tmg
Quake 2 Mapping Club
Posts: 266
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Post by tmg on Oct 25, 2015 17:34:23 GMT -5
I suppose its not worth learning a new editor just to get more brushes. I've opened quark once and felt confused straight away with just how complex the interface was...yuck. My opinion of course. I really hope to be finished with my current crop of maps this year too. Been harbouring way too many projects related to quake2 for far too long - 10+ years, with only a single slightly incomplete release. I will endeavour to finish my projects this year though. Like you said Marine, it should be bountiful this Christmas
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tmg
Quake 2 Mapping Club
Posts: 266
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Post by tmg on Oct 25, 2015 20:35:23 GMT -5
OK, so I took some tips from Margaal and sunk my lights into the architecture, but with the metal textures they look gaaaaaaay. So I changed the textures in the supports and tunnels to my cell-shaded textures and they look alot better. I also made a whole slew of new cell shaded textures with shading around where the small ceil#_# textures and they look a lot better Top shot was done with r_modulate on 1, whereas in the last 2 it set to 2, if you're wondering why it looks a bit better. I'll do all my future shots using modulate 2 or even 2.4.
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Post by knightmare on Oct 25, 2015 21:08:59 GMT -5
Marine, You've caught my interest That launch pod/traom looking thing, does it move/can you interact with it? Gray shot looks solid, much like my own. Make this a release, I'm aiming for getting my little unit out here before/around christmas, join me! Yep! This is a Strogg train from the game's hangar/Big Gun unit and it's one of the ways to advance onto the next unit. And yes, I plan on making at least one more after this one. Thanks for the comments! Seems like Christmas will be an eventful one this year. I reckon that my unit will be ready around that time as well, so yeah, I'd love to! BTW, there's a larger version of that train in Ground Zero (rware2 and rbase2) that has custom textures.
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Post by MaRiNe [Q2C] on Oct 26, 2015 5:36:03 GMT -5
Yep! This is a Strogg train from the game's hangar/Big Gun unit and it's one of the ways to advance onto the next unit. And yes, I plan on making at least one more after this one. Thanks for the comments! Seems like Christmas will be an eventful one this year. I reckon that my unit will be ready around that time as well, so yeah, I'd love to! BTW, there's a larger version of that train in Ground Zero (rware2 and rbase2) that has custom textures. Oh, thanks for reminding me! That's a cool-looking train to boot that you can actually enter through a door. There's another one to keep in mind from The Reckoning too, though that one's more of a cargo train. If I use either instead I'll have to enlarge the tunnels, but this gives me an idea nonetheless...
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tmg
Quake 2 Mapping Club
Posts: 266
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Post by tmg on Oct 26, 2015 20:44:43 GMT -5
I have not played, like actually played through quake 2 for so long, or any of the expansions either.
Maybe I should do this sometime to reinvigorate my inspiration for mapping gameplay wise...structures are easy but adapting these for good gameplay and flow is something I don't think I have taken into account lately.
I dont even remember 80 percent of either expansion pack and the reckoning train...cannot remember where that comes along haha.
It's not important, but yeah one day I will get around to playing through them all again just for fun.
Ground Zero feels pretty generic though gameplay wise so that will be a bit monotonous to play through but hey, there's always gonna be games like that.
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Post by MaRiNe [Q2C] on Oct 26, 2015 20:57:39 GMT -5
I really enjoyed the mission packs personally and I wholeheartedly recommend them. They have actually inspired a lot of my current maps - there's a lot of cool stuff in them.
That said, I do believe and agree with you that The Reckoning is superior gameplay-wise. Ground Zero dropped the ball a bit when it comes to those insufferable turrets past unit one.
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Post by giftmacher on Oct 27, 2015 2:18:44 GMT -5
The Reckoning is also superior in terms of quality in the maps, I just noticed when walking through a few from TR & GZ yesterday. A few maps in Reckoning look incredible, while GZ is a little rough around the edges in comparison. In the original Q2 you can clearly see that the base maps were made last or among the last, and some of the final maps were made first. At least that's my theory because the quality goes way up in the beginning-to-mid of Q2 which makes sense since you want to capture the players early.
I might give The Reckoning a proper playthrough one of these weekends, I can't remember playing through it actually, maybe the first few maps.
Edit: That does sound cool knightmare, I need to get into Lazarus more..
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Post by knightmare on Oct 27, 2015 3:10:20 GMT -5
TMG, that train goes from Waterfront Storage to Tactical Command. It doesn't actually move however, as having the doors move with it was not possible until the Lazarus mod (and having the glass move wasn't possible until some enhanced engines fixed that, including KMQ2).
The wall turrets in Ground Zero were definitely used in a bad way. They're much more palatable when incorporated into a boss set-piece instead of being sprinkled around levels to punish players for not carefully peeking around each corner.
In my fused Rogue/Xatrix/Lazarus game DLL for KMQ2, I added a railgun wall turret variant, and gave them the ability to move with host entities. This was used to good effect in the second level of Mark Shan's Pax Imperia map pack.
Lazarus also added new weapons and driver-less variants of the old, brush-based turrets and game them the ability to move with brush models. Imagine a floating hyperblaster or grenade turret that roams the halls of a Strogg base.
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tmg
Quake 2 Mapping Club
Posts: 266
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Post by tmg on Oct 27, 2015 4:32:57 GMT -5
I am using the Lazarus .def file with radiant these days Knightmare, as there as a lot of fixes and more entities that add to the awesome, so once I finish the initial structures for my maps I will definitely use some of the enhanced entities lazarus gives.
Also it's awesome that glass works properly with entities now. What about doors? Can I have transparent glass in doors that move?
Anyway it's a shame tgat GZ didn't use the entities to better effect, I will agree to that.
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Post by MaRiNe [Q2C] on Oct 27, 2015 6:46:17 GMT -5
In my fused Rogue/Xatrix/Lazarus game DLL for KMQ2, I added a railgun wall turret variant, and gave them the ability to move with host entities. This was used to good effect in the second level of Mark Shan's Pax Imperia map pack. So you helped give birth to that monstrosity? God, I can't forget that rotating turret abomination thing. That fight was hard as hell. The Reckoning is also superior in terms of quality in the maps, I just noticed when walking through a few from TR & GZ yesterday. A few maps in Reckoning look incredible, while GZ is a little rough around the edges in comparison. In the original Q2 you can clearly see that the base maps were made last or among the last, and some of the final maps were made first. At least that's my theory because the quality goes way up in the beginning-to-mid of Q2 which makes sense since you want to capture the players early. I might give The Reckoning a proper playthrough one of these weekends, I can't remember playing through it actually, maybe the first few maps. My only lamentation is that The Reckoning doesn't have a unique final boss battle. The Black Widow Guardian in Ground Zero is a really refreshing change after just fighting Makron over and over again, and it helps that she's my favorite Quake II boss. Definitely play through it though. It shouldn't take you too long either - the mission packs are half as long as the main game. That, and you won't have to look over your shoulder for turrets at every turn in The Reckoning, as Knightmare mentioned.
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tmg
Quake 2 Mapping Club
Posts: 266
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Post by tmg on Oct 27, 2015 7:34:44 GMT -5
I'm sure I downloaded pax imperia but have never played through it. Unfortunately tenfourmaps.com is no more apparently it got hacked or something, unless I've just forgotten the address, but google doesn't return anything either... If I have it I will definitely play through it
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Post by MaRiNe [Q2C] on Oct 27, 2015 8:15:50 GMT -5
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tmg
Quake 2 Mapping Club
Posts: 266
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Post by tmg on Oct 27, 2015 9:37:41 GMT -5
Yeah that's probably why I've never played it hahaha.
Seriously I want to add custom voice com in my unit, so it feels like you are getting live updates as you play through the map/unit.
It's gonna be complicated for sure but if I can figure it out and get it to work it will be awesome and will hopefully make it way more immersive and fun to play through...that's the plan anyway.
Need to script some possible lines to record. Gonna be fun.
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Post by giftmacher on Oct 27, 2015 11:15:03 GMT -5
I'm doing that with the classic Q2 radio voicing.. but yea I would like to have custom radio sounds too, but it must be consistent, like the same voice ofc. Maybe next time for me, otherwise I'll just keep adding more stuff into it and never finish Edit: Can you elaborate on that Marine? Message recieved, is that a sound effect that you combined with simple triggered message? Sounds handy.
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Post by MaRiNe [Q2C] on Oct 27, 2015 12:14:10 GMT -5
If you're going to do your own radio voicing, definitely don't be like the guy from Ground Zero. It always sounds as if he's just about to fall asleep each time he talks. Personally, to make my unit a more immersive experience, I make use of "message" triggers combined with the "message received" sound instead of doing actual voices. Poorly voice-acted radio transmissions can take away from the game instead of add to it.
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