de_cncrt

    This is my first ever map! I've created this map of the course of about seven or eight days so far, and I've been pouring a whole lot of hours into it! I feel in spots it's rough because it's my first venture into mapping, however I impressed myself in other spots, whether by luck or good design choices. I started out with the vague idea of fighting on a stage, turned that into a rough layout of a concert theater on paper, and then into a defusal map in Hammer World Editor for CS:GO. The general idea of the story is that the Terrorists are a group of extremists bent on stopping a play due to homosexual characters being involved, and are willing to do anything in their power to stop it, including blowing up the materials and the stage used for the performance. The police were tipped off one way or another though, and counter-terror units have been deployed to stop them. The Terrorists spawn in the front parking lot of the Concert Arena, given the choice to either head towards middle, in the front door towards to the stage (Bombsite A), or into a warehouse that leads into a work yard with several important containers of materials for the play (Bombsite B). The Counter-Terrorists spawn in a storage room, and can either jump out of a store window into the boarded up middle, head out onto the stage, or go out the back door and/or the garage door into the work yard. The current version is fit for playtesting I believe, but it will most likely change quite a bit. I kept a very open feel for the map, with large sprawling corridors and tall-roofed buildings. However, there isn't a large vertical focus, only a couple vantage points for either site. The rest of the vertically on the map simply comes from the ground being higher or lower in places. This wasn't completely intentional, but as I playtested with bots, it seemed to fit alright. As of now, I'm not sure whether it is CT sided or T sided, and chances are good I won't know for a while, if ever, since I don't have the popularity to test it enough times with equally good teams to know for sure. Here are some shots from inside the map itself, shots of both spawns, each bomb site from several angles, and middle!

    It very much has that first level look so I'll give you some first level advice. Use much brighter textures and a bit more light. It's super dark and hard to spot enemies in a lot of places. Modern CS levels often throw white paint on their walls for that reason. But just not using almost black textures for the floor would greatly help. Your level has unpacked models. They show as massive error boxes for anyone but you. I recommend Yanzls version of Compile Pal: https://github.com/gortnarj/CompilePal/releases/tag/v025 Your areas are often simple shapes with props stuffed inside them to create cover. Try to use the geometry and architecture of your level as the main source of cover and as the main way to create the angles you want. Additional cover should be used sparingly. I think you should try to make your level look simpler, cleaner and more visible for starters. You can look at some grey boxes from more experienced level designers to see how a dev level could look like and be layed out. Kinda hard to judge a layout when it says "ERROR" on a third of it :D

    It's weird it has unpacked models, as far as I know I didn't use any custom stuff and my friends didn't have a problem with errors, unless files from other games on my pc somehow got in the model browser I'm not really sure how that happened. Thank you for the advice, that's a lot of stuff I didn't really think about, hopefully I can edit this level a bit to fix it with all that in mind. Since it was my first level, I feel like as I kept going along I got better at using hammer, so I started with a bad foundation from my lack of experience, then tried to make it look pretty once I had a feel for the program and my workflow. Honestly, I think this map would be better completely redone, rather than trying to fix what's there. I don't know how noticeable my clipping work was inbetween all the errors but there's some *jank* stuff in there. The textures could be easily re-done to be brighter, as well as the lighting, but really I think you're right with the prop thing, which sadly would take the most effort, an amount of which is to high for me, frankly I'm a little sick of working on this map because my jumble of clipping work and bad layout made everything else tedious to work with. Though, all that advice will transfer nicely to the next one I make, so thank you. For today I'll probably just try to fix the models and call it good until I do some playtesting, so I can test if the general layout works well, then I might redo the textures for the offending rooms and pull some of the props to simplify it a bit.

    Don't feel afraid to completely redo / drop a map when you're just starting out. You improve quickly and fixing a map takes much more time and effort than just making a new one. If you feel like a level is much worse than what you can do, just start over. I would just try to practice the entire process of making a map rather than just lets say grey boxing. Coming up with a theme, designing the rough structure and architecture of your level and doing actual detailing all go hand in hand with the layout and just doing one over and over won't help you improve as much. Im speaking from experience here :D If I were you, I'd work on this level for as long as I still enjoyed it, then move on to something new. Personally I'd recommend doing smaller projects that you actually finish. Making an entire defuse level is hard and takes a long time. Its easy to get stuck on the layout or not finish detailing especially for a beginner. I'd start by making small, detailed scenes and maps like say a well detailed, themed aim map, or just a particular scene youre interested in. Look at reference images from real life, other maps and games and study the way official maps build layouts, use cover and how they construct an environment with their assets.

    Welcome to CS:GO mapping Sir! For your first map, it's better than what I was expecting. Still though, there's room for improvement. @csWaldo is right, brighter textures would definetly help. Here is a little video about how brighter textures can help:

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    I also have a suggestion of my own: Try to use color theory in your map. It's hard to explain, but here is a detailed description over on Valve Developer Community: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Color_Theory_in_Level_Design


    Oh, and the name "Concert" has been taken unfortunately... I do have some theme ideas you can take a look at if you please: https://pastebin.com/Fzqq2EwY

    If you want further help, feel free to add me (I'm always looking to help others): https://steamcommunity.com/id/lost-in-the-50s/

    Damn, I looked and thought I got it for myself. I felt the name didn't really fit anyway. I might go with something like de_play or de_stage then, assuming those aren't taken as well.

    Quote from ElvinEnchant

    43 minutes ago, ElvinEnchant said: Damn, I looked and thought I got it for myself. I felt the name didn't really fit anyway. I might go with something like de_play or de_stage then, assuming those aren't taken as well.

    Great Idea! Stage sounds like it would be best :)

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