What rules apply for remixes/remakes of other peoples maps?

[giftmacher]

Hi

I was wondering what the general consensus is on remaking other peoples maps? Is it allowed or should I stay away from that, of course I would give proper credit but is it enough.. I'm looking at some Q1 maps to remake/remix. Also what is the difference between a remake and a remix, I've seen both terms used. I'm guessing a remix is sort of similar/close to original but some personal deviations / remake is a complete copy brick by brick, maybe some personal textures?

[Null]

Hey Gift,
A majority of the people contributing to a non profit cause that only promotes the growth of the overall community will want and encourage such a thing. Also John Carmack who made Quake was personally responsible for the explosion in the indie mapping, modeling and open source communities, so no doubt he'd want his babies to grow and take on new forms long after he's moved on. These days it's people like you and I who keep Quake 2 alive long into 2014. Look what happened to Quake 4 which didn't have a dedicated online community suitable to sustain efficient creativity and growth. I'm sure there are those up there who regret that now. On the other hand Quake 1 2 3 were done right and thrived tapping into the collective creativity. After all its this ever evolving creative content that has the staying power and the ability to keep the original from turning stale. Anyway, I say go for it, unless someone with actual authority says otherwise, since it never hurts to extend creativity and variety based on previous ideas and sharing as long as credit is given.

I guess the distinction between a remix and remake is up to interpretation, but overall they're very close. A map remix to me at least goes specifically into modifying everything but the bsp layout itself. Just as with remixes of songs, the underlying structure set forth by the original author remains the same. It's a fact and truth of life that nothing in this world is perfect, and there's always room for improvement. The person remixing has spend quite a bit of time studying the past work and once having understood it (with all its strengths / shortcomings), wants to extend it on a personal and sentimental level, so he starts layering on fresh grooves and ideas, that can take the original work to the next level according to his own interpretation and ability. A remake can be more general and have a wider scope as to what you can do. For example: it can involve bsp adjustment to smooth out or streamline rough edges of brushes etc. It may make substantial changes with new bsp additions, or it can be as simple a conversion job. But basically when you remix a map, you can play around with fresh textures, sounds, models, entity placement and even scale, while staying true to the original form which made the source piece a success in the first place. As you probably noticed, this section features some tools and methods for just this purpose. Also we always try to find, devise and encourage new ones to make things more efficient, like the Trenchbroom expansion, which has personally greatly cut down my remixing time while maximizing results. It never hurts to incorporate your favorite map editor in the remixing workflow if it speeds up the overall process. In order to maximize results and create something concise, one must reduce all distractions. The balance here is to be as creative as possible while Keeping it Simple (KIS). It's best to work smart, not hard, since great results can be achieved with a little ingenuity and properly channeled creativity. There's a lot of unpolished gems out there, that are just dying to shine. Often times with a bit of remixing you can do the most with the least, in the least amount of time, and can still have enough emotional energy left over to enjoy it later without all that emotional baggage and frustration.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-1pM55k4WM

[giftmacher]

Thank you for quick response Null, I am looking at some Q1 maps at the moment but I have to check what has been made already, what about the classics E1M1 - E1M2 from Q1? If I were to remake/remix one of those I would as you said keep the original layout but add my take on it, or rather adapt it a bit to Q2 standards. Fun stuff!

Edit: Trenchbroom looks pretty amazing I must say, I'll check it out when I can free up more time

[Null]

Personally I'd love to see Q1 maps! They had an awesome medieval feel that is sincerely missed on the futuristically inclined Quake2. I'd also love to couple some of that with various magical themes straight out of Lord of the Rings, and the richness of Ultima Underworld universe that World of Warcaft exploits now. I just love the attention to detail and the feel they achieved, in such a limited 8 bit environment. Themes and ancient customs captured in 8 bit forms, that still made you feel like you were there

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpPMFA-GWvE#t=30s

Same thing could have been said about limitation of Quake2 that have now been surpassed with map overriding and remixing. You can place arbitrary models in an engine originally not designed for it, effectively extending its range. Even though someone already converted some of the Q1 maps to Quake 2 back in 1998, they looked rushed, since they were pretty much straight conversion, full bright, and the textures weren't done right. You can easily improve on that, by adding proper light and shadow and better textures. The great thing is, that now days there are also lots of re-texture projects out there for Q1 to make this job easier! If you want to go a step further to improve their multiplayer potential, you can also simply scale them up by x1.2 to hit the sweet spot. I'm sure not many would notice this slight deviation but Deathmatch performance would increase significantly. Good luck, since I can't wait to play them

You're right on the money when you say this will be a lot of fun, and probably just as fun as it was for us porting over and later playing the following Doom and Wolfenstein maps. In order to make them suitable for Q2 multiplayer, and so people wouldn't bump their head while jumping they were scaled by a small factor, while still retaining their original undeniable look and feel:

leray.proboards.com/thread/3543/quake-wolfenstein-doom-map-remakes

[giftmacher]

Yes I've checked out your remakes, really nice, good old Wolfenstein, I might be one of the few Wolf3D nerds out there =] I actually did some Wolf3D maps not long ago, 2D mapping! When you are talking about "scaling" is that a feature in the editor or something you do by hand? This weekend I messed around a bit with Q1 maps, the hard part with remaking/remixing is the measurements, my eyes are not very reliable as it would turn out I think one problem is that I didn't sketch a layout on paper first but rather went room by room.. still a lot of fun even though it is not 100% accurate and out of proportion.

Here are a few shots at my work on Q1 E1M2 (Im texturing as I go because it is easier to see what is what but some converted Q1 textures would be nice, there is no wood textures in the classic Q2 set, I was also thinking about Hexen 2 / Heretic 2 textures converted.. as you said that kind of "magical" castle theme is really lacking in Q2. Or if you go the other way, make it a futuristic E1M2 Q2 style with lights and lasers?





Here are a few shots of my remix on Q1 Duel/DM map Powder Keg / PKEG. It is actually done but it got very different, much larger than the original I feel, and the architecture is different too.

[Null]

I got to say you are really quick and already this looks pretty awesome:

Nov 18, 2014 5:23:04 GMT -5 giftmacher said:

When you are talking about "scaling" is that a feature in the editor or something you do by hand?

No, I use my own tools. It provides me with a sufficient level of customization to do things quickly and efficiently
Id titles share a lot the same model and map formats so cross pollination is straight forward. People have been doing it for years, but some just didn't have the right tools for the job. Personally I stick to industry standards for content editing and use Photoshop to edit wal and pcx textures, and 3ds max to edit md2 models so that's why I built in the various interoperability options into the following tool.

Check out this thread, for more about uniform bsp / map scaling using my method:
leray.proboards.com/thread/3568/map-tools

This tool it's still under development but I can send you a link if you like.

In this case I just scaled the entire bsp file using the map tool by a specific factor, and locked the axis to get the exact scale I wanted. For Wolf3d and Doom maps the ceilings were way too low, so "as is" these maps would feel a bit too claustrophobic. It'd also impede mobility if people cant naturally strafe hop around and instead constantly bump their heads. In some cases straight conversion doesn't work, and scale needs some adjustment.


Here's a Quake 1 re-texture project you might be interested in:
qrp.quakeone.com/downloads/

Also this site has lots of interesting resources for various ID games:
fps.maros.pri.ee/index.php?event=925

Nov 18, 2014 5:23:04 GMT -5 giftmacher said:

Here are a few shots at my work on Q1 E1M2 (Im texturing as I go because it is easier to see what is what but some converted Q1 textures would be nice, there is no wood textures in the classic Q2 set, I was also thinking about Hexen 2 / Heretic 2 textures converted.. as you said that kind of "magical" castle theme is really lacking in Q2. Or if you go the other way, make it a futuristic E1M2 Q2 style with lights and lasers?

That'd be really cool indeed. I have entire archive of medieval props ready to populate such worlds. It'd be nice to see this game continue thriving and players to continue enjoying all sorts of interesting and diverse content. I miss the immersive richness and Gothic environments featured in Quake1, Hexen, and Heretic, so I know we could definitely use more magical content like this

Hexen Retexture:
forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=25435

[Panzer]

My own personal experience: check the read-me file of any map you are looking to modify. If the map file was included in the zip file and nothing in the read-me implies that you can't use the map file, then mod away at your heart's content. Most mappers are aware enough to put something in the read-me, for example, in all of my maps I only asked that if anyone uses my maps to generate a new map, I just want to be listed in the read-me for the new map. It's not likely you would face any legal obstacles if you didn't abide by a read-me, but common courtesy goes a long way within a community.

**EDIT** I forgot to mention...if you are re-creating a map from scratch and not using anyone else's geometry, then there is no need to reference the previous mapper.

[giftmacher]

Ok thank you for that information Panzer, Null that is a lot to process, I still have much to learn.. (I don't know anything about coding/writing) Right now I'm trying to figure out how to make custom textures for Q2, I have wally, I have GIMP. I want to convert some Q1 textures into Q2 .wal texture files that I can use in QuarK.. sadly I only have access to Quake 1 HD textures and not the original, the problem is that when I convert them with Wally and use them in QuarK they are huge. Q2 crashes when I try to load a map with them "too large", because they exceed the 256 limit i guess? Is there a Q1 - to - Q2 texture pack around?

[Null]

Nov 19, 2014 16:17:09 GMT -5 giftmacher said:

Null that is a lot to process, I still have much to learn.. (I don't know anything about coding/writing) I want to convert some Q1 textures into Q2 .wal... the problem is that when I convert them with Wally and use them in QuarK they are huge. Q2 crashes when I try to load a map with them "too large", because they exceed the 256 limit i guess?

I never said you'd need to code anything, check PM
Converting a texture into a q2 wal while limiting size at 256 should be as easy as clicking this button:



leray.proboards.com/thread/3568/map-tools

To Wal - Lets you convert images (bmp,jpg,png,tif) to wal files and limit their size.
Brightness / Contrast - Fine tune the brightness and contrast for better conversion results.

[giftmacher]

Awesome tool Null, I'm working on the texture set now, I useed GIMP to resize and convert the Q1 HD textures into .bmp files, then I used your program to convert the .bmp files to .wal... it's a slow process but at least I'm getting the textures

Update: Null, do you have Q1 torch models or similar available? E1M2 is full of torches but Q2 does not have any, so I'm using Q1 light textures but it's not quite the same!

[giftmacher]

Ok so with the Q1 textures things looks much better and similar to the original E1M2, but the brush work is not 100% accurate, quite roomy, it will be for DM only.. still quit some work left to do on it. Again, a torch model would help with tweaking the lighting and enhancing that "castle/dungeon" feel. I wonder, can I release this as my second DM map like giftdm2 or should it be released as E1M2 remix/remake? Any feedback appreciated.

Edit: God almighty, huge images, sorry about that didn't think of the resolution!

[Null]

Really nice work! Probably the nicest looking remake of E1M2. If you go with giftdm2 name, you can always put the E1M2 in the worldspawn "message".
The link below features animated previews of torch props and other items that might come in handy for a castle / dungeon theme. There you'll also find a QuArK map example how to get started with custom models.

leray.proboards.com/thread/3569/castle-props

To adjust model fit precisely to your map or to achieve a custom look, you can use Map Tools to scale models, or tweak / replace their textures, and save both under a fresh name (in order to avoid naming conflicts)
ex operation:
models\bits\torch\tris2.md2 (Scale Model x1.5)
models\bits\torch\skin2.pcx (From Pcx / Edit in Gimp / To Pcx / Set Skins)



Check PM for further details


www.quaketerminus.com/tools.shtml (QME can be used to convert q1 models)
www.moddb.com/games/quake-2/downloads/quake-2-model-editor-v090 (another good model editor supporting both q1 / q2)

More Quake 1 Resources:
quakeone.com/files/