Quake3World

Hello everyone!

I have a self made map pack called Unholy Sanctuary in the (maybe final) testing phase.
My mappack contains 4 maps (with story):
1.Intro map :
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0000.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0001.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0002.jpg[/lvlshot]
2.Church: (3rd shot missed... sorry!)
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0003.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0005.jpg[/lvlshot]
3.Boneforts:
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0006.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0007.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0008.jpg[/lvlshot]
4.Faceless:
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0009.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0010.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://www.kephost.com/images/2015/05/20/shot0011.jpg[/lvlshot]

I'm looking for your feedback
(gameplay, missing textures, bugs, etc...)
If you have ideas to helping me improve my maps, I'll open for any good ideas.
I'm not planning to edit my maps hardly, but I'll do it if it's really necessary.

Download link: ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/xztja1zmixrsf ... d.zip?dl=0 OR lvlworld's submit page )
I want to know I can count on you and the quake3world.com community, to help me... (I hope yes!)
Please help me with it, and let me know your opinion.

Martinus

It looks nice on the shots. It is for Team Arena or regular CTF with Threewave support? I see there are directional arrows which is typical for Team Arena and Threewave maps...

Be sure we will help you. This work looks nice and I'm pretty sure you put heaps of your free time in that to make something such amazing. Don't waste the time and throw the link up

CZghost wrote:It looks nice on the shots. It is for Team Arena or regular CTF with Threewave support? I see there are directional arrows which is typical for Team Arena and Threewave maps...

Be sure we will help you. This work looks nice and I'm pretty sure you put heaps of your free time in that to make something such amazing. Don't waste the time and throw the link up

Thank you for the reply (I didn't expect any reply)
These maps, are stand alone maps for the original quake 3 arena, but yes, those arrows from team arena.

I do not see any interesting about them on this site...
I'll wait for one more days, or maybe two, then I do a last bug check, and posting it to lvlworld...

Could give me please someone some advice to improve the game performance / reduce the lagg without modify the structures / architectures of the map (or a map)?
I tested a lot these maps on my sh*tty laptop (because I think, not everyone have a good gaming rig), and met some lagg issues which make me a little bit upset!

I'm downloading.
You should really post a link, rather than expecting people to search through lvl.
The feedback you asked for does rather require people to play the maps, it's difficult to judge from screen shots alone.
I'm not really sure why you would upload an older version to lvlworld, but there you go.
I probably speak for most of the people here when I say my life is damn busy. When I get a chance to look I will. Chill

OK...
Had a quick look about during lunch time at work.
Firstly...there are some really neat things here. I like that you are using a lot of models (although some of the placement is a bit questionable). I like that you are experimenting with custom textures.
I like the (and this sounds like a criticism, but it's not) old fashioned chunky geometry and architecture.

What I wasn't keen on...most of all...was the really unsubtle use of coloured lighting. It is jarring and to be frank, ugly.
The texturing is a real juxtaposition of styles. Gothic, tech, industrial, strogg. No coherent theme. Gothic and tech can work, but you need to be careful how it's done. The textures themselves are also a mixture of pixel density. Some photo-realistic, some completely photoshopped. I really think the texture theme and the textures themselves need work. I think you are using the default texture scale? If you are using high res images, I'd scale it down to 25%. Things will look much sharper. Try to think about where the textures are being applied, the shape of the geometry. Look at the way Sock crafted his industrial texture set for his Crane map. Painted shadow and highlight can really define the edges of brush work. Phant does this a lot with his work too, as does Hipshot.

So much work has been done already, I'm not sure observations on layout etc are helpful. It's more of a case of how to polish what's there.
Long winding stairs and long narrow passages are generally not a great idea.

If I where you I would dump the old style terrain. You seem to be pretty good at model making. I'd suggest craft a much more realistic terrain from a mesh. You've lost control of vis anyway, so screw it and make the thing really pretty.

And so on to vis......
the outdoor areas are basically a huge box. Nothing is blocking vis, and with out adding some big mountains or something in the middle, you are stuck.
I assume the maps were full vised properly?
Maybe changing the vis blocksize might help, but in the case I think probably not. There is just too much stuff going on.
Make sure all unseen faces are caulked, make sure overdraw is at a minimum. These are simple things, but they do help.

So, that's about it.

It's a ton of work you've done. Like all maps, there are things you could next time do differently. That said polish the crap out of this and make your pack look a lot sharper and it'll be a good release.

First of all, I would thank you dONKEY for the reply AND for the try to help me, that means a lot for me (*actually fighting with my own tears :') )!
I didn't post there the download link, because as I said, no one interested about them (just CZGhost)...
I posted the lastet version to lvl, I just didn't refresh my first post.

"although some of the placement is a bit questionable"
Which ones, and on what map?
Could I ask you to be more accurate next time please?

I didn't have testers, I need to test all of the maps by myself. That's why you met light or texture problems.
I seen all of them ok.
Yes, I used default texture scale.
If I could contact you (or anyone on this forum), for help at the beginning, that would be great. That would prevent from a lot of these problems.

"Gothic, tech, industrial, strogg"
Tech? Industrial?

"If I where you I would dump the old style terrain"
I thought about that too. I tried to make terrainas (with less succes) like as how Shock did on POM.
The old terrian style was much easier to me.

"I assume the maps were full vised properly?"
Yes, they all had full vis.
I tried to decrease the visdata as I can, affect visportals with hint (and antiportal).

My main problem with my maps is the lagg (like always).

"Make sure all unseen faces are caulked"
Yes, I caulked every unseen faces.

"Maybe changing the vis blocksize might help"
Increase or decrease (or off)?
I don't know what valeus would be good for my maps.

"Like all maps, there are things you could next time do differently"
Yeah, your advices are very helpful, thank you!
If your time allow that, I'm wainting for your reply.

i also looked at it. i wish i could give you specific feedback but the scale of these maps is actually overwhelming for me. there are a lot of nice details, e.g. the battleship in the sky. i can't imagine how much work went into making these maps. unfortunately i fell into so many death traps and ran into so many random clip walls that it made the whole experience feel buggy and gimmicky to me. i also agree with dONKEY about the lighting - it gave me a huge headache. i'd suggest that in the future you stick with at most three different colors in your map and make sure these colors come mostly from the textures and not the light entities. the framerates were also horrible on my PC.

that's all i can say for now. these maps are more different than anything i've seen in a really long time. it seems like you already have a really unique style of mapping, now i think you just need to study other more successful maps to make your work more accessible so that we can all enjoy it. if i were you, i'd start by looking at Sock's stuff. gl on your future work.

Thank you Pat for the reply and the quick look about my maps.
I'm actually working on to make them less laggy.
I feel so sorry about the lights, I saw them OK (for me), I didn't know that they are soo problematic.
I mostly favourited deathmach and ctf maps, that's the normal for me.

I pledge your advices, and my upcoming works will be better afther this.
I open for every good tips and advices and replies.

I will post next time the download link to the first post.

P.S.: Did you read the "beautifull" story? Did you found the secrets (and th cubes)?

I did some changes on my maps to reduche laggs and improve performance with mosty(!) good end results...
But I can't figure out what should I do with the lights...
Could someone of you give me please some tips?

Edit:
I did some changes to improve performance and reduche lagg. (I did what I could)
Download link in the first post (lastest version is V1d)