Radix

Already posted a picture in the WIP thread. Here is a little more of my current project: more pics: layout: Map size is medium, layout simple but tricky, with open areas as well as some close/medium combat. There are two main T-routes, which branch off to the "middle" at the first choke points. So gameplay should be fast and dynamic, map control is pretty important. Originally wanted the map to be some kind of remake of my very first big CS map I made in 2001 (that's what it looked like : pic1, pic2), but only kept some basic ideas and the setting... Took some inspiration from this place in Austria: As already said, the map is mostly done. Currently doing the boring part (such as clipping, tweaking fade ranges, bot nav, replacing some assets that I have borrowed, ...) Hope to get it ready for some public playtesting soon...

This and the sky texture, I think. Other than that the map is shaping up pretty well.

Yeah, still have to "snow up" some of the props/textures.

That's what I'm currently working on. Probably not the best idea to make an open map with plenty of organic shapes, so this is taking way longer than I wanted. But ~95% done atm...

Well, I don't really remember the original post, so the following is not about Michael Greenwood's map specifically. But in general I noticed that in the last time many people post their (too) early greybox maps. What do you expect from it? Do you really think that someone would play a map (where pretty much everything is bad) for a couple of hours in order to give a qualified feedback? Would you do this for anybody else? Surprisingly some people of this amazing community still take their time and look at the pictures/layout, maybe even play the map if available. The result is - of course - often negative feedback. Things which you would have noticed if you cared about your own map. Every early greybox map is bad in the beginning. That's normal. You can't expect positive feedback when pretty much everything is bad. And you can't create something good without making mistakes! So make your mistakes, then try to fix them, then post your stuff. I'm probably not the one to give advice, because I'm not really good at making maps. But I suggest: 1. Make your first greybox. 2. Play it ffs. (with bots) (until you find something that you don't like) 3. Change what you don't like. 4. Play again. 5. (...) As soon as you are happy with your map, start with the architecture mock up, so that you get an idea how the map could look like after detailing. THEN it's maybe time to get some feedback from other guys to get aware of things you didn't notice etc. Then you will probably get better and more qualified/useful feedback. And it won't end up frustrating with mostly bad comments like in this thread... On the other hand I often don't like how some people talk about other people's maps. It's often like "do this and that", "this looks bad/boring/...", ... If you give feedback, try to stick to some simple rules: 1. Start with something positive. 2. If you want to criticize something, try to use terms like "I think that..." or "I would change this...". Your critique is still just your opinion and you might be wrong (as well) even if you are the godfather of level design himself.

Still waiting for dust2_winter_night_day_version_without_snow

For those who didn't notice already: There is a file called "de_nuke_zoo.vmf" in the .../sdkcontent/maps folder which contains all (?) the new assets.

Agree there! I guess cs_cruise was just added to have a hostage map. Usually Skybex' maps are very polished. But cs_cruise feels like less than 70% done to me. There are plenty of issues and the map looks pretty empty in general. Still a promising operation.

Clever layout and probably the most detailed CS map ever made, and one of the best looking as well. I wonder why this was never added to one of those operations and there is no reason not to add this to the next one (if there will ever be another one).

So you have built a map in hammer, you compile it, the game starts and crashes like this? correct? - Did you make any changes to the command lines in the compile window? - Did you check your CSGO launch options? (Steam->library->right click CSGO->properties->set launch options) - Did you ever manage to make a map run (without that crash) in CSGO after compiling?

Looks really impressive now. Must have been an incredible amount of work to create this...

I personally never really liked the layout of aztec, because AWP is way to powerful there and I don't enjoy sniper weapon so much. But the map was pretty popular back in CS 1.x, especially on public servers the player count was even close to dust2. The layout itself is still pretty much the same. But, as El_Exodus already said, besides the chokepoints, readability is definitely the biggest problem in the current version. The 1.6 version was virtually completely white...

Correct. You could also use vertex tool and split the face into 2 by selecting 2 vertices and pressing CTRL+F. https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Hammer_Vertex_Tool (-> face splitting an removal)

All vertices of a face have to be in the same plane. Otherwise you get an invalid brush. Hammer tries to fix invalid brushes when you load your map. That's why your brush doesn't look the same anymore.

I guess it's because of the dynamic shadows which are always 100% sharp. The static lightmap shadows should be affected by the settings, but you can't see it because the dynamic shadows superpose them. To make it look fine, you will have to reduce the dynamic shadows' alpha (shadow_control entity Edit: That's wrong). But I have to admit, that I myself am not able to make this work. Whatever settings I make, the dynamic shadows always look the same (too dark)...

Looks pretty nice so far! Yellow lights maybe a little too intense? Never tried to use $selfillum and $translucent at the same time, but I guess you will need an additional vmf for the selfillummask, because usually both (selfillumination and translucency) take their information from the alpha channel. Edit: Gave it a try because I was curious... Didn't manage to make it work yet. Maybe it's not so easy... Maybe ask will2k, he made something similar...

It's just one prop + 4 trigger brushes to make the bells sound when you shoot them. The whole tower (above the lower trim) is one (skybox) model. I can try to change it, if this is not okay for the contest. But I can't make custom props yet, so it would probably look pretty poor.

That's right. One "route" is blocked by a fence, so it's actually 3 entrances to B. I know that it looks more complicated on the overview than it actually is. I am aware that the name is probably misleading to some people. I'm not a native speaker, so I didn't know that many people think of a video games arcade when they read "arcade". To me it was just a "series of adjoining arches" (which would fit pretty well to the map). Well, funny times when people think of something on their desktop when you talk about a "window" instead of something you can look through. However maybe it's time to change the name. Unfortunately I didn't find a better name which isn't already used. So suggestions are welcome...

Arcade A bomb defuse map set in a mediterranean village. Visual stile is similar to the official maps italy and inferno, but gameplay is a little different to most maps. I tried to make the bombsites more accessible for Ts than usual and on the other hand CT gamelay is a lot more centralized, which gives plenty of map control to a single player. I have already published this map last year, but I have made a couple of changes and tweaks. Unfortunately didn't get a lot of feedback. Maybe I'm a little bit late here, but I hope that this contest could give me some additional feedback. Workshop link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=320674385

Yeah, something like this would be a good start. A simple "donate" button on the workshop site would not work. You always have to give the "donators" something (additional) in return. Some time ago I published a couple of Portal2 maps on the workshop. Because these turned out to be pretty popular (all 6 maps together ~500k subscribers until now, which is pretty huge for me), I added a donate button to the workshop site of the items (because some popular mappers like CaretCaret also did, and I wanted to find out what would happen). Maybe my maps weren't as great as his stuff, but until now only two kind guys actually donated after ~2 years on the workshop... So maybe giving people some Steam reputation badges or achievements or hats or whatever for donating would make it better... The funny thing is, that the youtubers who just played my maps in their videos got WAY more money for these videos than I got for making the maps.

Yeah, that's pretty simple and effective. This would probably solve nearly all problems at once. All in all I think that the idea of paid mods/content is definitely right. It's all about how it's realized/controlled. I'm looking forward to see how Valve (and the community) will make this idea grow. Without getting money it has become pretty hard to create good and extensive content like maps, campaigns or even completely new games. Most games are much more complex than a couple of years ago (graphics!). Making a good map for CS 1.x took you maybe a month or two. A really good CS:GO map can easily take something like 1000 hours or even more. There are not many people who can do this completely for free more than once.

Well, I'm not sure if this is good or bad news. At first I thought "having the chance to get some extra money with your hobby could be nice". But finally I'm afraid, that this will cause big problems... Even though I'm not really good at it, I love making maps. My dream was to make a (CS) map that I actually could play online. But since the matchmaking system was changed, it has become pretty impossible to find a server hosting specific custom maps. So the only real chance is to get into an operation, which is also pretty impossible for average map creators like me. And I'm afraid that it's getting worse, when money is added to the workshop. There will be more "professionals" releasing their content. And there will be more assholes trying to make money with their shit.

Well, I gave it a try immediately. (1024*512 resolution except the upper (1024*1024) and bottom (16*16) textures) Found out, that you will have to add $basetexturetransform "center 0 0 scale 1 2 rotate 0 translate 0 0" to the vmt (of ft, bk, lf and rt), if you don't want the images to be stretched vertically.

Actually, you can make all of your vtf's (except for the upper one) 1024*512 or 512*256, as the bottom part will probably never be visible and this will lower filesize a bit. The bottom one can be 16*16 or something like that, since you will never see it anyway. Nice to know. Well, I stuck by Valve's recommendation here. Already thought about what you said, because these parts of the skybox are never visible as you said, but unfortunately didn't try it yet.

Your vmt seems to be correct. (You don't even need "$nofog" 1, "$nomip" 1 and $ignorez 1 to make it work afaik) The images you want to import should all have the same resolution. 1024x1024 should be fine. They should be simple files like tga or even bmp. No alpha channel needed. Open vtf edit and open your image via "file -> import". The vtf options can be the default settings. Don't forget to flag Clamp S, Clamp T, No Mipmap, (No Level Of Detail (?)) Your 6 vmt files will be vegas_01bk.vmt, vegas_01dn.vmt, vegas_01ft.vmt, vegas_01lf.vmt, vegas_01rt.vmt and vegas_01up.vmt. The vtfs the same with .vtf ending. Be sure to save all the files in the correct folder and set the correct skyname in Hammer editor (vegas_01) Maybe post your settings in vtf edit, if it still doesn't work.