Post your map sketches here! Give and get critique

seems to be a bit of a maze, but it my just be sketch up.

 

Hmm.. I guess... although the rooms with the power weapons and the areas with the bases / teles are going to be easy to make distinguishable through aesthetics..

I really had to cut lots of LoS because I want very distinct options available in flag...

 

Needz less 2x2 pathways, more dance floor on the right side.

I like it though.

 

First of all, props on attempting an asymmetrical 2 flag map. It's not easy.

My concerns are the same as others: Lack of overall dancefloor and it appears too enclosed. If you were to manage the separation wisely, you could kill two birds with one stone.

I understand that you want multiple routes, but it really does look like a maze. You can provide multiple routes through the center, but I recommend opening up each side a bit.

Rockets are broken.

 

I agree, I can see this turning into a really cool dual atrium design with the right tweaks. I would say remove and open up some paths, and axe the jumpups. They shouldn't be used as means of transition like they are here in my opinion, especially if they can be raplaced with inclines. Also, not liking the line of sight on GL from rocket spawn. What are the spawn settings you're thinking of working with?

I really do like it. If it's meant for 4v4, you will definately want to open up those pathways though as there needs to be adequate room for team shooting.

 

Rockets were supposed to be 180 sec 0sc. GL was going to be 120 sec 2sc.

So I'll remove a couple redundant paths, widen the remaining ones, look at that right side again, and possibly (?) remove the rockets. Or maybe I'll play a test game with them first and see what happens.

So how wide is wide enough? I'm thinking two wide for the remaining side paths, three for the bigger ones and maybe four for the central hall.

What do you guys think about the two way teleporter? Is the idea effective?

EDIT: I'm working on a newer version that doesn't include those chokepoints.

---

Edited by merge:

---

Here's a new, tentative version.

Spoiler

Changes:
Center hall, flag spawns, sniper + GL rooms opened up.
Rocket hall to GL LoS blocked.
Added a higher walkway on one side of sniper/gl rooms for each team. I'm toying with having similar routes go "one way" on the sides of the map, but it's not exactly working - it's too extreme at the moment.
Stupid pillar structures removed in favor of larger blocks - also opened up LoS by right side base.

Possible issue: there's only one entrance to the PW room from each team's side. Will those areas become overly choked?

So, what do you guys think of this version? Hopefully less mazey




EDIT: I'm finished (finished in quotes "finished") with the first atrium. I've scaled it up quite a bit, opened up the map, and tried to balance it so that there aren't any campy campers camping the campable high ground like there were in my old versionz.

Spoiler

There are three ways into the atrium area - left side, right side, and the center (atrium floor). The left and right have their own paths as well as a flank path closer to the center to bypass possible base-campers. The center can go up either side's flank paths into the base.

My objective with this design was to force the team to defend further up the map rather than from the atrium itself and at the same time make flag pulls adequately difficult (movement out of the atrium is rather predictable). Tell me whether I succeeded.

 

Where's the rest of it?

Spoiler

Orange: That area is pretty awkward for various reasons.
Pink: I would consider putting the flag spawn in one of these positions, preferably the right depending on the LoS through the entrance.
Purple: Is that a two-way? If so, I suggest removing it as having a direct way into a base from afar can be problematic in objective games.
Yellow: Awkward area again, I threw in a suggestion this time around.
Red: Also an awkward area that would be difficult to forge, threw in a suggestion here as well.
Green: See "Red"

That's about all the problems I see for this area, it looks pretty damn good. If that is a seperate base, you may want to consider opening it up some more though. An atrium usually refers to a room in the center of both teams, not the actually bases themselves, haha.

 

Hmmm.. I thought I pmed you and xzamplez the image seperately.. I guess I forgot to edit this too. I'm going to tackle this in a bucket list, b/c there are some clarifications I should have made beforehand..

As for Orange, I suppose you mean the double up ramps and the little 2x2 projection off the atrium floor? Considering the idea you provided for yellow, I think it'll be easy to fix that.

As for right side pink LoS, I was thinking of doing those sideways tunnel, shorts.

I like your suggestion at yellow it's cleaner.

As for atrium vs base, I'm not used to atrium in that context, though, seeing as I've been looking at mostly Quake 1v1s, which really don't have bases. Thanks for the clarification. Would back blue and back green count as a "base" and red count as and "atrium"?

The black dot's not a teleporter - it's a gravity lift up to the high ground.

Thanks for the feedback, man



EDIT: What pieces have a side length of sqrt2? The only one I know of that fits that description is the middle section of the wall, corner.. and it's filled with ugly glass. ):

Spoiler

EDIT 2: I've fixed up this atrium/base/whatever and it's working alright, I just have absolutely no idea how to do the connections between the bases + the center. I tried to just have the red center exit just go up a ramp into the rocket hall, but it's a failure. There would only be one way into a long hall from either side of the map.. makes no sense. I also tried adding connections between the sides, but then I have no clue what to do with the outside of the map.. Bah. I'm done for today. bye peoplez

EDIT 3: I've finished up exactly one half of the map and I'm sooo tempted to just forget the other half of the design and make it symmetrical..... but that's boring. Also, SKETCHUP, Y U NO HAVE EASY REFLECTION TOOL?

EDIT 4: I had no good ideas for a different but balanced pathmap in the other atrium, so I just copied one half over the other. Here it is. It may become asymmetrical again if I make a shiny new pathmap.

Spoiler

Black dots are gravity lifts, those beautiful aqua dots from top to bottom are health pack, rockets (subject to change), and sniper, and the wonderful magenta dots are the flag spawns - moved over slightly, but not all the way - the LoS at the corner is too long. Teleporters have been removed.

Sniper's placed so that it's in a really bad sniping spot (lowest floor on the map).. Also if someone comes into the snipe room while you're down there picking up snipe, your only exit is to rocket hall. Basically, controlling rocket hall makes getting the sniper out much easier. Also, people in rocket hall can't drop down the lift into sniper room. Just to stop the rocket hall from being OP.


EDIT 5: How to reflect things in Sketchup

Spoiler

1. Select whatever you want to reflect.
2. Copy.
3. Go into Tools and select Scale.
4. Drag it perpendicular to the axis you want to reflect on and then type in -1 Enter. You now have an inverted copy, but no regular copy.
5. Hit Paste in Place (next to Paste in the Edit menu).
Voila, you now have a reflected version of your map! (Btw, this is for maps with line symmetry - I have absolutely no idea how to reflect across a point in sketchup)

EDIT 6: Found a problem and fixed it. There's a doorway now on either side of the ramps up to the health pack. The crossmap LoS is more limited now

EDIT 7: @xzamplez or whoever Are 0sc 180sec rockets broken enough that I should remove them? I'm not sure what to do... they're close to a power position, but I can't think of any good replacements... and removing them would leave the sniper as the only power weapon on the map...

 

Flag spawns are still meh, I'd move them to the top green positions. I feel like spawning will be a problem here is objective games as well, just a premonition based on the sketchup though. It's looking pretty good to me man, invite me for a game whenever you forge it.

 

Guess I'm a little more traditional than the rest of you guys...
New squad/BTB map in the works.

Spoiler

 

I don't recall seeing you post in here before, MockKnizzle... welcome to the club

Your sketch is a bit hard to glean info from. There aren't any markers for where inclines are and there's no power weapon / vehicle layout. Also, what's the scale?

 

Thanks, my sketch process for this map is decidedly more thorough than usual, so I thought why not

It's probably a little basic cause I don't really know much of that stuff yet. I'm working on refining it right now, I'll scan it and post again when it's a little more complete.

EDIT: Finally scanned it. Got a little more info this time around.

Spoiler

 

I read your scale as I F U... lol

I'm not quite sure what the double line and arrows at the top of the map are.. but other than that, this sketch is quite easy to understand. I also like that writing implement you're using, what is it?

It looks like there's an LoS from the top base into the rocket spawn area. I'm assuming that's what the crates are for?

I pathmapped your map out - you should probably add in that route you were thinking about. Infantry only, probably. Although I'm not any kind of BTB expert

The direct access from the rocket spawn into the right side of the map worries me. It's probably the first place a person would go after picking up the rockets, and there aren't any other ways across the map for vehicles that don't involve turning around.

EDIT: Auburn helped me out a lot with the CTF map sketch and I'm going to start forging now

 

Some nice sketches and ideas you gots in here in buds, forgehubs been lacking one of these threads lately. I like that sketch Mock, I am assuming thats the project you mentioned the other day, it looks like a interesting BTB design, I especially like the way the right side is laid out. Spinn whens you posts Maps Preview of new project?

 

Sexy map Mock, can't wait to see it built. As long as there are 2 Hawgs and shotguns somewhere I think you're on the right track. Oh, but plan out a flag position this time so we don't have another Port authority flag placement shuffle.

 

@Mock: It's still hard for me to grasp the map by the drawing, considering the scale and use of natural geometry. With that said, I believe the driving path would benefit from an intersecting route, like Rat's Nest. Now I understand that I would cross into the area designated for infantry traffic, which brings up my next point: The bases appear to have an appropriate amount of depth, while the rest of the map is a central circle for infantry, and a circular path around the center. There just seems to be overall lack of depth.

It's like Onslaught with no control points.

 

@Spin: Just a mechanical pencil and a little contrast adjustment in Photoshop The double lines and arrow are just a really small ramp. That little back hallway and platform are like .4 or .5u above the road. The crates are there to give a little bit of protection for people coming out of the center into the base. Probably not gonna stay though, since I'm redesigning a lot of the paths.

@Xamples: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I'm looking at a couple possible ways to fix it. A) create a central road with another smaller atrium on the other side; B) enlarge the current atrium, add another entrance, and split each side road into two paths that interact in some cool way; C) enlarge the atrium but add a driving path sunken down into the middle of it.


I have a new page full of sketches, but it's nowhere near as pretty as that first one. You guys still interested in seeing it?

 

These proposed changes sound intriguing. Lets see the sketch.

 

Mmmmkay, here we go:

Spoiler