Quake3World

Greetings! As hiatuses go, this one hasn't actually been that long since the last time I posted here. However, last time I posted a map is a different matter.
The CPMA team has been active on the mapping front for the past year, and we're happy to announce 4 new beta maps. You might be familiar with some of them, as I posted one of them under my own name, and the other is a remix of an already existing map.

Less talk, more screenshots.
You can also head on over to the the maps section of the official CPMA website for more information.
https://playmorepromode.com/maps

Each of these maps are made specifically for CPMA, and also takes advantage of engines improvements made by engines like CNQ3 (the official CPMA engine) and quake3e.
I believe the external lightmaps will render slightly weird when using the vanilla engine, so take note of that if you want to check it out. I highly suggest checking the maps out with CPMA and CNQ3.
Grab links for that here: https://playmorepromode.com/downloads

And on another note. If you're still interested in q3 mapping, but don't have an active community to work with, then check out the cpma discord. There's a decent amount of activity there at all times, and it usually increases whenever someone starts posting screenshots.
Discord link here.

If you want to download all the maps, here's a zip containing all 4: https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/files/m ... e-2020.zip

cpm3b - Use and Abuse - Made by Obsessed (same nick here as well)

1v1 map (remix of cpm3/cpm3a)

Download link: map_cpm3b_b1.pk3

[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm3b_1.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm3b_2.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm3b_3.jpg[/lvlshot]

cpm30 - Code S - Made by Fjoggs (Previously known as Fjo3tourney6, but has received significant graphical upgrades since then)

1v1 map (invis powerup spawns in 2v2)

Download link: map_cpm30_b1.pk3

[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm30_1.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm30_2.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm30_3.jpg[/lvlshot]

cpm32 - Vitriol - Made by Swelt & Fjoggs

2v2 map (can also be played in 1v1)

Download link: map_cpm32_b1.pk3

[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm32_1.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm32_2.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm32_3.jpg[/lvlshot]

cpm33 - Tornado - Made by Swelt

TDM Map

Download link: map_cpm33_b1.pk3

[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm33_1.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm33_2.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]https://cdn.playmorepromode.com/images/ ... pm33_3.jpg[/lvlshot]

These maps are absolutely amazing! Excellent work!! That cpm3 remake...I don't feel like I'm playing Quake 3. Unbelievable! The other maps seem a bit dark, though the lighting sets more of a mood obviously. They're great maps though. I'm so happy to see quality maps being made again, and for CPMA! I haven't loaded up CPMA in a while, since I've been using Edawn for everything. It has the physics for CPMA in it, but it feels off. These maps on a 64 bit exe do them a lot of justice though. It's nice to see you getting to a point of finishing maps, Fjoggs! lol

What year is it again? 1999, 2000? :olo:

Looks awesome!

The maps look great. However they are all (with the exception of cpm3b) very dark in places - even Tornado is far darker than in QL for some reason.

Most of the maps' vis culling is almost non-existant (drawing >90% of the map at any time) and cpm30 appears to be a box map with a lack of clipping? As a result the performance isn't great and awkward to test with a juttering framerate.

That's all I have right now. It's good to see all this development happening, but it needs optimizing and cleaner, lighter visuals.

Thanks for the comments people! I've been away on vacation, so haven't been able to respond until now.

Re the lighting:
All but cpm3b uses external lightmaps extensively. In fact, the entire map (apart from cpm3b) uses, and not just specific shaders, it due to a compile switch the the author of a netradiant fork added in. This in itself shouldn't be a problem. What is a problem is that CNQ3 (the official CPMA engine) has improved the implementation of external lightmaps. A side effect of this is that any other engine (like the vanilla quake3.exe engine or quake3e.exe) will be significantly darker. We the mappers weren't aware of just how much darker the map ended up.
I would advise anyone that is interested in seeing how the maps are supposed to look like to launch them in CNQ3. For anyone using Quake3e, the author has started to implement the lightmap changes, which means that a future release should fix the lighting issues.
We are considering releasing the maps on Quake Live as well, which means that we probably have to recompile the lights for that engine. That means we'll probably have a version that will look better in vanilla Q3 as well.

It's nice to see you getting to a point of finishing maps, Fjoggs! lol

If you're not spending literal decades on a map, are you even mapping? :owned:

Most of the maps' vis culling is almost non-existant (drawing >90% of the map at any time) and cpm30 appears to be a box map with a lack of clipping? As a result the performance isn't great and awkward to test with a juttering framerate.

Hey muffinman, thanks for the comments! I'm a bit confused by what you're trying to say when you say that cpm30 is a box map? Is that related to the vis culling? And when you say clipping, I assume you're talking about player clipping (preventing people from escaping the map), or did you mean hints?
If you mean actual clips, then cpm30 is actually very heavily clipped. There's just a few models that slipped through the cracks when releasing the beta, so they lack player clipping. The top models are not weapon clipped, because it's not relevant for gameplay, and using autoclip extensively will break the bot compiler.

Re vis, cpm30 is a rather tricky map to hint properly because each area is very open and has a lot of connections, however we believe that all maps fall within reason when it comes to expected triscounts in 2020. We aim for each map to run at 250fps (250 is the new 125 in CPMA these days) with decent hardware, which AFAIK we've achieved as I haven't heard any major complaints yet. I believe the worst spot on cpm30 is around 50k tris, which is 20k lower than the worst spot on Hipshot's Rustgrad (just to use an example).
I can't speak for the hinting on the other maps, as I haven't touched that. However, I've checked triscounts on both vitriol and tornado, and I believe they fall under 50k as well. Tornado especially could probably benefit greatly from a few hint brushes here and there, but we didn't deem it necessary as they seem to run fine on decent hardware. Maybe you could share what kind of rig you're on that's experiencing fps spikes?
You also mention cleaner, lighter visuals but haven't really given an example as to what this actually means. Unless you're specifically talking about the brightness levels, then see my first comment.

Appreciate the feedback!

The box map assumption was based on being able to move across the sky box, right across the map. Along with the lack of culling and short of actually decompiling the map, it seemed safe to assume the level was surrounded by a box to avoid leaks. I can imagine it's not an easy layout to optimize but thought it was important to point out these issues. Clipping lacks along rock details and obviously the sky as mentioned above.

Cleaner, lighter visuals was a comparison to previous cpm maps. While some of the old maps make me want to tear out my eyes they do at least have brighter lighting (sometimes a bit flat) and visually make it very easy to navigate and spot enemies. I don't have specific examples but I'm sure if you compare side-by-side screenshots of old vs new maps you'll instantly see a stark contrast.

The skybox in cpm30 is open because there's a lot of details along the skyline, which you can see from almost any angle of the map. Isolating each room with a separate skybox would remove the possibility to see those details, which would be a shame IMO. The fps gain from it would be probably be insignificant as well, since the main problem areas aren't affected by the open skybox, but the open ground level.

Did you check out the map in the official cpma engine? The maps should be a lot brighter for you.
As for the amount of detail, the old cpma maps were made during a time when 7-8k tris were the absolute maximum, which didn't leave a lot of room for "unnecessary details". In addition, techniques like photosourcing large images for textures, or just extensive use of modelling softwares weren't standard, so maps in general were a lot more basic.
As you're probably aware, cpma mappers tend to focus more on gameplay than graphics, but these days most people want both.
The amount of visual clutter and detail we've added to these maps are what we consider a natural progression to a game that's all grown up, but we still try to make the gameplay as smooth as possible.

In the end, it's all personal preference, so I understand if you prefer the older style more.
Me personally I find the graphical upgrade from the old maps to these maps a substantial update, and could never return to the standard used 15-20 years ago.

I appreciate the feedback though! We just differ a bit on design "philosophy" I guess.

I'm a huge supporter of pushing the limits of what can be done graphically, but it's the CPM philosophy which becomes confused when there's aesthetics at the price of performance - that was the concern I had. I'm sure there'll be more optimization before final release anyhow.

Weirdly, it is indeed a bit brighter in CNQ3 (but not by a huge margin). How is that?

Still fantastic work, though, so I'm not trying to downplay the massive efforts you and the team have put in recently.

I didn't take it as you downplaying any effort we've made, don't worry. I agree with a lot of what you say, and the rest of your comments raises valid concerns.

The brightness issue is how each engine handles external lightmaps. CNQ3 fixed a bug (or at least I believe it is a bug) that made external lightmaps darker then they should be.
The past few releases of q3e has fixed this issue as well, if you use that engine instead.
http://edawn-mod.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7