Activated Development

[Blacksheepboy]

Activated Development:
A Map Development Strategy

I have "created" (explained) a step-by-step, organized, and practical method for designing maps. Do other people do this already? Probably. Do I follow this method? No, not completely. But, is it ideal? Yes.

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Summary
--> Make multiple "passes"

• Pass 1: Assuming you have a plan, design polygons
• Pass 2: Shading
• Pass 3: Create background; update shading accordingly
• Pass 4: Polygon shading/blending; lighting
• Pass 5: Scenery
• Pass 6: "Re-render" everything once you finish "pass 5"

--> Play-test constantly, after every "pass"
--> Attend to spawns, waypoints, themes, and of course, funzies!
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Make Multiple Passes

For those of us who aren't nerds or butchers, the term "pass" or "passes" refers to rendering materials in a 3D program. Rendering simply means to show, display, or furnish. So, a "pass" is rather like a step in the rendering process. The program must follow several steps before it properly displays (renders) a crushed tin can for example. I sometimes tend to think of Soldat mapping as similar to rendering a 3D scene. You, the designer, must "render" each "pass" in order to display a complete, final product.

--> Make multiple "passes"

• Pass 1: Assuming you have a plan, design polygons

In other words, it is highly recommended that you "lay out" your entire map design before you do anything else. After pass 1, I suggest a testing out of your map, the proportions, and maybe add placebo player spawns and waypoints to get a feel for how well bots maneuver the structure of your design. This way, if the design is messed up, changes can be easily made without redoing shading or scenery.

--> Make multiple "passes"

• Pass 2: Shading

At this point in your designing, it is important, if not already done, to come up with a general theme for the graphics of your map. With a good direction for your map to head graphically the less time you will have to spend fretting about what type of scenery to place. So, shade accordingly.

--> Make multiple "passes"

• Pass 3: Create background; update shading accordingly

If the theme of your maps demands that you have scenery-background - examples being if your map is set in a cavern, hospital, or battlefield - since this scenery is placed behind all other scenery, it is ideal that you place it now.

--> Make multiple "passes"

• Pass 4: Polygon shading/blending; lighting

At this point, you typically re-shade any polygons to better function with the background scenery you've placed. Personally, I sometimes like to shade particular parts of the map using polygon-shadows, or in other words: all-black polygons that are set to "No collide", and you fiddle with the transparency (opacity) of any given vertex to give the desired effect of a "shadow"

--> Make multiple "passes"

• Pass 5: Scenery

Now for the funzies. You place, all over your map, the themed scenery of your choice to doll up the map and make it unique among the many other maps of Soldat. Often times, scenery will "interact" with the players, an example being bullets that collide into a barrel, or rather the "colliders" you place on the barrel to give the illusion of the barrel being solid.

A discussion on the varying uses of scenery could take up plenty of space, so I will not go into depth about any of the unique ways to go about placing and experimenting with scenery. As an example, Soldat supports gif scenery, but I lack any knowledge as to how to animate scenery. But, if you have any questions, I'd reply.

--> Make multiple "passes"

• Pass 6: "Re-render" everything once you finish "pass 5"

Typically, your map isn't completely polished by this stage. So essentially, by "re-rendering" I simply mean to fix anything that you see needs polishing. This can be a tedious process, but it's typically rewarding in the end, for yourself and others.


Play-test constantly

This is relatively simple. Simply play your map a lot throughout this whole process! Do you like how it looks, feels, and interacts with you? The focus through all the graphical steps is to create a convincing simulation of a scene that the player is playing in. You want a positive gameplay impact using visuals.


Attend to spawns, waypoints, themes, and of course, funzies!

When I say "themes", and example would be having a sign at every spawn point, or random variables (scenery or otherwise) that remind the player that they're playing an almost-arcade INF, HTF, or whatever type of game. The rest is self explanatory. Funzies = Easter eggs


Example of a planned-out section to a map (and my initial thoughts for this topic). Feel free to use the ideas on the left, if you can read the handwriting.

^click^

[darDar]

Your steps seem to be kinda sensefull, but i prefer to add to scenerys in the beginning.
I think making sketches are important but making maps without any strategy, so simply make random polygons give you more ideas in my opinion than thinking about it.
Im gonna try to follow it.

[VirtualTT]

I can't agree with your guide: st2 is somewhat wrong, since you are making bg mostly using sceneries it turns to be the same with st5. You also forgot about texturing and polygon structure adjusting...

So here is my guide:

• Make a sketch of some kind. It's nice to have sketch drawn on paper but doing it in paint or scanning and using as a bg in PW might be even more helpful.
• Raw poly structure. at this step it's very important to choose a proper scale for your map, use gostek and grid as a reference. If you don't have any sketch using a corresponding PW tool might be helpful.
• Spawns&Waypoints. Yes, waypoints are necessary on this early stage in order to test your map structure properly (well, in case of normal gamemodes maps, not for climb/misc maps). It's impossible to gather 4-6 players every 15 min when you want to test several new changes/fixes on your map.
• Adjust layout to provide proper gameplay and polygon structure to ensure that it's easy to run on, not glitching and suitable for texturing and colouring/shading. This step includes all polygon "patches" and other fixes. Pay attention to bridges/thin polygons.
• Texturing. Custom texture/multitexture (if you not planning to use old ones) is created on this step. Even if you are using simple texture giving it some stretching/rotation in proper places can create very nice visual effects. Note that any polygon structure adjusting after this step will probably lead to [a lot of] additional work to fix texture.
• Colouring/shading and sceneries. I think it's better to do this simultaneously to ensure that map will look solid by adjusting colour of polygons according to the sceneries you are using and vice versa.
• Custom sceneries. Since making custom sceneries usually takes a lot of time it will take even more time to adjust them if you make any considerable changes on the map. So this job should be done in the end.
• Final touches and general testing (on #soldat.mapping probably). Don't forget to add description on you map and to remove unused sceneries. Make some screenshots, pack the map and upload it to TMS.

less text - easier to understand

[Blacksheepboy]

Hahaha, I did forget about the texture!

Well, your guidelines are better for a few obvious reasons. I might redo mine using a lot of yours. You probably won't mind..? and you'll be credited.

Edit:

I've realized that, while literally making the map, I make design decisions and layout changes and everything, which is very inefficient, and leaves less time for aesthetics. In other words, I don't plan adequately before-hand. I plan while I make, which is retarded.

I think I need a white dry-erase board...

PS. Answer to mapping fail:

answer: better forget about it and start drawing plans of maps onto paper, then make the maps.