How CTF-Sabr evolved

Since this map was released, I got sometime to sit down and look back the way how this map, came from rough BSP to this final stage. This kind of review is always interesting, as normally a custom map like this, could take at least a couple of months, or even longer as one or two years, which depends on how much free time do you have except for real life things. So it is a pretty long time and does means something for every mapper(or so called "Level Designer" if you like it), years later, this gotta be some nice memory.

OK, back to what I'd like to do here, about CTF-Sabr.

According to the oldest file I can find in my HD, I made the first brush for it at Dec.24, 2007. Jesus, a meaningful day.

The very first concept was an idea I got long ago. That was, a railway in the top middle, cut the map into two halfs which contained levels getting lower and lower when further and further from the middle. So both halfs were like big "ramps" and each team started from the bottem level. There were trains passed by from time to time and you got crashed if careless.

I got this in a couple of days. All BSP and basic gameplay was there. Here you only see one half and the middle of the map.

Then very soon, I got this. There was a railway tunnel in the middle and mesh-based hills. A few small changes as for gameplay.

This was already named as "UCMP5" in the prefix, in Jan. 2008. I tried a visually open railway here.

Feb. 2008, I tried huge cliffs and a tunnel inside the hill. The layout itself was quite "solid" at this point. But, after a few playtests, I didn't think I like the gameplay feeling (though today when I looked back, I had to say some elements were nice and I really missed them). The layout felt too "fuzzy" or complicated as walls and covers here and there.

Anytime I felt necessary I didn't hesitate, so here I did this. It was between late Feb. and early April. 2008. And for the first time, the name (or codename) was changed to "Supernal". I had no idea what style I would use so the name looked OK at that moment. I redid the middle part, said goodbye to the railway stuff and that was why name changed. From then it was a map inspired by old school quake-ish jumppad-based gameplay. Holyshit, can't believe I just throw away the brilliant railway idea and made an ordinary map like this. That is why mapping is interesting as you never know what a map can finally be, and sometimes you get shocked about how different it was when look back.

Still Apr. and a few tuning in this version.

The new layout was not bad and I began to think about the background. Also a lower route was added as for gameplay. Late Apr.

I found a lot references and was thinking islamic could be a nice visual style. That was at late Apr. or early May.

I planned to use stock meshes and materials. I did, in this version. From late Jun. to late Oct. I didn't do much about this map as you know, the Summer Olympic Games was taking place in Beijing so I got a lot TV programme to watch and meanwhile, I was making something for another map.

I didn't like the result I got with the stock stuff. I decided to do some customization. At late Oct., it looked the basic setting were already there. At that moment, UCMP5 members were getting more and more inactive and we didn't have enough map with beta quality.

The last "UCMP5" version of this map! That was September. Finally after about 5 years, we reached a point where most of us feeling we needed a break. That was frustrating but I fully understood and actually I felt kinda boring too. But I still decided to finish this one since I already did so much for it.

From Sep. to Nov., I was making the custom meshes, materials, tuning the lighting...So this was the first beta version I showed to the public.

At Dec., I was busy on this one, here it was very close to the final version. All the things left for me to do was tuning the whole tone and fixing bugs.

I tuned materials and lights to balance the whole tone, and more contrast was given to build up a somewhat unique style. Details like grass and the moon in the background were added.

That was, the final version!

Ah, almost forgot, it got the new name as "Sabr", a nice islamic term.

It was one year later!

Happy new year and have fun!