Zac's Mapping Philosophy

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Zac's Mapping Philosophy

Postby Zac » Sat Oct 25, 2014 7:49 pm

This is just a guideline thread and is NOT A TUTORIAL...just some guidelines to help amateur mappers like you and me create creative maps or just to be better at mapping.
Remember out there mappers..."You know what, the audience will never notice what you did, because it's so believable" - John Lasseter, head of Pixar

I will go over lighting, BSP work, different techniques and using different shapes to create better looking maps.
Vocabulary you may not know...
BSP - Binary Space Partitioning....which are the added and subtracted shapes and cubes that in the map in the editor
Contour - Lines, lines of the shapes created by silhouettes or shadows. Mostly deals with light

SORRY FOR THE LOW QUALITY TEXTURES IN THE EXAMPLE PICTURES, IT RUNS FASTEST
Hope you like and learn a thing or two from this.



Lighting is probably one of the most unique things about a map. Lighting is also one of the most dreadful to make perfect when creating maps in my opinion. When I say that it's dreadful, I'm talking about the perfect radius, colour and effect. Why does this matter? The sun isn't white. The white light coming from that yellow light over there matters.

Here's an example of bad lighting in the map AS-Rook

As you can see that there is no light source for the light. Even though you have NEVER noticed this in single player or in multiplayer, it is still not a good habit to leave floating lights in a room.

Good lighting is when the colour and radius of the light really fits with the source of it. A slightly flickering yellow light along with this flame is a perfect example of this.
( You can even add light flare sprites )

To get some life like light ( say that 3 times fast) in a room is to add some natural light. Natural light from the sky or more specifically - the sun. In AS-Rook the spawn rooms are a good example of this type of technique. The perfectly decorated sky light is a perfect way to add simple, but very nice looking light into the spawn rooms, without having torch...torch...torch...etc.

This also brings up a very important piece of the mapping puzzle.

Shadows. The shadows that this cause are nice, simply because of the pillars that move across the hole in the ceiling to add contour to the BSP work. This also adds a beautiful effect to the room, especially if it's narrow hallway like in a school.

Always try to include shadows in your maps, even if they are slightly there or blurry on the wall or floor, keep them there instead of adding another light on that shadow ( this can cause really bright maps and not bring enough contour to the BSP around the lights).

This is another example of some really good contour shadowing in the map CTF-VaultCity

Color is also another very important part of lights, white is a very boring colour when you keep looking at it throughout a map ( most of the default maps that Epic made, barely have any default white lights in them, really go look!).
This teleporter in AS-Rook is green and is glowing...which means that there should be a green and kind of subtle pulsing light there to bring the effect out of that teleporter. This can also tell players where they are at, if they see a green light on wall ahead of them they can know if a teleporter is there or not, giving the player a more direct route to go through in the map.

This wraps up the lighting part of my philosophy. To sum all of this up in one sentence...
Add correct colour lighting from a visible source that creates good shadows and contour from the BSP.


BSP work is basically the most important key piece in mapping, simply because it's how you make maps.
When I look at new maps I don't comment them, I criticize them in my mind. Looking at how they made a certain type of window, door or design and looking at the bad shapes and designs that they did. Even though I made very few maps in the past and that some of them are crap, I can make a perfect maps if I wanted to. Even you can. I studied shape and design through carefully looking at games and ingenious level designers like Hourences.

To make BSP perfection, there are 3 things that need to be in play when creating something like a pillar ( for example )....
-Trims
-Flowing shapes and no blocky work
-Clean polygons

Trims are important because they create new depth and texture in the walls, floors, etc.

This picture is a quick look at how I created a 256x256 cube using different layers and stacking them to create a unique cube with mixed textures, creating a ' new ' texture.

This technique is used a lot, but some mappers just use very small hallways and big rooms and only use 1 texture that is stretched and even players notice it. AKA - Bad work and bad work flow. Or just a noob mapper.

Trims are also used a lot in the maps you play every day in PUGS at #ipug. Vaultcity has tons, on the floor, ceiling, walls and everywhere. This is a very slow and timely process of making a map, but in the end you'll make the next vaultcity.

Shape is VERY important in maps. Giant cube rooms? Long cube hallways? Cube door ways? This really pisses me off when playing maps. Rectangle windows and door ways are very ugly and don't look professional. Noobs don't know any better, but for someone to create map and thinking it's good with no creativity in it is terrible and bad work flow.
One amazing map is a lot professional then weekly similar and blocky/ugly maps.
" Don't think about quantity, think about quality " - Mr. Miaghi, Karate Kid

This is my map CTF-'Z-Aleria which is map for siege and this is the nuke room in it.
As you can see the room is basically a half slanted cube, this moves the balance from being all around the room, to toward the windows to the right, taking out empty space and ugly useless walls.
This is the room if it were a cube

Lot's of unused space and more unused walls. The slant in the correct picture moves that wall to part of something else, the ceiling.
Shape isn't just used in rooms of course, but used in things like doorways.
Yes that simple hole in the wall matters. In my opinion, seeing a cube doorway pisses me off. The map made by Epic DM-Curse has very unique doors, go check it.
Epic games doesn't make everything perfect of course, so here's a small thing that Epic missed in the map AS-Rook.
This is basically the only rectangular door way in the map, except for the tall big doors that open, but those have giant moving doors.

Notice the door on the right, all of the doorways are shaped that way, except for this one. You notice it if you play the map a lot.
This is the correct shape of a doorway, it's not cubical. It's unique, used efficiently throughout the map and takes out that blocky feeling.

The extra slants on the top edges of the doorway really add a " Come here " feeling. A rectangular door kind of ' slides' with the wall, which like a " get the hell away from me " feeling.
On the same map I created a very unique room with a very unique technique that I found out while messing around with some pieces in the map.

The door ways/hallways at the bottom create a very nice look to it, kind of like a flowing feeling to the player. Even though they lead to the same area players are more likely to actually LOOK and decide which to choose, instead of seeing a big hallway and just 'happening' to go down it.

Pillars are very good examples of using different shapes to create a simple object. Pillars either go from a small base to a bigger head like Roman pillars.
In this picture of my map MH-'Z-Diaper that I'm working on, I'm using a very unique styled pillar, kind of scifi like the rest of the map is.

At the top of the pillar I added a cube to create some parallel contour and flow, notice how it's easy to look at on the eyes. The tapered bottom cube adds a tall feature to the pillar and a good silhouette to the pillar, an important part for players, noticing objects and doors, etc.
In the same map, I created a bad a pillar to create a focal point in the room, as you can see it's very unprofessional looking.

Even though the pillar goes from thick to thin from bottom to top, the shape is very bland. It stands out which is good, but not pleasing.

Using up empty space is another factor that I like to look for in maps. Why is the spawn so big? Why is this hallway here? Why is this room here? Why's there an indentation in the wall here? Space can be seen as contour and a silhouette which makes it a very important part of mapping.
In AS-Rook they took up empty space in the ceiling in a room where guns are at. They added some lights, crossing wooden bars, and just very nice looking BSP work.

Now imagine if there wasn't anything there up in the ceiling. I want you to imagine this so you as a player can understand.

The room would feel taller and unimportant to the rest of map. Un-importance to a room is good and bad. A very important room like the focal point of the map or most heated spot would of course be a lot more detailed and had more work into it. But to that room in the back where no one goes, it'll be a lot less worked on simply because of conservation of map space or mapping time.
This kind of contradicts this subject.


Placement isn't something that you have or don't have in a map, it's in every map noob or expert.

The main aspect I want to elaborate on is not where guns go or where health goes, but where the focal points are in maps and symmetry. Kind of like ' where things go '.

In the map AS-Rook, the inside of the building is symmetrical, which basically shows simple placement.
If there's one thing on this side I need to put the same thing on the other side...simple as that.

Symmetry is mostly seen in CTF maps, but in this case it's for all maps.

Even in small DM maps, some symmetry is still in play. This area is a hot spot in the map and symmetry creates ' importance '.
When you play this map, you go to this area right after you spawn right? This isn't because it's symmetrical, the symmetrical part makes this more important.

Importance is usually a sign of good map placement and thinking. This creates professional looking maps.

This is a very nicely created focal point in the map. The pillar is centered around 4 entrances that lead straight to the pillar. Above is a shield, which is ideal.


Placement creates importance to items, too. Kind of like the shield in Codex.

The upward way to the armor along with the darkness around, with the light pointing straight down on it is a good example of importance.
Imagine that there is no upward height and no light pointed down on it, pretty bland and unprofessional right?
Spacing is also an important thing with placement of BSP. Spacing should be equal and based on an edge or center of a surface.

In Curse, these little slants adjacent to the ceiling is a little thing that Epic didn't notice.
There's a slant that begins the pattern, but there's a big space and then 3 evenly spaced slants and then it stops...This is not proper spacing.

This picture of DM-Codex is a hallway with 2 wooden planks. This is good spacing because they are evenly spaced away from the center, and away from their nearest wall.
This is a nice example of quality and professional decoration.

On the same map in the center area, there are these pillars in the wall. This shows the perfection of corner spacing, which is just spacing from the nearest corner.

This is an easy thing to do when mapping, but some mappers often forget to equally space certain objects through the map, no one will notice it but when it comes to the quality of the map it's a no-no.
One thing about spacing being perfect is to be OCD, always go for perfect.

Creating equal space using space, is a good technique to use.

The wooden bars are perfectly placed along the flat surface on the wall and creating a square space where the light is. The light has a more import sense to it, making it too fly for a white guy.

Here's a very similar picture, but with bars on the sides and middle of the space.


Spacing is a simple thing to put into a map and I understand that. Using space to show quality and beautiful architecture can really show professional work. Using space to ' make space ' is a usual thing that most mappers do. Slightly rotating bricks in the wall to create depth in the wall is a type of spacing, hence the depth part.

Cracks and little nudges in walls and floors are a good type of spacing, too. Little subtracted and jagged shapes in the floors is a good way to add depth to the room, instead of a texture.Sorry for no picture.

Back to placement...
Sometimes you'll see something weird and you ask yourself..."Why is this here?" or "Shouldn't something be here?"

This is an example of "Why is this here?".
It's a very weird placement of a wood beam because there is no information around it to show why it SHOULD be there. The beam doesn't lead anywhere on the other side so this is unprofessional, kind of showing improvising.

Supposing that something should be somewhere, like something is missing, can cause players to think that something IS there. When a player is dodging backward while shooting to get away, they want to be sure. Not say " dayum i cant go dis wai thers a thng der "
So here is an example of one of those noticeable things...
Last edited by Zac on Sun Oct 26, 2014 8:22 pm, edited 4 times in total.

<+Se7eN> zac's UT mouse is like a Wii controller, he has to swing that shit like a wildman


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Re: Zac's Mapping Philosophy

Postby RickJames » Sat Oct 25, 2014 8:04 pm

This is cool, except I don't actually know how to model anything in the first place :(

A complete guide to ued is way too long to post on here, though, I'm sure. I've tried to figure it out, but it took me hours to make just a simple, mostly rectangular map:

Image
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Re: Zac's Mapping Philosophy

Postby Zac » Sat Oct 25, 2014 8:09 pm

Thanks for the feedback, I just wanted to make this for all of the mappers out there that need help with some design processes and techniques.
The first line is that this is not a tutorial, even though I can understand that it's easy miss. Nice job so far Rick :)

<+Se7eN> zac's UT mouse is like a Wii controller, he has to swing that shit like a wildman


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Re: Zac's Mapping Philosophy

Postby Zac » Sun Oct 26, 2014 12:47 pm

Updated

<+Se7eN> zac's UT mouse is like a Wii controller, he has to swing that shit like a wildman


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Re: Zac's Mapping Philosophy

Postby flowX » Mon Oct 27, 2014 1:01 pm

Tbh ..people which know how to make a map know about the stuff uv posted. And others need to know what to Start with :p which Maps u made zac?
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Re: Zac's Mapping Philosophy

Postby Zac » Mon Oct 27, 2014 5:12 pm

Yes I understand that this type of stuff is known stuff, but is it used? I've looked through plenty of maps that mostly ignore good lighting and BSP work, mostly bland and ugly maps, but they have good gameplay and flow are played all the time, but that's beside the point I'm trying to put.
This isn't a tutorial, but like a picture book about why mapping matters.
I've created very few maps that actually made it onto the servers ( not GU or OW) at uK ( Unreal Killers ) which is called CTF-'Z-Aleria and to this day I find a lot of stuff int that map that I wish to fix to it and make it better. Now I don't make maps any more because there's not really any where to start or reason to.

<+Se7eN> zac's UT mouse is like a Wii controller, he has to swing that shit like a wildman


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