koth_warroom

Captain Hatman

L1: Registered
Aug 5, 2010
24
6
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room!"

Negotiations never go well between RED and BLU. This time was no exception. So, the covert facility where the two forces periodically get round the table is now the site of a bitter King Of The Hill duel, with the control point rising right up out of the middle of the very table that the talks were being held around, as hastily-vacated chairs sink into the floor, out of harm's way.

Where my other map (PL_Deluge) was a long, laborious affair, WarRoom is a challenge in speed mapping. I'm trying to turn out a working, good looking map as quickly as possible. Expect regular updates.
 
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Penguin

Clinically Diagnosed with Small Mapper's Syndrome
aa
May 21, 2009
2,039
1,484
this is a pretty fly concept
 

Captain Hatman

L1: Registered
Aug 5, 2010
24
6
In places it looks a bit dark and maybe cramped but at the same time... functional. I like the look of this and wish to see it tested with me in the game :D

I did say that v.a001 wasn't fully lit yet :D.

Still, don't forget that dev textures make the level look darker than it actually is. the TF ones are quite dark and have a low specularity, so the result is that there's not a huge amount of radiosity going on. (I suspect that this is one reason why the default HL2 dev textures are bright orange, btw.)

Now that it's fully textured, I've found that the lighter, more reflective colours I used in the texturing have actually resulted in it being a little brighter than I'd originally planned, so I've wound up deleting lights from the level - most notably, the big one above the CP. Which is fine by me because it was a HL2 prop, not a TF2 one.

I'm quite pleased with the layout, personally. The level is indeed very small - A scout can get from the spawn room to the cap point in about ten seconds - but there's a lot of sprawl and alternate routes available and I don't think it feels cramped - though of course my opinion may change when we come to play it.

Anyway, after day 2, v.a002 is textured, fully lit and ready, and has ammunition and healthpacks, making this level ready for playtesting and balancing feedback.

At the moment, there's not a lot of window dressing - props, overlays etc. - so day 3 will be spent working on prettifying it.
 

Captain Hatman

L1: Registered
Aug 5, 2010
24
6
okay, this should have been done three days ago, except I was at parties and barbecues. Allow me to present *insert fanfare here*...

VERSION BETA 01.

The only thing separating this version of Warroom from being a release candidate is the need for testing and feedback, so please play it and tell me what, if anything, you feel it needs.

Total amount of work time necessary to reach this stage - about thirty hours.
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
Fun mid area, I loved that part of the map, but there are too many corridors and doors in the areas around. I'm also doubting the usefulness of that big outdoor area by the spawns.
 

Captain Hatman

L1: Registered
Aug 5, 2010
24
6
I'm also doubting the usefulness of that big outdoor area by the spawns.

It's supposed to serve as a combination set of stairs and place to put big health packs while looking nicer than just a stairwell and a room would have. In practice, I agree that it's too large for its function and tended to distract people, being big and light and open and more visually interesting than the surrounding corridors, which meant it pushed the "ooh shiny!" button.

My notepad is full of ideas on how to deal with the corridors, and the doors are going on vacation.
 

Mr.Late

L7: Fancy Member
Nov 27, 2009
408
157
[1] Doors like this in corridors are imo annoying and pointless. The corridors also felt a little confusing...

The CP area was fun, but there was a lot of wasted space around the map, because the point is just next to the spawn. So you might want to tweak it a bit! :)

You can make this very good map, just need a little work :D
 
Apr 13, 2009
728
309
Yeah definitely cut down the number of doors. I don't think visibility is such a big issue that you need closing areaportals, so just leave the doors to the resupply rooms. Outside area was mostly pointless but maybe you can work around that without removing it entirely. I'd need to check the layout to see how feasable that is, but maybe you can 'merge' the outermost corridors into the outside area ?
Overall it was quite chaotic but since I always had a good idea of where I was and where I could expect to find most of the other team, I actualy enjoyed it.
 

Captain Hatman

L1: Registered
Aug 5, 2010
24
6
I don't think visibility is such a big issue that you need closing areaportals, so just leave the doors to the resupply rooms.

as it happens, there's not a single area portal in the whole map, because it doesn't really need them. The logic behind the doors was that I didn't want snipers and soldiers having free reign down long corridors, but if I'm going to be fixing the corridors anyway, that's less of a concern. besides, they're unpopular, so they go.

What I have planned shouldn't take too long to do fortunately. Thank you very much everyone for the useful feedback.