Map Design?

[toMlvendettA]

Pondering in school, ive been trying to figure out good level design ideas. The first thought, was one of a pyramid, where 2 teams spawn on the other side of the pyramid, and they have to rush in and get the middle flag, out of a casket or something. The problem is, I have the map all fine and dany, people will love it, but it doesnt provide good gameplay, cause its too bottleneck. Does anyone have any ideas to help me out?

Also, this is a design that took me FOREVER to think of, where do you all get your ideas?

[Dirty_Taco]

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[S8NSSON]

All the maps that I made that have a painters name on it were done freestyle.
I just decided to do a map and made it up as I went along...Can you tell?
I don't recommend this technique at all, never, ever, ever.

Draw it out.

Once you get proficient at the mapping tools you can actually draw it out in the tool.
I have a pile of maps that will never see play cause they just never ammunted to anything...Now that I think of it, maybe I should have left a good number of released maps in that state.

Plan, think, plan, think some more, build, think, get input, think, rebuild, think...etc... till it's a work of art!

[IronFist]

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[jitspoe]

a map like this exists...

I was just going to point that out.

Generally what I do is make a rough layout, then consider what the bottlenecks are, and find ways around them.  It might be something as simple as adding a small box to allow someone to jump over the potential chokepoint, or it could be the addition of a new path.  I try to provide incentives for using alternative paths, such as weapon upgrades.

The best way to make your map good is through thorough testing, and I don't mean just you and a friend running around or loading some bots.  We try to do tests Tuesday and/or Wednesday nights at 10:00PM EST.  Release your map as a beta, and be willing to listen to the input that other people have.  Get the map done as much as possible before releasing the beta.  A beta should be "I think it's done, but we need to test it just to be sure." not "It's just a beta, so I only bothered getting it halfway done."  After you test and get feedback, make appropriate adjustments and release another beta.  It's a lot of work, but keep it up until everything is as perfect as you can get it.

As for ideas and inspiration.  I've never had a problem with that.  I just have limited time to implement my ideas.   My suggestion would be to get ideas from real life and current games.  CS:S has some very nice looking levels.  Don't copy them, but get ideas.  Another thing I do is save images to an "inspiration" directory.  Any time I see a photo or screenshot that I think would make a cool paintball level, I save it.

[toM|vendettA]

anyone able to send me the pyramid.bsp file? I want to run through it and find flaws and advantages to it, this way I can make sure i do or dont do them in my map. Though this pyramid is like... humoungous.

[IronFist]

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