Pics or Freehand?

yodaddy · Postby **yodaddy** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:42 am

This is for all you giant map builders. I work in a large manufacturing facility and for some time have been wanting to build a giant map of our shipping/loading dock department for some time. The question is when you build one of a living room or kitchen or whatever do you use digital pics or do you create completely from the ground up using only your memory or imagination? Is one easier or have advantages over the other? I've built a few maps but they were pretty simple and were nothing fancy . They weere designed around 3 or 4 guys playing reg weps with low grav and quad jump. I do llove large maps though ,especially if there's enough people to play it.I guess pics would help with creating custom textures for walls but meshes are going to be tough as I've never modeled. Also would it be possible to convert a drawing from say , an autodesk format like auto cad or mechanical desktop or even inventor to a mesh somehow as we do our design in-house and I have access to all of them . I would like to have some parts laying around and as the drawings already exist I thought I might be able to make use of them. Any input greatly appreciated.Thanks.

THEXFILES · Postby **THEXFILES** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:14 am

I usally go by memory and just looking at it, coarse most of mine have been in my home.....lol, I am doing one of my old basement , which was cool as hell, and im going by the pics I have of, just to remeber what pics where on the walls, and where stuff was and such......good luck !

MrWright · Postby **MrWright** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:14 am

Well I've only done the 3, so take it as you will. Two of mine I did as I went, with no plan. The Bowling map is a real place, but I've not been there for YEARS. It was all done from what I could remember.

If you make a list of stuff you want in the map I'll be happy to help find them if I can. You can make some stuff with the 2D tool. Thats what I made the ball return with.

yodaddy · Postby **yodaddy** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:59 am

Well in all honesty I'm gonna have to probably take it slow because this is probably going to end up being more than my usual cube with halls and different textures. Seems like I remember fooling with the 2d but that was a ways back. I'm gonna have to learn modeling from the ground up because I want a few custom meshes like our switch truck and our toyota forklifts.To top it all off my 7 year old is probably more artistically inclined than I! I have the basic tutorials with the game but if anybody knows of any other good ones ,especially with regards to keeping the poly count down I'd appreciate it.Any tips on scaling would help too. I want it big but at the same time I don't want to make it so big that you can't find a fight.yea the scaling will be important in establishing the flow .Happy 4th all!

MAD · Postby **MAD** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 1:42 pm

I wish I had UT installed so I could open up UE and remember how to tell you to do all this lol.

When your making giant maps, try and keep your texture sizes as small as possible. Solid colours 64x64 pixels or even 32x32, when your dealing with lot's of texture's the size of each one can dramatically increase the size of the finished map.

Make your map small at first and when your all done with brushes and meshes, scale it up as big as you like. This way you can make and deal with smaller textures over all. When you scale the map bigger, all meshes and textures get scaled right along with it and everything looks, and fit's fine.

If you've added any lighting, spawn point's, weapon bases, elevators, pickup's or teleporters, delete them before you scale the map and re-add them after. If you scale a map with say a weapon base in it, the base gets scaled up as well, same as lighting etc...

The first map I made, [MPC]Launch, I didn't know all this and made the map as big as I wanted it and added textures to it to fit the scale I made it on. The finished map size if I remember right, was close to 45mg, just because of the size of the textures.

All the meshes in that map except for the couch and chair's I made myself. You can convert any brush you make to a mesh and you can get pretty detailed with them if you want to. A long time ago Bob and I were working on a rifle mesh and I even managed to make one from brushes I put together in UE and converted to a mesh, didn't work out perfect, but it would have been usable.

Now if only Bob would get off his ass and help with the lighting in my other map, you'd all have a new one to play in and I have to say, it's pretty unique...

MrWright · Postby **MrWright** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 3:45 pm

Cool a new map in the works. I can't wait to play it.

I know that I have seen a forklift in a map, I believe it is a jailbreak map. You may be able to use it and save yourself the hassle of making your own.

MAD · Postby **MAD** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 5:14 pm

Forklift in this map.

DM-WsW-FACTORY][2k4

MrWright · Postby **MrWright** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 5:37 pm

LOL I've been looking for that since I made the last post. . . Yodaddy, if you like I'll even make it into a staticmesh for you. Just give me a link it a pic of how you want it colored.

Also in DM-Construction2K6 you will find really nice pallets, and Hard Hats.

Like any of these?? I think I can come close.

If you can think of anything else you may want let us know and we will try to find if for you.

yodaddy · Postby **yodaddy** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 6:58 pm

Wow. The propane powered toyota in the big pic is it. Thats exactly what we have, Color and all . I remembered seeing one in a map also and I may have played that map somewhere in the past. I 've been researching a little bit in the last day or 2 but right now the house commandant(wife) is directing preparations for our vacation . W'ere leaving for myrtle beach in a couple of days.I'm going to open ue up later tonight and try to do some of the basic construction. Thanks for all the help guys!

Thanks for the pallet tip. I'll e-mail the builder to see if I can use them. I discovered I had an extra vac. day so I took off today and I didn't get to take the pics. Once I get the pics I can get a better idea of what would be the best way to build this thing.

MrWright · Postby **MrWright** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 10:42 pm

Ok here is what I've done so far. I think that I can put the Grey band around the middle, but it may be a pain. I also am thinking of making the forks section separate from the lift so they can be placed at any height. What do you think?

MAD · Postby **MAD** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 4:09 am

Make them movers, with them controlled by firing at a lever in the cab, so someone under them can be killed lol.

Could even make the whole thing a mover LOL.

yodaddy · Postby **yodaddy** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 10:10 am

That was quick! fork-lift looks great.The gray band is up to you. I appreciate what youve done so far. I done some basic work last night but I'm gonna have to take some pics to start making it resemble our dock. Probably the easiest way to do what I'm going to do is ,like for the roll-up doors, make them a texture then apply it to the wall,but multiple times as we have several "holes" or "bays". I have photoshop elements 2.0. Will that be enough to convert the pic to a texture? I believe a buddy of mine and I did this a few years ago. Can't be sure though.

MrWright · Postby **MrWright** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 10:53 am

Add me to your Yahoo and I'll hook you up if you know what I mean.

wright98295

I've got a thought for your roll doors. Make a horizontal cylinder, then use the overhead door track from all the garage maps flipped over. I'll try and make a pic to show you what I mean.

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Pics or Freehand?

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