User talk:Vanhelsquirrel

IDEA OR PRE-DESIGN PHASE First, you must think about the area. Lets take a city for example. People expect certain things in cities, and think they would never see other things. The player expects to see builds (Aparpments, high-rises, shops). He/she would think a military base would be in the middle of the city. There might be "hard-points" or garrisonded buildings. So it is stupid to place a full-fledged military base in the city. (you should have a very good reason if you do)People expect roads and sidewalks in cities. You wouldn't have a dirt road, you would have stone or concrete roads. The atmosphere must fit as well. You need to have a sky that makes sense. If you have an alien sky, you must establish that it is an alien world. The story must fit with the map's design. (layout, atmosphere, events, enemies, allies). In half-life 2, you are against the combine. You never help the combine. but civilans usually help the player. You can't just switch this setup without an explanation. Same thing for layout. If the city is futuristic, than it can't look like present New York city. It wouldn't make sense. With atmosphere, you have to make the climate fit, and any weather effects. You can't have it snowing in a tropic area, it doesn't happen. The events must also fit, you can't have the player attacked by rebels, if he is a rebel. The events have to coinside with the story. If you are a combine, the rebels will attack you, the combine will help you. Without an explanation for otherwise, people will expect this. All this must be considered when thinking up a level.

THE NITTYGRITTY OF LVL DESIGN Once you think about your atmosphere, you need to try and setup your lvl, you should sketch it out first. Source maps tend to be on the small side in the terms that they are large in length, but the player can see a lot of the area ahead. Take the lvl in Half0life 2 when you get to the rebel stronghold and have to navigate around the courtyard. There is a lot of biulding space, but your always around this central courtyard. When designing a lvl, you must think about the center and or point of having the lvl. Think of the objective of the player at the time of the lvl. If the player needs to get to the sewers, the lvl should be about getting to a sewer enterence. If the player is trying to exit the city. He/she should end the lvl by getting on a boat or plane, or maybe getting into the country side. The end must be logical though. After thinking about this, sketch out your geometry. Try using photos of your enviroment (example: making a city, look at photos of seattle and new york city), this will help you get a feel for what the enviroment should look like. Make the geometry player friendly. Give the player a little free movement.

BUILDING THE LVL When your ready to start building/making the lvl, try to start with the center part of the lvl, and work out from there. Remember the part about "player friendly". If there is an enemy with a sniper weapon, and the area is an open one, give the player cover, and a way of killing the sniper. If there is a HMG (heavy machine gun) or turret, allow the player a way around or lots of cover. Take the Half-life 2 lvl, for example, when you have to fight a lot of striders, after playing with barney. There is a fairly easy to find and use route of cover, allowing the player to get to RPG ammo, and cover. Without this, the striders would easily kill the player. When you have a lvl with enemies(most do) you must give the player a fitting weapon. Although the player may want a different weapon, use the weapon(s) that are most fitting. I myself always like snipers, I use them for almost every situation in a game. But I understand that its usless when taking on a tank or walker type vehicle. So I usually save rounds in my explosive weapon. Don't count of the player to do this, always give him ammo in combat zones.

FINALIZING YOUR LVL When you have completed your lvl geometry, setup your sky box and run the lvl. Make sure your do everything needed to complete the lvl. If you need to jump over a chasm. Try jumping over it. If you can't, it needs to be changed. Once you have done this, place enemies around the map and give yourself a the weapons that will be in the lvl. Place some ammo around the lvl and run it again. Remember which spots are too hard, which are too easy, which need more ammo, which need less. Adjust the lvl and give it another try. If you feel that the lvl is done, good for you. All you need to do is place your fx, and scripted events in place. Run the lvl, make any adjustments and then your done, you have a beta.

TESTING A BETA To test a beta, you should get a person with average skill at games and who hasn't helped in the developement of the lvl, make him/her test-play the lvl. Listen closely to there summory of the lvl. Try the lvl with the changes, and get a different tester to play. Kepp doing this until you think your lvl is ready and the testers aren't giving useful info, or think the lvl shouldn't be changed.

FINAL VERSION Release your final version of the map. If it is well liked, make a sequel or try something similar. If people don't lik it, try something different or go back and try to remake it. Always listen to feed back, if the feed back has examples of pros or cons, this could help in the future. Never delete the original map file. You may want to go back to it

Good luck in future editing, I hope you get some great maps and/or mods out for people

-Written by Vanhelsquirrel Copyrighted to vanhelsquirrel, do not copy, you may change, but you must state that you changed, do not take credit for my work, do not delete the "written by Vahelsquirrel" line.

You can't have a written by in a wiki article. Wikis are for anyone, its a public place for public editing and ownership. Also using Wiki syntax would go a lonbg way to improving the article. --Angry Beaver 21:12, 8 Jan 2007 (PST)