Kothlis Colony

Kothlis is a map made mostly from scratch. Ninety-five percent of the built, or man-made, elements of the map were modeled by me. The natural elements of the environment like the cliffs, caves, and waterfall are all stock game assets, though these received some editing. The palm trees were a third-party asset, created by another modder. I began Kothlis after completing and releasing the initial 1.0 version Vjun, which had taught me an incredible amount about map design, 3D modeling assets from scratch, and scripting LUA events to create an eventful mission script. My goal in creating Kothlis was to diversify my design interests a bit more, moving away from the completely brutalistic, cold, and alien enviornemt of Vjun, and instead now embracing a warm and colorful blend of naturalistic elements with man-made ones. Whereas Vjun had been a collection of harsh lines, built upon a sea of acid devoid of unique features, this time around I made it a priority to pleasingly mesh an idyllic tropical environment with a rather more curvaceous construction of metal and glass. Moreover, the natural parts of the map, such as the cliffs, the waterfall, the palm trees, and the warm turquoise ocean, all seem to subsume the comparatively small man-man colony, which is almost dwarfed by the surrounding nature.

Kothlis began as single cubed room. Possessing a firmer grasp on the 3D modeling software now, I no longer had to proceed in haltingly piecemeal fashion, as I had when creating Vjun. I was more confident in my direction, and in designing my first asset this time I simply completed it, inside and out, with detail props built directly into it, all in one sitting. Further, I designed with modularity in mind this time. This had been an original goal for Vjun, and while I did succeed at that time in creating unique assets worth releasing for reuse by the modding community, this time I wanted the map's assets to be truly modular. And cubes are simple. Cubes can be readily recombined in endless ways. I took advantage of my simple design scheme by reusing my own rooms while building Kothlis, tweaking each one just enough to introduce some novel elements that would keep the playable environment interesting. But I diversified, as well. The large, gleaming, paneled glass cyclinder which forms one end of the map middle stands in contrast to the cubic design, as does the peaked roof of the covered bridge beside it. And encapsulating the cubic rooms is a vaulted glass ceiling, which fits snugly on top. Overall, I endeavored to fit more into less space with this project, and in meeting this goal advanced my abilities.