2005 Mapping Competition thread

That's right, it's that time of year again! The theme this year is "unrealism": make a surreal, non-realistic HL2DM level using your twisted, sad minds. Whether it be a mind-boggling mass of displacement surfaces, or a Rats!-style map set in your toaster, we're after levels that you'd never encounter in real life, and aren't based on locations past, present or future. It's a chance to get those creative juices going and to try to break out of the warehouse/Combine mapping cycle, and perhaps turn a few e-heads in the process.

Prizes are yet to be announced (there will be some- the winner can expect at least a console/PC game of their choice), and the deadline is the 14th August 2005.

Full details here: http://www.snarkpit.net/features.php?page=articles&id=175

whooooooo hooooO!

YIPPEE..

Here is a cool web page to help some of you along..

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/3d/illus2.htm

Woohoo, I already know what I'm going to try! Good luck to everyone! :smile:

(Tip: Start earlier than you think you should! It may seem like you
have plenty of time, but the deadline will creep up on you! Before you
know it, it will be August 14th and you'll be frantically compiling
your entry to make the deadline!)

I'm not entering this time due to lack of time to dedicate to mapping, but if anyone needs assistance/feedback give me a holler. :smile: Good luck!

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You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want But You Got To Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through

We'll see you cave in as the summer months role by, I know it Hawkins :razz:

I think its a cool theme this year and I'm certainly interested. Not
got any ideas as of yet, but I'm sure I'll think up something. Can't
wait to see what people cook up :smile:

EDIT: Just wanted to add, that this year I think it would be really
nice to see a judging panel. Not to suggest that Lep's decisions in the
past have been off or anything (personally I've tended to agree with
his decisions, especially that "Torrent" map from a few years back :biggrin: ),
but I think it would be really cool to have a set of reasonably
experienced mappers who didn't enter themselves give feedback on each
level and pick their own "winners". Obviously Lep's decision would
decide who the prize goes to.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Good luck to all of you who enter. Time to start thinking out of the box...

I want to work on a map but feel that I may not make it, if not I'd
love to help judge (I've made some pretty bad maps so I know what not
to do :wink: )

Is it alright with you Lep if I post a link to the contest on Interlopers.net?

I'm not entering this time

With no one to stop me, at last victory will be mine! :heee:

Damn it, I always make the best maps for the wrong competitions.

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

LOL, I hope we aren't going to see a lazy port mr.smith :razz:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Don't worry, if its gonna be a port, it ain't gonna be a lazy one :biggrin: .

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

I try my idea right now... and if it will work, then I will start
making a cool map with it... I hope it will though... such thing is
impossible to walk on... and you'd be dead if you tried it :biggrin: (i
think)... so theoretically, you should be unable to be in this place in
these conditions... aswell as there is no such gravity as I am going to
give it... just wait and see :wink:

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee

lol, that made a lot of sense :razz: .

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

Yea.. it did... anyway it would not work. People would get too low fps.
My idea was creating "Heaven"... since it involved having a lot of
particles... and the one I created already for the base "cloud", was
too... particled :biggrin: I had alraedy like... 15-20 fps inside there so It
was impossible to create a full map with these :biggrin:

Anyway... off to thinking a new theme :-P

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee

Spartan said:
Is it alright with you Lep if I post a link to the contest on Interlopers.net?

Yeah of course you can :smile:

And yes I think a panel of judges is a good idea, so if any of you experienced types aren't entering and are interested let me know.

I'm entering, but is it alright if I judge as well? I promise to be impartial :dodgy: .

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

I think I have an idea hint lets just say it has something to do with Valve and Steam :wink:

We have ages to do this :biggrin: so thats plenty of time to finish other projects...

Thanks Leperous!

I have a great rats (actually it's more like ants) map idea.. I have a
real cool case with great inside I'd like to show... but I'm afraid
there will be too many of those, so I have to think something else...

Btw... Lep, who deals with checking the tuts? I have one waiting for
being checked for ages now! Just wondering, who deals with that... and
if it could be checked :biggrin:

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee

Just to let you know I've also posted news of this mapping competition on the website I help out on www.levels4you.com. The more the mappers see it the better the competition.

Thanks Gandalf :smile:

Says to check in the forums if you're not sure, so here goes. Would this sort of thing be reasonable?

http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/loco/images/concept01resized.jpg

Just a quick sketch that I did (that was water below, but it kinda got lost in the scan). I'm fairly sure it's okay, but just checking. It's not entirely
"unreal" strictly speaking and not very imaginative, but is it allowed?

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My site

I suggest that the panel of judges should consist of all previous competition winners (I mean first place winners) only. They've earned their rights to be judges by their mapping prowess.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

I'm going to be rehashing my "Persia" concept from the previous
competition, except with a few twists. Right now I'm torn between
semi-realistic / cel-shaded. Semi-realistic kind of goes against the
spirit of the competition but is easier with some photo-whoring for
textures. Cel-shaded would definately be cooler, but would probably
require actual artistic talent to draw good textures. Argh!

Loco: Looks fine. An underwater-themed map would be great! There's
already plenty of beached ship props you can use and stuff. I think the
most important thing is that it isn't related to HL2 / City 17.

I'm brainstorming at the moment. Perhaps I'll take an old idea and mess
it up the surrealistic way, or take a fresh approach. I'll see.

But I'll definitely be joining this contest. I'll be happy to have some
more finished levels... really, after 3 or 4 years you want something
of your own to play in... :wink:

EDIT: Something more than 2 levels, that is.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

hehe, I chose a good time to start learning mapping. I love
surrealist/fluxus/discordian work. I just hope I can make a half
decent map for this by august.

Looking foreward to seeing everyones maps.

Hey, are you sending the reward in france too ? ^.^

If its anything like the time I got a prize, I think he will just order
something off the internet and have it delivered to wherever you are,
so I don't think there will be an issue with most EU and US locations.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

omg, this is the perfect theme for a competition!. I have a feeling we're going to see some crazy stuff here.

btw, I posted this comp as news on the norwegian modding site "spillmodding.no". the more, the merrier:D

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www.spillmodding.no

• Norwegian Modding Community -

I saw it posted at Planet Half-Life too.

CJ, post it up on the VERC news if you can still do that :smile: I posted about it on mapcore.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Slapped it onto VERC. Spread zee news!

EDIT: Oh, and I just picked up Psychonauts - AMAZING game. If you're
stuck for surrealism/unrealism ideas, do yourself a favor and get this
game! It is most definitely "surrealism" incarnate, and will
surely turn a few cogs in your brain if you have mapper's block. :smile:

Agent Smith said:
I'm entering, but is it alright if I judge as well? I promise to be impartial :dodgy: .

The odds are that I won't have time to enter but you never know.

It is my opinion however that if you do not vote for yourself, then you are not cheating by entering a submittance and being a judge as well.

On the first point, I would like to submit my request for a judges position, subject to the discretion of the rest of the snarkpit membership of course.

On the second point, since I never feel my maps are worth a s**t, you won't see me voting for one of them as a judge.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

It would be easy enough, provided there were say 4/5 judges, for people
to simple not comment on their own maps. By the way, when I said a
judging panel, I was envisioning something like the one that did
geocomp
a fair while back. So not just picking favourites and assigning
scores, but doing little write ups similar to Lep did for each of last
years entries summing up their opinions of the levels.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

ReNo said:
but doing little write ups similar to Lep did for each of last years entries summing up their opinions of the levels.

Hey... Mine were... misplaced, but I did do a review of all the maps in one of our contests..

I would consider doing another if it were guaranteed that they could not come up missing again.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I'm going to make something that'll end up really crappy/not surreal at all, so long as I manage to get HL2 by August. :razz: I'll work on the architecture or something similarly boring.

Just to clarify, the maps don't have to be particularly surreal so long as they're (somewhat) unique? That's the gist of what I got from the details page but I wanted to be sure.

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One day you'll know what you're talking about, I can hardly imagine

Maps! - Audio blog!

Surely this whole thread should be in the maps forum?

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

Myrk- said:
Surely this whole thread should be in the maps forum?

I disagree. The maps forums is such that people talk/discuss specific maps. This is a general information thread on many maps. Yeah it is about maps, but it is also about judging and themes and a whole plethora of things not maps.

/ 2 cents

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The best things in life, aren't things.

For what its worth, I added the competition to PFL's front page.. Perhaps we will get a few hits from that direction.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Dear judge, is it ok to submit a join project?

I mean like we split the prize, you know.

I don't see why not, as long as you're not submitting loads of separate entries.

And thanks Orph, though I see Unseth has once again departed you for the time being!

Leperous said:
And thanks Orph, though I see Unseth has once again departed you for the time being!

You are quite welcome.
Sadly just before he activated all my admin powers too. Sadly I am essentially only a figurehead. I do not crave power, but I would like to have enough to alter the site sometimes. :/

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Leperous said:
I don't see why not, as long as you're not submitting loads of separate entries.

And thanks Orph, though I see Unseth has once again departed you for the time being!

I hope you understood what I meant to say, because I spelt joint wrong. :/

I missed the 04 competition last year, but I don't think I'll want to miss out on this one. :wink:

/me starts thinking up map ideas and attempts to learn the materials system

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

Posted at http://www.gamedesign.net/.

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http://maze5.net

Thanks maze.

I do not crave power, but I would like to have enough to alter the site sometimes.

So you're like young Anakin Skywalker, being a member of the Jedi Council but not made a Jedi Master.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

satchmo said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I do not crave power, but I would like to have enough to alter the site sometimes.

So you're like young Anakin Skywalker, being a member of the Jedi Council but not made a Jedi Master.</div></div>

PFL was a site in every way as great as this one is.. once.

Unseth takes breaks, sometimes years long between showing up and in the interim, the site goes stagnant. Most likely, real life pressures and whatnot.

Anywho's, the last time he showed up, I requested admin and gained it, to a point. He was supposed to activate everything but disappeared again.

I did not want admin to be powerful, only to guarantee the site not go stagnant again, in fact, I had 3 people lined up to take my place, as I truly did not want it.

Anywho's.. The sites host is stable. The connection fast as hell, but I have no way of gaining access other than my limited admin powers, which are not adequate to the task.

I had hoped to possibly move Snarkpit there once upon a time, cause the host there is much more reliable..
anywho's.. If I wanted power Satch, I'd have retained my Green name here. :/

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I'd also like to judge alongside Orph. I won't find the time to submit an entry and I was once described as "the Simone Cowell of mapping", which can only be good when judging maps :biggrin:

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http://www.jamesdeth.co.uk

I WANT TO KEEP MY SNARKPIT NAME AS THURSDAY- AND NOT CHANGE IT TO MY NEW ALIAS OF THALDARIN! WHY? NOSTALGIC PURPOSES FOR ME! STOP ASKING ME IF I WANT TO GET IT CH

Lol Orph... PFL... lol...

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-