Point Dot Alpha 10

[Yun]

Hey guys, I've been pretty quiet on the boards, and I'm sorry for that; I've been busy. I'm about ready to move into the beta stages of this map.

At this point, my main goal is to finish lighting the basement, and adding the ammo, smaller weapons, and ammo. If you noticed, there isn't very much sounds in this map, I haven't found suitable places for them. I may add a nice windy feeling to the mega health and on top of the building outside, but that's about it.

There are noclip brushes that cover the entire interior sky of inside, but you can get up to the roof on the outside.

If you check it out, I would love some feedback on weapon placement, general layout. Especially weapon placement.

Please note that this build has not been vis'd or lit. I found that the r_speeds are consistently under 600 for the most part.

www.planetquake.com/vortex/yun/vrxdm1_alpha10.zip

There you go... *crosses fingers* I hope they like it.. I hope they like it..



Yun

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

Hey Yun!

Good to see you again

I downloaded the file and will give you some comments within a day or two.

Thanks.

[Wixen1 [Q2C]]

Hey Yun.

Could u pls. explaine to me in very simply english (or in danish if possible ;D ) what r_speed is? thank u....

Regards wixen1

[zorius]

Holy shit!!!!

A really pure DM map, congratulations! You did it man, what I coludn't. I'm lost in the details...
This will be a really oldskool map, I've checked it. My notices:

If there won't be much more detail, use sun anyway, it would fit the maps feeling perfectly. But if the r_speeds are just 600, You can put in just a few light spots or sg. And The stone walls near the terrrain ground maybe wolud be more beautiful if they had a few details, I mean not just a waal, but a few rocks or sg, to make it a bit more interesting.
It's a very huge map indeed. So we need more ammo. Lots of ammo. Tons of 'em! And weapons, from the frequent ones more, not just one. I've realised that the main drill area is the terrain place, so make the item placement adapted to this fact.
Anyway, an absolutely faithful map, hang on, this will be a very authentic stomping ground!!!

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

Yun,
The map is really looking nice!

I think you learned how to use the 3D Terrain Generator, which really adds a nice touch to the outside area.

I feel that the top and middle levels need more weapons and ammo. There isn't anything up there to make
you want to go to those levels.

I also feel like you could add ammo and health throughout the map. I would
put the ammo by it's corresponding weapon for easy access.

You may want to add some water or something like that to the underground level to give it something
extra. Water would look really cool down there and you could add some dripping water sounds.

The teleporter is a nice touch!

You need to add something interesting to the outside terrain area and connecting metal floor (under the rail gun)
Perhaps some crates with something hidden behind it. Looks a little empty out there.

You may also want to give the map a new sky file, to give it an updated look.

Hope the lighting turns out good, cause this could really add a lot of character to the map.

Overall, the map is really looking nice!

Thanks for letting us check it out!

[Yun]

Thanks for the rather instantanious comments

Old School map? Sweet! That was probably the greatest compliment I've ever received, thank you.

Le Ray, what do you mean by water in the underground area? Is it something along the lines of actually going underwater; or, footdeep water, like around the BFG? I'd like to believe that the entire map layout is completely finished, so I don't want to go adding new areas... There is some dripping ambience in the BFG room (by the crack in the pipe, if you could understand my sloppy detail). I do believe there is also a monster sitting on one of the boxes that never got shipped (in the flooded room). He tends to get a bit loud every once in awhile.

I'd use custom textures/sky, but it's completely against my beliefs.

Thanks for you comments, I'll be sure to follow your advice accordingly


Yun

[zorius]

I also would advice using new sky texture, but... as I see that You want to avoid using ANY custom things, I thought twice.
You are a real internet gamer, and as a mapper You are very attentive to the low connection fellas. Anoother "OLDSKOOL" part of gaming ;-)
Me (and I think a lot of us) want to create artworks, not pure DM maps. We are new skool mappers, though me especially only love Quake2 from its born

[Yun]

From my understanding, r_speeds is how many triangles and details you see.

A higher detailed map has heavy r_speeds (Pretty much anything by Jester), a lower detail map (like vrxdm1) runs much faster.

[zorius]

Yaes you are right. But a good looking map not really needs much detail and brushwork to look interestung. And maybe I use much more detail (with more r_speeds of course) but even this way my map may look poor and needs "more"' detail. It's a paradox, the maps quality isn't in directly proportion to the amount of details. That's the biggest axiom of Quake2 mapping.
But You are innocent still, free of the tipical mappers' mistakes.
Your style reminds me to the old great mappers as for example Ikka Keranen, who's mas are all masterpieces.
Good to see that You "waste" your talent to Quake2 a 7 years game! It's great, come on, do more great maps, and forget anything else!

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

Is it something along the lines of actually going underwater; or, footdeep water,

Just footdeep water.

[Yun]

"Your style reminds me to the old great mappers as for example Ikka Keranen, who's mas are all masterpieces."

Really? I'm being compared him? I play his maps all the time, they look far better than mines :\

[zorius]

I really feel, believe me, that You are on good way to make one day a truly compareable map to those masters' pieces. And Quake2 just starts to live, because in the game industry I see, that they also lost in the details, and nothing really original aren't there in the official FPS community. Slowly they can generate an absolutely realistic 3d mouth and foot smell, but who the f**k cares?
So oldskool games will come back, I hardly believe. So stay in first line! It's a good place to You to become one who will be remembered.

[Yun]

There are some completely idiotic lighting bugs with the terrain. I can't figure them out.

[HLR]

Are the lighting problems in this version? That site is down right now so I can't download and look. I'll try again later on.

To answer this...

Wixen1 said:

Hey Yun.

Could u pls. explaine to me in very simply english (or in danish if possible ;D ) what r_speed is? thank u....

Regards wixen1

Go to the console and type r_speeds 1. Set it to 0 to turn it off. The number before "wpolys" is the one you're interested in, and the one normally being referred to by "r_speeds". This is how many world polys (the ones that brushes make up) can be seen from your point of view. In software mode things like doors and buttons start disappearing when wpolys is above around 900, and surfaces off in the distance start graying out around 1000. Q2 wasn't really designed to show big areas, although of course there's no problem with faster computers with 3-D cards. So, for a "fully-compatible" Q2 map, it's a good idea to keep r_speeds in areas below about 900. Of course there's always the option of making maps that exceed this and that are meant only for faster computers with 3-D cards. But in this case it's only sensible to say so up front that it's out of spec. I've seen high-spec maps done to good effect a few times before (Military Outpost), and to pretty bad effect lots of times. In short, if you want to make an out-of-spec map, have a good reason for it.

[Wixen1 [Q2C]]

Thx. for the explanation about r_speed everyone...