Jon "Merkaba" Chapman has been our resident team mapper on NS since way before v1.0. Not only does Jon have a fantastic visual and layout sense for mapping, but he understands the technical intricacies of VIS, BSP, clip nodes, etc. and is also growing quickly as a 2D and 3D artist. Jon created and maintained ns_hera and between all the major revisions of it, it probably counts as three maps by now!
His new map is called ns_machina and has been in development in various forms for about a year. We’ve been testing it with the Constellation members Playtesters in NS v3.2 and we’re hoping it’s going to make the release (which is quickly approaching). I’m not sure how much it has been shown so I thought I’d do a quick level preview here.
One of his interesting design goals for the map has been to make the level feel "alive". You can see some of this reflected in his organic architecture – many curves, arches and liquid elements make you feel almost as if you’re roaming among the internal organs of an ancient hulking space beast.
