[Q4 MP] Poprocks

[BJA]

Hello, here's another small 1vs1 mp map from me. Not much custom content this time. Some rock walls and a cave model, the rest is all from the original game.
And yeah, I know that there are already too many brown/rusted maps for Q4 But I liked the prison-texture set so much that I decided to make a map with it.

IMPORTANT: You need to have the latest Quake4 patch (Quake4-1.4.2) installed to play this map.

Screenshots:









Download (10,3mb):
http://www.bja-design.de/images/q4maps/ ... bjadm3.zip

Have fun! Feedback and comments are as always welcome

-BJA-

[wviperw]

Screenshots look awesome! Only thing is maybe that rock texture needs some more pizzazz. I'll check the level out tonight...

[o'dium]

I agree, looks awesome, but that rock texture needs a better local, i.e. another Q4 rock texture

[Castle]

wow!

looks great!
Ill take a look at it when I get home tonight!

[Kat]

Not had a look at the map yet, but contrary to what the other chaps have said.... there's nothing actually wrong with your rock texture or the normal map, it looks good, what's 'missing' is the underlying structure of the rock formations; there's not enough abstraction there to counter the apparent plainess of the texture covering them. It's too late to do anything about it now as it'd mean a lot of work, but for your next map that uses rocks try and 'break' the shapes and lines up more so they're not quite so smooth and regular.

Anyway just a few words based on the screenies, will try and get a look at some point soon.

[Lunaran]

well, either that or keep the simple shapes and use a rock texture with lots of forms in the normal. :)

[pjw]

Cool looking map--I'll try to give it a close look sometime soon.

From the screenies, I don't have any problem at all with the rock texture; it just looks to me like very weathered/eroded rock rather than something with lots of edges and roughness. Maybe from lots of water flow or suchlike.

Granted, it's smoother than typical D3/Q4 rock, but I like it. I also really like the lights/pipes bit in that second shot.

[Method]

Good work, BJA. Big problem atm is clipping. You can get stuck a lot.

I liked the RA room, reminds me of Q3A Tourney map with the monster throat. Nice idea on including rocky pillar to hide behind.

Here is some feedback:

















Concerning terrain bumpmap, consider taking a look at this tutorial:

http://www.cgtextures.com/content.php?a ... _normalmap

-Method

[KungFuSquirrel]

Fantastic use of the prison content; it's easily the best texture set in the game save for maybe the good common textures. It's a damn shame it wasn't in the retail release.

Love the first and last shots in your post especially.

[BJA]

@wviperw: thanks!

@o'dium: Actually the textures (diffuse and normal) for the cave are from Q4. I think the local looks mainly because of the ambient light so flat. And because of how the lightsources are placed. Lighten up that cave area was a bit annoying since I always got some pretty ugly black triangles on the cave model. I wonder if this has anything to do because how I layed out the uvw map

@Castle: Thanks, hope you like it.

@Kat: You mean to use less polygons to get a better structure? The cave model looked pretty edgy so I did use one smoothing group for the whole model. Was that wrong?

@Lunaran: Well, as I mentioned it's a q4 rock texture, so I guess the normal is fine

@pjw: thanks, glad you like it and I think some water flows or a little waterfall coming out of the wall would have been pretty nice. Never occured to me to put that in. Definitely something to keep in mind for the next time I'm making a map with a cave.

@Method: wow! That's some feedback, thanks really much appreciated For that megahealth floor in the first screen: I could swear I did put that plate into a func_static with solid 0. Strange. And yeah, those pillars are too much of an obstacle to get to the megahealth. Should have make the floor a bit wider.
For the clipping issue: Same as with the plate. I'm pretty sure I clipped all the walls. I now wonder if I did put in an older map file in the .pk4. Have to check that out.
Adding some geometry in the background and using a big beam in the quaddamage area is a good point. It always looks so much better with your paintover.
The panels in the cave are simply there so the floor doesn't look to plain. I know they don't make much sense.
And yeah, the model in the 7th screen is too short. Have to put the floor a bit up.
The brush in the last shot has no real use. Actually I didn't even know that it sticks out like that, never noticed it.
Thanks again for your effort and taking the time to make some screenshots and paintovers! I'll try to fix all those things as soons as I find some time.

Oh, and thanks for that bumpmap tutorial that's a really useful one!

@KungFuSquirrel: Thank you! Funny, I didn't even know that the texture set wasn't in the retail release. Thought in was there from the beginning

[Method]

No problem man. You did a good job on the visuals, I was giving feedback on what it was lacking. Competitive players (MP community) are a picky bunch. If the level isn't clipped properly they won't play it. Always keep enough room and nonstop flow.

Here's a command line given to me by Wils of Splash Damage back when I started working with Doom 3 engine. It lets you check where you placed clip brushes (red highlight), given you enable cheats (net_allowcheats 1):

Code: Select all

toggle g_showcollisionworld 1 0; cm_drawmask playerclip; toggle cm_drawfilled 1 0

You can bind it to a key. Example:

...
bind "F10" "toggle g_showcollisionworld 1 0; cm_drawmask playerclip; toggle cm_drawfilled 1 0"
...

What I meant by "where did these panels come from" was that maybe you need to remove some from upper floor (on the path to RA), so it would look like they were spread out. It's a nice touch.

-Method

[BJA]

I didn't even know that there's a command line for viewing the clip brushes. Thanks for that, should become real handy
And yeah, you're right about removing some panels from the upper floor. Would make a bit more sense.

[GODLIKE]

Looking sharp! Everybody has posted good feedback.. let's see the new version soon?

[BJA]

Probably/hopefully this sunday. Anything I should change about the item placement?

[GODLIKE]

It's a 1 vs 1 map with a Quad? I'd change that.. .