Designing my first multiplayer map! Stepping Stones

I thought it would be a good idea to keep a blog post on my progress through the different stages of designing my first multiplayer map.

So you can get an idea of my creative thinking processes during modification. As this is a big project for me, I feel that recording my progress is important and might be beneficial to others who are also using UDK for the first time.

I'm not going to delve too far into the nitty gritty of what I did, but if anyone wants to know anything about the things I've shown in my level, please don't hesitate to contact me :)

This image was appropriately named "the beginning" and in many respects it was!

Following some online tutorials, I managed to get a basic understanding of BSP brushes (Binary

space partition) basically brushes that allow you to create/sculpture objects inside the game world. So I created a small room, ta daa! with some basic lighting!

After fiddling around inside Unreal, I managed to get a HUD working as well as a gun!
Tip:Selecting the view>world properties>game type allows you to change the game type, selecting utgame as the default game type allows you to implement basic shooter properties inside your game.
Oh and I made a spiral stair case inside a tubular shaped room. For some reason I was fixated in creating the perfect spiral stair case.

Spiral stair case getting higher!

 

Another view!

 

I went a bit crazy and started adding lots of platforms....I thought it looked cool!!

 Another angle. As you can see I've placed many light sources into the level to allow more light coverage. I also added jump pads to each platform to get an understanding of how they work.

At this point I started thinking about the structure of my level and how it will work as a multiplayer map. I wanted to create a multiple level map which players can traverse freely. This is where I came up with the concept of Stepping Stones.

Here's a birds eye view of my progress.

Present.

I hope you found my brief progress insightful or at least cool! I'll will be posting more images as I go, so feel free to check back frequently to see the next stages of evolution, in my quest to design a great multiplayer map! OR you could just skip back to it later to see the final outcome ;) 

I also will be video capturing the map in all its glory when I complete it so stay tuned for that.

UPDATE!!

Here is a sneak peak of my level in action, including AI controlled bots.  
Music by The Prodigy-Omen