My First Year in Review

celery · February 24, 2021

The title is a bit misleading. I have been mapping for a while, but after a two year hiatus I came back to it a little over a year ago when I wanted to make a neat little Wingman level for CSGO. I just want to share a few screenshots of projects that I started (and some finished) in the past year in order.

Coverup

I cooperated with Sir Thomas and 9yz as level designers, environment artists, and prop artists to finish and release my first level ever, which finally got it's release in August after a few months reacquainting myself with Hammer and learning how to model for the first time.

I consider this project a failure, but learned a lot from it.

Paradise

This was my first success with mapping. I won 10th place in the Source Engine Discord mapping contest and modeled more and detailed more. I eventually took help to optimize it after I released my first version.

I worked as the level designer, environment artist, and prop artist for this project. I received help from Sir Thomas and Peake to help optimize the VVIS on the level to increase the performance significantly.

This level was also featured on the Mapcore Wingman Hubs on FACEIT over the winter.

Following this project I was well on my way to learning how to model. I decided to help a bit on a Sourcemod aimed at recreating a Quake-style deathmatch game in Source.

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After running into engine limitations on the beefed up version of Source, I decided to repurpose those PBR-authored Quake assets into an aim map for CSGO.

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Between working Paradise and the Quake-style levels I started working on a wingman level with a number of people, including Sir Thomas, iTwins, ynel, Jayk, and Jonmcbane on an unfinished project that was nicknamed Paradise 2.

I worked primarily as a set-dresser, prop artist, and material author, creating materials from photosources I took and PBR materials on Textures.com

This was a stepping stone for what I am currently doing on my three unreleased/unannounced projects which I am excited to share when they are ready. (One of them I do share a lot about on my Twitter and will be posting a few of the assets below).

My newest project, a Wingman level in Great Britain is well underway. I am primarily working as the prop artist, material author, and set-dresser for this project. I have improved and built on my techniques for generating PBR materials from photos I take and porting them into the CSGO Spec/Gloss shader workflow.