[alpha] Q3 CTF map: tom_ctf1 aka. "Ackward Angles"

[tomboeckx]

Hey all
I've been lurking around for quite a while on these forums, and I finally got something I wanted to show to you guys :-)

It is my first serious attempt at a Quake 3 Team Arena CTF map (one of many project I've been working on, but this one has made the most progress).
The map is made for TA, as it's rather large, and I wanted to include the TA power-ups in this one.

All constructive criticism is welcome.
You can test play this map with bots, as the .AAS made is included in the PK3 file, the bots actually play rather nice on it.
For the mappers among us who would like to see the source, I also included the .map file.

Download link:http://www.tomsdevshack.be/files/quake3 ... _alpha.pk3

[lvlshot]http://www.tomsdevshack.be/images/screenshots/quake3/tomctf1_overview.gif[/lvlshot]
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Known issues and things to do:
*review item layout and ammo distribution
*add 'direction arrows'
*texturing needs finishing
*still need to add clips
*detailing
*lighting, some areas are over lit, some too dark

Also, I've been using textures from various maps, I probably shouldn't and should get my hands on some 'royalty free' textures I guess, but for the moment, being an alpha preview, I guess I'm covered;)

You guys think I should put some more effort in finishing it, or should I find a different hobby ? I do realise my design skills are not that great yet, but practice makes perfect right ? I promise my next maps will be better

[EmeraldTiger]

First of all, I`d like to say that I`m extremely happy to see someone mapping for Team Arena. It`s absolutely refreshing considering that everyone seems to be obsessed with Challenge CrapMode Arena. I applaud you for that, and I hope others follow your path as well.

The map is nice and open, which I like. It makes the prox launcher less overpowering, and I can see the chaingun being the weapon of choice due to the amount of space.

Some of your weapons seem to overlap eachother. I found two YA`s in the same spot, as well as a CG and SG in another spot. At first I thought it was a mutated SG lol.

The textures used on the middle accelerator pads are overly stretched and unappealing to the eye. I`d recommend changing the texture to something that better suits the gothic atmosphere (such as the default Q3A accel pads, or TA pads) and moving the back vertexes further towards the front vertexes so it`s not so stretched.

I`m also getting some missing texture errors as well. I`m not sure what textures you used, but the best way to counter this issue is to have a seperate installation of Q3A that is completely unmodified, somewhere on your computer. When you place custom textures inside your .pk3, test the map using this seperate installation to ensure they show up correctly. If they don`t show up, then there must be a problem with the directories, check back and make sure they are correct and that the folder names are correct.

The map also runs rather laggy for me. It will be worthwhile to use caulk on the faces of brushes that the player cannot see, or on surfaces completely covered by curves. Not only will this greatly reduce compile times, it has the double-whammy effect of increasing your FPS too.

I look forward to any further progress you make on this map. And once again, it is nice to see someone supporting this overlooked mod. The mapping world would definitely be a better place with more TA mappers.

[tomboeckx]

Hey there, thanks for you input

First off all, i totally agree on that chaingun
Second, the overlapping items, that must have happened by copy and pasting sides, and you dont really notice that in gtkradiant, only ingame I knew there where still some left, just didnt notice them for this test build , but i'll take care of cleaning things up, no worries

As for the jumppad textures, yeah, i need to do something about that I shouldnt have any missing textures though, as i tested my PK3 on a clean q3 install, with only missionpack & baseq3 paks. I might have overlooked something, so please be more specific on which texture is missing for you ?

Anyway, glad someone is actually reading this stuff, and still playing q3, so enough motivation to keep me going

And as for the caulk tip, indeed, i still have to do that also, didnt notice the low fps on my machine, but i did notice some 'choppiness', which i hope will go away after caulking. I did use detail flag on every brush where it made sense, so vis time is rather small (30sec tops)

Cya all

[deqer]

any news on this, tomboeckx? the map looks good, but everything looks bland. color more of your lights, add more trim to ground flooring/lava, and other platform areas. another topic, try different item layout maybe.