Opal

My first CSGO map! xD So my goal with this project is to make a fun, compact defuse map! I will keep posting my progress in this thread - your feedback is appreciated!!

This is my first time doing a CS map, so you CS gurus out there can make fun of me all you want

So here's what the iterations of the broad, high-level layout look like, with "V05" being the current one:

I really wanted to have a twist in the layout, with a "gotcha" path (the right-most on T-spawn might seem to be the way to point A, but it's not) I will also take this occasion to throw some verticality in there.

I think I will make it an underground tunnel, with the whole "CPB and bombsite B" section (top section on the layout) at a lower level than the rest of the map. This will allow me to reduce the time it takes for both teams to reach chokepoint B, and possibly put the section completely beneath Mid... we'll see.

The distances with V05 are starting to feel good enough to start with:

Of course those measures are not so accurate since they're calculated with a ruler directly on the layout... We'll see in-game for more accuracy.

(The rest of the distance will be added with smaller brushes, props or ramps, and the extra distance will be shaved by cutting corners with diagonals)

...Now this doesn't mean that V05 is the final version - I will go back to photoshop and make a V06 with improvements when I need to.

I have imported my layout into hammer, to walk on it and get a feel of the space, and scale:

My goal is to get this to a first playable version as soon as possible, with basic brushes and bots. Stay tuned!

PS: de_harbor is a working title. I usually name my maps much later in production, so the name will likely change at some point...

Quote from blackdog

8 hours ago, blackdog said: What software you using for those layout drafts? 8-)

A strange software you might have heard of, called Photoshop

You turn on the grid, grid snap, and draw shapes using the pen tool, and you can actually make straight lines that look decent!

But I think the best way to draw layouts would probably be to use Illustrator and create vector drawings - Plus you could export at any size you need!

Quote from blackdog

10 minutes ago, blackdog said: Ahaha, feel very lame as I use PS a lot (not so much recently). The faux 3D perspective threw me off, thought was some sort of CAD or other design tool.

Don't think I tried much to sketch digitally a layout, pencil and paper feels more natural... layouts change a lot anyway. Also when using digital tools I feel like you are just spending too much energy, at that point seems like better to just work in Hammer: in terms of prototyping and blocking it is actually fast, as you can just throw in couple brushes with different textures to tell the height difference, and quickly create all of that by cloning.

Haha yeah I agree, it's so much faster with a pen and paper... Wish there was a way that's just as fast but on a software, to get a nice visual too

Now thinking about it, this layout actually started on a piece of paper - I just didn't think it was very... presentable

better than a piece of napkin at the pub I guess...

So I started blocking out the basic shell, and defining the choke points - It's surprisingly fast to build:

The interior lighting is really bad right now, gotta throw some more lights in there...

Focusing on the choke points, to make them interesting for both teams - especially choke point B (the interior one). brb!

Uploaded the current WIP version to the workshop:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…/?id=1217276956

I will re-upload every time I make an update - You guys can have a look if you want

(or maybe I'll upload a different file for each following version... I'm not sure yet)

So, I have defined point A and it now stands on a floor to add slightly more distance from T-spawn, and make it a better defensive position. It also has a rough first pass for covers that will be there - I don't want the point to be a fortress with too much covers so I'll be careful with how I add them. I think the next ones will be some alcoves in the far back:

Point B now has a slant in front, right after the chokepoint, again to also add some distance from T spawn:

...And there is now a corridor that allows CTs to avoid direct LOS with chokepoint B - It's a safer-but-slower alternative route to point B:

Chokepoint B has been defined as well. I added a pillar in the middle of the corridor, and I like what it did to the gunfight there - people can "cover" even if it's far away...

It also has a corridor to allow Ts to avoid LOS with the chokepoint, but right now it is identical to the one in the previous image... I need to work on that:

Mid has been improved, but I'm still messing around with it... not exactly sure where I'm going with the 2nd floor here...

I know I want to give a "reward" for taking the risk and time to go around the outside of the area (left side on the image below), and a high ground could be interesting:

T-spawn has slightly improved - previously the path to B would feel a lot more inviting than the path to A (I think it's still the case, but we're getting there):

Huzzah!!

New improvements have been made, please have a look:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…/?id=1217276956

(There's some gameplay videos on the workshop page, one where we capture point A as T, one where defend point B as CT, etc.)

Spoiler Major updates:

- Increased length of T-to-chokepoint-B, and CT-to-chokepoint-B, so that it takes exactly the same time to reach chokepoint A or B, for any team (12 seconds with the knife)

- Reduced length of T-to-chokepoint-A, and CT-to-chokepoint-A, so that it takes exactly the same time to reach chokepoint A or B, for any team (12 seconds with the knife)

- Improved layout in Mid (broken the symmetry, and slightly shifted it towards CT side, so both teams reach the chokepoint in Mid at the exact same time, added a "room" on the second floor)

- Added connector between Mid and choke point A, to shorten rotation times

- Added connector between Mid and choke point B, to shorten rotation times

- Added space in the room with the ramp, in the tunnel near T-spawn, to slightly increase the speed of rotations to bombsite B

- Added crouch section near CT that ends up on bombsite B, to give an alternative angle for CTs when they rotate to (slower than the main path)

Minor updates:

- Added slightly more covers and a pillar on bombsite B

- Added more covers on bombsite A

- Deleted navmesh on the side of all slopes, to fix an issue where bots would get stuck

- Added bombsite direction decals, and bombsite plant area decals (will probably remove them at some point, I hate those)

- Added water surface with place-holder shader

- Cleared up some buildings in the direction where the vista will be (towards the ocean)

Now I want the action to happen a little bit faster... so my next big step would be to shrink the paths to choke point A and B, from 12 seconds of walk, back to 10 seconds.

What do you guys think? Does the current 12 seconds walk feel good, or would 10 seconds feel better?

Cheers!

Quote from Radu

6 hours ago, Radu said: I think you're concentrating on timings and angles too much. Sure, it's a very important aspect of cs, but you're neglecting the theme. The level is way too abstract at the moment. I think the layout could be interesting, but the visual side isn't helping at all. There are already terrain and architecture features that don't make that much sense, such as ramps everywhere and 64 thick walls that serve no purpose except to block vision. You don't have to add textures or models, but get some recognizable shapes going on.

This is intentional. I'm waiting to be 100% satisfied with the gameplay before implementing any form into the level. Almost there...

I haven't gave a single word on the form yet - But I have actually put a lot of though into it, and I try to imagine what it could look like as I'm working on it.

I see an European port town built on a slope. I feel inspired by stuff like Dubrovnik Croatia, Skopelos Greece, Marmaris Turkey, even Cinque Terre Italy (but it should be a bit less colorful, because I want the theme to still fit the artistic direction CS:GO). Here's the form I'm thinking about for the most important sections of the map - they have to fit the infrastructure that such a town would have:

- T-spawn: Port, with a couple ships landed. One of them looks like the terrorists just got there with.

- CT-spawn: Police department, with some police vehicle that look like they just got there with.

- Bombsite A: Public area in front of an important building. Either a consulate, embassy or some other government building, or a telecommunication center... As long as it looks important and has a tall structure on top for landmark.

- Bombsite B: Critical infrastructure. Underground facility with electricity supply, water supply, or maybe gas supply or something.

- Mid: Small urban street with 2 interior areas.

The rest will be transitions between those, or simply urban areas. They should look less attractive than the above.

The smaller shapes that can be seen in the map right now, like the 64-thick walls, are place-holders for large props that will be there later on. I'm not worried about those at all, because they could be anything (car, garbage bin, telephone booth, ad sign, whatever...) Surely I'll find something that fits.

Now the shape they have, and the space they occupy isn't final either by any mean. I need to do a pass on those...

I also want to add a couple "out of bounds" areas here and there, like a closed gate or roadblock on a street, etc. to give a better sense of scale, and make the town look believable. Otherwise its gonna look like an enclosed set of streets where people need an helicopter to get in and out

What do you think?

New update!! (finally :D)

This one took a while - I wanted to make sure the level of detail is about the same everywhere across the map, to keep it consistent.

I had to add tons of invisible volumes to smooth out some areas (like on top of stairs, to avoid the annoying camera bumps):

Workshop Link:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…s/?id=908609109

Please give it a go and tell me what you think! I need all the feedback I can get

Next, I will add more detailed brushes and start adding props!

I also want to try and add a third path to access each bombsite, and give more options to CTs when rotating - for instance:

I'll probably make this a back alley or something...

Very bad news

Today I was working hard on my map to finish it for this week. I'm at the polish stage, and it's almost done. I even took a week off to do this full-time.

Suddenly my computer froze (it started doing that recently...). I was working and I think the editor was in the process of saving, because I have the reflex of pressing Ctrl+S whenever I touch anything.

One reboot later, I try to re-open my map, and it gets stuck a 5%, saying "Loading chunks...". I tried opening other maps, and they open fine - so I know the issue comes from my map file, not the editor.

It got corrupted.

I looked around to see if I have any backups. I though I have tons, but I realised that I always backed up all the files that are in csgo\maps, but never the files that are sdk_content\maps, which includes the f***ing .vmf file!!

So here I am, months of work put into a project, and now its all gone. I am devastated.

Let's just say I've seen better days. I have to go puke now...

(Update):

I am comfortable with programming so I decided to open the corrupt .vmf file in a text editor to see what's going on. The last few lines look like this (in the definition of a func_detail entity):

The content cannot be displayed because it is no longer available.

...and end of file.

So I decided to cut this func_detail entity and it's definition. I don't care about losing a single func_detail in order to get my map back.

And the map opens! Yayyy! And it looks like this:

The content cannot be displayed because it is no longer available.

Around 50% of func_details, func_brush, and props_statics across the map are gone!!!

Looks like when Hammer saves, it goes through a process of re-writing all entities that are part of the .vmf, even if they haven't changed. I guess it crashed when it was in the middle of doing that.

So I might have to just re-create all of these lost entities... not the whole map, which is kinda encouraging

(Update)

I managed to decompile the most recent .bsp file I had, and create a .vmf out of it.

Most of the stuff is there, but it's all merged into groups for some reason...

I am now in the process of copy-pasting entities from the decompiled .bsp file into the recovered .vmf file:

That sucks but I should be able to survive from here... Crisis averted :o

Morale of this story, for everybody:

BACK UP YOUR FILES FROM sdk_content/maps, NOT JUST csgo/maps !!

Even if I had lost my progress, I think I would just start a new map from scratch - I really want to finish a CS:GO map for once!

Thank you Gauss

I did not know Hammer had that - it indeed has a few recent versions of my map!!

However I have now fully recovered from this issue so I don't need it now, but that is a VERY useful thing to know, thanks for sharing!

Ok, back from the workbench -

Here's the 1.0 version of de_opal (that's the release name for it):

I have uploaded it to a new workshop page: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…/?id=1217276956

(I replaced all links to the old version by this one.)

I will continue to make improvements to it in the future - I want this map to be as fun as possible!

Here's what the footprint looks like now:

I am proud with what I have achieved so far, but I think it could be way more than what it is - so please tell me what you think, whether it is about gameplay, visuals, sounds, effects, my grandma, etc.

Cheers and good luck with your own entries! -Mike