CS_Qasba For CS:GO Almost Complete!

Well, It's been a pretty crazy summer, that's for sure! Work in film/tv has been constant, for the most part. I've had a couple of weeks free to get back at mapping, though, and have managed to (almost!) complete the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive version of my old, unpublished and unnamed CS:S map.

I've decided to call it CS_Qasba, which has a bit of a story behind it. When I began work on this map almost 3 years ago, I was really just starting out with Source mapping. Besides trying to design a well-balanced, fun-to-play map, one of the main things I wanted to learn was how to texture properly. Being a big fan of David Johnston and his work, I decided to go with the Dust environment... All this went quite well, all things considered, but at the end of the day, the CS:S version of the map was never released. It never quite looked the way I wanted it to, and then it got lost in the tidal wave of L4D2 work.

With the release of CS:GO, I decided to resurrect the map, which still remained nameless (well, I went through a series of names, but they sucked for the most part!).  Finally, I settled on CS_Casbah, only later remembering that David Johnston (again!) had made a Team Fortress Classic map called Casbah...  Obviously, this wouldn't do, but at the same time I liked the name a lot, and it fit with the map very well.  I ended up deciding to change the spelling to the Arabic version, Qasba.  That way I could keep the name, while still paying homage to the Johnston link.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it: "The Casbah (Arabic: قصبة‎, qaṣba, meaning citadel (fortress)) is specifically the citadel of Algiers in Algeria and the traditional quarter clustered around it. More generally, a kasbah is the walled citadel of many North African cities and towns."

So there it is!  Very close to completion now, only a few last things to do...  I'm still trying to decide if I should wait for Valve's CS:GO Map Workshop to release it,  or just go ahead on my own.  I'll make that decision soon.

In the meantime, here are some before and after screen shots, CS:S version on top, CS:GO below.  Enjoy!