Quake3World

been watching a few of these. some of you might enjoy them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt_Up8ZPB5w

That's all cute and well in Far Cry where you have a wide open outside area where you can chuck in prefabricated assets but I'm not impressed (at least, not from a level building perspective. Technologically it's pretty cool)

but it only took him 1 hour... im impressed.

I used to make maps for Starcraft I, very much the same process and you could toss out a decent looking map within 15 mins.

The challenge (and time consuming part) of level design lies in creating interesting gameplay environments and in building game assets. Neither of these are illustrated in this video.

It's a neat technology demonstration that shows you the intuitive functions of creating an outdoor environment, but not a whole lot on the actual level design process. I suppose it is representative of FarCry2's gameplay (boring).

i kinda expected a real time video showing a map made in five minutes...

im blown away by the density of prefabs used in a no vis block area though

FarCry doesn't use vis in the same way Q3 does, it relies much more on brute force rendering, instancing and LoD.

tough crowd, sheesh...

obsidian wrote:The challenge (and time consuming part) of level design lies in creating interesting gameplay environments and in building game assets. Neither of these are illustrated in this video.

really? i had no idea. never really made any levels before...

obsidian wrote:FarCry doesn't use vis in the same way Q3 does, it relies much more on brute force rendering, instancing and LoD.

The CryEngine still uses a portal system for demarkations between interior and exterior areas...so when you go inside the "vis" culls all outside objects and vice versa. It's not a BSP tree but there is some trickeration going on.

@ fKd and GONNAFISTYA

fKd wrote:tough crowd, sheesh...

Tell me about it.

i found a tutorial for lod of func_groups in gtk/q3 a while back..i bet it could be used for interesting effect trickery, like ghosts that appear without triggers...

LoD on models and brushes does not work in Q3, though it might for some other id Tech 3 engine games. Q3 only has different LoD levels for patches. I have no idea what you mean by "ghosts that appear without triggers", LoD is "Level of Detail", you're probably thinking of something else.

skinNCNmaster wrote:i found a tutorial for lod of func_groups in gtk/q3 a while back..i bet it could be used for interesting effect trickery, like ghosts that appear without triggers...

I bet you're wrong.

pardon me, it may be that this is mod specific.. and i meant
"far clipping" just using the ability to far clip a func-group very close to the group could create soe interesting effects.. ie ghosts that appear when close up.

heres the url';
http://sgq3-mapping.blogspot.com/2009_0 ... chive.html

Well, Q3 doesn't do far clipping either. It's pretty rudimentary.

um well, if a model/detail is contained in a non solid/caulk box floating in the air, the player will need to walk into the space of the caulk box in order to have drawn its contents.... thats a form of far clipping... pretty rudimentary if its used for the objective of having something seen only from within its volumetric coverage

To get the thread back on topic (hopefully):
I like the video. Well timed (what a pun...) and it follows some other rules that make a vid pleasing to one's eyes.
About some of the critics above: The person never said he would show all facettes of mapping in this video:

How to create a Far Cry 2 map , in just one hour...

, nothing more than that has been stated on yt.

ad Starcraft1: Sure you could make a visually appealing map in 15 minutes, but it would still suck balls as soon as you play it taking game play mechanics into account. Making a decent and somewhat well scripted Starcraft 1 map takes a whole lot more effort than just placing some terrain, buildings and enemies here and there.

Out of focus topic:
Try this map: imo it uses some nice ideas to get around this topic:

http://q3a.ath.cx/map/dfwc2010-5/
(maybe watch the dfwc2010 video if you can't play it yourself)