Shibam [NEW UPDATE v1.3]

[DaEngineer]

Shibam is final now and has been uploaded to LvLWorld!.
(The version hosted on lvlworld is still 1.1 but will be update to 1.3 in the next few days.)


Good evening!

I could use some feedback on my recent map, "Shibam". The environment for this arena was heavily inspired by the desert city Shibam. The major difference: you won't find any loam sky scrapers in my version of this city, I just focused on this oriental loam style.

Gameplay
Shibam is my first map with a more challenging gameplay on the z-level. I tried to give as much freedom to the player as possible. As a result, Shibam offers an open layout and allows many different ways to surprise your enemies and blast them away. You will find shelter, but there are no dead ends or back-against-the-wall situations.

There are no weapons or ammo lying around in this map; instead, the player receives the Rocket Launcher, the Railgun and the Lightning Gun every time he spawns - including 200 rounds for each gun.

Tourney works very fine for this map, a three player DM fits best in my eyes, 2on2 TDM is fun too. Try more players if you want, but I strongly disadvise from doing so.


Feedback
...would be really nice. Since now, I was helped by the members of http://www.mappingbase.de, but they seem to run out of ideas. So, feel free to comment on the look, details, gameplay, item placement and so on. I won't release this map officially at lvlworld, until I'm not absolutely sure the final product is faultless.

[VolumetricSteve]

Having each player spawn with 200 rounds of ammo for both of those guns is an interesting idea, however...it works against rewarding survival. If someone is just staying alive by sheer skill alone, scoring kills eventually has to work against them and they'll have to get in order to get more ammo.

I like the idea about having no back-against-the-wall situations.

It seems fun though, it's certainly one of the more creative maps I've seen in a while. If I saw this map being played on a quake 3 server, I'd certainly join in.

My only real complaint is that you promise lots of freedom, but there are a few places in the map that restrict motion into areas that otherwise look like regular places you could normally go. Particularly up on top near a tower, and you could easily get to the base of that tower (it's near a jump pad) but there's a clipping brush in the way. Also, where you have that door left open leading to the outside....I say leave it open, don't clip those areas off, if someone wants to go out there, you could probably work some fun gameplay into getting people to go inside and outside.

The textures are beautiful and the visual theme is kept well through out the map. Also, very fun use of jump pads, if nothing else, this level could sell itself on jump pads, flat textures or cell-shading and it'd be a totally viable DeFrag map.

Overall, very good work.

[ShadoW_86]

Screenies looks very promising (love the skybox). Downloading.

[Eraser]

lol, there's 6 download buttons on that site, 5 of them huge, in-your-face like and the one that I actually need is tiny.

But the map... oh my, it's amazing. There's a huge amount of creativity in there. Gameplay is a tad different from what we're used to, you really do have to pay attention to navigating this map which is both a good and a bad thing. Traveling across the map is distracting from the core gameplay and at times it feels a bit cramped, but at the same time, the use of the various jumppads and teleporting devices (the tube near the RA is awesome) is really a lot of fun. The whole map is a like a Prince of Persia on steroids, with machineguns and rocket launchers. Texturing is solid, the looks and atmosphere of the map is fantastic and all the little details really add to this.

I'm not a big fan of the weapon spawns though. I think putting weapons throughout the map adds some dynamic element to the game play, a reason to go places. Right now, you're just wandering through the map in hopes of running into someone else to frag. There's no real reason to go around. It does pose a bit of a challenge to get some good weapon placement here though. I think the Railgun should go at the top of the tower. This creates the ultimate sniper's spot of course, but I think it'll be an interesting strategic hotspot to conquer.

But all in all, kudos to you man, a really impressive piece of work.

[ShadoW_86]

Very nice work buddy. Well, not really competitive but it looks like real fun for ffa. I don't play ffa, only one or two times a years when I meet dome friends for lan. And I would love to play this map them .

Visually it's really well done, I really like it. Clean and well put together texturing, solid sctructures (nevermind the layout ). Great work on details, it's obvious you put a lot of work into that one. Love all those fun areas (RA tube, underground cave), that's just goos example of huge creativity. Somehow all those fun elements remind me of old FPP single player games. Great skybox choose. I'm really impressed with the map, it's fresh and outstanding from most new releases

I found one major issue tho. On lower level, near that big tele and antry to underground cave you have that portal which through you can see the desert (it's one with the bars blocking you for going 'out' of the place. When you stand in front of it you can see far distance desert. Right next to the portal you have door and corridor leading 'behind' the portal . So it's really just unwise use of optical illusion, because from one side you see far desert, adn when you enter the corridor you see that there are structures behind .
Other then that, there are also some small bugs concerning texturing and clipping, but those are not really important in case of such map.

[dichtfux]

Screenies look promising, I'll give this one a try in the evening!

[DaEngineer]

Thank you for your feedback so far!

@ VolumetricSteve and Eraser: when I decided to choose this way of giving weapons to the player, I had a way of gameplay in mind where nobody can easily get spawnkilled again and again because he'd have no strong weapons to fight back a fully equipped player. But when I'm thinking about it after reading your posts, this really influences the way you move through the map. So I'm definitely going to place weapons and ammo in the map and see how it plays.

@ VolumetricSteve: I could botclip the tower with the four curtains (instead of playerclipping it) to give a litte bit more freedom. But the area behind the city gate better stays unused - at least as long as I have no good idea how to fill it. Somebody hiding behind it in a tourney match would be a pain in the ass, as I would look everywhere for him, but surely not there.

@ ShadoW_86: This portal on the lower level is meant like a teleporter you can't reach (there is no way to remove the bars via a switch). It was intended to look like this, that's why I placed it at this position. But as I see now, this portal can easily get misinterpreted as a real doorway. That's because I forgot to add these tech trims the other portal has. I'll fix that You said, there would also be "some small bugs concerning texturing and clipping". Could you list them anyway?

What I also forgot to tell you is the hidden crusher on top of the tower you can reach when entering the teleporter. Try to shoot the blue sphere on top of the tower's pinnacle, and it will move down and crush the player. I think I should highlight this sphere somehow, maybe with a blue corona (autosprite shader...). Otherwise no one will find this crusher, I guess.

[sumatra]

Wow, screenies look very refreshing. I'll have a look into it later on...

[monaster]

Just downloading right now (even found the right dl button after a few seconds), I'm keeping my high expectations on the map since your last project "looking for free doom" (took me a month to get that stupid joke ) was already breath taking.

[Bliccer]

I know you wanted to include the tech style things, but imo they look misplaced. Especially the tech box with the red globe seems to be there because you needed one more detail in the corner. I would replace it with a wooden one. The tube is too aggresively techstyled. Maybe you can use some wooden planks with holes in it, which show the skybox again.
Furthermore you should finish the small walls on the roof. I know you want to create openness, but some corners should be fit with brushes instead of just a playerclip.
Very nice that you used an own texture style for this map. And I guess it's the first time? Done very well.
Although you would like to see a baseq3 2on2/4on4 on it I think the map better suits to CA.

[monaster]

Agree with Bliccer on the tube, his idea with wood covering is great, makes up for more consistency.
On the other, that certain tech box just gave me a short WTF moment, I like it, seems like it's part of a secret, and talking of it, I need some secrets in that map, been searching on lffd forever to find some and then there were none. A great thing (beside the map itself) is the huge jump sequence - when timed correctly - starting from the underground jumppad chain and then using the last bounce to get over both clotheslines collecting the MH at the end, neat!

Two more suggestion: the cracked wall near the red armor court looks a bit odd kind of unnatural.
The counterweight on the crane: I'd love to see it slightly swinging from here to there, maybe you can make it a bobbing entity?

[Bliccer]

Ah... regarding moving objects. Maybe you could animate the clothes like flags? But then it could be that they are too eyeattracting. Just give it a try. Since there is also a windish sound in the background.

[DaEngineer]

I read your suggestions, took some time and guess what - there's an update I have not yet implemented everything, but Shibam already has improved a lot. These are the changes I've made:

• you do no longer get weapons when spawning. I've put one RL, LG, RG and a SG into the map, with two ammo packs for each weapon except for the RG (just one pack)
• the tower's pinnacle now has a blue glowing sprite around it to catch the player's attention. Otherwise, nobody would probably spot this crusher
• the crane's hook is now swinging slowly. I had to make the hook swing, the counterweight's fixing with two ropes makes it impossible to swing this part of the crane
• the cloth on the clotheslines flutters. I had to add some extra subdivisions to the patch meshes I've used for the cloth, but the extra polys make a big difference. See for yourselves
• the rectangular tower now has an open side and can be entered. You have to step on the jumppad leading to the tower's top and navigate in the air a bit to hit the new balcony
• the teleporter to an unknown oasis now looks like a teleporter and not like a doorway anymore. I've added some flickering blue rays and some graininess to the portal to indicate it being damaged. The bars in front of it still exist, but I slightly changed their set-up
• two gaps on top of the city wall where the player should be able to get through (left and right from the city gate) but was blocked very obviously by a playerclip have been crowded with some more geometry
• changed the suggested bots in the .arena file from Doom and Hunter to two Xearos
• I removed one unused shader and one unused texture from the pk3. Orderliness has not yet hurt anybody

I've thought about your suggestions concerning the tube and the techbox. I will change the tube to a wooden tunnel with some narrow openings. Plumes of air like in a wind tunnel will indicate the strong wind inside there then. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Here are some pictures of the newest additions:

The glowing activator for the crusher


The tower's new balcony


The changed portal


Oh, and about the missing secrets: it's true, there are no secrets yet. I already wanted to implement one, but decided against it (it was too easy to find). But that doesn't mean there won't be any secrets in the future. And @ monaster: LFFD actually contains a secret, you just didn't look for it well enough A hint: look for an unusual texture on the walls... Oh, and just for you to know: I'm currently working on LFFD again to further improve this map. I have not uploaded it on lvlworld.com for the same reason as I didn't upload Shibam there - the map still develops

[VolumetricSteve]

What you've done looks spectacular, but being the resident maniac (or one of them) might I ask what kind of computer you're building this on? As beautiful as your map is now, I think it would look infinitely better if you compiled it without -fast or at least if you compiled with external lightmaps or -samplesize 4. These would really increase the warmth of a map like this.

[DaEngineer]

I've got an Intel E8400 @ 2x3Ghz and a GeForce 9600GT here. I wouldn't call me impatient, but compiles times without -fast are somewhat unhealthy :/ Is there really a big difference when compiling without it (except the time, of course). samplesize 4 is something we can talk about, external lightmaps are a good idea, too. I forgot about them, to be honest. In this very moment I'm compiling with samplesize 4 (but with -fast). I'm eager to see what this will look like.

When the compiler's done, I'll compare the outcome to the previous compile (without samples 4) and then try out the external lightmap.

[VolumetricSteve]

If I'm not mistaken, you need to add -samplesize 4 to the bsp process as well as the light process, but it'll make smaller surfaces look fantastic, large brushes will be largely unaffected unless you've also set up external lightmaps

I investigated the difference between -fast and without -fast, and it seems to me if you have warm, natural spaces that are large and wide open, and where each brush is effected by multiple lights, compiling without fast will have a dramatic visual impact. But, for example, if you were compiling in a dark, doom 3-like hallway with very few lights, and those lights only ever hit a few brushes, you wouldn't see a huge difference. What's going on is that -fast shortens the ray-length used to draw the lightmaps, which...the way things tend to go, this drastically reduces the amount of thinking the computer has to do. Or at least that's what I think I remember..

I have a 6-core workstation overclocked to 4.3GHz, and I'd be happy to run some compiles of your map for you if you don't want to sit through the process when -fast is turned off. Something to think about. With the processor you mentioned, I might be able to provide a compiled map in about 1 or 2 hours instead of a few days.

[DaEngineer]

Excuse the late answer, I had to try out some stuff and did not want to bug you several times because I added something new to the map again and again. I tried out what you said about samples, -fast and so on and have now a good comparison.

First, here's a picture of a testmap I used to find out how -fast influences the lighting. Both times I compiled with -light -filter -bounce 8 -gamma 1.4. One time I used -fast, the other time not. That's what it looks like:



While the scene seems to be grimy and dirty when using -fast, the lightmap looks more like a rendered image without this switch. So -fast is a real no-go for final compiles. I compiled Shibam today without fast and with -bounce 3. That took around 3-4 hours. When the first light compile was done and bounce had not yet began to compile, the map already looked much brighter than the results I usually get when compiling with -light -fast without bounce. So, whatever -fast does in detail, obviously it swallows tons of light data and darkens the lightmap.

You advised to use samples and samplesize. I've tried out different combinations (samplesize 4 and 8, samples 2 and 3) - these switches sharpen the lightmap a lot. But they way they do it is rather disadvantageous than useful for Shibam's lightmap. Suddenly shadows from omni-lights appear that should better not be there and the smooth and warm look is destroyed by sharp edges. I noticed that several times before, so I'll keep compiling with -filter instead of samples. That's a joy for the BSP size too, as samples adds some megabyte while filter doesn't.


Last but not least here's an update for all of you. I replaced this horrible city gate doorway I disliked for ages now with something else. As you can read above, this version is also compiled without -fast, so get ready for warmer colors and cleaner shadows too

[ShadoW_86]

I've run through the map again, and again I must say it's simply impressive. Tbh it's one of the most impressive maps I've seen in long time. Level of detail, and the actuall workout is amazing. It's just that kind of creativity that comes with great maps, and it's really well done. Great job.

[^Ghost]

very nice map, has a cod4 feel to it

[snt]

This is absolutely a piece of art

[obsidian]

While the scene seems to be grimy and dirty when using -fast, the lightmap looks more like a rendered image without this switch. So -fast is a real no-go for final compiles.

The -fast screenshot is just significantly darker than the other one, but that alone is not an indication of actual quality. The darkening makes sense since -fast culls light volumes at a certain distance. It has the effect of making surfacelights darker. You are supposed to compensate for this by increasing surfacelight values.

[DaEngineer]

Time for a small update. I still had to alter the air tube's look, and yesterday I finally had time to do so. I asked sst13 if I could use the texture he made to simulate airflow in his Q1 themed q3dm17 remake "13qdm17" and he agreed.

So I deleted the orange energy field, replaced the tech elements inside the tube with the stone wall texture and added lights and funnels. Out of these funnels blows a strong airstream. Here are two screenshots:



The funnels have a copper texture with an additional mask layer and an environment map. The outcome looks similar to a texture I created some time ago for another map (right side): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqOA_oWVuNQ

I added some wind soundeffects in the tube, edited two light entities I disliked for a long time, reduced the speed in the tube's last part to give more control to the player when he exits it and provided an English readme in the zip file.

For the next update I've planned to create a smooth transition for the sand on the lower level, as these harsh edges look terrible. I found a solution some time ago, but had massive problems to get the lightmap on the alphafaded sand to work. I'll try to solve this with terrain blending instead now.


Download the updated version of Shibam @ File-Upload.net

[monaster]

And @ monaster: LFFD actually contains a secret, you just didn't look for it well enough.

Found it!
On shibam again: I'd like to see the clothes hanging on their lines being made non-structural again (at least that brown gunny-like fabric), with the latest changes making them solid you can't perform that aforementioned "huge jump sequence" (when timed correctly - starting from the underground jumppad chain and then using the last bounce to get over both clotheslines collecting the MH at the end) anymore.

[DaEngineer]

Are you playing with com_maxfps 125 or higher? I use the standard 85fps to adjust jumppads. With more fps you are much faster and jump farther; and will hit the brown net with your head.
I didn't notice this before, it's good you told me. I'll write that down and put it on the to do list. Actually I didn't want to make this nets non-solid, but that's a good reason to do so.

[monaster]

You got it, "com_maxFPS 125" is exactly what I have set as my personal default. About the rest: You're most welcome!