bt_laburnum

Roald

Hello

You probally going to skip to the screenshots but I still hope you can take your timing reading this

My name is Roald and I am new to this community.
I have been mapping for CS:GO about 2 years now so I am known to hammer.
A few days ago I got introduced to PVK II. The first time trying out the bt gamemode I kinda feld in love and I just had to start working on a custom map for this gamemode. If you are interrested in my CS:GO maps/hammer skills go take a look here: http://steamcommunit...yworkshopfiles/

The Idea was to port my CS:GO map 'Invade' to this game, but it feld to be better to make a own custom map with a layout that supports the bt gamemode. I am working on a castle set in a forrest with a autumn atmosphere with golden/red tree's all over the place. The Castle will be overgrown and stuff. 'Laburnum' means 'Golden Rain' which represents the golden tree's but I might change the map name later on. There is probally now much feedback to give yet, but later on I'd like to get some feedback on the layout and overall look/feeling of the map.

The layout will be a litle like Island but also a litle bit different. I'll use the triangle layout but add a center aswell where the chests are located. The Knights will be centered on the map, closer to the chests with more defending possibilities (difference in elivation: castle walls). The downside of their position is the fact, like Island, that they do have advantage on grabbing the chests from the center but that also means the other teams might focus more on fighting the knights at the start of the game. To prevent it to become more of a 2 vs 1 situation I centered the chests on a neutral place. Hope it's a litle understandable, I do not have a overview to show you yet.

Only been working two days on it yet but there is already some nice progress
IMGUR ALBUM: http://imgur.com/a/0gUsl

Update 27-06-2017: changed inside lighting of the Knight base

Momo

Castle looks nice. Well done!

Major Chulain

nice

El Negro

Nice idea you got there for a map.

I actually like the naming you gave it, just hope you'll make it fitting, which you already are doing it so anyway. Problem on the name will probably be the fact there ain't much custom maps with such a nice name, but hey, I dare/challenge you to keep it
Besides, the name actually gives me an idea; Why not make it look slightly sunny and cloudy while it's raining? Would be cool to see something like that, there aren't much maps with good rain and cubemaps (lts_town is the best in that regard).

Your idea of the layout sounds very good, the defenders (Knights) are in the middle and the other two will have to fight the Knights, not the other faction, to get the chests.
It will make a problem though; Since the Knights are in the middle, they'll need to have some advantages on getting the Pirates or/and the Vikings. There will be many chances where a sneaky Pirate/Viking will steal a hard-earned recovered chest.
Other than that, the idea is still very good, do keep it and balance it the best you can.

I'm sure you are already an expert with Hammer, you said it yourself, two years making CSGO maps, but keep in mind that PVKII's Hammer differs from CSGO's Hammer (and later in the future will differ even more), so any problems you got or so, I suggest you ask one of the developers or community mappers from PVKII; Momo, Combine, Schatzmeister, Colonel and even Spirrwell (I say 'even' since he's more into developing Hammer, not making maps with Hammer). Don't ask me though, I'm better at testing maps than making them.

Regarding tests and all, it may be a bit arrogant for myself to be the one who mentions it, but I gotta;
I run a group that does testing, mostly on maps, to see if the balance, layout and even performance (optimization) are good. The Testudo Cohort, here; http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thetestudocohort
So, if you need a group of testers who can help you with balance, layout, performance, you got it.

Roald

@El Negro, thank you for your offer! I would love to make use of your group to get the layout tested. I already detailed some of the center part to get a feeling on what the map should be, but for the other, more dynamic parts I will soon create a quick blockout to test the gameplay and stuff.
I do have contact with Colonel on steam so for any question I can reach him but it would be better to be able to reach all mappers. Is there a way? Discord?
Rain does fit the autumn theme and in combination with a bright sun it can give some cool effect. Nice idea

Gaz

Looks like a good start, getting the theme/feel of the map nice

I'd highly recommend using dev textures to flesh the rest of the level out and get the gameplay balanced before going ham on the prettiness :-) It'll save you a lot of time in the long run.

El Negro

Roald wrote:

I do have contact with Colonel on steam so for any question I can reach him but it would be better to be able to reach all mappers. Is there a way? Discord?

Discord would be a good idea, although there's no channel dedicated to mapping, need to ask Felis to make a vote about making a #mapping channel.

schatzmeister

A sketch of your layout plans would certainly help us to make suggestions. We can give you insights on what's good and what's potentially bad.

I have to say that a castle is not the most exotic theme out there, but if it's well done I can't object. From what I see now, it looks very promising.

By the way, I just looked it up and Laburnum is that bushy tree with the golden petals. I see you're already thinking about using this plant in your map. It would have to be late spring then, because that is when it is in blossom. Add some lilac in the mix and you've got some nice colors.

Roald

@Gaz Thanks for your suggestion! While mapping competetive maps for CS:GO I always go full greybox untill the layout is finished. Though I was kinda trying out some stuff, see what textures/models are there to use and yeah from that point on I continued mapping. Afther the center part of the map is finished I'll be using dev textures since those parts require more testing as the path timing and etc to this center I made should be really important

@El Negro it seems we can use the 'workshop' channel

@Rabid Parrot I'll start on a blockout next time. It will be a autumn theme instead of spring so I might change the map name but I am not sure. I experimented some with the inside lighting and here I got some new progress of the Knight room. They will spawn at those litle windows.






I am loving the PVK assets

schatzmeister

I think you've got my name confused.

You sure make this look nice. Good job.

Gaz

Looks like someone's poured petrol on the torches Probably want to scale them down a little

Roald

Gaz wrote:

Looks like someone's poured petrol on the torches Probably want to scale them down a little

Yeah I noticed that aswell haha they went crazy on that part. I have reduced the size from 64 to 2, what size is good? I like the size on the island map, maybe a litle bigger though

Roald

I kinda made a rough layout for half the map. it will be a symetric map so... Knights are centered and their MAIN pathways to the Vikings will contain the same paths as to the Pirates. I do not have a overview but I uploaded it to the workshop so you can walk arround already: http://steamcommunit...s/?id=960038089 EDIT: I have put it on private, will try to create another layout first to see how that goes.



To be honest.. this is way different then mapping for CS:GO... so yeah I am didn't figure out yet on how I am about to realise a good layout and how to optimise a open map like this. I dont know how they do it on Day of Infamy? those maps have much open spaces so.. there must be a way Also I am not used to working with displacements so much so I might need to think of a completly new theme/layout to work with if this doens't work out for me.

And I didn't get these dam Torches to work.. Idk how I can get the info_particle_system to work well. Do I use a bad particle name? I use particle_fire_2 for an example.

Gaz

So just took a look at islands torches, and they have am env_glow on them, and the particles are env_smokestacks with the following setup:

Roald

Ai thanks Gaz! Will try this out. You made Island right? Its a really good map with a nice map flow, balance and aestethics, a really good job on that one. I suppose you guys won't release any vmt's to learn from?

Gaz

Thanks :-D Personally I want to remake the whole map visually but I just don't have the time.

I keep the vmf close to my chest I'm afraid, but I did do a dev video of displacement sculpting for bt_pinegrove a while back here:


Might help you with displacements?

Roald

Gaz wrote:

Thanks :-D Personally I want to remake the whole map visually but I just don't have the time.

I keep the vmf close to my chest I'm afraid, but I did do a dev video of displacement sculpting for bt_pinegrove a while back here:


Might help you with displacements?

I understand you want to keep the vmf close to you. If u need help on pimping your map
Will watch the video and hope it might help me. Though I am thinking of recreating my map and start from a sketch.
I would be more comfotable with a more indoor map with maybe some outsite parts. For optimisation it would be alot better.
Thinking of creating a large castle as playable area and to make a 3D skybox with a forrest kind of enviorment arround it.

EDIT: The fire does work with the way you told me! thanks alot mate