Pass The Map III: The Search For Spock

[rep]

Who's with me?

I don't feel [that] I like Radiant anymore, so I'll just stick to the stuff I do best; modeling and textures.

The main problems with past PTM:

1. Lack of organization
2. Strange deadlines and extensions causing confusion.
3. Pertinence fell prey to eye candy.
4. Giant clusterfuck zones with massive brush detail slowed down Radiant raped any possibility of connecting the maps in a stylish heterodox form. Instead, the maps were connected through a series of doorways which breached parts of the giant brush-chasm, which was already large enough to be a medium sized CTF map.
5. There were no size limits as far as each zone goes. This produced gigantic areas that were large enough to be their own maps. Even on a server packed with 32 people, it would have been hard to find a hot fire-fight.
6. Entities were not governed... Every section seemed to have it's own quad/mega/red armor placed.
7. Zero completion, zero deadline, zero releases.

Qualities of last PTM:

1. Anyone and everyone was allowed to participate. It was clear by the time that I got the map that there were geocomp style guys working on it, and people the LVL would make fun of on their nerdy site.
2. Total community input. We kept it fairly open and distributed screens when we felt like it.
3. Although updates were sporadic at times, there were large bursts of input and output where everyone would be working at once on the thing, and on the forums talking.

The best way to do a PTM project is to all work on the same thing. Working on sections and then passing it on just makes the map gigantic and rarely playable. Quake maps have been done. Let's do something that has never been done collectively.

"Innerspace" was on HBO Comedy the other night. I've always wanted to do a map that is on the inside of the human body, but it would be a fairly limiting experience for the gamer. The cavernous realms of the human body would have to be extremely enlarged to be playworthy, ergo the magic feeling of claustrophobia would be lost and it would seem like some id software map from an early alpha of Quake 3 where you would run through some creature.

Another idea is a map that would literally make the gamer say, "What the hell were these idiots on when they made this?" A giant terrain map that isn't made of mountains, but is made of the face of George W. Bush, with floating tanks and bibles in a skybox, along with flying televisions with a flickering message of, "Buy! Buy! Terror Alert: Orange! Submit! Buy! Jesus!" A river of snot is flowing from his nose, but when you get close you realize it's actually US dollars. There is a floating cherub with Dick Cheney's face, and it's moving fast but if you can hit it with a rail it triggers some oil well models to pop up along the horizon in the sky box and spew oil everywhere, followed by a world sound of "YEE HAW! YEEEEE HAW!"

[lordofdeadside]

You could just make a rough list of rooms/areas/entities that people could sign up to do. i.e.

1. quad room/trap ...................
2. red armour room ...................

that may help. deadlines and size limits would be good too. If some people were willing to make corridors / connections it might work, or give the PTM a theme like you mentioned.

I'll do a section if your gonna start one.

[redfella]

rep: Not sure wtf that last part was all about, but I still think ptm is a completable project... If and only if there are some guidelines and people realize that the map is just for fun and it doesnt need to be a god-damned breakthrough in the art of mapping (like last time w/ the light and dark theme shit).

gl and hf.

[rep]

There definitely needs to be some ground rules as far as area goes. I haven't used Radiant in so long that I forget how many units is large, but I'd suggest that everyone get a cubed area no larger than whatever the dimensions of the lower level of q3dm17 are.

[Pext]

last time we overstressed the planning phase a bit... i remember lots of rude drawings beeing posted...

[rep]

Rude?

I only remember my concept suggestions. I had drawn out something really quick... It was goth vs. greek. One side had gothic structures, a church, a graveyard, dead trees. The other was like Athens. They were connected by rope walk bridges and some jumppads. There were also flight powerups, and tunnels beneath.

[Pext]

i was thinking of my attempt to make some illustrations with paint

[rep]

Ah,

But hey, out of your post comes a brilliant idea... A map done in mspaint style. The whole thing would have to purposely look shitty (the geometry) so that it would match the shitty Paintbrush drawings.

[Pext]

concerning ptm-3:

- problems with ptm-1: vast map with bad gameplay but interresting brushwork and a great diversity of styles.

- problems with ptm-2: to much organisation, taking to much time many lost their interrest for the project. [edit] actually there were two phases: the first one was overorganised, the second one was underorganised.

- this is how i would do ptm-3:

• step 1:
  two or three people doing the layout, pushing out some alphas for feedback.
• step 2:
  after the layout is settled the real passing starts: everyone that gets the map does some brushwork - as good as possible - and then passes it on after a maximum of three days.

a possible time schedule:

alpha phase: 16 days, one alpha every 4 days - that would make it 3 alphas and some time to fix things for the layout release.

brushwork/beta phase: 3 days per mapper. every new version get's uploaded so that we can have the others search for errors in the newest section and conncections simultaniously.


i'm sure this could result in a very cool looking map :icon14:

[UniKorn]

Imho:

1. The first one creates the entire layout. He gets more time to do it. That way we might have a decent gameplay. When creating the layout, take into account the number of people who are in the ptm team
2. Assign an area to everyone
3. Decide on a theme and a textureset.

[Lenard]

Is there a working version of PTM III?

[bork[e]]

The guys over at Map-Center just recently completed a Ptm project that turned quite well! You all might be able to get some ideas by checking their thread out?

just an idea.

[Pext]

Ok... before we get started we need to do the following things:


1 - some message dropped by everyone who wants to join.

2 - decide on a gametype [ 1on1 , TDM , CTF ]

i'd favor TDM as it offers enough room for some poeple to join. plus CTF was allready done last time. but we should include the approximated number of participants into our considerations.

3 - some webspace for uploading WIP screens, alphas, betas

4 - a starting date for the alpha phase (a saturday would be best, as there would be some time to get it rolling and some time for hurry in the end ).

I think we should do it the following way (a bit improved from what i said above):

• alpha phase:
  a small team of max. 3 mappers get's the task to create the layout in 2 weeks from the starting date.
• beta phase:
  pass the map: the brushwork is done, room-by-room. depending on mapsize we should vary the max. time one mapper can keep the map before he passes it. i think it should be between 3 days for a 1on1 map and 1 full week for a ctf/tdm map; again the number of participants is to be considered.

OK - Who's in?

[Hipshot]

Probably the best image hoster.
http://www.imageshack.us/

I can, if you people want, host the map/pk3 file on my space.

[Fjoggs]

I like Pexts ideas.
I agree on TDM would be most fitting for this kind of project.

I'm interested.

[rep]

1. I'll do static models and textures.
2. Rocket Arena 3 or CTF. Nothing else is fun anymore.
3. Sometime in April.

[lordofdeadside]

Count me in!

I'll do a room / area if you like!

[rep]

Let's make this quality this time around. We can't make another Quake 3 map. You know how Wolfenstein Enemy Territory maps look far better than Quake 3 maps? Let's go beyond that, even, and do something that looks incredible... Like it doesn't belong in this engine.

[Lenard]

Count me out then.

[Fjoggs]

Unreal's my middle name. :icon32:
Seriously though, It depends alot on the team in terms of skill, so it kinda leaves a few out.
Talking "what the .." stuff, did you ever do anymore with that lightning bolt thingy you pimped some years ago rep ?

[Pext]

doing something of top quality is not the idea behind a ptm - ptm means everyone can participate.

if you want to make a high end map with others i'd suggest gathering a small team of skilled people.

[Myth]

The guys over at Map-Center just recently completed a Ptm project that turned quite well! You all might be able to get some ideas by checking their thread out?

just an idea.

lol ! It will give you ideas about how to argue maybe!

It was a pretty good ptm map though to be fair, had some nice sections.

[rep]

Unreal's my middle name. :icon32:
Seriously though, It depends alot on the team in terms of skill, so it kinda leaves a few out.
Talking "what the .." stuff, did you ever do anymore with that lightning bolt thingy you pimped some years ago rep ?

Volumetric clouds in Quake 3 is what it was. I'll teach you how I did it...

I made a model in 3D Studio Max consisting of about 2000 triangles (1000 polygons, all planes.) and applied simple UVW coordinates to each accordingly. I then created six shaders with matching sets of textures, each shader with 5 stages. The purpose of the six shaders is six variations, dependent on size, of the individual 'puffs' of cloud. The outermost polygons were fairly small, the innermost were medium sized. There was a 'mist' polygon which was larger than the entire cloud which would show a mist texture (barely visible, but added a great extra effect.). Each size of polygon (There were six sizes, remember) would then get it's own animation (autosprite shader with 5 images blending over one another) Because of the variation and amount of images at play (30 images at random) it appeared almost completely randomized and truly volumetric.

I hand painted each animation in Photoshop. The lightning bolts were done in the same way. A model was made consisting of a few hundred planes, all the same size this time. Shaders were made with quick four staged animations. The main vein would happen first, then the branches almost instantly afterward. The whole thing would flicker off but I had a barely visible white afterglow... It sort of gave the effect of when you watch lightning hit and it sort of burns your eyes a little bit afterward.

Edit: Now that I remember, I redid the bolts as single large planes with 512x512 4 frame animations on them.



You can see the mist polygon if you look closely.

[Fjoggs]

Sadly, I don't know how to use a modelling app, but I plan to learn Maya someday.

You need to post an avi of that to let us see how it looks ingame.

[Lenard]

Ever going to be implemented in a map? Maybe something to think about for ptm III...