Further Development Images

Rendered images of dm_extraction

These are a few screenshots of my level built and running on steam, however so I diddnt have to wait all this time for a proper build VIs hasnt been enabled which means its direct lighting only as well as a few other problems, also I havent dont any lighting properly yet so its just the occasional basic light source.

As you can see there are a lot of small things that need fixing as well as general decoration and optimisation, the images speak for themselfs, the only thing to post next for now is maybe an image of a above view graph to better describe how the map was designed.

Work for the Steam Servers

Designing the Map

Well although its taken me longer than I had thought to get this far and I split tea on my keyboard so now x,c and v all stick, my Christmas project is nearly finished. This project was to get a foot in on the Steam servers by creating a really good Half Life 2:Deathmatch server map which should attract a lot off attention hopefully to my map designs. This will be aided by programming the server to offer a invitation to every player who plays the map to join my steam community group or add me as a friend. The group which I haven't thought too much into yet will be somewhat about good level design, team work and beta testing but mainly telling the players about current map/s or up and coming ones, but the main benefit of this is that anyone who is a member of a group can receive event notices for scheduled times, this I can use to tell all members that a new map needs testing or an event to get a large number of players playing at once.

The map I have designed is cunning in nature I hope and I will be explaining more about is as I finish off the map. So far I need just a few more days to complete it to the point I can test it out on a server. The basic shape of the map is an S shape, each side of this team deathmatch map has a base building with the main way the fight each other being a wide S shaped outdoor arena. But each side has the option of going around a different route which is full of tighter and smaller arenas to eventually come in from behind the enemy via either underground sewer pipes or a broken down wall. Also their is a bridge that can be reconstructed with planks that grants that person and others a quick way to the enemy until it is destroyed again. Here are some design images I took recently of my work so far, everything is pretty much laid out and textures need now applying in places and objects created as well as roughing up wall edges and such.

This is a kitchen area on the combine side, I could have gotten shot of this game rendered ingame but unfortunately I didn't have enough time to build the level as it takes hours at the moment because the file hasn't been optimised to gamepley yet which consists of identifying objects and surfaces the don't need to be rendered or needs to be told to not react to lighting or exist as a solid. These things save on memory and file size as well as cuts down on the time it takes to build.


Here we have the basic layout for the main entrance to the combine building, the players are given a good chance to defend here but also attackers have a chance to run for cover.



One of the things I realised while playing Deathmatch was that whoever had the better weapon ruled over everyone else unless they where more experienced or just lucky. So it was important not to place weapons in the wrong place for the sake of team balance, to answer this problem I came up with the technique of making weapons hard to acquire but ammo placed in some of the areas where that type of weapon might be desirable. For instance the combine have a guard tower which would be perfect for a rocket launcher, but since that would just mean everyone would stay there and get kills I will put a small amount of respawing ammo of different types of weapons and make the corresponding weapon harder to acquire without too much running around.


Something I had to learn for the first time in Hammer was terrain, I had to keep the number of pixels down for the sake of memory because the map itself is rather big at this point, this is the first area as the rebels leave the underground sewer leading from the back entrance of their base and it is another point of possible standoff/defence of the area this is a middle ground easily dominated by either side so whoever gets it is rewarded with the rocket launcher.

This map is based on a dream I had not long ago, I wont go into the details but it had all my friends in it and we where against each other on a map like this on, I remembered the images I had from the dream and realised how great the map actually could be. The design is suppost to be a military base, the rebels side a barracks and reception/office/medical building leading to an underground lab you don't see, the combine area is suppost to be the old building next to the barrack which was used as a storage docks, officers rooms and a room which is a big bathrom for the soldiers. These two areas are separated but an S shaped middleground full of debris from the wrecked building and previous attacks, this map is suppost to capture a moment when the combine have attacked and securely taken half of a rebel base in an old building and after a short siege are trying to finish them off.