How? does he see

Vincent

<div class="IPBDescription">Commander view mode q</div>can commander see lower levels if one is above it i mean in cs 1.4 theres a map but it sucks and you cant see what level a guy is on

realityisdead

Nah. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->

Mappers aren't allowed to do level over level stuff for this very reason. At least not to an extreme.

In other words, you definitely won't have to worry about not seeing your marines. The maps are to be designed so the commander can see and click on a marine at all times.

Comprox

Well, as it says in the <a href="http://www.natural-selection.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=4;t=100" target="_blank">Mapping Forum FAQ</a> (HINT - read it):
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->Q: Can I have two floors, one over the other (vertically)?
A: No. Unless of course the amount of floor beneath another floor is -extremely- small. Small amounts should be fine, but really, try to stick to the Guidelines as closely as you can. A little leeway is granted however.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I see you have posted some, so I assume you have read the other FAQ pages, and just didn't read the mapping forum one as you don't map <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->

Vincent

thanks

Cannon_Fodder

Ah that explains why the map shots in <a href="http://www.readyroom.org" target="_blank">RR</a> have only walkways as a 'second level'.

doctopepa

would be cool if you could make every floor on a level a big entity somehow and the commander could choose witch level to view.

XTS_Highlander

Yeah you could have a button that the commander could use to cycle between the level he's on and the level he wants to view, although I imagine this would probably be really hard to implement.  It's worth a thought though, sounds like it could give mappers more freedom.

Relic25

Everyone is just going to have to trust me on this.  This is not a viable option.  The commander already has enough to deal with.  It will be much more frustrating for the commander player if he has to worry or wonder about what 'level' he is seeing.  In order for this to even work at all, there would have to be even more indicators thrown on his HUD, and aside from the coding nightmare that this would create, it would make the learning curve and the commander's job much more difficult.  Always keep in mind that NS aims to be <b>user friendly</b>.  That goes for newbies as well as veteran players.  There are many technical reasons besides the commander's visibility considerations.  Among the most important are the r-speeds.  Because of the way that commander mode works, everything under the commander's view is drawn.  This means that if you have a bunch of levels stacked up, when the commander view is at the 'highest' level, everything -the top level and all below it - will be drawn, creating a big r-speed problem.

So far, I have seen many brilliant map designs that have the <i>feel</i> of multiple levels without actually having to overlap rooms and corridors.  Is it more of a challenge to map like this?  You bet it is, but the results are well worth the effort.

lazygamer

What about having the floor be transparent where a marine is standing?(when he's under something)

Remember there will still be parts where a marine may be obscured, so you might as well add that. Perhaps you can zoom in past one floor to see another? As long as a map doesn't have too much multi level areas(im not talking about catwalks either). this could work ok.

Moleculor

Trust me. The way it works right now provides -more- than enough map space for doing things.

Killtoy

And for all the things that the NS team have provided to help out mappers, such as the Particle System, the NULL brush, and the env_gamma, you'd think mappers would be willing to put the effort into making the map top-down friendly.

There just isn't much of a way for make level over level work with command mode that wont be a serious undertaking for the NS team as well as every mapper.

realityisdead

Right. Put simply, it's not even worth the massive amount of work in the coding and mapping departments. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a one leveled map. You won't even notice the difference when playing.

And I think Relic has the best point here: It would be immensely frustrating and difficult for a commander to do his job on multi levels.

kID-Icarus

i dont know if this was answered, but in version 2 will there be camera angles? I mean, the grpahical models would look better if they wernt from one angle

/me is n00b