Design Considerations for HLDM Part 1
by sulsa (view all articles)
unrated
Gamedesign theory for Halflife
by sulsa (view all articles)
unrated
Gamedesign theory for Halflife
DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR HALFLIFE DEATHMATCH MAPPING
Part 1
So, you are ready to dive into the confusing, aggravating, time-consuming yet ultimately rewarding project of making a multi-player map for Half-Life. The design considerations for this type of endeavor will vary between mappers because of personal taste and what type of map they are building. Every Level Designer and every Level Reviewer will have suggestions and recommendations and maybe even 'rules to follow'. Keep that in mind when you create.
The most important rule you will ever need to know, however, is map by YOUR OWN RULES. Make a map YOU want to make. If you start mapping according to someone elses standards, you will get angry and become bored with your project. DON'T MAP ANGRY! Life is too short to worry about what everyone else thinks.
=The R_Speeds Paradox=
If there is one buzzword you could pick from any aspect of HL editing, it would undoubtedly be R_SPEEDS. Everyone LOVES to compare R_SPEEDS. Go ahead and talk about how YOUR R_SPEEDS are lower than anyone's in the room... You'll start an argument immediately...
R_SPEEDS are a development tool in 'Quake' based games to measure the amount of 'Polys' that the game engine sees (renders) at any given point in the level. Again, this is not a 'HOW R_SPEEDS WORK' article. If you want to be a serious level designer, you do need to know all that geek stuff, so look around on a few editing websites. The more you know about how ALL the tools work together to arrive at the finished product, the better off you will be. Only a poor workman blames his tools, so know how they work.
Probably THE MOST confusing aspect of keeping R_SPEEDS low is that what the game engine 'sees' is different than what YOU see on your monitor. Again, read up on PORTALS and VIS and LEAFS for more on that.
When Half-Life was released to the public in 1998, the home PCs of the time were significantly less powerful than today's PCs. Hardware acceleration was just peaking into the 32bit level, and a significant amount of people didn't have ANY hardware acceleration at all *shudder*...
This made it the utmost priority to develop the game in such a way as to run as smooth as possible on low end systems of the time. The #1 way to do that was to keep the game engine from taxing the processor and 3d card (if there was one) with rendering areas of a level that were unnecessary, depending on the location of the player.
Have you ever noticed that there are very few maps that are huge expanses of open space? Have you ever noticed that there are lots of twisty hallways and air ducts? If the level is well built, you probably haven't noticed it, which is the ultimate accomplishment for ANY level designer. The twisty hallways are there for a reason though: to block what the game engine sees. Thus the room around the corner is not being 'drawn' by the engine, thus the information flowing to your video card is less. In other words, the CPU/Vid card has more resources left over for FRAMERATE (few 'polys' more times a second) as opposed to drawing more 'polys' and sacrificing framerate.
So finally we get to the paradox: Present day, 5 years after HL answered our prayers, the systems we used to play on have (hopefully) been upgraded a bit, and can handle more polygons at any one time. The areas can be a little larger and a little more detailed. The models (weapons/characters/monsters etc.) can be more detailed. Look at Blue Shift or the TFC HiDef. pack. The buzzword still remains though: 'HOW LOW ARE YOUR R_SPEEDS?'
At this point in time- October 29, 2001- we are in the twilight of Half-Life's popularity. There are only about 450 servers running HLDM. Counterstrike and TFC with the other modifications have definitely broken the mold, and extended the life of the game considerably. When you look at the maps being run on the Death Match servers around the world, most are still the stock maps of 3 years ago. The rest are from the fans. If you look carefully, though, a disproportionate amount of those user made maps are THE VERY MAPS THAT GET SLAMMED IN THE REVIEW SITES FOR HAVING HIGH R_SPEEDS. Why is this? Here are a few theories, and the ultimate point of this article:
Please don't get caught up in the R_SPEEDS craziness. The R_SPEEDS we can all deal with are as personal and varied as the computers we play on. When I first got into playing HL, nearly a year after its release, I was running a PIII 450 with a 16mb video card. That was top dog for a while in terms of computer strength.. Because of the type of player I am, I would put up with the slow down of the maps X-fire and Gotham because of the gameplay. Personally, it wasn?t a big deal. When I started on my Chaocity series, I kept that in mind: The gameplay I liked and what I could put up with as far as performance. I kept note of at what point the "slideshow" effect became too annoying. The Chaocity series is certainly not for everyone but I DIDN'T MAP ANGRY. I made the type of maps I knew I would love to play over and over again.
If you make a map for the high end gaming machines of the day, you should be as happy as if you were making one that could have been released in the first Half-Life patch years ago.
Just remember: Make the map YOU want to make. Low R_SPEEDS do not make for a good map. You only need to play Rapidcore for 5 minutes to test that theory. It's beautiful, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, it degenerates into the run and gun shotgun fest style of Quake. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, if that is your favorite type of gameplay.
High R_SPEEDS do not make for a crummy map. You only need to play the classic and ugly X-fire or the camping heaven of Gotham to see that. Once again, if that is more of your style of play, because getting picked off by snipers in Gotham can get a little frustrating after a while.
Most importantly, and what many players and mappers don't realize, is that you can have both. You need only go to the original Half-Life and fire up the one and only BOUNCE to see the ultimate happy medium.
Part 1
So, you are ready to dive into the confusing, aggravating, time-consuming yet ultimately rewarding project of making a multi-player map for Half-Life. The design considerations for this type of endeavor will vary between mappers because of personal taste and what type of map they are building. Every Level Designer and every Level Reviewer will have suggestions and recommendations and maybe even 'rules to follow'. Keep that in mind when you create.
The most important rule you will ever need to know, however, is map by YOUR OWN RULES. Make a map YOU want to make. If you start mapping according to someone elses standards, you will get angry and become bored with your project. DON'T MAP ANGRY! Life is too short to worry about what everyone else thinks.
=The R_Speeds Paradox=
If there is one buzzword you could pick from any aspect of HL editing, it would undoubtedly be R_SPEEDS. Everyone LOVES to compare R_SPEEDS. Go ahead and talk about how YOUR R_SPEEDS are lower than anyone's in the room... You'll start an argument immediately...
R_SPEEDS are a development tool in 'Quake' based games to measure the amount of 'Polys' that the game engine sees (renders) at any given point in the level. Again, this is not a 'HOW R_SPEEDS WORK' article. If you want to be a serious level designer, you do need to know all that geek stuff, so look around on a few editing websites. The more you know about how ALL the tools work together to arrive at the finished product, the better off you will be. Only a poor workman blames his tools, so know how they work.
Probably THE MOST confusing aspect of keeping R_SPEEDS low is that what the game engine 'sees' is different than what YOU see on your monitor. Again, read up on PORTALS and VIS and LEAFS for more on that.
When Half-Life was released to the public in 1998, the home PCs of the time were significantly less powerful than today's PCs. Hardware acceleration was just peaking into the 32bit level, and a significant amount of people didn't have ANY hardware acceleration at all *shudder*...
This made it the utmost priority to develop the game in such a way as to run as smooth as possible on low end systems of the time. The #1 way to do that was to keep the game engine from taxing the processor and 3d card (if there was one) with rendering areas of a level that were unnecessary, depending on the location of the player.
Have you ever noticed that there are very few maps that are huge expanses of open space? Have you ever noticed that there are lots of twisty hallways and air ducts? If the level is well built, you probably haven't noticed it, which is the ultimate accomplishment for ANY level designer. The twisty hallways are there for a reason though: to block what the game engine sees. Thus the room around the corner is not being 'drawn' by the engine, thus the information flowing to your video card is less. In other words, the CPU/Vid card has more resources left over for FRAMERATE (few 'polys' more times a second) as opposed to drawing more 'polys' and sacrificing framerate.
So finally we get to the paradox: Present day, 5 years after HL answered our prayers, the systems we used to play on have (hopefully) been upgraded a bit, and can handle more polygons at any one time. The areas can be a little larger and a little more detailed. The models (weapons/characters/monsters etc.) can be more detailed. Look at Blue Shift or the TFC HiDef. pack. The buzzword still remains though: 'HOW LOW ARE YOUR R_SPEEDS?'
At this point in time- October 29, 2001- we are in the twilight of Half-Life's popularity. There are only about 450 servers running HLDM. Counterstrike and TFC with the other modifications have definitely broken the mold, and extended the life of the game considerably. When you look at the maps being run on the Death Match servers around the world, most are still the stock maps of 3 years ago. The rest are from the fans. If you look carefully, though, a disproportionate amount of those user made maps are THE VERY MAPS THAT GET SLAMMED IN THE REVIEW SITES FOR HAVING HIGH R_SPEEDS. Why is this? Here are a few theories, and the ultimate point of this article:
- The systems in most people's houses HAVE been upgraded at some point in the last 3 years, so they no longer have the 'slideshow' effect when dealing with a map with excessive R_SPEEDS.
- R_SPEEDS can represent (but not always) a high level of detail. That level of detail can be great fun to look at and play around. It all contributes to your suspension of reality while you are in the game, transporting you into a different world for a while.
- R_SPEEDS can represent larger outdoor areas. Areas with overhangs and caves for sniping, long distances providing round about routes to get to different places, and doors and windows in buildings for ambushes etc.
- A lot of people have PCs which run the latest killbox just fine? -Lep.
Please don't get caught up in the R_SPEEDS craziness. The R_SPEEDS we can all deal with are as personal and varied as the computers we play on. When I first got into playing HL, nearly a year after its release, I was running a PIII 450 with a 16mb video card. That was top dog for a while in terms of computer strength.. Because of the type of player I am, I would put up with the slow down of the maps X-fire and Gotham because of the gameplay. Personally, it wasn?t a big deal. When I started on my Chaocity series, I kept that in mind: The gameplay I liked and what I could put up with as far as performance. I kept note of at what point the "slideshow" effect became too annoying. The Chaocity series is certainly not for everyone but I DIDN'T MAP ANGRY. I made the type of maps I knew I would love to play over and over again.
If you make a map for the high end gaming machines of the day, you should be as happy as if you were making one that could have been released in the first Half-Life patch years ago.
Just remember: Make the map YOU want to make. Low R_SPEEDS do not make for a good map. You only need to play Rapidcore for 5 minutes to test that theory. It's beautiful, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, it degenerates into the run and gun shotgun fest style of Quake. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, if that is your favorite type of gameplay.
High R_SPEEDS do not make for a crummy map. You only need to play the classic and ugly X-fire or the camping heaven of Gotham to see that. Once again, if that is more of your style of play, because getting picked off by snipers in Gotham can get a little frustrating after a while.
Most importantly, and what many players and mappers don't realize, is that you can have both. You need only go to the original Half-Life and fire up the one and only BOUNCE to see the ultimate happy medium.
