Quake3World

Hello, I've created a Quake 3/Quake Live map called Castle of Hell. I've provided links below and with it a screenshot attached. Can people please help me with map making. I only started map making about 3/4 months ago (I think). I need help with curved surfaces, fog that doesn't mess up, how to mix fog together, making maps appropriate for gameplay and more. If you want the map file ONLY to help me with a few things, then I'll send it to you through a PM.

Castle of Hell for Quake III Arena: http://www.mediafire.com/?g2dmidnmmze
Castle of Hell for Quake Live: http://www.mediafire.com/?nmdzrwztdnm

[lvlshot]http://www.quake3world.com/forum/downlo ... view&id=75[/lvlshot]

Thanks.

Welcome to mapping and welcome to Quake3World.

Anything specific you need to know about curves. They are a big subject to write about in one post. Some beginner's patch tutorials here:
http://www.1upclan.info/hosted/bubba-ma ... rial2.html

What questions do you have on fog? What isn't working? If that green stuff is the fog in question, make sure that the fog only has one "open" face.

Best game play design guide by our very own wviperw:
http://www.goodstuffmaynard.com/portfol ... index.html

Other suggestions:
Good start, I assume this is your first map? Looks better than most people's first map. Try to make maps that look less square, beginners have a tendency to make box maps of square rooms connected by long hallways which are boring to look at and boring to play in. One way to remedy this is to consider hallways as smaller rooms that connect into the main room rather than a straight linear hall. Also add additional floors to most large atriums to give it some vertical gameplay. The edge of the walls where it meets the sky is just a single straight line, try adding some varying height to it (add a building or some columns, etc.) to make it look more interesting. Again, nice start.

MIXING FOG TOGETHER interesting...

ive read that fog must fill the room volume and have a single face visible or none at all.. so adjescent volumes of fog have odd effects at the seams, either considered a bug or an optional effect to take advantage of in some odd way which noone has already.

Mixing fog might be done by playing with cloud/water&/or/skyportal style shader stages in the fog voume script.. revising the images for the fog so they have color variations or are animated.. few people have dug deep into fog and shown its potential.

in leafland i created a fog image of whispy forest fog and put it on a cylindrical patch around the play area, slowly translating or rotating considering it was a loop.. that combined with clever fog painting on the skybox created a unique fog feel..

your topic fascinated me fog is fun.

Thanks for the positive replies. Here's some screenshots of the bugs I need help with.

Sorry for the double post, it will only let me upload 3 files per post.

possible a sorting issue for some things like the doors..


if the fogs are cusom made, try playing with the sorting of the green versus the orange and see if that divides them.. ive tried getting water not to draw in front of fog and couldnt get it to work.. though i did give us after a while.. possible has a method which works..


1. are the faces where the two fogs meet the only visible faces of both fogs?

have you put sorting on the door textures so they draw at the back?

http://robotrenegade.com/q3map2/docs/sh ... .html#sort


where the two fogs meet.. you may not be able to sort them opposing each other properly.. one may be sorted to draw at the back.. but the other wont.. the wize option for that spot is to seperate them. provide a small not filled with fog area, between the two.

Corpse, please try to find your own host for those images. Image uploading is usually used for archival purposes here. We have limited file space on the server. There are a number of free image hosting services on the internet that you can use.

Sort doesn't affect the fog surface itself. Fog is a volumetric effect, not a surface shader. You might be able to force the door to draw above the fog, but it'll draw above everything else too, so it'll look weird.

Fog is a very picky feature with limitations. It must have one and only one face "open" to the rest of the environment. I suspect this isn't the case in your map. If the other side of the door is exposed to "air" and another part of your fog as well, it won't work. Also, fog volumes shouldn't overlap or meet face to face.

skinNCNmaster wrote:possible a sorting issue for some things like the doors..


if the fogs are cusom made, try playing with the sorting of the green versus the orange and see if that divides them.. ive tried getting water not to draw in front of fog and couldnt get it to work.. though i did give us after a while.. possible has a method which works..


1. are the faces where the two fogs meet the only visible faces of both fogs?

have you put sorting on the door textures so they draw at the back?

http://robotrenegade.com/q3map2/docs/sh ... .html#sort


where the two fogs meet.. you may not be able to sort them opposing each other properly.. one may be sorted to draw at the back.. but the other wont.. the wize option for that spot is to seperate them. provide a small not filled with fog area, between the two.

I'm a dumb noob mapper, so I don't really understand you =(. But the fog shaders in the map are not custom made... I think.

obsidian wrote:Corpse, please try to find your own host for those images. Image uploading is usually used for archival purposes here. We have limited file space on the server. There are a number of free image hosting services on the internet that you can use.

Sort doesn't affect the fog surface itself. Fog is a volumetric effect, not a surface shader. You might be able to force the door to draw above the fog, but it'll draw above everything else too, so it'll look weird.

Fog is a very picky feature with limitations. It must have one and only one face "open" to the rest of the environment. I suspect this isn't the case in your map. If the other side of the door is exposed to "air" and another part of your fog as well, it won't work. Also, fog volumes shouldn't overlap or meet face to face.

No problem...

Here's some new screenshots (there's so many I put them in a zip) http://www.mediafire.com/?zmmznjtw2tq.

I've added a new area! I got this idea off of this image.

http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/7682/shot0000r.jpg
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/4858/shot0001g.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/7861/shot0002us.jpg
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/9721/shot0003td.jpg

Those arches look like they are floating on the fleshy surfaces. Make them look connected to the rest of the structures by adding thin pillars and maybe even a few beams crossing the roof, like a bulkhead.

obsidian wrote:Those arches look like they are floating on the fleshy surfaces. Make them look connected to the rest of the structures by adding thin pillars and maybe even a few beams crossing the roof, like a bulkhead.

That's exactly what I tried doing. I saw in some maps you could get extra thin objects, how can I do this?

What exactly do you mean by thin objects? You can change grid by pressing 1-9 or selecting one under Grid in the menu. Zoom in and out with the mousewheel.

Chretien wrote:What exactly do you mean by thin objects? You can change grid by pressing 1-9 or selecting one under Grid in the menu. Zoom in and out with the mousewheel.

Fuck me, thanks for the grid suggestion.

And just 2 more questions. When I use the Cap feature in the Curve tab the texture on the object goes funny, how do I make it normal? I've tried CTRL + N but that only shifts the textures. And is there a simpler way of making objects change their angle instead of using the CTRL key?

Select the patch with Shift+LMB and press 's'. There are options for patches.

Under the menu you can find icons for rotating stuff. Also under 'Modify'.

For "thin" objects a texture with an alpha channel might be a better alternative than building on a super small grid.

Chretien wrote:Select the patch with Shift+LMB and press 's'. There are options for patches.

Under the menu you can find icons for rotating stuff. Also under 'Modify'.

Thanks, the rotating button works! But Surface inspector just shifts the textures.

There are buttons for fit, natural, set and cap.

Dessicated corpse wrote:

Chretien wrote:Select the patch with Shift+LMB and press 's'. There are options for patches.

Under the menu you can find icons for rotating stuff. Also under 'Modify'.

Thanks, the rotating button works! But Surface inspector just shifts the textures.

Forgot to tell you that you need to press CAP (in surface inspector) 1-3 times.

obsidian wrote:There are buttons for fit, natural, set and cap.

I tried them all, it only shifts the textures some more.

Chretien wrote:Forgot to tell you that you need to press CAP (in surface inspector) 1-3 times.

Just did, still shifting the textures...

It's possible then, that you've stretched the patch into a shape that can't be properly mapped. Especially if you have been indiscriminately merging control points.

obsidian wrote:It's possible then, that you've stretched the patch into a shape that can't be properly mapped. Especially if you have been indiscriminately merging control points.

This happens with every single cap.

It turns out Q3Radiant 202 was the problem. I might try GTKRadiant 1.4 for a while.

Don't bother calling tech support when you are running Windows 95.

obsidian wrote:Don't bother calling tech support when you are running Windows 95.

I'm not, I'm using Windows 7.