Need some ideas.

[Tiber Septim]

Okay guys, with the imminent release of the L4D SDK I've decided to start drawing up some plans for a new map.
The map will be for Survival Mode. I'd like something more original than your standard Shopping Mall, Roof Top, Amusement Park though.

So far, all I have been able to think of is the Pyramid from the first AVP movie.
Like this one:



Not the best picture, it took ages just to find that one.
So... If anybody has any better ideas, let me know.

[Aus_Karlos]

lol amazing... I would take it the survivors have to make to the top.
One thing to keep in mind if the Pyramid is tall its going to be rendering a lot of scenery, (With the new mode there will be lots more zombies) Some handy fog clipping might be useful or some handy prop rendering tips.

[Tiber Septim]

Yeah, essentially the survivors would start off at the top and have to hold out as long as they possibly could.
It probably wouldn't be as big as the one in the picture, but you get the idea.

Thanks for the tips. I actually hadn't thought about the performance impact of the render distance, fog clipping would probably be the best way to go. It will be at night time, so adding a little fog will help with the atmosphere.

I'm going to start doing up some sketches for this map, hopefully upload them tomorrow.

Still open to suggestions though.

[Tiber Septim]

Okay so I'm a day late - sue me.

As promised I've done up some rough drafts of the general layout of the map.
Still a few details I need to work out though.


The right side shows basically two 'tunnels' from each side meeting in a large room inside the pyramid. This area is mainly an out of sight area for the infected to spawn. However, if the Survivors choose to hold out down here, the infected would simply spawn outside.

I've decided on more of a Mayan theme for the map.
To prevent players from leaving the map area, I thought it might be a good idea to have the pyramid in a small clearing in the middle of a forest. After a small distance into the forest, there would be a very steep cliff that would be instant death to fall off.

Here are some images that might give a better idea of what I'm going for.

[Aus_Karlos]

Use the first image, it has a slight indoors area, good for optimizing and the infected will have a limited space in which to enter. This should allow the survivors live longer than 30secs.

[Zealex]

for the outside fog and rain would seem cool.

[Aus_Karlos]

Have you started work on it yet, i wanna see some pics.

[Mcninjaguy]

I'd like to see the first picture too, but hack it down around three major steps ( I hope you know what I mean)

I'd also like to see it as an archeological dig site with some trenches dug outside for excavating. The main set off would be outside and maybe something like a siren fro a rescue or a large boulder that has to be pushed away to reach the top area.

[Tiber Septim]

Nope, haven't done much more on this. It's all Valves' fault cause they still haven't released the SDK *tears out hair*.

Nice idea about having a dig site Ninja. Not sure how the main set off is going to work yet.
I need to think about it some more.

I'd like for the survivors to start at the bottom of the temple, but still be able to quickly get to the top room.

Maybe the top room could have its' doors sealed shut until a level is pulled underneath the temple?

[Mcninjaguy]

you know what would be fun is a level where the zombies have trouble surviving because every 30 seconds you can press a button where a Indiana style giant round boulder flattens all the zombies to pieces or a ground aiming AA gun killing hudreds upon thousand of zombies!

sorry for being off topic but I'd like to see a game where the zombie has trouble surviving during the zombie cleanup time

I feel so distracted right now all I can think of is a sprinkler system filled with boomer vomit.

anyways....
I'd like to see what you could do with the SDK

I'm also curios as to what yo could do with objects and moving them in-game.