GENERAL INFO

MAP NAME: Gx's Bunker

FILE NAME: hl2dmzgxbunkerbeta1.bsp

CURRENT STATE: BETA

AUTHOR: Z'HA'DUM (aka Sitting Duck in Valve games) (aka Bionic Gerbil in Quake3 games)

RELEASE NOTES

This map was originally created for Soldier Of Fortune 2, so under the Quake 3 engine it looked and felt quite different from this HL2 version. I felt the bunker context would apply well to HL2 given the "resistance" style used through HL2. I think it came out nicely. I ported it to other games but none of those ports met expectations for release, yet.

The port was a crazy idea. It's a lot of work to redo every entity, every texture, and even rebuild areas given the working differences between the editors. Hammer made me swear quite a bit. In some instances, I really missed Radiant! Curves, that were widely used in the SOF2 version all had to be rebuilt from scratch, and curves in the source engine are not exactly curves as they are in the Q3 engine. Mappers will know what I am talking about.

In any case, here is the first release for the general public, Enjoy!

.PLAN

There is still some work to be done in terms of brushes and portals and what not. But in my opinion most of the work remaining is about balancing the items placement that will give the map a decent gameplay.

Lights are also in the process as the map was created on an old system and had the gamma set to 1.9 instead of the 2.2 default. I personally think the map is a bit too dark at 2.2. Although not 2 systems will display it exactly the same way, there is a balance to be attained. If I want to see the map with the "proper" ambience lights, I still set the gamma to 1.9 on my system. I usually held my gamma setting to 1.6, but I felt 1.9 was a decent compromise between default and my system's display.

All comments regarding the lighting and items placement are welcome. Please be constructive. There is a difference between personal taste and objectivity. My creating style might not appeal to everyone. Every comment will be read and considered. The objective is to better the map. Experienced or not in mapping or as a gamer, the important thing is that the map is fun to play. So just don't hesitate to send your thougts.

About the naming of the file: Since I have the same map compiled for more than one game, I can't name it dmbunker on all of them. So I decided to make it hl2dmzgxbunker to make it easy to differenciate. hl2 is self explanatory, dm stands for "deathmatch" (obviously) and the "z" stands for me, Z'HA'DUM, the maker. Then, _gxbunker is the map name, of course. I know some people will criticise the naming, if there is any outstanding suggestion about it, I will consider renaming. But I don't think I picked an alienating or complicated formula though. Been using it for all my maps since I started mapping, and it worked well so far.

Thanks for downloading and for sending your comments. Hope you enjoy it!

Z