I have been playing around with the CS:GO beta SDK and thought I would share my first efforts at mapping for CS:GO and mapping in general. The map is called ar_paintball and takes place within an abandoned paintball course complete with wooden structures and artificial cover. The area is littered with debris, garbage and vandalism to give that feel of abandonment. Im hardly a photographer but here are a few screenies.
I would like some input, what kind of things do you think would add to this map?
It looks like the sun is at a low angle and the last value in (90 90 90 400) whatever the 400 would change how bright sun is in your light_environment.
This is good for a first map. Add a 3D skybox to make it more immersive, make the grass more hilly, work on your brushwork and texturing and add more props to make it seem detailed. There are random trash decals on the ground despite having no source, there’s not a bin or anything in sight. It also seems very small, try adding an underground area.
Thanks man for the advice. I was thinking of adding like an underground tunnel area and maybe making the wooden bases more expansive and the trash decal point is also very well made.
For the record OP, if you want to get the values to be correct for the Skybox, you can use the ones on this page. Not all of them are perfect, but they’ll be closer than you can get them by just trial and error.
Im going to discontinue this map and start over, I would rather start again with all design features considered rather than just sticking components on to fix the map.
And while starting over might be a good idea so you can implement new stuff youve learned into a new map. It also might be a good idea to have a map on which you can experiment new ideas and techniques. Since not all new features may work best on the first try, sticking components on to an existing map may be a good way to practice.
Apart from adding a 3D skybox like others have said. I would say, practice on aligning and rotating textures to make everything look more realistic and detailed. Also take inspiration from real world locations and architechture, it really helps.
oh, by the way, to make one tree look like many, all you have to do is copy/paste, rotate it, then move up or down and you can make a whole forest from just one tree.
