What I'm up to

I seem to veer wildly between mapper's block and a kind of brain explosion of hundreds of ideas. I have about 5 map ideas on the go at the moment, not to mention the Facepunch competition. My current focus is on my most completed map, gm_studio, based on a tv station. I'm so far on my third remake of the map, mainly because I tend to make one room, be satisfied with it, and then screw up with the sizes of the rest of the room. This time, I've layed out most of the floor plan to start with, and begun inserting props and less significant walls.

The map will contain several rooms, including a stage, a reception, a kitchen, a green room, bathrooms and a control room. I'll probably have to make a few custom textures, but I can live with that.

I'll update with other projects at some point. I really want to get back to my Saw project, which I'll post about soon.

Happy mapping!

Visual flair, art and colour in level design

A distinctive art style can be key to a game's success. Games such as Mirror's Edge, Team Fortress 2 and BioShock are instantly recognisable through their use of colour, lighting and architecture:

Most of the time when you see a picture of one of the plague of modern war shooters that has befallen us like so many locusts, the only way to identify it is the configuration of the heads up display.

Call of Duty? Bad Company 2? Medal of Honor? Who knows.

To be fair to them, there's not much you can do with the art style of a modern shooter. Realism makes the games more immersive, and a more cartoony art style could be considered disrespectful to the subject matter. This is where games like Fallout 3 succeed: it took the distinctive 50s pop culture art style and added 200 years of nuclear destruction and decay to make the drab, browny-grey visuals we know and love today.

From this...

...to this

Even amongst Source games there are many variations:

Yes I've used this image before, what of it?

Half-Life 2 tends to take a sunny, european city style, and then crush it under hundreds of tonnes of combine metal,

While Portal takes a minimalist approach to draw your attention to important objects, and avoid visual clutter infringing on gameplay.

As you can see, art style and gameplay are inextricably linked: in a realistic shooter, you want the environment to look as realistic as possible, perhaps with some moody skies and lowered saturation to create a forboding atmosphere. In a Tolkien-esque fantasy world you want towering castles and gloomy dungeons.

Try this out next time you make a level: pick an art style and build a level around it. If you're short of  appropriate textures, Interlopers and Half-Wit 2 (both linked at the bottom of the page) have tutorials on texture creation.

Happy mapping!

Pre-war Fallout 3 image courtesy of Lydia

Robert Briscoe Fanwank

Let's be honest, Source is not the great engine it was 6 years ago. Back then, it was breathtaking. Now, it staggers along trying to compete with the big boys.

Remember when this was awesome?

Valve are still making a valiant effort to hold back the tides, but the engine's taking on water. It can't hold up to the detail of Unreal 3, or the enormous vistas of RAGE.

Yeah, check this shit out

You can't touch this

These reasons are why Robert Briscoe has become something of a demi-God amongst Source mappers. A game designer who has worked on the flawed yet beautiful Mirror's Edge, he's taken our poor, limping little engine, and catapulted it up to the big leagues. Through custom content and lots of skill, he's completely transformed Source. I'll let some screenshots do the talking.

These screenshots are from an experimental mod entitled Dear Esther. The original version came out a few years ago, released by some university students, and is now being remade by Briscoe. The mod is excellent, combining a brilliant soundtrack with a haunting ghost story. Unfortunately, the link to the original version of Dear Esther has been taken down in anticipation of Briscoe's remake, however it sounds like the game should be released sometime towards the end of this year. Interestingly, these screenshots are of the alpha version, which 'need lots of polish'. I can't even imagine how good the completed game is going to look in action.

As an added bonus, here's a video of the caves level, which allows you to see some of the stunning water effects in action, and a link to Briscoe's Devblog, for some more screenshots and updates on progress, as well as some insights into the mapping process.

How not to be a n00b mapper, part 2

So you've learnt to put a light_environment in your map, but what else should you avoid? A biggie here, carving. Avoid carving at all costs. Even if it's just a small square inside a big square, you can do it more easily by clipping. At worst it can crash Hammer and be hugely inefficient. Let's look at an example:

Say you want to make this:

You should do it like this:

 Not this:

So there you go. Never carve, ever.

Happy mapping!

Off to Teesside

Continuing my Zerg rush of posts today, I've just heard from UCAS that I'm going to be studying Computer Games Design at Teesside University in Middlesbrough for the next four years. Wish they used Source, then I'd be set.

How not to be a n00b mapper, part 1

We were all n00b mappers once. I remember the days of surrounding my map with a huge skybox textured hollowed cube, making lights that come from nowhere and carving everything. Still, I've learned from my mistakes, so here are my rules for not looking like a total idiot:

1) Place a light_environment

For the love of God please do this: fullbright (where every surface is as bright as possible) maps look horrible. Even if you don't adjust the colour or brightness at all, just place one of these. Maps look so much more natural with a correctly set up light_environment.

My eyes are burning!

Much better

Sketches for the FP mapping competition

 

Mine

Xemit's

 

Another one of mine 

A bit about me

Boy, I'm really spamming the blog with updates these first few days.

Just thought I'd let anyone who reads this (possibly the police, searching for clues as to the cause of my gun-toting rampage) know a bit more about me. I'm currently 18 and living in the UK, I have about three weeks left at home and then I'm off to study Computer Games Design at university. I don't know which one yet, I'm waiting for Stafford to get back to me, so it's either there or Teesside. Both courses use Unreal rather than Source, so I don't know how much Source mapping I'll be able to do over the next four years, but it's how I started out and something I enjoy doing, so hopefully I'll be able to keep it up :)

Sam out.

Entered a mapping contest

I have entered Facepunch's co-op mapping contest with -Xemit-. The theme is micronations, so I'm thinking an oil-rig type map, but there are many options. I'll upload some screenshots when I have them.

My favourite Garry's Mod maps, part 1

I don't often play Garry's Mod online, but I often test out maps in single player to help inspire me for my own maps. Here are some of my favourites:

gm_atomic

This map is very beautiful, making excellent use of a 3D skybox to create an enormous looking landscape. There are several buildings and a large networks of tunnels to explore. There's space for building without it feeling tacked on, and the map is also useful for machinima and comics.

gm_bigcity

Made by the same person as gm_atomic, this map is a lot less pretty, but it has to be considering the sheer scale. This pretty much pushes Source to the max. It's enormous, and a lot of fun to build or race in. It makes good use of levels, with sewers, a raised highway and the city streets. Another map useful for machinima and comics.

gm_construct_flatgrass

In my opinion the ultimate construct map. It has space to build planes, trains, boats and cars, and much more. I know garrysmod.org is flooded with construct and flatgrass remakes, but this one really is worth downloading.

Some good places for tutorials

When I started out as a mapper, like a lot of people I turned to YouTube, and found 3kliksphilip. There's a lot of hate surrounding this guy, and I admit that as I become more experienced I find better ways to do things than he does, but he helped me start mapping and for that I am grateful.

There are, however many other places I've found that can help with mapping:

Half-Wit 2 has a wealth of tutorials, from beginner to advanced, and it serves as a good place to get started.
Interlopers also has a lot of tutorials, covering slightly more varied topics than Half-Wit, but less geared towards beginners.
The Source Wiki serves as a good place to go if you need more details on specific entities, but is lacking in tutorials.
Finally, Facepunch's Mapping board, specifically the Mapper's Encyclopedia thread, is a good place to ask questions. You can also post works-in-progress in the map pimpage thread.

There are many other resources out there, but these are the ones that have helped me the most.

Good luck and happy mapping!