweak it for each tower. Had to make some adjaustments to the Vanderbilt Waiting room. I started the room too low, or perhaps the outside too high. They don't match up enough. In the end it will be hidden and you won't see it but it is an error.

March 10, 2001 - A few tweaks
After a long pause, I got a bug again. Didn't get much done, but tweaked some and started adding a new area. Focusing on Cloistered as it is closer to completion.

August 20, 2000 - Busy week
It has been a busy week and I couldn't get much work in on the map. I did further the buildout, but I'm still working on finishing the towers. The tower doorways leading to the east and west balcony aren't vising enough. I will rework them. R_speeds are decent. The bad spots are in the far corners of the balconies with the widest view: 1200 wpolys. Too high but most of the room is 300-800. I've got some trimming to do so I think I can bring it down another hundred. I'm also looking at further limiting the VIS in the catwalks. I'll try some hints before changing architecture. I haven't tried any hints. I'll work on that after the room is closer to being in final shape. Meanwhile, I've done some scouting for photos for textures and I've got quite a few in the works that I'm hopeful about.

August 15, 2000 - Resurrection
I got a bug to map again and started GCT from scratch to throw away the error-ridden mess I had. WHAT A DIFFERENCE. The previous version took over 12 hours to fully VIS. This one takes 20 minutes. In three days I've reconstructed 50% of the areas I had (skipping track areas from the map) plus two towers and roof areas I had never done before. I've scaled the map down by about 20%. It means some changes in physical connectivity but it was worth it. R_SPEEDS dropped down considerably. Some sections of the map look MUCH better, with clean construction that I'm VERY happy with. I've posted my first BSP download and I've updated screen shots for the new design. This map may not be dead yet. Hooray!

April 2, 2000 - Work halted. I've decided to stop working on this design. I've reached one or more limits of the engine and much is left to do. Perhaps later I will resurrect this or adapt to a different gaming engine. In the meantime it was fun and an interesting diversion.

March 15, 2000 - Long time no update. I've been busy doing other work. I've dug back into GCT in the last week and I'm almost frustrated enough to start rebuilding. Too many shared floors/ceiling brushes are driving me crazy. I didn't leave enough room vertically and I keep opening up leaks. Last set of leaks took five hours of continuous work to fix because with each mistake and leak I solved opened another one. I'm playing with copy+pasting bits and pieces into a new map. I exceed max_clipnodes so I've got to do something to bring them down. I should be able to reduce them a decent 15-20% and then I'll be able to continue. I've got some internal holes to close which also increase clipnodes. Anyway I look at it, I'm very near the point where the map needs to be broken up. I'm almost to the point where the final texture decisions can be made. Some of the textures need reworking and I'm looking how to redesign them. I hope to have a full VIS'd update done soon so I can see where my r_speeds are.

January 27, 2000 - My latest alpha version is up, 2.5 Mb download, 7.5mB unzipped. After 11 hours a FULL VIS is done. R_speeds are pretty respectable. Up on the catwalks polys run 2000, but they have a birds eye view of the main room. I don't think I can solve that without just making the windows solid - which would be disappointing. Maybe I'll just leave a sign that says "Danger: 2000 R_SPEEDS ahead". I'm back to focusing on Textures and more VIS work. I'm trying to find overlapping brushes, confusing geometry, brushes that should be entities. Once I settle on textures for what I've done I'll redo my screenshots. I just got 512Mb, so hopefully my next upload/screenshot will be full VIS and the best RAD I can afford to a level of this size.

January 17, 2000 - Success on the upload front. Today's version is in the download folder.

I'm making headway on r_speeds. Average Vis_leafs have dropped from 1250 to 950. The count in the main room are still high, in the 900s, but I'm hoping I can work those down more. It IS a VERY BIG room, and having speeds below 800 is going to be damn difficult - if possible at all. I've VIS'd off the lower tracks, and the outside roof. I'm going to cordon off some specific areas to pinpoint why I can see so much in the two rooms. I'm not finding too many more obvious brush errors. I think I may need some hint brushes. I'm also going to do some side tests on whether keeping seams vertical or horizontal or mixed makes a difference. I've been very inconsistent and I think it may be making it more complex for VIS to work with.

January 16, 2000 - Well I had to track down a motherboard shortcircuit. The mb was contacting with the chassis and refusing to let the power supply turn on. After a complete take-apart-put-together I'm back and running. Now I can focus on my biggest problem. R_SPEEDS in the two Concourses. Tutorials never say not to let brushes extend outside each room, well I did--over and over again. I've got floor and ceiling brushes that are 2000 long. It just seemed to make sense to conserve on brushes when they all that the same level floor. Consequently R_Speeds oscillate from 300-3000 in the two big rooms. There are times when it draws the entire room below the floor your standing on. That one is a killer because I haven't broken that room up yet and it goes on and on.

I'm still working on getting an upload of the map. waiting on an answer from the FTP guy. Hopefully there is something on their end funky. Otherwise I need to figure what is wrong with my machine.

January 14, 2000 - With help from a friend I've got the screenshot viewer work in IE & Netscape. I also decided to resize it better for a 800x600 screen. I've got my 12MB, but I keep losing the connecting in mid-transfer. Don't know if it is software or my service.

January 13, 2000 - Well I've installed the Screenshot Viewer. With the except of an inability to clear the description window between images on IE, it works great. I've got almost 40 images in there, some from the compile I just finished tonight. Did a bit more on the outside and trying to merge the towers, rooms and halls all together with the outside walls. There are a number of discrepancies.

I'm still waiting for my extra 10MB of Web space on AOL Hometown. I placed these pages on hometown because they offer 12Mb per screenname(up to 84Mb). Unfortunately I don't seem to have gotten the extra megs yet. My uploads of the BSP stop after a few 100K.

I've discovered why clipnodes has been run over 90%--because I haven't started clipping the level. I've been asking for two months in forums what "clipnodes" were and received no response. As best as I can guess, clipnodes define where players can move--the air available to them. This is a different map from all the others and appears to be stored completely separately in the clipnode database. My level has a number of complex details which I planned to clip off later. By applying a half-dozen clipping brushes to the worst offenders, I brought clipnodes down more than 5%. Mystery solved. I'm no longer worried that I will run out of clipnodes this month and be force to break apart the map. My next highest resource is leaves at 60% and I believe that may be fixed as I repair R-speed portals and leaves. The rest of my fulness percentages are 40% and below. This is a huge leap forward.

I've got texture work piling up. A number of areas have been added which I don't have textures ready. I've also got to settle the major wall textures. Now that I know what I need, I think I can get it done well and easily. I was skimping too much on texture size, my colors were off, and I was leaving out important differences.

January, 12, 2000 - Well I've finally tracked down all of my leaks. I can now resume on fixing the sizing errors. Didn't do anywhere near enough planning and sizing for a map this size. I'm testing out a new, higher rez texture on one window, an olive green like they have now. I've got a number of hole to close and I've still got lots of brushes running through floor and screwing with all my r_speeds. Sometimes I think starting from scratch would be a good thing.

I'm only about 30-40% on the structure of the building. I'm working with textures a lot right now and correcting oversights in the design.

I've captured over 40 screenshots(640x480) and placed them in a viewer so you could page through thumbnails(7-8k each) and look at the fullscreens(30-90k) for what you really wanted. If you've got a lot of bandwidth just check the "Always Show Full Screen" and it will flip through the big versions instead. I'll update the viewer with better shots as I clean up the map and new areas open.

go to the Grand Central Screenshot Viewer.