how long does it take?

massacre master

L2: Junior Member
Feb 2, 2018
88
20
See, I gonna make a pl map, intending it to be about as big as Upward. I'm gonna work on this map completely alone, just wondering how long it'll take?
 

Micnax

Back from the dead (again)
aa
Apr 25, 2009
2,109
1,585
Depends entirely on how confident/experienced you are with Hammer already, and then taking into account if the layout you've made plays well or not (if it doesn't, it means more testing iteration). Lots of variables.

A ballpack estimate would be 2-4 months if you dedicated yourself to it (up to at least a good beta stage). Final version could even be up to a year.
 

massacre master

L2: Junior Member
Feb 2, 2018
88
20
one year?! tbh I am not very experienced, maybe one month,have a bit of experience so I know what I'm doing
 

G.bo

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 24, 2017
175
193
See, I gonna make a pl map, intending it to be about as big as Upward. I'm gonna work on this map completely alone, just wondering how long it'll take?

Alright, I also worked on a payload map, and I will say this much: the way I worked on it was not very efficient. I made it one point at a time, including minor detailing, and boy it was a lot. It took me about 1-2 months of work to get it into this stage, and I'm yet to add health packs, the objective track (props are there already), spawn rooms, and functional doors (though those you can find in prefabs). This map is also fairly small as well, so if you are going for about upward size, I'm going to give some advice to keep your worries minimal from my perspective.

1) DON'T art pass during alphas
As tempting as it is in order to make your map look good as soon as possible, delay this until beta stage. Try to figure out gameplay issues first before detailing your map with various textures, props, and other crazy things. That being said, don't not detail your map at all, and here's what I mean. Adding props that are actually important (capture point, boulders, stairs, etc) and adding both light and light_environment will help with making your map still feel like a real location.

2) Run your map frequently
Another issue I ran into while making my map was not playing on it enough. By running your map in game, you are able to see from the player's view just how broken some things are. Maybe it's an engineer building spot that is impossible to push, maybe it's a sniper sightline that peaks from one spawn to the other; whatever it is, you need to look out for these things. I waited until I had finished Blue spawn to B point to play test, and I realized just how cramped it felt. If I had to say how often, I'd say at least once for each day you work on your map.

3) Draw out your map
This is more just what I do when making a map, but I like to draw it out on paper first incase I forget the layout. This also allows you to work out your map outside of hammer, so you can see things such as sniper sight lines and layout design that may or may not be as visible in the hammer editor. Plus, if you make a mistake, you can just erase it (unless you are drawing in pen for some reason) instead of having to completely redraw the brush from scratch in the editor's 3D environment. This may effect your scaling a little, but if you used the last step, you shouldn't have to worry about scaling as much.

These are just 3 of my personal tips for making a map in general; if you don't agree with them, then...well...alright. I mean, you don't exactly have to follow my advice to the tee, but this is just me trying to help a little.
 

Twist.vmf

L420: High Member
Jul 29, 2016
439
208
a map will take as long as you want it to, i have been working on maps for years, or a few weeks. it honestly depends on the person, hell you could work on a map your hole life if you want.
 

Billo

aa
Feb 8, 2016
920
397
i advise you to make a payload map only for testing purposes and see how it goes. when you think you learnt how to develop this map either continue working on it if you like it or start a new map with your current ideas. i made 3 payload maps so far and still i am learning a lot such as how to improve each point , what to change , i am still redoing my map's last for the hmmmm 4th time ( on the newest version of cliffedge i mean )
anyway i hope i helped you and good luck with your map ;)
 

massacre master

L2: Junior Member
Feb 2, 2018
88
20
so if working one point at a time isn't efficient, what should I do? Designing the whole map at once seems overwhelming.
 

Crash

func_nerd
aa
Mar 1, 2010
3,315
5,499
An upward styled payload map is one of the largest types of maps you can make. They require a pretty long development cycle usually, especially if you aren't experienced. If this is your first map, I'd personally recommend starting smaller with koth or 2cp like gorge.

It's very easy to get a map development cycle into a year range if you are doing a lot of iterations to make sure everything is perfect. Maps can take a long time to finish off.
 

Crash

func_nerd
aa
Mar 1, 2010
3,315
5,499
Shoreleave was a special case because of a medical issue a team member had, and because I took my time to make sure I launched with Frontline as an alpha map (so it wasn't too far ahead in development as everyone else was just getting the assets), but I started planning and organizing for it around December 2015, brush work was probably started January 2016 we launched RC1 December 2017.
 

HQDefault

...what
aa
Aug 6, 2014
1,056
535
The biggest time saver for me is honestly to just work on it. Even though I greatly enjoy mapping, I can at times be a real bad procrastinator and will just... not work on it. This wasn't a TF2 map, but my Black Mesa map Emergency 17 wound up taking a year and a half to develop it mostly because of procrastination, when it really should've taken 2-3 months tops.

Beyond that, my only other advice is to make an A1 that you feel is good enough. Don't spend a bunch of time perfecting your A1, it will start out bad without any playtesting, but put some real thought into how everything goes together. Spending a couple hours doing some research on TF2's design theory can save you a couple days (or potentially weeks) of reworking a shoddy alpha. Especially for new mappers!