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gm_polar_express_v1

You can skip this fluff, any important information is in the F.A.Q below.
Bet you weren't expecting a Christmas map in October, but if stores can do it, amusquiz can do it.
So there I was watching bad memes on YouTube, one used a clip from the polar express.
After seeing ctf_convoy on tf2, I had some inspiration. I wanted to recreate the polar express as a fully functioning map. Source is a very limited engine, so of course I thought it was entirely impossible but I tried anyway.This is by far the most detailed and well developed map I've ever developed, and probably the most addicting to work on.

The engine is a fully animated 3d model, based on the same train engine as the polar express. Which in case you haven't read a wiki is based off the Pere Marquette 1225. Though the movie took a lot of artistic liberties with it, so I had to reference the movie and the Pere Marquette a lot during modeling. Even with the work I put out, don't expect the map to be a 1/1 recreation. The movie is really inconsistent and finding decent reference images is basically impossible.

Now I bet your curious why I'm releasing this in october? Well I wanted to give everyone time to plan for Christmas!

An artist might want a decent holiday themed map for posing or animation.Or weirdos like me who just like obscure maps.You might have also noticed the simple textures? These are temporary, I'm not an amazing texture artists, but I am a fantastic modeler. This is technically still in development, but in such a finished state I could claim its finished.
I want to continue development and release an update around thanksgiving or christmas. Right after the halloween update for gm_sirenmien_v2. There is minor issues here and there, not to mention performance could be improved. A cool detail I creatively used was with area portal windows. Now at a distance the windows lose transparency the further the player moves away from them creating a glowing gold texture to become visible. I wanted to recreate that bit of the artstyle from the movie in gmod, and discovered a creative way to do so.

On top of that you can pull the whistle, which has a placeholder for now. I couldn't find a single authentic whistle from the movie without ambient noises. You can also enable the bell to blare, alerting any non' existent cattle to move from the tracks.The train is designed to appear like its moving, this is done using a conveyor belt system, and it works really well. I seriously thought the train was moving, but in reality I was standing on a moving platform going the opposite direction. I had a lot of fun developing this, and hope to revisit it soon.

1. HDR
   
2. Shiny gold textures!
   
3. animated train and bell.
   
4. five enterable train cars and a variety of spawns.
   
5. Navmesh, nav_mesh, nav mesh, or whatever you wanna call it!
   
6. Ai nodes for hl2 npcs to navigate, not that they can easily get anywhere.
   
7. An illusion of a moving train!
   
8. campfire on top!

F.A.Q
Q. How can I stop it?
A. You can't, it's possible for me to give it the option.
But it would require me to design an animation for the engine to gradually slow down.

Q. Why isn't the whistle exactly like the movie?
A. I can't find an audio file of it without the ambient noises or the main character talking.

Q. Can I take this map and use it on my server?'
A. Yes

Q. Can I use it on my art or youtube videos?
A. Yes, why would I stop you?

Q. Can you make a vehicle version?
A. No, as is the performance is dipping.

Q. I'm lagging really badly and wanna play it?
A. mat_specular 0 and mat_hdr_level 0 will turn down the taxing visuals. But huge drop in quality!

Q. I'm getting errors everywhere?
A. Try restarting the game.

Q. Can you make the dank express?
A. Yes, but it's pointless, you can just download a tomas model and replace the marquette model.
not to mention video editing software can really do the trick.

There is no content required, only the base game.

Warning! Do not reupload this map without the written concent of amusquiz.