Beta Test

How to Beta Test Your Own Map

Created October 2004

This tutorial will cover the mistakes that most beginner mappers will make. Hey, even experienced mappers make these mistakes at times. When you work too close to a "project" (in this case a map) you tend to glaze over in your vision. A new fresh pair of eyes will often see something that's wrong.

The things to check in this tutorial will relate more to technical issues, which are more objective. Artistic or game play issues are more subjective and thus can't be covered here. You should go through this list and make any correction before you send the map to others to beta test for you. You should always have at least one other person give you their opinion, if not a few people.

Assorted

*If you have any custom content, it must be included with the installer. This normally refers to textures and static meshes, but can include other content.

*If there is terrain in the map, make sure there are no spots where they player could get stuck in.

Brushes

*All brushes should be snapped to the grid.

*There should be no brushes that intersect each other.

*You should have the fewest number of additive brushes in your map. You can possibly convert some, if not all, of the additive brushes to static meshes.

Textures

*Textures should line up correctly.

*Prevent textures from visually repeating themselves.

*Any custom texture should have the appropriated bullet hit effect and foot step sounds assigned to it.

Static Meshes

*There should be no static meshes that visibly intersect each other. This won't cause problem, but a TV shouldn't be sticking through a table.

*Doors should open with out intersecting the door frame. They should not intersect any other static mesh or brushes when they are being opened or are fully opened.

Lights

*The map should be mainly lit by lights.

*The map should use zone info lighting to help light static meshes and players.

*There shouldn't be any overly bright spots on textures or static meshes?

*Be careful of a dark map. Use dark places appropriately and sparingly.

*Have static meshes that represent the light source (light bulbs, lamps, lanterns, etc...)

*Windows should be set to not cast shadows, so lighting will go through them.

*Thin static meshes on floors or wall should be set to not cast shadows. This is especially important on static meshes with some transparency to it (dirty or oil stains).

Sound

*There should be footstep sounds on every part of the map you can walk on.

*It is nice to have ambient environmental sounds (back ground noises like cars or wind)

*It is nice to have sounds coming out of appropriate static meshes (refrigerators or TVs).

*Doors should make appropriate sounds when you open and close them, both fast and slowly.

*Ladders should make appropriate sounds when you walk up, walk down, and when you slide down them.

*Static Meshes that represent something thin lying on the ground (paper), should have it's collision set to NOT block the player. This way there will be foot step sounds. If the items is a rug or a water puddle, the static mesh should block players so the appropriated foot step sound is played.

Optimizing

*Any texture that is not seen by a player should be marked as "unlit" in it's properties.

*Test the map in a single player mode to see if the engine is rendering what the player can see. Zone the map to help keep brush and static mesh poly counts as low as possible.

*Consider having any door/window frames or signs on walls to not block player. This will help keep the player from getting caught up.

Game Modes

Assorted

*The map should contain a drawing map. This is the overhead map that is displayed by pressing the F4 key (by default).

*The map should have a single player menu picture. This is the picture that is displayed on the lower right corner of the screen when you select a map.

*The map should contain an accurate and functional planning map. This is to help SP and Coop players.

*Check the availability of all mode related actors, inserts, terrorists, hostages, etc. Using the Visibility Menu in the browser make sure your availability settings don't include a terrorist in an adversarial team survival mode.

*For all adversarial game modes, make sure you have 8 individual inserts for the red and green team. Make sure the rainbow setting is set to "0" for green and "1" for red.

*For all single player game modes, make sure you have an insertion zone.

*For all Coop game modes, make sure you have 8 individual inserts. Make sure the rainbow setting is set to "0".

*For all game modes, make sure your .ini file listed game modes support what you included in your map. If your .ini states your map supports Coop Hostage Rescue, make sure your map does too.

SP Story

*The Objectives are clearly listed in stages before the game starts.

*The Objectives can be completed to end the game.

*All of the mission objectives should be listed during the briefing stage.

SP Terrorist Hunt

*Make sure you have the correct type of terrorist for this mode. Use the Random Terrorist Node. You should have 1 Random Terrorist (large gingerbread man) with many nodes (little gingerbread man) assigned to it.

SP Lone Wolf

SP Hostage Rescue

MP Adversarial Team Survival

*Make sure you have 8 inserts for the red and green team. Make sure the rainbow setting is set to "0" for green and "1" for red.

MP Adversarial Survival

*Make sure you have enough inserts to keep the spawning of players random. If you only have 16 inserts, people will learn where the possible inserts are.. Make sure the rainbow setting is set to "0" for all inserts.

MP Adversarial Pilot

*Make sure you have 8 inserts for the red and green team. Make sure the rainbow setting is set to "0" for green and "1" for red.

*Make sure you have at least 1 extraction zone, if not two to make the game more interesting.

MP Adversarial Hostage Rescue

*Make sure you have 8 inserts for the red and green team. Make sure the rainbow setting is set to "0" for green and "1" for red.

*Make sure you have at least 1 extraction zone, if not two to make the game more interesting.

*Make sure you have at least 1 hostage, if not two to make the game more interesting

MP Adversarial Bomb

*Make sure you have 8 inserts for the red and green team. Make sure the rainbow setting is set to "0" for green and "1" for red.

*Make sure you have at least 1 bomb, if not two to make the game more interesting.

Coop Mission

*Make sure you have 8 individual inserts. Make sure the rainbow settings is set to "0".

*This game mode is the same as SP story.

Coop Terrorist Hunt

*Make sure you have 8 individual inserts. Make sure the rainbow settings is set to "0".

Coop Hostage Rescue

*Make sure you have 8 individual inserts. Make sure the rainbow settings is set to "0".

Planning Map

*The map needs to be able to display all floors and to scroll left/right and forward/backward.

*The map needs to be able to display all large static meshes that would block the player. There is no need to add smaller static meshes that are on these larger static mesh (example: TV sitting on a table).

*The static meshes that would block the player should be the same color.

*Inserts and Objective Reference Icons should be visible for the correct mode.

*Stairs should be clearly seen.

*You might want to make the windows a different color. I make them green to match the "path of the doors opening".

Written by cwv_Odedge


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