.:`=-~rANdOm~`-=:. Game Servers
Technology (Read Only) => Mapping => Topic started by: Mehis on February 26, 2011, 04:53:11 AM
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How to make interesting map
Firstly: I am NOT saying I'm expert at mapping. Feel free to ask question and the tutorial might contain bad English. I tried my best. Thank you.
There is many ways to make interesting map. It has to be unique. Instead of copying from someone else.
For Newbies
Lightning
Instead of making boring fullbright map, use light_environment
How to:
1. Click this at the side bar.
(http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/2889/guidepic2.jpg)
2. Now you should see something like this at the right side.
(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3139/guidepic3.jpg)
Type light_environment and click somewhere in your map.
3.Now you should see something like this
(http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4313/guidepic5.jpg)
Diabolical on it and this should pop up.
(http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/4311/guidepic4d.jpg)
Pitch Yaw Roll: Where does to light go FROM the entity. (so place it where you want the light come.)
Brightness: Name says it all.
Ambient: Name says it all.
SunSpreadAngle: How blurry are the shadows. (ex. 5 is good starting value.)
OTHER OPTIONS YOU SHOULD LEAVE LIKE THEY ARE!
4. Now you should just try out these things and find perfect lightning for your map.
If you didn't get something go here: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Light_environment (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Light_environment)
Sky
Now you might think: I want dark map, but the sky texture isn't working!
How to:
1. At the top tool bar click Map. Then you should see something like this.
(http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/3724/guidepic1.jpg)
Click Map Properties... and this should pop up.
(http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/9858/guidepic6.jpg)
Now, click SkyBox Texture Name
2. Now you should find sky texture, but where? Here: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Sky_List (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Sky_List) (DO NOT COPY THE NAME FROM THE PICTURE!) Lets take sky_borealis01, because we wanted darkish map. Paste it there and click Ok.
OPTIONAL!
3. Now you should open your light_environment again and copy the Ideal Sun Angle, Ideal Sun Pitch, Ideal Brightness and Ideal Ambiance from
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Sky_List (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Sky_List) To light_environment. Sun Angle to Pitch Yaw Roll, Sun Pitch to Pitch, Brightness to Brightness and Ambiance to Ambient.
IF you want make it proper lightning for the sky.
Rain/Snowfall
But what about Rain? Or Snow?
How to:
1. Take trigger texture from the texture application by searching "trigger"
2. Now click this at the side bar.
(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6024/guidepic7.jpg)
3. Make block where you want to the rain/snowfall be and click Enter.
4. Now select the brush and press Ctrl + T and name it as func_precipitation.
And it should something like this.
(http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/4967/guidepic8.jpg)
Density: (0 to 100) How hard does the rain/snowfall rain.
Precipitation Type: Use only Rain or Snowfall!
THEORY PART!
For Advanced
Details!
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/2181/guidepic10.jpg)
One of the important things to make perfect map.
Decals
Decals are perfect for making maps look old-ish.
I recommend to use trash decals much as possible. It makes the illusion of detail.
Spray textures are another way to tell the area/map is more used. Use them much as possible (PLEASE! DON'T SPAM THEM!)
Brush work
If your map has nothing else but squares it loses the interest.
(Ex. instead of making flat roof, make it like this.)
(http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/3464/guidepic9.jpg)
Or make support structures like these
(http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/4465/guidepic11.jpg)
(http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/683/guidepic12.jpg)
The way to make good map is to add little things.
Lightning
Instead of using regular light entity try out some others, like light_spot, light_dynamic, env_projectedtexture.
AND CHANGE THE GOD DAMN BRIGHTNESS ALREADY!
(Bad ex. add's light entity and does nothing for it.)
(Good ex. add's light entity, changes the brightness and color of it.)
(Bad ex. add's light entity to attic and makes it eye rape.)
(Good ex. add's light entity to attic and changes the brightness to 50, which makes it look darker, which makes it look cooler, which makes your map popular!)
Props
Another way to make your map look life like.
Without them your map will suck, no matter what.
Optimizing
If, you don't optimize your map and it has fps problems, nobody will play your map and complains that its laggy and it will get removed from the server.
WARNING! If you are making map for Zombie Survival the fps will drop by half or more. So be prepared.
Gameplay
THE most important part. This will still rule all.
Without fun, good gameplay your map will suck.
Ok, that was my rant... now feel free to ask questions :D
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stickied for helpfulness
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:thumbsup: this will come in handy cuz I suck alot at mapping
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WHYYY GOD WHYYY... i just see frogs inside an ice-cube... fucking imagenshack.
anyways, this will be very helpfull for me when i start doing my first map.
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Fixed spelling & grammar errors
On another note, :thumbsup:
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If you really want to make your lighting more detailed, instead of having a light floating at random, have logical sources for the light present.
ex: if you want to light a attic, have a hanging light-bulb prop, and position your dim light to emit from there.
Most players wont notice specifically that your lights come from logical sources, but it's one step towards making your maps look more professional.
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Never been able to get my light_dynamic to work properly.
Simply placing the entity in my map lights the props but not the world.
Love tut, gud for dem nubs :yes:
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Never been able to get my light_dynamic to work properly.
Simply placing the entity in my map lights the props but not the world.
Love tut, gud for dem nubs :yes:
You need to set Light Brightness to 6-8, Pitch and Entity to point at would be nice.
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Speaking of sky textures, how hard is it to make custom skybox textures for HL2/GMod maps?
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Speaking of sky textures, how hard is it to make custom skybox textures for HL2/GMod maps?
There isn't really 'skybox' textures. Sky textures.* *nerd laugh*
Well, you need some kind of 'cubemap editor' or painter which has cubemap tool. Cubemap aka picture from left, right, front, behind, bottom, top. The only problem is to 'blend' them, so you can't see the edges of the textures.
Hard? Well, if you are making realistic skies, hell yea.
See tutorials...
Side note: Making sky textures is same for all Source games. Expect if the engine version is different...
I like how i keep editing this post. Now i'll stfu and leave this like it is.
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startign a WS map this week, could use some tips, i have a few questions:
do the items used in WS spawn themselves?
is there anything i need to do to make it a WS map?
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startign a WS map this week, could use some tips, i have a few questions:
do the items used in WS spawn themselves?
is there anything i need to do to make it a WS map?
I don't believe it's automatic.
You have to put some entity down or something.
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startign a WS map this week, could use some tips, i have a few questions:
do the items used in WS spawn themselves?
is there anything i need to do to make it a WS map?
I don't know. I haven't mapped for WS.
You should try to download the gamemode by SVN, then use the fgd if it has one.
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Why does it say "Lightning" instead of lighting?
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Oohh. Sky names.
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This is very helpful for me, thanks.
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If, you don't optimize your map and it has fps problems, nobody will play your map and complains that its laggy and it will get removed from the server.
WARNING! If you are making map for Zombie Survival the fps will drop by half or more. So be prepared.
How can you optimize it? adding no draw texture to the textures that people will never see? and is there another way to optimize it?
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How can you optimize it? adding no draw texture to the textures that people will never see? and is there another way to optimize it?
All I can think of in addition to nodraw is placing a water_lod_control entity somewhere in your map to reduce water quality over distance.
Contrary to what some people say, grouping doesn't optimize your map. It's purely for ease of selection in hammer editor.
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A lot of simple things can mess your map up. Such is the source engine. improper cubemaps is one of these simple problems that pretty much destroy the map if they aren't properly utilized, and I don't want to go into too much detail about that.
Optimizing is basically making players have better framerates during gameplay. Everyone knows that yea?
Ways of doing this in the source engine are as you said adding nodraw textures to certain surfaces to speed up both compiling and rendering ingame. Others include visleafs and level of detail.
Visleafs are implemented in many other games but source is very lacking in how well its simulated and such. Often the compiler will make mistakes and mess up these visleafs so creating references in hammer can solve these problems. A variety of entities and tool materials are used.
Another way for optimizing are lod's.
Often very complex models with a high number of polys can cause performance problems. Take for example perhaps a model of a train in a field.The modeler isable to create different versions of the model to produce lower "resolutions" of it. Basically lowering the amount of polys used. This reduces the load ingame and despite being far away the model can still look fairly realistic but can appear very detailed when the player moves right up next to it. These different distances in which the model may "switch" between lods can be defined through the entity in hammer or just the base source code. This tactic is used for pretty much every game coming out.
These different ways summarize the more major parts of optimization omitting texture resolution lods and other video card settings.