Dada Museum

Reveal what you have made so far and get feedback on development.

Dada Museum

Postby mazman34340 on Sat Apr 13, 2013 7:45 pm

Hello Interlopers, my name is Mason.

I wanted to create a map for the sake of my portfolio, the problem is I am not knowledgeable in level design mechanics and am more of an environment artist. To get people to play and like the map, it's gotta have good game play right?

So, I shall make a modern art museum in Seattle in Counter Strike : Global Offensive. I have the basics of hammer editor down but I still need to master lighting, instances (animations), and a few other features of Hammer.

UPDATE:

Right, no more fiddle-farting around. This time I will plan the level well (enough) to get through development. This includes sketching out ideas, using the photos I have taken in Savannah, and basing the basic museum design off a real building, the modern Telfair museum in Savannah.

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The map I made so far has a few ideas I want to keep, but I want to redraw the basic design. More importantly, the spacing needs to be changed to more of CS_Office where there are 'gaps' within the building. The tight room-to-room seems constrained.

I also need more vertical game-play (vent's, cloisters)

This is partly because of this ungodly awesome map I found. Apparently, museum isn't so unique as a setting.

http://www.mapcore.org/content/features ... museum-r25

Right, lets do this.

*goes off to play Wargames*

UDATE: April 26, 2013.

Finally found SD Card reader for camera and computer, can now upload my personal photos. Beginning pre-production with sketching and writing out ideas. Using the system taught by Alex Galuzin and reading over the "small level design bible"

Imported first custom texture.

UPDATE: April 27, 2013

Imported first custom decal.

UPDATE: June 22

Ive hit a roadblock. It keeps crashing when it produces the nav mesh. I would like the know the most common reasons for nav mesh crashes. I believe it crashes at the last step btw.

Made additional progress in look of level.
Last edited by mazman34340 on Sat Jun 22, 2013 10:05 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby Stormy on Sat Apr 13, 2013 8:37 pm

Hey Mason, saw you on polycount ;) Check out the tutorials and read up on the other maps lopers have been working on. There's lots of good info here. I won't comment on your map layout, I'm no good at level design. As for importing, there is nothing intuitive about it. Source is a bitch on its period with a cucumber up its ass on a roid rage PCP bender. But use the search box and I'm sure any of your problems have been asked before.
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby ErikKiller on Sat Apr 13, 2013 8:43 pm

Black_Stormy wrote:Source is a bitch on its period with a cucumber up its ass on a roid rage PCP bender.

I AM A LION TAMER.
Ahem... I'd experiment with only the area in red, the other bits seem unnecessary as of right now.
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby Major Banter on Sat Apr 13, 2013 9:07 pm

Keep it all for now. You'll want to refine as you test rather than deleting perfectly functional stuff at random. You never know, those areas could come in useful, unless they're actually broken.

When you get bots in there, let them slog it out for an hour or so, and see if either side comes off the better consistently. A 10% variance is ok, anything over that is a red flag for basic balance. Once you get automatic botmatch ratios down to around 40:60 outright maximum (50:50 is ideal) you can start proper human playtesting. Do this frequently; that's how you make a truly superb map.

On the advice side, I (amongst many others, I'm sure) could talk your ear off about level design. There's an absolute hoard of other subtle design rules to CS mapping, but I won't bore you to tears with them. Go have a read if you like. I'm sure plenty of us can add to that as well; Hollow and Sathor are definitely two guys worth chatting to.

What I can immediately say about your design is that there's jack shit in the way of Z (up/down) movement. That's far from ideal - Z movement to firefights is like cheese to a burger, or beer to a curry; it adds something that really takes it up a notch. It also makes for a more interesting map overall, even if it's just fake (i.e. inaccessible catwalks). You only need a little as well; try to incorporate a few catwalks or generally areas where a player can drop in. Struggling to add a new flanking angle? Make it up or downstairs.
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby mazman34340 on Mon Apr 15, 2013 12:26 am

I guess my first mock version of my map is almost complete. Two sections meet up in the middle to a centeral battleground. CT's my arrive in this area by five routes, providing opportunities for sniper tactics, close quarters combat, and other fighting styles. A small basin... thing lies in the middle, dividing the map even more.

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I have one primary area of concern in game-play, the middle section. This is where most of the combat will take place... with some limited bot testing, it seems the T's arrive on the CT's side before CT's can 'setup' an assault. Also, I am wondering if I can place a couple barriers partially splitting the middle ground into three sections so snipers cannot have a full view of the area.

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The ladder assault is a quick route through a vent and second floor to a bridge that cross the divide. You can see the small section that CT's can jump out of in the middle of the screenshot.

The balcony is another ladder up to the roof and then dropping onto a balcony area that you can see in the very bottom left corner.

I found the nav map and bot's AI to be better than I expected, there's a bit of derpy behavior but the bots are working mostly as intended, and there are no obvious exploits and glitches.
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby Ark11 on Mon Apr 15, 2013 12:32 am

Looks nice but there's not much to judge on. Also since its in Berlin, you might want to put some Berlin landmark in the 3d skybox like Brandenburg Gate (i'm not sure if its tall enough though) or that big TV radio antenna tower, I know 3d skybox is a way off but just throwing an idea out there. :smt023
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby Sathor on Mon Apr 15, 2013 7:01 pm

I live in Berlin. The Brandenburg gate is only 30 meters high or something. The only landmark you could use is the television tower at Alexanderplatz. The only skyscrapers in Berlin are at Potsdamer Platz, because that is the only place in the city without the height limit (Berlin is meant to be a flat city).

You come from Berlin and has the museum a real equivalent?
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby mazman34340 on Thu Apr 18, 2013 7:13 pm

As a bit of a progress report,

Ive done some limited testing in the map. The depression in the middle is essentially useless that offers no tactical advantage. I could turn it more into a moat but that might not be realistic.

I need to change the AI pathing so they will use roof access (2 ladders, vent).
I need to learn how to import custom textures (seems easy).
I need to learn how to import Maya models (seems ungodly).

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Image provides a visual layout of center, the aesthetics are just experimental. I will take pictures inside a nearby museums (photography allowed in center area of museum). It has a crisp layout of a modern museum with clean walls, and stone.

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Re: Dada Museum

Postby mazman34340 on Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:26 am

Hmm... compiling the map, it gets stuck on portal flow at 9... and doesn't seem to advance.

I am experimenting with the aesthetics (when I should still be concentrating on game-play). I might do some basic human testing soon.
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby Dives on Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:40 am

Welcome to the wonderful world of visleaf optimization. If you want to progress you'll need to understand the concepts behind visleafs.

Read thoroughly. You'll be glad you did.
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wik ... timization
http://www.optimization.interlopers.net ... r=visleafs
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby mazman34340 on Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:58 am

Ugh, you mean the whole change everyone thing to func_detail? I already hit the 'limit'?

Image of facade, and I can probably turn many of those details into func_detail.

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Re: Dada Museum

Postby LordDz on Sun Apr 21, 2013 7:47 am

Show the same image, but with func_details hidden. So we can see what could be improved :)
(In the hammer editor).
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby mazman34340 on Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:41 am

Alright, "No-draw" textures and tying small sections into func_detail have improved performance and it appears I may run the map again. Red highlighted items are func_detail.

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Huge red flag when I played it again, combat begins almost immediately since the T's may exit the spawn room, enter the center courtyard area, and engage CT's who are in the lobby. That needs a fix.

Looking forward to making the skybox. I want to create a nice scene of Toronto, Washington. I'd rather not spend a large amount of time researching Berlin and I will use a screen from google street view as reference for making the Toronto scene.

Thanks for the advise so far.
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby LordDz on Mon Apr 22, 2013 9:37 am

I meant you should hide func_details so that we can see what could be made into func_details, as if there are any small brushes behind your func_details, etc.

As in this pic (need to scroll down a bit), click the Func_details box.
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Re: Dada Museum

Postby ErikKiller on Mon Apr 22, 2013 5:54 pm

Learn to use VisGroups and shortcuts, you'll win sooo much productivity.
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