Let me introduce myself and my first CTF map

[Guggenheim]

Hi everybody! Well, Q2 is now a pretty old game and it's hard to surprise someone with map for such old game.

But I just want to share my CTF map made around 2012-2013. Of course, it's not a masterpiece, especially in comparsion with modern maps, but I am not a professional designer and I just tried to make it in old-school Q2 style.

OK, here are the screenshots:

Download link:

dropmefiles.com/dBdKY

[knightmare]

Looks like a decent first release, I'll give it a play with bots soon when I have time.
However, a bare .bsp file? At the minimum, you should include a text file with info, map editor used, compile time, etc. and put it into a .zip.

Bonus if you include a scripts/<mapname>.arena file with the map name, title, and game type so it will be automatically added to the map list:

{
map "gugg_ctf1"
longname "Canyon of Steel"
type "ctf"
}


[Guggenheim]

Jul 23, 2021 17:37:22 GMT -5 knightmare said:

Looks like a decent first release, I'll give it a play with bots soon when I have time.
However, a bare .bsp file? At the minimum, you should include a text file with info, map editor used, compile time, etc. and put it into a .zip.

Bonus if you include a scripts/<mapname>.arena file with the map name, title, and game type so it will be automatically added to the map list:

{
map "gugg_ctf1"
longname "Canyon of Steel"
type "ctf"
}


Oh, are you the creator of KM engine? Very nice to meet you, I really love it. BTW, won't you mind if I PM you? A have a couple of questions and suggestions about KM.

That was not a final version of the map, just kinda a draft. There's a lot job to do about item balance etc. Of course, if someone would test the map and real game, recommendations will help a lot.

I used the good old QERadiant 1.4.7. from Knightmare (thank you again ), compile time was about a couple of minutes. The process of creation took several weeks, cause I didn't devote much time.

[knightmare]

Go ahead and message me, you don't need to ask.

[Guggenheim]

Replaced some items (including replacing body armor to the center of the map), packed into PAK and PK3. Both are included.

dropmefiles.com/2jlAy

[knightmare]

The layout makes more sense, with symmetrical item layouts. This is a tight layout, good for fast CTF games. I ran the map once, and got bots to play it successfully. This looks like it will be a good first release.

If you plan to make another map, you may want to look into making a larger CTF map, including possibly going 3-Team.

BTW, you'll also want to include a widescreen version of the levelshot (gugg_ctf1_widescreen.jpg/png) in 16:9 or 16:10 for load screens.

[Guggenheim]

Jul 26, 2021 18:36:16 GMT -5 knightmare said:

The layout makes more sense, with symmetrical item layouts. This is a tight layout, good for fast CTF games. I ran the map once, and got bots to play it successfully. This looks like it will be a good first release.

If you plan to make another map, you may want to look into making a larger CTF map, including possibly going 3-Team.

BTW, you'll also want to include a widescreen version of the levelshot (gugg_ctf1_widescreen.jpg/png) in 16:9 or 16:10 for load screens.

Yeah, that's right, I'm quite crazy about symmetry, especially on CTF maps. May be I should try to make 3-team CTF map, but then red, blue and green bases should be at 120 degrees angle to be absolutely symmetric, I can't imagine how to make it in Radiant.

Soon I'll post a couple of my old maps, which I consider the least ugly.

For example, there's another my CTF map, even older than that.

I have to refine it a little bit, cause some things look weird, and I'll post it.

The design is kinda primitive, back in that days I just tried to copy "Warehouse" style, just like on Q2DM8 and second unit from singleplayer (BTW, my favourite texture set in combination with blue lights ).

Coming soon...

[Guggenheim]

BTW, I'll be greateful if somebody helps me. I just want to recolor these textures, so the carpet would be blue (green version would be cool too):

I'm very clumsy at photoshop, so I requst help.

[knightmare]

There are already blue versions in LMCTF, but they're badly dithered. Maybe those would be good enough, or maybe you want to convert them to 24-bit, color-shift, and then convert back to Q2's palette?

[Guggenheim]

Jul 27, 2021 11:16:23 GMT -5 knightmare said:

There are already blue versions in LMCTF, but they're badly dithered. Maybe those would be good enough, or maybe you want to convert them to 24-bit, color-shift, and then convert back to Q2's palette?

LMCTF? Can you please share it? Never seen.

[grieve[Q2C]]

Loki's Minions CTF.

you can find it on the Q2 Cafe files server.

q2cafefiles.com/files/index.php?dir=mods%2Flmctf

[knightmare]

Um, you've never heard of Loki's Minions CTF? The very first Q2 CTF mod?

lmctf.com/download.html

EDIT: you'll probably need 7-Zip to extract the old installer for lmctf456.exe

Also, 3Team CTF also has blue and green version of these textures:
q2cafefiles.com/files/index.php?dir=mods%2F3tctffinal

EDIT: I also see that they're poor, dithered quality.

If you want decent blue and green versions of those carpet textures, you'll need to make them yourself with Photoshop, which I'm not familiar with. But from my experience with other image editors, you'll need to copy off or otherwise isolate the pixels you want to color shift, do the color shift to your liking, and then paste them back into the image. You should save the textures as .tga format (almost all modified Q2 engines support .tga textures) to avoid dithering or color loss, and include them alongside those modified .wal versions from 3TCTF.

[Guggenheim]

Jul 27, 2021 12:23:53 GMT -5 knightmare said:

Um, you've never heard of Loki's Minions CTF? The very first Q2 CTF mod?

lmctf.com/download.html

EDIT: you'll probably need 7-Zip to extract the old installer for lmctf456.exe

Also, 3Team CTF also has blue and green version of these textures:
q2cafefiles.com/files/index.php?dir=mods%2F3tctffinal

EDIT: I also see that they're poor, dithered quality.

If you want decent blue and green versions of those carpet textures, you'll need to make them yourself with Photoshop, which I'm not familiar with. But from my experience with other image editors, you'll need to copy off or otherwise isolate the pixels you want to color shift, do the color shift to your liking, and then paste them back into the image. You should save the textures as .tga format (almost all modified Q2 engines support .tga textures) to avoid dithering or color loss, and include them alongside those modified .wal versions from 3TCTF.

Oh, yes, you're right. I'll use that textures.

[grieve[Q2C]]

silly question, but how do you spawn bots when running ctf with kmquake2 ?

[knightmare]

For the built-in ACE bot: sv addbot

BTW, there will be another bot included with KMQ2 by the time 0.20u8 is final.