First Map - Sketch

(Orange) #1

I am glad to annouce I’ve completed my first map, named Sketch (Wake up, man!)

This is my third mapping day, and I already started like 20 new maps, each time a different height map or just because I ruined everything and there is the time I thought I made a big map which ended in the size of the bank courtyard in Goldrush… lucky it was just a test to see I can run a basic map…

Now, before I go on creating entities, planting tress and stuff I want you to look at my sketch and tell what I did good and what I did wrong, how were you doing it, etc…
Here’s the sketch:

Now for some details:
The background is that an allied cargo plane has crashed in a forest and now the allies are sent there to get back everything usefull that survived (I’m thinking about documents and some supplies).
It sounds easy but the Axis won’t let go so quick…

Allies:

  1. Starting at the blue dot on the top, they have to get to the forest (thin black road), defeat the axis and capture a spawnpoint in/near the crashed plane.
  2. After holding the plane spawnpoint for let’s say, 30 secs, some kind of air support would bomb a part in the forest, letting the allies forces to continue to the village (thin black road 2).
  3. In the village they would have to defeat the Axis again and capture another spawnpoint and immediatly they would be able to fix the truck (or maybe they would have to explode a garage door).
  4. Somehow driving in the truck back to the forest (thick black road) and load the documents and the supplies on the truck.
  5. Driving to the other side of the map and passing near the Axis base.

Axis:

  1. Starting at the red dot in the forest, moving back to the village after being defeated and then moving back to the Axis base.
  2. 2-3 Constructable truck barriars along the truck path.
  3. Constructable MG on a watch tower in the Axis base.
  4. Trying to hold each spawnpoint as long as they can.

What do you REALLY think? (Don’t be soft on me because it’s my first map, I’m not hurt from critcise)

(CrazedFan) #2

If you want to make the terrain really nice, don’t make a height map. Carve the whole thing by hand. It will pay off.

(Orange) #3

Sounds like hell…
From your experience, is the terrain really important?
I put those mountains there more so they would make the players move in the direction I want then to give them a nice place for skiing… but if you think the terrain has an important rule and that it would pay off… I am ready to sacrifice…

(Gringo Starr) #4

I’ve never done it, but I know it can look good. But for your first map, I think 99% of people will tell you just to use EasyGen. I have 2 comments on the sketch you posted, but not in terms of gameplay. Is that the height map you drew on? Make sure your terrain isn’t too detailed. Just use common sense, if your r_speeds are over 10000 for just the terrain, it might be a bit much :). The second thing is, are you planning on using fog around the outside of the map? In other words, how will you block the player from seeing the edge of the map? See the dark parts around the edges? Those may be hard to block from the player’s view, resulting in cheeziness. :slight_smile:

(Orange) #5

On the top I plan putting about 2 layers of trees and bushes and then create a brush and texture it with a picture of a forest and clip the whole area, fog would be nice…
On the right I plan planting a lot of trees and bushes and also making a thin layer of fog, before the edge I think I’ll put some fallen and burned tress, put a thicker layer of fog and clip the area.
On the bottom I’d have to find a way to build the village so they won’t be able to get past the village, maybe I’d add some mountains manually…
On the left, well clipping is the key I think… maybe I’d just put a big gate the allies would have to explode to finish the mission.

I guess I’ll just do it “on-the-fly”, I have you guys here so I’ll just come and ask you for suggestions when I’ll get to it…

(Orange) #6

About EasyGen, what are the capabilities of this software?
Can I use Radiant’s caulking? or just make it as an area Radiant could recognize and then just select the underground faces and caulk them?
Would it help me to lay roads, make the terrain nicer?
In the beginning I selected the mountain areas and applied a different texture for them but when the grass end and the sand appears it looks pretty ugly and then I created a texture to make it blend better but when I rotated the textures using the Surface Inspector it looked awful, the textures were cut near the edge and irrelevant parts appeared on the other side… real mess.
When I tried to put roads it was pretty much the same but I also couldn’t make them curve (curve… how didn’t I think about it…)

Edit: EasyGen rulez! Should have used it from the beginning…

(thore) #7

dont go crazy with barriers. moving forward just to be able to plant dyno may take a while…
planting the dyno takes time - the dyno itself consumes 30 seconds to blow up… that doesn’t
sound that much, but possibility given to axis to defuse dyno barriers CAN be a bad bad bad
thing to have. you want the gameplay to be more vivid than static AND to make the map
winnable in about 15 minutes. that would result in a max 30 minutes stopwatch round (2 full
holds) which is a fairly accepted time.
i would suggest using only one barrier, but dont put it too close to axis spawns.

for your terrain: if you have the approximate boundaries of your map just load up easygen
and start sketching your terrain. experiment with the subdivisions setting. use the least
subdivisions possible. that means you should be able to lay out basic paths and streets, but
not more. together with your blocked-out buildings this will give you a basic idea how your
map feels. when satisfied, you can load up your terrain in easygen again and increase the
subdivs. you can now put some more detail into it.

(_Muzzle_) #8

I also recommend using easygen it gives you a nice looking terrain and be careful with the forward spawn points, I don’t know your scripting capabilities but i recommend to start easy on your first map.
Think about gameplay, chokepoints, spawnkilling, all those things can create a bad map how beautiful it even looks and make an afwul looking map really fun if they are combined right. Think about how many ways there are for allies to an objective to prevent raping, etc…

Its nice to see that you first drew your map to see if it would work, That where I went wrong on my first little map. I directly started creating terrain,buildings,without thinking of the objectives and so i had to start all over again. Then i started with a pencil and a lot of paper and just drew buildings, roads, my whole map, etc… Now i’m still mapping thanks to that :clap: