Hey! :)

Hey,

Thought I'd do the customary introduction thread. I spent the night in the Steam Chat yesterday, so a few might have noticed my name there (using my old ‘wo33erold’ account)

I'm a new mapper, and whilst I've done various basics tutorials and fleshed out a few tiny box rooms late Half-Life 1 / early Half Life 2 era, I've yet to do anything to detail, full scale or released.

Looking to get back into where I left off a long time ago I've looking at the various platforms, games and sites such as here.

Why Source?
As luring as UDK is, it's lack of asset support would require me to be a highly efficient modeller, and since it’d likely take me a few months to model a pencil... I’m out. I know BSP is only destined to get less love as time goes on, and I don’t doubt that the next engine step for Valve will be external model focused too. Until then though, Source welcomes me!

Why TF2?
The harder choice. I’m an avid gamer, that goes without saying, and out of all the Source franchises the majority of my time has been spent in Counter-Strike (having grown up heavily participating in the league scene). After this it’d likely go DoD, Left4Dead and then TF2 (and then Ricochet), so whilst it seems like an odd choice (or at least, I hope not too much) TF2 seemed the best fit thanks to Valve’s continual support for it, the complexity of planning needed (so much balancing to keep in mind), the clean cut visuals putting an emphasis on good design and the passionate fanbase.

Why this site?
I’ve been sourcing a lot of tutorial information from the site, as some of the best Hammer guides I’ve found are here (congratulations). The site design is fantastic, clean cut with a good navigation. The gameplay feedback system is ideal. Oh and the forums I’ve been reading from the shadows look to be well maintained, filled with constructive feedback and some heavy banter.

I’m also one of those “I’ll do it!” and shortly after quit type of people too. Hopefully getting involved in an active community and being open, honest and getting a map available for all possible criticism will fuel me to see my desire to get in gear through.

I’ve wrote a bit of an essay. I apologise for that. :blushing:

lol it's Wozzer "Wozz-er", some people, somewhere in this world, write z's that look like 3's. It's often used in graffiti and has been something that has stuck since a young age. I get asked this a lot.

Cheers for the warm welcome!

Jumped in at the deep end in Hammer, but ended up spending most the time changing my mind. Went for the sensible approach and hopefully after a little bit of planning I get get stuck in again.



Might be a bit of a tall order starting quite big on my first map, but I'd like to give it a shot

Ah brilliant thanks for the advice, that'll save me making duplicate images.

Thanks for the great feedback already!

Taking what was advised in consideration I've made a few tweaks (/tried again). The simplicity of the initial design was mostly to avoid designing something I feared I couldn't complete, but it'd be silly to make something easy that'll only end up awfully dull anyway!

Initial layout plan



The jump in scale and complexity somewhat daunts me, particularly as my biggest issue currently in getting scaling in-game correct, without needing to continually tweak and test in-game. Hope it's on better grounds this time around.

Cheers again!

P.S. The forum rules state to put WIP projects in the WIP forum, which looks to have been purged. Is there anywhere for WIP projects now? (The 'Wip in Wip' thread perhaps?)