Playtested Version available here : http://perso.orange.fr/temposite/mapcust/co_mandarisb1.zip

Hello there.
I've posted some screenies of a map I'm currently working on in the great "Post Your Screenshot" thread.

So I decided that I'll try to finish it this time

The map is set on a tropical planet with an Earth like climate. This station is a water purification station with some ugly aliens in, and you've been sent to eradicate them.
Yea I know, the story isn't great

Here are the pics :


The Ready Room (It haven't changed since the last time, just added an easter-egg somewhere)


Marine Spawn


The reworked Corridor In the Air, with its waterfall. I think it's better now.


A vertical room only for aliens


A little room I'm working on.


The West Junctions


The Tarjas, kind of central area with the Corridor In The Air.

--> UPDATE : New lightning of Tarjas, thanks a lot Kouji_San !



A little room. can lurk in the rocky hole.


Teh Cavern.

(Click on the images for full size).


Well, the map is now approximatively at 60 % of development. I'm making the Hive and I've got troubles with the lightning in this area atm. So I decided to keep this area secret ^^

That's it, tell me what do you think about it

Wow, now there is some neat looking brushwork! Especially the screenshots where you can see the tropical trees and such outside. Kind of a new twist that I haven't seen in NS yet. Looks cool!

You could REALLY use some custom textures for this map if you are going to go with a tropical beach (and that is a good idea by the way) theme. The default NS texture just do not do justice here. Not to mention it's almost getting a little too old seeing the same damn texture base in nearly every map.



Your brushwork is good but need a lot more work smoothing things out. Make sure the hives are smooth for wallwalking and give plenty of obstacles for cover or ambushing. Take a look at ns_machina for some ideas on smoothing of brushwork.

Don't forget to add places that you can see but aren't that accessible, it really makes your map feel more open.

Also you must remember to add more entropy into your map. This is the number one mistake on most combat maps for overall design. (ie: usually there's only one or two paths that can be taken and they always seem to have long hallways involved)

And lastly, don't forget to vary your lighting. Make some shadows! Not pitch black rooms, that's poor craftmanship. I mean add some alterations. Not just full-bright everywhere like a supermarket. (or full-red and full-green like many NS maps do) Try some orange lights by the access doors. Try some dim purple-blue lights underwater.



Don't forget that the community can help. There still might be some good texture creators/editors here. I can help you beta test when it is stable.

Just an idea modified in photoshop from one of your screenshots as an example of what you can do with the lighting to make it sexier

modified:

original:


Could be done with some spotlights and gamma compile settings, and perhaps some bounce testing etc... And I'm wondering, are you using an env_gamme in your map... It can do wonders to increase the color contrast of the lighting at anything above 1.5...

I know of an excellent site for custom textures; I have quite a few of their wads and have made small test maps with them to test their ingame quality and I've been quite impressed.

Remember, from my observations, people judge your map really on two things: how it looks and how it plays.



And which is more important simply depends on the crowd on a given server at a specific time. So I suggest you treat both with equal importance. Natural-Selection is one of the very hardest games to map for. The map has a critical role in the balance factor for gameplay, especially for aliens. It makes me furious to see poorly made NS maps, and well made innovative maps get praise constantly, whether spoken or not.



This community in particular needs new maps. No matter how good a map is, you have to have variety or people will get bored. NS map making has been fairly static for too long. A great deal of new life can be given with several new maps. And as such I encourage people in the community to try to make new maps. Unfortunately some of those will be awful maps as always, but it's nice to find some gems. The best maps usually have a ton of community feedback and the map author was open-minded to constructive criticism, adding the changes in.

Sexy lightning Kouji, I'll test it today

Well, I use an env_gamma with 1.1 I think (not sure, I just arrived home)
I've mapped for tons of mods in my mapper life, like Sven Co-op, HLDM or Counter-Strike. I've already made a co_ map but it was one of my very first, so it's not really great.
If you want to see my maps, you can here :

French site with some of my maps
My Snarkpit profile with some of my maps

For the gameplay, here is a sketch :



Red : Skulk ducts
Dark green : The big central cliff.

Some additional vents and/or new areas could come later
I'll think about custom textures, I find EvilLair's textures could be cool for NS.

Thanks for the feedback !

If that map is to scale then the MS corridors are way too long in comparison to the rest of the map. If it's not to scale it looks like it should work.

you should rename it to co_mandarines

Hehe, I thought of that yesterday

Well, the first name was co_adamantium, but I decided to finally call it co_mandaris, for false effect.
I've tested the lightning a bit and I almost re-created the effect on the pic of Kouji_San, just need to increase a bit the color.

EDIT : New Tarjas Lightning :

Update.
Here's a new area called Cavern.

It's WIP for the moment and I have a bad trouble with the leaves texture on top

However, here are two screens :





I also added some cool sounds, like birds and waves all around the map, for make the contrast even stronger

Small bump, I've now the overview with 2 new areas.
Some areas will be moved (like the external overlook, cause of high r_speeds there)



This half-layout isn't totally finished, and I know that I have some long corridors. A weldable door is in the C - 10 corridor and stop the marines and alien for pushing to hive by this route without having a welder.

Sorry for the bad quality too, hope you'll manage to read ^^
Ah and the other screenies don't work, the hosting website seems to have some troubles. :/

Seems to be coming along nicely. Looking at marine start then some of the corridors I wonder are the corridors too spacious for skulks to survive along them? 'Long way home' looks like an alien no-go zone.

Keep at it!

Man you work fast! It took me a month and a half just to get four rooms put together nicely.

Thanks for the comments. Here is the B1 layout, we'll probably playtest the map tomorrow with some friends, and I hope, after this playtest, that I'd release the B1 on this board .



Note the layout isn't at all really finished, I'll wait suggestions from players.

PS : Hyper Bright piccy

Sweet. Can't wait to check it out!

Looking good. Any weldables BTW?

Yay for teh map.
We've playtested the map one hour ago with 22 guys, and it was very fun.

Some screens :













Ive noticed that the top entrance of the Hive is the most crowded, unlike the bottom parts that aren't played much.
The map has an advatange for the Marines in begining, but the Aliens won two times, so I think it's balanced. Well, the map is too corridor-ish. I'll make some rooms somewhere for limit it.

I really enjoyed this game. I'll improve some things and I'll post the new download link here.

But you can download the playtested version right here :
http://perso.orange.fr/temposite/mapcust/co_mandarisb1.zip

Any comments ?
So frustrating (joke heh)

I already fixed tons of things like :

o Revamp of the External Overlook, better, smaller, faster.
o Clipping issues fixed.
o .res file updated.
o Some lights added in some parts.
o Lowered some corridors.
o Added a couple more rooms (unfinished yet).
o Moved Hive by 64 units.
o A lot of aesthetic changes.

I must work on a few things and the new version will come. When it's done

Here, I'll upload it and see what I can find wrong with it and then come back and let ya know.

EDIT: Okay, after looking at it I will first say good job. You've done alot in a short amount of time.

However, when looking around inquisitively I noticed that there were alot of texture alignment issues, especially in the first room on the ceiling and at the corner of the walls. Secondly, there doesn't seem to be much detail throughout the corridors in the level - just point A and point B. You need a little something to spice it up a notch, so I'd say add some neat things along those lines (Like a truss, an archway, some sort of wall protrusions, etc. Just play some of the game's released maps and you'll see plenty of examples).

Also, the level seems too tall at times - the texture scale is X 1.00 and Y 1.00, right? Well, normal texture sizes are X .50 and Y .50, or at least that's what looks nice. 1.00 is good, but when all you see is a flat surface with a giant face on it, it seems rather boring. Something you can do is find differences on the texture itself and pull or push them out. Something like that.

Anyhow, nice job! I'd say just add some nifty details and you're set.

Which servers are playing this beta version? I'd love to try it out, even if I had to join a US/Aus server.

I just loaded this map onto the Custom Factor NS Server


203.56.188.3:27015 CustomFactor.com - Natural Selection

If anyone is interested.

Download link is dead... any updates? I would like to put this on our NS servers as well to give it a playtesting shot.

Hello.
Try this link, works fine here : http://suribang.ovh.org/joomla/index.php?o...nload&gid=4
Just click on the box 'Telecharger' and it's done.