Layout Design Experimentation

remiremi remedy [blu.knight] Join Date: 2003-11-18 Member: 23112Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester
edited July 2012 in Mapping
This was an experiment in trying to take a "virtual layout" and transform it into an actual layout with proper timings. It seems like doing this while maintaining the timings is a lot of guess work, but doing it this way let me untangle the paths and put in a bunch of right angles to shorten paths so that the whole map layout would be able to actually fit flat on a piece of paper.

First, I sketched up a "virtual layout" and put the desired timings next to each path
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/98668/MapLayout/IMG_20120707_124808.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

Then I cut out an index card for each room, and a piece of wire with a length relative to the desired timing distances (each 5 second interval was an inch of wire)
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/98668/MapLayout/IMG_20120707_182126.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

Hook it all up
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/98668/MapLayout/IMG_20120707_183320.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

And finally, bend it all in to have right angles and such to try to get the map to fit together right!
<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/98668/MapLayout/IMG_20120707_184408.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

It was an interesting experiment. The nice thing about it is that with this finished thing, I know if I actually greybox it the timings will be correct. It's definitely still rough pathing though, I still need to make those hallways more interesting, more refined, and make sure they are actually in scale with the rooms... but I think this will definitely help reduce the margin of error in that step. Plus, from this, I could also very easily add some secondary routes while still maintaining the timing to make the map a bit more intricate.

Not sure if anyone else has ever tried something like this, but it seemed worth sharing. :)

Comments

  • schkorpioschkorpio I can mspaint Join Date: 2003-05-23 Member: 16635Members
  • remiremi remedy [blu.knight] Join Date: 2003-11-18 Member: 23112Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester
    edited July 2012
    And here's my imperfect translation of that mess of wire and paper to an actual map layout:
    <img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/98668/MapLayout/skylayout2.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
    (Note, north path in Internal Wiring probably needs to be lengthened to get the right timing)
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