Ever since I started developing the first map of the campaign after deciding to make a full fledged 5-map campaign with random pathing, more elements from L4D2 and some of my own elements, the fact that I actually had to make a NAV for this and if it is not compatible with the elements I used I'd have to call off the entire thing has been floating over my head like a stormcloud.
Every time i entered my map to test things, enjoyed the looks of my map, or the fact that one of the elements finally work as i had imagined, the storm cloud always hit me, my map is great and works, but it is empty. There are no zombies.
Regardless, I pushed forward and made an entire maze(not really, just more complex random pathing in a small area) that is an alternative to the Gym's infinite panic event. It worked out great, but then it hit again: How will the bots navigate trough it? After all, navigating trough different complex paths each time the map starts is not what Left 4 Dead's navigation system was made for.
After the map was done from start to finish, I had to face it: I have to make the nav now.
So, ignoring my worries, I marked some areas walkable and I generated the nav, then analyzed it.
After the map started, surprise surprise, the MAP IS UNPLAYABLE error still popped up.
After this, I started a desperate journey of fixing up the nav just to discover more bugs. I do not wish to take you trough the details, but after that I pretty much lost motivation and I took a huge break.
Then once it clicked in how I could fix the nav, and i started working on making it compatible with the random pathing and fixing up the flow.
Of course, this led to a lot of bugs being fixed, but the flow still broken, map still unplayable, zombies still not spawning, survivors still acting stupid, map still empty, nav still not working, it was hard to keep up the motivation, but I was pretty motivated because I learned a lot about navigation files by my own experience. Due to this I was able to keep fixing places where the flow was broken and block down nav areas where the random path was closed at the moment.
After all that, still no results. But to no lack of my motivation, I decided to start fixing flow issues closest to the starting area and then go trough the entire map, until it becomes playable. This is where the aforementioned storm cloud drew near. I knew that this had to work, and if I went from start to finish and fixed all the flow issues and the map was still unplayable, I'd have no idea what else to do to fix it.
This is how I imagined it:
Fixing the last flow issue and re-analyzing the map, the moment of desperate, hopeless truth.
So, i started to fix the flow issue of going trough the windows into the starting room(I've since moved the starting point outside on the rooftop), and after it flowed nicely, i re-analyzed the map just in case.
And when it restarted the map, something was missing.
And it wasn't the zombies. It was the MAP IS UNPLAYABLE error! In fact, I checked, and the zombies were there! The director even unleashed a few hordes upon us, but it felt like a refreshing shower! My map was finally working, my map finally has zombies, a working nav, the map is now playable!
The map i feared would never work now had a correct flow! Of course, this did not mean it was fully working, in fact the nav was still buggy as hell, survivors teleporting all over the place mainly, but it was working! This was a huge step forward in the development of the campaign. Now I knew random pathing is in fact possible, and that drew the storm cloud away.
This is what assured me that i can finish this campaign, and this is what made me open this blog.
To celebrate, here are three new screenshots:
 |
| The new starting area |
 |
| The hallway |
 |
| The big hall |
