UPDATED! NEW PICS ARE BELOW This is my latest creation. After struggling with my first asymmetrical map (Unavowed, in my fileshare but never released because I don't know what I'm doing with the spawning) I decided to stick with what I know. Ulterior is a symmetrical map with a circular flow. I did my best to give it some color and for the most part am happy with how it turned out. Sorry, no high def pics. NEW PICS SHOWING SOME CHANGES:
A few thing that bother me about the forging- Lightmapping. See how your pieces are shaded differently? That's lightmapping, which in most cases looks unprofessional and sloppy, in my opinion, at least. Also,the rocks. Is there anyway you could make them look a bit more...natural? They just look lazily thrown in and don't look natural. That's all the really bothers me about this map. If you don't want to fix those things, that's fine, but fixing them will show you are a forger dedicated to perfecting his works. I know some people don't mind lightmapping, but in all honesty it looks horrific, IMO. Overall, the aesthetics look refreshing and the center of the map is quite the eye-pleaser. I can't comment on game play, because I haven't played it, but I've seen some other maps of your and they are always quite nice to look at. Oh btw, make sure to release this map. There are way too many map previews for maps that aren't, or haven't been released...I'm a bit guilty in that regard, lol. Anyway, keep up the good forging man.
Thank you. That was the last part of the map I worked on . It gave me a lot of trouble. That area is really dark, so I tried to brighten it up with a little color. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I actually used all of the rocks. So I would have to just position them differently. Are you referring to the flat rock walls on the second floor of the bases, or just all of the rocks in general? Also, I agree the lightmapping sucks. I don't want to sound like a noob, but how do you fix this? I have two hidden lights to try to brighten some of the darker areas, but that only fixes some of the problem. One whole wall of my map uses built in rock, so I really can't just relocate the map.
anthrax is a terrible disease, but this map is awesome, however, I would rethink the "rock alter" in frame 11, it has been over done and judging by the rest of your aesthetics, you can do better.
If there is no framerate lag in this map, you've done exceptionally well to balance objects and aesthetics well... I'm pretty sure I still have you on my FL, so shoot me an invite when you can play dude
Dancefloor, separation, overlap...this looks impressive. I might just pop Halo in for a second to see if this map is as solid as my first impression leads me to believe.
If your referring to what I think you are, I agree. I'm not crazy about that part either. That entire room really. I'll see what I can do, but I have to simplify other parts to recover some more pieces. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I am not on your friends list. Your friends list is full. Framerate appears to be fine single player. In splitscreen, the open area above the orange lift could be smoother. [br][/br]Edited by merge: The map is in my fileshare, have at it. This map isn't perfect, but it is leaps and bounds above some of my older maps.
We played this earlier. I enjoyed it very much. I have a few parts of the map I don't like, mainly the directional flow. The map feels very vertically heavy and there are few engagments on the lower levels. I also feel like the two sides of the central circle should be connected (even by tactical jumps if necessary) so you aren't forced to run all the way to top orange just to get to the other side (or even just to get a line of sight to the other side). I think the shotgun is pretty much a useless weapon. We played MLG Team Slayer because MLG TryHardSchnitzel was in the game () which meant we had no radar or sprint available. As the corridors and rooms were very open, players were never close enough together to actually use the shotgun in it's optimum range (or any effective range at that). The concussion rifle is an interesting choice, but it doesn't motivate players to go down to the lower level enough to deem it a power weapon on this map. It's an alright pickup when you're trying to get to the rockets behind the window, but it isn't a rocket launcher in the end of the day. The central room received a lot of praise in terms of aesthetics. It does look good, but it isn't used enough. In summary; Add tactical jumps across top green Add extra routes in blue purple so the transition between top-bottom isn't so drastic. Change the weapon set to something more suitable Try direct flow more around the map rather than just to top Orange. Primarily focus on bottom mid and back blue (weapon swap and relocation might improve this) [*]Change purple colours to yellow, it isn't distinguishable enough from blue lol.
Though I haven't played the map, I agree with most of the concerns expressed by Stevo. The overall design is nice. Height variation is good. Scaling is good. Aesthetics are very well done. My main concern is the lack of connection between red and blue. You have basically 4 areas where red and blue can meet...Purple, Green, Top Orange, and Bottom Orange. Purple has the potential to be a good flanking route (reminds me of the tunnel under sword on The Pit), but it feels like it's too far to travel, and maybe leaves the player a bit too vulnerable as they approach the red/blue sides. Also, I don't really like your weapon selection for this area. I think a Grenade Launcher would be perfect here, and may counteract the vulnerability as you approach the bases, by allowing you to bank Grenade Launcher shots off the ceiling into the upper base. Green, the upper level I'm not sure about. Opening up a line of sight from red to blue could play out well, but it could also discourage movement, so I'm not really sure what to suggest, if anything, for that area. The lower level of Green is fine I think. Top orange is good. Bottom orange is too disconnected from the rest of the map. There's a lift to Top Orange, which is fine, but the only way to get to Bottom Orange is by going through one of the bases, or dropping down from Top Orange. There's no reason to drop down from Top Orange unless it's as a frantic attempt to stay alive. The paths from the main part of the bases are too long and cut off from the rest of the map. If I spawn in a base, Bottom Orange is the last place I think about going. A couple of suggestions to make Bottom orange feel like a usable/useful part of the map... Replace the Concussion Rifle with something more desirable/powerful. Connect the paths from the bases to top orange. As I go from the main part of the base (lower level) towards Bottom orange, there is a Platform, XXL towards the center of the map. As I walk through that pathway, that Platform, XXL meets a series of Block 2X4,s. Remove the first Block 2X4 (the one that meets the Platform, XXL), and you have a doorway that leads directly to the platform at the bottom of the ramps up to Top Orange. If you try this, you'll obviously see that it will require a little bit of rework to connect smoothly, but creating another movement option into Bottom Orange should really help. It would also create another direct path between red and blue, which I think would be beneficial.
I have tried to connect the bases across the top middle, but haven't been able to make it look good. I will keep trying. I have been unsuccessful in adding ramps to connect purple to top red and blue because the space is limited and the height difference is so large. I will edit the weapon set, thanks for the input. Yes, the purple looks like blue, but the middle is actually yellow not green. So I guess all the colors look alike. Thank you for the feedback. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I agree, the grenade launcher seems like a better fit. I will try it out. Thanks. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I think I will probably replace the concussion rifle with a useable rocket launcher. As for your suggestion with the extra route, I have experimented with that exact idea. I will revisit it and see what I can come up with. Thanks for your input.
Thank you. Framerate seems to be under control. I have made some changes to the map based on feedback. Some new pics will be up shortly and an updated version of the map will be in my fileshare soon after. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Added route across top yellow(it's actually yellow and green) Removed concussion rifle, made rocket launcher accessible Replaced shotgun with grenade launcher Changed purple to pink, yellow is kind of already used Opened up bottom orange side paths to connect to top orange Tweeked some rocks updated fileshare These changes should address some of your issues. It's not perfect, but definitely better. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I replaced the concussion rifle with rocket launcher and made the changes to the bottom path you suggested. I think it will help movement considerably. The changes can be seen in the updated pics and in the new version of the map in my fileshare. Thanks.