Unofficial Competition 33 Created 12 years ago2012-04-21 02:43:14 UTC by zeeba-G

Though I hope it's a good little while till the next one because I have some projects in mind, it's alway fun to talk about what competitions can be about. I like interesting themes like 20/30 brushes, just was admiring screens from the 20 brush competition someone held.

I think the texture pack one was pretty cool but it didn't work for me because I designed the map and then tried to make the textures work for it and they simply wouldn't pull it off. "I designed an entire moon base but the white texture didn't pull it off at all like I assumed." Instead I should have figured what might be the best to do with the textures and come up with an idea from there.

Another competition that was really cool was the map a puzzle one. Map a dream was such a huge competition and i'm surprised I found the time to out put what I did for it.

For me, mapping has always been mostly all I knew and now that I use other 3d modeling programs I have a different perspective of hammer. It seems that the entire "theme" or goal of a map becomes more important than the actual map itself. This "theme/ goal" is like the prompt of a competition. While "making a map from a given layout" is hella fun and i'd do it a zillion times, I think interesting competitions are more, well interesting.

It would be fun to brainstorm interesting ideas that are broad enough to allow creativity but stipulated enough to make it weird and fun. Just the right balance.

"Triangle" is a cool them imo. Just use the geometric shape very predominantly in an interesting way. It's very broad yet constricting in an intriguing way. It could be as simple as kasperg's hexagerate "if anyone remembers that" or even taken further.

"Under the sea" would be cool, but everyone's ideas would be like atlantis or an under water lab. I could sea some really cool stuff coming from this.

"rats/fats" Make a rats map of any area you'd like, or make any map/ area tiny scale so you feel huge. This would be pretty fun. When I did a rats map of my room it was fun to measure everything and multiply it by however many units I wanted to make it to scale yet huge. I've also seen a really cool remake of cs_assault where everything is tiny and you have to crouch to enter the front garage and stuff.

"Feel the music" Make a map that has music/ songs in areas influencing and correlating with the themes tying the map together in achieving a desired mood or response. Like Nipper's abstract maps that i've mentioned, which you can youtube/ nipper abstract map.

"half life skillz" Make a sp mini mod where you must exploit halflife's various bugs ie bunnyhopping, surfing, using tripmines/grenades to climb/jump etc. to complete the mod. I used to want to make an entire mod for this but never had the motivation. Would be an interesting mod for half life junkies to make mince meat of.

"tripping" Map doing drugs and tripping out. I've made a few of these and to this day plan on making a mod for it, and they were very similar to my dream competition entry whereas you'd return to your home with it altered and hallucinating strange occurances.

-end rant. -continue brainstorm, try to think outside the void

I would love a "my room" rats competition.

I haven't attempted it since my absolute earliest days mapping and it's something I've always wanted to do well.

Some great ideas there. Only one I don't think would be very good would be the "half life skillz" one.

Yea, I pictured it with popular 90's music playing everywhere, and retarded hard puzzles that only hl masters could pull off. But it could be sort of dull. I could just see us all talking and laughing about how hard our puzzles were getting that were actually do able.

I would love to redo my rat's map, although my room is currently plain because i'm going to paint. Man, how differently I would do it. I could have my architecture models all over my shelves and them be to scale of the player so you could go in them.

I liked the last few simple ones like 30 brushes and texture pack, because they are so simple, but yet at the same time they force you to do more with less; i liked Hotdog's recent map from base minicompo for the same reason

"My Room" rats idea would be fun as hell, too

Something atmosphere/ambience-focused?

How much detail you can fit into a given area (cube) ?

Daubster, that sounds a little like the music idea. It is interesting to think about different atmospheric themes a competition could call for, like "peace", "serentiy", "bewildered" etc. Also makes me think of Soup Miner's blue paradise

Rufee i'm pretty sure source would win there. And do you feel that that is interesting? I guess it would be sort of a brush like challenge.

OMGOSH, why don't people think this is the coolest idea for a competition evah>>> "Abducted" ---> ftw

Yeah maybe you're right, but just throwing some idea out.
Abduction seems nice

Abduction is kind of cool, the concept always "sits" in my head.
"Map an alien invasion" would be cool to try as well, I guess

I like the idea of the bizarro, trippy thing. A map that just makes you sit back for a second and go "...ok what in the fuck?"

the 'trippy map' idea as well as the music based one seem pretty damn good and would actually love to do either of them

Ever since I started mapping I set myself an objective: that I would try to make every map as interactive as possible. I began to be extremely bored of maps where all you could do is walk and can't interact with the medium. While I haven't really achieved this, I did try.
Remember my cubicle? It's a map that has no logic(see lava at the bottom, space skybox and bubbles floating around), but makes use of ridiculous amounts of entities.

I'd like a fun compo where we could build different interactive partsmachinery. And it's not got to be exactly this: it can be a little scenario, or even a map set to music with controls...
Since I'm mapping exclusively for Source now(I don't see the sense of using GoldSource: it's both badly optimized, old, and with limited possibilities), I'd be expected to deliver complex physics machineries, but I'm not that advanced :D.
Plus, I'm not even guaranteeing I'll participate: exams are approaching.

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I like the idea of the bizarro, trippy thing

Or this^. I think everyone of us is good at making something random that makes us question the sanity of the mapper :P.

Cool, human interaction gives a map more depth. Never really thought about it much. This is a cool thing to think about.

Another thing I find amazing that can be implemented in maps is something I was actually introduced to in a dream. I had a dream where my grandparent's piano had buttons under the key panel and each one did a different function. This was around halloween time and one button for ex made the keys play a song like as if a ghost was playing. Another did some weird lighting effect and so on. Then there was one button that could only be pressed one time and it had to be within a few days of halloween to be activated. When you pressed it the top of the piano opened and a head came out "a giant frankenstein head" and when I looked inside I saw a few more fake halloween like heads that must have popped out randomly as well and when the head came out it did all kinds of other crazy effects like crazy lighting and stuff. Then the head returned inside the piano and I tried pushing the button again only to realize it could only be pressed once during halloween season. It was really cool.

So what I learned is that it would be cool to have a map that had different areas accesible at different times. Like areas close off and others open up through certain lenghts of gameplay and etc. This would give a bizzare dynamic to a map where you could explore areas that, well weren't there before... This isn't like the matrix map or maps that you fight in certain areas each round, but a map where new areas open and some close off un announced.

I was hoping to toss "Map something dangerous" but I think I like the trippy mapping too much.

How about a competition where you have to pick a song from a list, and then you have to make a map with your only inspiration being that song.

I like that idea

Thats the kind of ideas I like, I remember someone suggested that idea before recently actually.

How about a duo competition. Two people partner up, and communicate somehow. And work together on an entry. Think of weird ideas like that.

"Movement" make a map where movement is enhanced and innovative somehow. I was working on a map where the player jumps over a fan and is sucked into a circular door way that opens like a four pronged claw.

"sandpaper" map sandpaper.

"crack" smoke some crack and hit the mouse.

Yes, last two were jokes.

"Innovative" be so and do something that has never been done in hammer.

the " duo partner" thing is interesting. Incidentally, GameBanana allows teams to participate(as well as individuals) in all their mapping compos.

It would be kinda neat to see what miniature "factions" formed from twhl could produce for a compo

But who on Earth would would I partner up with?

ROFL

Good question though , when could we see a time for Compo 33?

Being that comp 32 just finished, I think i'd give it a good while.

Seeing how the last two compos barely had any downtime between then, we just want to give you folks a bit more time to catch up with your personal projects, etc. before the next one.

How does mid-june sound? I'm finished my exams by then and I've no idea what you guys think , but the start of summer so we have the whole of it to work on it ( I doubt anyone will , but at least it's plenty of free time) seems like an alright idea.

but the start of summer so we have the whole of it to work on it ( I doubt anyone will , but at least it's plenty of free time)

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT! Summer? Is that the bit where we turn on the air-con in the office?

For me 'summer' starts in August. Until then, exams that will decide my fate

Hahaha @ urby

Haha yeah ever since I started working full time, my summers are just the time when I don't kill myself going to school AND working full time. Just working.
I'm down for whatever. I rarely map for anything other than compos anyway

Just use this thread to brainstorm creative ideas for now. I think it's fun to think of what could be done, sometimes even more than actually doing it.

Map emptiness. Try to map a huge empty space replicating what hammer's black void might actually look like if it were a physical place waiting to be inhabited by a map. Just an ever so lonely desolate place. See, interesting idea, but would it really be fun? Well I think so but thinking about it imo is fun in itself.

Here's a thought, perhaps competitions should be longer or shorter pertaining to their complexity.

Here's one I thought of a long time ago. Map your house, and then copy, paste and alter it to make it however you want. Could be realistic rennovations or way out. I'd do a realistic idea I once had to knock out my ceiling and use the attick's sloping roof and height to allow for a sitting reading area balcony space. And other stuffs.

Gman. I dunno, do something with the fellow. It would be cool to recreate a Gman sighting from halflife but then allow the player to access his area to see something bizzarre or something/ whatever you can imagine.

Recreate a part of halflife. It would be jawesome to remake the dam scene. Or any other scene. I know it's been done in source, but nothing says it can't be way out done.

Map a secret. Build a map and make a secret that is somehow unique/ cool.

I could come up with ideas all day long. Post any ideas just for fun.

Behind the scenes - Make a map, either Black Mesa themed or not, but make it so that it's more like a movie set. Starting in a crazy environment, then finding a way out to a back area, with dressing rooms and a snack bar, etc.

Shuttle - Make a one man spacecraft, be it a shuttle, a VIP's escape pod or just a space mercenaries home.

I like behind the scenes. That sounds fun.
Hell, if we don't do that in a competition, I might do it myself sometime anyway.

Ha, cool ideas. It would be fun to make a scene that seemed real but then you realize it's all just a set. You could even take this further and make reality actually a set and show how reality is an illusion. Well somehow...

Unidentified thread: A map where you start inside your dream, you're trying to get out of.And when you're just a step away from the death you wake up, your head hurts, and you suddenly hear screams and gunshots and try to find out "What the fuck happend?".And slowly what you dreamed becomes real.
Here it will be even interesting if competitiors have to make several paths of the story in some places, like if you find 3 doors you have to choose the right one, or you have to make the right decision like if you help someone he/she will help you in further parts of the story, but if you don't - well you guessed it, they won't.

But my dream smash....

I actually came up with an idea based on some phycological evaluations I read of American troops in Iraq and you play a honorably discharged soldier set in a induced sleep/hypnosis by a phyciatrist.

The story starts out subtle, like a little like a black and white dreamscape with some minor 'hurdles' with discoloured flashbacks of his version of events during his service. As you go, you unlock 'colours' which show more flashbacks, as they get grimmer and darker until you find the colour red, and something snaps and you backtrack through the dreamscape...

I won't go on as it gets pretty horrible and disgusting, but to me, that would be one of my most dedicated creations. Now I just gotta get up the nerve to make it. :

Sounds cool.

Map an fy (fight yard) map would be a fun competition.

+2 for map a fy_map

I know you all hate them, and we ignore them completely as a result. When people submit them we say things like "it looks nice but it's just a fy_map"

The deliciousness of a TWHL fy_map compo is almost too much.

An FY_MAP sounds almost like a cubicle without any restrictions.

It has my vote. As I may enter for fun anyhow.

fy_map would be fun, but isn't it stupid? I mean fy_ maps? You just have a small (usually square shaped) map with (most likely as in fy_poolday) weapons everywhere...no restrictions...no events(!), etc.Just stupid grunt-shooting...

bojidar4oto
Even "fy" map can represent something more complicated that just a "square shaped" thing

But it is still stupid...EXCEPT if you have world events triggered in certain conditions

Sooo Fight Yard is just deathmatch right?

I think the mods may have a big dick up their sleeve for the next compo, and they are just building up the suspense(plus waiting for the core to be completed)

I personally would join a fy compo; it would be pretty easy since fy maps are traditionally very open maps, and one side is a mirror image of the other.

coming up with a fun/original/cool theme for it might be fun..

I like fy_poolday.

I like pools.

I like day.

@Urby But Counter-Strike 1.6 is NOT deathmatch. Cs_deathmatch-final is enough!
But still - as I said somewhere above - it would be fun.

Sounds like a lot of people want to do an fy map. I'd be able to enter if it was hosted during this summer break as I have no classes, just work. It's a nice competition because it doesn't involve too much commitment.

I would love to see what you could do for this rim.

Fy doesn't mean deathmatch, it just means a small fight yard map like fy_iceworld. Could be used for deathmatch though i guess.

Do competition on custom map type!

How about Map Being Eaten?

Make a map of you, the player, being eaten and exploring the human body?

You play as a scientist trying to stay alive during the resonance cascade.
No guns
No ammo
No suit
No flashlight

Tet I really like that idea! (though you're gonna have to script some really neat things for the player to do if he ain't got no gun!)

Bruce: Whadaya mean by "custom map type"?