KF-Cellar

[Dastard]

Been working on this the past week. Overall layout's pretty much done, need to spruce up visuals and fix some scaling issues.
It's a relatively small map, taking place in a storm cellar underneath a house.
The following screenshots were taken on my relatively crappy Macintosh, full settings, I was getting around 5 fps . The map looks somewhat different on DirectX, and on better video cards.






If you would like to test it, send me a PM. Please keep in mind it's an early version of the map, and I don't want it getting released to the public at large.

[Abyx]

Woah, looks pretty damn cool.

I'd be happy to test it.

[kyben]

Alright, when I got this map, I expected alot more than what I got. This map is far from done. It's extremely small. There's only one way to go, in a circle. There was more ways you couldn't go. The hole that you drop down into the water is horrible, I died half the times I jumped down, and it didn't make sense since there is only 1 floor. There is hardly any detail and only 3 or 4 textures used through it all. The specimens falling through the ceiling get hurt making them really easy to kill. If you jump on the chair, then to the table and on to the machine thingy, the specimens can't hurt you. There was only 2 weapon spawns or so and no ammo spawns, thats not enough. Your trader volume is going outside the door, whenever you get close to the doors it teleports you.
You need to take a hard look at other KF maps, and see how you can improve your own. It's a good idea and it could be a great map, work at it.

[Abyx]

Really I think Kyben was being a little harsh with his report, but then again maybe not since I consider him the best mapper aside from Alex in the KF community.

The layout is really cool , but there are some EXTREME scaling issues. There's no where to defend, not many spawns as Kyben said and it's extremely empty. I know it's an early version, but it really needs to be filled up with random little doodads.

There's too many spawns, you're in the middle of a room and you're surrounded in seconds, no way to bottle neck them, no way to control the flow, apsolutely nothing. I couldn't get past wave 1 without jumping in that little hole with the water.

It has alot of potential, but it needs work. Good work on it so far.

[Dastard]

Yeah, I know there's some flow issues, I was thinking of adding a second level above the trader, with stairs in the hallway leading to the boiler room and the room you start in, and a hall and a room past the boiler room to connect to the starting room.

Thanks for the input, I respect honest criticism way more than just praise at my first attempt.

I'll take a look at the hole, warpzones can be a bit wonkey, I think I just made it either too shallow or too deep. Scaling is something I'm working at, I think that if I can't get the individual items scaled just right, I'll just make the entire map smaller scaled. I'll probably take away the hole in the ceiling, since too many zeds spawn from there, that , or make the zone it's in low gravity, so they take less or no damage when they fall.

Thanks for the tips guys. It's a very preliminary version, I'll work on it some more and get the next version ready, with hopefully more details, better looks, and more rooms.

[kyben]

Sorry if I sounded harsh, I'm brutally honest...

[Dastard]

Eh, no worries, after all, I want people to like my maps.

[zombieButcher]

Looks a bit empty, but got potential.
Good luck.

[Dastard]

So now that I'm back in school, and my school is awesome and I have 2 and potentially 3 classes dedicated to this purpose, I can now work a lot more on my map. I'm currently setting up and then I'm going to try learning how to make static meshes via maya.

[Abyx]

Make a TV!

And boxes, make cardboard boxes, seriously.

[Dastard]

Alright, so I've been touching up some of the scaling here and there, making more blocking volumes, et cetera, and I've come to an important part of the process.

Layout.

Currently, this is the layout.

The small blue dots are player spawns, the green dots are weapon spawns,and the big purple dots are ammo spawns. The yellow box is a set of stairs, and the crosshatched red box is an upstairs zombie spawn. The full red box is another zed spawn, and the two light blue boxes are 2 warpzones that are linked vertically, so you fall down a shaft to across the map. the orange area is the trader area, linked to the spawn room and the boiler room.

It's a rather small map at this point. From what the testers have told me, the map is too small and there used to be a zed spawn in the upper left hand room, that I have since gotten rid of. It's still too small and has no flow.

What I want to know is if you all, the public, would rather see
A:

which has an upstairs (or possibly further downstairs) room, linked to the spawn room and the boiler room hall, and has a zed spawn potentially in it, or
B:

which links the spawn and boiler room on the same vertical level, or the third option, which is either something completely different, or combining the two ideas and having a linking upper or lower level and a side room.

I'm open to any constructive suggestions.

[kyben]

A and B.

[Abyx]

I agree with Kyben.

[Richzap]

The warpzones sound like a strange idea for a killing floor map, not sure if i like that... I think i would have to play it.

In general i would suggest including some parts of the upstaris house, also you need areas where the players can fall back to and defend. Small maps tend to be very difficult because you have no where to go.

[Dastard]

Okay, this will probably be the final layout, unless there was something horribly borken I missed.



The green lines are overall paths you can take, up to five from the three in the first beta. The hot pink lines are upper level paths you can take, and the blue lines are the path through the warpzone (Rich, it's very slick, very minimally noticeable transition. Basically, you fall through a shaft to the top of a shaft on the other side of the map down to a small pool of water to break your fall. Since you'll rarely be shooting through them, the hitscan issue isn't a problem. It's mostly confusing at first) and the orange boxes are places that are set up for doors, when I get around to making them.

The red boxes are zed spawns, the crosshatched one again being the zed spawn on the top of the stairs. The stairs have railing now, and better pathing, so the zeds don't jump off the side to get to you anymore. I decided I didn't want a zed spawn in the middle top room; it'll basically be a focal defense point, ala king of the hill.

Once I get doors in, and touch up a few visuals, I'll do another closed beta of the map, and based on input from that I'll work on it some more after that.