q4Lavadht1 - vox nihili (beta 2)

[corsair]

This is my first quake 4 map, after well over a year of work on it, it
has reached the beta stage.

The map's history is a rather long one, the floorplan basicly origines
from a caulkhull I made for quake 3, looong ago. When q4 came
out I almost immediately took that hull to make a map.

The struggle I then faced with the caulkhull was immense, close to
nothing of it has been unaltered, even after it was already scaled,
resized and deconstructed several times.

What results, at least to me, is a quite different map, both large
and cramped at the same time. But also one with great
connectivity. I hope that also means it's balanced, but I'm not sure
yet. The gametypes that are possible range from 1v1 to a 4v4 tdm
match, because of the way rooms are connected.

Whats this beta for? I'll be glad to hear any of your comments on
the map, from minor flaws/errors, taste and item placement, to
huge dislikes and ofcourse also, praisings. ;D

Screenshots;


Download:
http://www.naes.nl/q4Lavadht1beta2.zip
or
http://www.4shared.com/file/9035436/b49 ... beta2.html

fyi; bellow are three layout drawings of all three floor levels, feel
free to draw your desired item placement in it, for I'm not at all
sure how I did it so far.

top floor
ground level
basement

/edit 2
-updated links, beta 2 alright!

[Lukin]

Oh man, it looks sexy Definitely the best looking "Q4" map I've seen so far.
However you should do something with a performance issues - I've got huge fps drops while running through an empty map, and I don't want to imagine how bad it could be with player models, flying rockets, etc...
The worst spot:
[lvlshot]http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/2532/shot00020ih3.jpg[/lvlshot]

I thought it was mainly the light count problem, and indeed it's not so good:
[lvlshot]http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/2089/shot00022nu5.png[/lvlshot]

however even with r_forceAmbient 1 the fps are too low:
[lvlshot]http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/2144/shot00021gn2.jpg[/lvlshot]

I didn't check the portals and tris so I'm not sure if you did everything you could or maybe there is some space for an improvment. I guess you can subdivide the patches and save some (a lot?) polygons this way. By the way - this orange pipe on the shots is vertically overstretched. Also - move all the items 16 units over the ground and add a nodrop key (set to 1) to them.

Unfortunatelly I can't say anything about the gameplay. Oh, one thing - invisible clip walls suck :P But visually...man, I'm stunned. GJ.

P.S. You've left "Placebo Effect" written in a .def file

[corsair]

Hah indeed I did, but I'm sure that's been fixed now, hope wviperw
wont harras me ;]

The performance isn't great at my pc either, though I've heard others
not having any problem, yet.. (no ppl n guns). I've checked several
aspects, the portals do a good job almost everywhere, but one space
is still a little fuct atm. The lightcount in the space you show does indeed
require some attention, but I'm not sure I can do anything really amazing
by lowering it, for the batchsize, and overal texture memory usage, seem
to have a high toll on the engine, and that is terrible to cut down on.
The pipe's at the ceiling and also the shadow they cast are also
quite a big performance killer, but I've grown attached to them,
its hard to relativate performance vs looks because I tend towards
favoring the looks ;]

btw, your fov is extreme! o_O

[hemostick]

I'm with Lukin : you probably have the best visuals in a Q4 mp map so far - unfortunately, with a hefty price on the performance.

I don't know if you've run around the map with showtris 2/showportals 1/usescissor 0 - for me it shows that there's quite a few cycles wasted on processing invisible triangles in the areas where performance drops.
There might be a few spots where you can tweak the portalling (i.e cutting the napalm curved tunnel into a couple extra sections), but overall I don't think you can squeeze much performance out of the map that way. You might have to reuse textures more / merge some surfaces in these areas for better batching, because especially with the lights on, draw count goes quite high (up to 3k).

You might want to flag teleport out models as nonsolid, or equivalent - they're quite big and it's easy to trip over them
I felt the pipes and ramps leading to the RA could be clipped a little bit. Likewise, in there it's possible to rocketjump up the pipes : maybe you could clip areas like these so people can't camp them ?

Also in the area Lukin showed in a screenshot, I managed to jump through the kill trigger, close to a wall. I didn't open the map in the editor to check it out, but I suspect the trigger might not cover everything.

[jayP.lq]

Just an amazing looking map. I love that it looks like a Q4 map, not a Q3 map with nice lighting.

I'm not a mapper so I cant add any technical comments, but as a huge fan of Q4 I just love running around in this map. I love the teleporters and all the nice oppurtunities for Q4 movement. Lots places to ramp-jump to pick up speed. and the tighter areas are open enough to crouchslide through them quite easily.

The Quad placement is nice and dangerous. That broken pipe that you have there makes it a dangerous jump to make, but one that will reward the skilled player :]

I could really see this as a great TDM map :]

About the performance drop, I have a fairly decent PC and I also found the FPS drop around the RA area. Othere areas I dont have a problem...but around the RA area I drop to about 30-40 fps.

Also I noticed an invisible wall in the map that I'm not sure you intended. Its not the one that blocks you from going outside...its in the tighter areas of the map. It looks like you should be able to drop down into the lower part of the map from there, but your blocked by the invisible wall.

EDIT: added SS

[lvlshot]http://www.lostdoggrafix.com/wall.JPG[/lvlshot]

[wattro]

very very nice looking map - one of the nicest i have seen

but, I am a little confused, and hope this will come across correctly

you say in your first post that you have continuously reworked the caulkhull immensely during the lengthy construction of the map. as i understand, that means you believe it to be an excellent layout (and it looks like it may be).

i understand the balance struggles between visual quality and performance/gameplay that designers usually face, but then it appears from your posts that you choose visual quality over gameplay/performance.

i wonder then, what is the point of having such a good layout if the performance will potentially hinder the gameplay?

i guess what i mean, is that if you have a grand layout, would it not be wiser to sacrifice some of the visual quality in order to have the best performance/gameplay? this seems like something that might hinder the longevity of your map..

[corsair]

You´re absolutely right - there´s hardly any point in aiming gameplay perfection with a level that runs like q3´s chartres ;], I didnt at all intend on making it run this bad, ofcourse.

It's a result of having cut, edited and what didnt i do with the caulk hull; The map became leaked, and because of its silly ammount of leaks, I at that time decided to place one large box around it, thinking i'd get back at the issue when i finished the map.

I did so, but before I finished the map's geometry, I always tested it without any visibility optimalisation, all of the map was rendered all of the time, so I hoped performance would become ok when I started adding VIS functionality.

I'll be releasing the second beta today, the performance still isn't all that good, but it is slightly improved (I've mainly focussed on bug fixing, flow improvement (with clips), item placement and several aestetic issues). The third beta will tell if I'm able to improve performance. (If it ain't going to be fine, I might release two versions, for then i'm able to cut down detail more drascticaly, without having to get stressed over much visual loss)

[corsair]

I've released beta 2, thanks for your imput.

Download it at;
http://www.naes.nl/q4Lavadht1beta2.zip
or
http://www.4shared.com/file/9035436/b49 ... beta2.html

CHANGELOG BETA 2

- Added numerous clipbrushes to improve flow and collision
- Removed an unintended clip/invisible wall from corridor to mh
- Placed items somewhat higher and set them to nodrop
- Both tunnel ends have gates now instead of invisible wall
- Added Regeneration powerup inside of tunnel
- Tunnel-JP; lowered, removed edges, and improved destination
- Some geometry change to the same JP's destination area
- Fixed trigger_hurt issue in pit near quad
- Most models are set to noclipmodel for better flow
- Removed texture glitches/overdraw
- LG and RG switched places
- NG and HB switched places
- Replaced the railgun
- Projectiles get triggered by JP's now

still todo:

- Improve performance.
- Add projectile teleport functionality.
- Suggestions?

[dichtfux]

The map looks quite impressive, but almost every room makes my box fall to its knees with gfx settings that work well with other maps. The spot around the quad seems worst.

Will need to make myself a pro-config for q4 and test the layout with that later.

Thumbs up for the visuals from me!