Science behind Inf mapping

weapons balance used to be **** in former versions, but got a lot better with the weapon collisions system in 2.86... it still needs some tweaking, but it's pretty good now

the main thing that needs to be tweaked is the rushing -people who sprint shouldn't really be able to hit anything- and sniping [far too easy now]... yurchs mutator helped a lot and the fur said that 2.87 will be cool so i guess that bits are already fixed

one thing many mappers [and also players] wanted to see was a possibilty for mappers to define which team gets what weapons, this could balance out maps even more [e.g. not every player can pick a robar on extreme prejudice]

On the cover part your absolutely right!

Also, what Cliffyb mentions about hardcore UT DM mapping goes as well for INF mapping , so read his "science" papers, I'd say!
I think that a good design is half the job. Before you start mapping think a bit about what you want, draw some sketches, redraw them. Nothing is more frustrating than finding you wanted to add something and you don' t have room.
Also, while sketching, pay attention to gameplay. This is really important if you want people to play your map over and over. At the same time it is the most difficult thing to grasp. It has to do with giving the right amount of cover. Giving enough different ways to go for players to surprise others from behind, but at the same time making sure players are near eachother so they'll find eachother. Making places for ambushes and giving people the opportunity to go around one when they spot it. Allowing snipers a good and dangerous lookout, while giving others the ability to go for cover when they spot a sniper.
There are tons of examples of what would lead to good and exciting gameplay.

Also, to make a map "real", it should have real scaling/textures/lighting and should be in a situation that's real. Cuz, I LOVE DM-INF-Gallery, but is it a real map for INF, ie would special forces meet in a museum?

This is a good way to get people started in mapping for INF!
Maybe you could add references to maps that have some aspect of mapping in them, so people can check out the examples.

Originally posted by Gullonefox
As for weapons Reaper I think I must have come across wrong.. I ment from a mapping point of view, making the maps so that certain places suit certain weapons...

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argh sorry, i misread that

the best way to make maps look like real life is to model them after real life locations...
do we have any map for infiltration that is exactly modelled after a real place now? i know manor farm is based on botmans workplace, but are there others?

Sicily as an example:

1) Not enough cover, most people throw in 3 or 4 crates in and a few sand bags, and call it cover. Sicily does this, but not too badly, although rubble (hint hint) makes VERY good cover for supperesive fire, and hiding from it while prone, its almost too much effort to make. Sicilly could've used some.

2) Everyone knows this is a simulation of current day military, why are we playing in NY subways, veitnamese jungles, and world war 2 war zones? I feel that more maps should be based in realistic current day conflicts that are happening, or could happen very soon.

3)Terrain, its not impossible to create realistic terrain thats fun to play on, take cover on, and look real. heh, you INF team mappers are more expeirianced! Why do I make better terrain maps than you guys!

4) Tree actors- should have some root exposure on the actor trees, a small brown stick with some green leafs around it isn't very real.

Another tricky bit of the formulae is to balance map detail with performance. Yes, it may be great that Gun 1 of the 16" forward turret of the U.S.S. New Jersey includes a 400 polygon barrel cover, but not a lot of players will enjoy the 0.000001 fps. Even the best laid out design sometimes doesn't work when things are brushed out and actually cut out of the geometry. It's a fine art because on one hand you want to create the map as close to "real life" as possible (and get a nice review by RealMaps) and on the other you would want most people to be able to play it. Epic recommends 150 polys maximum. I've tried to stick to 200 but even then, it's easy to go over 250 when you're striving for detail.

I didn't read the replies yet cus I'm busy at the moment but..

1: I don't think cover needs to be or even should be "balanced".

"make it a risk to get from one place to the next but at the same time add a little safe play to.. "

Why?

I say make it realistic. If the real life location is very open and exposed leave it like that. People will complain that there isn't enough cover and they can't move without getting shot. Of course you can't move without getting shot! If you're walking alone down a hallway what do you expect! I say that rather than add artificial cover to the hallway you let the players die due to lack of cover. Sooner or later they will learn that they must use teamwork to create their own cover, just like they would have to do in real life walking down a hallway with no cover.

The opposite is also true. If something is supposed to be very cluttered with tons of stuff, make it like that, don't add artificial pathways through the cover to open up movement Who cares if the players are slowed down as they try to move through the area, that is GOOD because it adds strategy, it gives the player a different situation they must deal with.

As good as the current maps are there isn't really any strategy to them at all in my opinion, and it is caused by two things.

1: Pathcounts. Each map is designed strictly in a DM state of mind (look at Siberia for example). Each room has at least 2 exits and there are several pathways between the two teams. This FORCES everyone to split up into 1-3 man groups in order to cover each path. If you stay together as a team you are surrounded and will die. The best way to play such a map is to play it like a dm map, because it is a dm map, and it's no wonder that that is EXACTLY how it is played.

2: Cover. If the amount and layout of the paths wasn't bad enough, the cover is pretty evenly distributed. Nomatter which path you take there is roughly the same amount of risk associated with it. It doesn't matter what route you take if they are all the same, and they are, and these two things in combination remove almost all strategy.

What we need to do is simple. Be hard on the players. Restrict them to one or two paths and force them to funnel together into groups. Open maps up so wide that the whole thing is a path and you need to stick together to cover all the angles. DON'T evenly place cover. If realistically the area would be completely or almost completely devoid of cover keep it like that. If realistically the area is so cluttered that it is difficult to move, KEEP IT LIKE THAT! The moment you start worrying about the routes and cover and **** like that you are thinking of the strategy for the player. Let the player do it. Give them a variety of situations, even if they are completely unbalanced because they would be completely unbalanced realistically, and let the PLAYER deal with it. Make the PLAYERS figure out the best route to take, the best way to run across the open field without cover, the best way to crawl through a room so full of stuff you can't even walk.

Instead of worrying if our maps are easy and balanced enoguh we should worry if they are hard and unbalanced enough because that is the only way we can force players to think and use strategy and teamwork.

This reminds me of Zirb's THT mapping concept... Good ideas all round.
As for really tactical maps, E.P. is the only one that really greases my monkey*. One of the few maps on which I have seen teamwork on almost every server.










*how's that, eh?

SoSilencer I could not agree more with every single one of your comments! That is my opinion exactly.

But, most peeps dont want real. . . They want 'a little' real, but 'a little more DM'.

I say lets make them as real, as we can and as playable (processor wise, not DM) as we can. If no one plays it oh well!

Roads are mostly wide open with little cover, hardly any "assaults" are balanced, and dangit fire hurts!

Time for those of use who want to play INF to make real maps. Those who want DM, go play something else.

@SoSilencer and darksniper: :tup:
more power to the realists!

Damnit SoSilencer

Thanks for saying everything I was going to say I thought you left INF. And what ever happened to your map??? Anyway, here's a list for the new guys to stay away from:
-Make what you want to make(as long as it's realistic).
-Make it to scale(HUMMERS!!!!!!!
-Use those nice textures that came with INF
-Dont forget the INF in the name (duh)
-Give credit for anything that you didn't make
-Don't redo somebody elses map without their permission!!!
-Support, and give props to fellow INF mappers
-If you're having problems, don't be affraid to ask for help
Pretty broad and obvious stuff, I know. I just don't want to get too specific, and tell new guys to make everything the same. I got into mapping partly to add to the variety of maps out there. Yeah, a military scenerio may seem more INFy, but maybe those guys really like art. Not everybody lives in Kosovo to see firsthand what it looks like. The military doesn't just go to wartorn cities. Personally, I don't want to know where they go. But you never know these days. Thay may need to be everywhere. But I suppose some sort of plot may liven things up, and make a map more interesting. Overall, be yourself, and make whatever makes you happy in the end.
Jaymian

This reminds me of Zirb's THT mapping concept... Good ideas all round.

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Thanks for remember my thoughts Styx_Surfer! Good to see it's a debate on these things.

Comment on the subject here, for example on SoSilencer's thoughts "leave open areas as they are": I agree in some aspects but with comments! With my THT-concept (that is close to what Gullonefox talk about in the initial post) I don't mean that the natural feeling should go. My THT-thougts was mostly born from the fact that many maps are UNREALISTICLY open in many cases. I mean that even at first sight open areas in real life, still have more or less cover! Totally flat areas are not that common! The few that are, are places as parking places (but the are seldom totally empty!), football fields and so on.

So basically; just be realistic, but with some concessions! With concessions I mean that INF still is a game, you can as mapper do some special design actions (or you HAVE TO!!!) with a THRILLING GAME AND FUN FLOW in mind! Why should you as mapper choose to do maps on booring environments??? INF should be realistic, but still a game where both the game-creators and the mappers do many subjective choices everywhere!

Using cover... It's FUN to advance forward, running from cover to cover, as they do in the lovely action dramatised bank escape in the movie Heat! True art! No military stuff (but they use M16's - nice action takes!), but there's a good example on using "natural" covers!

THT-concept is also an enemy to "running-around-corridor-corner" maps! I mean corridor based maps...

I also want maps with more possibilities what can happen, more routes, or no really obvious routes at all (my beta ChillyDesert is a test on that); all to create a unpredictable game flow. I don't like DM-INF-Bullecourt so much... The players are to forced to go in ONE and only direction = booring!

I'm some sort of mappoholic and scan even other mods to UT for good maps to play in INF. Lately I found a rough beta SW-Sabotage-Beta02a , that in one aspect was like DM-INF-Bullecourt, the team could just go ONE way but with a major difference compared to DM-INF-Bullecourt; it was a quite complex way, a quite huge valley (with nice rolling terrain that I LOVE) with lots of both small and bigger houses (many possible to enter, I LOVE things like that too) gathered around a road in the middle= lots of possibilities to play tactically but at the same time the map have the speed there because there's only one way looking on the over all lay out = FUN! This beta is rough and have perhaps not INF-ambitions in realism but the basic concept is great.

I wanna see maps for INF using the above basically idea: ONE major direction that give us FLOW, but many OBJECTS to play with inside that area. For example I think ExtremePrej is a classic map but I think the concept with a mountain in the middle destroys good game flow. I also think it's hard to get good game flow on maps that have this "bridge-in-the-middle" theme as the are made today! I love the basic feeling in for example Kosovo and Panzer but both have some sort of stiffnes that could be better with more "realstic" additions, some more NATURAL covers, some extra ways over the water...

Do u see what I mean?


(By the way; check my thougts about the ONE-LIFE-SYSTEM that I think should be converted to a THREE-LIFE SYSTEM!!! Read about WHY!!!)


Z