A Black Ops 3 Custom Zombies Map
Role:
Designer
Date:
Spring 2022
Engine:
Radiant
Design Goals
My goal for this project is to work on a new way of creating a custom map. I wanted to practice making basic prefabs of all the walls, floors, and ceilings for the greybox. Then when the design is done, I can go back in and make more detailed prefabs of everything and just swap them out with their basic counterparts. It’s about improving efficiency without dropping quality.
4/11/2022
Update
This week I worked on getting the greybox done. I used all of the basic prefabs that I had created in advance to make the rooms and hallways. But I did come across some problems when it came to connecting each room with a hallway. Some of them were slightly off and I had to make a specific prefab to fill the hole or I had to use an existing one multiple times in the same area. One of the solutions that I found to work was the spiral staircase, which made going from a lower elevation to a higher one easier as opposed to making a long path that goes on for too long.
4/21/2022
Update
For this week I began to make the detailed prefabs to replace the greybox ones. I made a couple variations of walls and floors. Some contain foliage, others contain light, and others are just basic walls. It took me a bit to get the lighting right for the prefab and there are still some things that need work. I want to make the lights flicker to emulate a living flame and then work on different types of lights that can be found in a dungeon to add varying layers that make the player feel like they’re underground.
Upcoming
I am going to keep working on the detailed prefabs. Just finishing some of the ones I started and getting some of the last few done.
5/5/2022
Update
This time I took a few steps back and tried a new way to make the map. Instead of using a bunch of individual prefabs to make the whole map and then replacing them with textured prefabs. I had the idea to create pieces of the map, like hallways and rooms, individually which would give me the ability to focus on just one specific area at a time. The video shows off a small hallway that I worked on with this new method.
5/19/2022
Update
It’s been a while, but I’m back with another update and this time I have recreated the canal from my original idea. This time however I changed the flow of it, adding a turn and making the traversable space a bit narrower. I also messed around with water for the first time.
Upcoming
Still a few things that need to be fixed in the canal. The zombie pathing in the water and mantling out of water can kill the player. Once those are done, it’s on to making another room.
Mitch Ahrens 