Ahoy there, mateys, WoodReviewer here, not sure what is up with the pirate thing. I ran out of new introductions I guess. Especially since I am reviewing the Desert Ruins map in TWISTED Paintball. Like Jungle Japes, it is made by PixelatedCandy with the main game being made by Taymaster. This is the third map in TWISTED Paintball, and seeing as there are only three maps currently this will be the end of the review. For now. I am always open to reviewing new maps in the wood grain warrants, which based on these maps it will. Onto the wood. First, lets take a look at an old friend, Mr Fruit Stand.

Don’t recognize him? Much like the crate in the previous post, Mr Fruit Stand was featured in a previous blog on endorsed models. Much like the crate, I have nothing against reusing assets. Unless the assets are bad, then they should be fixed. It is easy; I did it myself.

Speaking of crates, there were also crates in this map as well. They were not the same crate as in Jungle Japes, but they still have bad wood grain. It appears, to me atleast, that the crates are just a wooden box with a decal on it. However, it gives the impression that they are made of multiple pieces of wood, and as a result some pieces of wood appear to have bad wood grain. For example, the cross sections have wood grain going across rather than sideways at a 45 degree angle, and the vertical edges have horizontal wood grain rather than vertical. A neat trick to save on brick count? Yes. But still poor wood grain in my book, and really, isn’t wood grain all that matters?

Next we have something. I say something because I am unsure what exactly it is suppose to be. It appears to be an assortment for planks from a partially destroyed wall, which is fine, but the remaining planks make it appear they were vertical, but the wood grain indicated they were horizontal. Confusing, to say the least.

For something less confusing, look at this door way. A clear case of bad wood grain on the sides.

Still want something simple? Look at the supports on this ramp. The wood grain is wrong, causing them to easily snap if any pressure is applied.

Still want simple? Look at this sign post. Improper. Will easily snap. Easy.

One more simple case. This wooden wall support. Improper, will provide no actual support, wrong.

Enough with clear-cut stuff? One more? Ok. The legs on this table.

Easy, no? Done? Ok. Lets look at something confusing: This wall.

This is a special wall. You see, the pieces of wood go horizontal, but the wood grain on each part is vertical. Why? Just why. It is not due to CSG, since each piece is separate, and if the planks are vertical why not have one solid piece of wood? Just why. The wooden plank texture already breaks up wood into planks, there is no need to do it more unless you want larger gaps. And even then, why have the separate bricks do in a different direction than the texture, causing this weird disconnect.

Enough with that. Lets go back to more simple problems. This railing, for example, has bad wood grain on the support nearest the edge, and then the texture on the top of the railing is incorrect.

And then the supports for another walkway are incorrect. That is a huge safety issue.

Now, that is most of the wood grain. But there is one last piece of wood annoys me. Do you see this?

Need another look?

Yes, that is a chair. And do you see the legs and the back? Yes, the improper wood grain. That is on every chair. In every game. I can see them being in some games, but seriously every game? But why, just why. It literally only takes two unions and you could fix all the bad wood grain with the chair; one for the seat/horizontal back supports and one for the chair legs/vertical back supports. For the entire map, that would be a grand increase of two unions where all the guns have several unions. But why, in all the chairs, CSG/non-CSG, is it always the chair legs people sacrifice? Why never the seat? I know devs talk, so is there some secret Discord/Skype/Slack/Google Hangout all the popular builders use? Did they all just decide one day that wood grain on chair legs should never be correct? And if so, just how many admins are in this group. I know UristMcSparks has this on their endorsed models, and the admins seemed to approve of it in other endorsed models. So if this secret group exists, please tell me, preferably with a full members list, so that I can properly shame/educate the members on wood grain so they eventually reverse this secret rule on chair legs.

Rant aside, how was the wood grain at TWISTED Paintball overall? Bad. Pretty bad. While I do have to comment CanadianSanic and PixelatedCandy for trying to include more textures, sadly the wood was misused in many places across all the maps. And for most of it there was no reason; only a few issues were caused by CSG, and for most of the support issues it was simply a case of needing a texture flip. While some cases, like the wall above, were special, they are still easy fixed. For the reused assets, such as the well, fruit stand, and crate, fixed versions do exist, either published by the creator or me, so there is no excuse for the problems. I hope the issues are fixed soon and are also addressed for future maps. If not, I’ll be around.

 

Ok; just felt like reposting the wood texture from Frosthold one last time because it is seriously amazing.