All too common, the light level in the room is enough to illuminate the floor and lower walls but the ceiling is far too dark, all the effort you put into detailing it is going to waste!

Just edit the $reflectivity value in the .vmt for your floor material. Most materials wont have this by default but you can add it to the .vmt after extracting it using GCFscape. Once you’ve put it in the same folder it was in in the .gcf and renamed it something sensible you can start playing with the values.

$reflectivity works like a vector; followed by “[R G B]” where R, G and B are the tint values between 0 and 1. For example: the line “$reflectivity” “[0.75 0.75 0.75]” would reflect back 75% of the light that hits it. Each vtf will have a default reflectivity built into it, I haven’t the know-how to work it out exactly but I’d assume it averages the RGB values of the entire texture and divides by 255 to get a value between 0 and 1. The wood floor above would have [.38 .33 .30] if my my assumption is correct.

The default reflectivity compared to 0.5, 0.75 and 1 where 100% of incident light is reflected back.(animated gif, click to view)

As you can see, using values of 0.5, 0.75 and 1 all have the same floor brightness but considerably brighter  ceilings than the default. This per-texture increase in bounce lighting is incredibly useful, it’s easy to implement and you only need to include a single .vmt per texture changed, only a few kB. You can also use this to put a different tint into your environments, since you can set each colour value independently of the others. To demonstrate I’ve used values of [.25 .25 .75] to add an extreme blue tint on the reflected light. Be aware though that this only effects reflected light so the floor texture itself is not tinted blue.

With white lights you can still tint the environment with reflectivity, I hope you don't use anything this extreme though, yuck.

Thanks to Acegikmo for experimenting with this back in the summer.

The images after the jump are examples of sun spread angles 0, 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20 degrees. 3 degrees is the limit of what you want for a sunny day or a full moon (which is usually only a 60th of a degree smaller than the sun in the sky). 0 degrees looks blotchy on the lightmap scale 16 because of the chainlink, just smoothing that by 1 degree gets rid of that. If a cloud covers up the sun then the light source gets smeared out to nearly the size of the cloud, for such a skybox a larger value like 10 would be more accurate and for an overcast day 20 degrees is almost not enough.

Left hand side is using a lightmap scale of 16 and right hand side is on 1.

To the Team Fortress 2 mapping community, Turbine has become an icon of hatred. Everything mappers don’t like about Valve’s selection of maps, summarized in one single BSP file. It’s “too simple”. It isn’t “well-detailed”. The complaints against it are numerous. This is unfortunate, because Turbine is a map that should be carefully looked at and analyzed. It’s obviously a successful map, Valve picked it up because of its popularity. And what makes it a popular map? That is what I’d like to dive into.

Turbine is Simple

The simplicity of the map is one of the most frequently voiced complains against it (by mappers), but it’s also the reason players love it. It’s easy to learn, easy to understand, and easy to play, which great for a casual player not looking to explore the strategic depth of a map like Badlands, and is it just as good for a skilled player looking to do some fragging without the tedious work that is winning a more complex map.

Turbine has the Right Elements

Despite its simple layout, the map has everything necessary for good TF2 gameplay. I wrote about what elements make a layout good in What Your Map is Missing, so I’m going to look at the same points using Turbine.

• Height variation: the containers and battlements at mid, the raised platform in the one hallway and stairs in the other, the tiered flag room
• Scout routes: the containers and battlements at mid, and the raised platform in the one hallway offer different options for scout (and other class) movement
• Skill jumps: again, the containers at mid can be reached by most classes offering a high-ground alternative to those who use it
• Reasonable pickup placement: small health and ammo in the flag room, larger in the hallways and in the alcoves tucked away from the fighting at mid

You’ll notice that the same layout features make up most of the gameplay elements. The map is simple, but everything is there, just condensed. Furthermore, Turbine offers other basic elements such as alternate routes.

Turbine is not 2Fort

The map avoids one of the well-recognized problems with CTF in the mapping community: the 2Fort effect. With the flag placed in such a way that requires going past the enemy spawn to retrieve it, camping becomes intolerable and the game slowly degrades to a death match in the area between the bases. Turbine, however, has a left hallway which leads to the intelligence, while the right hallway leads to the spawn. In addition, it allows for the positive element of 2fort, which is direct access from spawn to the battlements or mid. So again, Turbine has the right elements for a good map, and a well designed layout for capture the flag.

It’s Detailed (Just) Enough

While simplistic in detailing, Turbine is actually a well-detailed map. It achieves everything it needs to:

• It uses team colors to differentiate each side of the map
• The center of the map is “plain” while inside of the bases there is spytech
• While nothing special, Turbine is not an ugly eyesore

The reserved amount of detailing can even be considered a good thing. With a neutral color palette and a lack of visual clutter, the map lets you focus on what is important: other players.

Am I saying that every map should follow in the footsteps of Turbine? Not at all. But is Turbine the terrible piece of disastrous mapping failure that people make it out to be? Not at all.

Straight after spawning I take a look around and instantly see two awesome things: an asymmetrical roof with some awesome support work going on, and a light switch that visibly leads directly to its light. I apologise if its hard to see on your screen, there is a strong fog in viaduct and not much light up there.

There is always the temptation to just clip your rooftops to a symmetrical angle instead of taking the more creative route of  having one side shallow and one side steep. I stayed in the Alps last summer and I was surprised by the number of buildings which had this kind of roof. It also lends itself well to the neat supports here, don’t forget to consider adding the metal plates on the joins. The light that’s casting a nice shadow on the ceiling is just a 90 brightness point light entity and a little cylinder of blocklight just above it.

This shot shows boarded up windows, often windows are just sunk slightly into a brush textured with wood\wood_beam03 and left as just that but since the alpine theme came along there are 6 patch models, each with three skins. They’re great for boarding up windows and doors, I’m pretty sure the _small variants of the patches were sized specifically to board up the sawmill_window’s seen on the right hand side here. The image below shows another boarded up window that uses wood\wood_wall001 instead of wood_beam03. What I’m trying to say here is try using other methods to board stuff up, I know I certainly use wood_beam03 too much.

There is also a wooden support running all the way around the bottom of the roof, I don’t often do this but it’s quite common in the real world so there isn’t really any good reason for me not to. It does also create a nice contrast between the dark wood and light icicles, making them more visible.

Apart from the previously mentioned boarded up windows, there’s an extra wooden lintel brush above the standard doorframe model, a fast and easy way to make any, otherwise boring, doorway more interesting. Snow is also like the sand I pointed out in badlands, you can sink props like tyres into it without worry, just make sure that you don’t on any firm grassy ground for non-desert, non-snow maps.

I’d also like to point out here the repeating black strips present in so many of the metal wall textures, I hate these and always try to hide them whenever possible. Not because I don’t like the way they look, but because of how regular and precise the repetition is, especially on large walls. Any wall over 512 units wide must have at least two of them showing and the repetition is even worse if tiled vertically which many large industrial buildings need to be. To counter this I sometimes start the first 256 units off as a brick texture which you can see through the door is what Valve have done on the other side, and I like to add smaller extensions when any single face gets over around 768 units wide. Since the new section of building is small, the texture can be carefully aligned to show as few black strips as possible. Then I use doors, windows vents and supports to hide any remaining strips as best I can. I try not to hide them all, but aim to break the regularity in their pattern.

So where did that train come from? When detailing high areas like this, remember that the player can’t see the ground, which really knocks perspective, until I opened Viaduct up in hammer I’d always looked at these trees and assumed they were much closer and not anywhere near the tacks. As long as it’s not easy for a player to see that it’s wrong, it doesn’t really matter, hence the lack of anywhere for the train to go even if the tree wasn’t there.

Telegraph poles run either side of the viaduct and a single cable runs along its side. Viaduct has three telegraph pole networks in total, one running across the central viaduct, and one coming in towards each spawn building. They’re really essential in any map, whether they’re carrying power or phone lines, almost every building needs electricity so if you haven’t got any in your map, you should turn off all the lights.

Way off buildings like this are great, often it seems weird that all of the buildings are concentrated in the centre a seemingly arbitrary space and adding some in the distance helps sell the map being part of a larger industrial environment. For buildings do far away only the bare minimum is needed, those windows and door you can see are just toolsblack textured brushes. The roof also has a dark wood border around it so you can see it clearly. As it’s exactly the same size and shape as the out-of-bounds buildings on the other side of the map as well as very nicely off-grid, it was probably a func_instance that was collapsed to have it’s detail removed. Instances are great for off-grid rotation because in the instance .vmf all your work is on the grid at 90 degrees, then you rotate the func_instance and everything rotates properly.

I don’t have anything insightful to say about the rolling hills, rocky cliffs or clumpy trees, just that it looks great. Viaduct has one of the simplest 3D skyboxes, just a smattering of tree cards arranged to give the illusion of dense forrest.

That’s it folks.

Touching on a previous topic here, clustering details around doors. Since doorways are a place players run through a lot they see the details that are there a lot as well so you can get a free ride with your detailing by putting it closer to areas players see a lot of. Since they see it so often they’ll end up with the impression the map is more detailed than it really is – great! This one also shows some cans and a bottle, those are prop_physics_multiplayer, they’ve got some keyvalues set so that they don’t lag up the server by checking for collisions too often but a good rocket blast will send them flying, just like the hazard cones in many other maps. I’ve yet to see a these really take off in custom maps, not that I play many now.

Another thing to consider in your doorways, cobwebs. I’ve had a lot of people ask which model they are, most are suprised to hear its just a standard brush with a texture on it. Ok, so you have to make it a func_ilusionary so that you don’t get caught on it but its still just a brush with a texture, ultra simple. They work well if you put a strong light near them, then they’ll stand out a lot. The texture isn’t double sided so you’ll need to put it on both sides. There is now a model version of it (since the Halloween update) but the drawback of that is it you’re stuck with a fixed size, if you use the brush version you can scale them how you want. (Don’t forget to make the model version nonsolid if you use it as by default it will use it’s bounding box for collisions!)

Bland is bad? Nope, not at all. I was quite suprised when I was spectating around 2fort to find such an empty wall but actually I’ve never noticed it being bland whilst playing since I’m usually way too busy dealing with sentries or running with the intel. When you come to detailing your map it can be best to leave areas quite blank, these areas will usually be ones that have sentries in them constantly, since you’re always so focused on getting past/sapping/blowing up/etc the SG you’re far less likely to notice the huge blank wall behind it.

Another seemingly blank wall, but actually this area sees little traffic so it doesn’t make sense to put a lot of detail here. However the holes in the roof and the wooden back to the window in the middle are just to stop you from realising how empty it is.

This texture just here… TF2 texture?…. Nope. Its one of the stair textures from HL2, but it works well on TF2 stairs. Just a reminder that its not always a cardinal sin to use HL2 textures, you just have to be careful about which ones you use and where you use them. Another note here is that stair textures often get very, very repetitive. It’s important for stairs that see a lot of upwards traffic to vary the x offset of the texture so that you don’t see the same bit of texture stack vertically on every step.

See the little yellow spots I’ve circled? func_dustmotes. If you’ve got an area with lots of light flooding in from the sun or bright spotlights you might want to consider adding some of these guys. Be warned though, they make the area look dusty and they really stick out in places that look clean, like the locker room type spawnroom. If you apply them too heavily you can really see the bounds of the brush, they’re best applied very lightly so there are no harsh transitions. Also in this room there is some fake volumetric light streaks, adding to the dusty look. Unfortunately for us, knowledge of a modeling application or a friend with willing is needed to make these.

Do you see how the lights seem to give off a little glow? Thats done using an env_sprite. They’re an effective way to make the computer models actually look like they’re on. Valve also use these on their security cameras and generators as well. Be careful adding one for every light though each sprite adds to the edict library, which is a common cause for crashes on detailed maps running on 32 man servers. Every dynamic entity adds to the edicts, remember to only name entities when necessary, like lights, naming a light makes it dynamic.

One thing I noticed here that I can’t show with a screenshot is the soundscape, as you fly though a map the sounds you’ll hear change depending on where you are, deep inside the spytech base of 2fort the computer wirring sounds are strong and theres a low humming that really adds to the atmosphere. Don’t forget to make sure when you go outside you change the soundscape to something more suitable though otherwise it will just feel wrong.

See the wires between the lights here? going to a conduit on the wall? It’s a really nice touch, something that might often get overlooked or forgotten. Normally a room like this with a high ceiling would not require details like this, but as anyone who has played 2fort knows, a lot of Engies like to hang around in here, so they’ve got a lot of time for looking around.

And lastly just a really nice image, I don’t know what to say about this one just that when I saw it I thought “wow, I’ve never seen that before…. it looks great!” The colour correction present in 2Fort helps it feel painted. I can’t remember if they actually do or not, but the clouds in the background are brushes in the skybox tied to a rotating brush so they should move slowly as the game progresses. A nice touch.

Next map in the series is yet to be decided, leave a comment and tell me what you want to see.

Let’s pick it apart and see what we can learn!

Windows, Valve uses them a lot. They’re a very easy way to add detail to a building, inside and out. Boarded up windows are good at adding detail without changing any gameplay value, The only window that isn’t boarded up here is virtually useless, you could lob a nade through there, but the chances of being able to do so without being shot from the other side are slim.

This corridor is quite an enclosed space, especially as there are wood piles down it’s length and crates at the end. The boarded up pit under it and open roof help make it feel less claustrophobic. If you look above the pit there is actually a mine head directly above it, some good continuity, rather than just a random pit. As I said in the others in this series, you can make an area feel larger by adding visible but inaccessible sections at the limits of the area, in order to be able to act this way, the pit would need to be lighter so you can actually see it. It’s already in shadow and boarded up, it would be almost pitch black if there wasn’t a fake light in there, half way down is a single, dim, light entity giving enough ambient for you to see into the pit from above.

Another inaccessible area, this one doesn’t add much to make the area feel larger though. It’s main purpose is to provide light to the area below. Often light props hang down too far from a low ceiling to effectively light the room. If the area above the room isn’t being used you could raise the ceiling, or do something like this. This solution requires a brighter light as a lot of it is blocked by the props, you can see how bright the light is in the inset.

These grass props have a very low polycount and go great against building and cliff bases, the grass overlay also is a good way to add a little bit of blending into the bottom of a cliff. That same overlay is also used at the top of some of Dustbowl’s cliffs, adding a little overhanging grass looks great. Both prop and overlay can have reasonably short fade distances if they’re in an intensive area.

Too many custom maps have very bland and flat rooftops, there isn’t much to say about this one except look how much stuff there is on these roofs. Vents, pipes, chutes, chimneys, little raised bits, conveyors. Obviously the amount of this you should employ depends on how industrial your environment is, also don’t forget that there are a lot of bland flat rooftops in real industrial environments, but they’re less interesting.

Again not a lot to say for this, just that a lot of custom maps neglect drain pipes and gutters when almost every building has them in reality. The gutter props have two skins, this rusty red and a grey version, good for red and blu themed gutters.

Tall buildings like this are awesome, they look cool, provide continuity since you can see them from multiple areas in the map and they cut down the amount of stuff you have to make. As long as the whole thing is a func_detail it will be entirely visible from both sides of the skybox brush that is cutting it in two. If you still want it to block vis as well as being visible on both sides, make a copy of it the same size and shape and leave that as nodraw (world brushes) and that will cut vis without shadowing the func_detail. (This method is used for Badwater’s tower).

Just 2Fort left to rewrite from TF2maps.net, then I’ll do one more based on popular opinion, leave a comment.

What’s the focus of this picture? Wires. In my time testing maps I’ve seen a lot that have little or no use of wires, and on the flipside I’ve seen maps that have wires here, there and everywhere. The way official maps employ wires is probably closer to the latter, but they don’t go completely over the top. Wires between telegraph poles, from crane wheels, between building roofs, these are all common spots for wires in the real world and should be in your maps too, they’re something that’s very quick to add to your and easy too. The power a simple wire has to make your map look better is amazing; if you’ve not used wires before try them out. Bung in a move_rope, set it some slack (usually between 90 and 120 looks good) and then give it a keyframerope to connect to. Often the width of the wire is fine at the default value but don’t be afraid to vary it a little. If you’re really feeling daring you could change the material it uses to try a different colour or perhaps rope. I’m not sure if there are any non-default wires in official TF2 though, but when did that ever stop anyone?

Got any mine carts in your map? Instead of leaving them empty, put a small displacement in it with a gravel or even gold texture, this is a dead simple way to make each one look different from the last. Plus, you get the added bonus of it looks like someone actually worked in your map; a map full of completely empty mine carts will just feel weird. Of course you can vary the scale of the texture to make it look like it has bigger or smaller rocks in it. If you’re going to place several next to each other like this shot, make the first displacement then turn texture lock off before you copy it. That way the rocks on the displacement look different for each cart even if the displacement is the same shape. This wasn’t done in this shot and you can see that all three mine carts have the same pattern of rock in them. It doesn’t just stop at mine carts, you can add displacement mounds of dirt/rocks/gold anywhere, like at the end of those tracks in the background of this shot.

Nice bands holding the wall’s support beams together. Taken from close up.

This is the same wall but seen from the opposite side of the playing area then zoomed in. The small bands in the previous shot haven’t just shrunk to a size too small to see, they’ve actually disappeared. This is normally a trait associated with models, when they get far enough away they fade out and your PC doesn’t render them any more, actually this can be done by brushes, and even overlays. It’s a really great way of cutting the amount of stuff your PC has to render, you pick small brushes that you can’t really see from a distance and you make them a func_lod instead of func_detail. That way you have complete control over how far away they should fade out and of course once they’ve faded out they are no longer drawn and aren’t a burden on your system. A good little trick for areas that have a few to many details for good FPS.

Each of these areas that are completely sectioned off from the playing area really help to enlarge spaces. Keep them reasonably small and light them well and they’ll really help convince the player he’s in a bigger environment. Inaccessible balconies are great for this too, as long as the ceiling is high enough, adding  a small balcony with a door either side easily improves a bare room. In the bottom shot there’s another displacement pile of gold, just like the mine carts. Oh yeah, don’t for get to add some glow to those lights, env_sprite, point_spotlight or env_lightglow all work well.

This shows same building viewed from upclose and from the other side of the area. How many props can you see in the first that aren’t in the second? I make it about 26ish (probably more than that though) which means from the far side of the space you can see this building from it still looks much the same but you’re rendering about 6 or 7 thousand less polys than if those models hadn’t faded. The way this is achieved is from the fade distances set in the model’s properties. This is a feature vastly underused in custom maps, many have no fades set at all and in Official maps around 80% of props have a fade distance. Naturally some props are just too big or can be seen too far for a fade distance but the vast majority of props are better with one set.

Ahh yes, the displacement roof, great for abandoned or just aged facilities, not a technique to abuse for any freshly built kind of environment though. Make some of your roofs into displacements, power 2 is enough – then warp them slightly like this one. You can only really see the effect when you’re still but when you’re playing its a small thing that really helps make seeing roof after roof after roof less monotonous. Because displacements are done as a batch process this isn’t as intensive as you might think, whilst I can’t give any really figures on if its better or not it really isn’t the sort of thing you need to worry about when optimising. Displacements are also not cut by the tools/skybox texture so you can safely divide an area across a displacement roof and know that the whole displacement will be visible on both sides of the skybox brush, great for tall buildings.

More coming soon.

Once more into the breach, dear friends

This first shot shows off the 3D skybox being used, notice how as the mountains get further into the distance they become more and more blue? The fog colour that has been used matches the rough colour at the base of the 2D skybox behind it. This holds true for any map, in any game. The fog colour you pick should be roughly the same as the colour of the skybox texture near the horizon. Think about it, when it’s foggy, what colour does everything get as its further away? What colour is the sky, at the horizon? If you answered both those with the same colour then you are correct and understand the principle. Pat yourself on the back.

Here, some simple ways you can block players from leaving the play area. Whilst it is clear that a demoman or soldier could jump over those fences they can’t. And nobody questions it. On Hydro there is a fence that is only knee high and nobody questions it. All that is needed is a visual barrier that divides the playing area (visually interesting) from the out-of-bounds area. The out-of-bounds area is usually quite bland but generally it has just enough key details in it to stop it looking out of place, for example that dirt track, keeps going on through those gates, as does the train and track. That billboard in the background as well. Little things like this keep continuity even though there is an immediate fall off to visually sparse.

Some simple details here. A few tires sunk into the ground along with some foliage, rocks and an overlay on the ground under the plant as well. Most of the ground in Badlands is pretty free from props and they tend to be clumped like these. The tyres can acceptably be sunk into the ground in this near-abandoned desert environment, you wouldn’t want to sink tyres into grass on an alpine map though, soil tends to be a lot firmer than sand. The player will hardly notice these because they don’t have to worry about them. They can run straight over them and are never going to get snagged on them whilst running backwards away from an enemy. It’s always important when putting low props on the ground to make sure that players can run over and around them easily without even thinking about it.

This perfectly illustrates how you should never be afraid to tell the player where to go. You would think that three massive signs all pointing the same way would be too many, but no, it works just fine and players hardly even notice them. Whilst a player is busy taking in lush environments/killing waves of enemies/fleeing from waves of enemies, their subconscious will see the signs and gently push them in the right direction without them really being aware of it.This shot also shows a bit more of how small details are continued in the out-of-bounds areas. And although this area is only blocked off by chainlink fences, don’t be tempted to only use chainlink fences in your map. Don’t forget to vary things a little.

Finally (for now) this image shows where detail is needed. Detail is needed most wherever the player is. That means around doors, around windows they might shoot from, any room with intel/CPs in, spawn rooms… You want to be putting details like junction boxes, clocks, signs, boxes etc where the player will be most often and props clumped around doors are a great example of this.

That’s all for now. Look out for the others coming soon.

This is why the TF2 world is static, with the exception of dynamic gameplay elements. There are only a couple animated props in the game used for detailing, and are not large or upfront in their presence. Smoke trail particle effects do not stand out, but silently add to the environment. Environment objects which do move or change are either direct gameplay elements (capture points, intelligence briefcases, payload carts, dynamic signs) or are environment hazards which affect gameplay (trains, saws) and have loud, clear sound effects to announce their presence. Any other dynamic elements are players, engineer buildings, or projectiles: things pertinent to playing the game.

However, detailing for TF2 does not just end at “keep the world static”. Detail is carefully distributed and allocated in the world for certain reasons, scaling the amount of it to where it is located. I’m going to call this the density of detail. This concept of density of detail can be found in any of Valve’s maps, but to demonstrate, I’m going to use a particular scene from Dustbowl that I think truly embodies it.

Dustbowl stage 3, capture point 1

I’ll break it down into multiple parts. First is the obvious density of detail. What you should notice immediately is that your view is frame by two big, blank walls, with a relatively bland ground, and a blank sky. Already, you can see how detail is centering your view on the capture point, and that is what is key when detailing: drawing the player’s focus to what is important. The big metal wall on the right is not important. Community mappers have the tendency of seeing a big, blank wall like that in their map, and despite it being irrelevant to the player, adding as much detail as possible, using window models, overlays, conduits, and whatever else comes to mind in an effort to make that big blank wall not be a big blank wall, when it actually should be.

The walls have a low density of detail, and then we move on to the capture point area, which has a high density of detail. There’s obviously much more detail on the capture point than on the less important wall. There are doors, props, bright orange cones, and a bright red sign in addition to the capture point hologram, all which bring your attention to the area, which is where you want players to be looking (not distracted by unnecessary detail on the big wall to their right), as well as where you want players to go. The capture point here is not in the middle of the path players take, so they are not forced to walk onto it. But using smart detailing, you can bring players’ attention to it, since it is a high detail area in a low detail environment.

A second point to make here is how density of detail can build story for a map. An area with a high density of detail will look more important than something with less detail, which is in part what leads to attracting player attention. For a capture point, this can answer the question of why a team wants to capture it. If the entire map has a high density of detail, the question which arises is what is so important about the capture point at hand. Using the image from Dustbowl, if the walls on the right and left were as heavily detailed as the building by the capture point, it would make the smaller capture point building look unimportant, deconstructing the story behind it. However, Valve detailed the map wisely, making the capture point building more important than its surroundings. It is loading dock with a garage, with various supplies and boxes scattered around and inside it, with a tall, important looking structure built on top of it. It fills in the reason why the BLU team would want to capture it for itself: it’s an obviously important or strategic building to have. A loading dock with a garage full of supplies is far more important to capture than that big, blank, generic looking industrial building to the right! In addition, there’s a gate to the left of it, so controlling it means controlling traffic into the compound. A large story for the gameplay is built into the map through detail, and it’s all subtle, nothing is forced onto the player. You just need to look at the scene (and have your attention focused by the properly allocated detailing) to understand what is going on.

Now that we’ve covered the higher end of the density of detailing, I want to take a look at the lower end up the scale.

Above Dustbowl stage 2, capture point 2

This screenshot (again of Dustbowl) is taken of a building high on a cliff face, far away from the player. What you should recognize is two things: first, it’s a very simple building can be made of 4 brushes, and second, proper use of textures that simulate depth on a flat surface. The two go together, you can create very simple structures in areas far from the player’s view, and then use textures like the ones shown to give it the appearance of being more complex than it truly is. Often the wood textures with holes are abused by community mappers by being used on surfaces close to the player’s eye, where the fact that they are faking holes is apparent. The wood texture with holes and the vent overlay shown are best used on structures far enough away to not attract the player’s attention, where their looks are not going to be studied and their attempt to look like they have additional depth is debunked. For buildings close to the player’s eye, a wood texture without holes and a vent model would be used instead. Additional detail, such as signs and ground-level props can be used to add more interest to the building, or, actual holes in the building can be made.

It's full of holes!

Summary:

• Place detail where you want players to look
• Do not feel required to make every surface a point of interest
• Detail, if used properly, can bring story to a map
• Only use textures to fake effects far enough away from the player

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Height Variation

If there is a single most important factor in determining whether your map is fun and interesting to play, or plain and boring, it is height variation. Changes it height make the map much more entertaining, offers strategic options for various classes, and quickly makes the map layout much more intriguing to a player. Height variation can also serve a function purpose, such as funneling spam, breaking sight lines, or improving optimization.

In Badlands, height variation is a huge part of the map design. A quick look at the mid point reveals a massive number of planes of combat, horizontal levels on which players can fight, as well as slopes and stairs to obliterate the “flat” feeling of a map. It is impossible to look at Badlands and say it is flat. Also notice the use of the bridge to layer levels of play on top of each other; height variation does not have to be merely side-by-side.

Notice how many tiers of gameplay there are

In King of the Hill maps, height variation allows for spam to be funneled away from the capture point, as well as highlighting the point itself. If you look at Viaduct, the point exists on top of a hill (it is King of the Hill after all), with slopes to allow spam to roll off and away from the point. It also breaks the line of sight between the opposing routes from spawn. In Nucleus, the point exists suspended over a massive pit, which fills the same role of eating the spam.

This pit means a death to not just players, but also their spam

Scout Routes

The scout is a class built around rapid, fluid navigation. The scout’s speed and double-jump allow him to go places in ways other classes cannot. This is recognized in many official maps, which contain certain routes that a skilled scout player can use to navigate around or above the battle, staying clear of most spam.

Examples are abundant in competitive maps:

These hoodoos offer an alternate route for scouts

The wooden shack offers a route to the capture point tower

Skill Jumps

These would be the all-class counterpart of the “Scout Route”. Some of the scout jumps can also be used (albeit less effectively) by all classes, such as the jumps to the spire on Badlands. But other affordances are made to offer special tricks skilled or knowledgeable players can use to better or more quickly navigate the map.

One of the most famous “skill jumps” dates back to the early days of the game, in the second stage of Dustbowl. Using the sawhorse, a player can jump up to the ledge above. In Furnace Creek, we used simple props to introduce these skill jumps into the map, offering alternate routes to ledges above that avoid having to walk to a ramp or slope farther away:

A simple prop is also a sneaky path

A subset of the skill jump pertains specifically to rocket and sticky jumps. It is important to realize what value these two features are to gameplay, and how your map should be built to accommodate their existence.

Walls, slopes, and roofs are all “launch pads” for a rocket jump in addition to the floor. Rocket jumps and sticky jumps are used for quick travel for slower classes, heightening the importance of your map to be friendly to these jumps, especially with the introduction of the Gunboats. A quick search on YouTube will reveal plenty of videos demonstrating what these jumps can achieve.

Reasonable Pickup Placement

Health kit and ammo pack placement seems like a simple enough task, but not putting thought into it can have a serious effect on your map. There are a few simple concepts and ideas to keep in mind when placing health and ammunition.

Place ammo where engineers will build. A map has certain sentry spots where engineers will build regardless of the availability of ammunition, however, their opinion of the map, and the fun they have playing it, will rapidly deteriorate when they find there is no metal to use for building and upgrading. This means ammo pack placement needs to be effective and based on map conditions.

In attack/defend maps like Badwater Basin, Gold Rush, or Dustbowl, you will find full ammo packs at the start of the level, necessary for the RED team to build during setup time.

Two full ammo kits located at the start of the map

Health and ammo is less abundant near spawns, as they are unnecessary when a resupply locker is nearby, and can make it easy for the attacking team to spawn camp.

The closer to an area of heavy gameplay, the smaller kits will be. The middle point of Badlands has ammo at its edges, but they are small ammo kits (not full!), while there is medium health and small ammo in the “house” farther away, and off to the side of gameplay.

The bridge sees a lot of action, so the packs are small

Finally, do not place kits in corners or areas where engineers are likely to build: building on top of kits is terrible for everyone involved. Notice how in Badwater Basin the health and ammo is placed away from the optimal locations for engineer buildings:

Engineers build to the left, and the ammo is to the right

It All Adds Up

By keeping these points in mind while constructing your next map, you will add that “something” that is missing. By adding that “something”, you turn your map into a map that is quality and fun, and plays well in TF2.

And when you take all of it to heart, you end up with Badlands. Everywhere you look, you see what I have mentioned above. From the middle point to the final point, you will notice height variation, “scout routes”, skill jumps, and proper pickup placement – which didn’t play small part in winning over the competitive TF2 community. Watch a match on Badlands and see the level of skill which a player can achieve from knowing and practicing the map.

It has depth. Valve maps have a learning curve. They go beyond being a container for the battle, to being something you can learn the ins and outs of. You can be a good player on a good map if you know it well enough.

And it’s not flat.

How many of the things we discussed can you spot?