Learning to map

empyreanrrv

Hi all,

Just bought NS2 from the steam sale (after eying it for a long time) and started playing with the map editor. I'm planning on making a jail and wanted to share some screenshots of what I've got so far to get some feedback from you experienced folks.

<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/5019629/uploads/FileUpload/5c/eb5e6279842b9d4444312ab541817c.png&quot; />
<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/5019629/uploads/FileUpload/74/c7d9fb7ce4806a9e3d1a8aeedd9cb1.png&quot; />
<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/5019629/uploads/FileUpload/b7/7ab18c112ecec97016920a301fdb6a.png&quot; />

The first shot is looking into the sentencing room, which has a tech point and a resource point. The ceiling is low and there isn't too much cover so I tried to keep the lights darker to make it more even for the aliens. The second picture is looking out from the sentencing room into a hallway-- I'm keeping that corner dark so aliens can hide in it-- good idea? The third picture is at the end of that hallway looking through the isolation wing. I've got hanging lights which keep the floor pretty well illuminated, but the ceiling is tall and everything above the ceiling is pitch black. There are three open doors that lead to the small cells, each of which is attached to the other through a vent. The vent also leads out to another room. There is a small alcove on the left side with a resource point in it, and the power cell is further down the room near a larger entrance.

Thanks

Howser

Hey matey. Welcome to the mapping forums!
This looks like a solid start, though I would recommend starting by doing a floor plan of the entire map then grey boxing it so we can test it. Jumping straight into doing tarted up individual rooms will probably cause you a lot of problems.
There's countless helpful threads, covering pretty much all topics of design you should have a good browse. The design aids I found most useful for floor planning are Timings to give a good impression of what scale works and the sloops are helpful for understanding the route count and level of complexity a map should have.
Also come join our little mapping community the S.C.C., we test our maps every Sunday! Playing other broken maps might also be helpful :P

empyreanrrv

That map testing sounds like a lot of fun! I'll definitely join when I can.

Thanks for those tutorials, I'll definitely give them a look. I've been mapping now following the Mapping Guide included in the game folder, but it seems pretty outdated... any notable changes that I should be aware of? I saw that I couldn't add the trigger name of the grey box to the power node, for example.

What is grey boxing and how does it allow for testing? I saw the minimum requirement list on the wiki, but I'm not sure how grey-boxing would work with that. What problems could I run into working with individual rooms? I do have a map that I drew up for all of the room locations, so I know roughly what the layout will be (along with where the Tech/Resource points are.) Is drawing up the floor plan first pretty standard procedure as far as mapping goes? Apologies if these questions are answered in the guides you've provided--

dragonmith

Looking at the (nice) screenshots, it seems like this might be a bit basic but this basic first impressions is something I found quite useful myself

Flaterectomy

Hi @empyreanrrv and welcome to themapping forums.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is another map out there with a jail theme (called ns2_prison), so perhaps you'll want to have a look at that so you can try and differentiate from it.

I personally don't like pitch blackness outside of when aliens destroy a powernode. Ambient lights are a good way to get base colours illuminating the darkest corners while still keeping it dark.

You currentlly have a lot of 90 degree angles going on. If you have a look at the official maps you can see some ways of making corridors and rooms more exciting with the use of other angles and props.

Greyboxing essentially means building the basic layout of your entire map just using the grey dev textures and very simple lighting. That way you can test the map before you've got a lot of detailed geometry that, after eventual testing, might need to be moved, altered, or even deleted. NS2 maps require more balancing than your average deathmatch map, so it's generally a good idea to start on balancing the layout as soon as possible.

Looking forward to seeing you progress!

Howser

there's plenty of good examples of grey boxed maps on the workshop. I would recommend checking out ns2_Grendel as its a good example of how your first build should look. Focus entirely on game-play, room shapes and scale. I am yet to see anyone get this right first time round, so playing fast and loose with shapes is the way to go.
As you get more confident- through play testing and revising the map, you can start to add more detail. NS2_caged is a good example of a later-stage grey box map.
My best advice would be keep having fun with the editor for the time being. We'll see you Sunday and hopefully all will become clear once you play some in-development maps.