Basic NS2 Mapping Guidelines, Landmarks, sizes and cover Options

[Flayra]

Hey everyone,

Official Mapping Guidelines are coming but in the meantime, here's some basic info to get you started. Note that the game is in active development so these can change at any time! We'll do our best to keep you up to date when and if it does though. A Spark pre-alpha update in the nearish future will include the official Mapping Guidelines.

Overview
Both the marine and alien teams have up to 16 players each and spawn in their own base at the beginning of the game. The marine base has a Command Station and room for all 16 players and a collection of other marine structures. The alien start has a Hive hanging from the ceiling and room for 16 players (including the huge and fearsome Onos) and room for some alien structures.

Besides the two starting rooms, there are 2-4 other main rooms that can be used for either marine or alien bases. There are also 4-7 resource points which can be captured and built by a team to give that team extra resources. NS2 layouts will typically have 6-10 rooms (bases plus smaller rooms for some resource points) and are simpler than the sprawling, nondescript corridors found in Natural Selection 1 maps. Rooms, resource points and other high-conflict areas should be relatively simple geometry-wise to lower confusion and aim interference. They should also be a little
bigger than in NS1 for less chaos.

To make maps easier to learn, rooms should use landmarks wherever possible. Landmarks are unique lights, props, soundscapes or themes to make them unique in the minds of players and easy to remember and describe. They should be easy to describe (“Warehouse”, “Sewer”, “Glass corridor”, “Loading bay”) or easy to remember (loud machinery humming, covering up footstep sounds, one huge mining drill coming down through the ceiling, a huge lava waterfall, etc).

Sizes
· All sizes are in inches
· Primary routes 160 to 192 wide, 160 tall
· Secondary route entrances/exits are 80 wide, 128 tall
· Wall textures are 128 tall
· Floor textures are 128 wide
· The male marine is 77 tall
· MASCs are approximately 100 long and 50 tall
· Doors are 100 by 100
· The Onos is 120 tall, 90 wide and 120 long (he must crouch to get through doorways)

Cover
Due to the ranged vs. melee combat, marines have a distinct advantage in wide open areas without cover. Medium to large hallways and rooms should have plenty of crates and props as cover for aliens. Marines will occasionally need to take cover as well.

Avoid Level-Over-Level
Commander Mode is the ability for Commander players to play the game from a top-down view. This is handled automatically by the game but does place special limitations on level designers: maps can't have “level over level” geometry. If one room is built on top of another, the commander can't give orders in or see into the lower room. Because of this problem, overlapping hallways and areas that cross over other areas should generally be avoided. Girders, catwalks, balconies, pipes, and other smaller geometry can overlap as long as they don't really block commander access to the area below them.

Q&A Update
- Marine and alien start locations are both fixed. There are NOT three hive rooms like in NS1.
- For vents, use our special vent models (they are coming in an update soon).
- Nope, we're not supporting multiple levels for Commanders.

This does bring up a valid point, and something I was thinking about the other day. Certainly for the purposes of trying out the editor and just "messing around" in general, its ok for community mappers to be influenced by concept art from other games. But just remember, and this is directed to everyone, any maps you may want to be considered for official inclusion can not be created based off of existing concept art from other games/movies or other copyright protected sources. We will have our hands full judging the visual quality and gameplay quality of community made maps, and it won't always be easy for us to tell if a part of a map has been generated based off of external concept art.

I know this pretty much common sense, but still is worth mentioning.

Thanks.

--Cory

This post has been edited by digz: Dec 17 2009, 04:21 PM

[WatchMaker]

Are the starting Marine Base and Alien Hive still randomly picked from the available Tech Points, or are there dedicated startling locations?

[Align]

What about the size of Skulks, Gorges, Lerks and crouching Marines?

This post has been edited by Align: Dec 7 2009, 06:45 PM

[NS-SkorpioN]

Vent dimensions? 64x64 are fine?

[Thaldarin]

<+Align> no mention of the size of skulks or crouching marine

I'd love confirmation of this as well actually, two very main things we could do with.

Also, does this mean all the official maps will have those exact door sizes or are they just a minimum guideline. Always having to crouch to go through rooms in a map on NS2 as Onos sounds very frustrating.

[glimmerman]

Need vent and skulk/marine crouching dimenstions please!

[Squeal_Like_A_Pi...]

Also, does this mean all the official maps will have those exact door sizes or are they just a minimum guideline. Always having to crouch to go through rooms in a map on NS2 as Onos sounds very frustrating.

Areas that can be closed off for gameplay, such as through the use of closed/welded doors must use the the provided door model. This is for multiple purposes, such as correct sizing, and because there will be model specific requirements and animations, for things such as the doors being able to be welded, and Onos being able to break them down.

Every room and hallway doesn't have to have the door, you can always have larger open entrances that an Onos can go through without crouching, and its preferable to have main routes through a map that an Onos can always run through unimpeded. The doors are more for sealing off secondary routes.

As far as vent sizes, the provided vent models and vent openings show exactly how large the minimum size that vents and other access areas need to be for a skulk to move through, so this shouldn't be an issue.

A lot of questions will be cleared up with the more detailed full mapping guidelines.


--Cory

[dedgecko]

Need vent and skulk/marine crouching dimenstions please!

Well the default scale of any of the wallmod props with vents in them are 40x40, I would probably go with that. IIRC in HL1/2 crouched players were 35 units high.

[NS-SkorpioN]

Thx, I forget to check vents props in menu engine.

Another question, besides the doors, what about breakable walls panels by Onos, to allow aliens team reach a room occupied for marines.

[wulf]

Sounds great!

Though I'm admitting going to miss the " sprawling, nondescript corridors found in Natural Selection 1 maps" The Aura of NS1 that snatched me was the high learning curve and epicness, lending to a more mystical emotionally melancholic feeling as opposed to CS where everything is straightforward and blah blah blah

[MrBen]

ns_cargobay

Can we please not actively encourage the use of crates?

[Chris0132]

Sounds great!

Though I'm admitting going to miss the " sprawling, nondescript corridors found in Natural Selection 1 maps" The Aura of NS1 that snatched me was the high learning curve and epicness, lending to a more mystical emotionally melancholic feeling as opposed to CS where everything is straightforward and blah blah blah

The point of a map editor is to allow people to make different maps. There's nothing stopping you from making bigger maps, it's merely that the smaller ones will probably work better because the snarl of corridors that characterises an NS1 map is not really a brilliant idea in any game.

If you think it adds something though, feel free to make it, as long as people enjoy playing it it's a good map.

[The_Real_Quasar]

I agree, a lot of the charm when I first started playing NS was that I was exploring these environments that could have been lifted straight from any classic sci-fi you care to name, and conquering them.

I'm sure there'll still be plenty of room for that sort of thing though, and let's not forget that these are only the guidelines for OFFICIAL maps, custom maps can consist of whatever the hell the mapper feels like. I'm guessing we'll see some beautiful ports of classic NS maps before long.

Important question for Flayra: Will there be rotating doors? This may well have a huge effect on the community as a whole :P

[NeoSniper]

Stimulating read. :)

Haven't used a 3D map editor since QOOLE for Quake 2 but definetely excited about working on an NS2 map over Xmas vacation. Thanks again for releasing the spark editor really fun to use so far.

I'll take it as a good sign that people are so eager to get more info on the guidelines.


Question for my fellow forum mates. Is the Spark editor only for map geometry so far? or can you already place stuff like Spawns, gas nodes(functional), and define Power grid areas? I obiously haven't spent much time with the editor so far but I'm guessing that stuff is yet to come (but will eventually come with the editor)

[Loey]

measure the length of the marines thigh then subtract from his total height. that should give a rough estimate towards his crouch height

[CoolCookieCooks]

ns_cargobay

Can we please not actively encourage the use of crates?

Barrels are the new crates.

[Kalabalana]

Will we be able to dynamically create secondary view windows the engine uses for top-down commander view in our maps?
I mean, for any given area, can I draw a rectangle that specifies the view angle, and also tells the engine what part of a map to completely ignore for viewing by the commander?
This hard to explain. hmmm.

[Drown]

Areas that can be closed off for gameplay, such as through the use of closed/welded doors must use the the provided door model.

Will the door, and weld/onos functionality, still operate if the model is distorted at all? For example I'm currently using the black door model but have increased its overall size by 15%.

Barrels are the new crates.

Barrels are for Donkey Kong! Crates are for spooky cargobays.

This post has been edited by Drown: Dec 7 2009, 08:09 PM

[Thuro]

Will we be able to dynamically create secondary view windows the engine uses for top-down commander view in our maps?
I mean, for any given area, can I draw a rectangle that specifies the view angle, and also tells the engine what part of a map to completely ignore for viewing by the commander?
This hard to explain. hmmm.

Easiest way to accomplish what you are talking about is to make sure there are no 'faces' in the direction of the commander's view (ie top down). As long as all faces are from the bottom, they should not impede commander viewing. Truthfully, as long as are outside the structure in the editor and you can see in, you'll be able to do so as a commander, it is essentially the same.

[Align]

What about other doors, like the bighuge model? Or the merely large cargo doors, will those be weldable? Or at least interactible, so a button triggers them...