Goldleaf [FINAL]

[Pat Howard]

[lvlshot]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/330 ... teaser.jpg[/lvlshot]

by Pat H

Gametype: FFA, Tournament, Team Deathmatch
Genre: Tech/Byzantine
Capacity: 2-8 players
Bot Support: Yes
Status: FINAL

After six weeks in development for the Mapcore Quake III 15th Anniversary Competition, I am thrilled to ship this out to the community.

GOLDLEAF.PK3 ~10 mb

[lvlshot]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/330 ... ldleaf.jpg[/lvlshot]

Background:

Goldleaf was designed for the 2014 Mapcore Quake III 15th Anniversary Contest. The challenge was to create a map that plays in FFA mode with 4-8 players. I decided to create a fairly open, two-atrium indoor/outdoor design with a lot of vertical action and S-shaped paths. The gapped bridge in the outdoor area holds a red armor and requires a high and vulnerable jump over the center of the room, which is an idea I have always wanted to incorporate into a design. This map was made in just six weeks, including two weeks of gameplay prototyping, and it is my largest map to date.

The visual goal was to create a tech theme, but without all the usual tech assets, e.g. crates, pipes, and vents. Instead, I wanted to create somewhat more classical roman/byzantine-inspired architecture and then find a way to texture it tech. That said, it's not all vaults, domes, and arches. I didn't hold myself back from including some futuristic geometry as well. The architecture of the outdoor area was heavily inspired by St. Bart's Church in midtown Manhattan, whereas the indoor areas were more of my own spin on the tech/classical fusion.

The surrounding environment is a moonlit lagoon with mud-rock terrain and turning trees that loom over the walls and shed their leaves on the ground. I am still working on creating more authentic night-time lighting in some of the nature areas. If you sit under the big dome and listen very closely, you may just hear the hooting of the lonely old owl who dwells in the rafters

I'm proud of this map - not because I think it's my absolute best work ever, but because I was able to complete it on such a tight deadline. Speed and consistency is a level design skill set that I have always coveted. I want to keep refining my process so that I can put out maps even faster in the future. I used to wait around for months, even years for the right inspiration to create something new. Now I am learning how to map on command, and I feel like I have come a really long way. I love this quote by Leonard Bernstein: “Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.”

Of course, I still have a ton to learn. One thing this competition made very clear to me was that my texturing and modeling skills are long outdated. I need to bring my artistry up to speed next. As great as the evil8 texture set is, I often look at this map and feel like it could have easily been made five or ten years ago. It's hard to wow people anymore without shipping custom high-res textures and cool new models along with a map.

Feedback:

Right now I am looking for feedback on the following...

1.) any bugs you find
2.) item placement, especially armor and weapons
3.) any reasonable last-minute suggestions
4.) your general thoughts on how the map turned out and what could be improved

--

As always, thanks for downloading.

-pat
lvlpathoward[at]gmail[dot]com
http://lvlworld.com/author.php?q=Pat%20Howard

[Johnny Law]

That's an attractive shot there. And a cool name. :-)

I've done a couple of bot games on it so far -- not enough to form any worthwhile opinion about gameplay tweaks. Well, I guess the YAs did seem a bit close together? I know their X/Y coords are pretty well spaced out, but it's a very straight shot between them travelwise. Eh, no idea if that's actually a problem though.

Also I would bet you've experimented with putting the RA further out on that platform, so I'm curious about why you decided to pull it back toward the wall. My first impulse would be to stick it out more in the open, if you want to make RA-grabbers vulnerable to attack.

A few thoughts on the look 'n feel below.

Good choice of palette and architectural theme... might help your entry stand out, and I just like it in any case. A general theme in some of my thoughts is that it feels like it could use a bit more variation. Three things that occurred to me along those lines:

- You have one interesting ambient sound with the owl hoot in the upper levels. Any opportunity for another ambient sound somewhere?

- I wondered what this map would look like with stronger shadows. Maybe partly because the color palette draws a comparison to mpteam3 (which has interesting lighting); maybe partly because the owl hoot is a dawn/dusk kind of sound. Anyway you already mentioned lighting, so this comment is just a +1 for that.

- The bits of water in the lower levels are good -- very traditional as a lower-level signifier :-) but still good. However even more visual distinction between upper/lower levels, and/or between atriums, could be welcome. Although stronger shadowing in some areas could take care of that by itself.

And a couple other things:

- The leaves are nice touch. They do look very flat at any distance, which may just be the way it has to be, but have you tried seeing if you could put them on a mesh that curled a little bit (noclip of course)?

- The color banding in the skybox was distracting. I wonder if you could cheat a little and add a slow-moving thin cloud layer in front of the skybox. Might not be an improvement, I dunno. (And it might be more trouble than it's worth; could require setting up a _skybox portal for the best effect?)

- There's a brush error on the underside of the RA platform. Above my crosshair in this screenshot:
[lvlshot]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11690738/temp/brush_error.png[/lvlshot]

[Pat Howard]

thanks, johnny. good to see you around here. (btw i actually often think about that large ctf map you were working on several years ago - i've since forgotten the name. that was an amazing layout. what ever happened to it?)

the YAs do seem a little unconventional but i don't think they are imbalanced or anything. like you said, they are well spaced. one thought i just had was to swap the MH and the YA above it, but that might make the high RG path from the RA too dominant.

i did experiment with the RA a lot. in the end, it was just a "feeling" that led me to pull it back. it seemed a little silly sticking out on the end and this position is slightly better for movement flow from the staircase and side path.

there are actually global sounds of rustling leaves in addition to the owl, but i think they are too soft to hear. i have to search online to see if i can download a better sound effect.

since this is technically a night time map, the shadows from the skybox are kind of weak. like i said, i had a bit of trouble pulling off the night atmosphere, and i wish i could have achieved something like sock did in his map the horder of zendar, but i guess i need more practice . for my next map, i'm going to focus on figuring out the lighting much earlier on rather than hastily filling it in at the end.

good point about the variation between levels. i think this was mainly due to feeling limited by the textures and also not have loads of time to come up with interesting concepts for each tier.

thanks for the detailed feedback. much appreciated.

one other thing i want to do is narrow that low passage between the MH and RA rooms by about 1/3. it is the shortest path between the two power items, so i think it should be riskier.

[CZghost]

The map itself plays good, nice textureset by evillair and from cgtextures (I'd just rename it that it do not contain size info in the name), I do not know, why you included also BAT file to correct AAS to the map since there is already working AAS file...

[Pat Howard]

all contestants were required to include their source files in the pk3 so others could learn from our work. since i used fixaas to compile the bots for my map, i decided to include the bot .map file and the compile batch file as well.

[Johnny Law]

thanks, johnny. good to see you around here. (btw i actually often think about that large ctf map you were working on several years ago - i've since forgotten the name. that was an amazing layout. what ever happened to it?)

I think about it too. :-) The graybox (or I guess red/blue-box) version is still preserved in a nitrogen-filled display case somewhere...

My first attempt at texturing/detailing was unsatisfactory and I ran out of steam. Next time my available time & energy guide me back into some mapping I'll probably take another whack at it.

[Pat Howard]

hey, everyone. i've done my best to incorporate everyone's suggestions and updated the download link to the final version. thanks again for helping me refine this map to make it the best it can be.

changes include:
- bug fixing
- small visual enhancements (additional lights and color)
- several tweaks to item placement (removed mid-level YA in FFA mode, swapped quad for battle suit and moved it to a central location, removed GL, swapped shards and 5 healths, etc.)
- small layout changes (lengthened jump to RA by 32, narrowed some key hallways by 32)

pat

[nitin77]

this map has seriously fun gameplay. Will grab the post contest update.

[obsidian]

Yeah, I was a bit confused about the outdoor lighting when judging the map. It looked like broad daylight, but the skybox didn't seem to match. For future reference...


Skybox Lighting Shader Tips


The Directives:

Here are the basic Q3Map2 directives for light emitting sky shaders:

Code: Select all

q3map_lightRGB 0 0.2 1 //or q3map_lightImage
q3map_sunExt 1 1 1 140 -35 25 3 16
q3map_lightmapFilterRadius 0 8
q3map_skyLight 100 3

To understand what's going on here, you need to realize that there are essentially TWO light sources at work: you have your infinite parallel light source (the sun), and an omni-directional ambient light (simulating atmospheric radiosity).

Infinite Parallel Light Source:

• sunExt sets the parallel light sources colour (R G B); intensity; direction (angle; elevation); penumbra; and render quality.

Omni-Directional Ambient Light Source:

• lightRGB/lightImage sets the ambient light colour (R G B; or image file to sample values from).
• skyLight sets ambient light intensity; and an exponential value on its render quality.

In addition to the above, lightmapFilterRadius softens shadow edges with a smart Gaussian blur (self shadows - which on a sky shader would naturally be set to 0; cast shadows).


Putting It Into Practice:

Bright Sun Values:
If you have a bright and intense light source, like the sun at high elevation, you would want high sunExt values for intensity, and lower values for skyLight intensity. Sun colour values would match the colour of the main light source (usually white/yellow). Ambient light colour would match the colour of the sky (usually blue), but with an intense sun you would use a very desaturated value since there wouldn't be a lot of atmospheric radiosity.

Weak Sun Values:
The reverse would be true for a weaker light source such as a sun at lower elevations or the moon. You want a relatively lower sunExt intensity value and a relatively higher skyLight intensity value. Sun colour values would still match the main light source (sunset orange, yellow moon). Ambient light colour would match the sky but with more saturation due to high atmospheric radiosity.

You'll want to tweak lightmapFilterRadius to suit your shadows. Lower values means sharper edges, but more aliasing. Higher values means less defined edges but less aliasing. The aliasing is also controlled by the render quality values of sunExt and skyLight, so try tweaking those values up first (but at the cost of compile time) before bumping up lightmapFilterRadius.



See also:
http://q3map2.robotrenegade.com/docs/sh ... aders.html

Good luck.

[Pat Howard]

@nitin77: thanks!

@obsidian: i agree with you on the lighting. creating striking yet convincing lighting is one of my big goals for improving with my next map, so this will really help. thanks a lot. i may send you some screens or a test map for lighting feedback when it's ready, if you are okay with that.

[AEon]

I was wondering when running about in your map, if I had turned off shadows for entities in my "clean" install I test maps with. I looked at the weapons and they had no shadow. Obviously this is not your fault, but it only occurred to me when looking at your nice golden leaves... they looked flat and as if they where not part of the world. I looked at the wireframe of them and they are not completely flat, alas in the lightmap that could not be seen, and I kept looking for some form of shadow from those leaves to ground them in the world. Strange... it might have been necessary to increase the lightmap detail "under" all the leaves to show the shadow?

The only reason I noted this was that the other details pretty much seemed to be all in place and very nicely done. But the missing shadows on the leaves felt off... alas I have no idea if this can actually be fixed. Maybe they might have needed to be "bent" off the floor more for a shadow?

Would be interesting to hear how you added the leaves to the map (models, patches, brushwork?), and if you were struggling with them? I may have figured it out... they were decals and could not cast shadows?

To be clear, I love the your trees and the idea of leaves in a map.

[Pat Howard]

hmm, i have no idea about the weapon shadows. i didn't know weapons could cast shadows in q3. the leaves definitely didn't come out looking as nicely as i hoped. they were done literally on the last night of the competition so i didn't have too much time to tinker with them.

here's the shader. i remember trying to use a decal shader but it led to buggy player shadows when i stood on top of the leaves, so i just used Hipshot's tree leaves shader as a base. maybe there are better ways to do it but tbh i didn't spend much time on it.

Code: Select all

textures/goldleaf/yellowleaf1
{
	qer_editorimage textures/goldleaf/yellowleaf1.tga
	//q3map_lightimage textures/goldleaf/black.tga	
	qer_alphafunc greater 0.5
	qer_trans 0.99
	noPicMip
   	surfaceparm nonsolid
   	surfaceparm nomarks  
	cull none
	{
		map textures/goldleaf/yellowleaf1.tga
		blendFunc GL_ONE GL_ZERO
		alphaFunc GE128
		rgbGen const ( 1 1 1 )		
		depthWrite
		rgbGen identity
	}
	{
		map $lightmap
		rgbGen identity
		blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_ZERO
		depthFunc equal
	}
}

i fitted three different leaf textures to slightly different-sized patches for variation. then i rotated the patches as i scattered them around the map.

some people liked the leaves, others didn't. one judge said they looked "kind of like turds" and i can't argue with him there. if there was a better way to do this, i don't think the solution would be to have the leaves cast shadows. when is the last time you saw a leaf casting a noticeable shadow on the ground? maybe if i could have given them a slight sheen they would have looked more realistic.

edit: well, now that i look at it, maybe leaves do cast pretty significant shadows in situations with a strong sun. i have a hard time picturing q3 shadows being able to produce that effect though.

[AEon]

I mentioned the leaves since after crates, tubes, decals of "dirt"... leaves might be the "next" thing to add. Trees have been around for some time... but IIRC your map is the first I have seen leaves in. I liked how some of the leaves rotated on the surface of the water, that was a nice touch.

Ironically, recently fKd in q3dmp29 - Jackal had the problem that his decals where casting shadows. This might have been the thing here... maybe.

Running out of time for the map, of course is a very pertinent issue... maybe obsidian can spot something in the shader code?

[fKd]

Why not make a shadow decal?

[Pat Howard]

Why not make a shadow decal?

ah, right