smugdotgif

[Crash]

Temporary name. I always give my maps weird names in the early phases, but I got to the point where I want to release here and still haven't come up with a good name for it yet. Suggestions welcome.

Here's the post from another forum I released to:

cp_smugdotgif_a4​

Look at that purdy overview.​

Map is currently only the first CP of the first stage of a multi-stage A/D map. I threw in some back end run up for Red team, and a little varying landscape in case fighting happens back there. All the orange parts are temporary for now, but if they work ok, I might use aspects when I flesh them out.

I just want to emphasize that this is merely a test of the first point, it's not supposed to be KOTH or anything like that. The run up for Red might be a little lame, but I threw it together in probably about a half hour.

Blu spawn area. You spawn in the smaller room to the right.

Looking out of Blu spawn's left exit.

Looking out of the right spawn door. The shack on the left crosses over the trench that runs down the center.

Interior of the shack/ hut/ bridge thingy-doodad. A few windows that look at the CP structure, Some health in the loft area (which also has a small window looking at the right side cliff), as well as some ammo under the ladder. The stairs lead up from the trench, and there is a hole to drop down into it, as well.

Going out of the spawns center exit, down into the trench, under the bridge.

Just past the covered portion of the trench. It splits off left to a 3 level building that overlooks the point. Small health and full ammo inside.

Coming up from the left door out of spawn, on top of the mound. Door on the left leads to the middle floor of the building. Go down for a path to the trench, or a small window that looks sort of at the point.

Backside of the CP area. This is the view Red gets as they run out of the main entrance to the area.

Moving up the cliff from the right spawn exit. Wow, I sure took these screens in a weird order. Small health and ammo just past the rock there. Getting through the sure to be sniper friendly path rewards you with a little base to set up in/ deploy ubers from.

Entrance of that building.

Top floor of said building. Had to throw in some detail porn, sorry. Opening on the left there leads to...

this one-way drop down. Hopefully this is a good place to pop and uber from to clear the point. That is the goal, anyway. Might turn out to be a bit too powerful, but we'll see. Note that the exit door doesn't snap shut right away, so be careful about opening it up. It might leave the upper floor vulnerable to some demo spam.

View from under that drop down. You still take some slight fall damage, even if you land on the truck, so be careful.

View from the top of the building overlooking the point.

Lowest level of the building. Small flanking window you have to crouch through, but is somewhat surprising when you can pull it off. One way door leading into the building provides Red with a secondary, but longer, route to the point.

Part of the quick run up I threw in. Over did it on the signs to make sure no one gets confused about where to run.

Not-as-purdy overview, but shows Red's run up.

Known bugs:

• 
  I screwed up my prop fading, so there are some nasty pops on some things, but it's nothing major, just detail stuff, most of you probably won't even notice if you aren't looking for it. But now that I told you, I'm sure you'll look for it. Fuck.
• No overtime. I realized I had been missing a vital entity required for this, after I did the last compile. Somehow, I didn't learn about it until my second CP map.
• The cap time might be a little low for where it is. We'll see how easy it is to defend.
• A little more fall damage than I'd like to have in spots, but it should be fixable the more I tweak it.
• Sloppy displacements. Playable landscapes should be fine, but I did a quick job on some of the cliffs and stuff to make sure all my displacements work.
• Shadows are fucked for some of the rocks and a few other things.
• 3d skybox transition is still a little weird, but I just taught myself how to do 3d skyboxes, so it should just get better over time.

 

[Omnomnick]

Name needs work, and try to be at least a little bit serious when you post? Otherwise you're known as a troll.

 

[YM]

shadows are messed up because your 3d skybox has ground that is above the level of the real world, always remember skybox casts shadows into the full scale world, so you've probably got a displacement over the middle. just lower it and the darkness will disappear.

 

[Crash]

Thanks for the info YM. I knew I was a little off on my 3d skybox, but I didn't realize shadows affected that too. That makes sense though, and will be fixed next version.

Om Nom Nick, I think you are misunderstanding the phrase troll. A troll is someone who baits people into freaking out, usually taking the opposite stand point in a thread. Being lighthearted and joking around isn't trolling. It's having fun with your post.

I know mapping is serious business and all, but come on. Besides, like I said, it was originally a post for another forum, I just pasted it here instead of typing the whole thing out again. It gets the point across and saves me a bunch of formatting.

Also, the map name is my temporary name I usually don't do a release as, but I haven't come up with a name yet.

In short:

 

[xzzy]

I'll have to reserve judgment until I get to play it tonight, but I think that ladder in the 4th image will cause problems. It really depends on how much action that room sees. If there's a lot of fighting, players will run into the ladder a lot, which will frustrate them.

Cramming into that tiny alcove to get the health could have the same problem, they'll get forced into a crouch by the angled roof and this might be annoying.


The one way gate might not work as intended, though again it'll have to wait for the playtest tonight. Shooting straight up into a tiny hole is pretty difficult.. I can't really see there being any way for the defense to clear that tunnel out. You may find you either have to change it to a standard horizontal door, or put in some kind of flanking route.

Or maybe another level, perhaps where the orange wall is, that is on the same level as the dropoff.. put a tiny window in the side of the dropoff, so at least a demoman can aim horizontally into the area.

 

[Crash]

I tried to clip around everything in that room well enough that hopefully it won't be too much of a problem. But, we'll see. The ladder leads up to a tall enough part of the roof that you don't have to crouch. Although it can be a pain maneuvering. I figured it was just a small area to run up and grab some health/ hide/ teleporter. I'm not good at engineer, so I fail at building good engy spots.

That building is supposed to be pretty powerful, to balance out how powerful the rest of the buildings are for defense. But we'll see how it works tonight. I just noticed that there weren't really any good forward base spots for engys/ medics and tried to create one. I think it's going to open up as an alternate route for attackers (where those wooden doors are now) after the point is capped.

But like I said, we'll see for sure how it is all balanced tonight.

 

[Omnomnick]

Om Nom Nick, I think you are misunderstanding the phrase troll. A troll is someone who baits people into freaking out, usually taking the opposite stand point in a thread. Being lighthearted and joking around isn't trolling. It's having fun with your post.

I only meant the stupid thing you wrote at the bottom of your otherwise good post, as for the map I think you've done a good job of using multiple levels to create a sense of vertical gameplay, potentially similar to Badlands.

In one of your screenshots there is a large mine which looks potentially deadly for any short ranged classes like Pyros which are unable to take cover from Snipers or Soldiers while running down that mine.

 

[Crash]

If you mean the displacements freak out, then sorry. I just finished up tweaking the insane amount of displacements and holy hell was it rough. Had to vent a bit.

But what I learned from the play test we just held was that it is very sniper and very longer range class favoring. I need more cover in some spots and I'm going to try to throw in a few more buildings in the first area. I over compensated balancing out how easy it was to defend and now it's nearly impossible.

 

[Katsu! :3]

"Temporary name" he said
"It was only a placeholder" he said
little did he know

 

[Crash]

I learned what I needed to from it and moved on, lol