Uncuepa submitted a new resource:
Paradise - Tropical/Pirate Themed KoTH
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Paradise - Tropical/Pirate Themed KoTH
Read more about this resource...
- Thread starter Uncuepa
- Start date
Uncuepa updated Paradise with a new update entry:
A10.A.Minor Fixes
Read the rest of this update entry...
A10.A.Minor Fixes
- Added clipping to rope bridges by spawns
- Adjusted 'beach netting' displacements
- Reworked skybox and clip brushes to better cut visleafs
- Adjusted waterfall particles to look nicer
- Hopefully packed particle manifest correctly?
- Merged many terrain brushes to hopefully reduce edgebug stuck moments on angled terrain
- Cut and func_detail-capped some terrain to cut less visleafs - if edgebugs keep occurring I'll displace the terrain instead
Read the rest of this update entry...
The original Paradise began in 2021 as an idea of 2 cliffs, each having rope bridges meet on a small pillar with a healthkit, running above some water.
I'd wanted to make a jungle/mayann themed map for a long time, and so experimented with a 5cp, with last being each teams unique temple. All of this was far too big, open, and boring. This was experimentation with blocky, but angled, terrain, and it's something I've continued to do. Worrying less about displacments, now or in the future, and more about being able to quickly shape terrain how I want it. That said, this was all crap.
That temple last ended up becoming the entrance into last on PL_Brushfern, which I was working on around the same time as the original Paradise.
The first version of KOTH_Paradise was my test of the mid point I'd thrown down nearby the original rope bridge idea. I thought if mid played nice with the natural geometry, water, caves and cliffs, that it was a good sign for the possible 5CP later. This map was awful! Being away from mapping for some time warped my sense of scale, I guess. This first version is actually embarassing for me, I didn't remember it looking like this...
Quickly I iterated, and a few versions later we have what I remember as alpha Paradise. Scaled down a lot, easier to traverse, that centre island now forces players towards the point. It actually played quite well, and people were very positive about the warm, tropical atmosphere even in this early stage.
That said, the mid point was still just a square with some light cover in a central location. It had little identity, and was quite boring. Despite the positive vibes people had towards the map, in retrospect I think the atmosphere+deathmatching was more positive than the objective gameplay. It'd adjust cover and props, tighten or open different routes, cut some new angles in, but I was bandaiding what was a core problem. I was very attached to the caves that wrapped around in the water, to the waterfall that sat behind the point, the rope bridges across mid. I didn't want to fuck with it too much. I also began to detail the map earlier than I should have. I started with the spawns because I thought they were unlikely to change, but it was dumb of me to put so much time into detailing what was a flawed map. I put the map into beta and kept testing.
During beta I got some back to back negative feedback, it became clear the middle point was flawed. I began to try work in some more structure to it, more cover, new routes, but each test it felt like the surrounding geometry was the real issue. The point was surrounded by high ground. This made it really tough to hold the point ON the point. I couldn't raise the points ground up or it'd fuck up the beach route. We had issues with spawn waves meaning the point would be traded back and forth over and over. And one test I had 2 players criticise everything they saw, and insult my intelligence because despite playing 5 or so versions of the map so far, they'd apparently never discovered any of the 4 entrances to the cave, which players regularly used. At the end of the demo, I closed TF2 and I just felt kinda shit. The map had a lot of problems if I wanted to make the capture point work and be fun, and it'd take a mammoth effort to redesign all of it. I played a little with the design but it felt like a full redesign was in order.
The redesign begins with this in September 2023...
Essentially just the same original idea I'd had, and the flaw was still that the point was a designless square nearby what I actually wanted to make, but it was at least scaled nicely, and would be the blueprint of what was to come!
Cut to end of January 2024...
Ship and balls.
Ship and balls.
Ship butt and bidet.
I'd had an idea of a ships bow stuck on some rocks, buried in the terrain, and figured it could fit nicely into the paradise bay design. I tried merging the previous cliff and rope bridge design with this new ship design, and it felt a little off, and so I chose to retire the mid double rope bridge design and focus mostly on the ship. The rope bridges would still feature, but not in the same way as the original. I still wanted a waterfall with a full health kit, and thought a balcony around the back of a pirate ship would be an awesome visual, as well as making the interior, the captains quarters, its own room, looking out to the healthpack and the waterfall. I had no idea how i'd merge the 2 ship parts, obviously somewhere in the middle there was the point, but it was a great start!
I then spent the next week experimenting on each area and angle, not afraid to delete and start again if needed. I think nearly every part of the map has been build, deleted and redesigned at least twice. It was an iterative process and it remains to see how the new version plays, but I've learned a lot since that first Paradise version, and I hope to make this new version the best it can be. It took acknowledging what was wrong, and being okay with starting over to get this new, better version. And to finish off, I'll include a bunch of janky work in progress images of A10!
Welcome to Paradise! It'll be fun to look back at this post in like a year when the map looks completely different and I look like a dumbass for thinking this version might play well but that's mappin babyyyy
I'd wanted to make a jungle/mayann themed map for a long time, and so experimented with a 5cp, with last being each teams unique temple. All of this was far too big, open, and boring. This was experimentation with blocky, but angled, terrain, and it's something I've continued to do. Worrying less about displacments, now or in the future, and more about being able to quickly shape terrain how I want it. That said, this was all crap.
That temple last ended up becoming the entrance into last on PL_Brushfern, which I was working on around the same time as the original Paradise.
The first version of KOTH_Paradise was my test of the mid point I'd thrown down nearby the original rope bridge idea. I thought if mid played nice with the natural geometry, water, caves and cliffs, that it was a good sign for the possible 5CP later. This map was awful! Being away from mapping for some time warped my sense of scale, I guess. This first version is actually embarassing for me, I didn't remember it looking like this...
Quickly I iterated, and a few versions later we have what I remember as alpha Paradise. Scaled down a lot, easier to traverse, that centre island now forces players towards the point. It actually played quite well, and people were very positive about the warm, tropical atmosphere even in this early stage.
That said, the mid point was still just a square with some light cover in a central location. It had little identity, and was quite boring. Despite the positive vibes people had towards the map, in retrospect I think the atmosphere+deathmatching was more positive than the objective gameplay. It'd adjust cover and props, tighten or open different routes, cut some new angles in, but I was bandaiding what was a core problem. I was very attached to the caves that wrapped around in the water, to the waterfall that sat behind the point, the rope bridges across mid. I didn't want to fuck with it too much. I also began to detail the map earlier than I should have. I started with the spawns because I thought they were unlikely to change, but it was dumb of me to put so much time into detailing what was a flawed map. I put the map into beta and kept testing.
During beta I got some back to back negative feedback, it became clear the middle point was flawed. I began to try work in some more structure to it, more cover, new routes, but each test it felt like the surrounding geometry was the real issue. The point was surrounded by high ground. This made it really tough to hold the point ON the point. I couldn't raise the points ground up or it'd fuck up the beach route. We had issues with spawn waves meaning the point would be traded back and forth over and over. And one test I had 2 players criticise everything they saw, and insult my intelligence because despite playing 5 or so versions of the map so far, they'd apparently never discovered any of the 4 entrances to the cave, which players regularly used. At the end of the demo, I closed TF2 and I just felt kinda shit. The map had a lot of problems if I wanted to make the capture point work and be fun, and it'd take a mammoth effort to redesign all of it. I played a little with the design but it felt like a full redesign was in order.
The redesign begins with this in September 2023...
Essentially just the same original idea I'd had, and the flaw was still that the point was a designless square nearby what I actually wanted to make, but it was at least scaled nicely, and would be the blueprint of what was to come!
Cut to end of January 2024...
Ship and balls.
Ship and balls.
Ship butt and bidet.
I'd had an idea of a ships bow stuck on some rocks, buried in the terrain, and figured it could fit nicely into the paradise bay design. I tried merging the previous cliff and rope bridge design with this new ship design, and it felt a little off, and so I chose to retire the mid double rope bridge design and focus mostly on the ship. The rope bridges would still feature, but not in the same way as the original. I still wanted a waterfall with a full health kit, and thought a balcony around the back of a pirate ship would be an awesome visual, as well as making the interior, the captains quarters, its own room, looking out to the healthpack and the waterfall. I had no idea how i'd merge the 2 ship parts, obviously somewhere in the middle there was the point, but it was a great start!
I then spent the next week experimenting on each area and angle, not afraid to delete and start again if needed. I think nearly every part of the map has been build, deleted and redesigned at least twice. It was an iterative process and it remains to see how the new version plays, but I've learned a lot since that first Paradise version, and I hope to make this new version the best it can be. It took acknowledging what was wrong, and being okay with starting over to get this new, better version. And to finish off, I'll include a bunch of janky work in progress images of A10!
Welcome to Paradise! It'll be fun to look back at this post in like a year when the map looks completely different and I look like a dumbass for thinking this version might play well but that's mappin babyyyy
