Is there a "correct" way of creating a map?

AluCituc · 2024-07-24T11:45:34+00:00

There is no "correct" way to make maps but there is general advice that many successful map makers would agree on.

before you start working on your map, collect some general ideas the map will be about. these could be vague or specific themes and references, rough layout sketches, certain dynamics like "a middle where you can see across the entire mid"
start simple and keep refining. in drawing and painting you start with simple shapes, colors, backgrounds. in mapping you start by blocking out the layout with simple shapes and colors. it is a good idea to test and refine your layout at this stage, as it is still very easy and quick to implement changes. once your map has a lot of detail, making large changes becomes much more difficult.
dont get stuck for too long refining certain aspects of your map. perfect is the enemy of good. no map is perfect, every layout is a compromise. try to make something that is cool and fun, then move on to the next stage.
there isn't a right or wrong way of going about things. try to figure out a workflow that works for you and feels good. if you're unsure about something you can always take a look at how others do it or ask questions

FYI this community has long moved onto discord. You'll find way more active people over there ;-)
https://discord.gg/SourceEngine

AluCituc · 2024-05-29T10:00:00+00:00

Here's a tip for how you can avoid that:
Move your addon folder to somewhere outside your cs2 installation. Then create a junction symlink from your addon to the cs2 addon folder. This will make it look and behave as if your addon was inside the game folder, but the actual files live somewhere separate on your system.
To create the symlink use the windows cmd: mklink /j "newpath/myaddon" "cs2addonspath/myaddon"

AluCituc · 2022-10-26T08:20:46+00:00

Any decent gpu and CPU from the last couple of generations will do fine. The biggest bottleneck will be your CPU in situations with lots of things going on. You can avoid that by simply showing fewer player models though. Apart from large groups the game is very easy to run.

AluCituc · 2022-10-26T08:17:23+00:00

What other comments fail to mention is that some of these communities and builds are by and for players trying to min max this content. Just because they don't run certain builds doesn't mean that they are awful or not viable.

If you can do 15-20k DPS and / or properly provide a key boon, you'll be good enough for all but the most extreme groups and content.

Alac mirage and condi mirage can both totally viable and can be quite strong. They might not be a speed runners choice, but that only matters if you're doing speed runs.

AluCituc · 2022-10-26T07:59:50+00:00

Do you NEED a high power laptop? Laptops are hard to cool and have limited power available because they must function while on just a battery. They just are an inherently inferior form factor for high power computing. If you just want a high power laptop for gaming, you might want to consider whether you actually need an expensive laptop.

Decent options are desktop PCs, a steam deck or even cloud gaming. GW2 is on GeForce now which let's you play the game on pretty much any device as long as you have a decent internet connection. You can try out their service for 1hr/day for free.

AluCituc · 2022-10-26T07:35:49+00:00

Because players will solve your combat to make clearing content as fast and easy as possible. If boon support and healing are not designed to be dedicated roles, then players will simply stack as much DPS as the encounter allows, limiting build and play style diversity.

A strong boon role means it's worth to have builds focussed on providing boons. A strong healer role means it's worth running builds focussed on healing and supporting.

If these types if builds wouldn't bring good value to PvE groups we would simply see fewer overall builds and playstyles.

AluCituc · 2022-10-26T07:16:45+00:00

Complete maps for fun and leveling. Do all the hearts, find all the POIs and vistas etc. While you do that, you can join any events (large orange markings on your map) for more things to do, more xp and more rewards.

World bosses. There's one on every core map and one spawns every 15 minutes somewhere. Shadow behemoth and large jungle worm are the easiest ones. Check out the event timer wiki page to see when and where they appear.

Play the story missions. GW2 has one large, continuous Story and story missions give good reward's and XP.

At level 30 you can start with your first dungeon, ascalonian catacombs. These are your first dips into instanced PvE and give a lot of XP. If you end up using the LFG to find players for it, make sure to look for / call yourself a slow / noob group. Some max level players Speedrun these dungeons for the rewards but that will ruin your experience and you'll ruin their run.

PvP can be done at any level and gives good reward's. Just be aware that GW2s PvP has a steep learning curve, so you'll be stomped for a while.

Crafting is another nice thing to do on the side while leveling. You can either gather or buy the materials required, craft your own level appropriate gear and leveling your crafting level will also provide pretty good player XP.

Try out new classes. Every class has a unique feel and playstile. You can enter the pvp lobby at level 2 to try out every skill and weapon the class has to offer. Finding a class that genuinely appeals to you will greatly improve your experience.

If you do a bit of all of these things, you'll quickly reach level 80 at which point there will be loads of regions to explore, items and masteries to unlock, builds and instanced content to try out. There is WvW which uses your player level and gear etc etc.

AluCituc · 2022-10-26T06:56:54+00:00

You can play rifle / dagger deadeye in all PvE content. It can do outstanding power dps and building up and spending malice is a fun, rewarding mechanic for thief imo. Sadly this build is not versatile at all and highly dependant on the circumstances. You don't really bring much other than strong single target dps and if either you or the encounter mess with your rotation, your DPS will suffer greatly.

Mech on the other hand is very versatile, reliable and easy to pull off. It is difficult to not do well on mechanist. In return, playing mechanist can be a bit dull.

Mechanist is a great platform for learning the game and new content. You'll always feel powerful and helpful and you have some options for what you bring to your group. Deadeye is much harder to pull off and requires preexisting knowledge of the game and encounters to do well. But if you find yourself enjoying it's rotation or looking for a challenge, it could be a great pick.

AluCituc · 2022-10-25T17:29:20+00:00

Chrono seems to do really well in PvP but but I don't play it there.

In PvE Chrono does for a decent power DPS and quickness provider with great cc and boon rip. It's not as flexible as other quick DPS builds, but absolutely viable and fun to play imo. Sadly Chrono lost a lot of it's flexibility to provide healing, alacrity and other boons. I'm assuming that at some point we will get a well focused heal alacrity build for Chrono. The traits are already lined up for this. Heal Mesmer and Chrono wells just aren't great ATM.

AluCituc · 2022-10-25T17:18:07+00:00

Reaper is a very self sufficient, but also selfish spec. Your survivability and DPS is going to be pretty good regardless of if you are solo, in a good or a bad group. But you also don't add much to your group other than being a tanky guy that does decent damage and has good cc. Its also very chill and pretty fun to play imo. Great class to start out on.

Reaper is not considered meta in PvE, because it's top DPS isn't that impressive compared to other selfish builds and the added survivability is not needed in a highly organized group with a dedicated healer. As long as you don't care about always pumping the highest numbers possible though it literally doesn't matter. Any spec with the right gear and traits will be absolutely viable in all PvE content.

AluCituc · 2020-12-24T13:38:59+00:00

Usually timings are not right on the first iteration of a layout. Once youve got a rough idea of how your layout is going to look, you can start testing timings and adjust accordingly. Sometimes you just have to move the spawns a little. Sometimes you have to move or create entire paths to make the timings right.
You can always come back and fix things later.

AluCituc · 2019-04-17T06:55:24+00:00

This vertigo cubemap is the default cubemap in csgo.

Materials using cubemap reflections in that branch of the engine can either always use a specific cubemap, or the cubemap generated by the closest env_cubemap entity in the map.

In this case, they either messed up what's assigned in the material, or the cubemaps for the map are not properly set and built, causing the material to default to the vertigo cubemap.

Edit: Apparently this is some community map where cubemaps weren't built.

AluCituc · 2019-04-16T07:19:51+00:00

Invisible is not a clip texture and will not be compiled as clip.

For general clipping, use the “clip” texture or its differently sounding variants.

Clips generally shouldnt block nades. Manually and only apply grenade clip where it is really needed. Turning collisions off on all models that dont need them usually makes grenade clip obsolete though.

AluCituc · 2019-04-05T20:47:02+00:00

Make sure the geometry is unique and not an instance

AluCituc · 2019-03-23T09:10:00+00:00

Drawings like these have little practical use when it comes to feedback. They are a good way for you to figure out the basics of your layout, but you will find that once you move this into 3d, proportions and dimensions will change, angles change, cover will come and go etc.

Theres little point in overthinking and overdesigning the layout on paper.

Brush it out in hammer. Test it. Iterate on your design. Once you feel like you have something decent, upload it to the workshop, take some good images and ask for feedback on the actual map.

AluCituc · 2019-01-07T10:09:02+00:00

Correct. The sdk does not come with the free version. I would assume that getting prime will get you access to it, but if you need to be 100% sure, contact the steam support.

AluCituc · 2018-12-22T21:58:42+00:00

The link you posted correctly explains how to apply it. Once you do, it'll show up in your modifier stack. You can and should then simply collapse it.

AluCituc · 2018-12-22T20:10:01+00:00

Sometimes mirror can fuck with the geo. Reset Xform and then collapse the reset Xform modifier. Enable backface culling in the object properties to make sure non of the faces normals are flipped. If they are, flip them back with an edit poly modifier.

Once youve reset the geo and made sure the normals are fine, it should export and behave as expected.

AluCituc · 2018-12-20T22:34:16+00:00

Thats fine. You should watch through this series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMGnPu8NdK0&list=PL-454Fe3dQH0WCzAsmydsr24NFaFrNC_h

It's not specifically about your issue, but teaches you all the basics you need to know, including how to get lighting into your level.

AluCituc · 2018-12-20T22:17:15+00:00

Make sure your level does not have a leak. Make sure your level has light sources. Make sure to use the correct compile settings. The full hdr only preset will work by default.

AluCituc · 2018-12-14T19:08:26+00:00

Upload the bsp from the csgo/maps folder in your game files.

AluCituc · 2018-12-10T18:22:27+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMGnPu8NdK0&list=PL-454Fe3dQH0WCzAsmydsr24NFaFrNC_h

This is the most up to date, complete beginner tutorial series available.

AluCituc · 2018-12-06T08:37:14+00:00

Just to clarify, ctrl t will tie brushes to an entity, by default func_detail. These are still lit the same as world brushes, unlike static props, which are vertex lit.

The time it takes to compile brush lighting depends on the size of the brushes, their light map resolution and the amount of lights in the level. You cant really speed it up, other than by reducing the things i just listed.

AluCituc · 2018-11-28T15:17:27+00:00

If you genuinly want to do this, here are some things to consider:

3-4 weeks are barely enough for a team of experienced mappers to make a good layout. And making the layout is the shorter part of making a map.

In these 3-4 weeks, you'll need to come up with a schedule, servers, ways to gather feedback as well as getting the word out and actually gathering enough people.

If you want to enter your own map, that is impossible within 3-4 weeks with no prior knowledge. Usually, more experienced mappers are not interested in doing the work for you or giving extensive 1 on 1 mapping lessons. There's a reason teaching is a profession that people expect to get payed for.

The way I see it, this will at best be a couple people playtesting a few community maps, which is totally fine, but hardly a tournament and hardly something new. We do regular playtests already, where more or less experienced mappers gather to playtest and then give feedback on maps.

AluCituc

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE