Thought I might just copy my thread from TEK9 onto here, seeing as this is where most of the mapping goes on.


UPDATE1 : 18/09/11 - Finished Layout, scroll down for pictures
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Scroll down for maps, but please read what I wrote here :<

Okay, so I recently decided to take up mapping about 3-4 months ago, it actually came pretty quick to me and I've learnt pretty much everything, and after a few projects I decided to make a competitive map.

Competitive maps are NEEDED in COD4. The game is really boring to play for some people, and I think 2/3 new maps would really help some people become interested in the game again. We obviously have a few maps floating around, cluster, hideout, train, sometown, urban etc etc

However none of them have been intergrated into competitive play fulltime, the closest of them all was cluster. Cluster is SO close to being perfect, however it still hasn't made the jump into a major LAN / tournament which needs to happen.

Obviously after many failed attempts at to make maps, I don't want to be wasting my life building a map that noone is going to play, or that has terrible layout. So I've decided to take arguably, the most played map in COD4, Crash, and work on its layout alot, and to try and include other good features about the other maps.

Crash as a map is really exciting to play, and it has the best layout for any of the maps (apart from city).



It has clearly defined A, mid and B bomb routes. However everyone goes A. Its a pity as B long is one of the most interesting places to watch on stream, theres nothing like a group of people working together to push through a straight line alley. The problem lies in the mid, the main center building, in front of the chopper makes it slightly harder for rushers on defence to rush the attackers in blue, also A garden is also mega easy to nade. So its the obvious choice for attackers.

What I want for a map, is to take the crash layout, but balance the mid, so that both A / B become equally potential targets for attackers, like city.

After a few weeks this is where I am at: (bear in mind most of this is in skeleton format, only a few places are properly done).



B alley, its been slightly widened, just to make it more appealing to come down for attack. (Don't worry there are bends in the alley to allow attack to slowly move down).



Attack spawn.



This is the middle section, its open like the chopper, but I've enlarged to so that its something like the market on citystreets, which is evenly balanced. Attack have a easy time nading mid, so attackers do get a chance to get into "blue" and watch the middle.

Snipers can shoot from defence spawn and blue just like in crash, so it makes sense (haven't actually made what will be "blue".



A bomb, was trying to make something that would allow shottys into the game and good smg action, however I think it may be slightly hard for attackers, so I will look at this. (This is very basic). Timings are good for both spawns, attackers CAN get into A just before defenders with good spawn.



This is essentially what is "A garden".



UPDATE 18/9/11




These are the stairs from ATTACK spawn to Blue (A)



This is blue, made it much wider and cleaner than the blue in crash because its horrible in that map. Sniper battles from defence spawn to the first door on the left. Door to the right goes to a little section to allow for keen nades:D.



Outisde view of Blue.



This is essentially "gennies". But a bit more sheltered. Lots of open space between A and Blue, so you really must either go here or get into A, no standing around.

LAYOUT is 100%

I'm completely happy with the layout as it is now, all I have to do is keep on adding detail to the max, which is probably the most boring bit.

PORTALING - This makes FPS much better in maps, it literally tells the game to not draw anything you can't see, which saves FPS. Currently looking through the middle I get anywhere between 170-230 fps. I can reach a unstable 250 normally, so FPS HAS to be improved. This is what I'm not looking forward to.

Will take a break from it now, and chill for a couple of weeks before I resume work. But I aim to get this thing finished by Christmas.


I've got lots of school work to do, so progress will sadly be slow, I may only be able to work on it a few hours a week tops, so don't expect anything yet. When its beta tested for layout, it won't be portaled so FPS WILL be bad, but were nowhere near that stage yet.

give a download link for it , so we can walk to it and find thinks we dont like and stuff

Good luck with it aced, portalliing is something i dont like either lol

get it done so we can try it out!

Looks quite nice, would be nice if you can give a download link, would like to walk around and see it ingame

looks nice, nice work till now and as everyone said link so we can try it:D

portaling is easy, just boring.

gj!

looks sick, put it on tek9!

Looks interesting. Reminds me of a couple of CS maps combined.

Pro

The mid house is strange and seems to come from nowhere.

looks great, hopefully people will actually sack up and play it once it's finished



also a dl link would be great