Work On A Map- Looking For Insight

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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Sat Jul 04, 2009 6:00 pm

Started playing with Hammer- which, of course, meant that after I started I discovered plugins for SketchUp that lets you convert designs into VSF files. Don't think I'll use it save as a means to fool with this stuff at work or something like that.

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I'm taking the advice of some tutorials and doing this bit by bit, building sections of the map that I'll later assemble into the whole. That way I can focus on a given area without being overwhelmed with all the extraneous pieces. This is the first part, the bunkers. They are a personal favorite if only because they're more or less perfect in terms of balance, at least in my mind.

Each bunker is just large enough not to feel cramped. A single player is 83 HU tall and 49 HU square. These bunkers are roughly 120 x 124 x 148 HU, meaning that they're small but not too small. There's three steps that lead up to the firing port, and three doorways. A Heavy, Soldier, or Sniper can take up a position in a bunker and fire out of it with only a small portion of their body being exposed. They have a wide horizontal firing arc and a reasonable vertical one. At the same time the bunkers are not ridiculously powerful: the position of the doors and firing port means that Spies can easily slip in and backstab people, while the dimensions mean that a Pyro, Demoman or Soldier can be fairly certain of cleaning out the place. Furthermore, the firing port leaves you vulnerable to Snipers, particularly ones firing down from above. They're good, but not too good.

The depth was the biggest problem; I wanted them to be deep enough that you could have a trench connected to them without either the bunker being too large or the trench being too shallow. That was more difficult than it seemed at first just because I was starting over and I wasn't sure the difference between heights of players and heights of weapons. It took a few rounds of testing to get it just right. Oddly enough I could get the stairs to the firing port right without effort- you could run up or down without a problem, at 12 HU per step. But a 4 HU step at the side doors required a hop to get past. I've since carved that down to a ramp, which will hopefully alleviate the problem.

I'm considering whether or not to get fancier with these; I could use tinted concrete to indicate red and blue areas, as well as start adding decals, such as a storm grate on top (since these are nominally camouflaged to the outside world), but I'm still learning so I may leave them as-is. I may also be able to alter those aspects later on, once they're in the final map.

Still, it's a start. And by making these prefabs, I can also make them available to people for use on their own maps.
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Postby Ayeaka » Sat Jul 04, 2009 8:55 pm

For texturing...

Try to keep the concrete neutral. Instead, use textures with peeling paint, etc, to indicate side--slightly tinted props, that sort of thing.
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Sun Jul 05, 2009 2:30 am

Mostly done with a spawn room for the Red team. Sixteen spawn points, two cabinets, and a pair of doors. A lot more difficult than I realized because of a few things they didn't explain in the tutorials, such as where you find filters. I'll finish up the second door and that should be all set. Then maybe more details, like lights and so on.
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Sun Jul 05, 2009 1:28 pm

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Slight difficulties with the spawn rooms. Just, you know. Little ones. I expect that's due to overlapping triggers, nodraw areas, and so on. I think it might have also messed up my textures a bit. That red and black border should've been at floor level.

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Fixed! And the door works. Scrapped it and started over, but it all works now. At least what I have so far. Next up: other door, resupply cabinets, and... oh yeah. A roof.
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Postby Ayeaka » Sun Jul 05, 2009 7:10 pm

Looks nice so far :3
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:00 pm

Eh. It's nothing terribly special. I'm still having trouble with figuring out how to set up some things. For instance, I want to add a couple RED icons to the walls. Just to spruce things up. After a lot of trouble fooling with it, I got what I thought was the proper end result.

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Not so much.

One unrelated thing I'm debating is whether or not to add some environmental lighting. As it is, things look pretty much standard for TF2. Adding environmental lighting pretty well screws with that, and everything looks noticably different- not necessarily worse, just not standard TF2.
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:33 pm

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Apparently you need some source of lighting in order to make these things show up. That solves that, then.

...And adding lighting darkened the room. Except the floor. :?:

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Getting the hang of this now. There's that rubber wall edger I wanted. More importantly, I figured out how to get the overlays the precise size I want them to be. Which means I can get them aligned and sized properly. Add in a ceiling, some object lighting to replace the environmental, I think this'll be about good to go. Then I just need to make a copy of it, change the textures, names, and teams, and BLU will be set. If I do things right, I think I can set it all up so that the rear doors are disabled until you cap the center point, at which time you can use them to rush up through the FOB and get closer to the action. Taking a FOB point will open up the spawn points forward on the map, which should be easy to set up as well. I hope.
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:50 pm

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Well that, uh... okay. I didn't expect that to happen.

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Fixed, thanks to help from the guys at tf2maps.net.

Need to enlarge the env_sprite glow on the bulb, but I think otherwise this is good. Just need to group up the objects and then copy them around to the other five bulbs.

I'm thinking about adding a couple more- colored ones. A green and a red one, set over the door that unlocks if you cap the center point on the map. That way you know when it's available for use, or when it's not.
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:14 pm

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Lot more work than I thought it would take, but there you go. Incidentally, did you know that stickies stick to stickies? And stickies stick to lightblubs? You can make some highly lethal hanging sculptures this way...
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Postby Stormcaller3801 » Fri Jul 10, 2009 3:33 am

Map's being revised due to the fact I've now got some numbers on how wide, long, and tall things should be. Which is considerably more than I was anticipating. I'm taking the opportunity to rebuild my basic ideas as well. For instance, the center point will now be under the road.

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Pyros will have ample opportunities to earn that Plan B achievement on the center point. However, the rest of the trench system will only be 32 deep in water, not enough to let you extinguish fires. So they're not being entirely nerfed. Similarly, Snipers will suffer a bit given they won't be able to shoot people from the various sniper decks while those people are trying to cap the center or running around in the connected culverts. However, they'll still be able to snipe anyone running to, through, or out of the trenchworks. As well as opportunities to shoot each other and defend the other four points as well.

Most of this is dependent upon whether or not this much water, along with rain, will render the map ridiculously slow to run. Which if it does... well, I'll have to come up with something else. Maybe shrink the map in all four directions.
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