Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog (Update 07/03)

Anything to do with games at all.
User avatar
That
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Joined in 2008

PostCreating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog (Update 07/03)
by That » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:17 pm

Hey all. I'm making a TF2 map, pl_surface_tension (aka "Surface Tension"), and I thought this would be a nice thing to shove in here to try and get the Creativity folder going. Whilst I may just give up eventually (level design is a tricky business), I'm going to try and plough through with this as far as I can. As long as I am actually doing stuff I'll be updating this thread regularly.

--

Surface Tension is currently 2% complete. It is in the state Miniround 1 Architecture.

--

Contents
7th March, Keep This Doorway Clear
28th February, Bomb Spawn
21st February, Comparing: 6 Months Ago and Now
21st February, Terrain 2 (The Wrath of Khan)
19th February, Terrain
2nd January, Black Mesa Sector C: Test Labs & Control Facilities
13th December, Experimentation
25th October, Back! Screenshot Research
6th October, Hiatus
3rd September, Balancing
2nd September, Back to Planning
28th August, Complicated Stuff
23rd August, Rendering Engines
21st August, Assets
19th August, Building up Geometry
18th August, Making Textures Interesting
17th August, Surface Tension
17th August, Importance of Preplanning

--

Saturday 7th March

Minor stuff first! Updated the fence object:

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Onto the bigger stuff. I completed a little doorway in the rock wall which will act as a graphical explanation for the cart's spawn point. Cutting an actual tunnel into displacements is overcomplicated and not recommended; for this reason I've just added a door right over the edge of the rock face. Hopefully no-one will question it!

Image
Click for a bigger version.

I also finished off the cliff-edges, and expanded the bomb building slightly so that it's more in-scale with the buildings at the start of the level.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

For my hard work I'm going to award myself an extra percentage point. 2%, woo!


Saturday 28th February

My original plan called for the next piece of terrain I made to be a plain rock wall, but it occurred to me that it could turn out quite bland and unattractive, especially considering my relative lack of experience with displacement geometry. I decided to instead carve a piece of the cliff-face out and improvise a quick detail building to sit in the resultant hole. When considering the purpose of the detail building (because everything in a map should have a purpose), I thought of my bomb-cart, and how at the moment it just emerges out of a hole in the ground unexplained; perhaps something pertaining to the transportation of said bombs could be a good idea? I ran with it.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Zoomed in, you can see the conveyor system, with bombs under-way, ready for the event that this team is not the one that makes it to the Red base. If the detail seems crude, it's because (a) it will be dimly lit and (b) I'm not doing prop_detail work until I've got the rest of the map done.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

On a completely unrelated note, I found that Valve with the latest update have added the Something Awful TF2 server "advertisements" from cp_steel to the textures which are accessible in Hammer.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Knifeback Mountain is the UK Something Awful TF2 server (and the one I play on), and the Lost Continents are the same but for the US. Fishbus, cp_steel's designer, put joke advertisements for KBM and the LCs into his map before he knew that it would be popular enough to be rereleased by Valve - he had no idea that his funny decals would one day be usable by anyone making a map!


Saturday 21st February Addendum

I thought I might get around to doing some lighting soon, and then rediscovered the reason I was leaving it. To do the lighting, I planned on copying some already set-up and fine-tuned props from my first attempt at Surface Tension.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Going back looking around the former image in Hammer, straight from the latter, was a bit of a shock! One thing my very first alpha did quite well was the detail rooms, though.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Which do you prefer? The very old version of the detail room is probably the better one in most people's opinions. Why, then, could this be a bad thing? Well, I think that concentrating too much at this early stage on the little detail rooms, signs, overlays, and lighting effects is detrimental to the map on the whole. Yes, I'll have to go back to it, but it's not something that should be consuming too much of my time now. Looking at a1, made over six months (!!) ago, made me remember that, after hours of tweaking perfect, vibrant lighting and spooky, atmospheric detail rooms, I still had to start again because my buildings were still basically hollowed-out cubes, and it simply wasn't good enough.

What's your take on version a1, from July '08? Input encouraged!


Saturday 21st February

Continued building my terrain today. I've reworked the courtyard outside the base a little bit: I've removed the fence around the storage warehouse area entrance, as I want to give the Blu team more room inside the spawn area to roam during set-up time. I thought that, with the inner fence in place, things could get a little boring as you would be quite restricted in where you could go. I also applied alpha blending to the ground, and it looks a tad less bland now.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

I also built up the outer fence, which separates the spawn area from the main battleground. The chicken-wire fence enables Blu to get a good look at Red's set-up, and Red to get a good look at Blu's class balance. As an aside, you may notice a cute little Blu Soldier standing outside. That's a prop model I've put in to hopefully get a sense of scale going while the map is still unplayable, as in Hammer it's very easy to lose track of how big (or small) things actually are from an in-game perspective.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

I've also used a bomb cart as a scale prop for my cliff-face geometry. The practical side to using the bomb cart for this is that it makes absolutely sure that the cart won't look odd next to the cliff, as a hole in that cliff is where the cart will spawn from.


Thursday 19th February

Got some progress done, after being made to feel a bit guilty by Roony! I've started working on some of the terrain around the Black Mesa site. Part of the reason I chose Surface Tension as a model for my map is that it's based in a wasteland environment, which fits in nicely with maps such as Dustbowl and Badlands, and the textures that they expose.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

The toughest part of this is building up the displacements which make up rockfaces and floors. The method of "painting" geometry in displacements is a stark contrast to the very precise and calculated architectural techniques needed when making a building or other man-made structure.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

The reason this looks like arse? Twofold. The first reason is that the map is uniformly lit; this is Source making up for me not putting lighting effects in. This enables us to see the map at a stage where placing, fine-tuning and crafting lighting effects would be pointless, but does result in everything looking very flat and washed-out. The second is that, as of yet, I've done no alpha-blending on my displacements. Alpha-blending is a method of displaying a texture "on top" of a displacement that allows us to have paths in grass, or different types of gravel and sand brushed over eachother.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

I've not set up my custom textures properly, hence the wireframe. Also, yes, that is a skybox from Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (it's the default). As you can see, the map is very much in a barely displayable form, but this is still a significant step in pl_surface_tension's life.


Friday 2nd January

I began the tweaking process for this after Christmas, and have only just got to a place I feel comfortable in. The original geometry has been overlayed to provide points of visual interest - slants and overlaps, as well as more curves. This results in a better, more interesting environment for the player (bearing in mind that the player will have to spend 50 seconds at the start of every map basically staring at the wall, since the defending team needs setup time).

Image
Click for a bigger version.

You can see that I'm using more interesting combinations of textures in this design, as well as being less reliant on prop models for detail. You may also spot my first piece of custom content: a 'decal' reading "Black Mesa Sector C: Test Labs & Control Facilities". I plan to put many such posters, logos and Easter eggs throughout the map as a homage to the game that inspired it.

I'm very pleased with this design, and how it incorporates elements from all previous layouts (see: the Black Mesa logo and base idea in initial planning, two-textures-per-wall and the roof textures from Texturing Concept #1, and the overlapping for visual interest from Texturing Concept #2).

This is probably the final version of the spawn room - so I've now finally, after months, left the research and planning stage! Hooray! (Surface Tension is currently 1% complete. It is in the state Miniround 1 Architecture and Texturing.)


Saturday 13th December

Got some free time finally.

I've made an alpha version of part of the revised spawn area that I planned using the Surface Tension walkthrough on Youtube, described in the last post. The first step was as always to get some geometry going:

Image
Click for a bigger version.

I wanted to get some curves in there, as straight geometry can be boring and harsh to look at. The Vault door was a lucky find in that respect: not only is it nice and rounded but it's also large enough to fit the exit building perfectly. Apart from that I just tried to stick as close as possible to the plan and the HL1 screenshots in this initial alpha, whilst reusing the general structure from past spawn area alphas where possible.

I then tried some texturing:
Image
Click for a bigger version.

The main challenge here was creating a believable building without it being visually unsatisfying. Originally I had the building made out of a large concrete block texture, but I found that this combined with the block pillars made for a bland structure. I settled on this subtle brickwork effect for the main building, similar to the one used in the original spawn area, keeping different types of blocks for the pillars. I then used metal textures for some detail, and added a few large props to the area to give it some detail: this will of course be supplemented by lots of smaller props, lights etc in the final version.

Comments as always welcome.


Saturday 25th October

Update time! It's now half-term, so there should be a few updates over the next week.

I've been looking at the very end of the YouTube tutorial for the Questionable Ethics chapter of Half-Life. Why? Because I didn't feel comfortable with the spawn area for Blu bearing no resemblance to the area in which Surface Tension begins. By incorporating the end of Questionable Ethics into the background detail for the Blu spawn area, the Half-Life map and the TF2 map can be made similar, even though the actual tunnel that the Surface Tension HL1 chapter begins in would be impractical to reproduce.

Here are some screenshots of the area just between Questionable Ethics' last laboratories and Surface Tension's first dusty, rock-strewn battleground:

Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
Click for bigger versions.

Using the background buildings behind the fence, and perhaps even some dead civilian prop models, one can easily get the effect of similarity with the scene in the above screenshots without compromising the core design of the TF2 map. The spawn area does have to be re-drawn, though:

Image
Click for a bigger version.

The spawn area detail in the new overview is larger and more varied, consisting more of a straight wall with a rock overhang, so in principle it could be considered a better design anyway. Nonetheless, you might be wondering what will happen to the geometry I've already come up with concerning the spawn area; the answer is that it will, with some simple retexturing, be absorbed into the background complex.


Monday 6th October

Yes, I know it's been a month. Shut up, SHUT UP! I've been very busy with school revision and coursework - I did tell you this would happen! - but I should be getting some stuff done over next half-term.


Wednesday 3rd September

Tiarny, being a man for all seasons (loves them and leaves them alone ... so alone), spotted a potential imbalance in Stage 1. Since balancing maps is an interesting subject, I thought I'd go through it here rather than in a reply.

Tiarny's concern was with the alternate route opened up when the cart was pushed to the checkpoint, and I can somewhat see where he is coming from; whilst I don't think the high ground advantage will be much use to Blu when all they have is water underneath them, what I do find concerning is the easy access that Blu have to Red's spawn. Casting around for similar examples in Valve's maps in my mind, I am reminded of Dustbowl's 2nd Stage, wherein it is possible for a defender to travel directly to the attackers' spawn via the side tunnel (then behind the house and through Control Point 1). This in reality is not exploited often, however that may be because Red have a control point to defend which draws them back to their spawn. If the teams were swapped, would spawn camping become a problem through that route?

The only way to tell how exploitable it is is to playtest it, I suppose. Certainly the water passage can be moved (in an upwards direction on the overview) so that you come out directly next to the dam's right side - this would draw the Blu player to attack the dam as intended, and make for a longer distance to travel to Red's spawn.

That particular issue thought about, here's what I call an 'ease of defense' map. I created a chokepoint map (green being easy for the attackers to move freely, red being very hard for the attackers to move freely). Then I created an ideal sentry location map and simply merged them together.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

I have to say that I didn't quite intend for the left route onto the dam to be quite that easily defendable, however upon thought I don't have a huge problem with it - it just encourages the good use of an uber and/or the alternate route and/or spies, in my opinion. There are far worse chokepoints in, say, the last stages of Dustbowl or Goldrush. The house and the dam control room are easily defended, there are bits in-between which are easily attacked.

Overall the stage seems to be fairly reasonable. I didn't factor in a distance-from-spawn gradient or things like potential sniper hotspots because there's only so much that you can gain from diagrams (especially with the dynamic nature of the Payload gametype); what thought I gave to them suggested what the ease-of-defence map suggests right now anyway: the stage starts off easy and gets harder towards the end, and has parts which naturally become the front lines depending on how far Blu has pushed. This is intended and universal to all round-based maps.

Once again, all comments appreciated.


Tuesday 2nd September

Back to more explicitly map-related stuff! I've been working on knocking up some map overviews. Way back when I made the original spawn plan I created the first version of the map overview, and I've been editing and working on that since. Tonight I created what I think will be (more or less) the final version of the map overview.

When I was considering the map in general, what I wanted to do was create something which gradually sank into the ground. This is for two reasons - one, to give the feeling that you're travelling down into a hidden underground base (the Lambda Complex), and two, because many maps are quite flat and I felt it was important to have lots of vertical levels. I also wanted to stages to snake around each other, partly to offer people glimpses of latter stages in the first stage, and partly because it helps with optimisation.

Image
Click for a bigger version.

In this stage there are 6 different main height levels, as well as modifying high/low spots as well.

I am aware that it is not the clearest diagram ever (it makes sense to me and that's all that really matters, I suppose); I'd be interested in hearing peoples' thoughts on it, and of course if there's anything there that's hard to follow I'll try and clean it up at a later date.


Thursday 28th August

Mini-update so the first post doesn't completely stagnate: OpenGL is bloody complicated. To define a point properly, you need three structs:

Code: Select all

struct Vertex                  // This structure defines the colour
{                              // and position of a vertex. Though this
  unsigned char r, g, b, a;    // may seem like all you need for a
  float x, y, z;               // point, consider applying lighting
}                              // or textures...

Code: Select all

struct Normal      // This structure defines a point away from the
{                  // origin (thus defining a vector). This is
  float x, y, z;   // the normal vector, and defines the direction
}                  // the face is pointing, used for lighting.

Code: Select all

struct TextureCoordinates  // This structure defines texture
{                          // coordinates, which tells OpenGL
  float x, y;              // the area of the texture file to map
}                          // to the current polygon.


It gets more complex when you want to calculate normals on the fly - you need a dedicated Vertex class. The basic idea behind it is this: Before rendering anything, you build the polygons in memory. For every polygon you can calculate a normal and add that normal as an attribute to every vertex in that polygon. By rendering stage, every vertex will hold the normal for every polygon it is part of, and averaging those normals will produce the vertex normal.

tl;dr It's really complex to even define a point in space in a way that is useful.


Saturday 23rd August

I've been having a look at doing some SDL/OpenGL programming for a while, as I think that I'll be able to design better, more optimised and efficient maps if I have a knowledge of the code being used to render it. The one 'gotcha' that immediately jumped out at me, something that is obvious in the code but that I never would have discovered through pure mapping, is face normals (or back-culling).

When you draw a face in OpenGL (and DirectX as well), you give the renderer a series of points. It turns out that the ordering of the points is important; the renderer stores the order in which the points were given, and the face will only be visible from the side from which the points were placed in a counter-clockwise fashion. From the other side, where the points go clockwise, the face will not be visible at all!

Hammer works in terms of 3D shapes, and puts the points in such a way that every face has counter-clockwise vectors when looking at the face from the outside of the 3D object. However, consider this:

I texture the front face of my cube with a green texture, and all of the other faces with a transparent texture. Surely this will result in a green plane, no-matter what angle the cube is viewed from? This is a reasonable expectation, however the result is quite different.

Image

Because of back-culling, the 'visible' face is not visible at all from behind the cube! This has practical repercussions for any object using semi-transparent texturing. I hope to continue my OpenGL adventure in the hopes of learning more about how a map is actually rendered in a game engine.

For anyone wondering, here is the code required to make an SDL/OpenGL skeleton application:

Main.h http://pastebin.com/f37d869ad (Main program header.)
Main.cpp http://pastebin.com/f2b54c844 (Main program code.)
Core.h http://pastebin.com/f778f9fac (OpenGL core class definitions.)
Core.cpp http://pastebin.com/f4a3664ac (OpenGL core class content.)


Thursday 21st August

Looks like some neat new assets have come with the Heavy update. There are some new metal roof textures (so much so that even Dustbowl has had some replaced). There are lots of new rock prop models from Badwater Basin, as well as new metal wall textures from Ravine. I'm studying the maps as I play and learn them, hoping to gain an insight into the criteria Valve use when choosing to create these new assets over using relatively similar pre-existing ones.

The reasoning behind the new Lumberyard assets is simple - nothing like it existed in the game before. However, Lumberyard looks nothing like the New Mexico desert, so let's ignore it for now. In Badwater Basin, new prop models were made for rocks that provide vertical detail and support for other structures. Ravine features new textures - there are a lot of metal and wood building textures used, so my guess is Valve created some new ones to add visual detail and variety.


Tuesday 19th August

Now that I'd created a 'texture palette', as it were, with my first attempt at the Black Mesa base, it was time to turn my attention to hard physical geometry. Whilst I was happy with the texturing on Attempt #1, I was not happy with my geometry - it stuck to my sketch plan too rigidly, and could thus be summarised as "2 cubes stuck to a face". This was clearly not the way to sculpt an interesting and varied environment.

I started off with these ideas in mind: changes in height, visible scaffolding, building overlap. Using these themes, I created plain, untextured geometry and edited and added to it until I was happy:

Image
Click for a bigger version.

I then used the same textures as the ones I used in the first attempt to complete the base:

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Overall I feel that this is a much stronger design than yesterday's, and I think that it could easily be very visually interesting: prop models can be applied to the roofs and my custom decals can be applied to some of the bare faces. Extra detail geometry such as windows and support bars will also be added.


Monday 18th August

When making a level it is of course vital to keep the textures used visually exciting. When you're concerned about not using textures that clash it can be tempting to just use the same handful of plainish-but-at-least-they-work textures everywhere, but I'm sure you can realise that this will not make for an environment that excites the player. Whilst overlay materials and prop models can be used to great effect in adding detail, these steps will be entirely in vain if your geometry and its texturing do not please the eye.

Today when I was making the main geometry for the Black Mesa base / Blu spawn area, I came up against a problem: seemingly, there was only 1 texture I could possibly use on every single one of these walls without it looking silly to my eye. Of course, this wasn't good enough! The key to overcoming such a problem is experimentation.

The walls are made out of metal, so first I looked to other materials to find textures I could use to highlight and contrast my metal. It turns out there is a concrete-slab texture with a dark upper trim that looks like it could be used as a foundation for supporting a structure; I made the bottom half of the main base wall use this texture. This works because the trim acts as a visual border between the metal upper half and the concrete lower half, and it's logically possible that you may support a metal structure on a solid concrete base. Meanwhile, the visual excitement is created which previously did not exist.

After adding in the touch of concrete, I started to look for similar textures to my metal texture that 'worked' and found that, although there were none of the same style of metal, there were some of different types of metal which shared my working texture's rust motif. The newly discovered rusty textures share a visual element with my main metal texture and this helps them fit in together; however, since they are not the same texture (indeed, one is flat and orange, whereas the other is ridged and grey-blue) it adds another layer of visual interest to the scene.

I eventually was left with multiple types of texture sharing my rust motif. I used one type on the inside of the spawn / exit huts, and the other type on the outside, using a chrome, bolted bar on the sides.

The image below shows the working basic geometry and texturing for the base. This is very early on in the base's development and lots of things are not yet done, however it is worth spending this much time thinking about the very basics, as if the basics are not there then no amount of more advanced mapping will be able to save the design. (The screenshot also provides you with a look at Hammer, the Source Engine world editor tool.)

Image
Click for a bigger version.


Sunday 17th August Addendum

Someone asked me on Steam whether the name "Surface Tension" had any significance, noting the Black Mesa logos visible in the Blu Spawn plan. Yes, I'm basing this map around some areas of Half Life 1, and since the first stage is drawing from the level Surface Tension I thought it would be an appropriate map name. Here's the list of areas I've drawn up:

    1. Surface Tension (Cliffs)
    2. Surface Tension (Dam)
    1. Forget About Freeman (Tank Corridor)
    2. Forget About Freeman (Warehouses)
    1. Lambda Complex (Entrance)
    2. Lambda Complex (Generators and Labs)
    3. Lambda Complex (Teleportation Hub)

The areas for Miniround 1 are set in stone, but I've got no final plans for Minirounds 2 or 3 yet. I'm watching a Half Life 1 walkthrough on Youtube and taking notes on what I could draw from.


Sunday 17th August

A huge part of making a good map is sketching and planning it out. I have a big pile of concept sketches on my desk and a folder full of "partial" maps in which I've tested out different textures and geometry ideas - this has culminated in the final design for Blu Spawn, Miniround 1:

Image
Click for a bigger version.

Last edited by That on Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:03 pm, edited 25 times in total.
Image
User avatar
smurphy
Member
Joined in 2008
AKA: A Little Cocky Child
Location: Scotland

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by smurphy » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:21 pm

Out of all the Source games this is the hardest one you could have picked to make a map for. :D

User avatar
Qikz
#420BlazeIt ♥
Joined in 2011

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Qikz » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:24 pm

KP, That looks awsome. Can't wait to be able to try it out.

I was wondering why when I checked you were always on Source SDK.

The Watching Artist wrote:I feel so inept next to Qikz...
User avatar
That
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by That » Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:08 pm

smurphy wrote:Out of all the Source games this is the hardest one you could have picked to make a map for. :D


Good to know. :lol:

I've updated the blog with a bit of background on the name and theme of the map.

Image
User avatar
Cal
Member
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Cal » Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:12 pm

Over the years I've fiddled about with Source, UnreadEd and DoomEd. Good on you, karlprof for giving this a go. Level building is often a lot harder than most people imagine, but pre-planning is definitely the way to go, as is testing out small assemblies in-engine. Good luck with the project!

User avatar
emilythestrange
Member
Joined in 2008
Location: Vekta
Contact:

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by emilythestrange » Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:42 pm

KP, that looks like a great idea so far :)

Cal, you can use UnrealEd? Do you know of any sites/books or anything I can use to help me understand it? I keep trying every now and then, and just can't get to grips at all with anything. I did find a site with help videos, that said it was going over the basics, but I just can't understand anything (like moving things around, selecting things - I'm utterly bewildered, it seems entirely different to 3DS Max)

User avatar
Cal
Member
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Cal » Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:01 pm

emilythestrange wrote:KP, that looks like a great idea so far :)

Cal, you can use UnrealEd? Do you know of any sites/books or anything I can use to help me understand it? I keep trying every now and then, and just can't get to grips at all with anything. I did find a site with help videos, that said it was going over the basics, but I just can't understand anything (like moving things around, selecting things - I'm utterly bewildered, it seems entirely different to 3DS Max)


It is very different to 3DSMax. It's a subtractive modelling programme - basically you 'carve out' your geometry from an infitinitely large solid, creating rooms, walls, stairs, halls, etc. 'Meshes' are imported models from a traditional app like 3DSMax, use very little in the way of cpu overheads and can add the 'detail' to a level that CSG cannot.

In terms of reference books, I have a copy of

Image

which was written for, and concerns, the version of UnrealEd3 that shipped with UT2003. You could pick this book up on e-bay or Amazon second hand (it's a 962 page book and it shipped with a CDRom of lesson examples and Maya plugins) if you can no longer find it new. Bear in mind a good third of the book concerns itself with using Maya with UnrealEd3 (the 3D app used by Epic to design meshes and character models/animations for UT2003). This would be a good book to have, however, because even the very latest version of UnrealEd still works along most of the same underlying principles and you will therefore be introduced to fundamental and enormously useful techniques for working with UnrealEd.

I'm a Max user, myself, and you can get more information about using 3DSMax with Unrealed here:
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:3D_Studio_Max

and there are excellent FREE UnrealED video tutorials covering the basics and more here:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php - start with '[2k3 (UT2003) - Level Design]' and move through all the '2k3' videos. The UT3 videos are for the latest version of UnrealEd, if you want to look at them, too.

And just looking around the web with the correct search terms for links between 3dsMax and Unrealed can yield free plugins and other useful files.

Hope this helps! Shout again if you need more assistance!

Last edited by Cal on Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
emilythestrange
Member
Joined in 2008
Location: Vekta
Contact:

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by emilythestrange » Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:08 pm

Thankyou! :)

User avatar
Green Gecko
Treasurer
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Green Gecko » Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:46 am

Nice project KP, be sure to keep us posted. Also if you need any meshes maybe you can get some other people involved? I know a bit of 3ds Max, as does Cal and a few others.

Cal, cheers for those links, I've not seen them before. I've learnt to make basic maps in UE2, up to creating static meshes in 3ds Max and then importing them for populating an area.. as well as using movers to make doors and lifts, stuff like that. It's a relatively easy map editor once you get the hang of the controls, which are odd. I really want to make something workable in it though. I'm interested in using the engine at uni to make virtual worlds for my digital screen arts units.

Emily - I've used a small bunch of tutorials that get you through some core features pretty quick, which I can upload for you if you want? They are designed for a Level Design unit in a games design course by an educational materials company, and are fairly good. It comes videos, PDFs and sample maps for each lesson.

I'm gonna try my hand at Source sometime but I quite like UE and it seems to be the engine to go for this gen, and so probably the best to learn. The UE has a well documented pipeline, especially at places like BeyondUnreal and with plug-ins like ActorX for 3ds Max to get your animations in.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
_________________________________________

❤ btw GRcade costs money and depends on donations - please support one of the UK's oldest video gaming forums → HOW TO DONATE
User avatar
That
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by That » Mon Aug 18, 2008 7:51 am

Green Gecko wrote:Nice project KP, be sure to keep us posted. Also if you need any meshes maybe you can get some other people involved? I know a bit of 3ds Max, as does Cal and a few others.


Cheers for the offer dude, I'll definitely bear it in mind when it comes to making the Lambda Complex (I can see myself needing some lab-esque props). The SDK probably comes with enough assets to make the Surface Tension and Forget About Freeman stages, though.

I've updated the first post with some thoughts on texturing basic geometry, revolving around some work I did early this morning. There's also a look at the Hammer World Editor (the Source Engine map creation tool) in the corresponding screenshot. Please be gentle with me about any grammatical errors, I've been up all night. :(

Image
User avatar
Qikz
#420BlazeIt ♥
Joined in 2011

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Qikz » Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:01 am

Looking nice KP, Do you ever sleep though? :lol:

I used to know a dab hand about 3DS Max aswell, so I should be able to help you out a little bit if you ever need me too. I'm geussing Cal and Gecko are the better choice since it's been a while.

The Watching Artist wrote:I feel so inept next to Qikz...
User avatar
blackoutHERO
Member
Joined in 2008
Location: Scotland

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by blackoutHERO » Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:08 pm

Looks fantastic. Can't wait to try it out. Maybe it'll be in next TF2 update ;) .

User avatar
rogwilco
Member
Joined in 2008
Location: Blackpool

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by rogwilco » Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:32 am

Ah that screenshot of Hammer brings back memories. I used to use it when it was called Worldcraft back in the days of Quake but more so for making Half-Life maps. I made a complete episode in single player HL which contained roughly 12 large maps. Worked on it for over 2 years. I even used to take digital pictures for my own textures. I'll have to did it out sometime. Anyway good luck with the project!

Also I was that addicted to the whole mapping thing at uni that I did my dissertation based on Hammer! :lol:

Image
User avatar
Crimson
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Crimson » Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:12 pm

Good stuff KP, looking forward to seeing how it develops.

User avatar
That
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by That » Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:33 pm

StayingDead wrote:Looking nice KP, Do you ever sleep though? :lol:


I slept 11 hours today. Overslept massively and embarrassed myself by getting up at 2. :oops: I imagine that was my body's "strawberry float you" to me for going 36+ hours without sleep.

blackoutHERO wrote:Looks fantastic. Can't wait to try it out. Maybe it'll be in next TF2 update ;) .


Cheers mate. I doubt it'll be even in beta by the next update, though - I have some issues with colour (most of my creative endeavours are done in greyscale) which means that in texturing especially I have to gooo veeeery slooowly to avoid producing absolute shite.

On the blog note, I revamped the Black Mesa base geometry today, and I think it looks a lot better - interested in hearing you-lots' thoughts on it.

P.S. Thank you very much to everyone that's offered help with modelling and prop-making. It's much appreciated, and as soon as I come up against a problem wherein I don't have an appropriate prop (I can imagine Lambda Complex being full of said problems) I shall definitely be poking y'all. (That is, if I get to doing the Lambda Complex. I make no promises about not just giving up once schools starts again. :P )

Image
User avatar
Qikz
#420BlazeIt ♥
Joined in 2011

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Qikz » Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:47 pm

Karlprof wrote:Cheers mate.


Image

You'll get there eventually, as many people have already stated in this thread, making maps for TF2 is a hell of a lot harder than it is CSS. From what you've shown in the drawing, if this ever gets finished it'll be awsome.

What type of map will it be? Dustbowl Style. Payload, CTF, Granary Style or Gravelpit Style?

The Watching Artist wrote:I feel so inept next to Qikz...
User avatar
That
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by That » Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:50 pm

Dustbowl-Style Payload, like Goldrush.

(As opposed to Gravelpit-Style Payload, which is what Badwater Basin will be.)

Image
User avatar
Qikz
#420BlazeIt ♥
Joined in 2011

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Qikz » Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:02 pm

Karlprof wrote:Dustbowl-Style Payload, like Goldrush.

(As opposed to Gravelpit-Style Payload, which is what Badwater Basin will be.)


So, you mean as in lots of choke points, not so open area like Badwater is going to be?

The Watching Artist wrote:I feel so inept next to Qikz...
User avatar
That
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Dr. Nyaaa~!
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by That » Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:11 pm

StayingDead wrote:
Karlprof wrote:Dustbowl-Style Payload, like Goldrush.

(As opposed to Gravelpit-Style Payload, which is what Badwater Basin will be.)


So, you mean as in lots of choke points, not so open area like Badwater is going to be?


That, as well as Surface Tension will be round-based like Dustbowl (and Goldrush), and not Attack/Defence-based like Gravelpit (and Badwater Basin).

Image
User avatar
Captian Kil
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Creating a TF2 Map: "Surface Tension" Devblog
by Captian Kil » Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:39 pm

KP can you let us all test the map once your finished please?

Image

Jiggles wrote:What even is money?

Return to “Games”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: abcd, Garth, Kriken, Photek, Ploiper, Red 5 stella, Robbo-92, SEP and 379 guests