Quake3World

Best D3 engine level evar!

Method wrote:phantazm11
Am I hitting the City of Lost Children atmosphere whoever seen the movie? Feedback is welcome,

Definately, that was the first thing I thought of when seeing the screenshots. Great atmosphere!

Looks nice M, very HL2....just to play devil's advocate, still rather axial despite the patches

Method wrote: Am I hitting the City of Lost Children atmosphere whoever seen the movie? Feedback is welcome,

-Method

Absolutely, just a little more color saturation and you're there.

Looks great.

From the feedback I've gotten it looks too washed out. I toned down the fog to make that contrast pop out more.



-Method

method: Looking nice man. The revamped shot does look somewhat better. I haven't seen that movie, but from what I'm hearing about it I should.

Method wrote:phantazm11: Looks Q2'ish (in a good way), yet try and use more curves. Just several months ago I realized how blocky my maps were. So use 'em patches. Also those blue cables stick out from the rest of the map. Good work on keeping the feel consistent.

I agree with the blue cables, need to fix that. And yes, the level I'm building is a bit blocky, and it will continue that way until the second map, where it will become very unblocky

Here is a new shot from a bit of this weekend's work:

Method wrote:From the feedback I've gotten it looks too washed out. I toned down the fog to make that contrast pop out more.
-Method

I think the previous fog looked better. At least if you're going for the look of the movie. Did you change the colour of the fog? The first ones looked more green, and I think that's why I like it more. The City of Lost Children is quite green if I remember correctly.

ALM: I actually changed fog from brown to green-yellowish.

-Method

I agree with ALMighty.

====================================================================================================

I think the thinner fog is an improvement, but I liked the brown color more.

a13n wrote:pic

Is that supposed to be a sig? If so, please reduce it. We don't really need a 640x512 image for a sig--also, a .3 meg .png?

.jpg is your friend.

Method: Very nice. I think the thinner fog looks best but I haven't seen the movie. And also keep you eyes out for modo301 this week

phantazm11: also good looking stuff. Nice to see some more sp maps.

I expended the area and made it more brownish.





-Method

pjw wrote:Is that supposed to be a sig? If so, please reduce it. We don't really need a 640x512 image for a sig--also, a .3 meg .png?
.jpg is your friend.

Oh, thank you pjw for your guidence.
I couldn't make my sig work for unknown reason.
You know today is the infamous day and I'm refreshing google news every 10 minute so as to supervise whether or not our potential true democracy were to be more damaged by current false one, which should be called dictatorship!

Looks liek Method has run into the amazing trouble of patches in Quake 4, and how they sometimes ignore to do what you tell them. Take a look at the tunnel/arch that one pic is under and you can see a patch thats not alligned correctly. Your hanging wires are also a bit deformed, and thats a hard thing to get right with Doom 3's curves, but possible, it just takes a LOT of time

Only other thing I can point out is that you appear to be using a program on your water, which is perfectly fine, but remember Doom 3's map format messes up if you do so when you split the water into multiple brushes. To limit it, you should make that water one whole brush. You can seea tad black line going down the side of the underwater wall, which is caused by this. Either that, or its another one of the amazing Doom 3 patches just ignoring what you told it to do.

After that I'm really struggling to find anything wrong with the pics. What I will say is ignore what these people are saying about fog and go with what YOU think looks best. Don't think Fog X looks better than Fog Y just because it looks nicer on a level shot, because you will never see that density when ingame and walking around, so keep to a nice ambient level that works with the game when its PLAYABLE, not just viewable.

The only other tip is a hack, not a tip. Your arches look good, however they show the uglyness of alpha tested surfaces in Doom 3. First of all, the res seems a tad low, either tht or you should look into changing the alphaTest value. Start from 0.5 and move either way, and you may get a better pic. The problem with alpha tested surfaces is shadow, or the lack of them. OverDose beat this problem by having PPL but with soft shadows so now alpha tested stuff casts shadow, and its a GOD SEND believe me, however in Doom 3 ou cant do that. The way I hd to hack it pre-ShadowBuffers, was to make a low poly, flat model, that resembled the original design, but didn't have a surface texture (i.e. was invisible) but still casts shadow. It looked great for gratings and the like, and it doesn't hurt performance as much as you may think. The only time it does kick you in he balls is with longers designs, but even then its not exactly a huge ammount of polies to work with.

And I'm spent. Its hard to nit pick anything with screens like that, but nit pick I must, its me after all

@method: Looks fantastic, but just a recommendation, the pier looks a bit high. It looks like only a small boat can fit through the tunnel (like a dinghy) but the pier looks built for much larger ships. Just lower the part that extends towards the tunnel and add some steps.

Maybe add some mossy decals to the bottom of the wood where it meets the water.

pjw wrote:Is that supposed to be a sig? If so, please reduce it. We don't really need a 640x512 image for a sig--also, a .3 meg .png?

.jpg is your friend.

also, it's retarded

Method wrote:I expended the area and made it more brownish.



-Method

now it's me saying "put in some orange lights for contrast, dammit!" well, not really - but you're right it needs more contrast

what kind of map is this btw? DM? SP?

I think the low contrast is what's giving it the right atmosphere.

You could perhaps push the white/yellow lighting a little further in both directions... but I wouldn't start throwing in any strong colour.

o'dium: You're right about a patch not aligning with the trim and cables not having enough sub divisions. I decided to post it because back in the days id posted Doom 3 screenshot with a transparent wall, so I figured mortal like me can do this. Will fix it today. I don't know about the water. It's one whole brush, but it does those black line artifacts when screenshot is taken at particular angles, not in game though. Thanks for nice nitpick, keep 'em comming

obsidian: Thanks. I already extended the pier. Maybe it's a simple dock? WIll probably end up modeling it to have full control of texturing.

seremtan: Will try and add more color. This is a simple area or a style guide room. Something that defines a feel for the level. Most likely this kind of environment will be used for SP rather than MP, because it's too tight to maneuver.

Foo: Will see what I can do.

-Method

Foo wrote:I think the low contrast is what's giving it the right atmosphere.

You could perhaps push the white/yellow lighting a little further in both directions... but I wouldn't start throwing in any strong colour.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I agree, it looks fantastic!

Cool stuff, Method! Two nitpicks:

1: The building corners may be a bit TOO beveled. I like the beveled corners, gives it a nice soft look and lighting looks nice on it. I think the buildings would look better if they had the corners similar to the ones you have on your pillar - much smaller, yet still beveled.

2: For some reason it feels as if there is a ceiling on this whole scene and not open sky. It's probably that bridge or platform above the 2nd shot making me think this. Was this the intention, or is there an open sky?

It's hard to find problems with something when it looks really good. So again, these are nitpicks!

Keep it up, but damn make it an SP level!

Quaker-X

@Method: If you want it to make it more city of lost children compliant: I feel that water is too clean for such a place. In the City: sea is opaque green. Moreover buildings could be more distorted with narrow passages, ansd ropes and chains hanging all over the place.
Apart from this opinion all looks very nice already.

I agree with Yannoche - I'd like to see the water a bit murkier and stand out more. Right now it looks more like pool water instead of water that comes from all over the city (mind you, I haven't seen City of Lost Children so I don't know much about the water in the movie).

The shots all look ace though.

While I am here, I am going to second what Obsidian mentioned about the pier looking like it's too high. It might be a struggle for someone getting into or out of a small boat that might be docked.

Regarding the "it doesn't look like it has a sky, it just ends" issue, thats because the top sections of the buildings ahve no upper trim, so there is not harsh contrast between building and sky. If there was some kind of trim, with buildings all being different heights, it would look fine.

Looks ace, Method!