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Q3ct3 *alpha* https://www.quake3world.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=41612 |
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Author: | cityy [ 10-24-2009 08:02 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
***UPDATE - Beta4*** Link: http://cityy.explicits.de/uploads/maps/q3ct3_beta4.zip @ Tabun: - Thanks for the trim advice I started doing it like this at the stairway near the RG room exit. The other trim stuff will be fixed with the next update. - I'm currently looking through web galleries and other maps to figure out how to improve the lighting. Quote: I'd also make the sunlight just slightly more dirty/yellowish. I would really like to add a custom skybox with better light but I can't get any skybox work for some reason - well, I'm not really good in chosing textures. I would really like to replace the concrete texture from the base set but I don't find anything I like.. If I would list everything that I don't like about the textures I wouldn't come to an end in the next two weeks @ AEon: Thanks again for the huge amount of high quality feedback you give I liked a lot of your suggestions. Feedback: - I'm not sure about the upper corridor from the RL to the LG passing the bridge - it's just too long imo but I don't have an idea what to do here.. - How do folks like the new bridge? |
Author: | Tabun [ 10-24-2009 08:23 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I was pretty lazy about making my own textures, but since I discovered http://www.cgtextures.com , that has become a breeze. Even if you don't want to do any editing, there's bound to be one or two tiling concrete or stone textures that you may find useful as a replacement? |
Author: | cityy [ 10-24-2009 08:42 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I know about CGtextures but it seems like I have no talent for customizing texture references. Edit: Maybe somebody has a quick tutorial link? |
Author: | AEon [ 10-24-2009 09:18 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
Makes me smile to see how things change from map version to map version... you keep surprising... Glad you asked about the LG area ... here is how I had imagined it initially:
My suggestion would be to place 90° stairs on both sides of the YA, leading up to the upper area on both sides. This keeps in flow, and minimized the amount of extra space the map takes up. And if the angled stairs require too many steps, you could move the YA platform up by 32u or so, thus adding a few extra steps from the lower level to the YA platform and use the rest of the angled stairs to reach the upper level. I'd delete the purple area completely. b) It could help to make the RA room a bit larger, and to round off (yellow) the corners into that room. Presently that room feels like it was glued onto the map. Probably getting carried away here... but I am starting to see the map take shape. Note: A word of caution... though it is "flattering" that you follow my suggestions, please always be sure you *really* like them yourself. I used to follow external suggestions in AEneon a *lot*... and now I no longer like that map - too much loss of my original vision. IOW, it is much more important that *you* like the map. P.S. Look for a skybox you like, I can help you get it in the map. Update:
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Author: | AEon [ 10-24-2009 12:07 PM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
Hmm... technically your map still will have a lot of work in store for you. As a test I decompiled your map (wanted to check why the bots do not use the TP, no reason I could see), and looked at it in-editor, and saw quite a few technical issues that may trip you sooner or later. Now unless these are actually issues due to the decompile:
Fear not... we all had to learn these technical things, ask in this thread. Your map works as it is, but it is wasting resources, i.e. it is not taking advantage of what the compiler could do for you. |
Author: | cityy [ 10-24-2009 12:25 PM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
Hehe, I know the map is technically trash You know, it's the first map where I got to the point of technical optimizing and I don't know a shit. Until this point I learned mapping by "try and error" and reading these forums - seems like I will have to study a tutorial about this stuff (maybe you can recommend one?) I was always afraid you would decompile the map (((((: |
Author: | AEon [ 10-24-2009 12:47 PM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I'd recommend looking into the Starting Quake Mapping - Link Resources sticky thread in this forum. Alas, I have not looked into manuals / tutorials in a very long time, so I have no idea what more recent "good" tutorials there are. |
Author: | tehSandwich [ 10-24-2009 02:53 PM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
For lighting theory, this is a short but good read. http://www.hourences.com/book/booklighting.htm |
Author: | cityy [ 10-25-2009 02:37 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
@ AEon: Most of the links in this thread seem to be dead but I guess I will find some tutorials with google's help @ tehSandwich: Thanks! I will take a look into it after I fixed the technical stuff. |
Author: | AEon [ 10-25-2009 03:57 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I wanted to read up on bot clipping yesterday, because I remembered reading about that ages ago, it seems that Cardigan had such tutorials, but his "planetquake" hosted site is dead, like all other sites there. You can use google to find such pages and then look into the cached version. But it seems quite a lot of good info has dies with the shutting down of the planet site hosting. We might want to start collecting the tutorials that have been lost, i.e. the links to them. I'd then probably update our link resources. |
Author: | cityy [ 10-25-2009 04:22 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
Yeah, very sad that planetquake stops hosting service. I found some kind of guide about hint brushes (http://www.nibsworld.com/rtcw/tutorial_detail_and_hint_brushes_part1.shtml) and read parts of the gtkradiant guide. Now I know that I pretty much failed with everything you could fail with Well, I will look into the hint thingie and see what I can do with detail brushes - tho my burshwork became very unclean because of all the changes from the original layout to the most recent versions. I don't think I will clean up the whole brush work because if I would do so I would have to completely rework the map and this wouldn't be worth the effort, IMO. Looking forward to optimize and finish this one and planning/doing everything better in the next map. Edit: Thinking of dropping this at all. |
Author: | AEon [ 10-25-2009 04:45 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
Note: Things like a caulk hull are not really needed for your map. You can keep most the geometry solid as it is... just turn some of the "deco" to detail. Also note, you should finalize the layout before you do any hinting. Edit: Thinking of dropping this at all.
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Author: | cityy [ 10-25-2009 04:53 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
Yea, I think of stopping working on this one or completely redoing it later since it seems to be a complete technical fail. |
Author: | AEon [ 10-25-2009 05:02 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
Pity, I was looking forward to the next changes. The technical stuff is several hours of work, once you know what to look out for, so it's not such a terminal issue. |
Author: | Tabun [ 10-25-2009 05:04 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I wouldn't drop this one so quickly. You've got important work done to get it to play good, right? Wouldn't waste that just because it needs fixing up.. |
Author: | cityy [ 10-25-2009 09:28 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
It might take some days until I have the next update ready - tho I'm on it. Thanks for pushing me |
Author: | cityy [ 10-26-2009 02:45 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I figured out the areas which make the most problems. This is at the YA near the LG - without fps cap I'm getting arround 170 fps here and r_speeds are arround 10k. As you see nearly the whole map is rendered from this place :/ At the RG room exit. At the RL. I also loaded the .prt file in radiant and all I can say is wtf... As far as I understood the stuff I read about hint-, detail brushes and portals - this is not good. Tho there are also some positiv things to say. I removed the box arround the map and cleaned up some of the brush work ( I deleted arround 100k of brushes I actually didn't need ). I also worked on caulking brushes immediatly when I'm drawing them and using as less brushes as possible. Atm I'm on finishing the layout and converting all the structual brushes into detail brushes ( as far as it is possible). For this reason the will be an update sooner than I thought - I would like to know what folks think about the RA area before I start hinting. Edit: I found an awesome guide about hints in the valve developer wiki: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Hint_brush |
Author: | AEon [ 10-26-2009 03:53 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
You may want to release the .map file for your next version (for possible help on hint brushes + other technical feedback), and please also start placing all the textures into one textures/q3ct3/ folder, and fix the shader paths, only using one scripts/q3ct3.shader file (removing all the shaders you are not using). I actually did just that on the decompile, to not spam up my development folders. About the HL2 article... your are probably aware of this: The hint face should be covered with common/hint and all other faces of the "hint brush" with common/skip. The basics in the article seem fine, a few examples that are called "work", are not optimal... so placing hint brushes parallel to the grid, without a *really* good reason should only be done if they actually have a function. The process of hinting usually works like this: Load the map (via devmap), use a key to show the geometry (I use the Alt key: bind ALT "toggle r_showtris"), then wander around the map, and start looking at walls facing towards the middle of the map... the wall *should* not draw anything behind it. If it does some exploration is required. The idea normally is to check where you are seeing too much geometry, think of a way your structural elements in the map could block the view, to the add hint brushes. Add the brush, compile (bsp & vis is enough, no need for light compile), load map again and check the hint brush helped or not... repeat... it's a bit tedious, but the only way to ensure the hint brushes are working, and not just bloat. Also remember that any wall that was turned detail no longer blocks vis, so you should not turn everything detail *inside* the map, i.e. walls and some of the walkways are important to block vis in the map. You may be seeing the whole map because "everything" (i.e. too much) was turned detail. (Just mentioning some things to ensure your are aware of them, you probably know most of this already). |
Author: | cityy [ 10-26-2009 04:25 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
After adding detail brushes r_speeds value raised... It also seems like some brushes disappeard at all and the r_speeds value raised. The process of hinting seems to be a complex thing - logical on the on hand but also hard to do it in radiant. I'll try arround with some things. Yea, I noticed other maps only have one texture folder and also only one shader - I'll look into that. |
Author: | cityy [ 10-29-2009 02:05 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I'm working on this map now since several months and I don't see that I come to a releaseable result within the next ~4-6 weeks. For some reasons that I'll probably never know half of the brush work disappeard during the last compile process and decompiling. My motivation to finish this one is somewhere arround 0 - working on the same map for months without getting a releasable result is just boring and pointless, IMO. Though I learned a lot during the building process of the map because of the technical problems I had to face and the feedback given in thread. Thanks for that What I want to do now is starting working on a new map. Maybe I revisit this one later.. |
Author: | Tabun [ 10-29-2009 04:41 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
If you do come back to it, I suggest you take up AEons advice and release the map file (even if only sent as a personal message). That will clear up misunderstandings and give you new practical ideas in no-time! |
Author: | cityy [ 10-29-2009 04:57 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I think I will release the map file with every map in future - I was actually really happy about AEon's offer. |
Author: | cityy [ 11-14-2009 06:34 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
AEon wrote: please also start placing all the textures into one textures/q3ct3/ folder I want to start doing this with my new map q3ct4. Is there an easier way to do it than creating a "textures/q3ct4/" folder in my baseq3, sorting in the textures I need and rexturing the map completely? |
Author: | Tabun [ 11-14-2009 07:08 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
You can do a find/replace through the texture-window's menu. Shouldn't take too long, unless you're using a lot of different textures (if so, you might try editing the .map file's ascii directly?). |
Author: | cityy [ 11-14-2009 07:21 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
Ahh ok, just wanted to know if I can save some work (: |
Author: | AEon [ 11-14-2009 07:22 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
There are a few tools that can make it easier, though as a programmer I normally edit the .map file directly with UltraEdit. That took me about 5 minutes at the most, you just need to look up the texture folder names the present textures need, and rename them all to q3ct3 in the .map and in the .shader file. MapShader... will go through your map and look up all the shaders it requires merging them into one file. This works pretty well as long as you do not use ASE models. This should save you a lot of time finding the proper shaders. The other tool: Q3Map2 Toolz lets you create a complete map PK3 file with shaders and all textures etc. I used that only when I was using many textures. You probably won't really need that because you have the textures sorted out already. |
Author: | cityy [ 11-14-2009 07:36 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
I did it with the find/replace method as Tabun suggested. Took me a few seconds since I'm currently only using 5 textures. Will switch over to editing then map file when the amount of textures grows, I guess. This MapShader plugin(?) sounds really usefull. |
Author: | ^Ghost [ 11-14-2009 08:00 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
christ so many posts in the 20 minutes that i started looking at this thread. |
Author: | AEon [ 11-14-2009 08:37 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
MapShader is an external tool (adding it as a plugin would be neat though ). Our resource forum thread should have a link to it. |
Author: | monaster [ 12-20-2009 05:32 AM ] |
Post subject: | Re: Q3ct3 *alpha* |
cityy, don't be bothered about losing any will to finish your work just because you couldn't achieve to release it within a few weeks or months. As time goes by (while you're working on newer projects) your interest in this old one that you had to leave unfinished just because somthing seemed to be too complicated and not worth the effort (like hinting) will rise again and you'll soon be working on the thing before you know (I know what I'm speaking/writing of). |
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