j3st3r's New Layout

[j3st3r]

Digging this texture set.

[AEon]

Hehe... you are darn fast to adapt things... some stuff simular to my choices... some different. I see you liked my wooden main beams.

[Kaz]

+1 for egypt

[Eraser]

It is actually kind of cool to see the same section of map textured in different ways. It's great to see how the same geometry fits different styles of texturing, while the texturing creates a completely different atmosphere.

[j3st3r]

Few more shots of this section. Pretty much done here and moving on to next area of map.

[AEon]

In the MH arena you added a YA... hehe... interesting. Looks good... though I still think it all is slightly dark... maybe it's the screenshots.

Update: Ah... and good that you changed the puddle's water color to more or less transparent... the previous reddish color was not so nice, IMO.

[j3st3r]

Not sure if the ya will stay on the small ledge, might be just health in the end but wanted something up there for the shot. I changed out the ground under puddle to 1 of Sock's textures which made the area look nicer. Still working on the lighting but this is not a final compile so....
Anyways here is a new section, though small, that leads to the lg area. Still thinking of changing out the floor texture. They can be so repetitive it seems.

[AEon]

I like the view out... the columns work nicely... just ensure that the view height of the player can look out of the "window" easily, without having to jump. Hope you will add several of those, in different designs around the map, to give it that windy/airy feel.

Personally, I would try to go for sandy floors in all the lowest parts of the map, much like in the MH area... as if the desert has crept into the building on the lower floors... e.g. broken tiles, sand, and also sand in corners... IMO, it would help make the above screenshot look less clean and sterile. Maybe look into adding a few plants in possible tile cracks in the floor. Sock's POM also had some fern-like plants, the dried up ones might fit quite well in corners, and those near water would then be green.

You started to add the rock theme outside of the window... this introduces great possibilities for the rest of the map... e.g. for a theme that the map was cut into a huge rock, and that rock walls become apparent all over the place, i.e. intruding into the otherwise orderly geometry. Maybe a ceiling is even broken, and water or more likely sand is drizzling through that rock opening in the ceiling into the the rooms.

Basically anything that suggest some wear and tear. An earthquake might make broken a few walls here and there... if the structure is old, lets say 500 years, that might also be likely.

In "Arabian" design (e.g. El Hambra), water plays an important role... so you might add some fountain-like, water path along the sides of some of the wide paths (1/4 path width approx.)... e.g. from the upper level... PG, down to the RL... maybe break a channel through the PG TP wall to continue to LG and down to MH... and if not actually running water... a dried out water channel mostly filled with sand might look interesting too. Just something to break up the "boring" normal floor texture, but toned down to not make the floor too noisy visually.

Amazing what one screenshot of a window with rock and a waterfall can do. Come to think of it... maybe add a deep well at the center of the map, grated off, but with water falling from above...

[j3st3r]

Did a little breaking up of the tile in the new area to help with the repetitiveness. Funny you should mention the water as I had already had the idea of canals of sorts throughout the map. You can see 1 in the screen below. I had it there before but without the water in it. Helps explain water in the mh area i suppose.

[AEon]

In shot 1, there may be too much grating IMO... might be better to put one grate in the middle to not overdo the canal thing. As mentioned, it is good to break up the floor, but the visual noise must be controlled...

In the second shot some light sand would look better than the darkish brown dirt, IMO.

[AEon]

How are things coming along?

[roughrider]

going to grab this and take a peek later on...all this talk is rather peaking my interest even though I don't do tourney's.

[roughrider]

using Sock's Egyptian Texture Set

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I too like the map with these textures, too bad the dl link in OP doesn't have the map with these in use.
I ran around in it a bit by myself just to get a feel for it. Even though I mainly play CTF maps, I do like to dabble in FFA once in a while and I do like the flow of the map. With the "somewhat" dead-end at the ra, that is kinda nice because if you catch someone in there, they are going to use up some of that nice find by either rj'ing out of there to get away or taking hits. Same goes with the MH pick-up, and with ppl that like to dominate high value pick-up spots, anyone caught in there is gonna pay for it.
The item layout seemed fine although, since I didn't play it against bots, it would be pointless to give any other feedback on that right now.
Once I get a textured version, I'll load up some nightmare bots and run around for a bit and let you know my thoughts.

Edit: I do want to mention though, that with the speed of how fast you can get from one spot to the other in here, someone sitting above the rg location and is loaded with weapons, they can dominate pretty heavy.

[AEon]

... those shots were my tests... jester went a slightly different way, texture-wise.

To be honest I totally forgot where the RA ended up in the last version. The MH area now has two entry points, so that also changed. Still hope jester has time to continue working on the map.

[j3st3r]

Been caught up in some trouble with life thus the reason of no new updates. Work will continue it is just a matter of finding time to do it atm.

[roughrider]

... those shots were my tests... jester went a slightly different way, texture-wise.

To be honest I totally forgot where the RA ended up in the last version. The MH area now has two entry points, so that also changed. Still hope jester has time to continue working on the map.

The version I have has the MH behind a jp that leads up to a rl which sits on top of a grate, that you can shot thru down to the MH. It has 2 entry points, one on each side of the jp. I'll take some screenies to show what version I have so you can see if it's the same or not.

[guitar_monkey]

nice textures!!! looks awesome, monkey wanna play

[AEon]

j3st3r,
hope you will find some more time to work on your map.

[roughrider]

I hope he is able to do more on this as well, is a very promising map and I am anxious to see the end result