Introduction:
Way back when Half-Life was released, my friend had bought a copy of it that day, when I looked at the things he showed me about it, it just didn't seem like my type of game. A couple of days later he showed it to me and I still wasnt very impressed, it played well, just didnt hold my attention for very long, that was until he showed me a little program that came with the game, called Worldcraft. I bought the game about a year later, after I realised how flexable it was when it comes to customising. Worldcraft is the program which the game designers actually used to make all the levels that make up Half-Life, it allows you to make your own custom levels and is quite simple to use. It has a very similar interface to other 3D programs like 3D Studio Max with the standard 2D views and a 3D preview view, you create the environment by placing 'brushes' which are basically blocks or cylinders which you position and texture however you please. When you have the basic structures in place you can start adding more complex objects which can be interactive with the player, examples of these would be doors that can swing on a hinge or slide open, buttons that the player can press which can trigger another variable, horizontal or vertical moving platforms, gun turrets, and explosions. These interactive objects and attributes are named 'entities' in the program, they are handled differently than plain 'brushes' and often will not cast a shadow. Worldcraft allows you to place everything from the player spawn points to the sound effects and lighting. This page was created for me to show off my maps and have them avaliable for anyone to download, feel free to try them, and make sure you have the Half-Life modification (Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat) required.
Counter-Strike Maps:
cs_burnt - Hostage Rescue -Download- (231KB)
This is the first map I'd completed to a playable stage, it is a moderately small size, but plays well on a small LAN. It was created back in 1998 without using any custom textures, just the Counter-Strike and Half-Life ones, that explains why the file is so small. It came up pretty well in the end and when I play it now days, I still think it looks alright considering how old it is. The setting is supposed to be in the hills of Afganistan where 3 reporters have been taken hostage, the buildings are old and dusty, and some are damaged. Some of the architecture is breakable, such as the window meshes and a couple of strategically placed vents. It should run smoothly on any computer above 300Mhz with a decent graphics card.
as_evacuation - Assassination -Download- (648KB)
My second and most complete Counter-Strike map I've made almost became famous in 2000 when it was noticed by Gooseman, the man behind CS, after I posted some pictures of it on the CS Mapping Forum. He had asked me to submit it to him so that they could playtest it for Beta 7, of course I did and they enjoyed it very much, they even went so far as to post a screenshot of it on the official Counter-Strike website right along side the new version of Aztec. Unfortunately they decided to pull the entire idea of any new Assasination based maps after a whole lot of bad feedback about that scenario, people just werent interested in being the VIP. Of course the level still works with all the versions of CS and that means you can still enjoy it if you want. It is set in a city that is basically linear in design, and the Counter-Terrorists have to escort the VIP to safety by following the road, or venturing through some of the intentionally poorly lit buildings. The map size is medium and the layout is not confusing, and again it should run smoothly on any computer above 300Mhz with a decent graphics card.
Day of Defeat Maps:
dod_homeday - Team Deathmatch -Download- (3.02MB)
This is my most recent effort of a map, it is my first Day of Defeat level and was created in about a week. As you might have already guessed, it is just a replica of my own home, it is extremely small, with just the backyard as one team's spawn, and the front yard is the other side's. Every room has been put in, and the whole layout, and look is extremely accurate, aside from the fact that there is no furniture, and there is only a limited amount of bushes because the Half-Life engine does not handle them very well. The map can be extremely fun when you only have a small teams (2 on 2), some rooms are almost pitch black for strategical reasons and others are well lit. The file is really big because of the all the custom textures I used just to get it to look accurate. I compiled the .wad file from the most realistic textures I could find around the place, you might want to use them in a map of your own.
No content on this site is copyrighted by Rainey, but instead stolen and edited from other sources, if you have any concerns contact me at Nixon Rainey
