Jump mapping

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Making a jumper friendly map

Introduction

What makes randomjumps a crappy map and Jupiter a great map?
At what point is bisjumps better then Futre?
Why is it that some maps are considered one of the best while others are never played?

In here I'll try to give you an explanation of what are the key points of a good jump map.
To make my explanation more complete, I'll resort to the use of examples. Real examples of real maps.
Remember map makers: I'm not trying to make your map look hideous, nor am i trying to make you look like an idiot. But if there is a specific flaw in your map, and I can point it out to make my statement… I will. Please don't get angry.
To make a jumper friendly map you have to consider a lot of things, including spawn locations, textures, lemmings, map name, mazes and more. Below I'll discuss each point individually.

Spawns

The location of spawns is perhaps the core of your map. Jumpers fail and spawn all the time. And, if you didn't set up your spawns correctly, jumpers will rage, eventually quit and banish your map from their jumping maps list.
Even though you now have save and load in almost every server, a lot of players don't use it and, making proper spawns is always a must.

Spawns' Location

The place on the jump where you spawn is a major key of your map. Often people spawn in the middle of someone's prejumping area, and end up blocking others. This is not okay!

Let's take a look at an example: the jump 2 of ut4_dsb_b1.
People spawn exactly in front you all the time. This results in jumpers getting pissed and frustrated, all the time! Then, they eventually start leaving and the others being kicked for "blocking" when it's not even their fault. Don't let your map contain such flaw! You'd better make a spawn room (close to your jump), while still considering the following information about spawns.
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure the player does not spawn in the path of the jump itself, including prejumps.


Spawns' Orientation

Although a spawnkill is annoying, it only happens sometimes. What does, however, happen all the time… Is jumpers spawning.
Spawning with your back turned to the jump or far away from where the jump is located is really frustrating! Map makers, keep in mind, spawning with your face to the opposite side of where the jump is: is no fun!.
Equilibrium is a perfect example of a map with practically perfect spawn locations! There is literally not a single time where you spawn with your back turned to the jump. This makes it possible to jump very fast in a row, without getting frustrated at all.
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure the player has his face turned to the start of the jump every time he spawns!

 

Spawn Killing

Spawn killing is also something to have in account when making spawns. It is utterly annoying for someone when it happens. So always make sure you have enough spawns per jump.

One of the best "spawn makers" is most likely Moonie, for thousands of jumpers (not individuals) play his maps and only one of them, most likely less, dies from a spawnkill. Take a look at the spawns he makes to see what I mean!
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure the amount of spawnkills are limited to practically 0!


The respawn brush

Respawn brush? What's that?
The respawn brush is the brush to which you apply the trigger_teleport entity. And why am I mentioning it? Well, because.... Lag + thin respawn brush = jumper falling through the brush + possible lemming, skipping jumps / going back to previous jumps or even getting stuck.

Lag isn't uncommon nowadays therefor respawning with lag isn't uncommon either.
If you're not sure what I am talking about then watch this small video on How to pass through a small respawn brush. If you're still not convinced you can watch any of the following videos by X-RaY:


So get your respawn brushes set up properly!
Look at Moonie's maps for example, no matter how much lag you manually generate, you can't get yourself to fall through any of his respawn brushes.
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure your respawn brushes are thick enough not to be lagged through.

Location Names

Although location names are not required, it is highly recommended to set location names to all your jumps / rooms. A map without location names is often seen as an 'alpha release'. Why? Because it's a little tweak that makes the map just a bit more finished.
They are often used to inform others of our locations so jumpers can keep track of each other's progress and such. It is also useful as a call for help for whenever someone is stuck at a jump. If it doesn't have a name, it'll be very hard to explain to others where you are and to, consequentially, get proper help.

There isn't really a real format on how to name your jumps, although descriptive and numeric names are the best.
Jupiter is an excellent example: Jump'n'Slide (H4). Descriptive, yet numeric. Another commonly use pattern is having the jump number followed by the jump's given name, like Jump 1 [A hard start!].
A lot of map makers choose to name their jumps with the solution to make each jump, and end up having names like Jump X - 3wjs, 2 plats, 2wjs, slide. It doesn't need to be like this though, you can name it anything you want. Something cool for an instance, J18 - The Fingerbreaker. 

On the other hand, using names such as the ones in example jumps can leave some people even more confused than when using no name at all. For example: [[Prepare For a Wounds [Proxima Centauri 4,2 light years away] ]]. Besides being a name so big that it can't fit in one chat line, it is too complex to be memorized by jumpers.
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure to assign proper location names to all jumps.

Jump entities

With the new versions of Urban Terror being constantly upgraded to include Jumping as an official gametype, we have been gifted with 3 new entities: jumpstart, jumpstop and jumpcancel. For further information about them check this article.
Adding these entities to your map isn't the most important thing but it sure is a plus on every map!
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure to implement jumpstart and jumpstop entities.

Textures

This is a major part of all maps, this also includes the jump ones. A lot of jumpers care about textures quite a lot.
For a map to be great, great textures are not needed. Let's look at de1337edjumps_beta3 for example. The map is basically just made out of 1 texture, yet the map is considered as one hell of a beautiful map!
Undergroundjumps, on the other hand has stretched and random textures. complete landscapes put in boxes with the ugliest pictures ever. It's not only painful for the eyes, but it also gives a very unwelcome feeling. A different example is sk8jumps, although this map has a lot of random textures,  fact  is that is has a theme. The map is about the old school 2D video games, and the way he displaced the textures doesn't make it look aas bad as it could, they just make it a random mess of jumps.

Map makers: Try to use solid and nice textures, if you're not able to do so, then only 1 or 2. The jumps of your map will have a coherence, making it look like one giant fluid map ⇒ which is what you want!
Jupiter and Saturn are maps where you want to wander around, from start to end and back. Talking to other jumpers without getting bored! Just for the fact that the textures and the design are nice and fluid.
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure your textures are not random, stretched or ugly. You're better off using 1 texture properly all over your map than using 201 random different ones!

Lighting

Nowadays, lighting is clearly an important factor that every map maker should have in attention if they want to have a successful map. For a jumper, it is annoying to have to change his r_gamma settings every time he switches map, or even worst, every time he's changes jump It is important for the map maker to create a fluid look on his map when it comes to the lighting. It'll give a better atmosphere to your map and make the jumping experience more pleasant. If you don't know how to make proper lighting, it is better not to have any other than having a map that is too dark or awefully bright...
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure you light up your map correctly!

Lemmings

Lemmings are obviously a problem that needs to be mentioned. A lemming / burn at the last jump of bisjump isn't fun, disregarding the fact that you can quickly teleport back. A lemming at jump 10 of lotr is not funny.
Map makers: jump your map from start to end and then backwards. Try to see at what platforms you actually lemming. To save you time and work: apply nodamageto all textures used on horizontal surfaces, disregarding the fact whether a jumper can get there or not. Have in account that some players might go backwards on a jump or a couple jumps, so you should really apply nodamage to all surfaces, whether you think a player can reach it from a place high enough to lemming or not.
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure you apply nodamage to all horizontal surfaces.

Map names

Here, there isn't much to say. Just...
  • Make sure your map's name doesn't contain capital letters, since it breaks the autodownload.
  • Make sure your map's name begins with 'ut4_' to maintain a nice arrangement in your directories.
  • Make sure your map's name doesn't begin with 'z', which is in fact omitted when you apply the previous rule!
  • Make sure your map's name doesn't contain characters like:(  {  [  ]  }  ) etc... Non numerical / alphabetical characters that are in fact allowed are: - and _
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure your map is named correctly.

Map sizes

The size of your map is sadly something that has great importance. Maps that tend to be over 20MB piss people off and get played less on servers (probably due to bandwidth issues and people cancelling downloads if they are on a slow internet connection).  A 10MB map is downloadable within a minute (more or less), even by people on a 2Mbit connection.
To avoid an oversized map file, once you've it compiled and packaged, you should consider removing things that ain't needed or used as much. Just strip down the pk3. The size of your map shouldn't be more than 18MB.  Ideally it should be no more than 10-12MB, but 18 is still acceptable.
But before you get into stripping your map to the ugliest point ever, you should read this post by Rayne
To make a jumper friendly map: Avoid having the size of your map over 18MB.

Map Construction


Ladders

Ladders are a obstacle in the coherence and fluidity of your map. Creating a ladder isn't annoying by default, but making ladders all over your map, at the end of every jump, between jumps and as jumps turns it into a hell!
A ladder with the size of wootjumps' ladder of doom is plain annoying, although in this map it isn't as noticeable because it is an alternate way. On the other hand, the one at the end of bstjumps is a mood killer. Still, jumpers might let it pass because it is the only ladder in the entire map. Ladders that appear constantly, like the ones in trickyjumps or JustJump don't follow the same path as the ones mentioned before. These ladders ain't nice! If jumpers (get the name... 'jumpers') want to climb ladders they'll play laddermadness.

Another important point worth mentioning when it comes to ladders is invisible ladders. You should never, but never make these. For some unknown reason, a couple mappers find it amusing, and decide to add them to their map. Don't make this mistake yourself, invisible ladders are one of the biggest pains in the ass a jumper can possibly have. Take a look at the first jump of Mercury (hard way) and tell me how long it takes you before you rage quit or decide to skip the jump in any way possible.
To make a jumper friendly map: Make sure you don't create too many ladders.

Mazes


Invisible paths


Rotating and Moving stuff


Other Randomness


Conclusion:

So, to sum it up... To make a jumper friendly map:
  • Make sure the amount of spawnkills are limited to practically 0.
  • Make sure the player has his face turned to the start of the jump every time he spawns.
  • Make sure the player does not spawn in the path of the jump itself, including prejumps.
  • Make sure your respawn brushes are thick enough not to be lagged through.
  • Make sure to assign proper location names to all jumps.
  • Make sure to implement jumpstart and jumpstop entities.
  • Make sure your textures are not random, stretched or ugly. You're better off using 1 texture properly all over your map than using 201 random different ones.
  • Make sure you light up your map correctly.
  • Make sure you apply nodamage to all horizontal surfaces.
  • Make sure your map is named correctly.
  • Avoid having the size of your map over 18MB
  • Make sure your map is properly optimized.
  • Make sure you don't create too much ladders.
  • Make sure you don't create complex mazes.
  • Make sure you don't create any invisible paths.
  • Avoid using rotating or moving platforms.
  • Avoid any other randomness.


Once you get all of this in consideration, all you need to worry about is the jumps itself. Be sure to make them fun, amusing and fluid. Try not to make them too repetitive nor too annoying.
When it comes to the difficulty of each jump, that's up to you, map maker, to decide what crowd(s) would you like to please the most.

There are still a lot of other things that require the map makers' attention. These are just a few that are essential and that needed to be made clear before another map gets out.
You are now qualified to make a playable jump map!

Some exemplar mappers

It is always easier to learn by examples, so I'll leave you here with the names of some of the great jump mappers we have in the community!
Please don't get mad if you felt exposed, intimidated or, if you feel like your name should be somewhere on this page and it isn't. I can't think of everyone, and, as I said, it's only the name of some of the great mappers. Try to learn from them and their work, because they truly are amazing!


Not all the maps of the previously mentioned mapmakers are equally loved, but they are in fact not abandoned.

Jump entities

These are 3 entities (jumpstart, jumpstop and jumpcancel) created to allow jumpers to have tracked the time they take doing a run on the map.
To understand more about how these entities work and are applied download this map file.

To add these entities to Radiant, download this .def file and place it on the directory of the game you have set up in Radiant.
For those of you who use Urban Terror as a standalone game in GTK Radiant version 1.5, it should be placed in this folder (may change from one person to another): C:\Program Files (x86)\GTKRadiant 1.5.0\urbanterror.game\q3ut4

Jumpstart

Entity used as a start line for jump maps. Attach it to a trigger where you want the timer to be activated at the beginning of a jump route.

You can have multiple jump start entities on a map, one for each way, as long as you don't forget to connect them to their proper jumpstop entity.

Jumpstop

Entity used as a stop line for jump maps. Attach it to a trigger where you want the timer to stop at the end of a jump route.
Just like on the jumpstart, you can have multiple entities of this type, as long as you have them properly connected.

Jumpcancel

Entity used as a cancel line for jump maps. Attach it to a trigger where you want the timer to cancel the jump route.

Note: Specifying type 0 in this kind of entity will stop the run timer, no matter the path / way.
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