Hi everybody! (Hi doctor Nick!) Just an update on my TF2 map. 
    

 Rocks

Water

Oh Yeah, and the Rest of the Things I Did.

•  Began to differentiate the two sides through differing architecture 
• added stairs/tentative logs across the body of water 
• animated a log going down the falls for the aforementioned idea that I may or may not carry out 
• created underground path through midpoint 
• tentative design of stairs linking upper and lower of midpoint  
• got a rough idea of how I'm going to style the unreachable scenery 
• restricted sniper/sentry views 

Gallery

I'm not too keen on the idea of the river having some type of current gimmick. A log as a mobile platform that goes down the river (similar to the trains in well or freight) might be a cool idea, though.

Excited to see the map evolve. Thumbs up, sir.

But I feel like, with all other paths, it's apparent who can use the path and who can't. With a river, I don't think it would be readily apparent, unless you mean something like the water is rushing by incredibly fast and anyone that jumps into it is instantly dead, or something, but Scouts can double jump over and class that can explosion jump can also make it over. I dunno, with just a "strong current" type of thing it gets into the territory of not being immediately obvious what it does, and I feel like that's bad map design.

Man, you're crazy smart. I can barely comprehend what you are talking about.

What if  the whole map was a river and it was ctf but on a moving river.

Excited to see the map evolve. Thumbs up, sir.

But I feel like, with all other paths, it's apparent who can use the path and who can't. With a river, I don't think it would be readily apparent, unless you mean something like the water is rushing by incredibly fast and anyone that jumps into it is instantly dead, or something, but Scouts can double jump over and class that can explosion jump can also make it over. I dunno, with just a "strong current" type of thing it gets into the territory of not being immediately obvious what it does, and I feel like that's bad map design.

Man, you're crazy smart. I can barely comprehend what you are talking about.

What if  the whole map was a river and it was ctf but on a moving river.

@Akrid: I don't play TF2 but nice work dude, Map is looking good!

@Akrid: Woah man, no need to be so hard on yourself. It was still an interesting read, I just don't understand math talk is all.

@Akrid: I don't play TF2 but nice work dude, Map is looking good!

You should post this on Facepunch.

I just might have to get into TF2 so I can play this map when it's in the game. Awesome work so far, and I like the idea of using the log.

Looming awesome mate, but I echo the sentiment that any gimmick you have on the river has to be VERY simple.

First principal of map design is that the player is there to fight other players, not the level. Having the current sweep everyone downstream is fine, I think, but having it move at different speeds based on class or some other factor is getting to the stage where it would be a major distraction from actually fighting opponents.

Just so you know, water is a complete bitch in the source engine. You are going to run into all sorts of problems trying to export that shit into hammer :/

@Akrid: The mapping section of the site has some really helpful people who know what they're talking about. Since this is your first map, I would recommend you to go check it out even more. They've got a lot of threads that will help you understand Hammer better and, at least in the mapping sections, a lot of the people are pretty helpful.

Also, water is only a problem if it's moving. As in, the actual water brush is moving. You aren't going to get away with any sort of flooding effects, but a stream is going to be find, and a waterfall should be fine as long as it's just a model.

Just a waterfall model with an animated texture, and some particle effects at the bottom? The map Sawmill already has a waterfall, you might want to check that one out.

Reading about the "current" system, I just had in my mind that you were going to have a long river that would spawn from the waterfall and eventually drop off a cliff. Logs would roll down the river at slow speed and would change the gameplay because you can only cross at certain times. If anybody was still standing on the log after it reached the cliff, they would fall off and die.

You could create a water brush in Hammer for the river, and have a "push" brush inside the water brush to push players downstream.

Looking at your map, it doesn't seem like you're going to do that, but that's just an idea.

Awesome! Awesome. AWESOME!! Followed.

Looking really cool thus far, that waterfall is definitely a cool feature that would be cool to see as I am playing through the map.

I think if you're willing to put the effort into making the river treat certain classes differently then it would at least be really cool to try out. So long as you'd be willing to erase said effort if it turned out badly. 
 
P.S. You, sir, are awesome. I am so excited for this to be playable.

About the water current, I think the best, though maybe not the easiest, solution would be to just get your map playable and then playtest the crap out of it with all the different settings for it.
Just be prepared to drop the whole thing if it doesn't playtest well...
How about having the log be in the river at all times? That would make it a very risk/reward type chokepoint, but that maybe removes the dynamic element of it.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
I'm sure you'll have no problem finding playtesters here or on Tested.

Lookin good. I wanna go to college for game design so this is some pretty interesting stuff. 
 
Also, excellent Simpsons reference!

Hi Akrid, I've been mapping for TF2 essentially since the game came out in 2007. I'm not the one to say you're taking the wrong approach to things, but modelling the map in 3DS Max is a rather strange method. One of the key things with making TF2 maps, is that you very much need to perfect the layout before you begin to get to detailing. This means creating a basic sketch of the layout (e.g. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1085379/projects/karate/progress18.png) with which you can playtest, tweak, playtest, tweak until you're happy, then you lather on the detailing (which I suspect you're going to be especially good at) - turning into http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1085379/projects/karate/progress95.png. At least that's how I like to do it.
 
I hope the way you're planing to do it is completely remaking the entire layout in Hammer based off the 3DS Max thing, and making the rockwalls (I love rockwalls - your one looks great, the folks at http://www.tf2maps.net/ would probably appreciate a tutorial on that) into props etc. Also, it is much possible to create a watefall in Source, because Valve added one to the game in koth_sawmill - you should take a look! The approach they took is modelling something vaguely like a waterfall, then adding a scrolling texture to it. They also put a few splashy particle effects where it hits the water This makes it pretty cheap to render, for something that looks pretty great. On the subject of currents, it's going to be very hard to do. The reason being that the water surface flow system in Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 (http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2010/siggraph2010_vlachos_waterflow.pdf) is not in TF2's version of Source, and making a scrolling water texture would look pretty horrible because reflections are pre-baked. A current would be a cool idea though. I've playtested some maps with currents in them before, and none of them did it particularly well. Most ended in annoying deathpits, and the current was annoyingly fast.
 
Anyway, I really think you should give Hammer another try, I've got 4 years of experience of it and I'm still learning useful new things - it's an incredibly robust and easy to use tool once you get to know it. Things like rotating and vertex editing mystified me in the early days, but now they're second nature. I suppose we're kind of like opposites, because I've been trying to learn 3DS Max and it's an absolute pain, coming from using Blender and Hammer to do TF2 work. I gather that you know you can't make it exclusively in 3DS Max, but I'd urge you to make it exclusively in Hammer. It is far from a crappy editing tool. In fact there are several key concepts - mainly involving optimisation - that need to be learnt through Hammer.
 
The aforementioned http://www.tf2maps.net/ is where a bunch of us congregate (mainly through our Steam chat room), I'd poke you in that direction, make a work in progress thread in the showcase. We do playtesting daily and on-demand, and there's a forum for tutorials too (though the best way to learn is through experience). You're obviously talented at what you do, so you'd fit right in - I think 6 official community maps have originated from our halls.
 
I wish you luck in your future endeavours.

@Akrid said:

@Tim_the_Corsair: Well, not really move at different speeds. It's a set speed, but I was thinking that only the faster classes could "resist" it, you know? Like, a heavy couldn't actively go against the current, but a scout could easily.

You may be right though, now that I think about it. I think the best alternative then would be to create a way to get up and out after being washed downstream. But ugh, that could raise a bunch more problems... I dunno, I'll think about it.

In the event that you do go with some type of current gimmick, here is a chart with all the movement speeds for each class.