Quake3World

There's a list like that on Wikipedia for Quake, but I haven't found one for Quake 3. Tried searching Google, but couldn't find any info about it. Does anyone know who designed what levels in Quake 3, or did they never tell?

OK, so I found out from Paul Jaquays website that he designed these:

Q3DM8, Q3DM11, Q3DM12, Q3CTF2

Things are not as easy as it seems, levelediting @ IDsoftware is pretty much a coorporative effort. Basic layout ideas might have come from single persons, but the rest was pretty much like the 'pass the map' stuff going on in the mappers community.At least that's the answer we always got from Paul in the time he still frequented this site.

Hr.O wrote:Things are not as easy as it seems, levelediting @ IDsoftware is pretty much a coorporative effort. Basic layout ideas might have come from single persons, but the rest was pretty much like the 'pass the map' stuff going on in the mappers community.At least that's the answer we always got from Paul in the time he still frequented this site.

This is exactly how all levels are created in commercial games. No one level designer is responsible for EVERYTHING in a level...it usually has several people putting their hands all over it.

BTW Hr.O...how the hell ya been?

If I'm not mistaken, Paul mentioned that famous Q3DM6 was initially designed by Christian Antkow. You can clearly see how he continued using vertical space with the designs. His map for Q2 was Q2DM2 (Tokay's Towers), which had a very similar vertical space as in Q3DM6.

-Method

You might be - wasn't Tokay's Towers designed by ... well, Tokay? That was American McGee's handle.

IIRC q3dm6 was designed by Tim Willits. He also made q2dm1 and (q1)dm6. Quite good portfolio IMHO

Lunaran: Hmm, it's a damn shame I confused American with Christian. Although I still remember Paul saying that Q3DM6's initial design was by Christian Antkow. I was surprised that Tim Willits wasn't part of it, hence I remembered.

-Method

GONNAFISTYA wrote:

Hr.O wrote:Things are not as easy as it seems, levelediting @ IDsoftware is pretty much a coorporative effort. Basic layout ideas might have come from single persons, but the rest was pretty much like the 'pass the map' stuff going on in the mappers community.At least that's the answer we always got from Paul in the time he still frequented this site.

This is exactly how all levels are created in commercial games. No one level designer is responsible for EVERYTHING in a level...it usually has several people putting their hands all over it.

Oh, I always thought they designed everything themselves. Collaborating with other people with a map always seemed like it would take longer than if you made it yourself.
Of course when I think about it, I understand that it's a whole different thing when you're in a team working on maps together and always communicating and giving critique to one and other. Collaboration on maps I guess is natural then. Cool.

Sometimes it's a matter of a level designer simply coming up with the layout or mission structure (mostly by the lead) who assigns it to another level designer who adds gameplay, while another designer could add cutscenes or update certain areas due to iterations in the design. Also, depending on scripting, new features or changing all enemy archetypes (or pickups) in a level....this could be done by other designers.

Hell...I designed the layout for the "Research" and "Treehouse" levels in Far Cry but another level designer finished adding the gameplay to those levels while I did other design tasks. For the games we do at my current studio...every single level designer on the team (four of us) has done something to every single level/mission in the games....so no level belonged to anyone.

BTW...this isn't a case of "pass the map". It's because of the many (and expected) changes in the overall design as it progresses through production (even well past the beta stage) and has alot to do with who's available to work on it. Hell...some levels or missions get dropped completely and never see the light of day.

Again, depending on your skill or knowledge, level designers can find themselves doing alot more than just making levels (for example: designing/tweaking weapons or vehicles or scripting game events)

If a level designer in a commercial game tells someone "this is my map" and gets upset with any notion of someone else making changes to it....he's in the wrong industry.

Unfortunately...I've met and worked with people like this.

GONNAFISTYA wrote:Sometimes it's a matter of a level designer simply coming up with the layout or mission structure (mostly by the lead) who assigns it to another level designer who adds gameplay, while another designer could add cutscenes or update certain areas due to iterations in the design. Also, depending on scripting, new features or changing all enemy archetypes (or pickups) in a level....this could be done by other designers.

Hell...I designed the layout for the "Research" and "Treehouse" levels in Far Cry but another level designer finished adding the gameplay to those levels while I did other design tasks. For the games we do at my current studio...every single level designer on the team (four of us) has done something to every single level/mission in the games....so no level belonged to anyone.

BTW...this isn't a case of "pass the map". It's because of the many (and expected) changes in the overall design as it progresses through production (even well past the beta stage) and has alot to do with who's available to work on it. Hell...some levels or missions get dropped completely and never see the light of day.

Again, depending on your skill or knowledge, level designers can find themselves doing alot more than just making levels (for example: designing/tweaking weapons or vehicles or scripting game events)

If a level designer in a commercial game tells someone "this is my map" and gets upset with any notion of someone else making changes to it....he's in the wrong industry.

Unfortunately...I've met and worked with people like this.

Cool. Nice to get some insight into what's it like in the industry, thanks!

GONNAFISTYA wrote:BTW Hr.O...how the hell ya been?

Alive and kicking

Hr.O wrote:

GONNAFISTYA wrote:BTW Hr.O...how the hell ya been?

Alive and kicking

Kick it a bit harder =)

ALMighty wrote:OK, so I found out from Paul Jaquays website that he designed these:

Q3DM8, Q3DM11, Q3DM12, Q3CTF2

Paul also designed q3tourney4...thats what he told me after I raped him by 30 frags in there