End of Humanity campaign/versus - updated 5/10/2010

[Megadude]

WIP pics of a campaign for coop and vs L4D. Currently unnamed as I haven't decided what the final map is going to be like. Pics are of the first map. During the campaign, you will start in a trashed apartment. From there you will travel through several other apartments and offices to street level. You will then go into a supermarket, through a shopping centre and into a bus station. From there, you will enter the sewers and come out in a factory. After making your way through the factory, it's a gentle stroll, (if you are suicidal), through the countryside before you reach the finale, which will be held at either a train station, a cable car station or the coast so a submarine can pick you up.

[nub]

Looking pretty sexy so far. Only thing I can advise is the sidewalk in the first screen shot. It needs "breaking up" so it looks less repetitive.

I'll await and see how it builds up. So far it's looking real sharp, especially the lighting. The different colors from the different sources seem to fit real nice. I especially like the last shot where the oil drum bonfire and the door light clash with each other in the ally.

[Mr-Jigsaw]

I'd add in a few more walls to complicate that apartment, maybe make the kitchen its own room with one of those open-air windows? And the alleyway could use some height variation, like stairways going into the ground for the basements of other buildings or something.

And just one more thing, could someone make the jump between the roof above the street and that fire escape?

[Absurdistof]

As far as left 4 dead goes, fences are a virtue along with air vents down the buildings, air vents (models not literal vents, i.e. the ones with fans) along the buildings, random doors to storage rooms, light trash cans, dumpsters, cars, even. Fire escapes, and pipes, too. Don't forget to add windows lol. Thats for the alleyway mostly.

As for the road, it seemed very linear looking down the road with the cars. Left 4 Dead and valve exults in its lack of environmental repetition. Try and spice up the road with a fence guarded by some cop cars and caution tape forcing the player(s) to operate on another story, or at least through the buildings. Think about it: if there was a zombie apocalypse the last place you'd want to be is in the open.

Also, as for the first pic it sort of looks like the gas tanker is problematic and is forcing the building to cut inward, extending the sidewalk. Also, that road looks pretty good from above, but it could be spiced up with more contrasty lighting, manholes, fire hydrants, signs, the godly chain-link fence, and obvious signs of quarantine.

Looks good just remember to minimize repetition repetition. It adds monotony to a level that isn't necessary. It looks to have real promise, maybe a prequel to no mercy.. ending in the cutscene or around thereabouts? on a final note, try changing the roof height and structure variation. That could also help reduce monopoly. For reference, check out the end of the 2nd level of no mercy, they do a great job spicing up the final run there.

Hope this helped and wasn't too preachy I think I'm in a weird mood today..

[Megadude]

Looking pretty sexy so far. Only thing I can advise is the sidewalk in the first screen shot. It needs "breaking up" so it looks less repetitive.

I'll await and see how it builds up. So far it's looking real sharp, especially the lighting. The different colors from the different sources seem to fit real nice. I especially like the last shot where the oil drum bonfire and the door light clash with each other in the ally.

Hadn't noticed that sidewalk problem. It's does need breaking up. Perhaps a dead body, some rubbish bags and a car will do it. It's a coincidence that I got those two bits of lighting in the pic. I was just trying to get a shot of the bit that was textured, while trying to leave as much of the dev-textured bit out

I'd add in a few more walls to complicate that apartment, maybe make the kitchen its own room with one of those open-air windows? And the alleyway could use some height variation, like stairways going into the ground for the basements of other buildings or something.

And just one more thing, could someone make the jump between the roof above the street and that fire escape?

The kitchen already has a small wall separating it from the rest of the room, but I could make it bigger. I want to make that apartment open plan, since that is the spawn room for the start of the campaign, and Valve's campaigns had open spawn rooms for the start of their campaigns. The alleyway has got height variations for the buildings surrounding it, although you can't see it in the pics, and to the right outisde of the pic, theres a small set of stairs leading up to a door to a building. The fire escape is just out of reach for jumping, but just in case, it surrounded by a playerclip brush.

As far as left 4 dead goes, fences are a virtue along with air vents down the buildings, air vents (models not literal vents, i.e. the ones with fans) along the buildings, random doors to storage rooms, light trash cans, dumpsters, cars, even. Fire escapes, and pipes, too. Don't forget to add windows lol. Thats for the alleyway mostly.

As for the road, it seemed very linear looking down the road with the cars. Left 4 Dead and valve exults in its lack of environmental repetition. Try and spice up the road with a fence guarded by some cop cars and caution tape forcing the player(s) to operate on another story, or at least through the buildings. Think about it: if there was a zombie apocalypse the last place you'd want to be is in the open.

Also, as for the first pic it sort of looks like the gas tanker is problematic and is forcing the building to cut inward, extending the sidewalk. Also, that road looks pretty good from above, but it could be spiced up with more contrasty lighting, manholes, fire hydrants, signs, the godly chain-link fence, and obvious signs of quarantine.

Looks good just remember to minimize repetition repetition. It adds monotony to a level that isn't necessary. It looks to have real promise, maybe a prequel to no mercy.. ending in the cutscene or around thereabouts? on a final note, try changing the roof height and structure variation. That could also help reduce monopoly. For reference, check out the end of the 2nd level of no mercy, they do a great job spicing up the final run there.

Hope this helped and wasn't too preachy I think I'm in a weird mood today..

The details that have not already been added to the alleyway will be coming later. There is already a door to a storage room adn some windows, (some decorative and some for infected to spawn behind). The alleyway is too narrow for a fire escape to look good in it, which is why I attached it to another building. The road is linear as it doesn't playa big part in the map. Once the player hits ground level, they enter the alleyway, get to the road and cross it into the safe room. The details in the road area are mainly for show for when people look out over the road from the buildings. There is already a fence and a cop car at the other end of the road, just below where the spawn room is.

The gas tanker isn't forcing the building to cut inwards. The building was made that way from the beginning, to add some more interest to the architecture. I placed the tanker there, as it was long enough to block off the rest of the road from the player, and I didn't want to use fences as they are already being used at the opposite end of the road.

There is already a lot of height variation in the map, although the pics only show a small amount of this, adn they do not show it well. For example, in the 3rd pic, the two buildings on the left look the same height, but there is actually a 2 storey height difference between them. Taking very good pics is not my forte.

[Absurdistof]

Haha sorry for the lecture back there. AS far as your responses:

Good call
Good call
Well said
Fair point
Good call.

[Megadude]

Haha sorry for the lecture back there. AS far as your responses:

Good call
Good call
Well said
Fair point
Good call.

Don't worry. You made some good points, and I'd rather have a long lecture than get no response at all.

[Megadude]

Quick beta of the first map. It's fully playable as a campaign map, complete with rescue closets, but it can be played almost as well as versus too. Some areas have a small amount of detail. Some areas have no detail at all. There are no pickups except for a first aid case.

Download link.

[Megadude]

Updated pics of areas where detail has been added.






















Possible campaign names:

• Sleepers
• Derailed
• Running Late: Will you make the train on time?
• Running for the Railroad
• Tracked Down

Anyone got any names that are not awful like mine?

[mendax]

Alrighty, I pretty much typed this out and was gonna post this a few days ago but kinda got sidetracked with work and such but decided now would be a good time to finally do so. Also, keep in mind that I do realise as I type this that it is a beta, but I'm just gonna say what I thought anyways.

First of all I'd just like to bring up the end saferoom. I kinda noticed that it just sorta.. well, ends. If you look at Valve's maps you can sorta see how they don't really end right away but rather leads to a smaller area to end in. For example, NM2 ends at the back of a pawn shop. This forces the player to go through the store instead of the map just ending right on the street corner. As far as I can remember most, if not all, of the official maps do this, I would assume just cause it looks/feels better, and thought that maybe I'd bring this up cause after all, it's hard to go wrong when following Valve's example.
I also noticed that your map is kinda hard to follow; the layout is pretty dark and confusing at times. A good amount of the interior part has almost no lights and that sorta makes it hard to know where you are and where to go and that's no fun. For example, I thought I would have to continue going down stairs, but it turned out to be a dead end and the right way was to go through a generic broken wall hidden inside a dark room behind a counter. If you used lights to show the correct path and just kept the extra areas and dead-ends dark it would really help both issues.
Also the infected seemed to have trouble getting around the map. A lot of the time it seemed that they spawn too far away, whether they be the infected or horde. I think its because they tend to spawn down on the road and have to climb up the ladders/pipes to get to the roof, so maybe you could avoid them spawning below the players using the nav. or something? Otherwise just try to create ledges that the horde can climb up, so that way they can be spread out across the entire ledge instead of them all climbing on a single pipe. I think it may also be hard to play on versus. Despite the fact that I played alone I imagine that the infected would have a hard time beating the survivors with so many straight and narrow hallways. I did see a lot of seemingly pointless rooms, and those would be great to add a lot of breakable walls between those rooms and the hallway to create more opportunities for the infected.

I also had a few more ideas which may work out pretty well, although of course it's your choice whether or not you want to implement them. One idea I had was to open up the floor above the survivors starting area so that the infected can wait in there and, as soon as they are able to spawn, can jump out the windows and rush the survivors. I also think it could be really interesting if you broke off some of that narrow wall blocking the survivors from falling right outside the saferoom. It could work out well if you to it right- just break it in the middle, this way when the survivors leave the starting area they will want to go towards the right of that little room, lest a boomer explodes and pushes them off the edge or something. It's pretty much the same idea as near the ending of NM4- players will instinctively want to keep as far away from high ledges as possible. Fantastic picture: http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee5/ ... 010001.jpg
Another idea I had is kinda hard to explain, so I took a picture of it:



Basically it's just adding an attic with some windows up there to give the smoker a better spot to pull survivors off the the boards (just don't line the a window up directly above the boards, create an offset to make it look unique). However, you could take this a step further and add similar windows on the opposite side as well (where the survivors get out onto the rooftop). Not only will this create an entirely new advantage spot for the infected on both sides, but also gives the infected a way to get from one side of the building to the other and set up a trap there without having to follow the survivors all the way through the building (always try have an alternatate, quicker route for infected) Just be sure to create an opening in the roof in the bedroom, like in DA1, to let infected climp up into/hordes climb out of the attic.
Finally, the last suggestion I could think of was to put items down the the hole in the roof. I kind of imagined putting tier 2 weapons down there, in a way so that people will kind of slow down and try to look from the roof into the room below them to see if it would be worth going down that way or just take the shorter way down the stairs (similar to what people do in the beginning of NM1 when they look down the sunroof to look for pills and decide their route accordingly). However now that I typing this out I'm starting to realize that if it's the first map in your campaign then you shouldn't have tier 2 weapons, but it might still work with second pistols and grenades if you make them scarce, at least till the end of the map.
Again, those are just some suggestions, so of course feel free to use them, change them around, or maybe just save them for another map.

Hopes this helps. I'm not really sure of what to say; I mean, from looking at your map I can tell that you obviously know what your doing so I'm sure you could get along fine without my help but at the very least I brought up your topic so more people will see it

[Megadude]

Thanks very much for trying it out. I'm glad that it worked out ok, and thanks for the suggestions.

First of all I'd just like to bring up the end saferoom. I kinda noticed that it just sorta.. well, ends. If you look at Valve's maps you can sorta see how they don't really end right away but rather leads to a smaller area to end in. For example, NM2 ends at the back of a pawn shop. This forces the player to go through the store instead of the map just ending right on the street corner. As far as I can remember most, if not all, of the official maps do this, I would assume just cause it looks/feels better, and thought that maybe I'd bring this up cause after all, it's hard to go wrong when following Valve's example.

That's true. The only map I can think of off the top of my head is I think the one with the train knocking down the bridge. that had the saferoom just appear. I'll look into my design to see if I can turn the existing saferoom into the small pre-saferoom area.

I also noticed that your map is kinda hard to follow; the layout is pretty dark and confusing at times. A good amount of the interior part has almost no lights and that sorta makes it hard to know where you are and where to go and that's no fun. For example, I thought I would have to continue going down stairs, but it turned out to be a dead end and the right way was to go through a generic broken wall hidden inside a dark room behind a counter. If you used lights to show the correct path and just kept the extra areas and dead-ends dark it would really help both issues.

I tried to use a combination of lights and open doors to indicate where to go, but I can add a few more lights to help out. The dead ends will have loads of junk in them when they are detailed, to show that they are not the way to go.

Also the infected seemed to have trouble getting around the map. A lot of the time it seemed that they spawn too far away, whether they be the infected or horde. I think its because they tend to spawn down on the road and have to climb up the ladders/pipes to get to the roof, so maybe you could avoid them spawning below the players using the nav. or something? Otherwise just try to create ledges that the horde can climb up, so that way they can be spread out across the entire ledge instead of them all climbing on a single pipe.

I've been wondering about this too. I can't just adjust the nav file to have no infected spawn there, because then there would be none there once the players get down to the street. Perhaps a nav_blovker brush may work.

I think it may also be hard to play on versus. Despite the fact that I played alone I imagine that the infected would have a hard time beating the survivors with so many straight and narrow hallways. I did see a lot of seemingly pointless rooms, and those would be great to add a lot of breakable walls between those rooms and the hallway to create more opportunities for the infected.

I think more breakable walls would be the way to go. In some areas I could look into create vents in the ceiling for infected to fall from too.

I also had a few more ideas which may work out pretty well, although of course it's your choice whether or not you want to implement them. One idea I had was to open up the floor above the survivors starting area so that the infected can wait in there and, as soon as they are able to spawn, can jump out the windows and rush the survivors. I also think it could be really interesting if you broke off some of that narrow wall blocking the survivors from falling right outside the saferoom. It could work out well if you to it right- just break it in the middle, this way when the survivors leave the starting area they will want to go towards the right of that little room, lest a boomer explodes and pushes them off the edge or something. It's pretty much the same idea as near the ending of NM4- players will instinctively want to keep as far away from high ledges as possible. Fantastic picture: http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee5/ ... 010001.jpg

Interesting idea. I could look into this.

Another idea I had is kinda hard to explain, so I took a picture of it:



Basically it's just adding an attic with some windows up there to give the smoker a better spot to pull survivors off the the boards (just don't line the a window up directly above the boards, create an offset to make it look unique). However, you could take this a step further and add similar windows on the opposite side as well (where the survivors get out onto the rooftop). Not only will this create an entirely new advantage spot for the infected on both sides, but also gives the infected a way to get from one side of the building to the other and set up a trap there without having to follow the survivors all the way through the building (always try have an alternatate, quicker route for infected) Just be sure to create an opening in the roof in the bedroom, like in DA1, to let infected climp up into/hordes climb out of the attic.

While it sounds like a good idea, it seems like a lot of work for what is really a small advantage. Also is how the give the infected the ability to get up to those windows realistically. The same roof on the opposite side was set up to allow the smoker to stand on top of it and pull survivors off. I think a better way of doing the same thing would be to bridge the two roofs somehow, to allow the infected to cross the building quickly.

Finally, the last suggestion I could think of was to put items down the the hole in the roof. I kind of imagined putting tier 2 weapons down there, in a way so that people will kind of slow down and try to look from the roof into the room below them to see if it would be worth going down that way or just take the shorter way down the stairs (similar to what people do in the beginning of NM1 when they look down the sunroof to look for pills and decide their route accordingly). However now that I typing this out I'm starting to realize that if it's the first map in your campaign then you shouldn't have tier 2 weapons, but it might still work with second pistols and grenades if you make them scarce, at least till the end of the map.

There will be items added at a later date. I need to place the props throughout the map first, so the items can be found on stuff instead of just on the floor.


Thanks again for trying this out


One other things I've just noticed:



The broken wall is a completly different colour to the rest of the wall That problem has been winding me up for ages. The wall and the broken wall are the same texture and the same VMT originally, but they looked completly different next to each other. Now that I've managed to get them to look similar to the survivors, I now see that they look completly off the the infected. It makes me go and makes me want to AHHHHHHH!

[Megadude]

Have abandoned coming up with a name to do with trains, and am now looking for names to cover the whole campaign. Was thinking of simply, "Run". Any ideas?

More pics, showing a few more detailed areas and some views from the infected point of view:




































A couple of odd things:



As you can see, down the right hand side of the door you can see adark vertical line. It's as if you can see the edge of the door frame coming through the door. I've checked the door, adn it isn't clipping into the door frame at all. I have the same setup for all my doors, but this only happens with the skin shown above. It's a normal Valve skin. Any idea why this is just happening with this kind of door?




I've placed a giant nav_block brush covering the entire street area, but I still get infected spawning down there, while the survivors are high up on the buildings. I've tried placing a giant clip brush covering the street, but the infected spawn on top of it or in it, instead of not spawning there at all. I only want them not to spawn there when the survivors are high, and I want the infected to be able to spawn there when the survivors reach ground level, so settiing the nav spaces there to empty is not an option. Anyone got any ideas on how to stop them from spawning there until I want them to be able to?

[Mr-Jigsaw]

You've done a good amount of work here. Could you, by any chance, post a level overview? And I would suggest that you place windows as much as possible, to break up all the dark rooms with bright spots; even if they are boarded up, the little slits of light would be cool. And I like the diagonally aligned desks in the office room.

[Megadude]

I can post an oveview, but there's not much to look at since most of it is indoors.



I've marked out the survivor's route on the pic below. Start and saferoom are marked. Blue indicates the route. Green indicates stairs. Orange indicates a hole that survivors can drop down into. The small red lines just help to show that the routes pass over each other on different floors. Don't take this route to scale though, as I may have goofed with the scale a bit.



I can't place more windows as a lot of the rooms are in the middle of the building, so there wouldn't be anywhere to place a window to let in natural light. The windows that I do have sometimes let in light, but unfortunatly some do not as the lighting angle is not angled right for letting in more light.

Glad you like the desks. I thought they would make an interesting feature, and I was surprised to find out there is plently of room for players to move around them too after I had made them.

[Megadude]

Next beta is ready. Main changes are that extra lighting has been put in to show the way to go better, extra places adn routes have been added for the infected and items have now been added to the map. The beta is playable in coop and versus. There are a few problems with it, the main problems being that all the first aid kits in the map are spawned, instead of just a few, and the lighting looks wrong on some of the breakable walls. This will probably be the last I'll work on this until I've finished a beta of the 2nd map of the campaign.

Click here for the download.


Edit: What about T.T.L - Time To Leave for the campaign name? Also, should I start getting worried that at the stage the map is at, I'm already at 84.6%for entdata? I think entdata just hates me.