Map Showcase

[orbitaldecay]

I am proud to present to you my first map: Ares. It is built in a temples setting and is called after the Greek God of War, Ares
It took me a couple dozens of hours time spread over a few weeks to build, test and tweak it and now I love to share it with you.

Included gamestyles beyond normal DM are CTF and DTF. Speed is fast and I find it to have a good flow. The map is mostly symmetric and I think that both camps are in balance.
Please feel free to tweak it further in any way if you feel the urge to, and I would be honored if my map would make it into the game eventually. Devs may always take it and change / add things where needed.

I'm open to comments and feedback, and hope you enjoy playing the map as much as I enjoyed building it.
There is still 1 open issue I'm aware of: I tried adding cameras for SpecTV, but for some reason SpecTV always films from other entities I placed, not the cameras. Also, on other maps I didn't see camera entities, so I just removed them after all, but then I wonder how it is done on other maps...?

Download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ger4bo9gzjf40j5

Lastly I would like to take the time to thank Quin for the generous help with tips and LuckyStrike-RX and W!ck3d Roel for the great maps included with the game that inspired me.

+1

[Ulukai]

Well I'm glad you like it. ^^ Thank you for the playthrough.
If you play it without arena mode, there is a rocket launcher somewhere too, have you found it yet?

[fluxord]

I am proud to present to you my first map: Ares. It is built in a temples setting and is called after the Greek God of War, Ares
It took me a couple dozens of hours time spread over a few weeks to build, test and tweak it and now I love to share it with you.

Included gamestyles beyond normal DM are CTF and DTF. Speed is fast and I find it to have a good flow. The map is mostly symmetric and I think that both camps are in balance.
Please feel free to tweak it further in any way if you feel the urge to, and I would be honored if my map would make it into the game eventually. Devs may always take it and change / add things where needed.

I'm open to comments and feedback, and hope you enjoy playing the map as much as I enjoyed building it.
There is still 1 open issue I'm aware of: I tried adding cameras for SpecTV, but for some reason SpecTV always films from other entities I placed, not the cameras. Also, on other maps I didn't see camera entities, so I just removed them after all, but then I wonder how it is done on other maps...?

Download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ger4bo9gzjf40j5

Lastly I would like to take the time to thank Quin for the generous help with tips and LuckyStrike-RX and W!ck3d Roel for the great maps included with the game that inspired me.

+1

+1, really nice map! I love it.

If you play it without arena mode, there is a rocket launcher somewhere too, have you found it yet?

Yep, in the little underwater cave below the Rifle
I love the little unfinished pyramid that is on top of the building in the middle of the map

[Ulukai]

I love the little unfinished pyramid that is on top of the building in the middle of the map

Yes, it lets you toss a grenade in either camp perfectly, but makes you very vulnerable too because everyone can see you and it's a bitch to jump in / out .

[Ulukai]

Qreeves, have you had a chance to take a look at my map already? Any idea about what the problem can be with the cameras? I would like to make this work as well and then upload it to quadropolis. Or if you think it would be good enough for the next release, or we can improve it a little for an official release, that would be great and I don't have to upload it to QP.

[fluxord]

Hey Ulukai, I've found a spot in the map (near the side of the centers' tower) that has some weird textures:

Don't know if it's my GFX's fault or maybe did you forget to texture it?

Also, the ceiling in this part is nice but I just thought that would be a perfect place for a flag or some turrets for Onslaught:

I know the flag is on the ground level, but it's kind of hard to defend on DTF because there is no place to cover.

Anyway, just my 2 cents

[Ulukai]

Thank you fluxord for pointing out the texture weirdness. It is because I bent the wrong corners of those cubes I will take care of it when I get home from work.
Maybe you are right about the flag position, I would like to hear some more opinions about this or other suggestions to place the 4th flag. I will modify it accordingl to what most users prefer.

Thank for the feedback, I think that's what makes a great game even better: together we are stronger and we can improve all the small things that make it a better experience for everyone.

[fluxord]

Thank for the feedback, I think that's what makes a great game even better: together we are stronger and we can improve all the small things that make it a better experience for everyone.

+1

[qreeves]

Qreeves, have you had a chance to take a look at my map already? Any idea about what the problem can be with the cameras? I would like to make this work as well and then upload it to quadropolis. Or if you think it would be good enough for the next release, or we can improve it a little for an official release, that would be great and I don't have to upload it to QP.

I don't really use the entity at all in the official maps, and while they are supported I really don't suggest using them. In SpecTV, RE will choose between entities (if a camera is not present, it will use all 'non-noisy' entities [eg. not waypoints or mapmodels] - this is what you want), players, and affinity objects (flag/bomb) that are most relevant at the time. Contributing factors are distance, number of visible active objects (players/flags), and certain priorities/thresholds. It should do a decent enough job on its own.

[Ulukai]

Yeah I noticed it uses random entitites, but problem is that sometimes the fire particle of the lights I used are half visible in front of the rest of the image, which is problematc. I might try placing the sounds and lights higher than the flames. Does it also use player waypoints?

[qreeves]

No, waypoints are "noisy", if you want to specify camera locations just put in a lot of camera entities in various locations, then it won't use random entities (this is only a last resort failsafe really). Make sure the yaw/pitch is pointing out into a playing area, you can leave mindist/maxdist alone unless you know what you're doing adjusting these.

[fawstoar]

Here's a 1080p flythrough I whipped up... http://youtu.be/P9GHxBsIVII

The map is excellent - it's not only beautiful (considering this is the Cube 2 engine, after all), but the gameplay feels fairly solid so far. CTF should be very enjoyable, and I like that, unlike on Venus, there's actually enough space to swim underwater.

[Ulukai]

Thank you for the support, glad you are enjoying the map I would like to hear more opinions about the 4th flag in DTF, see a couple of posts above. Personally I don't think it's wrong and there is still some small walls to hide and grenades to blow enemies away.

I updated my map to v1.1, get it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?llb8eoculiatx2r

Changelog:
- Fixed texture corruption at middle tower.
- Made surrounding mountains less square at the tops.

[Ulukai]

I fixed some texture errors today and experimented with texture blending. Will continue tomorrow and try to add some grass particles. Expect Ares v1.2 soon, I hope this will be the final touch

[4rson]

Here is my first attempt at Red Eclipse mapping called Pumpstation

http://www.mediafire.com/?gsgn38hbrhc2nzx

I think it's mostly finished, so please give it a try and let me know if you see anything that needs improving.

Edit: updated to version 1.0

[Ulukai]

Yes, a new map Will try it at home. I'm at work now

[4rson]

Link above has been updated to a newer version with improved clip areas at the map edges.

A few screen shots:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/60 ... 0003e.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/84 ... t0004.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/60 ... 0005l.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/21 ... t0006.png/

[Ulukai]

Hello 4rson, I tried your map and would like to give you some feedback I think the general idea about the map is original and like the overall layout and building style. It has a dark industrial style and you have been creative with the architecture and I like that!

Some pros:
Has quite some areas that are a bit open to have good 1-on-1 battles, and yet enough places to hide.
Original setting and geometry.
Good texturing overall, although sometimes it's a bit blend. Try adding some detail in texturing large walls.
I like the dry grass and it's not overdone, very good! How did you do to place it like that? I mean it's fluid with going from grassy area to rocky terrain, grass is not placed in squares.

Some cons:
Bots don't have waypoints. Read the mapping thread for some info about this (page2).
Too dark to my taste. nothing wrong with dark maps, but there should be lights placed in the correct spaces to add detail and improve visibility. Also lights give such beautiful shaders in RE, too bad you don't see them in your map.
Entities are floating (like flags), get them to the ground.
Sometimes you enter a room / place and it's unclear about where you have to go from there. Like you get in an empty room . Also, stairs are not always very visible. Might be because textures have similar colors or few lights?

It has a lot of potential imo and I hope you will polish it further. Keep it up! You might wanna try adding some sounds too (wind, water, ...).

[4rson]

Hi Ulukai, thanks for having a look at the map. I agree about the bland thing. I was rushing it a bit in the last few days so I need to go back and add in some more little details. The grass is done by varying the editing cursor size, and the underlying texture that the grass is on is quite similar to the rock texture.

With regards to the waypoints, I thought that they were generated automatically if I wander around the map for a while. Perhaps I got the wrong idea about that. The bots have a nasty habit of getting stuck in the bottom of the river.

I wanted to keep the map fairly dark so that the shadows cast from the taller buildings are more visible. However, it's possible that everything appears lighter on my laptop monitor than for other people so I will brighten it a bit if this is a problem for everyone else. Perhaps someone else could try it and comment. I will add some extra lighting on the stairs.

How do I make the entities drop to the ground? I don't want it to change the position of any of the existing lights though.

[Ulukai]

Hi Ulukai, thanks for having a look at the map. I agree about the bland thing. I was rushing it a bit in the last few days so I need to go back and add in some more little details. The grass is done by varying the editing cursor size, and the underlying texture that the grass is on is quite similar to the rock texture.

You're welcome man and thanks for trying to give back to the community The grass is really neat

With regards to the waypoints, I thought that they were generated automatically if I wander around the map for a while. Perhaps I got the wrong idea about that. The bots have a nasty habit of getting stuck in the bottom of the river.

To save waypoints, do the following: fire up a game in your map (not editing mode) and run around to all places you want the bots to know. When you played a couple of minutes and think bots are smart enough, you want to save this information in your map by dropping to the console and enter the command /savemap title.

I wanted to keep the map fairly dark so that the shadows cast from the taller buildings are more visible. However, it's possible that everything appears lighter on my laptop monitor than for other people so I will brighten it a bit if this is a problem for everyone else. Perhaps someone else could try it and comment. I will add some extra lighting on the stairs.

I agree that it should be dark since it is industrial, bu right now somethings seems missing...

How do I make the entities drop to the ground? I don't want it to change the position of any of the existing lights though.

They don't drop to the ground, you have to place them where you want them. Take a small grid size and move the entities low enough to the ground, so that the lowest point of the flags are hitting the ground. The little green-orange cube should be half in under and half above your floor.

[Ulukai]

I finished v1.2 of my map Ares. Download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?qcj4ckjbh0cnnp9

Changelog:
Texture blending and minor texture fixes.
Small lighting tweaks.
Added clipping onder stairs of middle tower.

Might give a shot at adding grass particles later on, otherwise this will be quite final if there are no more suggestions.

Quin, what do you think of my map? All comments are welcome.

[BruceW]

Personally, I think that 4rson's map is good and it fits to Red Eclipse really. We were playing on it with certain players this eve and everybody was talking about it in a positive way. So I think it is worth to add the map to Red Eclipse with the next release. Of course, the darkness on this map depends on the gamma settings you have set before.

[inpersona64]

Personally, I think that 4rson's map is good and it fits to Red Eclipse really. We were playing on it with certain players this eve and everybody was talking about it in a positive way. So I think it is worth to add the map to Red Eclipse with the next release. Of course, the darkness on this map depends on the gamma settings you have set before.

I would agree. That map does have some unique aspects and is much different from other maps in terms of flow. It fits DM and CTF pretty well. I'll possibly try DTF on it at a later date.

[Ulukai]

I have uploaded version 1.3 of my map Ares, this will be the final version if no other bugs are found.

Changelog:
More texture blending.

I experimented with adding grass, but because the landscape isn't entirely flas there are some artifacts displayed in the grass textures (fake shadows, which show corners of cubes). Because of that, I left it without grass and did more texture blending to get some more contrast on the ground texture.

Please download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?vfgam5n4sma8ofb

[fluxord]

@4rson Hey, nice map that you've done! Nice and original layout and geometry, I too think that it fits RE. I like the general "abandoned" atmosphere of the map. But I agree with Ulukai on the lighting for the map, it needs some more lights to make things easier to visualize. Perhaps you could add some dark colored lights on certain spots, so that the map is easier to visualize while still keeping its dark atmosphere. Anyway, it's a great map!