Everyone should read this article before starting to make their first maps. Reading this will help you avoid errors and pitfalls that have landed so many levels on the “poorly designed” list on the NAB Community Pack Full. Help steer yourself away from lazy or incorrect methods to improve the overall ratings of your maps. Trust me, I've been there. I know all the wrong ways to do things...
10.POINTLESS SHBALLGUNS:
The SHBallGun, also known as The Ball Shooter is NOT a weapon. There is no need to add it to ANY of your maps. Not even Ballblast/Scavenger Hunt (SH-) Maps.
9.USELESS DDARTAMMOS:
The same goes for the DDartAmmo. It is NOT an ammo class, rather a dummy class to keep the Secret Shot working. You do not ever need to put this into any map.
8.MISUSE OF SHEETS:
Sheet brushes, no matter what you do, will NEVER collide with players. This means you’ll walk through them, fall through them and even jump through them. Sheets are to be used for decorations such as a logo, banner or sign that you want to look like is attached to the wall or zone portals, water surfaces and non-colliding force fields (see PM-Orbital).
7.FORGETTING REBUILDING:
Rebuild your maps! You should always constantly rebuild your maps; it helps with BSP errors and simplifies the whole process. Also, you MUST rebuild it before submitting it or the map might look strange or even become unplayable. Just press F8, and then click “Rebuild Geometry”.
6.BUGGY MOVERS:
In order to make a mover work properly, you must first add the brushes you wish to use for a mover and set the textures as you would like them. Then create a red, builder brush that is bigger than the brushes in ALL dimensions and intersect the brushes (CTRL + N). NOW you may press the “Add Moveable Brush” button. If you do not do this, your mover will have that default, bubbly, moon-ish texture. Also DO NOT just scale the builder brush to be bigger than the brushes for your mover. This will cause the mover’s collision properties to be buggy. You might collide into the mover in a different place than where the mover actually is or not collide at all.
5.LACK OF DEFAULT GAME TYPE:
Always give your level a default game type…Press F6, select” Level Info” and look at the field marked “Default Game Type”. Now in your actor class browser, find “Info” and expand it, then expand “GameInfo”. Expand “NerfGameInfo” and highlight “DeathMatchGame”. Now back in your “Level Info”, in that text field marked “Default Game Type”, hit the “USE” button. If this step is not completed, the map might not be playable online or may suffer from major errors.
4.LACK OF A SKYBOX:
Sky boxes are really not that hard to make. Just make a 256 x 256 x 256 subtracted brush, texture it to some kind of cloud and add a light and “SkyZoneInfo” in the middle. That’s how simple it is to make a skybox, of course keep in mind that more complex skyboxes look cooler. Just set any textures that you want to show the sky on to “fake backdrop” in its surface properties.
3.THINK SMALL, BUT NOT TOO SMALL:
A lot of new levels I see have HUGE rooms! This can be purposeful if it is the effect you are going for (see PM-HallOfGiantsRemix). In contrast, some maps have halls much too small for anyone to pass through. Keep in mind that the tallest players (Little Tree, Newton) are about 104 units high and the fattest players (Wes, O Malley, Granite) are about 72 units wide. Bots also require more clearance to be able to create AI pathing, so don't go around making hallways less than 128 units wide or tall if you expect bots to be able to use them. Also remember that unlike later Unreal Tournament games, crouching does not allow you to fit in smaller hallways.
2.LACK OF PROPER TEXTURING:
A lot of maps are textured in such a way that each cube uses 1 texture and 1 texture only. Levels just look better when the floor and ceilings are different than the walls. Also, if a texture looks misaligned from one wall to another, simply use the ”wall direction” and “wall pan” buttons in the “Align” tab in the surface properties, or “floor/ceiling” for floors, ceilings or ramps.
1.CHOPPY LEVEL DESIGN:
If you want to keep your maps slick and flowing nice, stick to powers of 2 in your main brushes. Common powers of 2 include:
32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048
Also keep your grid set to at least 4 units, unless it is absolutely necessary to lower it. Resist the temptation to use units of 10. As you become more skilled with NerfEd, you will find it so much easier to use powers of 2. If you look at my later maps, you will see almost all main brushes line up very well thanks to powers of 2.
Here is a longer list of powers of 2:
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192
If you really need to make a brush say for example, less than 128 but greater than 64, try subtracting powers of 2. For example, if I want the height of my brush to be exactly halfway between 64 and 128, I can enter:
128-32
into the text field for my brush dimensions. Note that this math trick does not work in the 2D shape editor for some reason and will require you to crunch the numbers manually.