Map Development Group, MDG

[CannonBallGuy]

Today I am announcing the fantastic, new "Map Development Group".

We are here to help with everything map-related. We'll do our best to answer any questions posted on the forums or sent to us privately.

We will also be writing articles each week to help improve your map-making abilities. They will be published regularly on our website:
http://www.mybzflag.net - you will see we already have a Map Release and a Map Review.

Coming soon will be an article all about creating a map in BZW code, in the text editor of your choice.

The members of the group are as follows:
SpazzyMcGee, Win XP, Optic Delusion, L4m3r, Tanner, TD-Linux, LouMan, Ductaiwannabe, and of course, myself.
We will each add the following image to our signatures very soon, to remind you that we are here to help.

So, if you have any questions, just ask!

- CBG - MDG Founder -

[meeba]

Awesome, CBG!

You might want to rewrite the Members page though. It says Map Development Team, not Map Development Group.

[Peter]

Me and some others had a very very similar idea to this, we even had a website, but it didnt realy take of so well. I am glad the idea of a map making team dedicated to helping others will live on though. Good luck with it. I must say the site is fantastic, I like the merge between the map images them selfs and what look like map plans of them.

[too much loving]

Hehe.. these urls are getting confusing
http://my.bzflag.net/ and
http://www.mybzflag.net/

EDIT: But good look to the team. Some of the upcoming maps look really cool.

[Legolas_]

Good Luck, MDG, I am looking forward to seeing some awesome maps from you guys. One thing I have seen many of the newer bzflag map makers ask about is meshes. If you guys could create a tutorial in the future about meshes, including how to add materials, passables, deaths, colors, and physical drivers it would probably be very beneficial to the bzflag map making community.

Also, I have started a tutorial site at: http://www.bzlego.net/tutorials which will have both BZFlag tutorials and Photoshop tutorials posted on a regular basis. If you are interested in promoting your tutorials a little more, I could post the tutorials (giving your group complete copyright) on my site aswell. (Just the tutorials, not the map reviews/releases). Please give me a 'pm' if you are interested in this idea.

Thanks

[Grace F]

These sites will without doubt help alot of people including me.

Also with the new Map Making Program (GSoC) there will be alot of great maps being produced.

[Legolas_]

The BZWorkbench will provide an easier way for some of the map makers who use applications to make a map. Cheers goes to -jude for working on it.

Hopefully, the MDG will provide tutorials for the rest of us who choose to write their maps by hand or use a 3d application such as blender or Wings3d. Sometimes, the hand-coding gets a little confusing, even for the best of the map makers, in which case a little review would be very beneficial. That is where this team would come into play.

Good luck MDG.

[CannonBallGuy]

The BZWorkbench will provide an easier way for some of the map makers who use applications to make a map. Cheers goes to -jude for working on it.

Hopefully, the MDG will provide tutorials for the rest of us who choose to write their maps by hand or use a 3d application such as blender or Wings3d. Sometimes, the hand-coding gets a little confusing, even for the best of the map makers, in which case a little review would be very beneficial. That is where this team would come into play.

Good luck MDG.

Thanks. We aim to help in all areas - using raw code, older bz software, 3d modelling software and yes, in the future, BZWorkBench.
We have an article about writing BZW code in the works as we speak.

[Grace F]

We have an article about writing BZW code in the works as we speak.

Awesome, im at the start of a map im hand coding and I've hit many many walls regarding Meshes, textures and whatnot.

Thx MDG