Where I'm Coming From
I was originally a Wolfenstein player until I got MohAA. I liked Wolf, but the wonderful variety of environment styles in MohAA really impressed me. (If you've ever looked at Wolf's textures they are uniformly dark no matter what the enviroment). I mostly just play TDM for MohAA online. I used to play objective, but with the introduction of Wolf: Enemy Territory, I don't think any other Multiplayer game holds a candle to the team work required for that game and the unique objectives you can accomplish. I was quite happy to divide my time between the two.
When COD came out, it had it's moments. But I never really bothered to play it online. I always stuck with MohAA. I've only made one map (or half a map really) for MohAA. It was a good learning experience. Everyone here was (and IS still) a big help teaching me how to do this. Now my second map is taking a lot longer because I keep rebuilding and re-texturing things over and over to improve them. But a part of me wonders if I am wasting my time.
Enter COD UO
I picked up COD UO a few months ago and I'm finding it hard to go back to MohAA. It's not because of the gameplay. I do like the variety of gametypes available. And the vehicles are a nice improvement, but I think Battlefield 1942 is a better game for that.
What impresses me about the game is how much better everything looks. Obviously they have a lot of addtional shader support that can't be adapted to MohAA. But I've been going through the pak files. All the textures for COD UO are compressed DDS files with built in Mip Maps and almost all of them are 512 x 512 resolution or higher. Obviously that pushes older systems more than they can handle, but I think that is the most logical decision if you want your game and your levels to be competitive and enjoyable in future markets where Doom3 and Half-life 2 engine mods and games are going to dominate. (It should be noted that I have both of those games but rarely play them online because I think their Multiplayer options stink)
Anyway. After playing so much CODUO, I find it nearly impossible to go back to MohAA. I am really sick and tired of seeing maps, stock or otherwise, with those same old (to the point of ugly) textures... And with my recent upgrade, I can run everything at Max settings and it still doesn't impress me.
Enter "THE NAIL"
A few days ago, our server admin posted screenshots of a COD UO version of MohAA's "The Bridge". There may be others, but this one is astonishing in how beautiful it looks. It is also faithful to the original map without a bunch of custom addons. It's not a conversion. It was built from scratch. I'll find out who made it later.
If the COD UO guys keep replicating the MohAA maps with such accuracty and competency, there really won't be a need for MohAA anymore.
Another thing about COD that I LOVE is the ability to download the maps directly from the server. Our clan doens't put custom maps on our MohAAserver (not even my own) because too many people get kicked when a custom is in the rotation and they don't bother to download it and come back. Unfortunately, the only way around this is to make the maps so damn good that noone will mind the hassle.
Enter "THE HAMMER"
While making my first map, I spent months working out problems with low FPS - trying to optimize my map so people with low-end systems could play it. This was time well spent. Half of the problem was caused by all the static models I used (I probably used most of them). The other half of the problem was all the custom textures I used... and how many of them were drawing on screen at once. In the end, I was able to get a workable vis that kept my frame rate in the 50-90 fps range on a mid level computer. But everyone in my clan that played it could adjust their settings in a way that allowed them acceptable FPS even on low-end systems.
But with today's hardware, I think part of the problem is that we are holding ourselves back too much. Obviously, I think everyone should still be diligent in maximizing their vis and framerate. But I think that relying on MohAA to provide our textures, or using custom textures that are small to keep your pk3 file size down is going to put an end to the game's popularity.
The latest reviews by MJ support this. I have only looked at the screens but 2 of those maps look a lot alike. In fact, since we are all too familiar with the textures in MohAA. How can anyone look at a custom map and think we have NOT seen it before? Wolf: ET is even worse in this regard since few maps pull from any sources other than the ET pk3 files which are VERY limited in textures.
Breaking the Mold
I haven't played any custom maps online in a very long time. So I've finally started taking the time to check out some of the latest works to help me improve my own.
I think that it has been universally agreed that Flying Sheep's "Opera" is one of the best maps out there. I looked at it when it was first released about a year ago. It looked fantastic, but the FPS was a little low for my system. Today I think he was on the right track. He made a beautiful map that unfortunately, many people couldn't play. But I bet when I load it up on my current system, my FPS will hit the roof.
Panterra's Rockbound is fantastic for other reasons. Gameplay is obvious. And while he used primarily stock textures, he uses his custom one's to replace otherwise inferior versions. His theme (As MJ says) is dead on. His terrain has lots of variety and his structure is highly detailed. (I'm still trying to get this on our server)
Tom's Train to Hell is probably the most unique Idea I've seen in Mohaa. His textures are SOOOO stock, but the implementation is fantastic. I just wish the old red and blue wallpapered interior textures would be lost forever. I would love to see this map with COD UO or custom textures.
And Tom's Armageddon map (forgot the name) goes above and beyond with all the Jedi Knight textures. That's a really unique experience that wouldn't necessarily appeal to everyone, and the file size is quite large (over 20 mb). But think of how ugly that map would have been with stock Mohaa Textures. I thought this was really cool.
I know there are more, but Its hard to find servers to play customs on. I detest downloading maps from gamespy. It is a lot easier to download from the server host's website if they offer them.
Put up or Shut up
So, I've been rambling quite a bit right now. If you've managed to make it this far, you have more patience than me. I'm sure a lot of people think "Jeez, he is pretty opinionated for someone who has only made half a map". I guess seeing that new "Bridge" map hit a nerve. COD UO uses virtually the same engine MohAA uses. With MohAA now 3 (or is it 4) years old, We should not let the mapping standards of 2002 dictate how we build our maps today.
About 6 months ago, I began a map that is intended for Wolf: ET. That's what my friends and I play at lunch at work on our Linux machines. Learning how to map for ET opened up a whole new can of worms for me. So I decided to build the structures in MohAA radient while I learn the in's and out's of ET's GTK Radient. I've been studying other peoples maps (tutorial or otherwise) for inspiration and ideas that I can incorporate with my own. I'm learning more about scripting and especially Terrain Generation since I can't use LOD terrain in ET. However, I liked the map design so much that I wanted to release a version for MohAA as well.
About 3 months ago, I had about 75% of the map construction complete, but I was not particularly happy with the problems involved with working at angles not on the grid. So I begain re-orienting my map 45 degrees one bulding at a time. The end result is that I rebuilt each one from scratch after rotating it in order to get the best structure possible.
About 2 months ago, I got COD UO and was blown away by the textures. I also realized how much texture work was going to be involved when porting my map over to Wolf: ET. Because of this, I completely scrapped all my textures - stock and custom - and began redoing them from scratch using the best textures MohAA (ie 512 resolution) and COD UO have to offer. Many of them I am using as is. Others I am using as a foundation for custom textures for my map --- for that theme MJ loves so much.
I downloaded Nvidia's texture tools so that I can read and write my own DDS format textures. In order to faciltate the multi-platform level, I am not accessing ANY textures in the MohAA library except for Caulk, NoDraw, etc. That way I am not dependent on either game's pak files to texture my map. Obviously, to get the best results, you will need to have texture compression turned on. I DO have low quality Jpeg versions of the DDS textures, but at 512 resolution, they tend to be larger than a DDS file. So I may just replace them with simple color textures for people who absolutely can't run texture compression. (I'll have to test this out)
Unfortunately, my texture revision has required the 3rd reconstruction of my entire map to get it right. So for now, I guess I'm at 25% completion.
Where I'm Heading
It's pretty sad that my own clan will probably never host my new map on their server. I'm surprised they still have a MohAA server because it is always empty. I KNOW the ET version will get played by my friends and I at work. And I am hoping that all my texture improvements will make a big difference in that platform as well. Because of this, I am beginning to feel that I've come into the MohAA map making community a little too late. There is nothing worse than seeing months of hard work go to waste. So this will probably be the last map I make for MohAA -- (and the ONLY one for ET)
But you guys have been an amazing help to me for more than a year as I struggle to pick up the basics. Because of this, even though the primary platform for the level is ET, I fully intend to finish the MohAA map first. Not for my clanmates, not for our server, but for you guys in the mapping community.
At the very least, I expect some great Deathmatch fun in Mohaa. Hopefully, I'll even have Mefy's Freeze tag/CTF mods implemented as well. But as I consider more and more the objectives I want to make for the ET version, I'm convinced more than ever that this map MUST be Objective in MohAA as well --- If I can pull that off.
Will it work?
The reality is, that I don't know. I want to make a map that is so inviting, that you will get your head blown off because you were too busy "admiring the view". But the gameplay has got to be rock solid if I'm going to implement an Objective mode. I'm not sure yet if my design is up to that challenge. I'm not even sure yet how it will affect FPS. Probably some people will not be able to play it. But hopefully, if you can play COD UO you will be able to play my map in MohAA.
I have two major structures that still need the texture and modeling revisions. I will probably have that done by this weekend or next weekend at the latest. At that time, I'll post some screens as a W. I. P. so you guys can point your middle fingers at me and say "You Suck, Diego". I'll probably put some some of the older screens as well so you can see how much has changed in the last two months.
But even if I DO suck, and this map fails miserably, I hope to have stirred the pot a little around here. And perhaps another Mapping Jedi will follow me to the Dark Side one day.
Darth Diego
CoD:UO perhaps... or CoD 2