It was at this point the middle cave idea with the canyon area fell into place.
The Idea was that both A and B would be ground level with C buried within a mountain face.
Point A fell into place first as did BLU spawn. The smaller mountain on the left was also put into place early on as the surrounds of the playing area began to be fleshed out.
Initially the rock face and waterfall were to be placed in the bottom right corner of the map before quickly finding their home at the top of the mountain.
It was also around this time that the BLU taking back their own base concept was conceived after realising the mistake of designing the defending teams spawn in the industrial theme and BLU as the attackers had been given a farm/wooden themed base.
It was also from this error that the name cp_takeback was suggested and accepted before I later decided to make the change it to Takeback Mountain.
As development progressed B point was added again with the BLU industrial theme to flesh out the concept of the mountain complex originally being a BLU team constructed facility.
The building to the left of A was initially put in place to assist in fleshing out the perimeter and to provide the attacking team a staging area for attacking A. The internal room of this building wasn’t added till much later on.
The fencing off of the canyon and the pine trees were put in as a gameplay element. Originally this canyon area was going to be available to BLU during setup to allow the two teams access to each other for pre-game kills. Similar to that of the over the train attacking in cp_well.
As the map approached pre-alpha much of the map had started to take shape. C point was changed to take place around a Launchpad, the rocket was primarily put in as a gameplay element to stop RED dropping straight to the C point as they came out of spawn. Later fences were also added to assist in this restriction.
The data centre was added as a way to the now developing B point and was added as a vista to add believability to the environment and to help pretty things up.
As also shown in the above screenshot a lot of the displacements were in place at this stage also.
Alpha 1. By this stage the map was feature complete. Many of the basic props were in place. The map was playable and had very basic, albeit ugly, lighting.
This is the first version of the map that was initially put on the OzFortress forum as an intention to enter the mapping contest.
Post Aplha Change Log
Alpha 1 – 13/12/2009 – Initial release.
This current version has very little to NO optimisation but should still run with solid FPS on most systems.
Lighting is tentative. Dawn lighting effect will stay but needs to be lightened. Currently point A is very dark making it hard to distinguish player colour.
Trap door from Blu spawn is cumbersome to use, especially when taking it as a direct route to C. This is to be changed to a dirt ramp by A2.
Current health/ammo placement is tentative and is open to criticism and suggestions.
Resupply cabinets in Red spawn allow for too easy resupply for spamming Demomen and Soldiers down onto C point. Top level of C to be closed in or obstructed and resupply cabinets to be placed in centre of Red spawn.
Point A encourages Red to camp the spawn and spam down to Blu spawn. Sight line to be adjusted to discourage Red from camping the point.
Defaced Blu posters to be designed and displayed in Red spawn to reinforce map synopsis that Red has overtaken the Blu base.
General prop placement, clipping and detail to be added.
Alpha 2 – 16/12/2009
Adjusted light_env to reduce purple shadowing. Retained early morning atmosphere.
Adjusted fog colour to match skybox.
Added spot lights to point A.
Added trees to break up sight lines from A to Blu spawn.
Increased height of rockfaces in point C and added player clip
Re-worked lower exit from Blu spawn to a more user friendly ramp rather than boxes to climb.
Fixed displacement issue on Red spawn roller door that would cause players to get stuck.
Fixed gaps in the displacements on point A.
Added detail and props to both Red and Blu spawns.
Added additional cubemaps to fix issues on some reflective props.
Updated screenshots.
Alpha 3 – 20/12/2009
Reworked upper level of point C – Added high fences to reduce demo/soli spam by making the distance longer to do so.
Added shed/shack to upper level of point C – Closed upper level to again reduce spam.
Widened the upper walkway of point B and added props for decoration and cover.
Added detail props to upper room of point B.
Added props for cover on the lower level of point C.
Added additional lighting to points B and C.
Added clipping to the shack roof on the mountain side at point A.
Added player clips on the roof of Blu spawn.
Reworked building at point A. Building is now enterable to provide a staging area for Blu when attacking the point.
Widened the ‘control room’ behind point A.
Review and changes to health/ammo placement.
Alpha 4 – 30/12/2009
Added custom ‘graffitied’ textures around the base to better indicate that Red has overtaken Blu’s base – Thanks to Son of Dad |MD| for texture editing.
Added collision rain – Thanks to PSY as posted on tf2maps.net.
Added detailing and lighting to both spawn rooms.
Added info_observer_point cameras – Welcome, A, B and C.
Added tone map/HDR.
General prop placement.
Additional lighting to needed areas.
General texture alignment and improvements.
Beta 1 – 08/01/2010
Optimised release.
Added fuc_areaportals throughout map.
Added hint brushes
Added occluders where required
Added sound – env_soundscapes placed throughout the map
Added additional detail props.
Added player clips in several areas – more required across the map.
Tweaked certain lights in several rooms throughout the map.
Added sprites to most lights throughout the map.
Release Candidate 1 – 22/01/2010
Added detail rooms to both Red and Blu spawn rooms
Added tunnel/vista to point C
Added spot lights to point C. General tweak of lighting at C.
Added lighting to Blu spawn – Headlights on the truck on the lower level.
General clipping of props around the map.
Added additional area portals – All 3 new rooms.
Added additional medium health pack between Blue spawn and point A
Additional signage added to direct players to the control points.
Additional skybox pine trees added.
Changed texture on the building at point A to a more rusted look.
Re-clipped all trees in the playing field – including bullet clips.
Issue with a particle generator catching players clipped and resolved.
Removed shadow casting from several props.
**Known Issue** Cubemaps not correctly built in this release.
Release Candidate 2 – 12/02/2010
Added ‘chalkboard’ story and pictures.
Fixed texturing in Red spawn – Smoothing groups
Added additional crates/barrels for cover to point B and computer room tunnel.
Minor tweaking of health/ammo pack sizes.
Additional detailing at point B – Opened side cage and lowered raised brush to make the area a vantage point for Blu.
Replaced train track overlay material with modelled sleepers and detailed accordingly.
Added train to tunnel to better indicate the area is not enterable.
Added railing to platform on staircase on side of B building.
Added props, detailing and texture alignment to ‘house’ at point A.
Added wooden barriers to point A to prevent Red camping on the point.
Fixed a clipping issue on the entrance to the middle cave area that players wold get stuck on.
Additional clipping and tweaks made to Blu spawn roof.
Replaced motored door models in Red spawn and added detail brush to main do so that motor is mounted.
Added shelving to both Blu spawn rooms to again show mounting for door motors. Added props on shelves for details.
Added detailing to all platforms within Blu spawn.
Added witches hat models to upper and lower levels of Blu spawn (Provides a prop to be shot about during setup)
Fixed the ropes between lights on C to prevent them clipping into the rockface.
Added player/bullet clips to the hut on the upper level of C.
Added bullet clipping to the rock face between Red spawn at A.
