Minecraft worlds are awesome for Quake 3 :D

[KittenIgnition]

I finally nearly finished a proper CTF map, based off of a really badass Minecraft map, coincidentally called Quakecraft. It's a custom minecraft servermod that changes gravity and basically adds a rocket launcher. This is the map that's included.

This is the first Minecraft world I've actually finished, partially due to the very simple geometry and lack of complex blocks (no grates, no torches, nothing 'special'). I have no ingame screenshots because the skybox I'm using is a really ugly colour and the shaders aren't complete yet.

Needless to say, it looks awesome, and in CPM, Minecraft plays surprisingly well. I'm proud of my achievement.



Because of the incredibly dense brushwork in a straight-up converted world (each block = one brush), I tried my best to merge as many blocks as I could. To save even more brushes on the really complex designs, I made huge textures to cover the entire floor. They were actually really frustrating to make, because I kept orienting the background tiles different to the rest of the map.

The texture there is pretty small compared to the other ones - the one in the middle of the map is 2k wide (I actually had to cut it up a bit to maximise compatibility with baseq3, because there's an arbitrary texture size limit of 2048^2).

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It's really fun. I can't wait to find a real CTF or hide and seek-style map (not a space map, because space is boring - I already have the best space CTF map in Quake history: ojfc-12. So, if anyone knows of any nice structures or relatively small open spaces, show me them!

[obsidian]

I built a scale copy of Q3DM6 on the Q3W Minecraft server some time ago. I filled it with some bows and arrows for weapons. Minecraft physics meant the bridge to rail jump was utterly hopeless.

[KittenIgnition]

I built a scale copy of Q3DM6 on the Q3W Minecraft server some time ago. I filled it with some bows and arrows for weapons. Minecraft physics meant the bridge to rail jump was utterly hopeless.

I'm much too lazy to rebuild those maps myself, so I've tried to find scale versions to download and then convert back to Quake. It's weird to look at from someone else's point of view, but really, Minecraft maps play extremely well, and considering how few there are out there, it's quite a fresh feel. The only ones I know of are Mineqraft and Mineqraft 2, plus a custom map a friend of mine converted that turned out really badly and was never finished.

[Eraser]

I bet that requires some massive optimization to perform well. Or is q3map2 smart enough to merge those blocks together? I guess it's not...

[KittenIgnition]

I bet that requires some massive optimization to perform well. Or is q3map2 smart enough to merge those blocks together? I guess it's not...

I had to rebuild all the geometry myself. It wasn't hard, just slow and boring. A friend of mine is writing a program that converts Minecraft chunks into Quake 3 map/brush format, and it also has a lot of optimisations, including brush merging. Q3map2 has no idea what it's doing.

[seremtan]

a space map seems like an odd choice for a MC-inspired map. how about an abandoned mine or stronghold intersecting a ravine with a (mostly) lava floor? it would make the map lighting logical (torches do spawn in abandoned mines, and lava gives off light (plus if the ravine was partly open to the sky that would help). would also allow for plenty of vertical gameplay, and stronghold Ender portals would make great teleporters. could use ore blocks with a glowing effect as bounce pads

only downside is that blocks would need to be 32x32x32 to match the scale between the two games, and you have to jump that, so stairs would be out...

[KittenIgnition]

a space map seems like an odd choice for a MC-inspired map. how about an abandoned mine or stronghold intersecting a ravine with a (mostly) lava floor? it would make the map lighting logical (torches do spawn in abandoned mines, and lava gives off light (plus if the ravine was partly open to the sky that would help). would also allow for plenty of vertical gameplay, and stronghold Ender portals would make great teleporters. could use ore blocks with a glowing effect as bounce pads

only downside is that blocks would need to be 32x32x32 to match the scale between the two games, and you have to jump that, so stairs would be out...

It's hard to get good gameplay in an indoor location, but it's hard to find an outdoor location that doesn't require a bajillion brushes or some awkward end to the world. Space maps are the most logical and practical solution, plus they have really good gameplay.

As for scaling, 64u blocks are default, but 32 is definitely not accurate scaling. If the blocks were 32u, then stairs would be 16u, which is acceptable step height. The real problem is that 32u is so small and has awkward movement. 48u is the best scaling I've found for CPM, because 48u is as high as a block can get so that you are still able to consistently doublejump off of it.

It's also hard to find good caves. Building one yourself is a lot of work. Believe me; I tried. I've been hunting for good looking maps to use, but they just aren't very common, especially within practical standards. A lot of the issues are actually from the limitations of the game rather than gameplay being bad. I can't have large open areas because of brush and vis limits, and I can't have too many trees or glass because of how those shaders work (I tried to find a solution with no luck), and I can't have flowing water because it would just look and feel wrong.

[seremtan]

It's hard to get good gameplay in an indoor location

say what?

As for scaling, 64u blocks are default, but 32 is definitely not accurate scaling.

in Q3A, 64u is slightly taller than the player, and in MC 2 blocks are also slightly taller than the player. the MC player is 1.8m tall; if we assume 64u = 2m, then the Q3A player is 1.75m tall (i.e. similar height to MC player)

i know 64u doesn't *look* like 2m in Q3A, but then it doesn't look like 2m in MC either. either way, it's accurate scaling. 48u per block is too high

It's also hard to find good caves. Building one yourself is a lot of work.

which is why i suggested a ravine, and intersecting it with strongholds/abandoned mines (both of which have non-natural, regular geometry, and are probably the easiest thing to make in Radiant ever) rather than a cave

[KittenIgnition]

Good, fast gameplay doesn't exist in a closed space. If there's something stopping you from going fast, it's boring. I much prefer large, open maps that you can move around in freely. I suppose it may seem weird out of context, but closed spaces annoy me because I play CPMA (often Defrag, which is even faster), hence fast movement is rampant.

32u might be accurate; I never looked closely, but 48u is a much better representation and it has much better gameplay than either 32u or 64u. 64u is a lot easier to map though.

Ravines have very restrictive gameplay, and mines are even worse. These locations also will demolish frame rates, which is a huge issue when working with large Minecraft worlds. Making maps as efficient as possible is a long and boring process to do manually.