(i want a full size banner :< )
For people who don't want to read more:
Download: http://www.trustinbytes.de/ut/20AC/DM-2 ... lwart2.zip
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What a strange long journey....
Hi Folks,
after nearly one year, i'm happy to announce and present the Release of my Map DM-20AC-Stalwart][ as a bonus map for the current 20AC Mapping Contest. This map was planned for the AMC Mapping contest last year but sadly it didn't make into it. Due to the long time i want to make a small recap about the progress and why it took so much time:
All has been started with an unfinished map project named DM-Stalwart][. This map was build by myself in year 2001 and was sleeping on my hard drive for a long time. At that time, i had a basic understanding in mapping and wanted to build a playable map which doesn't look total garbage. I began building the map from scratch kept the basic floorplan more or less the same:
I tried giving the Center of the Map more Room to play and more escape possibilities. The Map should reflect the original stalwart map as much as possible so i kept the texturing and blocky design. To spice the map up i made some things like the window to look at DM-Deck16][:
The window had no further purpose for the gameplay and the part of Deck16][ wasn't accessible. It was just for fun and it took nearly 3 hours to switch between the maps back and forth to recreate this part in my map with all original item placements, modeling and texture alignments. Sadly that no one really saw this.
Another part of the map was a water filled room with a cracked ceiling:
If you think this was a good idea then i must disappoint you. I simply had zero clue how to make curved brushes to build the rolling shutter doors the original maps have. It was simply a workaround not to be totally uncreative.
For the AMC Contest, i just wanted to go the cheap route and fix some of the many things the map was lacking (mainly BSP fails, inefficient brush uses, pathing etc.). Nothing more nothing less. It turned out that there is so much to do that it's like basically a new map. 18 years later, my view for visual design changed and i felt my map was lacking in this part. I know i'm not on the level of Revelation, Feralidragon or Swanky but i wanted to make this map more modern and a visual improvement to the stock one. This was the reason why it took a long time. I wasn't happy with some rooms and how bots acted in the map. I think every mapper somehow comes to a point where he must take a break and needs some time to think about the next steps. After the AMC contest running out i lost the interest in finishing the map for some time. I read the comments about the progress over the year and was surprised about the interest in this map which gave me enough motivation to finish it already.
I don't put any further Screenshots in here, but you can see the progress in the WIP Thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12992
At this point i want to thank everyone who was interested in this map. Without that, i doubt that i had getting the map done. Thanks to sektor2111 for the tipps about bot pathing and all people who tested the beta maps for the feedback. I kept this in mind and made some last changes.
I hope the map is fun and gives some good fights.
Tyr
