- Nov 11, 2008
- 206
- 34
ctf_fu_trainyard
by HojoTheGreat
UPDATE NOVEMBER 21, 2008
BETA RELEASED
The map is available in the downloads section HERE
or at FPSBanana HERE
Hello everyone! Since this is my first post on the forums I just wanted to thank everyone here first, because the community here is great, full of fantastic knowledge that has helped me build this map over the last year. So thanks!
Now for some background, this actually began about a year ago, a month after the Orange Box was released. TF2 quickly became my favorite game and due to there being so few maps released with the game, the creative wheels began to turn! Soon after I downloaded the Source SDK and began playing around with hammer and drawing out some sketches of ideas. The truth is I had NO idea how much work was involved in actually laying out the game area of a map was, so my first concepts were simple. My original idea was intriguing to me and, and oddly simple: a perfectly straight, VERY long map, capture the flag gamemode, with pillars spread evenly across the length. The idea of two teams charging head-on into one another seemed so chaotic and action-oriented I thought "That's gotta be gun! Hell, I want to play it!" After learning the basic skills and techniques to map-constuction I produced this:
Now it doesn't take a game designer to realize that TF2 maps are all built around a central theme, whether it be a Goldmine like pl_goldrush, or a granary, not surprisingly, like cp_granary. So when I considered my initial concept, and tried to think of a reason why my map was so long the idea hit me right away. TRAINS! What if I made it like a train warehouse, or garage, or whatever those things were called! I considered modifying it to be more of a train station, but the industrial construction/resource harvesting corporation theme didn't quite fit. Thus my map now had it's central theme: it would be some kind of train shelter/station in the middle of a massive trainyard! Now I don't know if any of you have seen one of these, but they are actually pretty cool. Here's a shot of one via google:
Moving along I now had a great theme to build around. The first thing I wanted to do was decide where the intelligence should be located. At first I had each one located in a separate room directly at the end of the respective sides.
Simple, straight forward. Then realized I needed there to be more than one way to enter the room. How about a vent that you could drop down from? Great idea! But I needed a way to get up to a vent in the first place. How about a second level? Done!
But then after sitting on the idea for a few days, I got bored. I wanted more, and this silly "straight long map", which I had lovingly named "The Gauntlet" just simply, well, was too SIMPLE. Looking at all the Valve maps, I realized if I was going to build a map, it was going to be as close as I could get to their quality! So I scrapped the layout and began redrawing concepts. I still loved the trainyard idea, and kept the long length of the map. But it needed more...verticality. Rethinking the intel room placement it, didn't take me long to think of a great place; how cool would it be to have the intel room be on an upper level, overlooking the map!? I put it on what I considered to be the 3rd Floor, high above where the general action would be.
Of course, now I needed a way to get up there. When pondering different paths I could make, my attention strayed towards the center of the map for some reason, and I put the intel room on hold. I now how a fixation with placing a central room on the 2nd floor, where the two teams could meet in the middle for some action. I began with a square room, with 4 entrances, one on each side.
Along with this idea, as you will note in that last shot, I had another idea, probably my favorite looking back at the map. I had this vision of the entire 2nd level being a metal catwalk hanging from ceiling, made up of a series of narrow paths with railings. The image of ragdolls hanging and falling off the edge down to the main level, and being able to watch from that ground level seemed so cool! Now at this point in my mapmaking career I had just befriended a person on Steam, now good friend and my mentor at the time, Sick Spider. He noticed that I was in Source SDK all the time, and asked what I was up to. As it turned out he had a lot of experience in mapping, and offered to take a look at what I was doing. He was APPALLED! Not by the map of course, but by my brushwork and texture work. I will remind everyone this was my first time ever using a mapping program, and I was learning it all as I went. So he took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, introducing me to concepts like optimization, CRUCIAL to any mapper. One suggestion he made was to texture everything in NODRAW, a texture I was not aware of, that way I wouldn't render the things players wouldn't see. A brilliant concept! Now, with his help, I could really dig in to the construction. Going back to the catwalks, I soon produced this:
NOW I was starting to see my vision, and with my new-found skills and techniques courtesy of Sick Spider, I really started to work fast. What used to take days now turned into hours. Sweet. I started to get down some more detailed layouts.
At this point I had realized that a trainyard would be nothing without trains, thus it would be necessary to have trains speeding through the map a la cp_well. Thus the gates and traintracks seen above. I also began to move on to other areas. The sewers, a 4th level, came into play.
My initial concept, while a bit primitive and simple, stuck, and is generally the same now, besides the exit stairs.
I also began work on my spawn rooms, which became my first detailed room. I wanted the spawn rooms to feel and look like locker rooms, a look I don't think Valve captures very well in their maps. The first thing I think about when I think of a locker room, is the showers, so they became a centerpiece for me. Initially they were going to be stalls like so:
However I failed to find a TF2 prop for a showerhead, in fact the only prop that showed when I searched for shower, were these weird things that are supposed to be sanitizer spray things.
Don't ask me, I don't know. At any rate it just wasn't working, so I went with another, more risky idea. There was actually one other prop that came up in the search, which was perfect! Except it was a Half-Life 2 model...Well I took a risk, and figured (hoped) that anyone playing TF2 MUST have HL2 installed as well, and thus will not get a missing model error when playing the map. Here's to hoping!
Now I had a real locker room
by HojoTheGreat
UPDATE NOVEMBER 21, 2008
BETA RELEASED
The map is available in the downloads section HERE
or at FPSBanana HERE
Hello everyone! Since this is my first post on the forums I just wanted to thank everyone here first, because the community here is great, full of fantastic knowledge that has helped me build this map over the last year. So thanks!
Now for some background, this actually began about a year ago, a month after the Orange Box was released. TF2 quickly became my favorite game and due to there being so few maps released with the game, the creative wheels began to turn! Soon after I downloaded the Source SDK and began playing around with hammer and drawing out some sketches of ideas. The truth is I had NO idea how much work was involved in actually laying out the game area of a map was, so my first concepts were simple. My original idea was intriguing to me and, and oddly simple: a perfectly straight, VERY long map, capture the flag gamemode, with pillars spread evenly across the length. The idea of two teams charging head-on into one another seemed so chaotic and action-oriented I thought "That's gotta be gun! Hell, I want to play it!" After learning the basic skills and techniques to map-constuction I produced this:
Now it doesn't take a game designer to realize that TF2 maps are all built around a central theme, whether it be a Goldmine like pl_goldrush, or a granary, not surprisingly, like cp_granary. So when I considered my initial concept, and tried to think of a reason why my map was so long the idea hit me right away. TRAINS! What if I made it like a train warehouse, or garage, or whatever those things were called! I considered modifying it to be more of a train station, but the industrial construction/resource harvesting corporation theme didn't quite fit. Thus my map now had it's central theme: it would be some kind of train shelter/station in the middle of a massive trainyard! Now I don't know if any of you have seen one of these, but they are actually pretty cool. Here's a shot of one via google:
Moving along I now had a great theme to build around. The first thing I wanted to do was decide where the intelligence should be located. At first I had each one located in a separate room directly at the end of the respective sides.
Simple, straight forward. Then realized I needed there to be more than one way to enter the room. How about a vent that you could drop down from? Great idea! But I needed a way to get up to a vent in the first place. How about a second level? Done!
But then after sitting on the idea for a few days, I got bored. I wanted more, and this silly "straight long map", which I had lovingly named "The Gauntlet" just simply, well, was too SIMPLE. Looking at all the Valve maps, I realized if I was going to build a map, it was going to be as close as I could get to their quality! So I scrapped the layout and began redrawing concepts. I still loved the trainyard idea, and kept the long length of the map. But it needed more...verticality. Rethinking the intel room placement it, didn't take me long to think of a great place; how cool would it be to have the intel room be on an upper level, overlooking the map!? I put it on what I considered to be the 3rd Floor, high above where the general action would be.
Of course, now I needed a way to get up there. When pondering different paths I could make, my attention strayed towards the center of the map for some reason, and I put the intel room on hold. I now how a fixation with placing a central room on the 2nd floor, where the two teams could meet in the middle for some action. I began with a square room, with 4 entrances, one on each side.
Along with this idea, as you will note in that last shot, I had another idea, probably my favorite looking back at the map. I had this vision of the entire 2nd level being a metal catwalk hanging from ceiling, made up of a series of narrow paths with railings. The image of ragdolls hanging and falling off the edge down to the main level, and being able to watch from that ground level seemed so cool! Now at this point in my mapmaking career I had just befriended a person on Steam, now good friend and my mentor at the time, Sick Spider. He noticed that I was in Source SDK all the time, and asked what I was up to. As it turned out he had a lot of experience in mapping, and offered to take a look at what I was doing. He was APPALLED! Not by the map of course, but by my brushwork and texture work. I will remind everyone this was my first time ever using a mapping program, and I was learning it all as I went. So he took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, introducing me to concepts like optimization, CRUCIAL to any mapper. One suggestion he made was to texture everything in NODRAW, a texture I was not aware of, that way I wouldn't render the things players wouldn't see. A brilliant concept! Now, with his help, I could really dig in to the construction. Going back to the catwalks, I soon produced this:
NOW I was starting to see my vision, and with my new-found skills and techniques courtesy of Sick Spider, I really started to work fast. What used to take days now turned into hours. Sweet. I started to get down some more detailed layouts.
At this point I had realized that a trainyard would be nothing without trains, thus it would be necessary to have trains speeding through the map a la cp_well. Thus the gates and traintracks seen above. I also began to move on to other areas. The sewers, a 4th level, came into play.
My initial concept, while a bit primitive and simple, stuck, and is generally the same now, besides the exit stairs.
I also began work on my spawn rooms, which became my first detailed room. I wanted the spawn rooms to feel and look like locker rooms, a look I don't think Valve captures very well in their maps. The first thing I think about when I think of a locker room, is the showers, so they became a centerpiece for me. Initially they were going to be stalls like so:
However I failed to find a TF2 prop for a showerhead, in fact the only prop that showed when I searched for shower, were these weird things that are supposed to be sanitizer spray things.
Don't ask me, I don't know. At any rate it just wasn't working, so I went with another, more risky idea. There was actually one other prop that came up in the search, which was perfect! Except it was a Half-Life 2 model...Well I took a risk, and figured (hoped) that anyone playing TF2 MUST have HL2 installed as well, and thus will not get a missing model error when playing the map. Here's to hoping!
Now I had a real locker room
Last edited: