What is the best map you've ever made?

drogyn1701 · January 2014

Let's leave the doom and gloom behind and talk about something positive. We're a bunch of highly creative people and let's share some of that creativity.

What is the best map you've ever created in the Foundry?

What do you like about it? Can you share some of your process in making it? What challenges did you face while making it? Did you use any objects in unusual ways? If you were to make it again, would you do anything different?

And don't hesitate to post some screenshots!

Also if you would like and are willing, we could also share maps for other authors to use. On the Purity series I recreated maps initially made by Cerberusfilms and Kirkfat, and on my latest mission "Cold Winds" I used a technique to create a cool Jeffries tube that Greendragoon came up with.

markhawkman · January 2014

I'd go with Beta Rana Station. Yes, the OUTSIDE. Lining up all of those pieces took a lot of time and effort. That and the background was.... interesting to make.

thay8472 · January 2014

Hmmm.... good question...

Either the caves in "Depths of Nukara Prime" or the Ruins in Prime Race Pt1

onlyslightlybent · January 2014

I created a Risa resort for one of my missions. I always thought Risa was bare, so I filled it with vacationers, a "grotto" with swimming girls

, Horghon stand, shady criminals, a resort hotel, a gaudy ferengi bar and a floating klingon restaurant (barge of the dead ship).

I had a lot of fun thinking up the characters and filling up Risa and finding creative ways to make a mission. One of the mission was to find a way to disrupt the Ferengi bar. The ferengi bar owner was setting up a display of glasses into a pyramid and you could run through it to complete the mission.

I spent a long while getting it right then the foundry bugged out and started making duplicate maps, misplacing objects and I hit the cap for placing objects and characters. I just said **** it and pushed it out to get it done after realising the limitations.

Later on when the Summer event arrived I found it interesting that it and my Risa looked similar ... that is, only the placement of the resort on the map and the Risan corvette and my Klingon restaurant.

I'll post pics when the servers back online.

captainhunter1 · January 2014

I have to say I'm pretty proud of the map for the capital city in my two part mission, "Treasure of Argelius II".

It took a lot of time to fit all the pieces in, maxing out the objects both building and NPC/mob-wise on a single map. (and still didn't fill in all the gaps or have all the people I wanted - lol).

Is it perfect? No. But it's as close as I could come to an actual city that looked something like the 'persian' flavor portrayed in the TOS episode "A Wolf in the Fold".

And I don't think it turned out badly at all considering the 'cookie-cutter' building footprints I had to use over a map that is half water (because there is no true 'blank' map in the Foundry). :P

thegreendragoon1 · January 2014

I think I'm most proud of a map I've been working on for In the Shadow of MIDAS, Part 2. I can't say to much about it, other than it's huge, entirely custom and the centerpiece for the mission. I've also been working on it longer than any other map in the mission.

My second favorite would be the starship crash site from Part 1.

ashkrik23 · January 2014

Very tough choice for me.

My favorite map has to be the Cait ground map in Perfection, part 2.

markhawkman · January 2014

OOOHHH pretty glowy tubes! I love those.

ashkrik23 · January 2014

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

I think I'm most proud of a map I've been working on for In the Shadow of MIDAS, Part 2. I can't say to much about it, other than it's huge, entirely custom and the centerpiece for the mission. I've also been working on it longer than any other map in the mission.

Are you sure you aren't a Cryptic dev map maker?

thegreendragoon1 · January 2014

ashkrik23 wrote: »

Are you sure you aren't a Cryptic dev map maker?

I wish.

thedukeofrock · January 2014

I'd have to say the most creative things I made were in the maps themselves.

One was my Gigantic Borg "Transformer" robot in ABI - Artificial Borg Intelligence
It was the longest time-absorbing creation on a ground map as everything had to be stacked without a 3D view (back and forth) It is as tall as a large building.

http://s1140.photobucket.com/user/Duke-of-Rock/media/trans2.jpg.html?sort=3&o=46

My proudest creation was when I built my "rebuilt" Argus Array map
in the Spawn of Medusa series.
(It was built before we had the graphics of the TW gates, so it was
a lot of back and forth positioning dots from the older foundry days)

http://s1140.photobucket.com/user/Duke-of-Rock/media/screenshot_2011-09-07-19-50-43.jpg.html?sort=3&o=120

I never seemed to do anything small, lol

drogyn1701 · January 2014

thedukeofrock wrote: »

I'd have to say the most creative things I made were in the maps themselves.

One was my Gigantic Borg "Transformer" robot in ABI - Artificial Borg Intelligence
It was the longest time-absorbing creation on a ground map as everything had to be stacked without a 3D view (back and forth) It is as tall as a large building.

http://s1140.photobucket.com/user/Duke-of-Rock/media/trans2.jpg.html?sort=3&o=46

My proudest creation was when I built my "rebuilt" Argus Array map
in the Spawn of Medusa series.
(It was built before we had the graphics of the TW gates, so it was
a lot of back and forth positioning dots from the older foundry days)

http://s1140.photobucket.com/user/Duke-of-Rock/media/screenshot_2011-09-07-19-50-43.jpg.html?sort=3&o=120

I never seemed to do anything small, lol

I always really liked that Argus Array.

paxfederatica · January 2014

The maps I'm most proud of are:

"Ghosts of War, Part II", Map 6: The 2012 remaster features my first attempt at a triggered SFX set-piece (the bombing of the S.S. Fleming).

"Ghosts of War, Part V", Map 4: The Battle of Club 47. 'Nuff said. (Just remastered this mission, too, though it's still in testing.)

"Ghosts of War, Part V", Map 5: Earth space under phase shift (using the Blue Devidian sky layer). Map 2 is the same setting and design, but Map 5 also features an epic space battle. In the remaster, I moved the satellites into an angular orbit around Earth so that the first one is a short distance from Spacedock, which required no small amount of 3D trigonometry to pull off.

"Valley of the Shadow I", Map 2: The Nivay IV capital city, or rather what passes for one after the Romulan Star Empire destroyed it decades ago. An Imperial compound along the ocean, walled off from the shantytown where the conquered natives live in squalor. I'll be reusing this one in "Valley of the Shadow III", which I hope to have done sometime this spring.

thedukeofrock · January 2014

Thanks, I appreciate it.

It debuted in Spawn of Medusa IV, which
thankfully has been fixed with the help of Brandon, Mr. D'Angelo, Geko,
and the Cryptic team.

It also appears in my Argus Array Defense mission, but it is a tough battle
mission with only a small story, so it doesn't have the features and effects
I had in the Medusa mission.

lincolninspace · January 2014

drogyn1701 wrote: »

I always really liked that Argus Array.

It does look cool. You could play catan on that thing!

'''''

Those who played my debut mission: A Time to Search know I rolled up my sleeves and started withbig ambitions. As a Priority one reviewer said each map feels like a different location. I am most proud of the holo chess table created when costume import allowed all kinds of npc tricks and The cloud city exterior inspired by the TOS episode: The cloud miners.

kortaag · January 2014

I think the best looking map I've made was the maturation chamber in Amicus Apparatus. Mainly I was inspired by noticing a slew of assets that had interesting combinations of green and blue. The sculpture asset came in handy to lessen any detracting points of view and gave a feel of organic movement.

Biggest challenge building that map was the unwanted remainders of the building sides I used for it's walling. I had to painfully map out where the type3 walls would go to ensure it resembled the feel of the bottom of a large chamber construct. Since the room was smaller points of view allowed the player to see the other side of the walls which broke the illusion so I had to set another boundry of walls that would go much taller, blackened by the night sky to camouflage them and I'd have to say it worked out pretty well.

Hippie john helped make sure this wasn't destroyed:

http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx22/Zaqal/RomBridgePreview1.png

voporak · January 2014

I'd have to say Time's Eye interior for me.

http://s1347.photobucket.com/user/AdmiralVoporak/media/STO%20screenshots/screenshot_2013-12-15-21-36-14_zps9ce06727.jpg.html?sort=3&o=6

The map is actually Memory Alpha space. I have the player fly into Time's Eye (the rift seen in my sig), and as they do the system essentially despawns and the nebula clouds and stuff spawn, giving the illusion of actually crossing over into interdimensional space. It was hard to set the triggers right and not put too many effects so as to blow a graphics card, but it came out nicely. Once spawned, it had the first Eye that the player entered, a nebula cloud 'room', a few ships inside the 'room', and another Eye on the exit end (seen in the pic). The area was also surrounded by invisible walls so you can't leave the 'room'.

I also recreated it for the mission Time's Eye, but altered it a bit. In this one, the triggers happen the same way, but I restructured the 'room' so that it was a more linear path to the exit end. Partway into it, the player runs across a trigger and a third Eye appears in front of their ship.

starswordc · January 2014

I don't have any pictures handy ATM (get the dang server fixed, willya?) but I'm proud of "Starbase 32 and Clarus System" from "Bait and Switch, Part II" (unpublished as of yet; I've been stuck in writer's block for well over a month on the fourth map). Starts with you warping into a big nebula cloud to pick up a passenger from a starbase inside it. Then you warp out via despawning the whole system and spawning a warp tunnel. Then I despawn that and spawn what I think is a rather creative rendition of a Class Y planet with lots of ice blues and glittery orbiting rocks.

Also some neat triggerwork with spawning the first enemy group (greendragoon helped me a lot with that), as well as a couple of reskins that I think turned out very well (Remans -> Tzenkethi, Terran Empire -> Ferengi).

rogueeenterprise · January 2014

I've done some crazy maps in my time, but I think the most interesting would be the first map in the Purity daily. From a technical standpoint I like it because it is basically five missions on the same map, depending on which freighter group you rescue.

erei1 · January 2014

The mission I'm working on since months have definitely the best maps I've done. Mostly the big alien city which is used on 3 maps.
In the first maps, it's just a diplomatic minigame, trying to convince this people to join the Feds.
The city look like that, seen from a small pyramid building. On map 3, the pyramid is twice this size, and I added a building on top of it, it's really big. NPCS will come, to make it alive. We can already see the arena, the embassies, the market, and the transporter building.
There is also an arena I've built. So far, no NPCs (the map is all white, I can't place them except by adding them, loading the map, checking their place... it's too painful). But they'll come.
And this is how it looks like from the ground (the city itself is "in the sky" as a matter of speaking). The tube things are supposed to be "fast lane" for vehicle travel. The map itself is the jungle from Alpha. I needed a jungle, and building it from scratch would have probably been impossible. Either not enough assets, or an assets cap too low. Or both, most likely.

I don't have screens for the 3rd maps, which is basically the bad guys come and you help defend the city (because they also try to kill you, prime directive and all that). It's another part of the city, with fightings, explosions, and building being destroyed in front of you (explosion triggered, on the same time, the building is hidden, debris appear). I try to make it feel like a dirty urban fight, where people fight for their home.

captainrevo1 · January 2014

there have been a few ones i really liked but i think the sphere Builder's Multi level city for 'Tempus Fugit' probably.

I will try and post some pics later.

ashkrik23 · January 2014

captainrevo1 wrote: »

there have been a few ones i really liked but i think the sphere Builder's Multi level city for 'Tempus Fugit' probably.

I will try and post some pics later.

I loved your Borg map with the changeling Borg in Worst of both worlds.

sirboulevard · January 2014

For me, its my Ferasa map in "Honor of Ferasa." That whole map was experiment to see if I could do a building with big windows and pull it off.

captainrevo1 · January 2014

designationxr377 · February 2014

I feel kind of awkward posting in this because I am really bad at map making but, I do have a map I am proud of for the design.

The ICAI Interior from Computer's Son and Computer's Daughter.

It's a stock map, with only a few bits of things for flair and boxes for texture, so, compared to the stuff shared here it is like... nothing. But, what I am proud of it for is the design part.

For reference, I made this map when you could not de-spawn contacts or mobs. And yet, I wanted to be able to have the player(s) move through this while still feeling like it progressed.

Furthermore, the nature of the missions and their dual perspectives mean this is the one map that exists co-currently with both Federation and Klingon Captains. I mean I made it in a way so that both Captains can be on this map, cross paths, and literally only have a door in between them as you look at the mission as a whole where the story is involved.

And I pulled it off. With the side rooms, the little places the Captains interact with and the people they encounter. It was a simple map in the sense of what I created, but, how I used it and the design involved in the movements of the story and the players, I am really proud of that. It actually flows and doesn't feel forced. Considering it a single map between both missions, it is the one map I am the most proud of.

starswordc · February 2014

starswordc wrote: »

I don't have any pictures handy ATM (get the dang server fixed, willya?) but I'm proud of "Starbase 32 and Clarus System" from "Bait and Switch, Part II" (unpublished as of yet; I've been stuck in writer's block for well over a month on the fourth map). Starts with you warping into a big nebula cloud to pick up a passenger from a starbase inside it. Then you warp out via despawning the whole system and spawning a warp tunnel. Then I despawn that and spawn what I think is a rather creative rendition of a Class Y planet with lots of ice blues and glittery orbiting rocks.

Also some neat triggerwork with spawning the first enemy group (greendragoon helped me a lot with that), as well as a couple of reskins that I think turned out very well (Remans -> Tzenkethi, Terran Empire -> Ferengi).

Ok, got some screenies.

Arrival at Starbase 32.
NPC frigates patrolling nearby.
View aft to the transwarp from ESD.
Warping to Clarus II.
Arrival at Clarus II.
Clarus II, or as your staff describe it, a worthless hellhole of a Class Y planet that not even the Tholians would be interested in.

markhawkman · February 2014

starswordc wrote: »

Ok, got some screenies.
Arrival at Starbase 32.

NPC frigates patrolling nearby.

View aft to the transwarp from ESD.

Warping to Clarus II.

Arrival at Clarus II.

Clarus II, or as your staff describe it, a worthless hellhole of a Class Y planet that not even the Tholians would be interested in.

oooh... the way the transwarp gate looks is cool.

What is the best map you've ever made?

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