Hey everyone;

After finishing work on the Railways map, I've started on my big project. My piece de resistance (sp) as it were.

It's set in Sci-Fi laboratories on the Moon. There will be two buildings connected by a tram type thing enclosed in a transparent glass tube (not build yet).

ETA is about 1 month, I've taken a video walkthrough of the work done so far and posted it to YouTube.

Linky

Heeey!
I've got some suggestions: I think if someone was to build a base on the moon, it would be a bit more flat than that, it seems like there are a lot of stairs that you have to climb before you can get from A to B and I don't see how that contributes to your map yet. The earth on the skyline is a great idea, but right now it seems like it's not actually used as a skyline, it's more like a sphere with the earth texture. I'd bring it farther and lower than that because the bottom part is not the prettiest part of the texture either. Good job so far!

The drops are a little too high perhaps, if under fire as well, you'll be orange no legs when you hit the ground.

The stairs are a little GODZ castle, ramps are better if you are thinking altfire. DXMP_Bioweapon was not hosted because it was "too big", so bear in mind also, while players might love it, hosters might not.

I like the idea of the big room being a bit of a puzzle to get down, different movers, sometimes taking you higher than lower, but getting you to where you can find another way down etc. A bit like snakes and ladders.

The movers are fun, players like this stuff, vehicles, cars and trains.

The idea of the stairs is that there is going to be laboratory equiment on each level: think of the Cloning Bay in Altfire_Prodigy. ATM I'm putting in glass-panelled railings along the edge of each floor so that it looks and acts realistic: though obviously you'd be able to jump over them in altfire.

You seem to be taking your mapping work very seriously which is cool, it's all about patience, I think you may just have it. Don't be frightened to spend a week on a map layout or more before you add any detail, once you know you have a good playable layout then you can crack on with the detailing. Getting things to scale is also of paramount importance, I tend to use a door way 128 units high and 64 units wide to scale stuff to.

Some great advice from members for new mappers like yourself. What Chinny said is the main goal, get the lay out %100 and the detail work you add will complement the whole map throughout afterwards. Liking your enthusiasm when it comes to mapping your showing great potential, thought and ideas to the projects your currently working on Keep this up Whiplash

Looks good, but you should lower the Earth and make it bigger

I would say the opposite. Not that I have been to the moon....yet. I would make it a touch smaller and maybe lower down. If you stood on the Moon the Earth would NOT be that big no matter what part of the Moon you were standing on! be realistic on that part please also the Moon is not flat so the stairs make sense in some way's yet something is missing on that point. I would personally have Moon rock inside the buildings to say yes we built on the Moon and built around it at the same time. Might give it some detail and atmosphere as it were a unique part of the map if the Moon rock shows in certain rooms throughout the map.

One of the moon astronauts said you can cover the Earth with a thumb.

The Earth's diameter is about 4 times that of the moon's so it should look 4 times wider and have 16 times more surface area.

J was wrong, it's really smaller

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise - was done with Hassleblad 500 EL and 80 mm lens. The colour negative transparency is 6 inch x 6 inch. Earth is taking up just under 1/6th of the 6 inches, so if you consult a chart for 80 mm medium format lenses, you can work out the size in real life exactly. It looks very small in the original photo, but having used a 500 EL to photograph the moon at uni, it seems exactly correct, that the earth is 4 times bigger than we see the moon. The moon was a dot almost on my 6 inch x 6 inch negative.

Earthrise is extremely slow, so I would not expect to see any movement in Earth during a match, unless you're aboard a spaceship which will orbit pretty fast, the earth might go halfway up a skybox in 18 minutes, is a unresearched guess.

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