Q3ct3 *alpha*

[cityy]

It might take some days until I have the next update ready - tho I'm on it. Thanks for pushing me

[cityy]

I figured out the areas which make the most problems.

[lvlshot]http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5332/q3ct3tris1.jpg[/lvlshot]
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 :/

[lvlshot]http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/643/q3ct3tris2.jpg[/lvlshot]
At the RG room exit.

[lvlshot]http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/1280/q3ct3tris.jpg[/lvlshot]
At the RL.

I also loaded the .prt file in radiant and all I can say is wtf...
[lvlshot]http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/9272/omgwtff.jpg[/lvlshot]
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

[AEon]

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).

[cityy]

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.

[cityy]

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..

[Tabun]

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!

[cityy]

I think I will release the map file with every map in future - I was actually really happy about AEon's offer.

[cityy]

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?

[Tabun]

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?).

[cityy]

Ahh ok, just wanted to know if I can save some work (:

[AEon]

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.

[cityy]

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.

[^Ghost]

my 2 cents... the water seems out of place.. maybe make an electrical deathpit or something??

and more importantly this ceiling is not clipped. u can bascailly run through the whole map

and yes tabun he did box out the map with the skybox.

[^Ghost]

christ so many posts in the 20 minutes that i started looking at this thread.

[AEon]

MapShader is an external tool (adding it as a plugin would be neat though ). Our resource forum thread should have a link to it.

[monaster]

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).