The Ns Source Inspiration Project

moultano · July 2005

<div class="IPBDescription">Throw your brainstorms this direction.</div> Lets get the mapping community out of the gates running for ns:source. The new engine brings with it possibilities that most of us haven't realistically considered tackling, shackled to a 1997 engine as we've been.

In this thread, post anything and everything you think could be of inspiration for NS:source. Images, layouts, concepts, background stories . . . I want to see this thread overflowing with media and content.

moultano · July 2005

I'll start us off:

<img src='http://www.johnwallin.net/site/pix/station.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

moultano · July 2005

Crispy · July 2005

Shamelessly copied from our own Forums, worse still a thread that Moultano started! I did do a bit of work to pick out the working links relevant to NS:

Link <a href='http://www.deviantart.com/view/6244082/' target='_blank'>http://www.deviantart.com/view/6244082/</a>

<a href='http://www.artofgregmartin.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.artofgregmartin.com/</a>

<a href='http://www.martiniere.com/canyon.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.martiniere.com/canyon.htm</a>

<a href='http://www.ryanchurch.com/ryanchurch_image010.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.ryanchurch.com/ryanchurch_image010.htm</a>

<a href='http://www.battle.net/images/broodwar/pix/wall/xzerg2prev.jpg' target='_blank'>http://www.battle.net/images/broodwar/pix/.../xzerg2prev.jpg</a>

<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/uploads/post-10-1095108911.jpg' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/upload...-1095108911.jpg</a>

Dunno if this last link has anything...

<a href='http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=137' target='_blank'>http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=137</a>

MrBen · July 2005

In HL one the style of an area is mostly defined by it's texture and not so much by what the area contains. What I mean is, if you're making some sort of industrial thingy then you know it's industrial not because of the huge pieces of machinery, consoles, pipes, wires etc etc, but because someone slapped a brown concrete texture on a wall. Just take mineshaft, does it have anything looking remotely... well anything. No, it's all just walls and room architecture that create the industrial, underground vibe. What source allows you to do is add to this with actual features, keeping with mineshaft as an example it could be some exciting machinery, large drills, little mine carts and other things that you find in a sci-fi underground alien mine.

Viper_two_nine_A · July 2005

well instead of just posting some pictures we could try to make up a new map together ... i think it was moultano who said that he would want do do something with a crashed starship.
i think the most important thing of an ns map is - because of its size - diversity. so why not make up a map where you can really tell one place from another ... like bast or eclipse in ns starting days ...
maybe a crashed spaceship in a mining base <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' />

Crispy · July 2005

I don't think that making a Source map for NS:S would be any more helpful than making either a Source map for DM/CS:S or just another NS map.

We can make whichever assumptions we like about Source but we still don't know if classic mode will be ported with minimal changes (hence the current maps ported) or if there will be significant changes made to the style. There's no way we can begin to think about map layout or contents until we know more about what NS:S is going to have changed.

- Will there be another Alien?
- Will there be a Flamethrower?
- Will existing Aliens be changed?
- Will there be a significant change to the scale of NS maps, or will they keep similar layout requirements?
- What will the minimum system requirements be? and what effect will this have on the mapping requirements?

That's why I think it's better to work on NS-style rooms (à la <i>Sourcified Contest</i>).

But what I would like for NS:S is to see some extra mapping entities to set up <i>Dustbowl</i> type scenarios, that is to say defence maps (Marine defence and Alien defence). For this I guess you'd also need placeable buildings with built and unbuild toggles (possibly with an HP value -either points or percentage) and a toggle for the Hive entity: 'Starting_Hive 1' (for the mappers, not the players!). You could have a spawncounter, i.e. each team has a limited amount of spawns. Or you could even have custom entities that unlock higher lifeforms. Native in-built turrets that must be welded for use (either to fix them or to initiate their power supply from another location in the map).

- You could really go far with a mixture of some of these changes -

The original idea for NS was Marines boarding an infested ship (and rescuing 'cocooned' hostages). In Source you could take this a step further, both in terms of teamplay and immersion. Imagine gameplay where half of your team have to hold the turret room while your more offensive players are sent out to reach the generator where they must weld the power supply to the turrets which has been intelligently sabotaged by the Aliens.

<i>It looks like your squad is on the brink of being overrun by the Aliens when out of nowhere the in-built turrets raise from their housings and turn the room into a deathtrap for Aliens. Now your team can regroup, redistribute weaponry and move up to the next chokepoint. But the veteran standing next to you is looking a bit apprehensive, because he knows that the Aliens now have access to Lerks, Gorges and their first chamber...

But this time you're on the offense, as welding that generator back on just opened a door. The door to a second Hive! Now you have to get past the chokepoint and into the Alien Hive before it gets built. When you get there there are already two Lerks on the scene. One's in the shadows sporing from the somewhere up in the rafters, and the other is divebombing to finish of you teammates. But you chose an Armour upgrade so you'll be OK, for now.</i>

---

<i>I'd see it as an improved combat version, though you could do area capping like the res hold in NS:Territories. The Marines upgrades could be done a number of ways:</i>

<b>Res pool</b>
Before the start of the round the Marines all agree on what combination of weapons and items they're going to have on the field. Maybe at the first checkpoint they could afford a shotgun, a mine pack and two welders. Maybe it would be better to buy an Armoury for the turret room. As a player you'll put yourself up as a candidate for randomly receiving items once the round has begun. You'll see a list of choices:<ul><li>No preference (press the Enter key)</li><li>Welder</li><li>Minepack</li><li>Shotgun</li></ul>
You put yourself down for welder because you like luring in skulkbait by holding out the welder and then switching to pistol when they're close enough to pwn them H4RDC0R3, so you pick Welder. The next menu shows that you and another player are the only two who joined the welder queue, so it'll either be him or you that starts with it.

The round begins, and you've got the welder, so you know that you'll need to the Generator room. Either that, or you can drop the welder for someone else to pick up, because you're better in defence than attack. But you choose to keep it and you're wondering what you do next when:
<span style='color:white'>"SG BSQ"</span> flashes up on your screen and you ask what it means. Someone tells you it means that guy started with the Shotgun and he's gonna be with the Base defence SQuad. You remember reading this in the tutorial or something, and you decide to follow suit, typing:
<span style='color:white'>"asq. I have the welder"</span>, and you head down the corridor to your right to join the rest of the assault squad.
Unfortunately your teammates don't guard you very well and get drawn in to an ambush leaving you at the back of your squad. You got taken out from seemingly nowhere and now the welder will lie on the floor for the next 5 seconds and then be assigned to the next respawning player queued up to receive it. Your guys are all typing: "WTH?" as they realised the welder is gonna have to be brought back to where they are. They're asking themselves:
Is it best to stay there in force to take down skulks from an advanced position and hope that the welder guy doesn't get intercepted?
Or is it best to send back a runner to escort the Welder safely back up?

<b>RFK</b>
Similar to Combat but with a few modifications. As you do damage you build up your res bar to gain a res point. When you get a res point you can either hang on to it or pool it for your team so that it can be used for medpacks or saved for team spending on upgrades at the next checkpoint. If you hang on to your points you can buy a shotgun or mines when you have enough, but when you die the shotgun will be added to the shotguns given out to those in the shotgun queue.

---

I think it'd be good, anyway <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif' />

moultano · July 2005

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Crispy @ Jul 31 2005, 07:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I don't think that making a Source map for NS:S would be any more helpful than making either a Source map for DM/CS:S or just another NS map.

We can make whichever assumptions we like about Source but we still don't know if classic mode will be ported with minimal changes (hence the current maps ported) or if there will be significant changes made to the style. There's no way we can begin to think about map layout or contents until we know more about what NS:S is going to have changed.

- Will there be another Alien?
- Will there be a Flamethrower?
- Will existing Aliens be changed?
- Will there be a significant change to the scale of NS maps, or will they keep similar layout requirements?
- What will the minimum system requirements be? and what effect will this have on the mapping requirements?

That's why I think it's better to work on NS-style rooms (à la <i>Sourcified Contest</i>).  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
Well, just keep in mind that all 7 of the original official maps were made initially without being able to play the game.

Mentar · July 2005

i got bored so i figured i'd muck around and have a quick go at a source co map.

<a href='http://home.ripway.com/2005-5/303358/aaaa.rar' target='_blank'>http://home.ripway.com/2005-5/303358/aaaa.rar</a>

but i can't do much texturing without the ns type textures <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' />, the ones that come with hl2 are horrible for ns style maps and the lights preliminary.

having a few other problems to,

trying to get a power cable going from the generator in that room to a plug in the wall but i can't get a rope to work with 2 fixed ends (i can make it so one end swings and 1 end is fixed but thats it.)

the fan in the roof won't make noise, i've got the sound and the volume right up but you can't hear it.

Can't work out how to do a ladder (theres no func_ladder tie to entity in source)

and i'm trying to get water dripping down from the skylight but tbh i never knew how to do that in hl1 let alone 2 <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />

basicly it's an underground colony, that room is the main ventilation chamber.

Confused · July 2005

to add a bit of inspitration of the photographic kind,

<a href='http://www.klcphoto.com/indint.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.klcphoto.com/indint.htm</a>

try the industrial interior, exterior, and underground secitons as well as the black and white stuff

particularly,

<img src='http://www.klcphoto.com/images/photos/G/G7.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

further, i would live to see some soviet-esque stuff maybe modeled on some of their aging miltary hardware. ill post a link to a nice galery when i find it,

Silverwing · July 2005

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Confused @ Jul 31 2005, 03:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>to add a bit of inspitration of the photographic kind,

<a href='http://www.klcphoto.com/indint.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.klcphoto.com/indint.htm</a>

try the industrial interior, exterior, and underground secitons as well as the black and white stuff

particularly,

[<i>pictar</i>]

further, i would live to see some soviet-esque stuff maybe modeled on some of their aging miltary hardware. ill post a link to a nice galery when i find it,</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
That pic is awesometastictacular in it inspirational greatnessness. I can just <i>see</i> the Marines having a stand on that walkway.

And the site linked is omgodly as inspiration. Meh. Makes me wish I had time to map.

Very nice, good find.

Crispy · August 2005

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (moultano @ Jul 31 2005, 12:12 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Crispy @ Jul 31 2005, 07:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I don't think that making a Source map for NS:S would be any more helpful than making either a Source map for DM/CS:S or just another NS map.

We can make whichever assumptions we like about Source but we still don't know if classic mode will be ported with minimal changes (hence the current maps ported) or if there will be significant changes made to the style. There's no way we can begin to think about map layout or contents until we know more about what NS:S is going to have changed.

- Will there be another Alien?
- Will there be a Flamethrower?
- Will existing Aliens be changed?
- Will there be a significant change to the scale of NS maps, or will they keep similar layout requirements?
- What will the minimum system requirements be? and what effect will this have on the mapping requirements?

That's why I think it's better to work on NS-style rooms (à la <i>Sourcified Contest</i>). </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Well, just keep in mind that all 7 of the original official maps were made initially without being able to play the game. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
But how many of them have lasted to this day untouched?

Most of them have been radically changed to suit gameplay changes. To <s>quote</s> paraphrase Valve: "It seems that whenever a game is released the mappers have just started to get confident at pushing the engine to its limits".

It's not quite the same thing, but if we knew that the gameplay would be similar then we could get the layouts sorted and work on the basic architecture.

If we had some basic information then we would know what we could start on and what not to bother with. The first thing I'd like to know is:

"Will NS:S be a straight port in terms of scale and basic map layout?"

If we knew the answer to this question, we'd be able to start porting old or current projects, and as new information was released we could begin to implement new features in light of its ramifications.

---

Confused that is a great site <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' />

Mentar · August 2005

i know i'll be upset if combat is radicaly different or doesn't exist in source.

already put a fair bit of work into starting a source co map <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /> .

got a list of ideas to put in there the length of my arm and a pretty good 'theme' for it going too.

Lt.Realness · January 2007

Most of the people don't like combat. And what I don't get is why most combat maps are designed so nicely...you are just rushing by all the time so you can't focus on the nice models and details of such maps...it's a waste of time mapping such crap.
If people would only put much effort in mapping ns_maps we'd have a lot more maps to play than we do have now.

Kouji_San · January 2007

There is ofcourse the >insert weird emotion here< felt towards custom maps which has something to do with the small amount of maps available <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> I mean there are lots of maps out there, just look on the classic map section of <a href="http://www.brywright.co.uk/downloads/files/index.php?dir=natural-selection/maps/ns/" target="_blank">bry's hosting service</a>

Also the nice design of these combat maps might have something do with the mapper trying to show off his mapping skills <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />

tigersmith · January 2007

Even thought I have nothing to post atm, this has to be one of my favorite threads on these forums. Great information and insight. Nice work

The Ns Source Inspiration Project

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