[ARTICLE] Roofs, Skybox brushes and your map.

[grazr]

Actually, I think Doublecross tries to dictate which roofs you can go onto by the lighting. Notice the playable roofs have light shining directly on them, while clipped off roofs are in darkness.

But of course, this doesn't cover it all. That barn-like roof has light on it, but is too vertical to be walked on.

A good point, lighting is normally used to bring attention to certain details or important gameplay features such as objectives or doorways. Lighting an area does give hints that it might be usable space the same way lighting up doorways hints that they should be used.

But then, Doublecross is at night, so outside areas have the oppotunity for selective lighting. Pipeline is the same, but the majority of other maps are set at times of day with high environment lighting settings, meaining all roofs are going to be significantly lit. Also, lighting is just as frequently used to light up details as these require visual acknowledgement as much as gameplay features. Lights light up the logo on the BLU building in Doublecross but do not suggest usable space.

you should get your articles on nodraw they are all of excellent quality and getting better and are very useful to new mappers like me.

This gets suggested a lot... but i havn't really thought of any particular topic that suites the ground nodraw normally covers. Nodraw covers topics that have been more technical and less common knowledge, whilst mine have been more theory based and open to interpretation.

Other articles i have considered such as "flow through death match maps", which includes weapon and ammo placement, have been covered before in places like the snarkpit or possibly interlopers. So far my articles have covered gameplay and style more than anything because i am experienced in public play on many official maps, and have had many school projects on my art diploma and graphic design degree that have resulted in my researching of architecture, culture and sociology. Which helps to understand worlds both real and virtual.

If there are articles/tutorials people want to see then they should feel free to suggest them; but the number 1 requested is also the number 1 written about topic, hint brushes (so please don't request that, i could probably link you to 25 individual tutorials explaining this in their own way). Also, Nodraw follows suit by having its own already. Plus, it's also probably true that any topics that might help an individual are outside of their current knowledge, so there's the dilema of requesting a topic wouldn't necasserily enlighten them as they already have knowledge of it on some level to be able to request it in the first place.

If a topic comes up a lot then i will talk to Nineaxis and see what i can do. Feel free to suggest in one of my tutorial threads or just PM me.

 

[Tapp]

good tut, but could you mention the use of running skip brushes over roofs, and that since roofs generally lead into the skybox, you can put one big skybox brush over the detailed roof portion to improve performance (as long as the brush contains the entirety of the roof, it will still be rendered AFAIK)

 

[grazr]

Hm, ok. I'm not sure what you mean by running skip brushes over roofs, but i'll try and include some examples of skybox brush formations in relation to the surrounding geometry, such as roofs.

 

[Boylee]

you should get your articles on nodraw they are all of excellent quality and getting better and are very useful to new mappers like me.

Give this man a cookie, that's an excellent suggestion.

EDIT: Just read your post after posting, grazr. I think that theoretical or not you've produced articles that are clearly of a high enough standard, especially the balance and layout guide for A/D maps.

 

[grazr]

Well i think maybe the "Scale and Your Map" article would have been good to put on nodraw, but nobody really suggested that until after i released it here.

Which reminds me... i seemed to have missed that article from my link list. I'll update that now.

 

[Boylee]

Bumping this thread in case some of the newer members haven't read it.

 

[REEJ]

Bumping this thread in case some of the newer members haven't read it.

somebody should sticky all this stuff