Quake3World

sumatra wrote:Thanks fkd.
Ye, the lighting is still in a very early stage.
Working mostly on the textures at the moment, creating new ones as well...
Need some proper trims, really hard to accomplish on the face of it.

I'm absolutely loving the textures. It really reminds me of The Darkening Episode 2 for Doom II. You can check out some of the textures here. It might inspire you.

Are you planning on releasing a pack or just what you need for the map?

Sumatra: You've always had a really clean, exact style which I think is appealing - the current map is looking really good. I assume you've not finalized the lighting yet but I'd say much more contrast and more colored lighting to designate the side of the map you're on. Reminds me a little bit of Siberia for whatever reason - have you thought much about what sort of environment it's set in (hot, cold, etc)? I could also see it looking really good with an "overgrown" look (moss, vines, cobwebs and stuff).

I worked with some grad students at my university this semester on a UDK project - they were big Mario fans so we decided to replicate it for our final project. I actually am really enjoying UnrealEd now that they have additive geometry (subtractive geometry alone makes my head hurt since I started out with Radiant), and everything is extremely streamlined. Unfortunately I didn't fully hop on the "learn how to make normalmaps" train after D3 came out so I primarily relied on CrazyBump and cgtextures. Here are a couple of shots (the level is boxy and I used the same "bunch of pillars with walls in between" construction I used for kazdm5, which I'm trying to get away from, but no one I had to show it to knew about kazdm5 :P)

[lvlshot]http://student.cs.appstate.edu/freemancw/junk/mario3.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://student.cs.appstate.edu/freemancw/junk/mario2.jpg[/lvlshot]
[lvlshot]http://student.cs.appstate.edu/freemancw/junk/mario4.jpg[/lvlshot]

[lvlshot]http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9320/shot0090z.jpg[/lvlshot]

WOW nice fkd

fkd,

is that vanilla q3? If so, that's some serious mapping.

indeed it is vq3

@sumatra: Those decals look totally cool.
@fKD: Wow, you are rly good at that kind of industrial look of a map!

Looks nice guys - keep it up!

fKd.... Why oh why do you tease us with such eye candy... D:

Hey, thanks guys, didn't expect so much feedback.
I'll keep all your suggestions and ideas in mind, especially the ones regarding looks and theme..
I'm about to release a proper Beta soon, just have to fix some tiny issues.

@Kaz: Thanks for the kind words. I'll try to bring in some of your suggestions. I'm heading on a industrial theme, quakeliveish to be honest. Not too much detail, working with bricks, concrete, metal and wood...

@fkd:
Wow. You just deliver tasty quality every time again! Great work, nice detailing.
Looks like some CTF flavor as well?!

To stay on topic, here some progress of my (unofficial) Beta in pictures:

@sumatra, Kaz and fKd: You constantly keep producing maps that put my own attempts to shame, nevertheless I can comfort myself with playing exactly these maps as soon as they are released, so come give some! (slight DukeNukem3D reference, if anyone still remembers)

@Kaz: I'm VERY eager to see that DarkMario map in reality, the idea somehow reminds me of McGee's Alice (turning something eye/sugar candy into something much darker and more sinister). Awesome!

fKd wrote:[lvlshot]http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9320/shot0090z.jpg[/lvlshot]

Hey fKd, I keep seeing you pushing the envelope on this tech.
Just makes me wonder if you've dabbled with other engines (like Source or UT3) and what your experiences are with those.

(I find the simplicity (relatively) of idtech3 comforting, and I'm just too lazy to step out of that comfort zone, but just curious how you feel about it)

fKd wrote:[lvlshot]http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9320/shot0090z.jpg[/lvlshot]

holy fucking warlock tits. i hope the gameplay is good .

Very nice.

And good to see my old q2 crates in there, too :]

Plan B wrote:
Hey fKd, I keep seeing you pushing the envelope on this tech.
Just makes me wonder if you've dabbled with other engines (like Source or UT3) and what your experiences are with those.

(I find the simplicity (relatively) of idtech3 comforting, and I'm just too lazy to step out of that comfort zone, but just curious how you feel about it)

ive taken a look at source, ut3 and the cryengine and in all honesty i would pick learning hammer as i find the games tend to be better and the engine has a good feel to it. hate the flow of the hammer editor tho.. (could be ive spent to much time in gtk lol but it has that horrible worldcraft feel) but it strikes the best balance between assets and geo imo. but it does seem to not be so custom content friendly, which is odd. (from my experience of l4d as thats the game i was working with)

but like you i love the flow of gtk/q3 mapping and the great never ending challenge of producing new content with the ability to wow even tho the tech is 10 years old. another thing that keeps me in idtech 3 is the great quantities knowledge and ingenuity in the community. from q3map2/3 to custom particle engines etc etc etc. got a real nice diy thing going on. and then there is the community in general. great folks in the q3 community and a never ending stream of new work which is constantly raising the bar of what can be achieved with simple brush based geo.

or something

still a fair amount to get done before the beta, but it is coming together nicely. looking forward to some constructive feedback etc oh.. and its not a ctf

Nothing nearly as impressive as some of the other work here, but I'm trying
It's also still shots taken from GtkRadiant, but I guess the caulk gives it away

Eraser, the overall layout looks a bit boxy. Maybe you can mix it up a little.

fKd wrote:

Plan B wrote:
Hey fKd, I keep seeing you pushing the envelope on this tech.
Just makes me wonder if you've dabbled with other engines (like Source or UT3) and what your experiences are with those.

(I find the simplicity (relatively) of idtech3 comforting, and I'm just too lazy to step out of that comfort zone, but just curious how you feel about it)

ive taken a look at source, ut3 and the cryengine and in all honesty i would pick learning hammer as i find the games tend to be better and the engine has a good feel to it. hate the flow of the hammer editor tho.. (could be ive spent to much time in gtk lol but it has that horrible worldcraft feel) but it strikes the best balance between assets and geo imo. but it does seem to not be so custom content friendly, which is odd. (from my experience of l4d as thats the game i was working with)

but like you i love the flow of gtk/q3 mapping and the great never ending challenge of producing new content with the ability to wow even tho the tech is 10 years old. another thing that keeps me in idtech 3 is the great quantities knowledge and ingenuity in the community. from q3map2/3 to custom particle engines etc etc etc. got a real nice diy thing going on. and then there is the community in general. great folks in the q3 community and a never ending stream of new work which is constantly raising the bar of what can be achieved with simple brush based geo.

or something

Yah, I also tried mapping for Source and the various Unreal engines, but found the experiences very un-intuitive and frustrating.
Of course, those engines are more complex and sophisticated, but even so, even the most fundamental stuff requires unnecessary awkward interfacing and fucking about.

I think Radiant comes very close to being the perfect basic 3d environment editor.
It's a shame that with every new engine that comes along, devs think they should reivent wheels, instead of building upon what has proven itself to work perfectly well in the past.

Then again, I guess nowadays game devs aren't that interested in involving people in the creative process, anymore.
I find this tendency very disturbing, and really hope that at least id, who have always excellently supplied tools and encouraged their fanbase to be creative, keep doing so.

So we can, fall 2011, say: here's our motherfucking Rage map. And it shits all over what you cranked out, id.
Sure, it took all 20 of us to get shit together, but thank you id for giving us the tools to do so, etc.

yeah, i dunno.... with rage it looks like modding will be tough (i seem to recall carmack saying something along these lines) but the real issue i see is that the game might not be worth editing. its been a long time since id got their shit right. its been disappointment followed by disappointment for me. nothing since q3 has had any real class or substance... its like an old sports star coming out of retirement trying to relive former glory, its painful for all to watch...

Yah, I also tried mapping for Source and the various Unreal engines, but found the experiences very un-intuitive and frustrating.
Of course, those engines are more complex and sophisticated, but even so, even the most fundamental stuff requires unnecessary awkward interfacing and fucking about.

THIS. Well, the truth is 'editors time' is past. Pretty much games are made with just preofessional modelling tools like Max.

its been a long time since id got their shit right. its been disappointment followed by disappointment for me. nothing since q3 has had any real class or substance

It has been long time since id actually made a game. I'm waiting for D4 and Rage. And I truly belive those will be good games. I belive in id, and from what I can tell stuff changed in last 2 years there. they really want to come back with good games, and do put a lot of work into them. Remember that all those 'not so great id games' weren't made by id actually. Wolfensten, QWET, Q4. If I'm correct last true id game was D3, and I think we can say it WAS a success (just played D3 last weekend ). id got rid of all shitty third party companies, and took things into own hands again. I'm waiting for D4, and belive it will be good game.

I'm sure that Rage will be a good SP game but I also know that it's not the kind of game I like to play. And I am very sure that its MP won't have a Quake-feeling to it. It can't replace Q3A, it can't even be compared to it. (What I've seen of Rage so far reminded me of Borderlands in a Mad Max setting, maybe a bit less arcade-like).

I think there are some good SP FPS games like BioShock, D3, FEAR2, HL2, maybe even Prey out there but nothing that can beat the MP of Q3A - which is kinda sad. TF2 ain't a bad game but it's not Quake and you can't play it 1vs1. (And now they made it feel like a teeny Jamba/Jamster community with those ridiculous tradable items.)

And I also hope for D4 to become a great game. I'd like to see a new game that can be played in the QuakeCon finals. I really hope that MP will be good and that D4 will have MP bots. If it doesn't (like Q4) I guess it means they didn't care much for MP and the game is lost.

An online skill-leveling system like the one QL has may be nice (if it's not behind a cheesy web interface) but it still can't replace bots imo. From time to time I just want to set the bots to lower difficulty, drink a beer while playing and still win some games and have great fun - without people disconnecting during duels, insulting team members in CTF or whining when they lose. I want to be able to play a custom map, not only d4_aerowalk and d4_bloodrun. And I'd like to decide myself whether FFA on d4_some_tiny_map should really be played with 16 player slots. (Just to be clear: I know that QL has bots but I'm not talking about QL here.) I really liked what they did in L4D/L4D2 (though the games themselves are only cheap arcade games imo): an easy in-game interface to find online games with/against humans and also good bot support. A good MP game needs both imo (Q4 had neither nor).

And making maps without being able to playtest them is no fun of course.

The real question is, do we really need a replacement for Quake 3? As I see it, Q3 can still continue to be great the next 10 years.

Hmm, sure it could. But I get bored by playing the same stuff over and over. Maybe others don't.

Quake 3 just needs more community features, thats all. A new engine would be amazing, granted, but thats always hit/miss, as people are devided on what should/shouldn't be changed, and then it just turns into a "new game". So its hard to just make a perfect next gen replacement of something, even more when the actual hardcore players will just turn everything off/low anyway... Tough sell...

But it defo needs more community stuff. Ingame rankings, challenges/achievementsm, friends lists and the like would be perfectly at home in Quake 3. But more maps isn't always a better thing... Too many and you risk thinning the game out. Too few, and you risk boring the player.

Hence why Q3 is so popular... Its got just the right ammount of "stuff".