Yer Mom

Who is interested? Who is experienced? Who has resources?

I think our game nights are starting to get boring, so to speak. I'm not bored with the gameplay, but I'm bored with the maps. I think most of us are.

If you know anything about making maps for NS, post information here.

If you're interested in starting a map making team, post here.

If you have tips and tricks, or whatever, about map making, post here.

-Mom

__________________
Yer Mom /O>

To all but me is the look given but never received. My heart sinks faster and faster every time I look into them, yet I do not understand their controling power on my soul. - W11114m W45h1n670n

Irish Pirate

I would be interested in helping if time permits. As it is I have not even set up hammer for NS maps yet. I might be able to help with problems that are not mod specific but I have not done any NS mapping yet. Most of the mapping I have done previously was for TFC. I imagine with a couple guides I will be able to pick it up fairly quickly.

__________________

Sirusblk

I'd love to help, I have a tad bit of experience, however I haven't set up hammer for NS maps yet, and don't know how or where I can get the NS hammer package.

I must confess I have little experience in HL maps, I do however have quite a bit on the Source engine, as well as map making in other development kits.

Sign me up,
-Sirusblk

__________________

Slayer of Hippies

I've worked academically with Hammer in HL2, focusing on HL2DM. Don't know if I'll have time to make it a priority of sorts but keep us all posted on how things progress.

blu.knight

Heh, Slayer, I initially read that as "I've worked accidentally with..." ... yup. I'm tired.

If you guys decide to make a "small" map with two hives I wouldn't mind writing the plugin to put the third one at the marine spawn. (or if any coding type things are needed)

Irish Pirate

No coding would be needed to have a third hive in marine start. The map would just have to be relatively alien biased compared to other maps since it would automatically give the marines a one hive lockdown and a beacon machine that equals a hive rush.

Thats not a terrible idea though, I hope you don't mind if I use it. I have been thinking to myself that a full sized NS map might be a bit large of a project to embark on at this point. If the amount of testing and balancing required doesn't come back to bite me it might work out.

EDIT: There would have to be a way to keep aliens from starting at that specific hive :x

__________________

sUZY dERKINS

sweet all i do all day is doodle down sweet ns maps, itd be tight if we as a server could have some unique maps
unique maps for unique people

Yer Mom

As far as I can understand, Hammer 4.0 is used to make HL maps these days.

http://www.chatbear.com/board.plm?a=...=0&id=850675#2

The only problem with the above link is it is setting it up for CZ not NS.

http://cubed.dk/nobody/

^ Lists a few downloads as HL mapping tools. If we can figure out how to start mapping for NS, then they might come in handy.

At this point, I don't even know what a .gcf file is, but I'm sure that may be good information for someone.

Now I do recall attempting to do CS mapping back in the day with WorldCraft, but I'm not sure if that's what's used today to do mapping for NS.. although it seems all hands point towards Hammer 3.4 or Hammer 4 for NS mapping.

I just spent an hour going thru the chatbear forums, and have yet to find anything solid. I'm done for a while.

-Mom

__________________
Yer Mom /O>

To all but me is the look given but never received. My heart sinks faster and faster every time I look into them, yet I do not understand their controling power on my soul. - W11114m W45h1n670n

blu.knight

Thats what I meant by coding. You can't prevent the aliens from starting in that hive unless you create it after the map is loaded, which requires a plugin.

Slayer of Hippies

What's the best application to map for NS in, at the end of the day, after everything is compiled - what makes the most optimized and bugless maps?

Yer Mom

Thanks to someone elses handy work (http://number-7.com/e107_v0617/e107_...ic.php?39.last)
I've found some links... yay.

http://pstutorial.tripod.com/
Looks like this is to set up partical sprites/entities.

http://forums.gamedesign.net/
This is a forum that revolves around map making for several different games, including Half-Life 1 and 2, Warcraft 3, Quake, etc.
http://avitar.net/index.cgi?t=natura...acking-distrib
This is quite a bit of information about what seems to be packing your map once it's completed. It's not very helpful as far as making a map goes.

http://www.spynets.com/cheats/details.php?ID=2348
This will help with testing maps. It's a list of all cheats/impulses for the game once the map is running and sv_cheats 1 has been activated.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos...de/583352.html
Says it's a list of debug cheats usable once sv_cheats 1 has been activated. I'm assuming most of these are listed in the first cheats link as well.

http://www.iam-clan.com/index.php?na...ewtopic&t=9162
Thank the IAM clan for producing this tutorial on actually HOW to make a map. It's a seige map, but it's still an NS map. Compliments of Browny Master. It is a tutorial and it is VERY helpful. Finally found our resource, fella's.

ZHLT is listed as an editor and a compiler. I can't seem to find the editor part of the file that you download from the website listed in BrownyMaster's thread. All I can figure out with ZHLT is that it is a compiler. WorldCraft is probably easier to use, and Hammer is going to be MUCH easier to use, with many more options. WorldCraft was originall designed to use with Quake (I believe) and it was converted into a Half-Life 1 map editing program. It's where the CS people made the CS maps. It's old, but it is designed to be used with HL1 and it's mods.

If we are building a team, we have to come to a conclusion on what editor we want to use. Due to Hammer and Worldcraft's age difference, I'd believe there would be a conflict between the two. I do not know this to be fact.

I'd assume that it would be in our best interests to use the same editor, so let's tally a vote.

I vote to use Hammer.


-Mom

__________________
Yer Mom /O>

To all but me is the look given but never received. My heart sinks faster and faster every time I look into them, yet I do not understand their controling power on my soul. - W11114m W45h1n670n

blu.knight

Lets come up with a theme for a map... and then I can make a room. And we can eventually stick it all togehter.

Yer Mom

There's a lot more to it than that blu. We've got to decide on the type of map first. Do we want a rather small map, or a large, wide open map? Everything we're making here is regular NS maps. We're not making the small maps like talked about before, atleast not yet.

I'm going to start learning now.

-Mom

__________________
Yer Mom /O>

To all but me is the look given but never received. My heart sinks faster and faster every time I look into them, yet I do not understand their controling power on my soul. - W11114m W45h1n670n

blu.knight

Yeah I know, I was saying we should decide upon what kind of map we want to make. I'm not sure how much help I can be at the mapping side but I thought creating a room could be fun.

Yer Mom

I'm making a ready room right now just to see how well things work out.

It's not very hard to do. The only thing that I find hard is scaling objects to match, but not overlap, each other.

Make your room, and then talk to me.

-Mom

__________________
Yer Mom /O>

To all but me is the look given but never received. My heart sinks faster and faster every time I look into them, yet I do not understand their controling power on my soul. - W11114m W45h1n670n