HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 10, 2004 8:30:58 GMT -5
WHO? wrote: -"when are you guys gunna start making maps more with linux useage in mind, d**n I hate it when there's butloads of upper case involved..."erm... meaning?! the name of the .bsp in capitals or do you have problems running the map? Filenames in Linux are case-sensitive if I'm not mistaken. I think Q2 requests everything in lowercase. If so, it's an issue of having to go through and rename everything with uppercase in it so Q2 in Linux can find them. Good habit to use all lowercase for Q2 stuff anyway, because for one thing Q2 needs animated textures in lowercase otherwise it'll crash. Not sure if any other kinds of files matter.
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 10, 2004 6:59:16 GMT -5
Look-around inspection: P1 . *** Built For The Kill ~ Built For The Kill (dj "Pan" bloot) \quake2\pandm8\ (D: ineligible) . pandm8.zip + This is one of the most original looks I've seen using original textures. Love it. + Railgun. 'Nuff said. + Cool layout. - Uhhhh, didn't see any really...but I think it was quiet in a lot of areas. Oh, what's with those gladiators in SP mode? I got a bit of a surprise by those Overall: A high ***/****
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 9, 2004 7:33:52 GMT -5
Unfortunately I have to give this map a mild thumbs-down too. But the good news is there's a whole lot of potential here. A map this potentially good begs for a revision. The main problem is inexcusable r_speeds. This will be unplayable on my P200 (yes, my comp is a pentium non-MMX 200). Running around with gl-showtris in most areas it looks like it's just been fast-vised. I think part of it might have to do with portals aligning with the outer walls of each area and the tops not being capped off. Putting a hint plane over the top of each area flush with the "roof" will cut down on this by making the areas above the rooms different areas than the rooms themselves. And put one at this level in the tower too. Also it looks like there's too much line-of-sight between areas through doorways. Juggling things around a bit to make sure doorways are "around corners" and visibility-blocking architecture will kill that problem right off. I noticed some big areas outside the playable area that were closed off by sky boxes. This is wasted space and slows things down a bit. Lighting is on the unpleasant side. I'd recommend ditching the sunlight, or better yet make it align with the sun in the sky and _sun_color 1.000000 0.900000 0.500000 or so, and diffuse it a bit with _sun_diffade of around .8 and _sun_diffuse the same as _sun_light. Sunlight ALWAYS looks better when it matches the sky. Also you might try having it lit with a _sun_surface that matches the grayish-yellow of the sky, maybe _sun_surface of "125 120 100" or so. Also the peaches-n-cream lights get boring after a while. I'd recommend a few colors in addition to it that complement the textures, like white and yellow. Now the good stuff... I love the tower, especially from the inside. Not sure what, I think it's the combination of it and the skybox that really did it for me. The sounds in the areas with lava I like a lot. My zip was corrupt and seems to be missing stuff (sounds) because a lot of the map was silent. Sometime later I'll re-download it. All the detail-work is major coolness. The fence and gateway arch in that one room gets I like the layout. I'd recommend a bit more connectivity between the two levels, but it was decent as is.
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 10, 2004 7:55:50 GMT -5
Look-around inspection:
P1 . *** Leap of Faith ~ Leap of Faith (Le Ray) . \quake2\leray30 (A: assumed eligible based on case history) . leray30.zip
+ Beautiful texture usage. Aside from most of the solid red and blue, I liked the look of everything, especially since I counted only 14 textures being used for the entire map. (I see there's 16 in the textures folder.) Great skybox. + for spinning.
+ Good layout. I like +Coolness work in the sounds department. - The solid-color textures looked bizarre and really out of place. Except for the smaller lights--they were fine. Something with a pattern like the e3u3/color* textures would have looked a lot better. - I'm still not sure what to make of those weird-ass bridges. They seemed to be made of mist brushes with clip brushes providing solidity. I fell through one once--invisible traps like this get a thumbs-down from me. I think transparent forcefield bridges would have looked better and more in place.
Overall: A very high ***/**** range.
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 10, 2004 8:16:34 GMT -5
Look-around inspection: P1 . *** Halls of Ser ~ Halls of Ser (Flunx) . \quake2\hallsofser\ (A: eligibility unknown) . hallsofser.zip + Great offbeat layout and design. + Curves, baby, curves. + Great trigger-push n' tunnel teleporters. And that sound effect... + Other custom sounds. - I thought it kinda sucked being able to get stuck in that empty swimming pool-looking thing. That thing was cool otherwise. - The teleporters cause damage sometimes. One thing I'm wondering. How in the workd did you get skewed textures? Specifcally the blue lights around the pools and stuff, on the rounded parts where they're rotated. I've only seen skewed textures like this once before, and then it was it was from a mod or hack, and I just saw screenshots. Overall: A high ***/****.
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 10, 2004 7:29:05 GMT -5
Look-around inspection:
P1 . ** Eh ~ Eh (Bob 'tIKi_mAn' Majdak Jr.) . \quake2\tikidm\ (D,G: ineligible and a bit of a 'tard about it too) . tikidmq2eh.zip
+ Cool concept and idea using the minimalist look and simple polygons floating in space. + Jump pads - Dingy, yucky feel exacerbated by the ugly skybox color - Weird shadows. (Add a _sun_surface and lower -diffade values to improve this.) - A bit lacking in playable space compared to poly count. And it was too hard to get around in some places, at least without taking tons of damage. (Of course the idea is to respawn there, but I like to be able to get everywhere.) - No info_player_start. I get cranky when I have to set deathmatch 1 and cheats 1 (to noclip) just to visually audit a map.
Overall: **/****. A good deal of tweaking could improve things a lot. But it's still a worthwhile effort at least for the concept.
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 10, 2004 7:11:28 GMT -5
Look-around inspection:
P1 . ***.5 NitroGen ~ NitroGen (Robert Sven Boom ($ilver@cer)) \quake2\nitrogen\ (D: ineligible) . nitrogen.zip
+ Beautiful texture usage. + Coolness layout. I like the short stairways everywhere. + Awesome ambient sound. -(I really couldn't tell you...)
Overall: At least ***.5/****. I tentatively assign this as my favorite of the contest.
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 10, 2004 8:46:05 GMT -5
I'm adding items and stuff now and I'm looking for a couple suggestions. 1. Spawn pads: should I make them visible or hide them in the floor? Maps look a tad better with them hidden but disadvantage is getting telefragged accidentally, until you learn where they all are. 2. Hyperblaster. Because of the size of this map I'm planning to use most or all the weapons. But this is probably my least favorite of the Q2 weapons, and all those projectiles it makes can really slow things down. I'm thinking about leaving it out altogether. Good idea? Not good? If I do have them I'll probably have two at the most, compared to at least four each of the lesser weapons. As far as cells go, I'm planning on a BFG or two but only a few (or no) cells anywhere if I don't have hyperblaster, so a player only gets one shot while they have it. It's almost done...
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 6, 2004 1:21:27 GMT -5
Thanks for all the thumbs-up everyone. I got an idea for you, why don't you make it a little singel player as well, just put in some cool enemies(just single player flag) and let the peeps frag around in there in singel player. Single player is indeed in the plan, and already on the drawing board. (Well, the one in my mind at least.) The SP episode I have planned will be centered around this space station, only it'll be in a different (and possibly surprising setting and situation, plus a few changes here and there to reflect this. I'll be splitting it and the new external areas I'll be making into two or three maps. If these maps work out for it I might addd DM support to them too. [pimpage] Those of you wanting to see some existing DM-capable work of mine, there's this if you haven't seen it already [/pimpage]
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Oct 5, 2004 4:12:46 GMT -5
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Sept 5, 2004 2:28:49 GMT -5
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... 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.
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Sept 23, 2004 0:29:18 GMT -5
I like it a lot. That style has been done a lot but there's nothing wrong with that. I haven't played it yet but looked around and here's some suggestions and ideas: 1. PHONG SHADING. All those beautiful curves deserve nothing but the best. I'm assuming you're using arghrad already because of the sunlighting, so just go through and give the surfaces that make up a curve a light value but leave the "light" flag unchecked. Any touching surfaces with the same value set will be curve-shaded together. 2. Use _sun_surface instead of _sun_ambient. The problem with _sun_ambient is that any surface that has a line of sight to the sky is lit with the same brightness regardless of how little of the sky it can see or how far away it is. It's good for outdoor-only areas with lots of sky when you want a minimum light value, but for combination indoor/outdoor areas you get those secondary shadows. This is what's causing those ugly patches of light just inside hallways. The worst is when you go up the lift, then ahead and down the ladder, where the double stairway is. sun_surface will make the sky give off diffuse light instead and get rid of those secondary shadows down the halls. 3. The sunlighting is kinda garish and harsh. No big deal though. It looks like you're using a _sun_color of around 1.0 0.7 0.2. My choice would be something like 1.0 0.8 0.4. It's all cool though. 4. That area with the "island" and the megahealth and rocket launcher is a pretty big dead end down on the lower level. It stands out because it's the only major dead end in the entire map. What I'd do is, where the rocket launcher is, make a stairway down from there, turn right and lead to a small underground area, then out somewhere in the grassy area. Maybe to the right of where the red armor is, you could have steps up and out like a cellar entrance on the side of a house. You could also have a passage connect from the new underground area over to either where the ladder under the lift is or the room with the boxes and teleporter. 5. I'd recommend a fitting texture for the risers (vertical parts) of the stairs. 6. I'd also recommend using a variety of textures for the walls. It looks like there's about three "levels" of wall surface throughout the above-ground part. Maybe use the existing texture for the lowest level and maybe the top too, and a second texture for the middle level. This will break up monotony in the taller rooms. 7, It's kinda dark in the room w/boxes and teleporter. I think it's cool that way (for example it was a while before I saw the BGF) but others might complain. Oh, BTW, the teleporter is badass, and the vent/jump-pad with the blue particles is especially badass. If I get a chance I'll give it run with bots later on. Right now there's a certain trilogy I need to look at...
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Sept 12, 2004 9:19:58 GMT -5
(the rest of my post because something keeps screwing up) Specifically I'm referring to the two Water's Edge maps. I've had untold fun botmatching on those maps, although the second was somewhat incomplete and not as well suited for bots, at least eraser bots which I use. Unfortunately I haven't heaerd from him in almost three years, otherwise I'd ask and see what the deal is with them. He had a lot of great maps, all of them I still have archived, and I'd really like for everyone here to see them. I seriously doubt he'd mind if they were re-uploaded so if if there's any Q2 map sites I can see about getting them put on there, and ideally on a server In the meantime if you come across any of those maps listed on here be sure to take a look. (Oh, and the "biggest CTF map ever" mentioned on that one page I was helping out on and it's on my HD and almost finished. I really wish he had finished it because it's probably one of the best natural-terrain maps ever.)
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HLR
ShotGun Guard
Posts: 83
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Post by HLR on Sept 12, 2004 9:14:15 GMT -5
That would work OK. Better would be to have that a semi-secret area down there that has passages that lead to concealed overlooks and other goodies. An old online friend of mine I haven't seen in a long time used to be into Q2 editing and had made two absolutely beautiful maps in this style. One of his old websites [1] [2] is still partially up (dunno what with the images) but his two geocities sites, which included his maps, seem to have disappeared. : ( Specifically I'm referring to the two Water's Edge maps. I've had untold fun botmatching on those maps, although the second was somewhat incomplete and not as well suited for bots, at least eraser bots which I use. Unfortunately I haven't heaerd from him in almost three years, otherwise I'd ask and see what the deal is with them. He had a lot of great maps, all of them I still have archived, and I'd really like for everyone here to see them. I seriously doubt he'd mind if they were re-uploaded so if if there's any Q2 map sites I can see about getting them put on there, and ideally on a server In the meantime if you come across any of those maps listed on here be sure to take a look. (Oh, and the "biggest CTF map ever" mentioned on that one page I was helping out on and it's on my HD and almost finished. I really wish he had finished it because it's probably one of the best natural-terrain maps ever.)
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