CSGO Level Design Boot Camp - Day 5 - Building, Testing, and Fixing Dev Level

hello everyone top hat waffle here and today we're going to pick up where we left off last time when we drew the top-down layout for our first competitive level to get started with is a block off we're going to go to the tools section and steam and load the Counter Strike global Offensive SDK once we have that loaded will load up hammer world editor once hammer loads we'll go to file and then new before we start blocking out let's grab our dev texture we're going to use this instead of the no draw texture that we usually use I'm going to use the dev measure generic oh one B this is just the gray texture when I'm blocking out my level I want my grid size to be approximately 16 and I'll just start building from the perspective of the terrorists again and I'll use this image as a reference so you can print it off put it up on your smart phone whatever works best for you so you can view it while you're building the level I'll drop a player spawn here so I know that this is terras spawn it will also help me keep the scale correct and throughout this entire block out you'll see me dropping lots of player spawns as I go before I continue I'm going to save the map file I've gotten myself into the habit of pressing ctrl s quite often I'm just going to shift drag some brushes around mostly every now and then creating some new ones it's much faster to resize existing brushes that have been copied a bunch of times than it is to create new ones in most cases it's not uncommon to change your grid size halfway through brushing out your level I'll use the vertex tool to create slants that will probably later become stairs it's also easy to use the vertex tool to resize brushes than it is to use the transform tool by just clicking and dragging I've sped this up some the entire full layout block out is probably going to take about two or so hours I've switched my camera mode to 3d flat just to see things easier in this camera mode while I'm blocking this out I'm more concerned about scale now than when I was when I was drawing it since this is actually going to be playable space it needs to make sense the scale needs to be right I'm using the vertex tool more to resize a few brushes in bulk and here I'm using the clipping tool to add some clipped corners those are also in the top down view as well I don't have too much done at this point but I've reached a spot where I want to check some layout in game to be able to load the level in game and actually see stuff we need to place the light environment that we had before really quick I will place a new entity openness object properties by double clicking and changing it to a light underscore environment the only settings I really need to change is the pitch and I can set this to negative 75 and that will light my level pretty well so I can see what's going on the one last thing that I have to do is create a skybox around the level I don't want to have to deal with brushes at this point so we can use the cordon bounds tool the cordon bounds tool will allow us to safely compile one or more sections of our level at a time without any leaks to enable this we click the caution yellow black outline with red corners and we make a box around our level with this box created around our level we now have the option for the solid yellow and black toggle cord and state when we click that our level will be surrounded by a red box in 3d view these are our coordinates with our cordon balance enabled everything outside of the red box will not be rendered if I turn them off and place a brush outside there and then turn it on again we can see that it disappears it has not been deleted it's just been hidden and will not be compiled I'll turn cordon balance on I'll click run map using the full compile HDR only preset I'll click go once you're all compiled we can load up csgo once you're in game just open the console and type map space your map name and then join a team if you've left more than one spawn in your level bots will automatically join and a navmesh will be generated we can see that we have a bot over there you can kick the bot with bot kick it's a good idea to set up a bind that will just automatically kick the box and and warm up now that the bots are kicked we can walk around and see exactly what we're dealing with here what you want to do is check the timings to your areas in relation to where they were on the map you may notice that you've built things too big this area is huge in contrast to everywhere else this is a fairly common issue that most people will have when they first start using hammer they have a difficult time getting a grasp on the scale this is why I encourage you to after you've built for a little bit load the level and check the scale we don't have to close counter-strike to make changes we can just switch over find the area that we want to rescale I'm a fan of using the vertex tool and we can make box selections over the vertexes and use arrow key nudge to rescale everything once I'm happy with those changes I'll go back to building out the level but let's take a look at them really quick we can recompile the map once the compile window has disappeared we can just go back to counter-strike and reload the level at no point do we have to close CS now that we've spawned in again I can check these timings once again and just see how the floor feels this feels much better and much less open and no-man's land like from here I'm going to continue building and testing the timings throughout the level while some people do find time-lapse mapping interesting ain't nobody got time for that today so I'm going to do the magical jump cut and we're gonna go right to the next step here so this is about 45 minutes later I have the finished floor layout here you'll notice that I've colored some of the walls orange just to help me distinguish whoa and running around these are raised up areas so it's just easier to have the bottom walls be there instead of it being a flat ground like everywhere else what I want to do now is test my timings on the completed layout from spawn to A to B and the like testing the timings in your own level on the floor layout is much like what we were doing with dust2 and mirage in the previous video we're looking to make sure that the level timings work how I wanted them to work when I designed the map that is that CT should get to the bomb sites first as well as I wanted them to get to middle first these are the most important timings for my level so far assuming that the floor plan timings turn out to be pretty much how you want them to we can move on to the next step we can now begin to put walls around the brushes in our level this will allow us to test the level by ourselves with some bots this is more or less just another time-consuming process so we're gonna speed this up coming outta work drive we now have all the walls built around our level before we can test it with more BOTS we need to copy our spawn points so we can have five bots on each team I'm going to rotate this spawn so that way he faces the right direction towards middle and just shift copy him till I have five of them I'll come over to my CT spawn area position him facing somewhat towards middle and then make four copies of them so we have five of each we now need to create the bomb site volumes that will allow the bomb to be planted if we go over to the texture browser and then in the filter type trigger we'll get this orange texture that says trigger on it to select it this is going to be used to create the volume for our bomb site for this we'll want to switch our camera mode back to 3d textured zoom in on the area that will be the bomb site volume and then just create the brush in that area this is a transparent texture so we can see through it while we're working in our level press ctrl T which will turn it into a function detail by default we're going to change it from a function detail to be a function bomb target as soon as we create this this will be bomb site eight the first bomb site volume that you create will be site a and the second will be B I'm going to shift copy the bomb site volume and just fit it over the small platform that I have at B at this point I don't have much cover at all added into the level as I want to add that where I feel it's necessary from playing the level with some bots when you do your walls you can use pretty much any texture you want I use the dev measure generic oh one wall is really dealer's choice whatever you prefer one more trigger we have to add before anything can happen in the level is by zones if we select our trigger texture again and go to our CT spawn create another volume brush around the spawn press ctrl T once again to make it an entity and we're going to make it a function by zone click apply you'll want to change team number from all teams to counter-terrorist do the same thing on the other side of the map for the terrorist team except make sure you said this one to Terrace with our entire level filling our cordon bombs we can safely compile the level if you need to expand your cordon balance to fit more of the level you can click the yellow black for red dot corner icon up here for the Edit cordon bounds and you can make the bounds bigger or larger depending on your level size now we can compile the level click f9 to run the map since this is a development level and we're testing the block out our level is very unoptimized this only really affects the visibility engine and we'll need to tell it to not worry so much about performance in this compile i'm the viz underscore exe ii command line go to the parameters box and before - game ad - fast this will tell it to perform a fast compile for the visibility options this will allow the level to compile much faster but at a performance cost since there's nothing really in the level the performance cost won't be noticeable you'll never want to compile a final level with fast visibility this is very bad and should never under any circumstance be done since we've made changes we need the bots to know that these changes have been made this means regenerating the navmesh the easiest way to do this is to delete the existing navmesh and let the game regenerate it next time we load with bots open your csgo install directory and go to the maps folder from there scroll down to where your map is find map name dot nav and just delete it now when we load the game as soon as we join a team it will sample the space generate the navmesh and analyze everything for us automatically the navmesh generation can take a few seconds to a minute so just let it go and then bots will work relatively ok after the navmesh has finished generating the game will automatically reload and let you choose a team what you want to do here is join a team and then play a few rounds on each side don't expect this level to be anything amazing it definitely isn't going to make it into the face of rotation but what we want to see is exactly where the trouble spots in our map are from this little play test of just four rounds on each side I can already tell that the Beast side of the map is a little bit too big and I already have an idea of where I want to start placing some cover in my level when you test the level with BOTS for the first time you'll probably notice that they have the IQ of about a grain of rice that doesn't really matter what you really need is just some bodies to shoot at that lets you try to figure out where you want to play what spots in your level the first run-through that I like to perform obviously has no cover in it I like to test the layout as a basic layout first now that that's done I obviously need to add cover having an understanding of where I want cover from that basic no cover layout helps me determine where to place objects I decided that I wanted to start with what will be the metro track when coming up with the idea for this level I decided that I wanted to use Metro cars as a form of cover at my long a so I've decided to just brush those out with some basic brushes I've added some player clip in the back to not allow players to go back there and it also helps shorten up this very long sight line that was at CT spawn towards a along with that I'll also add a few little details around the level that kind of help get across what areas are supposed to be what such as railings along edges that will have railings eventually I'll also add some cutouts for what will be potential decal doors but they'll also be a form of cover during the play test I noticed that there really weren't too many great options to get to as a terrorist and mid really didn't have a reason to be pushed for the terrorists so I added a vent that will go into a drop down on to what will be my eight connector the idea behind me adding this vent is to make counter terrorists have to hold middle a little bit more and keep a watchful eye on it otherwise if they don't the terrorists can just easily go in the vent and then drop down out of that area into connector one thing that you might be wondering is hey this layout is almost completely different from what you originally sketched out like some of it's still there but most of its different layouts on paper don't always translate into game perfectly after we've drawn that layout we've brushed it out we set that to the side it no longer dictates how we build our level if you think that a small change in some area or a new path will benefit the overall level you should just add it test it and see how it works out B was a big area that I noticed had a lot of issues I decided I kind of wanted to reflow the pathing over towards the B site B main was too long I didn't like the drop-down how that played so I started fresh pretty much in my mind on where I wanted B to go I referred back to my reference images and I decided that I wanted to have some escalators in there onto an upper area I wanted some height variation to be in play on one of the sites so there will be two levels there since I refloat the terrorists portion of B main I also wanted to reflow CT side I didn't like my you staircase so I turned it into an S that has an elongation in the middle to help prevent long sightlines midway through I started playing with some roof ideas at B when i'm redoing this first area after my initial play test by myself i'm kind of just playing around as things come to me i wanted to have a little lower area where a CT could play a high-risk high-reward kind of deal where they could get my lead here I start to add the upper area to B I decided to give terrorists a direct path into upper B and CTS if they want it they have to either push through the site or go through middle this will give CTS another reason to go through metals so they can have a chance at upper B if they want it at least that's how I picture it in my mind playtesting may always reveal something different than what you had planned and that's not necessarily a bad thing you may notice that there's a bit more detail going into the level at this point most of it is still rough brushwork I use it to help get the point across of what area is supposed to be what when play testing areas feel a lot less empty and dead space like if there's a reason for something to be there for instance having these escalators here or what will be escalators has a good feeling on how this site actually plays if those were just rough ramps without any railings or anything on it it would feel a little strange I did an initial test with my timings towards the metro and I didn't like how the sight lines played out so I've readjusted what will be again my metro cars to allow for the terrorists to have a better chance at close range at this bomb site I wanted both types of play both rifles and snipers along with SMGs and shotguns to have somewhat of a chance at taking a a lot has changed since we've finished our first round of changes after that self play test we need to add some light in B since we have some roofs here this area will be very dark and impossible to see players we can add a default light just to give that area some light for now place a new entity double-click it to bring up its options and just change its class to light we don't need to configure any of its settings for right now we just need to light an area you can just copy with shift drag this light entity that any other areas that you think may be dark I'm going to put one into my vent now with all those changes let's go into game and have a quick look at it before we test it again with bots we need to once again delete the navmesh and let that regenerate now that we're loaded in on the newest version it'll feel like pretty much a brand leveled at this point you should retest the level by yourself like we just did with BOTS to make sure that it's starting to play how you want it to play after that you should make some more changes on your own at some point you'll have to test this level with other people now you don't want to be that guy who tests a level without testing it by himself make sure that the level plays fairly well before you involve ten other people to spend their time testing your level a good thing to always keep in mind when you're testing your level with other people is that no one is attacking you with their feedback everyone's there to help you and take into consideration everything that everyone says it's your job as a level designer to decide which things to implement but it's also your job to listen to every concern that all the players voice then after you've gathered in sifted through all the feedback that players have given you you'll make the changes like we just did after our first self play test you'll test them again with bots and then when you feel ready you should test it with people one more time if you're having trouble getting enough people to play test your level there's a few ways that you can get about 10 other people to help test your level with you there's a few services that'll allow you to test your level all for free I host one myself at top-hat waffle calm there's also map core level testing that I believe currently is scheduled for two times a week if you google any one of those you'll be able to find how to sign up and get your level tested by other people and begin gathering feedback one other bit of feedback that's good for testing how your bomb sites play is block off half the level pretty much just remove it have just T spawn CT spawn and then a site and played as a demolition map see how it works out and focus on just a then do the same thing to be remove a from your level play it as just a demolition site at that bomb site take all the feedback from those sites specifically and do the fixes there it's much easier to focus on one part of the map at a time if you focus on a site for two days and then focus on b-site for two days it'll be much easier than dividing your attention between both of them simultaneously I hope this gave you a better understanding on how to take a layout that you've drawn block it out into hammer test your timings build the walls test it by yourself and apply feedback that you yourself generate and that you will eventually get from other players thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one tomorrow

Channel: TopHATTwaffle

Views: 28,497

Rating: 4.9527025 out of 5

Keywords: Hammer, world, editor, source, engine, tutorial, tophattwaffle, counter, strike, counter-strike, global, offensive, sdk, authoring, tools, mapping, dev, Valve Hammer Editor, valve, steam, level design, csgo, ecs, faceit

Id: 5em3o0FFhR0

Length: 21min 39sec (1299 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 26 2016