I am making a DoD:s map.

    And I have a few questions before I get started on the orangemapping.

    The first being my layout idea, I plan on having both sides boil down to a single bridge. Now you may think thats really stupid, but the bridge will have multiple layers, enter-able houses, and multiple paths in which to cross the bridge. The point of it being so elaborate is so that MG's cannot, in any way, cover even half of the bridge (so in a way forcing a team to coordinate places for multiple MG's to be setup on the bridge.) This is so that even though the middle choking point of the map is one big bridge, one MG/sniper cannot camp and cover the entire bridge therefore forcing the MG/sniper to do what they are supposed to do, and thats "nest" in key points rather than camping until he/she dies.

    As for the rest of the map (either side of the bridge) it would be a standard DoD map layout, so the bridge will contain one flag, and either side will have 2. The bridge's flag will of course need more than one person to cap, but as for the other ones, they will only need one person to cap. So think of the top down view of the layout being a tree that is mirrored at its trunk. All in all is this idea of a huge choking point a good idea?

    One of the things I loved most about DoD was the amount of vertical gameplay that Italian architecture offered to the gameplay, so expect my map to have extraneous amounts of vertical gameplay as I cannot get enough of it. But how tall is too tall? I was thinking the maximum height would be around 3-4 stories at the maximum, with anymore and you risk getting excessive, am I correct on this?

    My next two questions are visual/graphical questions. ( I suck with non underground stuff, so I am trying to branch out and get some exterior experience )

    One being when constructing the certain buildings that are enterable, how do you setup the floor to wall ratio? Its impossible to ask in text so I will make some diagrams:

    Option 1:

    [Blocked Image: http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/236/option1gp2.th.png]

    This would be my first impulse as to how to go about making multiple levels, but I feel as if the ouside wall (264 units) would really throw things off, even though all I would have to do is throw some trim out there and be good to go (that might get old after a while, visually)

    Option 2:

    [Blocked Image: http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3255/option2ab7.th.png]

    This one preserves the outside wall retaining to maintenance of staying on powers of 8, but also makes one floor smaller than the other one.

    Which one is better? Is it mostly personal preference? DOES IT MATTER?!

    Final question. Before I ever start a map, I always decompile the official maps created by the company that made the game so I can get some ides of technique/texture theme/ect ect. Well anyways, I noticed that ALL displacements that Valve does is created like this:

    [Blocked Image: http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/130/untitledfa2.th.png]

    What is gained by doing it that way? I mean once you create the displacement, that whole bottom part gets ignored by the engine, so why do it like this?

    I will post any other questions that I have in this thread, and any other general DoD mapping tips/techniques are greatly appreciated, thanks for your time.

    EDIT: If this is in the wrong place, just move it

    Quote from buddy the designer

    Good luck JP, don't get too curvy with it though

    and yes decompile all the maps

    and rearrange the buildings. worked for me. Don't release the map if it doesn't have any custom content or is based in a city, spend some time and think about a location that sets it apart from other DoD: S maps or its just going to be forgotten like the hundreds of even really good city maps.

    I think my map and my favorites get about one or two games of half full servers of play per day.

    Quote from FMPONE

    and yes decompile all the maps

    and rearrange the buildings. worked for me. Don't release the map if it doesn't have any custom content or is based in a city, spend some time and think about a location that sets it apart from other DoD: S maps or its just going to be forgotten like the hundreds of even really good city maps.

    I think my map and my favorites get about one or two games of half full servers of play per day.

    Yeah, I decompiled all of them they are damned impressive.

    As for my map being original, I have been wanting to make a DoD map ever since it was released but could never find a good/original idea, until recently. All I can say is that you guys will hopefully love it.

    But what do you mean by rearranging the buildings? Do you mean ripping the buildings from official maps and scrapping together a hack job layout to see if it works?

    Quote from buddy the designer

    This is how I do.http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3995/howtohs4.jpg\

    I like that, and might actually use this way. Thanks

    And what do you guys think of the idea of having the entire map boil down to one bridge?

    Quote from JeanPaul

    And what do you guys think of the idea of having the entire map boil down to one bridge?

    Again, worked for me

    Quote from JeanPaul

    No I was joking that I stole Valve maps but thats honestly not a bad idea to just grab them and rescale them. But I guess that accomplishes the same thing as orange mapping in the end.

    Although if you're using buildings you're making urban which means you're kind of fucked originality wise, unless you have custom content. Do some custom content, learn to model or something, if you're going to be spending alot of time on it. Even if you rush it and the map ends up mediocre or some such scenario, you're ahead of 99% of DoD:S mappers with some self made custom content, if you spend alot of time on it and its a good map then its just yet another plus.

    Either way thats my advise, learn to texture or model and set your map apart.

    Option A is the best for texture scale obviously, but both will work just fine. 3 storeys tall max is a good limitation. Think avalanche

    Good topic. For some reason (And I have yet to make a DOD:S map)...I always start buildings with slabs of 128 height brushes. It always ends up messing me up in the end though.

    I didn't see the err in my ways until I took a look at how cs_assault did it. I guess the lesson is to see how the pros do it first.

    For real-world style stuff, as much as it pains me to have stuff not on a 32 or 64, I actually tend to go with 144-high floors, using the normal 128 for each floor, then 16 for the space between them. This does force you to use either an exterior trim or a vertically tiling texture, but better represents the amount of space for structural support without stretching things too tall and gives you the option of retaining 8-unit-thick brushes for floors and ceilings without having to worry about brush splits that don't match up between floors giving you nightmares... and of course lets you use the full texture without scaling on the interior walls.

    Even if you're as big a grid nazi as I am (an unlikely prospect!) get used to having stuff offset by 8 and 16 when you're working with realistic buildings with both interiors and exteriors.

    Ugh I cannot stand it if my grid is messy. I go above and beyond to make my grid and brushes as clean and tidy as possible. They all have to be aligned perfectly or I get mad!

    Quote from dux

    Ugh I cannot stand it if my grid is messy. I go above and beyond to make my grid and brushes as clean and tidy as possible. They all have to be aligned perfectly or I get mad!

    lmfao

    1 unit grid for the win

    man i thought i was the only one thinking of the grid as holy. that is also one of the things i think is blasphemic about maya... it doesn't snap to grid on auto! D:

    the difference between 128u from floor to ceiling and 120u isn't that much, hardly noticeable. if the building has more than one floor, that's generally how i do it, but if it's just one floor, i'll work the ceiling into the roof somehow, to get the full 128u.

    If You do 120 inside, You don't really have to rescale textures if You properly set them up, some of them will have 8 unit trim (like hl2 apartments plaster walls) that fit this "missing" area.

    I place floors at the top of a 128 high brush. 8 units thick does the trick...

    Same for ceilings as well.

    Yeah, I used to get kind of mad about this (I like being neat) but, meh, I'll have to live with it.

    Quote from JeanPaul

    Final question. Before I ever start a map, I always decompile the official maps created by the company that made the game so I can get some ides of technique/texture theme/ect ect. Well anyways, I noticed that ALL displacements that Valve does is created like this:[Blocked Image: http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/130/untitledfa2.th.png]

    What is gained by doing it that way? I mean once you create the displacement, that whole bottom part gets ignored by the engine, so why do it like this?

    The other sides don't matter when its compiled. Turning it into a wedge is just a waste of time in the long run.

    Maybe it was to make it easier to notice which brushes were displacements. The public SDK version of Hammer didn't have the ability to render displacements in the 2D views until a while after release, so I guess they might not have had that internally either. That approach would make it quicker to differentiate between displacements and world brushes.

    Quote from buddy the designer

    If You do 120 inside, You don't really have to rescale textures if You properly set them up, some of them will have 8 unit trim (like hl2 apartments plaster walls) that fit this "missing" area.

    some of the plaster walls have 16u trims, which work out even better.

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