New to Mapping and NS, any advice?

GingerGiant

I've played a couple Source mods like The Hidden, and Team Fortress 2, and I've always wanted to get into mapping. Finally I stumbled across this incredible game and the Spark Editor. It looks really fun and intuitive.

You guys have any advice for someone who is completely new to both mapping and NS2?

The Hidden's gameplay is somewhat similar to the Marines vs. Aliens we see in NS1 & NS2. I have a couple fun ideas for creating crawl-spaces and other fun spots for the Lerks and Skulks.

I'm hoping to bring some fresh perspective to mapping.

Razor

Since there are still many unknowns the only thing I would suggest is to watch all the sparkmapping tutorial videos on youtube then play with the spark editor yourself to get comfortable with it. Start small and make a simple room or corridor. Most of us are waiting for the engine test before we can really start getting stuff done that we can playtest.

Thaldarin

Read the mapping guidelines. Not many people seem to and we get a lot of easy to answer questions here.

BreadMan

I highly recommend watching Mendasp's timeplapses: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AA2972CEA949311C" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AA2972CEA949311C</a>

And of course if you haven't already, the official tutorials: <a href="http://www.naturalselection2.com/tutorials" target="_blank">http://www.naturalselection2.com/tutorials</a>
...and updates tutorial: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheRealFlayra?blend=2&ob=1#p/u/6/HCxTWUDNdWg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/user/TheRealFlayra?...u/6/HCxTWUDNdWg</a>

GingerGiant

I loved watching those time-lapses. Really good stuff. Thanks for the feedback, guys!