[WIP]orange something (no name yet)

[stealth]

somebody asked me so here is a thread on my map. as the title says it's still in progress.

This is my first map in TF2, before mapping in TF2 I made maps in wolfenstein: enemy territory. These didn't become very popular since they were crazy deathmatch type maps haha. Only a small group liked the chaos of them. Anyway the hammer editor is a dream compared to gtk radiant, so I loved it after around 5 minutes of finding the controls.

Since I have made maps before though I understand the concept of portals, hinting, lighting,...... and all that stuff. just the different syntax in hammer and different possibilities.
Hammer is very user friendly

So that's just a small intro on my history of mapping, now to my first map.
It is an orange map, but during the night time. (yer, not another orange map, but it is my first so give me a break )

First off I just started with making an orange map prefab for my friends you can grab it here:
http://stealth.staatsschutz.org/orangetest.vmf
includes:
Spawn Room Red
Red supply closet in spawn
Red spawn door
Red spawn barrier
Spawn Room Blu
Blu supply closet in spawn
Blu spawn door
Blu spawn barrier
5 control points (each team starts with 1 control point, the rest have to be captured)

Screenshot of the prefab:

Then I was like, well I made the tehnical part (control points), why not just make an orange map for the hell of it.
So my quest begun.

I started with a tower, cause most orange maps I like have one, except I don't like the towers they have so I designed my own.

a friend of mine brought up a subject of how to make a spiral staircase, so i pondered on the idea, and then thought, hey since I made it anyway why not throw it in there too.....

Heres a demo on the look of the top of the tower, with 2 potential sentry spots:

During this stage I thought about what i was going to do with my map, because i wanted to give all classes a chance. most orange maps I've played give a big advantage to snipers mainly.

The map started to take shape:

notice the walls around the path ways for sniper cover.
Also lots of different heights for scout jumps and demo and rocket jumps
1 rocket to get to the second point.
3 rockets to fly up the side of the tower.

Also just a crazy design idea, I have heard, but it's just my style.

Here are the latest screenshots, but the map has evolved quite a bit since then already:

might get some newer ones up tonight.

Oh and the deadline is Sunday evening 08/11
I just set a deadline to get my ass into gear

 

[shdw.puppet]

cool as that is... I think it would be even better if you were to take the time and texture it...

 

[Galago]

Looking nice. Why are you missing the cap point texture? Does it have anything to do w/ env_cubemap stuff?

 

[stealth]

it has everything to do with env_cubemap

 

[Galago]

Fix it?
EDIT: http://www.fpsbanana.com/tuts/2001

 

[Shadowfield]

that has got to be the coolest looking orange map I have EVER seen. Great job. I love orange maps, but detest snipe fests. I can't wait to play on it once it's done.

 

[stealth]

Fix it?
EDIT: http://www.fpsbanana.com/tuts/2001

FIrst of all, make sure your map is pretty much complete

*lengthening post*

 

[stealth]

update:

 

[A Boojum Snark]

While it does have quite interesting lighting and geometry (I hate orange maps, but this is halfway interesting), I get the feeling the engine won't be too happy rendering all of it at once, which it looks like it'll have to do since it's pretty much one big arena.

 

[Captain Planet]

textures

(Thats all i'm going to say, i'm not in for getting banned again because of the orange maps)

 

[Cerious]

While bad textures is better than no textures, I'd say I'm interested. Nice lighting, though it seems a little overkill.

 

[Chilly]

Although I hate orange_x (and other orange maps), I have some clanmates that love it for some reason. I'd like this to try on our server. After all, they put up with me forcing them to download new versions of hoodoo, aerospace, etc every week.

Going to post the map soon? Also, since you're giving up on it before texturing, how about handing the file off to someone else and allowing them to texture it? I think it looks like fun so far and would be a shame to leave in orange state.

 

[MrAlBobo]

this map strikes me as one that wound be incredibly difficult to texture believably
i mean sure, you could texture it...but then it would just look like pictures slapped onto a surface...
and I can't really see any way this would fit into the tf2 style...and retain the striking image you get from it as it is now...

 

[Galago]

Good point.

 

[stealth]

yes the visibility could pose some trouble. Not for my computer, but maybe for older computers. I hope the tower and walls block some vis though.

the map should be ready soon, but I'm gonna release it privately on my clans server first for some testing, then if I'm happy with it I'll post it over here.

to talk a bit about the map, you might notice on the screenshots 2 big gaps where there is nothing outside the map. Well as demoman you can fly out of the map and then back in. Although if you land outside the map you fall to your death. So basically I wanted demomen to be able to take a shortcut, but no exploiting

Also was breaking my head over func_rotating and trigger_teleport and info_teleport_destination.
Does anybody have a good tut on teleporters and brushes that rotate?
I've done some searching but to no result.
(Don't worry though not for this map )

 

[Chilly]

For texturing, a possible theme: Go-Cart track. It has the same feel that a place here in Wisconsin Dells (Big Chief) used to have... long, narrow ramps and spiral ramps (you'd have to modify the stairs a bit to look right). Throw in some custom Go Cart models themed for TF2 and you're golden.

 

[Galago]

What it reminds me of is a giant playground. Slides, etc.

 

[MrAlBobo]

For texturing, a possible theme: Go-Cart track. It has the same feel that a place here in Wisconsin Dells (Big Chief) used to have... long, narrow ramps and spiral ramps (you'd have to modify the stairs a bit to look right). Throw in some custom Go Cart models themed for TF2 and you're golden.

yeah, this had me thinking of rainbow road in mario kart actually <_<
but as proven by a certain KotH map...those type of textures do not work in tf2...

 

[Altaco]

I'm sorry, this is something that has always pissed me off about 5 cp custom maps - Make ONLY the middle point be captureable at the beginning. Have the 2 points on either side BOTH belong to one team at the beginning, not doing so is a pointless practice, because those points are always going to be captured by their respective teams anyway.

Also, it's alright if it's your first map and it's for practice, but try to stay away from orange maps in the future, make a good map and make it look good and fit the TF2 style.

One last note. Please follow naming conventions for maps. I think orange maps usually start with orange_ so this could be orange_tower or something along those lines. Keep it all lowercase because capitals are a pain in the ass for server hosters.

 

[laghlagh]

cp_orange_highway