Idle_Arena_AlphaV2

Daedryon

L3: Member
Dec 5, 2009
134
3
Map Name: Idle_Arena_AlphaV2
My Server IP: 174.34.133.98:27015

Well, this is my first map. And yes, it's an idle map (hold your boo's), but for the most part, I want to take the focus away from the idling and place it on the Canyon Arena, and the Soccer Field part of my map.

I'm still looking to add more, but right now, I'll walk you through the screenshots.

Screenshot #1
Ahh the soccer field. The piece de-la resistance of my map. Everything about the soccer field works perfectly. When the ball lands in the net, it teleports back to the center of the field. Same for when the ball ends up in the little tunnel (it's near the sign on the wall on the left side of the picture).

You'll notice the ball is....blue. I used a texture I found while searching "ball". I didn't have a custom soccerball texture, and when I tried using a metal texture to make it look white, it made the ball heavy. This texture makes the ball nice and light. There are 2 tunnels, and in this screenshot you can only see the red team entrance/exit tunnel. Blue teams is directly across from it.

The sides of the arena, and the ceiling are nodraw walls, so that you can clearly see the skybox, but the ball can't get lost in the abyss.

If you score a goal, no points are awarded, because again this is an idle map in essence. I don't need round overs happening every 5 minutes.

Screenshot 2
The Canyon Arena. Yes, it looks bare. I'm working on that. I want to add in some pillars in the arena of varying size, using Badlands style displacements at the base of the pillars. I've got to thank Firest0rm, a user on this forum for making every wall in the canyon arena, and sending me the prefab. I've already run through and smoothed some jagged edges out, but I feel I can smooth some more spots. Also, the wall textures seems to repeat, I'll try to fix that up.

Top of the canyon is blocked off by a nodraw ceiling to prevent demos/soldiers from blasting their way out into the abyss.

Red and blue tunnels lead to their respective spawn rooms.

Screenshot 3
The spawn room. I didn't screenshot the blue spawn room, it's essentially the same, except for the blue team paintjob. Props are the same in both spawn rooms, same for the animated sliding door (yes, it goes up when you go near it to let you out).

I feel I can add abit more life to the spawn rooms, even though most players won't notice due to their idling, but still....

Screenshot 4
It's ugly, I know. As soon as you come out of the spawn room, you look to your left/right (I forget which direction, I think it depends on the base) and you see "SOCCER". It's a teleport. Just walk into the big SOCCER sign and you'll be teleported to your respective entrance/exit tunnel at the soccer field.

I'd love to change this up, get a nicer looking sign, but I'm unfamiliar with custom materials, and "packrat", etc.

What does the future hold?
Well, I'd love some suggestions on how to improve this map. I know I need some form of better lighting. I'd love to get stadium lights into the soccer arena.

Also, I think the fact that I have a 2nd skybox around my soccer field (it's separated from the main area of the map, the spawn rooms and canyon arena) makes my map lag abit graphically. I'm thinking of ditching the skybox and enclosing the roof in and giving it a metal texture, ala soccer stadium.

I will be ditching the nodraw walls around the soccer field once I've expanded it and made it look like a stadium, and instead going for teleport triggers to teleport the ball back onto the field.

I welcome any suggestions, and ideas.
 
Last edited:
Feb 14, 2008
1,051
931
It is flawed fundementally because
a) People go to a server to idle, and they idle, they don't play football
b) It has no lighting, that is lazy, and you should never release a fullbright map
c) Boooooooo
d) Your map doesn't have a download link, so this is essentially a server advertisement and not a map
e) If the map is named as it is in the thread title, it will crash Linux servers

If you want to make a fullbright soccer map, make one, but nobody here is going to appreciate it, unfortunately for you. At least you put some effort into it, but any mapping skills you have are better spent making proper maps.
 
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Daedryon

L3: Member
Dec 5, 2009
134
3
It is flawed fundementally because
a) People go to a server to idle, and they idle, they don't play football
b) It has no lighting, that is lazy, and you should never release a fullbright map
c) Boooooooo
d) Your map doesn't have a download link, so this is essentially a server advertisement and not a map
e) If the map is named as it is in the thread title, it will crash Linux servers

If you want to make a fullbright soccer map, make one, but nobody here is going to appreciate it, unfortunately for you. At least you put some effort into it, but any mapping skills you have are better spent making proper maps.

A) Nah, wrong bro. Many people I know go to Idle maps to screw around. Hence why I've put a soccer field and arena in this map.
B) Obviously it doesn't have lighting, I've only been using Hammer for about 3 weeks now. Give me a break
C) Boo yourself.
D) Oh snap, I forgot the download >.>
E) I saved it in Hammer as "Idle_Arena_AlphaV2". I don't see what the problem is.

EDIT: Added the download link. I uploaded a RAR file with the BSP in to my Plunder.com account.
 
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Fraz

Blu Hatte, Greyscale Backdrop.
aa
Dec 28, 2008
944
1,152
Any maps with capital letters in their name will crash Linux servers, sort that out.
 

Daedryon

L3: Member
Dec 5, 2009
134
3
Any maps with capital letters in their name will crash Linux servers, sort that out.

OHHH.

Well when I compiled I ended up with 2 of the same BSP, one with capitals, one without, so yeah.

I'll switch that around tomorrow on my server, after my final exam.

So yeah, I dont think it's flawed fundamentally. I get alot of people who come to my server to chill, screw around, get kills, etc.

And yes, I realize Fullbright sucks. I'm looking into that. I've gotta get some proper lighting thrown into the map, especially once I turn my soccer field into a full blown stadium.

Unfortunately, this week is final exams for me, and on Friday I'll be going home for Christmas break. I'll be home from college for 3 weeks, and yes, I will have my laptop with me and I will be working on the map.

This may be the first map I've ever made, but it won't be the last.

Hell, I could probably come up with quite a wicked soccer stadium if I put my mind to it. Or a good paintball field (I was a professional when it came to making paintball maps on Halo 3)
 
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Feb 14, 2008
1,051
931
B) Obviously it doesn't have lighting, I've only been using Hammer for about 3 weeks now. Give me a break

All you have to do is add a light (like, just light) entity :facepalm:, if you can add trigger_hurts and the like, adding lights should be no problem. Just scatter them around.

A lot of people here are openly hostile to maps that aren't... real TF2 maps, watch out.
 
Feb 17, 2009
1,165
376
There should be a rule that forbids creating threads about idle maps. :facepalm:

Ok, enough with that. Otherwise it looks too empty. You should add more detail to it.
 
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Nutomic

L11: Posh Member
Feb 7, 2009
888
177
One idle map is really enough, if people want to play, they should not join idle servers...
 

Bermuda Cake

L9: Fashionable Member
Feb 20, 2009
679
480
but look at all the fun we've had ripping them apart!
I'm sure this wasn't a completely pointless project, it looks like you've learnt a lot. If I were you I wouldnt bother updating the map, instead, using the knowledge you've gained, try and make a simple arena/koth.
 
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YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
There should be a rule that forbids creating threads about idle maps. :facepalm:

If you haven't got anything constructive to say....

Why? Idle maps are maps. And this is tf2maps.net.
If Idle maps ever were to be completely disallowed then it would be because of the negative attitude and rudeness it generates from forum members posting in their threads.

Can I remind people that they should be posting helpful, friendly constructive advice on how to improve said map, not pointlessly clogging up threads with unhelpful and disrespectful posts.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
If your map isn't designed for Idling it isn't an idle map. Call it tf_soccer or something.

If it is. Chances are no server hosts would actually download it over the original which most idlers already have.
 

Daedryon

L3: Member
Dec 5, 2009
134
3
Chances are no server hosts would actually download it over the original which most idlers already have.

Funny thing, that.

It seems lately with my new idle map, I've been gaining the interest of people who are tired of the current idle maps.

I've already got a 2nd admin on my server who was a friend I met on achievement_idle_ultimatev103.

People want change man. Change is good.

As for a full blown soccer map, I could probably do it. I could make a full on stadium. It'd just require time, something I don't have yet, and won't have until December 19th (the first day Im back home from college)

As I said before, I'm an accomplished paintball map maker on Halo 3. I'm thinking of bringing my skills to Hammer, making a paintball map for TF2. I can limit the class to Sniper-only, make the only allowed weapon the SMG, and make it 1-hit kill.

I can even add intelligence as a way for CTF play.

I'm thinking a huge forest, with plenty of bunkers and cabins and little spaces to hide and peek out of.
 
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nik

L12: Fabulous Member
Aug 14, 2009
987
564
NO ONE WILL REPLACE IDLE4LIFE

YOUR MAP SHALL BE HAUNTED FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYS


OOOOHOHHHOOOOOOHHOOHOH



no but seriously - I should have added soccer
 

Haas

L1: Registered
Aug 26, 2008
34
4
I find Idle servers exploiting the system the system is made for a reason don't try to break it, therefore I greatly see idle maps banned from tf2maps. The only reason that idle servers are alive is because valve can't ban them, but at least we can ban them from here. Idling on a fake server was banned why is idling in a server anything different? It is actually even worse because the server could also be used for GOOD and fun maps.
 

nik

L12: Fabulous Member
Aug 14, 2009
987
564
I find Idle servers exploiting the system the system is made for a reason don't try to break it, therefore I greatly see idle maps banned from tf2maps. The only reason that idle servers are alive is because valve can't ban them, but at least we can ban them from here. Idling on a fake server was banned why is idling in a server anything different? It is actually even worse because the server could also be used for GOOD and fun maps.

there's kind of a huge difference between sitting in an idle server in-game and using a third party client to access valve servers and do the same thing. Valve felt violated by this, as anyone would really.. but you can't ban idle maps, simply because the website is called tf2 MAPS. M A P S. you yourself said the word MAPS. so who cares? all mappers have to start somewhere, why not an idle map?
 

Daedryon

L3: Member
Dec 5, 2009
134
3
there's kind of a huge difference between sitting in an idle server in-game and using a third party client to access valve servers and do the same thing. Valve felt violated by this, as anyone would really.. but you can't ban idle maps, simply because the website is called tf2 MAPS. M A P S. you yourself said the word MAPS. so who cares? all mappers have to start somewhere, why not an idle map?

Indeed.

I started on an idle map because it's the easiest thing to do.

Now I'm working on a paintball map. A HUGE paintball map.
 

Friend

L1: Registered
Nov 6, 2009
8
6
You're idle map is looking ok! As posted the map doe's look like it is fullbright, Adding a env_sun and light_enviorment can help with this. The canyon is the best looking part of this map, it would be nice to see the walls and cliff top looking rougher, texture displacements (Look here: http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=54) can take care of this. Displacements also would help out with you're ground here. As for you're spawn, trying adding trim, borders, models.. like building portals, not just trigger_teleports can help with your destination areas. Text made with brushes looks 3D, but takes up resources for your map... custom textures can help alot with things like that, and take nothing to compile compard to 24 brushes. Also, don't worry about the RUDE comments, and keep working on you're idle map, it takes alot of hard work.