Last Summer version 5 released!!!

That's it, the new update of Last Summer has been released. You can download it from here:
Last Summer v5

List of improvements:

- Three maps campaign playable in coop and versus modes.
- Three survival maps.
- New campaign intro.
- Custom textures and music.
- Fixed navigation errors.
- More detailed maps.
- More weapons, items and ammo.


Hope you enjoy playing Last Summer v5!!!

Release date of version 5

I know I've said this before, but I will release version 5 of Last Summer within two days, and now it's for sure. I fixed some bugs and added more detail to the maps. The bad new is that I wasn't able to make the scavenge map work properly, so I decided not to include it in this new version (but maybe I'll add it in the future).

So, finally, this new update will have:
     - Three maps campaign playable in coop and versus modes.
     - Three survival maps.
     - Custom textures and music.
     - New campaign intro.

Hope you enjoy playing Last Summer v5 ;D

New Donate button

First of all, I want to declare that I didn't make this campaign with the objective of making money. I started it as a hobby, a way to spend my time while I was unemployed. I've always been a very creative person, and I enjoyed map making since the very beginning. It took me a year of hard work to bring you this campaign. Many hours designing, many errors happening, many times thinking that I would not finish it, but finally I did.

Unfortunately, a year has passed and I'm still unemployed. My country is living it's worst economical crisis ever. So I've been forced to ask for some help, because, you know, I'm a living person and I have to eat and stuff. 

I have way more experience in map making now than I had a year ago, and right now I'm working on a new campaign for Left 4 Dead 2, this time based entirely in my home city, Valencia. 
So here's the deal: if you enjoyed my first campaign "Last Summer" and you want me to improve it and to release new campaigns, please consider to donate. You can do it by clicking on the donate button in the right side of the blog. 

And if you don't want or cannot donate your own money, please click on the Ad Sense comercials you'll find in the blog. You don't have to buy anything, just make click on it and then close it (or you can buy if you see something of your interest). 

Anyway, and regardless of whether or not donate, I really hope you enjoy playing Last Summer ;D

Last News

Finally, Last Summer's update is ready to be released. I've made some changes and added some new details, like the awnings in map three, which you can see in the images below. I'm going to test the campaign, and, if there're no significant errors, I will release it within two days. Hope you enjoy playing Last Summer.

 New awnings in map three.

 Detail of the new awnings. The texture is custom, I made it from a photo of the real awnings.

  Awnings from behind.

Beta testing done

Last weekend I made a lan party at my house with some friends to test the last version of Last Summer. It was good to see that the versus mode is incredibly fun, but as the testing progressed, some unexpected bugs were revealed. For example, the navigation of scavenge map works fine when the game starts, but crashes when the game switches teams. Other bug is that when we finished a versus campaign and tried to replay it ('cos versus is so fun that you can't play it just once), the intro sequence fails, and director doesn't release survivor positions, which means that survivors can't move, and the only solution we found was to exit the game and restart it.

By now I'm trying to fix this and other bugs, so the final version of this update works as it  was thought to. It will delay the release date, but I consider it necessary. I'll announce the release date here when all the bugs are fixed.

Last Summer version 5 is almost finished

The new version of Last Summer is almost finished. I just need to solve some problems with the navigation mesh of one of the maps, and it will be done and ready to release. I'm making a beta testing sesion with some friends the days 13 to 15 of july, to see if everything works as it should. If it passes the test, I will release the new version on july 16. This new version will include:

- Three maps custom campaign, playable in coop and versus modes.
- Three survival maps.
- One scavenge map.

The total size of the file will be 421mg, which makes it a little too big, but believe me, it worths it.

Hope you enjoy this new version.

Learning how to use the info_gamemode entity

I've been testing the info_gamemode entity, and now I can use the same maps for coop and versus modes. That makes the campaign file 150 mb less than it was before using the info_gamemode, so it was worth to learn about it. 

Second map is finished

I finally made it, second map is finished, at least for the upcoming new version of Last Summer. Maybe I'll make more changes to this map in the future, depending on people's comments and reviews, but by now it is finished. And I tell you it was harder than it seems. Map will work in coop and versus mode. In fact, there are two different maps, one for each game mode (I hope that this don't make the final campaign file to be huge, but I don't know how to make the same map works on different game modes and read different nav files, so I just made two different maps with their own nav file). Here there are some images of the map:

Second map's new area.

 New area's inside.

 I added a ladder to pass trough the fence, so now bots don't get stucked in there. It also will help players to see wich way they must follow.

I changed a little the position of this ladder, so now bots don't fall when they get to the roof (well, they still fall down, but less than before, and eventually they get to the roof without teleporting).

I also made a new skybox, and improved the view of the roofs, wich were glitchy in version 4.

There are more changes and surprises waiting for players to find them. I remade all the lightning of the interior areas, so now it looks much realistic than before. Also, I added some custom textures and music. As I said before, it was a really hard work to finish this map, and I hope you all enjoy it when I finally release version 5 of Last Summer.  

Some improvements to the first map

This are some improvements I made to the first map "Campanar". I also made the changes needed for versus mode.

New trees and new sidewalk custom texture

 Custom textures, also the new curb for the sidewalk.

I added some streets name plates. The names are real, you can look for them at Google maps.

More custom textures, the new curb and also new ramp.

New area. Also streets name plates.

New area's storefront.

New area's inside. 

 New area's sideview.

 

More detailed places.

 

Intro sequence: second version

I remade the intro sequence, making it shorter. The first version was 45 seconds long, but this second version lasts less than 20 seconds. I think this way intro will be less annoying.  Also, I didn't like the camera turns of the previous version, so I used a fixed camera traveling for this version. Hope you like it. 

UPDATED:  I don't know exactly why, but the previous video is much darker than the game. That is the reason why it is difficult to read the texts (wich look much better in the game).

New fence

I've changed the perimetral fence of map three. At first I just used some fence texture that was included in the left 4 dead 2 sdk, but now I made a new fence that's more like the real one.

Here you can see the real fence from a Google Street View capture.

To make it, first step was drawing a 3d model of the fence in Hammer:

Then, I captured the image of the 3d view window, edited it to create an alpha channel, and then converted it into a texture file wih VTFEdit:

And, finally, I added the columns and the top beam to complete it:

But it was not easy, and I had to pay a price to accomplish this change. I had to turn some func_details into func_brushes, and increase the lightmap of the whole map from 16 to 18. This way I keep my waterindices under 100% and prevent vrad from crashing when compiling with hdr. Bad side is that now shadows and reflexions will be more diffused, but I think that this new fence worths it.

Lord of the flies

New captures

It's been a few days since my last post. The reason is that vrad crashed again when I tried to compile map three with hdr. I knew it could happen again, and it did. But finally I found some kind of logical solution, that consists on increase the lightmap of the whole skybox. This way, map compiles again. And because I'm happy again, here there are some new images from map three:

More detailed building.

Another more detailed building and the name Cullera on the mountain (this was a petition of Akae, from L4Dmaps). In the real place, the name "Cullera" is written on the other side of the mountain.

The squash court.

Squash court from inside.

This is the new texture I made for the stairs. I actually took a picture of the real stairs wall and converted it into a texture with Photoshop and VTFEdit. I learned how to do this by reading the tutorials made and/or translated by ShaunMAD: http://left4dead2maps.blogspot.com.es/ (tutorials in spanish)

 I made the bump map texture too, so when you light the walls, it appears to be in 3d.

So this is how the stairs look like now, from a distance. You can also see the broken wall. I made it to indicate the route, because someone told me it was confusing to have to jump this wall. Now you don't even have to jump, you can cross it just walking.  

Broken wall from the other side. You can also see the detail bricks and the stair with it's new texture.

Cool!!! An electric guitar!!! Let's rock those zombies as hard as we can!!! Also, a new custom texture overlay featuring Non Essential!!!

Problem solved and new images

After some days of tension, and some optimization, I finally was able to compile map three (Cullera) with hrd. I still don't know why vrad crashed before, but it seems that the problem is solved by now. Bad news is that it happened before and it can happen again, because I don't really know what caused it.

Anyway, I'm a happy man now. And because I want to share my happines with everyone, here there are some captures from map three, in wich a new area can be seen. As I announced, I am making maps bigger, but not longer, and what that means is that I'm making new areas to explore that are integrated in the original route.

 New area placement. Also, you can see the castle at the upper left corner of the capture.

The dining room from inside.

 

 Main bedroom.

 Same bedroom from the outside.

Computer room.

 Baby's room.

That doll looks much creepier when you see it in the cradle.

And that's all by now. Soon, I will post more images and videos.

Hope you enjoy playing Last Summer.

Support Last Summer with Google AdSense

Finally, I've been choosen by Google to join their AdSense program. That's the reason why there are new advertisements in the blog. Basically, Google pays me everytime someone click on one of those ads. So, if you want to support this and other projects made by myself, but you don't want to spend your own money, you can just click on those advertisments. It will take you less than one second, and you don't have to buy anything from those ads if you don't want to. Also, who knows, maybe you'll find something of your interest.

I signed a contract with Google, and one of the things that contract says is that I can't offer any reward to make people click on the ads. So I want to keep clear the fact that I'm not offering you any reward, only the satisfaction of supporting cool mapping designs, cool music and good times of playing. 

To finish, I only say that I will put a donation button in the blog soon, for those who want to donate.

Houston, we have a problem

Well, this is not the first problem I had during the development, but it is the most serious ever. When I compile the Cullera map with hdr, vrad crashes. I can compile it without hdr, and it works fine. Also, I tried to compile it without hdr and then recompile it (but only with vrad and hdr on) and it still crashes. The worst part is that I don't know why, so I can't fix it. At first, I thought it happened because I have a 130% of entdata, but I have compiled this map with 132% of entdata without any problem, so it doesn't seem to be it. Then, I thought it was caused by a lack of memory, but while compiling, vrad only consumes the 30% of the memory of my computer. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a computer engineer, in fact I haven't written a single line of code in my whole life, so I repeat that I don't have a clue of why is this happening.

 I've googled it and I haven't found any helpful information. So, if anyone knows what is happening and how can I fix it, please leave me a comment or an e-mail explaining it.

This are two captures of the vrad crash:

 

Intro Music Video

This is the music video of the song that plays at the intro sequence. It was recorded and edited by Rafa Adrià at ARS Estudios. Also, the song was recorded by Sergi Adrià and mastered by Rafa Adrià. I am one of those guys, do you guess which one?

If you want to listen more songs of Non Essential, just click here or here

For more Non Essential videos , click here

Everything starts in the real world

Here they are. As I promised, some photos of the real place where map three (Cullera) takes place. As you can see, I just copied the whole place (with some licenses in proportions and shapes) and then added some props to make a route for the players.

Here you can see the swimming pool and the tennis courts.

Here there's a photo of one of the buildings.










And that's all by this time. I'll post more photos again soon, from this and the other maps (both real places and maps new versions).

Intro sequence

Here it is, the first design for the intro sequence of Last Summer. Some texts will change, and I'm not sure if  I like the font I choosed. Also, I think it could be shorter, I will try to increase the speed of the camera just a bit. This sequence will only be showed in coop mode, in versus mode there will be no intro sequence.

First Post!

It's been two months since I released the first version of Last Summer, my first campaign for Valve's Left 4 Dead 2 game. By now, it has almost 30.000 downloads, way more than I ever expected. I started it as a hobby, just a funny way to spend my time while I stay unemployed. I only wanted to use Valve's SDK to recreate some real places from my life. I always loved zombie movies, and I always fantasized with zombie outbreaks in my own neighbourhood (no ofense, but everytime I play an american or japanese game, I feel as if I were traveling, and I wanted to play at somewhere familiar).

For those who don't know about the campaign, it has three maps: First one is based on my neigbourhood; second one is based on the place where I used to play and practice with my metal progresive band Non Essential; third one is based on the apartament complex where I spend my summer holydays. Sooner or later I will post photos comparing the real world versus the virtual recreation, but I can proudly say it is, at least, 89% accurate.

 Here is where you can download it: Last Summer

It took me about six months of work to complete that Last Summer's first version, and now, with two more months of work, I'm about to release a major update. Here are the new features:

• More customized maps: with custom textures, materials, and music.
• Bigger maps (bigger but not longer).
• More detailed.          
• More items/melee weapons.
• New ambient sound design with soundscapes. 
• New intro sequence.
• Fixed major navigation bugs in maps two and three.
• Improved direction indication on map three.
• Fixed second map's infinite hordes bug (now hordes stop spawning when players turn off the alarm).
• New game modes: Versus and Survival.

As I said before, I'm about to release the new update, but there's still some work to do, so you'll have to be patient. Mapping work is almost done (at least I think so), but as I started to make this campaign bigger, it also become something bigger outside the computer, so by now I'm planning to make a song with my band called "Left 4 Dead" (the song, not my band) and include it for the campaign's final (you know, because it's a cool way of free promotion and so). It will be a cool add for the campaign, but it will delay the release date (we haven't even made the song!).

To finish this first post, I want to thank all who downloaded and played Last Summer. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. If you did, and you want to support this and future projects, please consider to donate (donation links will be aviable soon). I know it's annoying, but as I previously said, I'm unemployed, and I need to eat to. I don't want to become rich. Well, alright, I do want to become rich, but not by accepting donations. I want to become rich by my own work, this is something temporary, due to an extraordinary turn of events, that I hope won't last. Anyway, I don't want to bother you with my problems, just remember that you are free to donate if you want.

I almost forget, this is the contact e-mail: l4d2lastsummer@gmail.com
    
Hope you enjoy playing Last Summer.