As someone who enjoys mapping as much as playing the last year or so has been a frustrating time, especially with the sequels to 2 of my favourite online games not supporting mod tools (FEAR PO and MW2) therefore for me the Galactic mod has came along at the perfect time. What makes this an interesting mod is that it gives a mapper an excellent opportunity to create something a little different from the usual CoD4 maps and presents a far greater challenge in doing so.
Most mods and custom maps take advantage of the many available assets contained within CoD4 such textures, models, effects, sounds etc and combines them together to give a new mod or map which quite often is a variation of what we have seen before. The Galactic mod is completely different in that respect, it packages up a whole lot of new assets to give CoD4 a complete makeover, therefore making a map for the mod requires that same level makeover, after all it is unlikely you will see a rusted car, helicopter or MP5 in the Star Wars galaxy.
Mp_Rebellion was roughly 3 months in the making, the first week of which was spent getting back up to speed with the mod tools and reviewing all the available information on the maps made by the Blackmonkeys so as not to avoid duplication. The hardest part was deciding what theme the map was to be and what Star Wars environment it was to be set in thus after many false starts with such places naboo, coruscant, tatooine, geonosis, Endor and even the Death Star I finally settled on making a map based on the old Star Wars game ‘Empire at War’ and not to base it on a particular Star Wars location.
Although Empire at War is more of a strategy game than an FPS some of the building models in the game fit in excellent with the CoD4 engine and more importantly it allowed me to create a map with 2 distinct halves meaning that the objective based games (CTF, Sabotage and S&D) have a different feel when you are on a different side. Collection of the assets to be used (mainly textures) was a time consuming task, in the first week I probably added 200 textures to the mod tools and then a further 100 as I went along, I eventually ended up using about 140 in the Beta release meaning a big IWD within the download but this cannot really be avoided if you want to make a map look different from others.
When laying a map size and shape out I try to follow a few simple rules:- Build it to be played with about 8-16 players. Build it with objective based games in mind. Give each team an equal advantage with their base. Use elevation where possible. Make every object, building, effect and sound in the map appear to have a purpose and most importantly fit in with the overall theme.
After scratching off a couple of early maps as they were too big and not balanced between the teams I decided on a mid-size square layout with a central underground section and to give each team a base that contrasts against the defenders colours. Then came the fun part (for me at least) of actually creating the buildings for the bases and applying the textures I had collected, this took around 3-4 weeks and was fairly painless after I had dediced to use a white theme for the Rebels and rusty theme for the Empire. Along the way I discovered a few tricks with lighting, agonised over the height of the Empire docking platform, finally figured out how to edit stock FX and I also toyed with Maya and radiant in the hope of putting a couple of static X-Wing’s into the game which never quite worked out.
Hopefully a final version which has a few modifications and fixes in it should be out over the next few days and then its time to rack up some play time.
Easybeat
www.thedowclan.com

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