My L4D Map

[Con]

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/8113/test20003lc4.jpg

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4686/test20002sg3.jpg

This is an underground bunker, two bedrooms, bath, kitchen, living area. This is essentially the saferoom area. Outside you'll progress through mechanical areas and reach the zombie-infested surface. From there it's still a WIP as far as ideas go.

[ultama121]

That looks good Con, continue, your ideas are fun so far.

[Sever]

Here's what I say: Make it a trek from the substation for a dam further upstream, through a series of large pipes, into the dried-up gullies of the riverbed, into the dam, and up to the top for the rescue via boat.

Ch. 1: The Substation
Ch. 2: The Pipes
Ch. 3: The Riverbed
Ch. 4: The Turbines
Ch. 5: Lakeside Finale

Just my quick idea that I got when you said 'mechanical areas' and I tried to think of what would make sense and hasn't been done yet.

[Con]

Got any crescendo event ideas? I know they're in there somewhere O_O

For one, I'll have the blast door creak loudly when opening, so you get a horde coming from outside. Also, I need an excuse to have zombies in the mechanical areas of the bunker though. I only really want this part of the map that you see here to be the saferoom.

[Roostervier]

Looking good so far. I'm not that good with gameplay so I'll leave that to you or someone else.

[flibitijibibo]

Oh, boy, a L4d map! I've been waiting to see one-a these.

Sever's chapter thing is an important thing to think about, if you're going to do it that way. Either way, one thing that somewhat bugged me is that there were no objectives other than the obvious: gtfo of zombieland. Between the start and the very end, it seemed like you were aimlessly running from place to place, with no significant goal for a single chapter. A good way to get ideas for chapters/stuff in the middle is to think of the obvious objective, then think of things they'd have to do before being able to get to that finale. This, I think, would have a great potential for a crescendo if one of the objectives ended up attracting a lot of zombies, or something like that. It also gives players something new to have in L4D other than just simply "run!"

As for the reason that the zombies are in mechanical places... well, perhaps in a previous objective (see above if you TL;DR'd it), something was done to gain the zombies' attention, taking them to your location.

[Ki11a_FTW]

Like always conscars, Well Done!

[jngrow]

Did they release the L4D sdk yet?

[Terin]

No, but it's possible to enter in entity information yourself to get it working.

[Bodzilla]

give me a few hours, a video and some vaseline.

i'm tired as fuck right now, but if you can show me some of your ideas and sketch layouts i could give a hand.

[Sel]

Hammer D:

[Con]

give me a few hours, a video and some vaseline.

i'm tired as fuck right now, but if you can show me some of your ideas and sketch layouts i could give a hand.
there are none :o

[Bodzilla]

are you going to make it like an entire campaign as in the L4D campaigns or are you going to just make one stage?

i got some shit ticking in my head atm so get back to me on it :p

[Mass]

Since the l4d campaigns did escape by helicopter, plane, ship, and APC I suggest you do escape by train. l4d already has a bunch of rail-yard assets to boot.

I'm going to put some thought into a finale location and try to get in touch with you.

[Roostervier]

Go with what mass said, it sounds like a good idea.

[Sever]

Yeah, a train would kick ass. Even if you still go with my idea of the hydroelectric dam, you could very easily wedge a train in there, since every campaign has at least three distinctly different areas. Just as long as they flow together logically it will work well.

[legionaire45]

Bunker type area -> Dam area -> wilderness type area -> finale where you reach a train that has to cross over one of these:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-SbclLA6bT8/RsCwKNt-I8I/AAAAAAAAAXo/Z-fSlt1dLF4/Railroad_Bridge%252C_Greenville%252C_NH.jpg
Except higher up.

[Con]

404 lol!

[Sever]

Click HERE (http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-SbclLA6bT8/RsCwKNt-I8I/AAAAAAAAAXo/Z-fSlt1dLF4/Railroad_Bridge%252C_Greenville%252C_NH.jpg) to view the image.

That is what Legionaire meant to post, but apparently [thumb] tags don't work anymore. I honestly see nothing special about it, especially since there's already a train bridge in Blood Harvest and it doesn't enhance the gameplay one bit.

e: you'll just have to follow the link, since the image isn't displaying in [img] tags either.

e^2: What the fuck, the image keeps 404ing randomly. It's just a train bridge going over a gorge with supports under it.

[Con]

update:

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/7139/test20010wm0.jpg
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/9643/test20009xp6.jpg
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/7412/test20007fz9.jpg
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/3411/test20008yg8.jpg

[Sel]

Is the piano playable like the one in death toll? :awesome:

[Sever]

Your stairways need banisters and railings, and those pipes look quite out-of-place for a residential setting, even if it coincides with a mechanical area.

[p0lar_bear]

Compared to the characters, this place looks too clean.

It's a nice level, but the characters don't fit in.

[Sel]

Im assuming it was a bunker that existed before the zombie apocalypse, and the characters fought their way to it.

Makes sense to me.

[jngrow]

Nice pad, I wouldn't mind living there.

[nick3d]

Looks awesome,
Dont mind me askin but what programs do you use
Iv probs asked you before i dont know to be honest
Could you PM me on the programs used and if you use Maya, do you know any decent tutorials for UV Mapping and getting the textures on the model, i would like to get into UV'ing
Thanks, Any replys to my question PM me becaus its and offtopic question
Sorry all

[legionaire45]

For this level he used Hammer. Hammer is a part of the Source SDK.

You need to own a game based off of the Source Engine to get access to the SDK.

[Con]

Im assuming it was a bunker that existed before the zombie apocalypse, and the characters fought their way to it.

Makes sense to me.
this

It was meant to be a shelter that the survivors found, or heard of and moved there while the zombie apocalypse was heating up. There's only two bedrooms, so I've got a sleeping bag on the couch and clothes on the floor for example. I've still got a lot more props to add until this is to the detail level I want, but it's coming along nicely IMO.


Your stairways need banisters and railings, and those pipes look quite out-of-place for a residential setting, even if it coincides with a mechanical area.
I couldn't find any railing props that would do the job nicely, but I'll see what I can do. The area looks quite bare without the pipes though, I don't think I'll be removing those. They're necessary for the setting and the industrial/urban loft sort of styling. Styling has been one of the hardest things about this level.


Is the piano playable like the one in death toll? :awesome:
No, not yet, but the TV is breakable so the light turns off.

[Ki11a_FTW]

Awesome pics conscars, just awesome. Needs more messy though.

E: for the railing, simple brush's could probably get the job done

[Geo]

This is pretty sick Con. I've been looking around in the hammer editor recently myself. The lighting in the rooms are really quite attractive actually. Kudos.

[legionaire45]

I couldn't find any railing props that would do the job nicely, but I'll see what I can do. The area looks quite bare without the pipes though, I don't think I'll be removing those. They're necessary for the setting and the industrial/urban loft sort of styling. Styling has been one of the hardest things about this level.
1. Open Hammer
2. Open your level
3. File -> Export to .DXF
4. Twiddle thumbs while it does its thing (might take a while)
5. Import into 3DS/Maya/whatever
6. Model/Texture your railings/other junk
7. Export and place in level

[Con]

1. Open Hammer
2. Open your level
3. File -> Export to .DXF
4. Twiddle thumbs while it does its thing (might take a while)
5. Import into 3DS/Maya/whatever
6. Model/Texture your railings/other junk
7. Export and place in level
I've never made props before, let alone destructible ones, so I went with making a brush railing with breakable glass.

[Bad Waffle]

Destructable stuff is actually pretty easy once you know how. There's a great tutorial about it floating around somewhere. I can help you model out props if you need a hand.

[legionaire45]

Find yourself a tutorial on getting a prop ingame and then follow this (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Creating_custom_gibs).

The tutorials are all out there; that's one of the advantages of Source.

[itszutak]

I like it, but it needs more signs of "decay"- If zombies are going to spawn in there, I expect that at least a few of them have wrecked the place in some small way. I'm thinking knocked over chairs, stains on the floor, perhaps bodies or the other props that were used throughout the first chapter of No Mercy to show an apartment/house that's been ruined.

[Con]

The zombies aren't going to spawn inside this area, this is essentially the safe room with a few perks for players that check out all the rooms. Zombies will spawn in the mechanical and maintenance halls and rooms leading to the blast door.

[Con]

would be posting progress pics, but hammer crashes whenever I load my map (http://forum.l4dmaps.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=88). Reinstalling SDK :(

[Heathen]

D:

Noooo.

I was half interested in this.

[Con]

It's still not working after reinstalling SDK. ffffff, I give up.

[Bodzilla]

:smith:

[Ki11a_FTW]

:smith:

.

[Syuusuke]

Can anyone else open it?

[Con]

I did some experimenting and found out this only happens when hammer is in the "Left 4 Dead" configuration, which is retarded because it's set up exactly the way it was before this all happened. I can open the map fine in say EP2 config, but then I have errors for props and no textures.

[p0lar_bear]

Check your configs, something might have gotten changed without you noticing.

[Terin]

You could export L4D's model and textures into the Episode 2 subfolder, unless you do a lot of level creation and modding for it. That's what I did.

[Con]

good news

I wondered if it might be the gameinfo.txt causing the problem, so I replaced it with flyinroosters and now everything works like a charm. expect updates.

[ultama121]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH.

Good stuff Con, its great that the project's back on track.

[Con]

this is me right now

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/3/3743521_13d2219686.jpg

[rossmum]

yo con that looks a little flashy for some sort of bunker (?)

anyway nice to see someone working on a new campaign, can't wait until it's done

[Con]

its a rich guy's bunker yo

[Bodzilla]

he wouldnt understand Connor, he'sa a uni student :v:
no wait..... EX uni student xD

good to hear it's working again,
makes me
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/3/3743521_13d2219686.jpg

[Con]

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2199/test20018.jpg
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1651/test20015.jpg
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9913/test20016.jpg
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9728/test20017.jpg
Will put broken vent in wall where I shot square. Follow the blood trail :D

[StankBacon]

very nice.

[Con]

oh no mister are you ok???

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9879/test20019.jpg

[n00b1n8R]

Just tuned into this thread.
Are you making 1 level or a whole campaign?

[Con]

Planning on doing a campaign, that would take a while though.

[Roostervier]

: D It's looking good con. Glad you got it to work in hammer again.

[Ki11a_FTW]

looks :awesome: im probably going to wait for the official SDK before i start to make some maps

[Sel]

looks :awesome: im probably going to wait for the official SDK before i start to make some maps

Same here.

If you're still planning on doing the docked boat in a thunderstorm level I suggested I'll help with that :)

[Terin]

Hey Concat, Valve released the official SDK documentation is out here (http://www.l4d.com/LevelDesignDocs.zip). A lot of it is stuff on entities, which has been easy to find out by looking at extracted maps or something, but there's some good stuff on mark nav areas to make it work better.

[Con]

I downloaded the documentation last week, and yeah the entity stuff is great because opening extracted maps is what caused my sdk problem in the first place.

[Bodzilla]

good news man :D