Snarkpit 20 Brush Map Competition

The goal of this competition is to design a level that is visually stunning and playable using only 20 brushes. This requires mappers to be resourceful in the way they use their 20 brushes and textures for the maximum effect.

The final entries should be judged on:

• Aesthetics.
• Layout.
• Use of brushes.

The competition ends on Tuesday night, the 8th of February.

Rules:

• Use only 20 BSP brushes in your map design.
• No prop entities allowed (e.g prop_static, prop_physics etc).
• No 3D skyboxes.
• Custom content (e.g textures and sounds) is allowed.

In addition to brushes, these also count towards your brush limit:

• Each displacement counts as a brush.
• Each decal, overlay or sprite counts as a brush.

The following brushes will not be counted towards the brush limit:

• Passable, non-visible brush based entities.
• Non-passable, non-visible brushes the player can't reach.
• Clip brushes to prevent players getting caught on geometry.
• A total of 6 brushes to form a cubic hull for your level.

If you would like to enter the competition, please create your level in Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 or Half-Life 2 Deathmatch.

When submitting your level, be sure to have a "beauty screenshot" emphasising the aesthetics of your level, a "layout screenshot" emphasising the layout of your level and an optional bsp file (with any custom content embedded inside the bsp) in a zip/rar/7z uploaded to the net, and then linked to here before the deadline. After that, I'll create an official voting thread so no need to worry about that.

If you have any questions or have any wips of your level feel free to put them here. Good luck everyone! Have fun!

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Aaron's Stuff

Awesome, I think I might make some custom textures for this one!
I can't wait to see what everyone creates!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

This competition is TOTALLY different from any I have seen, EVAR!

Wow what an extreme constraint - it takes 6 brushes just to make an empty box room. I'm super interested to see what people come up with.

Nick, you shoulda been in on the other thread. Somehow the basics of structural conception is not fixed. The concept of 6 making a box has been reduced to 1.

/runs from ensuing onslaught of glares.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

What about nodraw brushes? I could use one displacement to be walls (4) and ceiling (1), but I would still need 5 brushes to be nodraw behind the displacement. Do those count?

"omegaslayer" said:
What about nodraw brushes? I could use one displacement to be walls (4) and ceiling (1), but I would still need 5 brushes to be nodraw behind the displacement. Do those count?

A brush covered in nodraw doesn't count as long as the player can't touch it.

"Orpheus" said:
The concept of 6 making a box has been reduced to 1.

Huh? It still counts as 6 brushes to make a box room.

"mazemaster" said:
Wow what an extreme constraint - it takes 6 brushes just to make an empty box room. I'm super interested to see what people come up with.

Yeah you have to use the 20 brushes efficiently. Here are some of the results from previous times a "20 brush competition" has been held at other places:

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Aaron's Stuff

aaron_da_killa said:
Huh? It still counts as 6 brushes to make a box room.

(Unless I misunderstood the rules)

I beg to differ in at least one instance. For the most part I foresee most of the entries being space themed platforms. Because the container will be a box made out of sky brushes. Skies being ruled as not counting toward the 20, you get 6 free brushes to use elsewhere.

I myself have tried and scrapped 6 maps already because I do not want to use platforms or a space theme. However, my box (a room for instance) would count against me in that I couldn't discount them.

I know that sounds confusing but I feel that the area contained in each persons map should not count. In other words, if were to make a killbox, the wall boundary should count equally as a skybox space map and not be part of my 20.

(I don't want to derail your compo thread. If you want I can move this post to the other thread Aaron.)

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The best things in life, aren't things.

You have a point Orph but then it's arguably unfair because the brushes you use to contain the level in will presumably be pretty and solid and then that gives the people who make platform/floating-platform levels a disadvantage. This is the best way.

If this helps Orph people did make contained levels for this comp:

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Aaron's Stuff

That bottom picture I count 18 brushes, and another 5 or more objects that you said count against the count.. so that one is an auto looser if you go by the rules. Or am I still just not getting it.

The one above it I can see 18 brushes, and above that I see 18 at least.. because you said if I cut my brush it becomes 2 brushes.. so how can that person have so many faces facing you in the various areas and still be below the 20 brushes?

The only way to count brushes would be to open the .vmf of that map in Hammer, otherwise you're left looking for rectangular shapes and non-rectangular shapes, and making a guess on which ones could be made with one brush or part of another.
Brushes may form many different convex shapes.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

"Muhnay" said:
and another 5 or more objects that you said count against the count..

They look like weapon_ and ammo_ entities to me which are allowed.

"Muhnay" said:
and above that I see 18 at least.. because you said if I cut my brush it becomes 2 brushes.. so how can that person have so many faces facing you in the various areas and still be below the 20 brushes?

I'm surprised that one is under 20 brushes too. But apparently he was able to squeeze out 619 total surfaces from 20 brushes so there you go. Here's some info about that entry.

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Aaron's Stuff

I don't exactly remember the details. That seems to be an unreal entry and the engine cuts differently. With subtractive I don't think it works like HL2. It could be simply 20. shrugs
I wish Jinxy were here. He'd know.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Orpheus said:
I don't exactly remember the details. That seems to be an unreal entry and the engine cuts differently. With subtractive I don't think it works like HL2. It could be simply 20. shrugs
I wish Jinxy were here. He'd know.

Yes orph, in the unreal editor, you can make one subtractive brush to make a room, however that doesn't work in the HL editor.

omegaslayer said:
opps double post

LOL, the delete post works grandly bud.
My comment was to Muhnay with regard that the solids may not be more than 20 simply because they are touching as they would surely have with HL2's editor.

That one pic Aaron posted is I believe an Unreal creation and might not be more than 20 brushes.
The problem is that I cannot remember how the engine utilizes the geometry and I don't think it breaks up solids that happen to touch.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

OK, I have been trying every trick I know. How did he make that arch without burning 32 or more solids? What am I overlooking guys?

[edit]
God I hate text. It fucking sux as a conveyance of thoughts.

OK guys. I wanna know. If you make a hoop in hammer you begin with "1" solid. You choose to make it 360* and 64 units thick and made out of 64 parts.

Question: is it still one solid or 64?????

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The best things in life, aren't things.

So if I map in Hammer I am at a Loss, because the Unreal Engine can do stuff my choice cant.

What you just said is 64 brushes. An arch doesn't count as one brush, each segment of the arch counts as a brush.

"Muhnay" said:
So if I map in Hammer I am at a Loss, because the Unreal Engine can do stuff my choice cant.

Entries should be for HL/HL2/HL2DM/HL2Ep1/HL2Ep2 as I mentioned in the rules.

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Aaron's Stuff

Then why are you showing us examples made for another game? Kinda confusing the issue.

I think it's still relevant as the Quake and Unreal engines work in same manner as far as this competition is concerned. Also might offer people ideas and inspiration.

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Aaron's Stuff

aaron_da_killa said:
I think it's still relevant as the Quake and Unreal engines work in same manner as far as this competition is concerned. Also might offer people ideas and inspiration.

Quake - Yes.

Unreal - No. You have subtractive brushes that can create concave solids (in HL it would take three, where-as unreal 2). Likewise a square room may be 1 subtractive brush, while in HL2 it would be 6 brushes. Unreal editing is different.

Unreal does have an advantage, because subtractive geometry can make (seemingly) concave shapes (but really it just uses subtractive/additive geometry to define where polygons reside).

For future examples arron you should use Source Engine stuff only.

omegaslayer said:
Likewise a square room may be 1 subtractive brush, while in HL2 it would be 6 brushes.

I wasn't gonna bother pointing this out for the simple reason of,I doubt anyone here will be using it so the concept is moot.

Its still accurate, but moot. It goes back to my saying that I don't feel that the box/area/container should count against our 20. Since Aaron said it does.... Moot.

/2cents.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yes but for Unreal entries in previous competitions they stipulated that the resulting brush from subtractive + additive brushes should be convex and also enforced a face limit for brushes so I think it's still relevant, even if it's just for ideas.

Upon extended consideration Orph, I'm going to allow 6 brushes to form a hollowed, cubic space to be free but you should only see 1 face per each brush of the 6 brushes and the brushes must entirely be considered all or part of the map's hull.

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Aaron's Stuff

How's everyone's entry going? Myself I've experimented with three totally different layouts (skyscraper arena, old ruins surrounded by water, abstract platform level) and im still not happy with either but im making progress. I have however decided I want to make an abstract entry as I haven't really done any abstract level design work in the past.

The Mapcore 20 Brush entries have been submitted recently too, might wanna check them out for some ideas. My favourite entry is the platform level with the pixel smiley face on it, it's quite similar to an idea I had as well.

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Aaron's Stuff

Yea, I'll admit I haven't even thought about what I'm going to do yet. This week was mid-terms for me and it's been a hell-of-busy. All-nighters Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I just woke up from hibernating and am making an attempt to catch up with all the banter on the site.

I was checking the due date and it says:

aaron_da_killa said:
The competition ends on Sunday night, the 8th of February.

I looked at my calendar, and the 8th is a Tuesday, right? So the closest Sunday night to that date is the 6th no?

Just a clarification please.

Either way I should have way more than enough time to get something cranked out and looking good!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Riven said:
Either way I should have way more than enough time to get something cranked out and looking good!

Wanna lay odds?
I have scrapped 8 maps already.... But then I am a bit more dim than the average bear.

Even if you get something thrown together, I bet you you'll scrap more than one.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I don't scrap, I iterate.

[EDIT]: I also start on paper first before entering Hammer. Saves a lot of time!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Riven said:
I don't scrap, I iterate.

verb
Definition of ITERATE
transitive verb: to do again or again and again.

Uh huh... Got'cha.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

The deadline was supposed to be on a Sunday night. I must've read the date wrong. Sigh, next time I'll be more careful.

Anyway, this is my third iteration to use Riven's euphemism I think the texturing will make or break this layout.

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Aaron's Stuff

Are we using this thread for our WIP screens then?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yep I don't see why not. Not everyone is going to want to post wips of their entry though.

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Aaron's Stuff

So far there are 15 brushes used. I wasted 5 making the canal and may remove it in favor of more cover/items. shrugs

Yeah I know, it looks like shite.

I cannot even get the light/sun to shine downward.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I give ya credit.. I have not even tried.

I count more than 20 brushes in this picture... unless I am still misunderstanding the rules.

This is #9. I more/less scrapped the first 8. This one is the furthest along too.

I am having one hell of a time reducing my thinking to 20 brushes. I refuse to add to the platform style everyone seems to favor. I feel that if some fools can have fun in a damned killbox, they can have fun in one filled with stuff.

Mine will be a glorified killbox.

Seriously though, I feel that something/anything other than another platform map is preferable.

I'm not saying its wrong to build one. I just do not want to. Just how many shapes and arrangements can one possibly build?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Nice work Orph. Kind of reminds me of Deja_Vu_2.

I feel though that with that style of map you wont be making the most of the 20 brush limit because your brushes are very cubic (6 faces) and linear and a brush is capable of more faces and more visually appealing shapes. Remember that you can make any convex shape under the sun with one brush.

Seeing as you have split up the ground for the canal you could take that opportunity to add height variation. If you arrange the existing brushes correctly you can add height variation to the ground with ramps without additional brushes.

Here's my entry so far: 19 brushes plus the 6 free brushes to form the hull. It's a bit too dark at the moment but I suppose it gives you an idea of where I'm heading. I'm planning to use all custom textures too.

Gameplay wise, it's very quick and easy to traverse from the top to the bottom of the level but it takes longer and you must use the light bridges to traverse from bottom to top. So the idea is to try and make the top level a camping zone containing health, ammo and good sniper/hiding spots and the bottom level the home of a good weapon, so the basic flow for players would be to try and get the good weapon from the bottom level and make their way to the top level and stay there. Sort of like king of the hill.

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Aaron's Stuff

I know that at this point its pretty flat. Then again, flat can work if you do it correctly.

I told you from the getgo that my job seriously limits my time at home so don't expect to much. I have been home 2 days now and just tonight have I had time to even crack Hammer open.

Right now, I feel good to have made anything at all. Considering the time away from mapping.

You know, I did have DJV2 in mind while I was making this. I have another map but no matter how I noclip around it I cannot get anything resembling a good screenshot. Its a space platform.. Lots of differing heights. But it also looks like shit too.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I am guessing at this.. but here is a map I made in CSS ( I don't have the others installed and don't plan on installing them. ) But Its not really to enter so much as to see if I could build a map with only 20 brushes.. I guess I can. Nothing to write home about, but I like it.

[IMG]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c149/MuhnayShot/Mapping/fy_jackson.png[/IMG]

Nice one Muhnay. A work in progress or is this the finished thing? I like it. It feels like a plastic/cartoon toy to me, something I might see in Toy Story which is one of my favourite movies.

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Aaron's Stuff

Thanks Arron,

Only 20 Brushes, and no Props or models etc.. yeah pretty much think its done.

Question though.. I took a screenshot of the map in layout for posting ( Photobucket is down ) and it shows the ring as one brush.. so does that mean I have extra brushes? I am guessing the colors assigned to the brushes helps you count how many there are?

EDIT: Layout image added

[IMG]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c149/MuhnayShot/Mapping/fy_jackson_layout.png[/IMG]

If you open up the map in Hammer and go Map > Show Information that will show you how much solids you have in the map. You're allowed 20 brushes plus the 6 skybox/hull brushes and any other brush that doesn't count towards the brush limit as defined in the rules. And don't forget that a displacement and sprite counts as a brush.

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Aaron's Stuff

How's everyone's entries going? I've almost finished mine but for some reason it's gotten really laggy all of the sudden. I suspect it's due to me lowering the lightmaps on some of the surfaces but I havent fully looked into it. The Source engine is SO outdated.

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Aaron's Stuff

Muhnay - looks like you've gone a good bit over the 20 brush count. I'm counting at least 18 brushes in the lower track alone. Those corners are expensive - 4 brushes each.

Hey guys, glad to see you're working on your entries A few thoughts on the topic, after having entered Mapcore's 20 brush contest...

I think the most important thing when making a 20 brush map is learning to toss aside some of your usual "rules". Clean brushwork has gotta go. Ignore trying to be technically correct in how you build things. Overlap stuff like crazy. Make stuff at weird angles and don't worry if things sit flush. For my entry into the mapcore contest almost every brush overlaps with every other brush - it's an absolute mess that I'd be horribly ashamed of were it not for the fact that getting much of interest out of 20 brushes outright demands that sort of building.

Each brush has to work more than double-time when you've only 20 of them to make use of. If you can extend a wall through another wall then clip it so it serves as a ramp on to the top of the wall, and then vertex manipulate it so that it extends down through the floor as well and acts as a pillar to support that whole structure up above a lower level, then do it.

Another tip - forget about subtlety and softness. Focus on the larger picture and create bold shapes and forms. An example of this: you can't have concave curves anywhere. If you ever want any sort of concavity, it has to be of the ultra-efficient, straight-line, do-not-pass-go sort. If you want a corridor, consider making the walls angled and meet at a point so as to cut out the need for a ceiling and so make it out of 3 brushes instead of 4. If you want a curved corner piece like Muhnay has on his walkway, make it out of a quarter of a cylinder then clip the inside edge to a straight line so you can make it out of just 1 brush. Outside edges can be as curved as you like however! In muhnay's map those concave curved sections have pushed his brush count way above 20 - using the "arch" tool creates as many brushes as your curve has segments, it just groups them, which does not mean it is a single brush!

Some thoughts on the maps shown...

Orph:
I think the canal here has the potential to be more than it is just now. How about raising one side of it up 128/256 units or something, so you can only come out of the water on the lower side, and ramps at either end (or bridges or whatever) link one half to the other. The upper ground has the benefit of allowing the player to drop down at any point into the canal or over onto the other side. I think that as it stands just now, the canal doesn't really justify it's brush cost. Make it more significant to the layout rather than just a visual element and it will.

Muhnay:
I don't like being the bearer of bad news, but you've definitely got more than 20 brushes in there. The problem really lies in the arches you've used. Each of the corner pieces is built out of 4 brushes - the arch tool just combines multiple brushes into a group. So ultimately those corner pieces alone use up 16 brushes of your 20, which is obviously not gonna work. You can make them cost just 1 brush if you use a quarter of a cylinder for each corner, and then clip the inside of it to 45 degrees. It won't look as good, but at a cost of just 4 brushes round the map instead of 16, it is far more efficient! Looks pretty cool otherwise though

Aaron:
Definitely a bit dark. I do like the objects jutting out of the land though. Overall it gives me a trench warfare vibe. Not quite sure what you're going for thematically with the textures used so far, but looking forward to seeing what you do!

Anyway, good luck to everyone in the contest, hoping to see some cool entries

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

Thanx Duncan. I appreciate the comments. Sadly I am about to begin my busy time of year and doubt seriously that I'll be home much for a while and mapping is at present a home activity until I get my new laptop at least. I do have several ideas yet to incorporate into that particular layout, coincidentally at least one you mentioned.

Thanx again bud.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Alternatively muhnay instead of that concave ring being made of 20 brushes, you could make the same shape with a single convex brush without the inside bit. Then you could make a large texture for the top of the new convex brush and simulate the concave ring on the texture. Maybe the middle bit could be a semi transparent force field then you could put a trigger hurt in the middle (which is free) and that would function the same as how it is now?

And thanks for those comments Reno. Here's the latest on my map: I'm a bit unsure for the texturing, a bit lost :uncertain:.

I'm going to redo the texture for the three pylons, because both the faces and the main texture could be much better. I'm also going to probably change the texture on the "obstacles". Something with less noise/contrast and maybe make it a tiled marble texture instead of just a plain marble texture. I think the light bridge texture needs to look more vibrant. But other than that I'm happy with it.

I'm also trying hard to add trim because it just looks awkward despite this being a 20 brush comp, I think effort into trying to integrate trim will pay off.

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Aaron's Stuff

Caught it didn'tcha Aaron.
I dunno how Duncan woulda took that typo.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Haha yeah I've always associated Gwil and Reno together for some reason and often get mixed up between the two.

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Aaron's Stuff

Odd, if I recall they aren't even on the same island.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Afraid you're wrong there Orph; Gwil and I are indeed island buddies! Wales and Scotland have plenty of differences, but being attached to England is something we both have in common

As for Aaron; oooh I'll forgive what I presume to have been the corrected mistake, this time :P

New shot is looking pretty cool. The textures are a bit inexplicable, but as I've no idea what this structure is it actually gets away with that to an extent! I understand the texturing predicament perfectly anyway - when building with 20 brushes you can end up making some pretty funky shapes that don't lend themselves well to texturing. For that reason I ended up just using a really simple, low-detail concrete texture across my entire level and calling it done.

I like your use of glowing texture "trims"; they kinda light up the dangerous edges and reminds you to watch your step. Is the larger brush on the right accessible?

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

I can never keep those danged islands separated in my noggin. I reckon I'll have to try harder. Now if you were to ask me where all the 50 US states are...

I always find it amazes me that I can drive further in one day than those islands are long.

My record was 1250 miles. My average is about 800.

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The best things in life, aren't things.