7th Official Mapping Contest

[Ronald_Reagan]

While we wait for the results, which map do you think will win? Reasons?

[Xenon]

This contest has no motivation, even I would learn how to map if I had a reward such as having maps in the new version etc etc.

[Nightmare]

F1 whop & Xenon.
Otherwise there's no reason for it to be the 'Official Mapping Contest'

My predictions for the category winners are blueberry/snoosnoo/hurp.
Overall I thought Snoo, but since he couldn't finish completely in time, my overall 1st place would be HURPDURPSON. <3
2nd snoo, 5th blueberry.
The interesting part is if v0.20 of dwarfouzelle can pull off an upset bronze against v1.0 ancient_mines. Though I expect mines to win that.
Noobicus is the wildcard since he is more open minded and less 'by the book'. So he may see the beauty in some maps that other judges don't. :3
I think more people would have entered if there were more clanless mapping veterans & more noobicus-like judges.

[Pi_Halo]

First I would like to thank all the people who helped in this contest. The judges and the people who entered are both very much appreciated. This contest was a real treat and working along side some judges who were great at organization and produced results in a timely matter. The mappers who entered showed what I would hope to be their best at making a map that fits this theme. We will try to bring a more popular theme in the future to yield more results. Also I feel I must apologize for not providing a theme that everyone enjoyed, and it showed by the small numbers of entries. However I would still consider this contest a success because someone did at the very less enter and that is always better then none at all. Thank you again for the support and to everyone who helped in this contest, rather it be mappers or judges. Below you will find the results. Good job to all who entered, we wish you the best in your future mapping explorations, and last but not less, congratulations to the winners!

[blueberry]

Congratulations winners and thank you judges and organizers for hosting this. Hopefully next year there will be more entries and I won't be able to win by default. Perhaps next year will be mapping in the new version as well. That'll be an interesting contest.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Here is my notes about the entries:
ac_dwarfouzelle by Nightmare

Theme - 7
Obviously supposed to take place underground. The walls tell you this. However, one room at approximatly the same elevation shows the skymap. Which is a bit odd. Not much to sell the Theme though.

Textures - 6
Textures all fit the Theme. Except some clashed, and there wasn't much variation of the Textures for different surfaces.

Lighting - 3
"You added light" is the best thing you can say about the Lighting on this map. Only one color was a good choice. And the purple hurt the eyes. No variation at all.

Detail - 3
You had some Detail-ish stuff. Best thing was the walls. I liked the walls. But the rest was iffy.

Sounds - 0
No Sounds

Layout/Gameplay - 5
The gameplay isn't horrible. Layout is pretty standard. With a death pit. Death pits don't win many points.

Average (overall of the above) - 4.00


ac_discovery by Snoosnoo

Theme - 7
You only have one main room that is cavish, looking like a mining operation. There is a couple transitional rooms that almost have the same style, except the skymap shows. The rest of looks like it could just be a building. Things you could do to sell the fact that you are underground is making it so when you can see the skymap, you are higher up, and you have to descend a fair amount to get to the covered ceilings.

Textures - 9
Textures were good, I was confused by some changes between dirt and stone slab ceilings. The different Textures on the mapmodels did a great job in making this map different from many other maps.

Lighting - 8
Lights were good, three different main colors. I had two problems with it though. You didn't seem to let shadows exist in the yellow bright rooms. It was all the same brightness. Second issue was the white light emenating from the light sources. I didn't like this as much because it didn't explain the yellow tint. Light doesn't age and turn yellow, it will stay white. So when you have your light sources tint the white with your yellow. In a way the Lighting was a bit intense, but that is just the style of the map you have.

Detail - 6.5
You had some great Detail pieces. I loved your bridges and the rooms that were Detailed were Detailed well. You had some interesting uses of geometry to sell the fact that the player was underground. However, the Detail was few and far between. Each room should have a purpose, otherwise it is useless. Think about functional building design. How will buildings (or mines) be created to be as functional as possible? Some maps can do without this, but with a map like yours that is based off of rooms rather than rooms and hallways, you need something to seperate different rooms from eachother. More visual light sources are needed. Some rooms have them, some rooms you wonder where the light is coming from.

Sounds - 0
You didn't include any Sounds.

Layout/Gameplay - 9
I'd imagine RVSF has the slight (very slight) advantage in this map, but the map looks pretty balanced otherwise.

Average (overall of the above) - 6.58


ac_ripsaw by Zero

Theme - 9
You sold the Theme very well. The player descends from the CLA base into the mines, there is an elevation change to actually show you are going underground. Other locations in which the cave was the same height as the main area you could see the cave entrance. There was a couple odd things about the skybox.

Textures - (8-1) 7
At first I didn't like desertcliffface. After reviewing the map, I started to really like it. It is used well in the map. The TNT block should be a bit less saturated, more dark and more grundge. It is too red. The main dirt area around the CLA base seems like it should be around the same color as desertcliffface. I think this because desertcliffface looks like sandstone, and sandstone will be the same color as the sand around the place. For the most part. The difference was big enough for me to like it. -1 point for incorrectly naming desertcliffface in the cfg.

Lighting - 8.5
Lights were well done. Two main colors, well blended. One issue with many mapmodels and the kind of Lighting you do is that some mapmodels get lit up weird. Meaning some rails on your mine cart rails were much brighter than the others. However, I realized how finicky this is. In the caves the Lighting could've been more dramatic and had more shadows.

Detail - 9.5
I had this orginally at 9 because I didn't feel right giving any map a 10 in any category. Then I gave you a 10 because I couldn't find anything wrong. Then I remembered a small heightfield bug on the ceiling in the tunnels, and so I deducted .5. You did a good job. Everything has a purpose. I love the CLA base.

Sounds - 4
Argh! I had to turn off my music to rate this map! On of the few to actually include Sounds! However it was pretty hard to find the Sounds. I actually only found one. The attempt to add Sounds seemed halfhearted. There is no classic wind sound at places I would expect. The sound I did hear was added correctly with a good fadeout distance.

Layout/Gameplay - 7
I believe RVSF is going to have an easier time defending in CTF.

Average (overall of the above) - 7.5


ac_ancient_mines by Jg99

Theme - 10
Well, can't find anything about this that makes it not underground Themed.

Textures - 7
I'm not a fan of the main ceiling texture, more about the rail tracks in the Detail section, but I dont like how that is wood. Unlike some maps which had too little texture variation, I think this map had too much texture variation.

Lighting - 5
Lighting is bland and inconsistant. There isn't much color variation for the different area types in the map. There is a couple spots which is just way too dark. Too many shadows in weird spots. Unlike other maps which have too consistant Lighting, the lights on this map are too sporadic. The light doesn't fall off naturally. It's a hard thing to do with Cube Lighting, it just isn't natural.

Detail - 5
I liked your rail tracks through the main tunnels. You also used some nice ideas throughout the map. However it was inconsistant in some areas. You had some nice heightfields. However most of it was used on the ceiling rather than the floors. I rarely looked at the ceilings and only noticed it when I went into edit mode. The big room in upper right hand side of the map overlay needs a more subtle usage of heightfielding. The broken window mapmodel of Cleaner's is more of an urban mapmodel, and seems out of place on your map. Didn't deduct from your score, but I'd like to point out how your map name includes "ancient" but yet there is gas tanks down in the mines. The area in the upper left hand side of the map overlay (outside area) has some mapmodel clipping errors. Talk to me for more of an explination about that. The wheelbarrow is also facing the wrong way

Sounds - 5
You had Sounds, but the execution was poor. Some of the same Sounds overlapped and made weird errors, Sounds started and stopped all to frequently.

Layout/Gameplay - 4
The map was almost all hallways and no rooms. The hallways didn't seem to turn much which leaves many straight ways. Also, RVSF is at an obvious disadvantage in CTF.

Average (overall of the above) - 6.00


ac_berry by blueberry

Theme - 0
Doesn't even look like a berry, let alone a cave.

Textures - 1
You used 2 non-map-default Textures. +1

Lighting - 1
You can see clearly. +1

Detail - 1
You included a mapmodel or two. +1

Sounds - 1
I hear something or another, is that a confused wasp? +1

Layout/Gameplay - 0
Wait, you planned on playing a game on this?

Average (overall of the above) - 0.67

[blueberry]

Sounds - 1
I hear something or another, is that a confused wasp? +1

heh it very well could be.

Layout/Gameplay - 0
Wait, you planned on playing a game on this?

No, that was never the plan :P

Joking aside, thank you for sharing RR.

[Nightmare]

Sexy table thingy, Halo. Good job all :D

[Aekom]

Nice one to all involved. Congrats Snoosnoo! ^^

[Frogulis]

What's a dwarfouzelle?

[ExodusS]

@Snoosnoo:
There is nothing new in your map, i really would see Undead advice, i bet he thinks like me about it.

He said it still needed work :>

I wasn't speaking about his last release man. :/

[Nightmare]

What's a dwarfouzelle?

What's a Frogulis?

[Doogum7X]

Congrats to everyone involved, was very timely. Although I was very surprised to see the grading system not weighted at all. Am I reading it wrong? Or could I potentially enter a map and almost solely work to perfect sounds and lighting and forget about a layout or gameplay and still win.

EDIT: Kind of sounded sour there, and I didn't mean for that to happen. I think the system now has proven to work, was merely curious as to the process behind the voting of the contest and if my hypothetical situation has ever been an issue. Once again, congrats to everyone

[Waffles]

basically when i came up with my scores, each category kind of blended into themselves. lighting and textures and sounds do factor into gameplay and layout. That being said, I also tried to keep them as separate and objective as possible. I think the problem with weighted scores could exist, but the judges used their best discretion as far as i can tell, so the effect is consistent scores. Even though many judges disagreed about certain aspects, in essence, the overall scores reflected a common agreement with maybe the exception of RR between ripsaw and discovery.

[Doogum7X]

Yea I get the scores level out, and it's a small sample size so this may not be worth talking about for this contest, but when I saw your vote for discovery, I couldn't help but think that if a different number of maps were entered, your 2/10 for game play could have played a greater role in the outcome. I dunno, I'm being nitpicky

[Waffles]

True, if waited it could've had a different outcome. But i do believe discovery was the best map put forward and I still would have judged as such.

[Nightmare]

I disliked Sound/Lighting having equal strength to Layout/Details
My style has always been being a player's mapper though. Gameplay first, ask questions later.

Nobody stops mid-game to listen to the sounds, or look at the lighting.
Even textures & detail get ignored by most end-users ftmp. Not saying these things aren't important. Comes down to people who think the same map & details with a slightly different layout is 'art' and people who want to have a fun, balanced game with new, fresh ideas. Thanks to the former being accepted, we have a thread where people are trying to remove half of the official maps because they took lighting over gameplay. :3
Sauer & Red Eclipse have 'some' official maps with no details at all. It's just a few different textures & a good layout. The mappers who put no true attention to balanced layouts get bailed out by the Devs making the halftime addition for clan match mode.

Meant to be constructive, sorry if it sounds like an angry rant.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Lighting is way more important than sound for sure. Unless you use your sound to break your map, then you can't really hurt your map. However, lighting is different. You have to make it dynamic enough to not be boring, but you cant have too many shadows or make it too dark that you can't see someone. In the end that isn't super hard, but great lighting is hard to come by.

[Frogulis]

What's a dwarfouzelle?

What's a Frogulis?

It's a mythical being that popped into my head while playing Runescape, about 3 years ago. It has the body of a human and the head of a frog.
All worship Frogulis.

But seriously, dwarfouzelle a nice word. Is it a thing or just a word you came up with?

[Nightmare]

Mines/caves = dwarf homes in many fantasy stories.
The rest was made-up and added on. :3

[Oracle]

So dwarves live in a cave version of douze?
Oic.

[Nightmare]

Layout owns douze, just saying. Actually having an option to not spawn with ten guns pointed at your head. \:D
Fail map though, CLA is so biased. xD