Oilcake Productions :: Level Design :: Source Mapping

L4D2 Scavenge/Survival Map Nearing Completion

2011-02-22T05:01:00.000-05:00

First of all, some news about this blog. It will soon become part of a bigger portfolio site, which I'll start on just as soon as I'm finished "Down On The Farm". I'm seriously considering doing all my development updates through this blog after that, as opposed to posting on other sites. I'm not sure about this idea yet, though. I would still be posting on other sites, but just some occasional screens and things... Anyway, we'll see!

For the time being, here's a few new screens from [L4D2] Down On The Farm. I've been doing a lot of work on lighting, which still takes me a long time and many iterations to get right. That said, I feel like I am actually getting better at it, which makes it all worth it! I'll do the final detail and lighting passes next, I think. After that, I'll get onto sound. I haven't done a lot with audio in the game before, so this will be fun. I've done a bunch of reading on soundscapes and some basic tests, so I don't think it will be too hard to achieve something I'm happy with.

There's not actually that much left to do on this map now, comparatively, at least! Haha! It shouldn't be too much longer in any case...

As usual, the full dev thread with additional screens and commentary is over at the brand new WoLD forums. Here's a link to the latest page of the thread. Cheers!

[L4D2] Down On The Farm - Scavenge/Survival Map

2011-02-04T17:46:00.000-05:00

Quite a bit has happened since that last post...! Made a lot of progress on both maps. Then the holidays hit, and as January began I decided to take a bit of a break from the campaign and do a map for the WoLD Winter 2011: Level Design/Game Env Challenge. I'd been asked to help with the judging, so I wouldn't be eligible, but the idea of having another published map at the end of the month was quite appealing! The challenge is now complete (Grats to all involved!), and here I am still working on it... Haha! Anyway, I'm aiming for completion in another two weeks; I think that should be enough time.

Here's a link to the original dev thread in the Winter 2011 Challenge section. I've started a new one in the Work In Progress section that continues on from where the challenge thread leaves off.

A few screenshots, all WIP:

L4D2 Campaign Screenshots

2010-12-09T15:55:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is into December and I haven't posted in ages! Work in film has dropped off to almost nothing for the time being, so that means back to the level design in a serious way. We've come a long way with this campaign now. The first map is just about ready for testing, although there is still a ton to be done on it. We haven't even touched the audio portion yet, for example. That said, it's looking really good, and feels great when playing through it.

I'm in the process of putting the second map together right now. Some of it is only basically blocked, while other areas have far more detail. Roughly half way through, there's an event I'm planning in a warehouse train bay. The way forward is blocked by the train, so the survivors will have to "disengage the track lock" (or something to that effect) so the train moves until an open box car allows passage onwards. I'm not sure exactly how long the event will last yet, but basically the survivors will have to fight off the horde until the train is in its final position.

I got a little out of control with the texturing and lighting before even building the event (which I'll be getting at later on!), and even though the area is by no means finished, I felt it was time to drop at least a few screenshots...

I'll try to start posting here more often, but for the time being enjoy the screens! Cheers!

TV/Film Work Currently Endless...

2010-08-17T10:19:00.000-04:00

Well, it seems that it's going to be a while before I have a chance to get back at the level design in any kind of concerted fashion... Just finished 11 days in a row on Covert Affairs (TV show, believe it's airing on USA in the States), and it look like the next few weeks will be just as busy. I'd been trying to get Escape From Parkdale finished up to be hosted by Valve on their official servers, but even that has had to be put off for the time being. As soon as I can I'll get that done, at least. Not sure when this massive wave of work will slow down, but for the moment I have no choice but to go with it, and fill up the bank account for when it all slows down again. That being the nature of the business... Cheers!

Long Overdue Update!

2010-07-23T14:33:00.000-04:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted on the blog. Life seems to have a way of getting unbelievably busy lately. There's been lots of work in film again, so that's been keeping me out of the house a lot more. Good for the bank account, not so good for the level design work! Most of the work is for TV Series/Pilots, so the wages aren't what they are for Feature Films, but so be it. They're saying that there will be fairly solid work through to next Spring. At that point, the actors, writers and directors will all go to the bargaining table with the producers at the same time, and the general thinking is that there will be some fairly significant labour stoppages. We'll see, i suppose. In the meantime, we'll be getting a lot of work so they can bank shows/movies to see them through any strikes that may occur.

As for the WoLD Challenge, well, I lost that one quite badly, it seems. Not quite sure how that happened, but suffice it to say that's it for me and contests for the time being. I could still swear that mine was the only one that actually worked properly... In any case, it's time to set aside such things and get down to work on a proper campaign. The screenshots from my My 16th post are all outdated. None of that will be used in this new campaign. The team is currently myself and MikeTheBodacious, and we've come quite a long way with the first map. It's coming along really well, although we're still unsure as to whether the campaign will end up being 3 maps or 5. The first map is fairly long, but instead of doing 2 more longish maps with the finale at the end of the thrid, we may do 3 additional shorter maps, with a fifth that would be mainly finale. That remains to be seen. In any case, I'm going to start doing more of a development diary for this campaign. I imagine that I'll use this blog for that purpose, instead of one of the mapping site forums, at least for now. So, I'll get some screens together soon and post them here. Not sure when I'll actually get to this because of all the IATSE work, but I'll be trying to update a lot more as the work progresses.

Cheers!

WoLD Challenge Update & Sneak Peek...

2010-05-16T15:42:00.000-04:00

The WoLD Gameplay & Flow Challenge is heading into it's last week. I've been sitting on my entry for a week, now, getting some feedback, etc. Monday I'll be starting to do the final changes & fixes for the Friday deadline. I'm not going to go crazy with it, though, as I think it's achieved what it was meant to do. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that a campaign should, but it's not ever going to be that, so why do that much more on it, is my feeling. I'm happy with the way it has worked out in any case. I think the level design, within the parameters of the challenge, is actually pretty good...

So, here's a sneak peek at a couple of screens from a new campaign. Seems we'll be a team of three for this one, at this point. I'm really excited about working with a great modeller. So nice to not be limited to Valve's props... More news about the make-up of the team at a later date.

Check out the screens:

Not sure when we'll be officially announcing, so there won't be an official WiP thread for now. I might drop some screens on here occasionally, though...

Cheers!

Playable Map For WoLD Gameplay Challenge...

2010-05-10T23:53:00.000-04:00

OK, here it is... First version publicly available to test. Download it here! Contest is over on the 21st of May, so I'll be making changes for sure. Love to hear any feedback, opinions, etc! Latest screen shots and such on the most recent page of my WIP thread over at World of Level Design. Cheers!

New Shots From The WoLD Gampeplay Challenge!

2010-05-07T15:59:00.000-04:00

Hey! Thought it was time to put some screens up here, as well. Pardon the quality... Since the Passing, I haven't been able to run my graphics above medium or the game crashes to desktop. Ugh. Anyway, Here are the screens!

Interior of the last room before the safe room. Safe room entrance is at the left of this shot.

One of the outside sections. Few more props now, starting to look like a map! :)

Looking through one of the arches into the final area. The wooden barricades on the left will be blown up in the event...

Event sequence: 1. Player presses button on C4 Remote Detonator. 2. Wooden barricade is destroyed, opening way to the safe room. Onslaught begins. 3. A second later, the charge at the top if the fire escape goes off as well, blowing open the blocked door. Survivors can now make their way to the safe room.

Some overhead shots. Again, sorry about the quality, it's really kind of embarrassing... Valve may force me to get a new computer sooner than I'd wanted to. Ugh, again.

Overhead again...

And again! :D

That's it for now. Here's a link to the latest page of my WiP Thread over at World of Level Design.

Cheers!

Back At It!

2010-04-19T11:59:00.001-04:00

Well, there was a nice little burst of film & tv work there for a few weeks, but it seems to be dying down a bit now. Highlight of that was 2 1/2 weeks in a gravel pit north of Toronto making it look like the Antarctic for the prequel to The Thing (John Carpenter's 1982 version). Loads of fun (and brutal work) and some money in the bank to last until there's more work! Haha. So a few days here and there, I imagine, for the next couple of months or so? Hard to say, but that seems about right.

So that means it's back to mapping! I haven't gotten around to posting here yet, but I've been working on a new World of Level Design contest for the past week. Here's a link to the Gameplay & Flow Level Design Challenge guidelines. Here's a direct link to my WIP thread in those forums.

I'll post here occasionally, but that will be my main thread for the development of this new map.

Here are a couple of screens of it coming together:

Cheers!

Here It Goes... Again...

2010-02-19T23:21:00.000-05:00

Alright, Version 7 will be available in about five minutes time. Should be at least a few hours before a ton of holes get smashed through this one! Thanks to all that have helped recently with bug reporting, play testing, etc. I couldn't possibly do this without you guys... Cheers!

Fixing Now...

2010-02-19T17:33:00.000-05:00

Alright, haven't heard from Mik3 yet, but kithiero figured it out! Thanks to him! Making changes now. Should have the fixed version ready soon...

Big Fix Coming Today...

2010-02-19T16:13:00.003-05:00

Wow, so I'm going to have to do another version immediately... I forgot to upload my custom horizon texture for the skybox. I was so positive I had thought of everything! Haha. Also, right after uploading the new file, Mik3 and The Tuss found the nastiest exploit on the Hotel balcony. Worst part is, I haven't actually talked to him still, so all I have is a brief explanation and the screenshots... I tried to replicate it for ages, but can't figure it out! In any case, I can't leave that in there. I've fixed the skybox and a couple of new nav issues, and now I've added a couple of new custom overlays as well while waiting... Some screens until I get this update going on:

Wow, that skyline is ugly!

Players can get behind the furniture block. Obviously, this breaks things...

You can see from this angle the the chair is floating out there... Ugh.

New door overlay... Band used to practice at this place...

Woohoo! Stevie graffiti! Fresh from downtown Toronto!

More later when I figure this glitch out! Cheers!

EFP Verion 6 Available Now!

2010-02-18T23:57:00.000-05:00

Wow, all work, all the time... And no blog posts! Anyway, loads of stuff done this week: Major changes to the nav mesh. Fixed a couple of ladders and added a bunch more infected ladders. Added a new Survival ammo cache in the back alley, but forgot to add health kits. Haha, had to be something... Changed the Hotel balcony so the Tank doesn't get stuck. Along with a ton of other stuff. All in all, a successful release, but still not final. In any case the new nav alone was reason for another update. More testing, next...

EFP Version 5 Out Today!

2010-02-12T17:01:00.000-05:00

Get it now! I've made even more changes to the Hotel balcony, as well as some other minor changes/additions. I'm hoping it proves to be more difficult up there... Also hoping that I can make this the last update prior to the Final release, so people don't get fed up with downloading it all the time... :)

EFP Version 4 Available Now On L4Dmaps.com!!!

2010-02-10T15:43:00.001-05:00

Alright, people, it's finally reached its permanent home at L4Dmaps.com. You can download it here. All future updates will be released through that site... Make sure to update to the newest version! Cheers!

New Escape From Parkdale Poster

2010-02-09T19:37:00.000-05:00

OK, so I'm too exhausted to actually get this new version together and uploaded tonight. My brain is all over the place and I don't want to risk messing something up because I'm not paying proper attention. So, first thing tomorrow I'll do that. For now, here's the new poster:

Cheers!

Escape From Parkdale Wins WoLD 11-Day Winter Mapping Competition!

2010-02-09T14:45:00.000-05:00

Woohoo! What else can I say? Here's the forum post. Thanks to all who helped make this happen... I really don't have a lot of time to think about it, as there's so much more work to be done to get the final version out the door... Anyway, yay! I'll have a the Beta v4 up and running on L4Dmaps.com later on today.

Beta v4 & Launch On L4maps.com Tomorrow!

2010-02-09T04:21:00.000-05:00

Screenshots tonight...! Phew, I'm off to bed after this, that's for sure. Got a TON of work done today. I started with the problem that Survival was too easy on the Hotel balcony. Spent quite some time building back into the hotel to make infected spawn areas behind the survivors. Nice screens below. Added another cache of gear on top of the complex for Survival mode as well. Fixed nav (a lot). No errors. Tested. Director will just not spawn much at all from these new spots, even while marked obscured. I screwed with things for another couple of hours. Took a walk to cool down and get some beer. Then it came to me: why not take back instead of build out for Survival? So I got rid of all the day's work and put boards over the windows in the last 2 hotel rooms that spawn in Survival only. Some minor issues, but it seems to have increased the difficulty somewhat on the hotel balcony, so it's good for the Beta v4...

I also fixed up the CN Tower model so it's proportions are a little better. Not saying they're final, but hey, it looks better! Still have a lot to do in the skybox, in any case...

On to the screenshots...

The highlighted areas are the new ones I added for infected spawn zones.

Still having problems with bots and that Survivor down rope on the left. New infected ladder on the right.

Added a new Survival mode base spot on the complex roof.

This is what it ended up looking like after taking all that work out. Huh.

First beauty shot. Well, as beautiful as it gets until the skybox is properly finished...

First top-down in a while... I like it from up here...

Oh, that same shot... I keep taking it...

The L4Dmaps.com Money Shot. They wanted it, they got it. I added the WoLD logo as well, cause that's why the map exists. I'll make them both look better when I get better at it. Haha.

Haven't taken this shot in a while. Looks better now, I think.

And just in case I didn't take enough of these... Here's one more! Um, notice the CN Tower... It's, uh, Toronto...

That's it for now. Must sleep. I'll pack this up and release it in the morning.

EFP Beta v3 Out Now! Survival Mode Plus More!

2010-02-08T01:32:00.000-05:00

So I finally got the Beta v3 out tonight. Download Escape From Parkdale Beta v3. Survival Mode has been implemented, as well as a ton of other changes/additions. I'll take some new screenshots soon and post them here. Still a lot to do before the final version is released, but this beta version took a big bite out of it. I've been lazy about blogging, but I'll try to post more often, to talk about what I'm doing and a bit about the process, etc. Cheers!

Survival Mode Implemented, Success With Alpha Textures/Overlays

2010-02-01T20:52:00.000-05:00

Got a lot done in the past couple of days. Managed to implement Survival Mode in my test map, and then in Escape From Parkdale itself. Also managed to figure out how to get the GIMP to save the alpha channel in targa files so I could make alpha textures as well. I still miss Photoshop... No screens yet, but later on or tomorrow I'll have some!

Working Model Of The CN Tower!!!

2010-01-28T23:03:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! Victory is mine. I'm going to recommend Propper here. It is solely responsible for me getting my first working model in game. Yay. Took a lot of screwing with, but it's done. Had to go through CS:S in order for it to work, as you'll see below.

So there it is, way in the distance... The CN Tower is a model. How terribly exciting.

Brushwork in CS:S

With a wee model...!

Going to do some play testing now...

CN Tower in the 3D Skybox?

2010-01-28T17:15:00.000-05:00

Working on the 3D Skybox today. Made the CN Tower in Hammer, then shrunk it down for the skybox, but of course now I have a few microbrushes. Didn't consider that. It works in-game, but I'll have to use a model of the tower I think. I'm wondering if and how well Propper works. I had no idea it even existed until today. I'm sure it's not the best way of doing this, but it might do for the time being... Also been messing with horizons for the skybox. Valve's textures aren't going to do what I want them to, so again, I'm going to make my own gradient texture I think. Valve now uses these black skybox models, but they do it with instances, so your whole 3D Skybox is called into your map from a separate .vmf... If you use these models in your skybox the old-fashioned way, they appear to screw things up. Maybe instead I'll figure out how the instancing method is done. Might be a better idea...

A couple of screens:

First attempt at getting the CN Tower and Toronto skyline into the map. Top of the tower gives me the microbrushes... Too bad, doesn't look too bad. Still works, but I don't like the idea of having errors in my compile. Gonna have to be a model...

Some of Valve's horizon textures. I don't think these are going to do it...

Back to work now... Cheers!

EFP Beta v2 Out Now!!!

2010-01-27T19:30:00.002-05:00

Alright, so the .vpk issues remain unresolved, but 1SG.Heartless (many thanks!) was kind enough to point out that there's a work-around for the time being. Basically you don't include the map files in the .vpk. Instead you create the .vpk without them, then zip it up with the .bsp and .nav files separately. The .vpk goes in the L4D2 addon folder as normal, map files go in the L4D2 maps folder. Then everything works. It'll do for now!

Here's the link to the temporary download site. Follow the readme for installation instructions. Can't put this up at l4dmaps.com because they only accept .vpk uploads, and that defeats the purpose.

I've created a Steam Group for the map, as well. Hopefully this will help with getting some testing groups together.

Version 2 of the beta has a ton of changes from the original beta release at the end of the WoLD 11-Day Winter Mapping Contest. Looks a lot better, plays a lot better. Hope everybody enjoys it!

Cheers!

L4D2 Escape From Parkdale Beta Version Now Available!

2010-01-22T21:55:00.000-05:00

So the World of Level Design 11-Day Winter Mapping Competition is finished, and I've released my first map! Download the beta version. What a fantastic and crazy process this was. Anyone who's interested in the development can view my whole WIP forum thread here. Going to play test it for a bit, but first a few screenshots:

Cheers!

Many Thanks To Valve!

2010-01-12T22:00:00.000-05:00

Yay! There are still tons of issues, but Valve today fixed a whole bunch of problems with the L4D2 SDK. Check them out here. I'm quite excited. Haha. WOLD Level Design Challenge is going quite well, altough I'm already feeling brain dead! Track my progress here. Cheers!

WOLD 11-Day Level Design Challenge

2010-01-11T23:08:00.000-05:00

Alright, so I've decided to put off finishing the CS:S map in order to enter World Of Level Design's 11-Day Level Design Challenge... I won't be posting that much here for the next little while. Instead I'll be following progress here. The main forum where we're all posting our works in progress is here. Gotta go, only 11 days to finish an entire L4D2 Scavenge map! Yikes!

Another CS:S Screen

2010-01-09T19:59:00.000-05:00

Here's one more. I've just been working on this section. Now off to kithiero's birthday party.

Counter-Strike Screenshots & L4D2 Update

2010-01-09T18:19:00.000-05:00

First of all, I finally have a working test map of Scavenge Mode in Left 4 Dead 2. Was a real pain, but it's all going on now. I'm considering writing a tutorial, but to be honest I'm still a little confused, so I'm thinking that one should maybe be left to somebody with a little more experience... We'll see as I start to build an actual map.

Here are a few screens from the CS:S map. Texturing is getting a lot better. I'm getting near finished the texturing and optimization. Still a lot of work to be done. Next things to do after this pass will be the ground displacements, then lighting.

Figuring Out Left 4 Dead 2 SDK

2010-01-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

Counter-Strike: Source map is coming along quite nicely. I don't have any fresh screens, but the texturing and optimizing is going well, around 50% complete I'd say. Still need to do lighting after that, it's all very basic right now. I also still have to switch the exterior ground to displacement, which I think is going to improve the look and feel a ton.

Anyway, I've been looking at L4D2 in the past couple of days, trying to figure out the new instancing methods and trying to get a test map going on that will do both Scavenge and Survival modes. No love yet, but it's coming along. There are no tutorials to speak of on any of this yet, so it's basically fighting your way through the Valve example map (Deadline 2) and trying to figure things out... Complicated as hell, but I think once it all becomes clear it's a far better system. Posted a little tutorial on l4dmaps.net forums on the instancing thing...

Anyway, back to trying to get this working!

Back At It

2009-12-28T18:50:00.000-05:00

That's about it. Holidays are over for another year. Had a ball, glad to be home and back at it.

Counter-Strike Map Update

2009-12-21T16:29:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting anywhere near as much as I wanted to, mostly because I've been so involved in the production of this map. It's come a huge distance in the past week. The top down view you'll see below is (for the time being, anyway) the final version. It went through several iterations and many hours of bot testing. This version seems very balanced, with bot team scores like 18-20 and such. I'm hoping this translates well into human play, but not having done anything like this before, I honestly can't say how that will work out.

I'm into the beautification process currently, at the same time as optimizing. For the most part I'm done work until after the holidays. No idea how long until I have something actually ready for release, but I think it should be fairly early in the new year.

This map (so far) has been built almost exclusively with the stock textures and models from the Dust maps. It's not ideal, but until I learn more about modelling and making textures, it's going to have to do. As with the Left 4 Dead campaign, it's forcing me to work within certain limitations, which I don't think is a bad thing in terms of honing my mapping skills.

So here is the new top-down view, as well as 3 other screenshots that give a bit of a feeling of the map...

Counter-Strike Map First Iteration

2009-12-18T04:20:00.000-05:00

Wow. This has been a crazy couple of days. I barely managed to eat. Anyway, first version of the map is finished, and I've just finished watching bots kill each other in it for a couple of hours. Hrmm... Yeah, I killed a few of them, too. It seems quite CT heavy at this point, but I already have (what I hope are) the solutions. Tomorrow I'll make a bunch of changes. As well as pick the final 3 screenshots for the mapping competition... :)

I have to say at this point that I can't quite imagine what I've accomplished in the past 3 days. Long way to go still, though ... :) That said, here are some screens. First one is a top-down layout, which I'll do often as things change. Everything is in nasty mode, but this part is really only about getting the game play right. Beautification can go on later...

Enjoy!

Untitled Counter-Strike: Source Map

2009-12-16T16:37:00.002-05:00

Starting work on a CS:S map now as well. Got some good ideas going on, I think. The section below is loosely based on this photo. Ideally, it will end up looking more like that! Here are a few (very) early screens...

11 Final Shots - All Souls Night

2009-12-15T20:46:00.000-05:00

So here are what (I think) are the final 11 screenshots for the mapping competition. Have to get this down to 3 shots for the official entry, so if anyone has any preferences, let me know...

Now to pick 3...

Colour Correction Fail!

2009-12-14T18:57:00.001-05:00

Been messing with colour correction all day. Getting no love at all... Ugh. Maybe I'll have some more screens later on when I can get it going on.

*Edit* It all works just fine in Counter-Strike: Source... No idea why it won't happen in L4D.

Stop All Work - A Cat Is Sick...

2009-12-13T20:53:00.000-05:00

So yeah, one of our cats, Oliver, managed to jump off something rather too high for him and put his back out. Because of this, not a hell of a lot has been accomplished round here in a few days. That, and we just got Counter-Strike: Source. Oh, right, THAT's where a lot of the time went...

Anyway, got back at it today and made a ton of updates. Finished (at least for now) the 3d skybox. Added a few little things and messed with lightmaps a bunch. Into the last stretch now, which is good, cause the deadline is approaching.

Some screenshots:

3D Skybox Added

2009-12-10T18:48:00.001-05:00

Today's job was to add the 3D Skybox. Not done yet, but it's coming along. Here are some screenshots of how it's shaping up...

All Souls Night - New Screens

2009-12-08T20:22:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple more shots. Most of the main props are in now. Time to start on the 3D Skybox, I think. The first shot shows some of the area just completed (other side of river), and the second is view from above which shows the whole layout. The water doesn't show because I'm so far up out of the skybox to take this shot.

Three New Things

2009-12-08T16:31:00.000-05:00

So, apart from all the other new stuff I'm learning doing this project, I've decided I really need to work on light maps, shadows and colour correction. I think if I can get better at these, it will improve the atmosphere of the scene a ton. I guess we'll see how that goes...

Moving Stuff Around More...

2009-12-08T14:49:00.000-05:00

I've moved the stone circle in towards the church quite a bit. In the first shot you can see that it has moved in from the left of frame. Also moved the bridge lamp to the other side of the road and made a few other minor lighting changes. Now for some more work on the far side of the bridge...

Moving Stuff Around...

2009-12-08T02:29:00.000-05:00

So I moved the big oak tree. It was kind of annoying me where it was. Added a ton of other things, too, as well as working a little on lighting... Burnt out, must sleep.

Bridge Added

2009-12-07T20:05:00.001-05:00

Here's a new shot including the bridge I'm working on. Changed the sky as well, think I like this better...

Map Battle 41 - Even More Screens

2009-12-06T18:29:00.000-05:00

Here are a few new screenshots. You can start to get an idea of the whole scene now. There will be an old stone bridge crossing the river where the plank-looking thing is right now. Ton more work still, but coming along nicely I think. Still thinking about changing the skybox... Also, the water is giving me some grief, but I'll figure it all out eventually.

Saxon Church Updates

2009-12-05T21:52:00.000-05:00

Two new screenshots... The lighting is still very rough, but main construction is pretty much done. Texturing is kind of iffy, too, but I feel like I'm improving at least.

Back to building now...

Map Battle 41 - More Screens

2009-12-05T05:33:00.000-05:00

Here's a couple of shots of the Saxon church I'm working on for this scene. It's based on Escomb Saxon Church in northern England. Needs a ton of work, but it' a start. Gotta sleep for a bit. More tomorrow...

First Screens - Map Battle Project

2009-12-05T01:53:00.017-05:00

Alright, as promised here are the first screens from my Map Battle 41 project. For those that didn't click the link in my last post, Map Battle 41 is called Map Us A Song. To start with, I chose a Loreena Mckennitt song, All Souls Night. Oddly (or not) it's freely available on YouTube... You can read the lyrics here. You can buy it here or get the song alone on iTunes for $0.99... Kithiero's suggestion was Angel Of Death by Slayer. I think I'm gonna try that, too, after I'm finished this one. Figured I'd start with the Celtic/World thing and ease on into the Metal later on...

For the record, all of this is built in Hammer using the Left 4 Dead SDK. All props and textures are stock.

In any case, on to the screens...

Ignore the skybox crap in the second one, haven't finished that bit yet. They kind of give an idea of where this is going, though. I'll post some more tomorrow as work progresses.

Interlopers.net Map Battle 41 - Map Us A Song

2009-12-03T20:23:00.002-05:00

So, just to change things up a little, I've decided to try out the new Interlopers.net Map Battle. Got some ideas already, as well as some suggestions from the illustrious kithiero... Working one idea today. I'll post some screens later on. Nice to have a side project along with that Left 4 Dead monster.

All Over The Map...

2009-12-02T16:39:00.000-05:00

As usual, my work flow is all over the place... Been working on a variety of stuff today. Fixing things, placing some new props, etc., etc. I've read a bunch of posts on lighting in the past few days, too, so I've been screwing around with different lighting settings, too. I'll try to get some preliminary screenshots of the second level soon, as well as those new ones from the first map. Where does the time go...

To Fog Or Not To Fog...

2009-12-01T20:45:00.001-05:00

So I changed the first map settings so that the fog is so far in the distance it can't be seen. This seems to be the best choice, turning the fog off totally tends to screw with lots of particle effects... Haven't taken any screens yet, but right off the bat I don't like it as much. Problem is, I don't like it with the fog either, really. Stupid Left 4 Dead light coloured fog...

Got fed up and went back to working on the second map.

Second Map Changes

2009-11-30T15:36:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I made a ton of changes to the second map. Went from the temporary huge surrounding skybox to the new one that's built nicely behind the displacements. Pretty happy with the way that went. After a whole load of brushwork, I only had 2 small leaks to fix. Helluva lot better than when I did the first map...

Really need to get back to the first map to make some of the changes I've been planning on. I'd like to get some more screenshots out there that reflect the concerns of people who posted comments about it. Mostly that has to do with changing stuff to do with the skybox and fog. Right now I'm considering taking the fog out almost entirely, but we'll see how that goes.

A Working Elevator

2009-11-28T17:59:00.004-05:00

Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. My first working elevator! Basically a copy of this one, but rebuilt from the ground up so I know what's going on...

Kinda looks like it's floating, but hey at least I textured it...

Going Down?

2009-11-28T17:21:00.000-05:00

Working on elevators and stuff today...

Been getting lots of comments about the sky/fog in the screens from the first map. Definitely going to make some changes... Try to get to that later on or tomorrow.

[WIP] L4D Mountain Mayhem

2009-11-26T14:41:00.000-05:00

Today I created a L4Dmaps.com page for the campaign. Also posted some screens, etc., in a few other forums, including here... Enjoy!

Mountain Mayhem Campaign Poster

2009-11-26T01:04:00.002-05:00

Coming up on half way through (ha!) the construction of the campaign, it seemed to be time for the poster... Many thanks to Adam Riches for the poster template (you can get it here) which has saved so many of us a ton of time... Also thanks to kithiero for the fantastic slogan.

This Is The Story So Far...

2009-11-25T23:41:00.000-05:00

I started mapping in June 2009 mostly due to the lack of gainful employment in my other life as a film technician. Level design was something I'd always thought of getting involved in, so with my newfound freedom, it was into the deep end. Since then I've been working at developing basic mapping skills. Currently, I'm developing a Left 4 Dead campaign called Mountain Mayhem. This blog will follow my ongoing efforts... Huzzah.