Coldburn Beta 1.0

[zZCastleZz]

Thats right I have the beta available for download!

I started working on this level a couple weeks ago it and its starting to feel like its at a point were the only things that are left are art tasks. Basically I want to go in and do some touch up work on textures and skin 2 of the props in the level that I created.

Its possible that I will add a couple more prop models to the level. I feel like it could use a little more detail on the ceilings of some rooms. Though its possible that the levels simpler look might make it more appealing in general.

Heres my site:
http://lacedneptune.planetquake.gamespy.com/

Download Coldburn-Beta1 Here:
http://www.fileplanet.com/hosteddl.aspx ... le_dm1.zip (16,128 kb)










Well anyway.
Let me know what you think!

[Magnus]

Looks sweet man. :icon25:

It's for Q4 :icon21:

I really need to go ahead and buy a new Q4 disk. :icon26:

[zZCastleZz]

Looks sweet man. :icon25:

It's for Q4 :icon21:

I really need to go ahead and buy a new Q4 disk. :icon26:

This raises an interesting point.
The quake 4 user base seems pretty small these days.

thing is I already have 20+ quake 3 levels already made lol..
I wonder what FPS these days has the largest user base?

I'm thinking it might be painkiller or counterstrike or something like that. that wouldn't be too bad since I want to make another Painkiller level and I certainly enjoy CS map making.

Strange days when quake isn't the top of its game though.. At least for what it is.

Quake 4 multi player isn't so bad really. Its the maps and the feel of moving around that suffer most.

I suppose ill just have to see what happens. At least Quake 4 isn't as bad off as say. Doom 3...

[wviperw]

CS/CS:Source are by far the most popular FPS games right now and have been for awhile now. Team-based shooters seem to be en vogue for the most part, with games like the Battlefield series taking up a lot of players' time. As far as your "classic" FPS is concerned, UTK4 is still doing pretty well, and Q3 is seeing a comeback, but classic DM is simply not played by that many people any more.

[zZCastleZz]

CS/CS:Source are by far the most popular FPS games right now and have been for awhile now. Team-based shooters seem to be en vogue for the most part, with games like the Battlefield series taking up a lot of players' time. As far as your "classic" FPS is concerned, UTK4 is still doing pretty well, and Q3 is seeing a comeback, but classic DM is simply not played by that many people any more.

Yeah I have been considering to look into contacting the guys doing Rocket arena 4 or something along those lines. The thing is though, I don't really have the kind of time to devote to community project. As a human being I feel its ok to say that one set of deadlines and milestones is plenty for me. When I work on standard game play mode levels I'm able to do things on my own terms.

The only thing is though..
If I make levels for other games, some strange force of habbit, even if I release a counterstrike or painkiller level it wont feel right to me unless I post it on this forum lol...

I don't want to go to some other crazy forum. I like this one haha..

*sigh*

[d3mol!t!on]

Call of Duty 2 is getting played quite a lot these days, but as for the competitive scene Counter Strike is still dropping a good portion of bricks on it. Perhaps that's why there aren't really any "competitive" maps for CoD2, or maybe it's actually the other way round with the competitive scene being kept down with stock maps people are getting bored of already (coupled with the ridiculous amounts of bugs and exploits CoD2 exhibits).

[dnky]

Just had a quick look....
first thing, hurrah, the number of people refusing to over use ambient lighting is growing!!!! Why people want to build maps for Quake 4 that are lit so badly they look worse than levels did in Q2 I will never know! If you cant run Q4, upgrade!
Lighting is good
Little tight maybe in places, but I guess that is Q4.
Main issue for me is that in my clean install all the ceiling model parts have missing textures.
Havent had a chance to play, didnt check if there was a bot file or not, will check that later. As nobody really seems to play Q4, and those that do seem reluctant to see positives in most new levels, play testing is somewhat difficult.
I very much like the rock model and the texture applied, the local map works well.

[zZCastleZz]

Just had a quick look....
first thing, hurrah, the number of people refusing to over use ambient lighting is growing!!!! Why people want to build maps for Quake 4 that are lit so badly they look worse than levels did in Q2 I will never know! If you cant run Q4, upgrade!
Lighting is good
Little tight maybe in places, but I guess that is Q4.
Main issue for me is that in my clean install all the ceiling model parts have missing textures.
haven't had a chance to play, didn't check if there was a bot file or not, will check that later. As nobody really seems to play Q4, and those that do seem reluctant to see positives in most new levels, play testing is somewhat difficult.
I very much like the rock model and the texture applied, the local map works well.

Actually my two pet peeves with level design multiplayer levels on Quake 4 are

1. dark lighting
2. cramped gameplay
3. Overly detailed level textures/geometry making it harder to see.

for some reason it is harder to not make cramped spaces and a level that isn't lit poorly. I don't want to make forgettable quake 4 levels. It would be awesome if I could have a few good quake 4 levels that stayed on peoples hard drives and even played on them from time to time. I think the above issues are of high standing to make this happen. Ill see what I can do to make things less cramped.

Oh and as far as the missing textures on the new models. I already know about that, I haven't made the skins for them yet lol. So its perfectly normal that they look that way. When I release the full version of the level ill have proper skins and details on the models. Either that or the models will be removed lol..

[v1l3]

Q3 is seeing a comeback, but classic DM is simply not played by that many people any more.

((Not focused towards wvw))Everytime a semi-interesting to good new game comes out, Q3 player-count drops down for a while...then comes back when everyone finds that the other game has no replay value. The only good thing about Q4 MP maps are that they look prettier, and for the most part the game appeals more to map makers than actual players. If one person wants to play MP..it would make more sense to play the actual game made for it(Q3), than making Q4 it's replacement for looks purposes. UT is fun, but it isn't anything more than a competitor to Quake Series. What strongly keeps these quakeseries players together is the community which has known each other for near eight years, for Q3 and players from the first two and/or Doom and new players popping in from no where all the time. That's why people keep coming back.

Castle-The other time I asked about you and Goose's map, I forgot to mention that I've been playing your map called Hall's of Death for however may years since it was popped up back on Q3W's maplist when it was the month per month set up. Slipped my mind..I know people may find some of your other maps more interesting, but for some reason I love that map. :icon25: Make another q3 map if you ever feel inclined to.

[zZCastleZz]

ah yes Halls of death!

When I was going through all of my quake 3 maps again while revising the web page to be more of a resume than just a maps download page. I remember putting up 4 versions of halls of death lol.. 2.0 version had FFA and team support. Then it was one of the only non symmetrical CTF maps for quake 3.
I also had a Team arena version of the level that supports all of the team arena game play modes too. that was a lot of work!

This is the only time I have ever released a level beta and in the same thread started talking about other games and passed levels lol..

It certainly a sign of the times.

as far as making another quake 3 level. Ill have to ponder that prospect for a bit simply because I have already made so many quake 3 levels now I feel like ill learn more if I move to a different engine.

Painkiller has ultra badass tools and you can build entirely in max for example. hmm
Then again Quake 3 levels aren't as hard to make anymore.

Depending on how things go I think this will be my last Quake 4 level though. From the responses of the community in general I wonder if there will be anyone to even play them in 6 months to a year.

sad really..
I want the old times back!!

[dnky]

This is all true, but done right it looks so pretty, and I am such a sucker for that:)

[pjw]

Been running around this for a bit...cool level!

Suggestions/Observations (in no particular order:

1. Make sure all your pick-ups are at 16 units, and have nodrop 1. Right now a lot of them are sorta bouncing on the floor, and some of the fx (e.g. health) are clipping into the floor.

2. It's hard to tell without final tex, but it looks like the spec on the rock might be a little over the top?

3. It would be nice if the rock and the wall around it looked a little less "all of one piece"? Right now the rock is just sort of organically growing smoothly out of the wall in many places, rather than it looking like the wall was built around the rock. I know this is a tall order (both in terms of the modeling work necessary and the actual increase in triscount), so feel free to tell me to bugger off.

4. I initially thought the MH and YA were too close, and I still do, but...damn. After spending about 20 minutes wandering around, I'm having trouble coming up with an alternative. It's just an idea, but how would you feel about losing the teles? They kind of make everything really close to everything...if you lost them, you could leave YA where it is, and put MH where the far tele is currently (near RG), and I think the gameplay might actually benefit...failing that, maybe switch YA/RL?

5. I like that you can slope jump up from LG, and I like that you can slope jump from there to the 2 +50s. Nice. It would be cool if you could slope jump up from under the shard bridge too...

6. Again, it's hard to tell with the rock unfinished, but it might be nice to see a slightly more memorable sky, rather than it just be sorta more gray added to the mix. This level has a whole lotta gray on gray right now.

7. Lighting is okay for the most part, but there are a couple of spots where it seems maybe a little overly bright or washed out to me--one is the area near SG, and the other is the jumppad room near RG. Both of those lights seem really white, and maybe that's making it worse. Pure white light generally looks kinda stark and crappy, and if it's not pure white, it seems pretty close. It's equally bright at RA, but that's under open sky, so it's more expected.

Hope this helps.
Looking forward to seeing a version with finished models and rock...

[wviperw]

People have already gone over the main issues: missing textures, items 16 units up, cramped.

But going a little more into the cramped issue, it's just something that you have to get used to coming over from Q3 levels. When I first converted a level I started way back to Q4, the scale was all off since it was a direct conversion. The units simply do not convert properly when going from Q3 to Q4 (even though some programmer buddies of mine would say otherwise). In Q4 the rule of thumb is pretty much that you have to multiply all the XY dimensions by 1.5 or so. So a 128 unit wide hallway back in Q3 would become a 192 unit hallway.

So that is the biggest thing I noticed, but at the same time, it is the most fundamental change one can make to a level, forcing a complete rebuild often times, so I don't expect you to make this change. However, you can learn for next time to scale it up by quite a bit.

[zZCastleZz]

Wow!

Thanks for the feedback!

Ill see what I can do to fix as much stuff as I can.
Ill give myself one more day off lol.

Ill look into changing the level geometry to be less cramped if possible.

Ill also look into building geometry around the rock and not have it look the other way around.

ramp jump up from under the shard bridge shouldn't be to hard

yeah the spec is blown out on the snow. I was kind of going for a over bright look with the ice/snow on the rock but its possible its much too high right now. easy fix!

I think I agree that there could be a little more color in some of the light. There are no white lights in the level though

Most of these changes aren't too bad aside from making the level less cramped. that one might need to be a "Ill just not do that next time" kind of thing. Playing the level myself though I still feel like it isn't a terribly cramped level, and compared to most quake 4 levels its practically a terrain map lol...

While its possible that I can open some areas up a bit I keep thinking of the portals already being at a point where they just barely occlude as it is. Orz..

Anyway im thinking out loud mostly right now.
in a day or two ill go over this feedback. this level will be challenging to bring up to full RC1 status.

[pjw]

yeah the spec is blown out on the snow. I was kind of going for a over bright look with the ice/snow on the rock but its possible its much too high right now. easy fix

Doh. I actually didn't realize that it was supposed to be snow/ice on the rock--I thought it was just rock that was darn shiny in places. Once it's textured, it might very well look fine.

It actually doesn't seem that cramped to me...that one trench is kinda tight...

[zZCastleZz]

yeah the spec is blown out on the snow. I was kind of going for a over bright look with the ice/snow on the rock but its possible its much too high right now. easy fix

Doh. I actually didn't realize that it was supposed to be snow/ice on the rock--I thought it was just rock that was darn shiny in places. Once it's textured, it might very well look fine.

It actually doesn't seem that cramped to me...that one trench is kinda tight...

Once it is textured?

lol..
That I think is strange since I believe the rock is textured right now! XD

[pjw]

Ah. Well...now I'm embarrassed.

It just doesn't look "right" to me somehow, so I thought it was a work in progress. Apologies. It looks too shiny for sure, which might be a good portion of my problem. It just looks like semi-gloss gray plastic in a lot of spots, rather than rock with ice/snow on it. I'll shut up now and go away. :icon32:

[zZCastleZz]

Ah. Well...now I'm embarrassed.

It just doesn't look "right" to me somehow, so I thought it was a work in progress. Apologies. It looks too shiny for sure, which might be a good portion of my problem. It just looks like semi-gloss gray plastic in a lot of spots, rather than rock with ice/snow on it. I'll shut up now and go away. :icon32:

Ah!

well you see that is something else I should try to fix!

you don't have to go away lol..

[g0th-]

I agree about the cramped bit, its a bit to small to be able to use the q4 movement with chruchslideing and all.

About the terrain I think it can look very cool if you blend it with a ice texture?

[wviperw]

"chruchslideing"

Wow, I must learn the way of this 'chruchslide' you speak of.

:P

[zZCastleZz]

I agree about the cramped bit, its a bit to small to be able to use the q4 movement with chruchslideing and all.

About the terrain I think it can look very cool if you blend it with a ice texture?

hmm

Can you explain chruchslideing?
If I understand this technique it would be easier to understand how much wider the levels hallways should be. though if it is exactly what it sounds like I'm kind of inclined to leave the level the way it is lol.. having people jumping and crouching in the air and such always kind of makes me laugh too much to really play the game..

Though from the name it doesn't sound like anything too insane or involved to be compared to crouch jump sliding or something like that.

About the ice texture.. hmm ill have to look into this more.

Since right now it is more of a snow than ice layer that I am currently using. And come to think about it. it makes little sense for there to be snow on the ceiling.

Come to think about it I think I now understand why the rock is so confusing. It is simply because I used the snow in places snow doesn't belong. Ice belongs in on ceilings and over hangs but mostly the only spots where snow should be is on horizontal surfaces ect.

I think this is what is causing it too look wrong.

[boilingoil]

Crouchsliding. It could also be called Strafeducking if one was so inclined to do so. It involves the same mechanics as Strafejumping, very very similar.

You start off with a circle jump, and do a few strafe jumps. When you're about to hit the ground again, hold the alternate strafe key as well as duck instead of jumping again. (If you know what it is, do and airchange) With the right timing and mouse movements, this move will increase your speed and let you keep that speed around corners/up ramps(don't get me started on rampjumping!). I guess 192 would be the standard(?) Wider is better, like that pontiac comercial said.

Maps which capitalize on Crouchsliding are Monsoon, Plecebo Effect, The Fragging Y..... well you benefit from crouchsliding on every Q4 map. Who doesn't love going faster? I'll check out your map today and give you my $.02 in a lil bit.

[wviperw]

Yes, crouchsliding is essentially the air control of QW/CPMA, but on the ground while you're crouched.

[zZCastleZz]

Yes, crouchsliding is essentially the air control of QW/CPMA, but on the ground while you're crouched.

lol..

Alright ill have to look into this and make the level more crouchslide friendly... lol... :icon32:

So a dude can crouch and slide around faster than he can walk.. making him not only a tougher target to hit but also faster.. LOL!!!

This sounds even more absurd than strafe jumping was/is..
Ill look into it but that doesn't make it not silly! lol...

[seremtan]

lol, "crouchsliding". you're making this shit up :icon3:

if you want to map for something that's crying out for some decent maps try UT2K4 Onslaught mode. that particular niche has dried up of late with everyone churning out endless DM/TDM and UT2 mod maps, but even when people were still mapping for it, most of the maps sucked fat wobbly ass