CTF- Canyon Crusade Revival

Canyon Crusade Revival Responsibilities:
–Make viable ports of the classic Tribes CTF map Canyon Crusade. Adapt the original layout and heightmap to suit Tribes Ascend’s physics and mechanics
–Layout and blocking of flag stand, bases, and surrounding cover. Spawn placement, set dressing, fog adjustment, lighting, post process, bug fixes

CCR Adaptation Process:
Canyon Crusade was one of the Tribes1 maps we’d frequently see players request to be ported to Tribes: Ascend. I was very excited to be the one to work on it, as I had not yet made a CTF map for the game.

I knew I needed to balance the nostalgia of the original map with the style and aesthetics of the new game. I started with a height map rip from the original, then adjusted the terrain to suit the scale for Ascend’s physics. This involved a lot of testing and many iterative changes to adjust the height of hills, and make small alterations to the terrain to help players build up speed quickly when skiing.

I also looked at other variations and ports of CC from Tribes2, to see how map makers and modders made adjustments to suit physics and various play styles from all of the different Tribes mods. In the end, the maps I focused the most on were the original Canyon Crusade, and Canyon Crusade Deluxe.

Part of design of the map is a very open flag stand, a small base housing the generator, and a few exterior buildings. Mimicking the layout of earlier Tribes base designs, I tried to keep the sparse and barren feeling of the world with the updated base designs. The trickiest part was to find ways to keep the flag stand open, but obstruct some ski routes so that cappers could not come in at the flag from every angle. Placing a turret close to the flag stand provided additional defense for the flag, and resulted in forcing teams to either take out the generator or disable the turret to allow for a back-to-front capping route. I reached out and spoke with DOX, the original creator of Canyon Crusade, and was able to get additional feedback on changes that would help with gameplay mechanics and visuals.

While working on this map, I interacted a lot with the community. In the past, dense fog was used as a way to help cut down on rendered objects, but it also obviously cuts down on the visual appeal and excitement in the level. After making many adjustments and getting feedback from both competitive and casual players, I was able to create fog in the canyon bowl that simulated classic Tribes fog- where players could not see beyond the midfield- but atop the canyon the fog only acts as a light atmospheric effect. This helped sell the nostalgic aesthetic of previous Tribes games, without sacrificing too much of the visual appeal that Ascend is known for.

Montage frag video from player Inset, showing many of my maps- including CCR.
Shot List: Canyon Crusade Revival, Fraytown Arena, Air Arena, Lava Arena, Walled-in Arena, Blueshift (designed by Kevin Powell), and more CCR