Quake3World

Hi, here is the beta version of my upcoming map "Aussenposten 08".
Feel free to test it and to tell me what you think about it.
Cheers!

(UPDATED: Beta2) Download:
http://www.creutzenberg.de/thomasc/map- ... beta2a.zip

(Old) Screenshot
[lvlshot]http://www.creutzenberg.de/thomasc/thomasc4_tower1.jpg[/lvlshot]

Two words... "holy cow"! Looks like a single player DOOM3 or Quake4 map... really complex intricate layout. I absolutely love your upper "surface" areas, very cool design. Pity most of the map's gameplay is in the "nether regions" . Neat secret and "water".

Some quick notes:

• There seem to be some textures missing, and an issue with one shader:
  • trying textures/thomasc4/thomasc4_light_04w_sfx.TGA...
    WARNING: R_FindImageFile could not find
    'textures/thomasc4/thomasc4_light_04w_sfx.tga' in shader 'thomasc4_light_04w'
    Shader textures/thomasc4/thomasc4_light_04w has a stage with no image
• I noted from your notes, that you are running bspc without the -optimize parameter? Compile crashes when using it? 1.5MB AAS file, woha, huge. But as you mention in the readme, the bots play the map well.
• You can probably remove the alpha_ textures from the pk3 file. These are level editor images?
• The RG JP has a bit of over-bounce, by 64u to 128u I'd guess. Or is that intentional?
• You might want to add some "vertex" animation to the flags, i.e. what id did to their flags. The flags look very "dead" just hanging there, IMO.
• I am very much amazed at the low r_speeds (11K max or so), even though you added so much detail. Did you get around to hinting the map? Due to the all the patches a caulk hull much have been a *lot* of work.

So this is how a professional map looks... /me quietly weeps a bit.

Woah. I love the brush/patchwork on this one. Like AEon said, the shapes remind me of Doom 3. It all feels solid, like a place that could be real.
I also like the colour scheme -- very subtle but offset with orange (maybe a bit too bright water, though?). It all fits together.

So well, in fact, that I think it deserves better textures. I don't know if you made the textureset or just tweaked it -- and I hesitate to cause offense.. Still, all that is keeping the map from feeling truly like a real place, is the cartoony, blurry/fuzzy quality of most of the textures. I'm not too fond of the too obviously fake light-flares at pretty much every light (though the beams look nice to me).

The door texture stands out most in this respect:

It has very defined, thickly black edges and looks rather flat -- kind of like the result of a cheap photoshop filter. The reddish brown textures look much better, until you get up close to them, when the illusion of crispness drops away. Unless this is the exact style you were going for, I'd consider doing a rehaul of the textures. IMO, higher res couldn't hurt, but even the use of photosource to avoid the comicy look would really help the atmospheric feel of the map (which, as I said, is great in every other respect that comes to mind).

Some textures are stretched or squashed a bit to make them fit the curved shapes, but there's no avoiding that and it looks fine, though a bit weird at first glance.

I found one place where the r_speeds went up over 20k. I don't know what the limit to acceptable r_speeds is nowadays, but I noticed some slowdown there - and nearly nowhere else on the map (it's here at this spot).

I'm not much of a player/gameplay expert, so I won't comment on the layout/items.

ooh, Thomas, ur still mappin?

i cannot extract the pk3!

Thanks for the feedback I already uploaded an updated version (beta2) which fixes some of the stuff mentioned.

AEon wrote:Pity most of the map's gameplay is in the "nether regions"

It's only playing with bots like this. I already tried with friends and it's totally different with real people.

AEon wrote: [*] There seem to be some textures missing, and an issue with one shader:

• trying textures/thomasc4/thomasc4_light_04w_sfx.TGA...
  WARNING: R_FindImageFile could not find
  'textures/thomasc4/thomasc4_light_04w_sfx.tga' in shader 'thomasc4_light_04w'
  Shader textures/thomasc4/thomasc4_light_04w has a stage with no image

Fixed. The missing textures should be in the pk3 now.

AEon wrote: [*] I noted from your notes, that you are running bspc without the -optimize parameter? Compile crashes when using it? 1.5MB AAS file, woha, huge. But as you mention in the readme, the bots play the map well.

I tried with optimize now, but the bots do some stupid things they won't do without optimize, e.g. just stand on a lift waiting, ...
I it better now? The file is just smaller, but many of id stock maps have even bigger .ass's then 1,5 meg ...

AEon wrote: [*] You can probably remove the alpha_ textures from the pk3 file. These are level editor images?

Fixed. They are so small I just left them in, but, true, it's better to remove them.

AEon wrote: [*] The RG JP has a bit of over-bounce, by 64u to 128u I'd guess. Or is that intentional?

That is intentional

AEon wrote: [*] You might want to add some "vertex" animation to the flags, i.e. what id did to their flags. The flags look very "dead" just hanging there, IMO.

This won't work with the hangers. I'll check though.

AEon wrote: [*] I am very much amazed at the low r_speeds (11K max or so), even though you added so much detail. Did you get around to hinting the map? Due to the all the patches a caulk hull much have been a *lot* of work.

The whole map actaully started as a vis-experiment, maybe I'll write a short text in the readme

Tabun wrote:... it deserves better textures.

Hm, unfortunately I don't have the spare time to do that. Actually when I created the textures years ago I did them all in 512x512, but I lost the source files ...

Tabun wrote:The door texture stands out most in this respect

Fixed. That was a stupid texture bug.

Tabun wrote: ...Unless this is the exact style you were going for, I'd consider doing a rehaul of the textures.

Yes, I actually wanted the map to feel like a proper game with a little bit of an arcady feel. It was supposed this way.
For realisitc stuff I would have prefered to map for a game like Halflife 2, Left4Dead, etc. Quake 3 is not a good game to do realisitc mapping for imho. All the flashy bouncing weapons and ammo, players running around at insane speed, and arena style surrounding ... Personally I do think that an exaggerated style fits better.

Tabun wrote: I found one place where the r_speeds went up over 20k. I don't know what the limit to acceptable r_speeds is nowadays, but I noticed some slowdown there - and nearly nowhere else on the map (it's here at this spot).

Hm, I noticed a bad strangly angled rock brush which was not detail, actaully there are a few parts drawn which shouldn't, maybe that fixes it (comes next time). But if you just turn on simple items and geometric detail low you already save a few thousand. So it should still be ok. Kind of ...

InsaneKid wrote: ooh, Thomas, ur still mappin?
i cannot extract the pk3!

Yes, but very rarely. Sometimes What are you up to?
The .pk3 was corrupt, I uploaded a new one that works, at least for me when I just tested. Hope that works for you too now.

Wait, im confused. Did I misunderstand you or did you say you made these textures?

Because they look an awful lot like q-fraggels.
http://lvlworld.com/t.php/Swiss+Cheese+Trickster

EDIT:

Wait! After reading the readme im even more confused, lolz. Hello q-fraggel? X_X

EDIT2:

I can see clearly now! No idea you were actually him. Don't mind this crazy mapper.

I just downloaded his first two maps... interesting theme of adding the Quad as a secret, forcing the player to "work" for its use. His third green map I remember from ages back. I had the feeling I recognized that mapping style.

What makes me wonder is this: Why did the style defined by DOOM3 and later by Quake4 (i.e. massive use of patches) never (or very rarely) ever seep into Q3A mapping? Is it just that the textures required to re-create that style simply do not exist for ?

Fjoggs wrote:Wait, im confused. Did I misunderstand you or did you say you made these textures?

Yes I did.

Fjoggs wrote:Hello q-fraggel?

And you're right it's me. I'm doing professional game business stuff for quite some time now and I want to represent my work with my real name and not an alias. That's why I'm using my real name now.

AEon wrote:What makes me wonder is this: Why did the style defined by DOOM3 and later by Quake4 (i.e. massive use of patches) never (or very rarely) ever seep into Q3A mapping? Is it just that the textures required to re-create that style simply do not exist for ?

My guess is that it just too much hastle and people are always lazy.
Also patches in Quake 3 are dynamic, i.e. they might change in appearance according to the distance from the viewport. There are some problems connected to this. In Doom 3 you set a fixed amount of sections for the patches which is also a lot more convenient to work with in general imho.

LOD-behaviour of patches is not an exuse anymore, either. Unless I'm mistaken, -patchmeta turnes patches into static mesh.

T_Creutzenberg ,
since you created a Q3A map with a "DOOM-ish" texture set, in theory folks would finally "have" the textures that would fit the idTech4 style. But that would mean re-creating the designs you created for this map - more or less - and that would be kinda lame. Hmmm... might be better for your map to stay special.

BTW, great job on avoiding sparklies, with all those patches, that is quite a feat. I saw some sparklies to the left of a JP in the outer ring though.

ui, u could improve the explodin barrels! <:

You know, it's funny you just happened to resurface in the Q3A community this month. Just this week I discovered "Swiss Cheese Trickster" and I've actually been coming back to that one (which is saying a lot for me, as I delete 99 out of every 100 maps after a day or two). That map is beautiful, and this one somehow manages to top it. I could go on and on about the visuals but what really amazes me is how you've managed to keep r_speeds so low. Props for testing your vis beforehand, more people should do this.

I'll agree with Tabun that high-res crispness in these textures is undoubtedly lacking, but they still look wonderful, especially when someone puts them to good use. The only thing that really bothered me about the visuals was the lack of a distinct secondary color. All I'm seeing is brown, orange, reddish-brown, etc. Take a look at this shot:

I love this lighting. I think you should be using this subtle purple accent even more. Maybe change the water color around? It's too bright for me and the last thing this map needs is more orange.

You're item markers have been messing me up from time to time, especially this one:

If you step off the marker right before you jump, it totally trips you up and you get no distance. Maybe you should make these non-solid.


What's the point of this dead end under the stairway? Is it a recovery/escape route? What if the PT isn't there? Why not just add a real teleporter, maybe with some health infront of it. Sure, it looks nice, but I never use it the way it is.


First off, I'm lovin' those flags! More people should get creative with their flags and banners rather than just using the stock sizes and designs. More importantly though, the item placement needs to be rearranged here. That ledge totally stops your movement so the PT is not that appealing. Why not put the 50 on the ledge instead? At least players low on health have a real reason to slow down. As for the PT, I think it could go on a different ledge, maybe the one that has the two 5 healths on it. It's much more connected and I think people would go for it more if it was there.


Okay, it's a creative idea but I do not understand the purpose of this elevator, both from a real world and a gameplay perspective. At least make it a door or something, so you can shoot it down from below.

Some notes:

-I see the exploding barrels have made a return. I'm glad they explode much quicker this time around, making them a legitimate gameplay element. I always appreciate a good hack .

-The green lens flares may have worked in Trickster, but they do not work here. At least make them an appropriate color, if not then just remove them entirely.

-Regarding bots...

readme wrote:It took me two days to make them play the way they play. They won't do any better.

Ugh. Why don't more people use fixaas? I know first hand how frustrating bots can be in complex maps. I want to scream when I think about the countless hours I wasted hopelessly trying to balance botroams in my latest map "Q" before I figured out about this feature of q3map2. The bots I played with were pretty much intolerable. They spent all their time in this intersection:

or at the foot of it. I know it's a tough decision after spending so much time on them, but you should really start bots over from scratch using fixaas. Even counting the time spent building a "simple" version of the map, it's 10x faster than getting normal bots to work.

- I actually kind of agree with AEon on this one:

AEon wrote:Pity most of the map's gameplay is in the "nether regions"

I'm not saying your map needs, a central focus of gameplay, this would actually be bad since there are three central atriums. I do think however that they need some more firepower. There isn't enough motivation to use the different levels of the main rooms. Look at the PG room especially. All it has is that PG and a few armor shards on the bottom. I see no reason beyond tactics to use that bouncer and get to higher ground. It's a shame you seem to have some aversion to the LG because it would be perfect for this room or the MH room.

Hope this helped. Maybe I'll post some more specific item placement suggestions later.
-pat

P.S. I like how you spend time on your secrets, they are very rewarding.

InsaneKid wrote:ui, u could improve the explodin barrels! <:

Well, how exactly should I improve them? What do you not like about them?

AEon wrote:[*] You might want to add some "vertex" animation to the flags, i.e. what id did to their flags. The flags look very "dead" just hanging there, IMO.

I added some vertex deform in my lokal version. Will be in there for the next beta.

Pat,
about the "nether regions"... what I meant to say was not the bot behavior concentrating on the lower level, but more that I would have loved a more open map were the player stays near the surface of the map to better appreciate the designs up there. That the bots actually flock to the "lowest level central crossing" is another issue.

Side note: About the PT dead end - you can jump from that PT platform onto the platform behind, bit of skill there (not much though), and you can also jump back.

T_Creutzenberg,
I wanted to say something of almost fractal - or better - fragmented game paths that make the map very difficult to understand and quite "stressful" and chaotic to navigate. *But*, after playing the map some more, I am glad I did not... it is pretty rare to have this many alternate and intricate paths to play, and IMO this is actually fun for a map... learning all the possible paths and using them. So the pathing, though clearly not for "dummies", is actually fine as it is.

It would be interesting none the less to take a look at your clip (bot/player) hull, maybe some tough choices could help simplify the bot navigation significantly, to help the bots. Well, maybe.
E.g. I assume you completely botclipped off the whole lower area with the the Quad? Same for the topmost ceiling areas, that bots won't access anyway?

First of all, thanks for your feedback guys, it's really appreciated

Pat Howard wrote:The only thing that really bothered me about the visuals was the lack of a distinct secondary color. All I'm seeing is brown, orange, reddish-brown, etc.

This is intentional. I do want the player to focus on playing. Also, there aren't that many colors which go well with the colors already used...

Pat Howard wrote:You're item markers have been messing me up from time to time, especially this one:

If you step off the marker right before you jump, it totally trips you up and you get no distance. Maybe you should make these non-solid.

You can actually jump directly from the marker to everywhere you want to and reach it with a little strafe And, personally I really do hate player standing in something and clipping through it. I totally understand your aversion, but I'll leave it as it is.

Pat Howard wrote: What's the point of this dead end under the stairway? Is it a recovery/escape route? What if the PT isn't there? Why not just add a real teleporter, maybe with some health infront of it. Sure, it looks nice, but I never use it the way it is.

It's kind of a left over artifact. There was a real teleporter in the once, but I ditched it. And the area looked too cool to be thrown away. There's no need to go there, but you can. You can also just go there when you get a phone call, need to go get something, ... people will leave you alone there. Maybe I should put the medkit there instead of the personal teleporter, but then again, there's the megahealth just in front of it ...

Pat Howard wrote:
More importantly though, the item placement needs to be rearranged here. That ledge totally stops your movement so the PT is not that appealing.

You can jump from this ledge to the walkway behind and vice versa. It's not a stopper. And the personal teleporter has to stay there for another reason, too: when you exit the secret area, you have the quad. If nobody is around, you can just teleport yourself and end up at a random place in the map, where people then are in for a surprise. It's there for this strategic reason.

Pat Howard wrote:
Okay, it's a creative idea but I do not understand the purpose of this elevator, both from a real world and a gameplay perspective. At least make it a door or something, so you can shoot it down from below.

If I make it a door, the sound will be horrible and I intenionally wanted people to only be able to access this from the upper area. You can also jump directly onto the elevator (with a little strafe) coming from the very top areas either from the rocketlauncher or the red armor side

Pat Howard wrote:The green lens flares may have worked in Trickster, but they do not work here. At least make them an appropriate color, if not then just remove them entirely.

Good that you noticed, I didn't think about changing the color of them yet... but will do now

Pat Howard wrote:The bots I played with were pretty much intolerable.

I actually don't think it's a problem of the the general .aas. I botclipped the hell out of this map, everything for bots is on a big grid size, they won't notice any patches, everything. From a bot's perspective this is a box map. It's most likely the general complexity of the routes. Bots always drop down somewhere, but going up is another thing then ... I actually could try to bot-not-enter the lower intersection so they don't use it at all. But that's stupid, too.
I'll have some more thought on this one.
With real people who use all the routes it's good fun though

Pat Howard wrote:There isn't enough motivation to use the different levels of the main rooms. Look at the PG room especially. All it has is that PG and a few armor shards on the bottom. I see no reason beyond tactics to use that bouncer and get to higher ground. It's a shame you seem to have some aversion to the LG because it would be perfect for this room or the MH room.

You're absolutely right, I don't like the shafty at all... There were already a few people trying to convince me to include one, but I don't think it'll happen but I rather stick to my ideals. I'd rather put another greande launcher in, which would be good fun.
I also don't think it's good that people always use the "standard" weapon load. Where's the variations? Nearly every map is like "all weapon except the bfg", maybe there is no railgun in duel maps. But that's it. I deliberately want to break these rules.

AEon wrote:About the PT dead end - you can jump from that PT platform onto the platform behind, bit of skill there (not much though), and you can also jump back.

True.

AEon wrote:... it is pretty rare to have this many alternate and intricate paths to play, and IMO this is actually fun for a map... learning all the possible paths and using them.

That was another intention I had in mind while creating this map. Have as many good, varied and actual useful paths between places. Another was: You have to be able to run in a straight line from one end to the other. You can actually do this. And there are a few places where you can do it. The general layout is not difficult (noclip above the map and have a look), it's just the possiblities you have. There is always a very simple route from A to B, often just in a straight line.

AEon wrote:It would be interesting none the less to take a look at your clip (bot/player) hull, maybe some tough choices could help simplify the bot navigation significantly, to help the bots. Well, maybe.
E.g. I assume you completely botclipped off the whole lower area with the the Quad? Same for the topmost ceiling areas, that bots won't access anyway?

Yes, bot's experience the map as a box map. there is nothing more that's possible to simplify for them ...

T_Creutzenberg wrote:Yes, bot's experience the map as a box map. there is nothing more that's possible to simplify for them ...

Alright, it's better than I thought then I guess. Still, since you're putting so much time into bot clipping anyway, I would just use fixaas in the future instead. Even though the .aas file is simplified the filesize is still huge because of all the complexity buried behind the botclip. Also, there are a bunch of other handy little tricks you can take advantage of with fixaas that fix a lot of quirky bot behaviors. I fixaas.

Pat Howard wrote:Alright, it's better than I thought then I guess. Still, since you're putting so much time into bot clipping anyway, I would just use fixaas in the future instead. Even though the .aas file is simplified the filesize is still huge because of all the complexity buried behind the botclip. Also, there are a bunch of other handy little tricks you can take advantage of with fixaas that fix a lot of quirky bot behaviors. I fixaas.

Hm, I'll give it a whirl when I find the time then
Smaller .aas can never be wrong.

The complexity of the AAS file should be down no matter how much you "cover up" or "enclose" in botclip, as I understand this, as long as you use few large right-angled botclip brushes. I am guessing the approximated rounded walls (8-sides, 12-sides, etc brushes), are requiring too many non-right-angled botclip brushes. Hmmm... kinda scary that you have been clipping this much and still have a large AAS file.

@AEon, clipping has nothing to do with the AAS filesize. The following was taken off Sock's site regarding bots for his map "Pyramid of the Magician":

There were countless problems with creating the bot file and most of them centered around bspc.exe and the way it generated the AAS file. I am sure you are thinking why not just bot clip the original map? Unfortunately it was not that easy because bspc.exe still loaded in all the other brushwork buried in bot clip and eventually ran out of memory. I needed to create a special "light" version for the bots, that excluded all the excessive detail so that it could compile.

I'm pretty sure that's the cause of the size problem. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks as though botclip only reduces the surfaces bots have to calculate, and not the file size.

-pat

"clipping has nothing to do with the AAS filesize."

The "nothing" is definitely wrong, because in Tabun's map we significantly reduced the file size via generous simplification of geometry, via clip hull.

As I read Socks comment:

• A complex map can be simplified via botclip, but the compiler code does not *only* use botclip to create an area file (AAS; clip/bot hull), it actually takes the geometry into account as well. And that is the problem. Probably bspc.exe does not dynamically allocate memory (or has some hard-coded allocation limit) for some critical part of the compile... thus runs out of memory when a map is too complex.
  
  Why does the compile not simply use botclip to begin with? Because mappers are not programmers ... they are usually totally sloppy placing player and botclip, thus the compiler *has* to double-check the actual geometry to be sure. And this double-check can lead to the memory shortage, thus the problems.
  
  So botclip is very much related to the resulting area file, and the AAS file size, but the botclip does not "simply" fix the issue of a complex map, because the compiler needs to double-check the geometry.

I hope I understood this correctly, but from my experience with clipping this interpretation makes sense.

Note: All the above experience is based on using the bspc.exe compile options -forcesidesvisible -optimize. Without the -optimize the AAS file size might behave differently, never tested this.

The BSPC process loads ALL of the geometry and then creates its own version of the map. (This version is created differently to the normal q3map bsp file) The final version can be made smaller with botclip but BSPC still needs to load ALL of the other brushwork/models first before anything can be done.

My map Pyramid of the Magician had too many brushes and complex shapes for the current BSPC process, which is why I spoke with Ydnar and the -fixaas was implemented. BSPC was designed to work with the original Q3 maps and unlike q3map the source code was never released (until recently) so no one could extend the limits.

@AEon, Ah, yes, sorry that was worded horribly. Obviously bot clipping will reduce filesize because you are decreasing the number of bot areas in your map. What I meant to say though, is that you're never gonna be able to completely remove brushwork from AAS calculations just by covering it with botclip. It will always be there and because of this, the size of each map's AAS file is in large part due to the complexity of the brushwork (which kinda blows, but hey, there's always fixaas).

Now back to this map. Hi, Thomas . I just played a few more games and I have some ideas to jot down.


- Did you put a lift here because the height didn't justify a bouncer? I think it needs one anyway. Lifts are slow and players get impatient waiting for them unless there is an item on the other end of the ride. Also, I don't like how that crate to the left is perfectly flat.


- I found the lighting to be overpowering in these small hallways. You may want to dumb some of those spotlights down a bit.


- Something weird is going on here...

- How about a thin orange fog for your water? Due to the bright orange rust color of it you wouldn't think it would be so transparent when you jump into it.

- The two 50s right above the mega is a little weird. I think a weapon would be better in one of these spots. (See below.)

- About the experimental weapon loadouts, I totally agree. If anyone tells you there is a weapon you "have" to include in every map, he has his head up his ass . A couple things though: When I exclude a weapon from a map, I like to have a good reason for it - something more than just "I don't like it". After thinking about it more, I think the LG would be too dominant in this map, so you're okay there, but otherwise you may leave people wondering what's missing, especially those who actually do like the weapon you removed. Secondly, unique weapon loadouts usually work better in smaller maps that don't have as much space to fill. It's hard to be really experimental in a large map because you either have too many duplicated weapons or not enough weapons at all.

- More on weapons, have you looked at an overview of the weapon placement in this map? Almost everything is on the outer ring! I am begging you to give me a reason to use the upper levels of your two opposing central rooms. At least a second RL or something? This is by far my biggest problem with the map.

- My second biggest problem is still the lighting. I know I've mentioned these things before but I usually like to get in a second try on the author before I shut up . There isn't enough variety. The insane brushwork and texturing conceals how garish some of the lighting really is, but still, I think you can and should do better.

- And finally, I want to leave on a positive note so you don't get the wrong idea about the quality of this map. I just wanted to tell you I've spent quite a bit of time noclipping around this map lately... just looking. You are extremely talented. This map is already a keeper for me, even in beta.

Congrats,
-pat

Fjoggs wrote:Hello q-fraggel?

T_Creutzenberg wrote:you're right it's me

Ok now...I'm starstruck Qfraggel3 and cpm14 are my favorite maps of all maps!! I've always been confused as to why Qfraggel3 was never added to the the Cpma Mappacks..especially the TDM version..