C&c My Map Layout Please
menohack
Join Date: 2004-02-29 Member: 26995Members
Join Date: 2004-02-29 Member: 26995Members
<EDIT2>
<a href='http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v166/menohack/map4.jpg' target='_blank'>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v166/menohack/map4.jpg</a>
All I did was add a vent to MS, which I forgot to add before. There seems to be a big hole between MS and double, but I think I'll just change the size of the hallways a bit so it fits better.
</EDIT2>
This is just an early layout for my map, and I'd like to get some advice on how to make it a good map.
There are 10 res nozzles, and I don't really like their placement. The area in a yellow box is going to be called Reactor and it will be an infested reactor that is lower than the rest of the map. The little room next to it is going to be a siege room, and it is also lowered. The diamon-shaped entrance to the hive is either going to be a series of ladders or an elevator. I wanted to put an RT in the siege room so that the aliens would have more of an inclenation to protect it, but that would give me 11 RTs and I wanted to keep it at 10.
The red circles are RTs.
The green circles are hives.
The blue circle is the marine start.
The top left of the map is going to be a metal ore refinery room, where there will be a big bucket pouring hot metal.
The grey lines are vents that are lower than the rooms, and the thinner white lines are normal vents.
I am not happy with this layout so far, because it seems way too small with too few rooms.
I also have a few little questions about specifically NS mapping.
How can I make only one side of a wall visable to a commander, along with the top of it? Because normally I can see the outside of my walls and I can even build on the top. I noticed that in professional maps, you can only see the inner wall.
When I make a ceiling, I make it func_seethrough so the commander can see through it. But for some reason skulks can't walk on the ceiling.
Also, I could use some advice for applying textures, as they don't seem to come out flush around a four sided room.
Oh and I'm planning on calling the map ns_refinery, unless that's already taken.
<a href='http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v166/menohack/map4.jpg' target='_blank'>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v166/menohack/map4.jpg</a>
All I did was add a vent to MS, which I forgot to add before. There seems to be a big hole between MS and double, but I think I'll just change the size of the hallways a bit so it fits better.
</EDIT2>
This is just an early layout for my map, and I'd like to get some advice on how to make it a good map.
There are 10 res nozzles, and I don't really like their placement. The area in a yellow box is going to be called Reactor and it will be an infested reactor that is lower than the rest of the map. The little room next to it is going to be a siege room, and it is also lowered. The diamon-shaped entrance to the hive is either going to be a series of ladders or an elevator. I wanted to put an RT in the siege room so that the aliens would have more of an inclenation to protect it, but that would give me 11 RTs and I wanted to keep it at 10.
The red circles are RTs.
The green circles are hives.
The blue circle is the marine start.
The top left of the map is going to be a metal ore refinery room, where there will be a big bucket pouring hot metal.
The grey lines are vents that are lower than the rooms, and the thinner white lines are normal vents.
I am not happy with this layout so far, because it seems way too small with too few rooms.
I also have a few little questions about specifically NS mapping.
How can I make only one side of a wall visable to a commander, along with the top of it? Because normally I can see the outside of my walls and I can even build on the top. I noticed that in professional maps, you can only see the inner wall.
When I make a ceiling, I make it func_seethrough so the commander can see through it. But for some reason skulks can't walk on the ceiling.
Also, I could use some advice for applying textures, as they don't seem to come out flush around a four sided room.
Oh and I'm planning on calling the map ns_refinery, unless that's already taken.
Comments
use image shack is better to host images and show thumbnails(i hope this is the word for that small size of the image).
i see in your map 2 main troubles squares in all place and back ways behind hive.
i'm almost 4 months making a simple combat map and not more than 10 rooms plus short hallways so if u wanna make all this start a search in the web for similar rooms and start to play with shapes and textures since u choice your textures plus shapes start the map layout, some times u make a perfect layour but lack in skill to shape and texture or u dunno what to put or how to make.
I bring to u the wise learn of:
hey guy start a room after a combat map and them your first ns map.
almost 1 years learning map and making empty rooms with worse textures, plus 1 year of ns maps doesnt work and now 4 months of sucess co map version beta.
maybe your are genius and can jump from a draw to a map.
the normal ns doesnt have back ways but if u does and work this will be a nice feature ^^.
i dont understand the right way out of ms is a room is a conection of hallways.
i dont understand the up left hvie conection on the up hexagon is conect to hive or the up room or not conect?
<a href='http://img223.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img223&image=nsrefinary4ff.jpg' target='_blank'><img src='http://img223.exs.cx/img223/1094/nsrefinary4ff.th.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' /></a>
edit:
i forgot to ask what this is so i put a dark blue square and wanna know what this shape of the room are conect to a vent ?
could u only post a layout more polygon with names.
if u start a a map and doesnt have a name i recomend u post in the screen shots post the screen shots of the pieces of your map.
Your hallways are too long and straight. Make some more curved and cramped hallways. It's almost a straight line from MS to the top hive and the left hive.
The aliens can secure the 3 RTs pretty easily from their starting locations. The marines only have easy access to the right-middle RT and double, but the aliens have easy access to double (and the right-middle RT if they have the top hive location).
From double, the marines can siege out both left hives. From the room to the right of the left hive, they can siege out the left hive and 3 RTs. If the marines relocate to double, they can effectively have a 2 hive lockdown, without having to leave their base.
I'll post more tomorrow (when I have more time, and when I'm sober)
This isn't spam, I will edit this post when I have time tomoz at work.
P.S. I should have been at work today, but I decided that today was Thursday, and not Wednesday, so I didn't go to work today (thinking that it was my day off).
P.P.S. Even though I'm I'm fairly inebbriated I still managed to take out most of the 8s and 6s that plagued my post prior to editing (but I decided to leave in the double "I'm" to show you how drunk I am {I can't even spell inebriated [or whatever]}).
Yep.
If you're planning your map, a method I'd favour is the following:
- Theming it <span style='color:white'>[done]</span>
- Working with the theme to come up with some main map locations <span style='color:white'>[done]</span>
- Adding logical aspects to the layout
- Rearranging/changing locations to enhance gameplay
By logical aspects I mean that the layout should follow some sort of construction logic. If we assume that this was designed for humans, and as a refinery then you can apply some logic to the situation.
For instance, the reactor room (depending on what type or reactor it is) might be placed as far away from areas that are often frequented by the refinery personnel, in case of explosion/meltdown (whatever). You've already done that to some degree, having situated it deeper underground, but maybe it might be good to have longer routes away from it before you start putting people in elevators (if you've watched a few action films, you'll know how potentially dangerous lifts can be when you really need to get the hell outta your place of work!).
Another example is how I positioned the Medibay in my map. I thought a bit about how important it was in case of emergency, and thought that it needed to be very accessible, so I put it in the middle of the map. Then I thought about how nice it is to have natural light when you're sick and bedridden, so I put a skylight in. It's little things like this that really give your map a sense of authenticity and purpose, maps made like this become more involving to the player. In terms of laying out your map locations logically, it also helps players to learn the map more easily, as on a subconscious level the arrangement of the different rooms will meet their natural expectations.
As for the gameplay enhancements, some of these can be done as you go along, while other changes will be made towards the end of the project. I'm writing on this topic in more detail in my <i>guidelines for competitive mapping</i> thread in the Competitive Discussion Forum.
Your Layout:
As it stands one thing immediately strikes me. Turning your attention to the Marine Start and the surrounding corridors, I can see that if I wanted to, I could push my defences out, setting up two outposts to control access to the MS from both sides.
One would be at the res node due north of MS, and the other would be at the hexagonal room due west. From here I can expand my defences and have an early warning system for any Aliens that might make it past these two outposts.
Essentially what I mean by this is that there needs to be another path that allows Aliens to take a different route to MS, one that would join one of the two existing corridors (preferably the northern access) a bit closer to MS. If you are keeping this layout, then I'd suggest connecting the small room northwest of MS and connecting it with the north access corridor (the bit that juts out to the west).
Overall I'd suggest a redraft, thinking about the logical structure of the map and how it fits your theme, while allowing a bit more leeway with the shape. Start with the main rooms, thinking about: which should be near which; which should be where in terms of the overall geography of your map (is it situated above/below ground, or sunk into the side of a cliff face, or even deep in a ravine where it's closer to the last remnants of untapped ore?).
There's a lot to think about, and initially it can be tempting to rush into the mapping side of things. Start with a loose layout plan, not neccesarily worrying about the size and shape of the rooms, just their situation. Then maybe plan out some of the individual rooms in a bit more detail, and then you can add this room's shape to the layout. Soon the gaps will be filled in and you can think about how to shape the corridors to balance the map. Diagonal routes are usually quicker; zig-zag corridors slower; ladders slower for Marines and Onii/Gorges; and lifts slower for everyone (unless they're super fast). Vents are usually benefitial to Aliens, although Marine-accessible vents can be made to allow a 'long-cut' for Marines and conversely a short-cut for Aliens.
I'll stop rambling now ...
Another example is how I positioned the Medibay in my map. I thought a bit about how important it was in case of emergency, and thought that it needed to be very accessible, so I put it in the middle of the map. Then I thought about how nice it is to have natural light when you're sick and bedridden, so I put a skylight in. It's little things like this that really give your map a sence of authenticity and purpose, they become more involving. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> i never se a medbay in ns.
how u texture it? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
... and also because it's wipeclean <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
---
Let's not hijack the thread. <span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>To be honest I haven't done anything in Hammer for 6 months because I can't, but now I've saved up money from work and when I go to France I can ship my beloved PC so I'll certainly be continuing it along with starting to map the Citadel, in my Mod Citadel Utopia.</span>