How to take your map from an idea to a final build
Difficulty: Intermediate |
| Category: CS:S > Mapping | Author(s): |
How to take your map from an idea to a final build.
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This tutorial will give you directions as to how to start building a map, how to make it, and the order you should actually do things. This DOES NOT go through actual building techniques. I am working on writing a tutorial that works together with this one for the actual building. This tut also assumes you are designing a serious map; No fy or aim help here.
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Ok, you want to make a map! First thing you need is an idea. What do you want to be the theme? What kind of map do you want it to be (ie: de_/cs_)? How do you want the gameplay to be(close-combat/sniping oriented/corrodors/outdoor fields..)? You must decide all of this now. Don't start mapping off of a single idea, you will be doomed to fail. Now, right all this down (seriously) and move on to the first step.
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Part one: Draw it out
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Billions of people have all said to draw out your map first, and chances are, you've ignored them. But here's ME saying it: DRAW YOUR MAP ON PAPER FIRST. Top view, draw all the paths, whatever, get it on paper. First reason why: you will forget. Honestly, everyone can forget even a simple layout. Reason two: you can plan the encounter spots early. By encounter spots, I mean the areas that will get the most combat per round. Draw out the map, then use your fingers (or whatever) to imagine how far teams will get down the paths and fight. Make sure to plan those areas interestingly. People will hate the map if they fight in an empty corridor. Also, once you write the most likely encounter spots, think of ways to make those areas interesting. And then, make the areas around the encounter spots have cover and what-not, because encounters are not always the same.
This is also the time to make sure you have enough paths and areas. For example, both teams should have at least 2 ways to go from the spawn. Think about it, every successful CS map has different paths going from the spawn points. For the rest of the map, there need to be at least 3 big encounter spots. You may be able to get by with 2 (de_tides has only 2), but 3 is recommended.
For a de map, make sure the sites are in multi entrance rooms and that there is a more or less direct way to go between the 2 bomb sites. For a CS map, make sure the hostages are not in a one entrance room. These things are extremely important.
You have your map drawn out, with encounter spots tested. Time to move on.
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Part two: build it all roughly
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The next step is to build the whole map without detail. In this phase, you want to get a map that is: 1)to scale 2)with all boundaries 3)That can be tested.
To make this to scale, a great thing to do is to just build the floor. This seems odd, but it helps A LOT for making rooms and paths to scale. Make the floors, then edit them until you get the floor plan to match what you drew on your piece of paper.
After making the floors, do the walls, and the ceilings (if any). Get all this finished. Then, throw in some spawn points and buy zones, and test it with bots. Go to spectator, and watch how the bots play it. They can show you where the encounter spots are ending up. Make sure those encounter spots are right where you want them (you may have to change and test it multiple times). Also, be sure not to play with the bots. Make your little experiment as controlled as possible.
At this point, you will have a blocky map, with some non-final textures. But it will be to scale, and you will have edited it so that the action happens where you want it to happen.
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Part three: Add details
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*Note* You will want to add lighting to your map during this step. However, this tut offers no help on lighting.
Now you want to focus on the look of the map. Let me give a little speech on map looks:
If anyone tells you their map is "made for game play, not looks," I want you to just punch them right in the face. NO good maps will to like crap. The look of a map is what makes it something special. If the original dust looked like like boring brick walls and concrete ground with no detail, it would not have ever gotten popular. It had great game play, yes, but people wouldn't have cared if it looked boring. In fact, the original dust wasn't even that balanced or that great to play on, but it was well made, and it defined a new theme for CS. Similarly, people will probably ignore your new map if it looks boring and uninteresting.
Ok, now, to make it interesting and good looking, you need a few things. First, the theme you established right from the beginning. If you were smart, you would have made your basic map build with the theme in mind. So, you need to make interesting things to be around the areas of the map. Easiest ways to start are by taking flat walls, and making them something else to block the player. For example, instead of a basic brick wall, make it the side of a building, with maybe some pillars or something. Or if its an indoor map, and you have a blank box of a room, make it have an interesting shape. For example, take the big box, and make it sort of L shaped. This is basic basic stuff that makes a great improvement on the looks.
Also, you want to make areas have a practical use other than just for playing a game of counterstrike. For example, take a blank room, and make it into a private office. Or maybe turn a vacant lot into a garden with flower beds and trees. Some real-map examples? Take cs_office. That small corridor in between the main halls was turned into the entrance to the bathrooms. One room with hostages was made into a conference room with a projector.
You really want each area of your map to be unique. It's more fun to play in, and it even effects game play. If your buddy says, "I need some cover! I'm in this room place!" you don't have any idea where to go. But if he says, "I need help! I'm trapped in the garage!" you immediately know where to go.
This part of the map making process is the longest part. To be honest, most mappers take more time making their maps look good than making them play well (That's what step 2 was for!). So be creative. Good mappers spend A LOT of time just thinking, "What can I do to make this area look cool? How can I make this place different from that room?" This makes the difference between a horrible map, and an amazing map.
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Part four: finalize the cover
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All maps have cover. It's very important to have cover in all areas of the map. Granted, you may want to place more cover in a bomb site than in a spawn point, but there needs to be at least something in that spawn. The places you need to think about the most are the encounter spots. The cover is absolutely crucial to these areas. Why? because one poorly placed piece of cover may give one team an unfair advantage that you don't want. Here's some steps for placing cover at encounter spots:
-Both teams should always have some sort of 'safe area' that they can hide at or fall back to. It can be a corner of a wall, or large crate, or whatever you want. But to there has to be something.
-Decide which team should have the upper hand at the area, or make it an even battle. For example, you may want to give the CTs stronger cover at a bomb site. But remember that there has to be a balance of power between both teams for the entire map. If every encounter spot favors the same team, your map will suck. If one path is slightly T sided, one is slightly CT sided, and another is neutral, then you're doing pretty well.
-Make the pieces of cover unique whenever possible. Take for example cs_office again. An overturned vending machine acts as cover, along with desks and reams of paper. Office would suck if it was filled with crates. Now, you may have to sneak in some cheap things like crates, but only do that sparingly, and try to make cover as unique as possible. de_survivor prides itself as a map with only one crate, and that one crate is impossible to use as cover.
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Part five: make definite boundaries
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This is one step that many people don't think about. This is where you make sure that it is impossible to leave the map. Nearly all professional maps will have walls made of the clip texture boxing you in. You want to assume that players will find a way to get over all hills and cliffs and fences. Make sure that your map is absolutely sealed shut.
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Part six: make a 3D skybox
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I hope you know how to do that, because I'm not explaining it here. You want to make a 3D skybox that looks good. And again, be creative. the map de_cpl_fire (for CSS) has a lot of little details in its skybox, such as a train outside the map, and many hills looming around the map. Seeing objects outside the map in the corner of your eye looks very cool.
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Part seven: check for errors
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Your map is not finished yet. Why? because you need to test it for mistakes. Compile your map and run around it for a long time. If you see anything that is less than perfect, write it down on a sheet of paper. even on the most finished of finished looking maps, you can fill a page listing things that need to be fixed. AND BE SURE TO WRITE EVERYTHING YOU FIND DOWN. make a list until you can't find anything else wrong, then go right back to hammer and fix them one by one. After you do that, compile again and repeat. Do this like 3 times at least.
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Part eight: optimization
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Now you need to optimize your map for how well it runs. I won't even try to write everything to do here. Just go to this link: OPTIMIZATION Please note that I did not write this optimization guide, I am only leading you to it.
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There you go, those are the steps to take when making a map for CSS. Go through EVERYTHING. All great maps will go through all these phases, and you will too. I guarantee your map will be much, much better if you create it in a step by step, methodical process.
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Have any questions or comments? Don't email me, I never check it! You can simply just PM me or drop a comment in my profile. |
| Added: 2 years ago | Tags: take, your, from, idea, final, build |
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