High tech facility

[Wayfray]

Hello,

I did a concept painting of a high tech facility. It requires some fleshing out, but I wanted to get feedback before proceeding.

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[gavlig]

hey!

Not sure if that could be of use for a multiplayer map(though i'm not the one who you ask these things about), but it can be definitely used for a singleplayer.

On the other hand, i can almost see aliens rushing from beyond and few people standing on a platform, buyng themselfes few more minutes to live with every tenth shot :) Thanks for tickling my imagination! :)

[kharnov]

Well, that's the thing. It could just be an outside part of the facility. There might be more hidden underneath that mountain. I could see humans using the top, visible portions as a base, while the aliens are down below, possibly infesting a mine or some other important location.

The design itself interests me, because it's unlike anything we have so far. I think a mountaintop base would be perfect, because it would give a good reason to have a vertical map. What's important, I suppose, would be the interior portions. Perhaps the aliens are at the end of a mine shaft? Or perhaps there's an important bunker down there? Or maybe the top portion is part of some research station?

I suppose the next step should be to provide some different views of the external portion, and then begin with the inside.

[Wayfray]

Here is a rough sketch of the interior. The space is located underneath the main building of the exterior shot, and the stairs in the foreground are meant to connect to the interior space within the main building above. The space would be connected to the ground level above from two directions. I also included a sunken passage that would have multiple links to the rest of the interior space.

I could instead pursue something like this for the interior (I did this piece a while ago, not specifically for this project):

[Viech]

On the first sketch: I like the idea of a mountain base and could imagine the human default base having a panorama like that and being built around a number of heavy machines. However, the layout of a room is cricital to balancing (especially when it comes to the default bases) and it's hard to tell whether some layout will work out. I think with some adaptions that room could work but I guess it makes more sense to focus on details and atmosphere for now. What kind of machinery would you imagine in a mountain base? I'd also be interested in the design of a generic hallway, that looks both rugged and futuristic.

Sketch two conveys an interesting atmosphere but it's lacking some sci fi elements. If I think about the setting of Unvanquished maps I often imagine decayed borderlands of the human space expansion. The technology is advanced but the materials are mostly those that could be mined on the distant planet, so you have modern equpiment and futuristic machines with glowing stuff inside but there's always a trace of rust, too.

[Wayfray]

I did a sketch of a hallway. If you like the general concept, I will continue working on it. There are supposed to be grates along the sides that the machinery would rest on.

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[Viech]

Looks good! I do like the style, both rusty and modern as requested.

Some things to keep in mind when you continue on it: Hallways and doors must be wide enough so that the dragoon and tyrant can fit through, for hallways it's desireable that two tyrants fit so they don't block each other when they want to go in opposite directions. It's also good when the dretch and basilisk have the ability to walk on wall or ceiling most of the time, but it's not necessary everywhere on the map. Your ceiling is walkable, your wall not so much. If small aliens don't have the ability to make good use of their movement, it's always nice to give them some shaft to dodge a direct confrontation. Such shafts also make a map more interesting, both in terms of gameplay and look.

So I'd propose leaving the walls as they are but adding some floor level (human usable) ventilation/pipe shaft system to it. If it's easy to do you could also make the door and corridor a tad wider but it isn't important as I would scale it to fit our gameplay needs anyway.

[Wayfray]

I widened the hallway, but also made a few alternative sketches since I thought the pillars might get repetitive. They are all still in the sketch phase, and I would like input from more people before continuing with one (if any).

As for the earlier interior room piece, what sort of changes did you have in mind to make it balanced and playable? Is there a way get images of the layouts of existing maps to get ideas?

(closest to initial hallway sketch)

[Viech]

First of all, I personally like your style a lot and it matches the small amount of available textures we currently have pretty well, so doing such a map is a realistic task.

Third sketch

From the three new sketches, I like the third one most. It has a good balance between gameplay and detail: The corridor and door are now wide enough so all player classes can be played out nicely. While the smaller classes can't really walk on the wall the pillars give them nice hiding opportunities and can enclose an entrance to a ventilation system, pipe shaft or similar area. The ceiling has an excellent design: It is flat, so it can be walked on and jumping aliens won't collide with anything but it is still very detailed. I can imagine (non-blocking) cables hanging down through the bars and also interesting light effects created by small colored lamps between pipes above the girder.

I like the new machine on the left side. The simple shape has a number of advantages:

• Humans can stand and build structures on the top

• Aliens structures can be built anywhere on it without looking strange

• It's possible to wallwalk on it

• It's easy to build inside the map editor

• The rectangular textures can be shared with other parts of the map

• The glowing parts can add some visual movement without getting in the way of the player

While machines like the other two in the scene are possible to do, I prefer a more simple shape for these reasons. That doesn't mean it has to be box-shaped, but tiny elements sticking out are usually a bad idea.

First sketch

While the layout guarantees optimal movement for all classes and is often found on older Tremulous maps I find it too empty. It doesn't convey the gloomy feeling of the third sketch and is also a rather boring place to build a base in. Open areas such as this one could still be part of a map (not every area has to be a potential base location) but I'd still prefer it to be less box-like. A non-flat ceiling, different height levels of floor and/or ceiling and some form of eye-catcher or recurring details such as pipes to make the scene look more interesting would be desireable.

Second sketch

This is even better suited for base building than sketch three due to the greater depth of the niches in the side. For visual variance and in order to give players the possibility but also a challenge to build a good base in it, a mix of deep and shallow niches could be tried. I'm not too fond of the ceiling, it prevents wallwalking and jumping and looks a bit repetitive, too.

[HR][/HR]
I think this is going in a good direction! Feel free to sketch whatever comes to your mind! Sketch three is already a decent inspiration for a corridor and you don't need to put more detail in this perspective of it. If you want to extend it, you could concept some form of shaft system that has an entry between two pillars or next to one of the two machines that are close to the observer (the shaft itself, the entry or both). If you feel like working on a completely different area of the map, do that instead.

If you want to have a look at existing maps you should run Unvanquished, some of the maps have minimaps, too. Keep in mind that only Parpax, Platform 23, Thunder and Yocto are our maps, the rest are taken from our predecessor Tremulous and will be dropped eventually. For the basic layout of my next map I'd like to cooperate with experienced clan players but it will most likely be non-symmetrical and with a size somewhere between Yocto and Parpax. The Tremulous map niveus has a good size and a balanced layout, too. I'll focus on programming for the next month (until the start of the summer tournament) but after that I'd like to do a call for layout concepts. I want the next map to be a cooperative project, with full credit to everyone who significantly supports the design process. I merely want to execute the mapping part and outsource as much to specialists as possible. Ideally we would have someone in charge of layout and gameplay, a concept artist (you), a mapper (me) and optionally a texture artist as well as a modeler who creates more detailed props.

[Wayfray]

Hi, I should have responded earlier, and I am interested in continuing to work on this map. I did a version of the interior with a reactor. The space is located under the central building depicted in the initial outdoor shot, and players would see a vaulted ceiling above the space (not yet depicted).