CSGO Bomb and Hostage Villa map

    Hi guys, this is a map I began making a few days after CS GO shipped. I should have pimped it a bit earlier to get feedback, but it seems to have crept along at a steady pace, which I am really hoping will continue I should have a lot more time to do stuff on this (was recently working at Eurocom - eek!), and I think the map is at the stage where it has progressed enough to recieve constructive criticism.

    I have posted a breakdown of how I have got to the stage I am at now, which people will hopefully find interesting. Feedback is very welcome of course!

    So I began by looking at all of the CS GO assets, and decided that a Villa type of map could work, given that there are a lot of nice arch, foliage and boat models. To begin with, I searched for reference pictures, some of which are here.

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    However, there were two that stood out for me, since they looked good for gameplay opportunities. The second one in particular I like, because it has a nice simple shape, a clean silouhette, and a lot of scope for expansion.

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    I did a rough paintover because I could see various things that might work.

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    Then began blocking it out to see if it will work themeatically.

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    At this stage, I think the theme is working, so I strip things back, build the routes I want into the map (a garage, a cellar and a road) and begin refineing the building. I make the path in the garden curved because I know from the reference image search that a fountain or flower bed could look good at the front.

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    I then get a bit side tracked by some other reference images that have a lighthouse attached to the building. I do some tests, but I think it looks a bit too busy, so remove it.

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    At some stage I do a "Villa in Videogames" google search, and find the GTA tennis court one (which I think looks awesome!), so use the idea and fashion some routes out of the fences.

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    I also find some good tennis court/swimming pool stuff.

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    I then do some work on the interior to make sure the sizes are good enough for gameplay. I have tried to make the interior roofs as high as possible, so that throwing flashbangs and grenades is not a problem.

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    Rest of the building at this stage, and a front back comparison.

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    Comparison of the "paintover" and where I am now.

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    I then show the map to someone at work, and they suggest looking at the Black Ops villa map, which I do. The Front of the building has a nice fountain, and steeple type of structure. I was looking for ways to make both sides of the building look different, and this gives me the idea to add something similar.

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    And this is the stage the map is at now. Still lots to do - the villa building feels too BSP based and edgy, and a lot of details are missing in general - fountain, gazeebo, lighthouse in the distance perhaps, but the good thing is that finishing the map feels managable. I will be pushing for a playable build soon.

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    Awesome thread, love seeing the progression like this. The scene's coming along great, although the leaves of your palm trees stand out as looking a bit dead. I think if you brought in more of the vibrancy seen in your references it'd be a big improvement, as it's leaning a bit towards the 'Gears of War brown' look right now.

    It's always cool to see the process a map goes through, also what the ideas behind a change are

    Looks cool as well, but I agree with what was suggested above about the color and textures of the building. It could benefit from some more vibrance colors.

    Keep it up!

    Have you thought about the tactical layout of your map? I can't really make up where the routes the CT/T's would go on here. Did you perhaps create an overview of your map? Furthermore, perhaps you should start messing about with heightlevels in your terrain, all your floors still look flat as a pancake and that doesn't help with the BSP feeling you are experiencing right now in my opinion. On a positive note: It looks as if you've put quite some thought into the level already, it's starting to look really nice !

    Rick D, 3Dnj, FMPONE, HP, and moroes. Thanks, appreciate the comments

    Warby and Puddy - Fortunately, I can easily change those textures. There are a lot of cleaner ones in cs_italy. The reason I used them is because they fitted nicely with the arches and the stone pillars. I will test out others at some point to see if anything works better.

    Thrik and Squad - definitely agree! Tried to adjust the palms by alpha tinting, but the whole tree goes the same colour It would be great to have a look like this which has much more colour.

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    Spherix - Yeah, worked on the layout probably more than the art, but it will definitely need a lot of iterating on. Looking forward to that bit the most! I will post an overhead image with the next update which should help with understanding the map. The floor is absolutely pancake flat at the moment. I will sort that once I have most of the main bits in to get rid of that BSP feel.

    Dejavo - Agreed! The interiors are really rough. I just did the minimum to make sure I had enough room to make it feel big enough.

    I should also say that I would ideally like to base the place in Chile, so that I can have the easter island type heads in the background, like in Tekken Tag 2. I also think I need to "utilise" that rainbow as well

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    Quote from OrnateBaboon

    Thrik and Squad - definitely agree! Tried to adjust the palms by alpha tinting, but the whole tree goes the same colour It would be great to have a look like this which has much more colour.

    Have you tried Color Correction to get a more colourful look? I don't have a lot of experience with it myself, but it might help you a bit to get the look (colors) you want.

    Im going out on a limb here but I have to ask. Whats with all the cs:go level designers just going straight into detailing before even testing or finishing a fun layout? Doesnt that seem incredibly stupid?

    its because they know that the map isn't gonna be played more than dust2 so its basically just a portfolio piece... ?

    meh i dunno

    insta works at valve, ask him.

    Quote from Skjalg

    its because they know that the map isn't gonna be played more than dust2 so its basically just a portfolio piece... ?

    meh i dunno

    insta works at valve, ask him.

    Dust.. You mean the layout that the guy just made up without testing? Lol

    Truth is, making a map without a layout in mind is a bad habit, if you don't release a piece of crap, nobody will care.

    Edit: don't want to turn this into a big derail of Baboon's thread tho

    Looking at the current community for CS:GO and the level of most people on the steam forums, I'd say the average playerbase is too small to find people that are patient enough to play on a map without any detail and mockup textures, and are willing to do so just to improve a map. I'm mapping for CS(:go) myself, and currently I'm just working on a port from MOH:AA as I need to improve my skills after not having mapped around for 8 years. However, seeing as I am familiar with the community, they tend to whine a lot for new de_maps in CS:GO, but I doubt you could get a group of 10 or even 20 people together to test a map intensively without it being good looking. Although most of them find the CS 1.6 look more satisfactory...

    All in all I do agree though, I see quite a bit of detail but I had no idea on how the map would be played, hence I asked for a layout a few posts back

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