2. In The Beginning… There was a few things that got me started working on the map. One was probably related to all the art I see done at work, making me want to create something unique myself. Another was that I had played a couple of the recently released CTF maps out there. Another was that I had this niggling voice in the back of my head telling me that my previous 2kx releases mostly sucked, and that I had to redeem myself. But I think the main thing was, I had read the old review of my UT1 map, CTF-Hydro32, and had remembered some of the main flaws that had prevented it from being a cool map… and I really wanted to fix those flaws, improve on it, and make something that played really good, while being able to use all the skills I've gained in the last year through work, including some cool techniques for getting some nice looks into a level. You see, where I work, I'm a “Level Designer”, mainly just working on enemy encounters and scripting the enemy bots to look intelligent and make fun gameplay. I rarely get a chance to actually do anything related to how the level looks, which is a shame because I have a good knowledge of the engine and how to squeeze some good stuff out of it. But that's where my UT mapping comes in – I can do whatever I bloody well want there! So that's where it started… First of all I designed the level top-down on paper. I ALWAYS do this for every map I make. I usually do this in a single one or two hour sitting. I sit down with a pad & pencil somewhere usually uncomfortable, and start with drawing a broad layout. I hide out from my girlfriend when I do this as you really have to get into the zone when doing this I think. I need to be able to imagine how the layout is going to work when it's 3D, using all my knowledge and past experience of playing and designing. This might sound weird, but usually I do this with a UT1 music track playing continuously in Winamp :) I can listen to the same track for hours… because I don't really hear it - it's just something that's keeping my blood pumping while I'm in the designers zone. I once listened to “Run.umx” continuously for 9 hours. Sure it screws your head up for your next few sleeps, but it's worth it! Anyway (don't go away. I'll stop freakin you out now), where was I… So yea, I have my layout on paper. I've run through it in my head a few thousand times and it all makes sense. There's good connectivity throughout the map, a good mix of height levels and Z-axis, item placement is thought about, and the routes are balanced. I've thought about and taken into consideration how I am going to *construct* this layout as I was doing it (always much easier to follow if you've done that, sometimes things don't quite scale right when you get around to actually building it). Is it going to cater for the UT2004 movement style and speed? Are there some possible opportunities for trick jumps? Secrets? And the question for me in this case: Have I improved on the things that let the previous map down, in terms of layout? The main thing that let Hydro32 down was that there wasn't enough variation in the routes. If a player took the flag and went a certain way, you always knew exactly where they were going to come out and had ample time to get there… that is… right in the middle. I believe I had fixed this by adding in some connecting routes, allowing at least some unpredictability - the flag carrier is still always going to come out in the middle (you need a good chokepoint), but where exactly, you don't know. So the next thing I do is create a BSP layout - simply carving all the rooms out in the most basic form possible with enough lights (or even zone/ambient light) so you can see every corner. This can take a day in itself if you're picky like me about how things line up. Next I did all the preliminary item placement throughout the level (including playerstarts), and added some team-coloured lights so you could tell the sides apart. Now, I don't think you always have to go quite this far - sometimes just carving out the layout and running around in it yourself is enough, just to get a feeling of scale and anything you might have to adjust. I posted this layout up on Unreal Playground, and sent it to a couple of other people to get some feedback. In this case I left it for a few days and took the feedback I got, incorporated it into the layout and then started on making the proper map – so one iteration in this case. I could've reposted a new layout, but I couldn't be screwed and I believed I had enough to go on anyway :) You can download the layout map if you fancy, to have a look at what it was like.
1. Introduction |