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Mapping
Tips
| 1. |
Caulk
and Caulk Hull
Caulk hulling is a relatively new process, in a nutshell its
creating your entire map with brushes that are "detail"
then placing directly over some of them like the floor for instance
"structural" brushes made entirely of the caulk texture.
This might seem wrong at first but it certainly seems right
after your compile times goes from hours to minutes.
Also the best way to map is too make what your doing out of
caulk, then texture it, this makes it a lot easier in the future
and means you dont have to go over the map caulking unseen faces.
Caulk hull tutorial
Caulking tutorial
Texturing
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| 2. |
limitations
There are limitations to the game engine, things like drawing
distance, the engine can only draw so far and then it starts
to become un-playable, you can only have so many brushes on
screen before the fps starts to drop drastically, keep the fps
high as you can. You can only have a map so open before it will
start to lag the player. Compile times can give you an indication
of how your maps going to play, if your compile is taking unusually
long or days to compile then chances are its too extreme. Take
a look at official maps and see how far they have pushed the
boundaries. Take viewing distance for instance, mp_assault has
quite a large viewing distance as you can see from one end to
the other quite far. I doubt very much if you can have much
more of a viewing distance, maybe a small amount more but you
can judge from official maps and other maps you have seen and
experiment.
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| 3. |
Compile
and test frequently
This is vital, keep testing your map as you build it, do not
build it all at once then compile, you might want to build it
out in rough at once, but that can be a tiresome way to do things
but might be suitable for smaller linear maps. Always keep testing
bits out, this way you can gradually improve your map and get
a good feel for the size and layout of your map.
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| 4. |
Saving
maps
Progressively save your map, so that you can go back to older
versions if something does wrong, i.e. say im making a map called
town, well I may call it town1, town2, town3 and so on, you
dont have to do it every save just when you think something
might go wrong or that you want a backup version. I would also
not have autosave on as you might be working on something and
want to revert back or not save it.
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| 5. |
Simple
layouts
The simple layout maps are often the best in multiplayer. mp_beach
is a simple layout as is mp_base. This is where a lot of people
go wrong, by thinking big complicated maps show that you are
a better mapper, this isnt the case, the simple layout usually
means a more understandable, viable map for the player, this
is not to say there are not good complex maps out there.
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| 6. |
The
Grid is your friend
He aligns everything up and keeps everything clean, things start
to go wrong if your making your entire map using a low grid
setting, like grid size 1,2,3,4 simply because you'll have to
zoom in to align everything, where as if you use a grid setting
like 5 or 6, 7 or even 8 you can be confident that everything's
aligning up nice and you dont have to zoom in to make things
as you can clearly see brushes lining up. Then when you need
to make a smaller brush, zoom in and make the grid smaller.
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| 7. |
Clipping
Clipping is
a great way to manipulate brushes into shapes you need, dont
forget you can do 2 and 3 point clipping a well as use points
to move faces about.
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| 8. |
Fix
errors as you see them
When you making something you might spot an error someplace
and think "ill fix that later" chances are you will
forget where it was or all about it, so fix things as you see
them
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| 9. |
Overall
light, set an ambient setting
To avoid pure black shadows, (it just doesnt look right) set
an ambient level in worldspawn. If you dont know how, see here
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| 10. |
Sounds
Ambience is vital in creating a good atmosphere for your map,
silent maps just dont seem right. Placing a few sounds in makes
all the difference, such as wind, birds, electrical noises,
voices, coughs, footsteps, planes, trains, cars etc. So dont
forget to add some ambient sounds in your map, if you dont know
how check out the tutorial here
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| 11. |
Keep
To Scale
Scale is sometimes overlooked, but if you miss the scale your
map wont look or feel right. You might notice that in 1st person
view you feel higher up than if you look at the other player
models (3rd person view essentially) This means the scale may
look correct in 1st person but when you see the players in the
map it might look too small or too big, the solution is a simple
one, scale to the size of the info player start but not to 1:1,
just make certain things slightly bigger, key factors are ceiling
heights and door heights. Dont forget in wolf you jump pretty
high so making the ceilings low makes it feel cramped, unless
your going for htat feel. If you make doors scaled to 1:1 they
dont look right in 1st person view. Take a look at the official
maps scaling of doors and some ceilings in relation to the info
player start, doors need to be about 1.5 scale.
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