Shared Map

[zZCastleZz]

what about widening the whole map somewhere between 1024 and 2048 units? slice it at the center, it'll let you make the bases bigger and do some cool room stuff in the middle areas... the part where the blue corridors figure 8 into each other could use some spiffining

I'm not so sure about that idea..

The level seem pretty big already. Its possible that making the level any larger will just be too much.

[Magnus]

I'm not so sure about that idea..

The level seem pretty big already. Its possible that making the level any larger will just be too much.

Actually the map is smaller than it seems once you get inside. As it is no matter what path you take if you had a chance to just run with nobody to get in your way it only takes about 20 to run from one flag to the other.

But I agree making the entire map wider is not such a great idea. Although scaling the the entire thing to be a bit larger may be somthing to consider.

the part where the blue corridors figure 8 into each other could use some spiffining

Yea I felt like that area where the blue halls enter the pre-mid room was just too bland and not clean enough.
Perhaps an inflated portion of the hall just before it enters the room sort of like a tiny room would fix it?
Or maybe inlarge that pre-mid room so that the side of the room meets about where the halls X and then remove the large rock pillar in the middle of that room and make a drop down to the lower level in the middle. Make it kind of like the inside of that center room in q3tourney4?

Team? Any thoughts?

[boilingoil]

Thanks for liking my flag room!

As far as chains, maybe break the actual floor the flag is on away from the ledge, and suspend IT by the chains. That way their not in the way, but still in the map?

I say make the blue criss cross section a little bigger (like a dent in it towards the flag side with some big steps or something to jump up to, could look man made), and put a regen or haste in it or something. Or maybe the 2 powerups alternate like when you fight Sarge 1v1 in [tier 2? i think it's tier 2]

[Silicone_Milk]

What's the status on the alpha?

[Magnus]

Well I have the first rough alpha finished and was going to post the .zip with the .bsp .aas and .map and such, but when I went to upload it to my FTP space I found that I no longer have access to my FTP account. I called and comcast said I was because I was an adelphia customer that got transfered to comcast and I would have to set up a new FTP space with them. It will be about 24 to 48 hours till it is active.

Anyway. The map works nice even though it is a VERY rough build. I am not kidding. I threw this thing together so fast it looks like a blind 6 month old monkey built this map. I am almost ashamed to pass this one on as it is, but it will get the idea across and let us get a feel for the map well enough and the bots seem to use it well as it is.

Unless someone on the team wants me to email it to them so they can FTP it and post a link to it then it looks like all we can do for the next day or so is talk about any ideas anyone has had.

[a13n]

By the way, Magnus, would you please tell us what kind of software did you use to draw these 2D layouts you've posted above?
3D apps?

[Magnus]

Sure. I used MS Paint.

[Magnus]

OK. Here it is. With no mitered joints, plenty of overlaping brushes, only 5 textures used and out of place and nasty as hell , but it is a place to start and see the concept behind the 2D images in 3D and get a feel for the size and flow of the thing.

No lights. Just compiled with meta. Some suggestive items placement.

ctfptmalpha1

Remember I warned you...lol

it is a VERY rough build. I am not kidding. I threw this thing together so fast it looks like a blind 6 month old monkey built this map. I am almost ashamed to pass this one on as it is

[wattro]

way too small, might be cool for 1v1 or 2v2. the rooms and hallways are all mega tight. the smallness of the flag room means many lava deaths.

[Magnus]

I tried to tell everyone. Most were thinking it would be way to big...lol

Most of the halls do need to be made bigger. The flag room also needs to be bigger. As far as lava deaths the bots tended to fall off a fair bit when heading for the JP behind the flag, but I never fell off unless I got knocked back by a rocket or rocket splash.

All of these issues can and will be changed. For now it simply shows the general layout and the concept behind some of the areas like the room that was along the red hall with the JP up to the ledge. As well as the way the halls enter the pre-mid room and how the metal grating seperates the upper and lower levels of the pre-mid room and how the grateing covers the lava in the lower level of that room preventing lava damage.

It all gets the point across. I played it with 3 v 3 and 5 v 5. 3 v 3 was very comfortable and 5 v 5 was a bit tight in some halls, but very exciting.

[ix-ir]

The overall scale will need some increase in size allthough the base to base distance is about right, perhaps a little more. The corridors are far too small, they need to be 2 to 3 times wider and have higher ceilings. You cannot strafe jump down the middle room exits without hitting the ceiling.

The middle is very good although you'll need to flatten the ground the central important item rests on, moving over the peak will create too many problems for an important item. Just the very top, the bridge effect is fine.

The flag room - hmm. It's all on a rather compressed scale, the cover pieces are very thin for example. I do like the flag room concept but it'll need tweaking to function, the flag plat will need to be a little wider and moved back further from the lower enterances so there's time to intercept a guy going from low to under. Once a guy is under the plat the defs have an extra direction to cover so this mustn't be too easy to reach. You should weapon clip the fractured walkway, it looks great but so many small gaps will create randomness with rockets and rocket jumping.

In the corridors I wonder at the 'adding interest' parts like the loop with a pillar in the middle. They're no going to do anything yet, the loop is far too small and the pillar too tiny. The split with 2 flights of stairs doesn't appear to do anything. The loop that contains the yellow armour is more like is although there's still a lack of floor space, it needs about 1.5 times as much floor area.

The steep corridors to the rail gun and low corridors to mid are too steep. The RG room is another location with far too little floor space.

"I played it with 3 v 3 and 5 v 5. 3 v 3 was very comfortable and 5 v 5 was a bit tight in some halls, but very exciting."

I assume you mean with bots? Humans take up more room in game by strafe jumping, getting in your way and spamming.

"but I never fell off unless I got knocked back by a rocket or rocket splash."

Players are going to be coming up and getting knocked off here constantly so it's probably better for the majority of the landings to be on solid ground unless the def can really send you flying or towards a specific spot. Defenders will also be getting knocked off the flag plat, a lava death is too strong a consequence everytime you get knocked off.

[Magnus]

I agree with everything said so far.

The darn thing is too cramped.

I love the features and areas we have come up with, but they need more room. Those those halls that you mentioned are too steep are that way because it is all too small and cramped. Those halls needed to be longer to be at a reasonable angle.

Like I said lots of folks were worried it was going to be too big, but I knew it was going to come out that way. I should have went ahead and built it bigger and just let those that downloaded it see once they got inside it that it was not as big as it seemed in the layout images.

Oh well. We can make any changes we need or want. It is still very alpha. If you have some ideas for how things should be positioned or sized feel free to make those changes. This is a PTM and you are on the team. :icon25:

If you guys would prefer that I rebuild this alpha with a cleaner build and larger scale before one of you take it over for a while I will do that. Just let me know.

I think we have a good start though and this thing is going to turn out to be a great CTF map.

[wattro]

well, when we said the hallways were too long, it's because we imagined the flag room being the right size... but since the flag room is way too small... =)

i seriously think you should scale of entire map in the x and y by 1.5 to 2 times, and all the halls should also have z scaled upwards by the same. -- it would be a solid start for figuring out where to change/reposition and/or condense

or make larger. bots are no way to determine playability as they don't move like you do.

5k x 2.5k units - i think the popular CTF maps for 4v4/5v5 are in the order of 7k x 4k to 9k x 6k (i just made that up)

anyways, it's very cool that you got an alpha out so damn quickly - well done!

[Magnus]

Oh no I agree that no matter what the width and height those halls were in the first several layouts far too long and were a railers dream in terms of halls...lol. I meant that a few folks were saying things like this maps seems to be getting way too large, and making it bigger would be a bad idea because it's too large as it is.

I even posted one layout image with black and white squares showing scale.

Wasn't it you that suggested making the map wider? Even that was said to be a bad idea and that the map was big.
I tried to say then that the map was going to be smaller than it seemed and it might be a good idea to scale the entire map.

Actually I did end up scaling the middle room and the map dimentions ended up being about 6144x3072 thus I also ended up having to scale the exit/entry halls on the north and south ends of the flag room and a few other places resulting in some things not working as they looked in the layout image.

Anyway that is all done now. Time to move on.

As far as testing the map with bots you are all correct. I just didn't think about players moving differently than bots.
Although it did give me an idea of how well players would be able to pass each other or block each other in the map.

Thanks for the compliment on getting an alpha out fast. :icon25:
And thanks for helping us with lots of things to consider so we can avoid certian mistakes due to not stoping to think about those things.

I am just going to rebuld the alpha and scale the map and build it a lot cleaner so the rest of the team have a better place to start with what ever they are going to do with it.

I am also going to fix that problem with the lava deaths in the flag room. I have a great idea for fixing that area and the mid room bridge being ramped up in the middle will be flattened out. I will also fix some of the other things mentioned so far.

[wattro]

admittedly I didn't notice the scale on the image - my bad =)

when is alpha 0.11 coming out? alpha 0.1 was a nice start and let people see what's up.

on an unrelated note (though related to the ptm), you are getting a lot of feedback from people who are not participating in the actual ptm. if that's a problem, tell me to feck off =)

in the mean time, i just like to help

[Magnus]

Funny you ask. Here it is.

ctfptmalpha1.1

Again only a few textures. Some suggestive item placement. Only compiled with -meta. .aas included as well as .map.

Most concerns have been taken care of and this is a cleaner build. There will still be plenty to deal with as I noticed a few things myself while testing it.

Anyway, I had to start over from scratch. That first version was just too nasty to try to build off of it.
I like this a lot better. I think everyone else will too. This version gives the next person a much better place to start.

@wattro:

I am glad to have you around to bring up things to think about. I would like to see more team members in here though.

Well everyone. Download, Play, Comment.

Thanks.

[wattro]

Very tight - the hallways have ceilings that are much too low and you bump your head, the gameplay in them is not really varied and the small rooms in the hallways are no place for any kind of decent skirmishes

that being said, there are some good ideas for layout, but i really think you need to double the size of the whole thing and shrink it from there

the simple rule of thumb - everywhere you are should be somewhere

[a13n]

Just had a look at alpha1.1.
It looks better than 1.0.
Some confusing places between each base and the center need arrow markers, maybe?

[Magnus]

You guys suck. I got more positive comments from that crappy first alpha...lol

Just kidding.

So the halls are still too low? Crap!

This time I mostly focused on correcting the lava death issue in the flag room and widening the halls and creating more floor space in some of the side and pre-mid rooms.
I looked at professional industry maps and went for their proportions.
Could a few people link me to some of the as mentioned "popular" CTF maps so I can get a look at how players like their areas proportioned?

I started learning some of the exploit moves form misantropia back when we played together, but even though I had a 6000k/800k connection I still was never able to find any multiplayer server without a like 350 ping or worse for me. So I never got into the advanced physics exploits like super straff jumping. I'm sure if I had it would have helped in understanding what sizes to make the halls in this map.

Oh well, enough babble. :icon29:

Back to the PTM components.

What about the changes to the flag room? Nice? Sux? Not bad, but not good?
Things that are a problem and need to be fixed or are nice and need to be kept as is?

[wattro]

i wouldn't worry about the flag room so much until you get the size worked out... then i would start tweaking the layout and that'll drive your flag room

[Magnus]

Just had a look at alpha1.1.
It looks better than 1.0.
Some confusing places between each base and the center need arrow markers, maybe?

That will help a lot. I was also thinking that once someone does the artwork or we decide on a final texture set and does the additional structures in the existing rooms and halls and does the trim and lighting a lot of the "lost" or "confusing" feeling will be done away with.

i wouldn't worry about the flag room so much until you get the size worked out... then i would start tweaking the layout and that'll drive your flag room

Good point. Don't want to put the cart before the horse.

Well this isn't going any further untill we hear from the rest of the team on the layout in it's current state.

Then I will make any additional changes as well as those already mentioned.

[ix-ir]

Coloured lights are a good way to mark halves during the alpha stage to help people workout where they are.

[Magnus]

Coloured lights are a good way to mark halves during the alpha stage to help people workout where they are.

Oooo. Good idea man. :icon14:

Let the colored light entities tint the walls a blueish or redish color, but there are areas that can be a bit confusing that area totally on one side or the other. I think some better lighting would be helpfull at this point.
Not anything final, but something so we can do more than just a -meta compile and this will help to give a better sense of your surroundings.

Anyone wanna take on adding some minor lighting to this alpha phase of the map?

I will do it if needed, and I could just create a script for one version of my rock wall texture so that it emits light and use that to light the map for now, but I would like to take a break for a day or so, but at the same time I think we should try to keep working on the map. So anyway, anyone want to pick up from here for a day and maybe do some light work and scaling of some of the halls and if needed rooms?

[ix-ir]

I'll have a look at the map for a bit so hold off on any modifications. Just for reference the easiest way (not actually tested this :P) to do coloured lighting would probably be to split the map into func groups with different coloured ambient values just to give the areas different hues.

From looking at it: the scale is much closer to being right, the mid and flag rooms are there, the tunnels need a little fattening in places but are coming along in the right direction. I'd suggest replacing (and will try it) all of the mesh texture with broken up floors.

Edit: looking at the map file - don't overlap brushes, you don't need to have excess brush beyond what's visible, structural brushes can meet only along an edge and still seal off the void properly. Stick to the grid, especially with diagonals, 8 units is the smallest you should go for the vast majority of stuff, certainly at the alpha level.

[dichtfux]

Did you consider rotating/mirroring the map using Mirix yet? It's very easy and can adapt light colors, textures etc automatically for the mirrored part of the map. No messing around with func groups needed and lots of other handy stuff.

I used it for my ctf maps and really like it. Only downside is that it's win32 only.

http://planetquake.gamespy.com/View.php ... il&id=1734