Login

~~Pi_Halo~~ · 19 Mar 14, 01:28PM

This time I interviewed an official mapper and a contest winner. Exoduss has been mapping for awhile now and has two official maps, ac_cavern and ac_swamp as well as a contest win for ac_palenque. Lets jump right in.

*Note, the set up of questions is slightly different this week because this interview was conducted via forum PM's instead of IRC like my other 2.

Quote:1. Alright, lets jump right in. I will start off with a simple question. Just who are you in this community and how are you doing today?

I am ExodusS, the justice fighter, I am participating at each struggles that aim for a better and more enjoyable AssaultCube. On a more serious way, I am an old competitive player who dropped matches to focus on the public scene, I used to create maps and today, two of them are officials.
I am fine even if I just wake up (9am) from yesterday's first party of the holidays.

2. Do you feel there is an obvious difference between competitive and pub style maps? Why?

There is obviously a huge difference in overall between competitive and pub style maps because first of all, the number of player is different, a public map should handle 10+ players (mostly 12-14) and enough pickups, space, paths to offer a good and fast gameplay in contrary to the competitive map that must have a layout that offers to the teams enough possible elaborated strategies for an intense game. However, there are a few maps that offer both, ac_shine is a perfect example, it is probably one of the most played map in competition and in public games because of it's interesting gameplay.

3. How do you feel about arena like maps, such as ac_douze?

I like those maps even if I think most of them could have some graphic refreshes such as adding more details or more visible elements that are not affecting the gameplay at all or just make the theme fitting with AssaultCube general environment. (for maps like ac_douze, ac_metl3, ...) Plus, most of the time, those maps are played in the wrong way, by this I mean ac_douze has it's place in the official package, but players should not be able to vote it in a 10+ slot server.

4. What got you into mapping?

When I was playing on Hanze servers, I saw some Hanze members speaking about a future map idea, from this, I knew it was possible for me to create my own map and to share it, I first started by modifying Ezjemvill and adding new stairs, then I learned how to change the texturing, too late I was addicted.

5. Where do you draw ideas from?

It's hard to know where my ideas are from, I remember when I was translating Mr.Floppy's map design guide, a lot of it's points were based on where we find new themes, ideas for maps and what is influencing the mapper, from the movies we are watching, from the other video games, from our town architectures or from towns we are traveling. I'd say my ideas are an average of all this, but most of them are from other video games I am playing, all the time when I find something nice or geniously made, I try to reproduce it in my head, to make it fit with the limited cube engine, and when there is a way to reproduce something good, well it's time to complete a map or to create something new, something the community never saw yet.

6. To date, what do you feel has been your greatest mapping milestone? Why?

The day I won the mapping contest is for me the moment I reached my maximum level of mapping, ac_palenque was the result of a long work (over 180 hours of mapping, testing and inspecting each cubes) and winning the contest meant a lot for me, it was such an accomplishment.

7. How do you feel about custom media maps?

There are two type of custom media maps, on a side there are very good maps with custom contents that could have been official because they are similar to AC's style (new trees, doors, windows and most of recent Cleaner's stuff), those maps are mostly interesting to watch and play and the game looks more recent, you see a real difference between older maps from Cube or AssaultCube starts. And on the other side, we sometimes cross servers with custom media full of cars and helicopters and many mapmodels that makes you remember the engine is really old and how bad a map can be if we don't use mapmodels correctly.
Custom medias are good accordingly to how we use it.

8. Who are your favorite mappers, and why them?

Jiba, because his mapping style is unique, it's based on a eye-flooding strategy, if you check all of his maps, there are so many details, windows (levels of windows), plus everything he made is kinda nice to see and original. It was my favourite mapper when I started to create more elaborated maps with DaylixX and Spako, and a few sharped eyes noticed that, near the CLA base of ac_sylang, there is something quiet similar to ac_venganza's RVSF base, it is almost a copy/paste, but it only helped us to get the desert theme well, it was supposed to be removed, but we decided to keep it even if it doesn't fit very well with ac_sylang's layout.
Mr.Floppy, because of the map design guide and all of the underrated masterpieces he created such as ac_bunker. The work he did by testing, rating and describing his opinions on all akimbo new maps is also incredible.
Z3R0, because he improved so much his mapping skills and faster than anyone else, maps like ac_pompeii deserve a lot more than being not played and not winning a mapping contest.
Sniper, because of all his maps and all the fresh ideas he brought to the mapping scene, the use of Nieb texture is perfect in all of his most recent maps.
Undead because without his work, ac_swamp and ac_cavern would not be official at all, his vision of the future map's gameplay is really strong and he is able to imagine a good layout to offer the best AssaultCube experience for the competitive and the public scene. Even if those maps don't seem to be played that much, I am sure they are enjoyed by a lot of people considering the poll's result. Plus, Undead made some high-quality maps in the past too.
Teammate_Haze for ac_magic-school...
There are a lot of mappers I did not mention here, and sorry for that.

9. What about your favorite official maps? Why those?

ac_avenue is an incredible map, it's full of details and the layout is very interesting, the middle is open so it's perfect for long range weapons, on side of this, there are galleries that offers a lot of close range fights for shotguns and smg's. The realization is a piece of art, all along there are stages that are crossing with other stages (the bridge is good example), because this is not affecting the design, this map is unique.
ac_shine is one of my favourite because as I said earlier, it fits with the competitive and the public scene, I don't know if the mapper was aware of how many times his map was going to be played and if he was aware of the "perfect" gameplay he was creating, but this map offers something special.

10. You have been apart of a few coop made maps, do you feel like these have helped you out in any way? Why?

Most of my huge finished projects were coop maps, I started with DaylixX and Spako, we were finding new tricks and sharing it to each others so it helped us a lot and made us improving our mapping skills faster. Latter, I made two maps with Undead and he helped me with the layout of the maps, it obviously helped me a lot.

11. Do you feel like creative maps have gotten better or worse over time?

I think actually it's worse than before, I am not directly accusing the mapping restrictions as responsive of this but if I take myself as example, I know I'd stop mapping if I can't share my maps, and my first maps would not fit in the restrictions even if they are like 10 times less important. Of course, it's not everyone's case, but restrictions make it harder for new mappers especially.
There is also a problem with the auto-packager trough the new AC version, because the engine was limited, it was forcing mappers to always find new tricks and to be as creative as possible because adding unofficial contents was forcing players to go on Akimbo to download it, it also meant your map was not going to be popular or played a lot. Mappers needed to compensate the lack of contents and engine limits with their creativity, now they just have to find a 4x8 platform on akimbo instead of placing a classic one and putting half of it in a wall.

12. What has been your favorite mapping moment to date? Why?

When I was mapping with DaylixX and Spako and especially while we were creating ac_sylang and ac_arab-money, we were constantly learning and discovering small new stuff (like how to change the skymap or to add an official mapmodel by editing the .cfg) and it was very exiting.

13. If you could pick one more of your maps to add to the official package, what would it be, and why?

I'd pick ac_palenque because I think it would bring another style of map to the official package, more oriented on the design than on the gameplay to impress the player on what the engine can handle. I also think it would lead to a new mapping category like in Sauerbraten.

14. Last few questions, you planning on any releases soon? If so, care to drop some hints as to what?

I was planning to create ac_tiebreak, I also created a thread on AC forums especially for this map project, but because of a huge lack of time and because I almost dropped AssaultCube, I decided to drop it.
I also had even more old unfinished map projects, I don't remember exactly why I stopped it, but some of them are quiet good starts.
Spoiler (Click to View)

15. In closing, is that anything else you would like to add? How was this interview for you?

This interview was kinda complete, thanks a lot for choosing me and I was happy to answer to all of these questions but more especially to the #5 because this is probably my mapping "secret" and I never had the opportunity to speak about it until today. Sorry for my English, I did what I can, feel free to fix it. ;)

Thanks go to Exoduss for another solid interview. As I have been doing, I will allow feedback and do encourage to do so. I will also post a small part of the next interview to allow guesses. This man is also an official mapper. He and I have worked together in the past as well. This is a portion of his interview, "Mapping for AssaultCube is frustrating. You start off thinking you're doing something awesome that will be enjoyed by many then you're disappointed when reality strikes after the release. I started my mapping "career" making crappy maps like most other players. After making my first few poor quality maps I started wondering how I can improve. I started dissecting other quality maps to see how things are really done. I teamed up with other players who also wanted to become better mappers and I believe we achieved that." Post below your guesses and I hope you guys and ladies enjoyed another interview.

Waffles · 19 Mar 14, 03:57PM

Bukz

YesWeCamp · 20 Mar 14, 12:41PM

"Plus, most of the time, those maps are played in the wrong way, by this I mean ac_douze has it's place in the official package, but players should not be able to vote it in a 10+ slot server."
Well... Depends what you think is the good way. I think the way the map is played is the way people want to play it. It counts for all maps. I think CTF douze is a way people want to play it. I would say it adds diversity to the gameplay. Even if when you grow up in AC you understand that it's not really the way the maker meant the map to be played. To interfere with the way people want to play a map is cutting the diversity, but helping the quality. I think any banning of the sort you want cuts the creativity in gameplay.

ExodusS · 20 Mar 14, 04:34PM

(20 Mar 14, 12:41PM)YesWeCamp Wrote: Well... Depends what you think is the good way. I think the way the map is played is the way people want to play it. It counts for all maps. I think CTF douze is a way people want to play it. I would say it adds diversity to the gameplay. Even if when you grow up in AC you understand that it's not really the way the maker meant the map to be played. To interfere with the way people want to play a map is cutting the diversity, but helping the quality. I think any banning of the sort you want cuts the creativity in gameplay.

Devs already deleted the two flags on ac_douze for gameplay issues, they also limited the maxclient to avoid things like this, I was speaking about a real issue AssaultCube has, because this type of gameplay was not the way AssaultCube meant to be played.

When I said that, it was not from the mapper position, it was from the game's objective position, AC is not supposed to be an uber wtf arcade game, at least, official maps should stay on AC roots. I think I was not clear enough at this question.

I have nothing against GEMA maps, but as long as it doesn't fit with AC's gameplay, you will never see an official GEMA map (but the official mode could come out soon lol).

1Cap · 20 Mar 14, 08:42PM

Thanks for the interviews . Actually being an opportunity to better understand the respondents .
Then the devs ...
Removed the flags of ac_douze map , removed the sound of the game for those who have Windows (many players ... ! ) Removed 90 % of the forum members who think in a different way , removed 80 % of the players of the game , removed the competitive clans scene , among other things .
You really believe that the game is the way it was planned to be ? I think yes , but omg . My backyard, my rules ... The game is not being developed together with players . A problem? Of course not . But the consequences are the empty servers . It's emblematic see only 5 % of servers with players .
The creator of the map that talk about the gameplay for a non- generic way , will earn my respect . A map must have a gameplay purpose, of course. But even so, the players always will decide how they will use your map. It is ridiculous to restrict the creativity and fun of the players. Do not fight againt it. You will always lose .
But i understand your mapper position.

ExodusS · (This post was last modified: 20 Mar 14, 09:14PM by ExodusS.)

Please 1Cap, don't force me to add you in my ignore list, I used to see smarter posts from you...
I don't think AC lost 90% of the forum member, and 80% of it's player... neither, the competitive clan scene was killing himself since the start of the 1.1 and the 1.2 release has nothing to deal with the "removal of the competitive scene". Or maybe it just cleaned all the noobs who were hacking, using exploits or AR's in matches, I already feel the haters comming.

You must understand that, when you download AssaultCube you are supposed to play a multiplayer, first-person shooter game taking place in realistic environments, the point is not to give a good first impression to new players, it's all about keeping the game on it's roots, and this is something you did not undertand yet. The creativeness belong in first to the mapper because a good mapper will not randomly put each mapmodels and pickups and boxes and walls and textures and lights and spawns and flags in his maps, everything has a purpose and this purpose is here to give to the player the best playing experience.

You have absolutelly no idea how hard it is to make a graphically decent map fitting with a very good layout and gameplay, Undead will be able to give you more informations about it.

And what you said about Windows users and the sound bug ... bullshit, but it's useless to say that, you already know it was stupid from your part.

1Cap · 20 Mar 14, 10:48PM

http://forum.cubers.net/thread-7551-post...#pid148517
Nice point of view.

--The eternal battle of the old versus new.
And I know who decides each change are the devs.
But I can disagree with that even knowing the reasons.
It is my opinion and yes it deserves respect. If you do not want criticism should not have given the interview;)
Problems in the sound (yes, that's a fact).
Less players (yes, that is a fact).
Decrease in the number of participants in the forum (yes, that is a fact).
No flags in ac_douze = error (yes, that is a fact).
...
You have absolutelly no idea, it is very difficult they find one map with a different gameplay in AC. There are few possibility and few variations.
Understand clearly: the best playing experience depends on the opinion of the players, not the opinion of those who Constructs the map.
But i understand your position mapper.
* plus - it's useless to say this to you but ... there are many players (idiots) have problems with sound ...

Marti · 20 Mar 14, 11:32PM

1cap y u take over dis thread

Came across some nice maps to dl since i never heard of them :)

ExodusS · 20 Mar 14, 11:33PM

In all your post, you bring back always and always the "old vs new" issue, your opinion does NOT deserve respect when you bring again and again the same non-ending troubles you are creating. There is actually a manual fix for the sound bug by doing something with an opengl file in your computer, and you know it, but you bring back this always, on a mapping interview thread.

You are splitting mappers and players in two different paths, ignoring the fact I (and a lot of mappers) was also a public and competitive player when I created most of my maps like if I was completelly disabled to know what is good or bad for people who play on my maps, you have no idea of the amount of work I deleted while the mapping process because I though it was not good or smouth enough to be released. You are ignoring so many facts about the mapping process than all your argument are counter-able with an extreme ease.

I suggest you to check ac_swamp's release thread here.
Do you really think Undead and I randomly decided to say at it's release, ac_swamp was only good for some modes and bad for other modes? We made some testing matches before, of course we did not have the opportunity to make a stress-test but we were aware of how small the map was after the test, it gave us some solid opinions and facts about how non-interesting CTF games it was going to offer if it was for a huge public game, it's a recommendation, we did not do it to show we are older and to force players to play like we want, but no I guess you will complain again.

I though I was a complain machine on this forum, but you are a passive-agressive complain master compared to me.

+f0r3v3r+ · (This post was last modified: 21 Mar 14, 06:29AM by +f0r3v3r+.)

Nice interview guys....
Thanx for doing these it is always very insightful....
I don't know who it might be, but I will look forward to the next one...
ExodusS - Thank you for the maps, man.... gg

~~Undead~~ · 21 Mar 14, 07:06AM

(20 Mar 14, 11:33PM)ExodusS Wrote: I suggest you to check ac_swamp's release thread here.
Do you really think Undead and I randomly decided to say at it's release, ac_swamp was only good for some modes and bad for other modes? We made some testing matches before, of course we did not have the opportunity to make a stress-test but we were aware of how small the map was after the test, it gave us some solid opinions and facts about how non-interesting CTF games it was going to offer if it was for a huge public game, it's a recommendation, we did not do it to show we are older and to force players to play like we want, but no I guess you will complain again.

you're kind of right. we tested the map and concluded that the map was only decent in certain modes. however, we completely misinterpreted how biased the map is against CLA. maybe that is why people like it lol.

YesWeCamp · 21 Mar 14, 12:51PM

Exoduss, how do you actually make maps? I mean: do you start with a lay-out, a room, a drawing?

ExodusS · (This post was last modified: 21 Mar 14, 07:48PM by ExodusS.)

(21 Mar 14, 12:51PM)YesWeCamp Wrote: Exoduss, how do you actually make maps? I mean: do you start with a lay-out, a room, a drawing?

I already started to answer to this question at the end of the 5th question in the interview.

Quote:I'd say my ideas are an average of all this, but most of them are from other video games I am playing, all the time when I find something nice or geniously made, I try to reproduce it in my head, to make it fit with the limited cube engine, and when there is a way to reproduce something good, well it's time to complete a map or to create something new, something the community never saw yet.

To complete it, most of my maps started from an idea I saw somewhere in another video game or a movie or IRL or something that will give me a challenge if I want to reproduce it on the AC limited engine.

I will take the exemple of ac_swamp wich is, I think perfect, then I will take another exemple to show how random a starting map can be for a mapper.

When I started ac_swamp, it was not supposed to be a map, I just had the idea to make a special door like this one with a platform, so I tried it on a "newmap 6" and it was fine, I also wanted to cross it with another idea, this idea was to use two similar textures (the grey/green combo) and the result was really good, so I tested some variations with this garage door and it was also fine. I was here with an original map theme to exploit so I finished the room with 3 doors (the garage was supposed to be closed, Undead decided after to open it and make a room in it, then a team base and spawn point). I wanted 3 doors because I could adapt almost any map gameplay on it. Here is a good exemple of a starting map, IMO, it's all about the first room and the theme, the gameplay is secondary but must always be kept in mind.
No plan, no drawing, no layout.

The start of ac_cavern is completelly different, IIRC we started it together in coop with Undead but the coop's objective was not to start a new map at all. I don't remember excactly how but we started to make a rock/cavern effect and so we started by a corner wall, then another corner and we came out with a good cavern effect. After like 20 light tests to find the perfect colour, radius etc, we decided to keep one. Because we though the result was amazing, we decided to give a chance to this theme and we completed a few more rooms around the first one. At this point, Undead already had an idea of the layout and traced it with "F" walls (solid walls) too keep an eye of the gameplay and the path in each rooms.
EDIT: And I just remember I took this screenshot, it gives you a perfect exemple of the mapping process!

Spoiler

I hope it answered to your question.

1Cap · 22 Mar 14, 12:07AM

How do you think about the gameplay?
What is the influence that each weapon and each room have in the creation of the map? Boxes, fences, etc.
Do you think in the access time to the flag in every way in the map? The distance to reach the flag. Ways to intercept. Using AR weapon. Could you give some examples of this in your map?
I see many maps with 3 ways paths and some with 2, you think this is the best standard?
ac_swamp 3 paths - ac_cavern 3 paths
ac_depot 2 paths

From my point of view a simple change of the strength of the AR kick back already changes the gameplay of the map. See ac_desert3. What do you think?

~~Undead~~ · 22 Mar 14, 10:09AM

sorry to answer for exodus, but i had to input my expertise.

whenever i'm making a map, i measure the exact mid point between paths for balance purposes. using this mid point, you can distribute pickups evenly so that each side has an even change of securing a fair proportion of pickups. this is why you largely see the akimbo within the area of the direct center of the map on any decent map. and yes, i also plan out flag interception paths so that it is actually possible to catch up to people who steal the flag by taking shortcuts. on one of my antiquated maps, ac_dune, this was one of the foremost problems with its layout. i draw heavily on my competitive experience to do all of these things, which is why i firmly believe a decent grounding in competitive AC, or at least the willingness to do some analysis into it, is very necessary to create balanced maps. its also the reason why i don't respect the authority of certain dev's opinions.

regarding the amount of paths on a map, there is once again, no particular superior. maps more often than not never follow a set amount of path, but usually have a set amount of base entrances/exits. for example, desert3 essentially has 2 entrances into each base, but plays out exactly like a 3vs3 map due to the sudden path complexity once you leave the bases. depot plays out horribly because it maintains 2 paths through the entire map. as does iceroad and keller.

the reworked iceroad, however, was reworked specifically because of this problem. it has 3 entrances, but this was to push people through the map as fast as possible to offset the large size of the map. the map itself has a number of paths that are created and disappear as you run through the map. 1 path, the topside bridge path, is the primary and defined path on the map, while the bottomside path weaves in and out. the gameplay works incredibly well, and despite being a very unorthodox layout, was probably more specifically planned than any other map i've made. its a true shame it didn't make it into 1.2

anyway, the gist of this is, when you're mapping, just try to create something that you would have fun playing on. don't try to emulate official maps (I see this far too often, probably because the devs encourage it), and you'll eventually come to understand how paths fit into a map.
the most important thing to realise is that there is absolutely no set formula to creating a map. r4zor made ac_sunset by just connecting rooms together randomly, and somehow that created a decent map. as with any profession, the best advice to get better is to just do it.

ExodusS · (This post was last modified: 22 Mar 14, 11:48AM by ExodusS.)

To complete it, when we created ac_cavern, we could clearly see the gameplay was countering the AR kick-back exploit, this map is a galery with corners and pilars and things that are going to stuck you in all rooms.

About the ways to intercept, the gameplay of ac_cavern and ac_swamp is similar to ac_shine's principe but at each sides, when you steal the enemy flag, you have the choice to go to the middle and be exposed to all enemies, you also can go to the left, it's risky at the start but once you are out of view, nothing can stop you to score the flag, and then you can go to the right, you are out of view faster and it's safer at start, but it's risky at the very end, because enemies will have the opportunity to intercept you or to see/kill you just before you score the flag.

ac_desert3 gameplay is different than all maps, there are two bases on each sides and then, there is a wide open world that connects those two bases, it requiers to be fast and so, to use the AR or to have a total domination on the opposite team, wich is impossible in high level matches.

About ac_depot, the gameplay is almost fine but there is something really bad about the layout. It is basically a " 8 " gameplay, but it looks like this: " °0 " and of course, the base at the left is disadvantaged because their opponents can trick them as they want, the disadvantaged team must kill their opponents like 3 times in a row just to reach the flag.