So, for the past couple months I've been working on and off on a map called Yen. Mirror's Edge is one of my favorite games with it's ingenuity in gameplay and it's minimalist level design and color selection. While looking for inspiration, I looked up a couple interior shots from the many locations in Mirror's Edge. I started on a blue themed map that soon fell due to the spawn glitch (hoping to get back to it when the fix comes this month!!). After browsing again I stumbled across this level Mirror's Edge Level Screenshot I thought of how cool the vertical interaction would be with a multi-level mall styled map would be and started to get to work. 29 Dec 2015 Early Stage of Bottom Mid facing Blue Side This was my first iteration. Originally I was going to include all 4 floors (that's including the main floor), but ended up with too much space and not enough objects. I knew from the start I wanted a lift from bottom mid to top mid similar to how Sword Base from Halo: Reach had. As the level progressed, I continued to realize that there was a LOT of open space and hardly any cover. Also, when taking the lift with the new spartan abilities, you could jet to whatever floor you wanted without restriction. To combat these two issues, I placed a massive decorative structure in between the levels, similar to a modernized chandelier of sorts, to block some lines of sight along with create a forced path for whoever decided to take the lift up to the top floor. However, some of the objects placed for cover around the floors definitely screamed, "I'm being placed here carelessly because there's no natural way of adding cover in this location!" For example, the colored cylinders on the left side of the screenshot below. 31 Dec 2015 Bottom Mid Blue Side and Lift to Top Mid (bottom left) Bottom Mid Red Side Map Overview facing Blue Side Red Spawn (right) Overshield Tunnel (left) On this phase, A 3 Legged Goat actually took a peak around the map and gave me some suggestions based on his impressions. With that and a couple 2v2 play-throughs, it was pretty apparent there were a lot of changes that needed to be made. Multiple routes were soft a.k.a. used lifts and they greatly outweighed the hard routes. Everyone practically floated from level to level and avoided the hard routes because why bother when you can take a lift and not think about your decision. Weapon placement wasn't exactly planned and that affected map movement greatly. There wasn't a lot of leading which resulted in some paths placed going unused because they were unnoticed. Nothing hinted to them even existing. 7 Jan 2016 Inserted new hard route to main floor on blue side (left side of picture) and left soft route lift to Blue Spawn Placed Railgun (replaced with Plasma Caster) for incentive to use previously mentioned route and add balance to the map out a bit. Added cover to red spawn to limit openness and provide cover. Brought walls in to level with the colored cylinders to reduce forced cover placements, unused space and direct movement a bit more. Good shot of lift to Top Mid. Bottom Mid Shot Top Mid Landing from Bottom Mid lift Map Overview: DMR Nest (top right) Splinter Grenade Tunnel (bottom right) Top Mid Landing (Top middle) Routes were still an issue in this version, there was a lift up to DMR Nest in the picture above. I thought it was great, but after playing with it a bit, and some more feedback from A 3 Legged Goat and Sethiroth, that was scheduled for a reconstruction along with the two lift jumps at bottom blue and a couple other locations.
12 Feb 2016 (Pre-Testing and Current Version) Addressing issues with the last version: Hard route added to DMR Nest along with creating a new path to next picture(left side), Red Spawn Tunnel was replaced and opened up more (right side), Center Chandelier pieces lessened due to frame-rate issues. Another shot of the new Red Spawn Tunnel (right) and the stairs from red tunnel up to DMR Nest (Left) New route subject to change from middle floor to DMR Nest. Added extra step-down level (The Pit) to red side with shotgun to add movement and award/risk for traveling to the bottom of the of the map. Cleaned up some spots and added extra exit aesthetic to give purpose to the addition. New Route in previous photo visible through the colored glass in the top right. View heading out of The Pit towards Bottom Blue Cleaned up stairs to Red Spawn (right side), replaced soft route lift with switchback stairs up to Blue Spawn and slightly moved Active Camo. Blue Spawn facing Red Spawn. Switchback Stairs from the last picture (bottom right) Removed mirrored lift on the right and made it a drop down. Added some more walls to direct player movement and remove hard angles. Removed railing to for the drop down to Overshield tunnel to increase continuity of movement between the drop down or clamber up. Still cleaning. Back stairs with Plasma Caster (previously Railgun) from bottom blue to... middle mid? hah. Like I stated before this group of pictures, this is pre-testing phase and has not been tested to see how it plays as of yet. This map has gone through a lot and has grown exponentially throughout each stage. Even though this might not be the BEST map, it has definitely been a huge learning experience for me in map design and has been tons of fun. Can't wait to release a final version when it's ready. I'll keep this thread updated. -Yekkou
i thought the first image was the map for a second and was wondering how you did the banners changes look good but is there a reason why your map is desaturated all of a sudden?
So, I deleted all the lighting I originally had and placed new ones all together. I'm still tweaking it right now, but the light change is probably why it looks so desaturated. Will be working on it though.
13 Feb 2016 Still working on lighting. Brought a bit of color back into things. Also, the wonders of global coloring.