Quake3World

Last when used Radiant 1.5 I was able to leak map with making stairs nonsolid, which sent me in the void! I am surprised it allowed to make bot support, because I was playing with editor and that similar bug just made the bspc discard it shouting there is a leak! After I ran the map I found out stairs are ghosted!

Radiant 1.5 was famous in the fashion there were easily possible making duplicate brushes by accidentally hitting spacebar, because new brushes did not move like in Radiant 1.4 or Radiant 1.6. Also it was possible to make invisible brushes with zero width, which also caused troubles. But with Radiant 1.6 you could register you accidentally hit the spacebar new brushes move right and down by one grid in the 2D view. If you are sure you did not hit the spacebar, then try to recompile the map, if the bug disappears, it was just flaw in the compile progress making these brushes nonsolid.

Anyway, speaking about nonsolid brushes - is it possible to make completely nonsolid brush without using shaders? A map The Sewers of Fate by Rust 7 include secret hidden behind nonsolid brush. I think it was done by making that brush nonsolid somewhat in the editor, not shader as I do not remember the map includes ever some custom assets...

CZghost wrote: Anyway, speaking about nonsolid brushes - is it possible to make completely nonsolid brush without using shaders? A map The Sewers of Fate by Rust 7 include secret hidden behind nonsolid brush. I think it was done by making that brush nonsolid somewhat in the editor, not shader as I do not remember the map includes ever some custom assets...

Easy-Peasy, im a specialist in producing Bugs!
Just make the Brush you want to walk trough and texture it with common/nowdrawnonsolid. Then texture the face of the brush you want your "nonsolid" texture to be applied with any texture you want.
Now you can walk throu... Texture is only visible from textured side -like a patch mesh!

AndyW wrote:Easy-Peasy, im a specialist in producing Bugs!
Just make the Brush you want to walk trough and texture it with common/nowdrawnonsolid. Then texture the face of the brush you want your "nonsolid" texture to be applied with any texture you want.
Now you can walk throu... Texture is only visible from textured side -like a patch mesh!

Okay, I will test it. I will also test what happens if you compile map with duplicate brush at the same place with the same orientation and same texture mapping. I doubt this will produce nonsolid brush. In The Sewers of Fate the nonsolid brush blocks vis, which cannot be done with common/nodraw or common/nodrawnonsolid texture applied to invisible faces, it has to be caulked single brush will be solid blocking movement.

So I made some screenshots on how the SOF secret appears in-game and how it works.
Note: Since it is secret, I had to place it in spoiler. For everyone else: If you want to find it completely yourself, do not click on Show spoiler.
[spoiler]





[/spoiler]
Please note that the nonsolid brush blocks vis (this is why I shoot with tris wireframe visible). It could be considered a bug, but it actualy hides secret and I must say it's really well hidden. I found it accidentaly when played the map...

Its not a Bug, its a feature!

AndyW wrote: Re-Texturing is finished so far. I have to put some more lights and Models in and switch some textures.

Andy, I think you should consider putting some more time into texturing this. Your base is solid and you have rich brushwork and geometry to work off from.

Here is a few things you could consider as next steps:
- consistency of texture density and resolution: This is often neglected but I think it makes a huge difference for a level's overall look and feel. What I mean is your mix of sock's high quality and high resolution textures and the quake 3 stock textures. The q3 textures are good but they really shout 1999. Now this is not a bad thing but you should settle for something.
This mix of dense downscaled high res textures and old q3 textures make the map look very unfinished although the diversity of textures is rather high and complete.

- the practical context of materials: What is wood, what is brick, what is concrete and what is favoring the use of one material over the other? In middle age, buildings were often made from natural stone because people did not have the knowledge to use cheaper and faster materials. Nowadays, natural stone in a building is quite a luxury because using it is time expensive and the amount of people that know how to work with it has decreased compared to the old days.
If you use natural stone, like the q3 gothic brick - what is the statement you want to make? Why do you use concrete and metal in other areas? Maybe some parts of the map are fictionally older than others? Is there a clear separation of those areas that enable the player to understand your visual idea? This topic is pretty advanced and it does in some cases make more sense to consider it and in some cases it makes less sense. In any case, it's a good way to think about texture choice because even if you ignore the matter, you will have considered multiple aspects and you will have gotten a good idea about what you really want to do.

- how do materials work? If you got a lot of curved geometry, you won't rely too much on tiled floors because rectangular elements and curves (in theory) mean lots of cutting and extra work which defeats the purpose of a modular floor material. Now this is nit picking but it's only one of the things that add up to what makes a map feel unpolished. Simular things go for stair steps, brick, metal plates. Every material has a purpose that makes its use favorable.
Concrete can't easily be produced in infinite lengths or shapes. Remember there is wooden formwork and that concrete is poured which causes joints between pieces. You can choose wether to care or not to care about this. Personally, I see it as a chance to enrich your map with information the player can consciously or unconsciously pick up.

- lighting: is not just an accessory. Places of importance and high frequency of usage should be highlighted by the lighting. This doesn't mean you should place lights above major items but leave the rest of the map dark. Try to create a lighting hierarchy.
When a player enters an area, he subliminally interprets the lighting for his virtual floor plan. What is the key point of this area? Where are the exits? Where is HP? All this can be carried by the lighting and if your map is consistent with lights it will support the learning effect players have.

@ Cityy:
Would be nice to ICQ with you.. My rotten rusty english is very very bad... 687787559
Hat schon nen grund warum ich hiterherhänge.. mein schlechtes englisch! .(

But THX as always... Will start to Google-Translate it

ICQ I have an account but didn't sign in for a million years.
E-Mail is better for me. I'll send you a translated version later.

THX cheffe! Youre the man!

AndyW wrote: After staring at Pat´s Screenshots i decided to put some extra time in texturing!

Yeah i know what you mean. And as it figures out it seems not to be a big problem caused by all the trims i cut out. I can cange it the "MODULAR" Way Also retexturing made me get rid of usless brushes id never noticed And i know that some areas are very dark and "under-brushed"

Feedback/ Ideas welcome.

hey andy,

are you talking to yourself? i am confused.

sorry i don't have too much time to test your map. i just did a quick runaround and it looks like it is coming along well, though i do agree with cityy's sentiments on using a single texture set.

i have a quick note for you on scale since i saw a few massively over-sized crates in there. quake 3 scaling is really weird because of the FOV settings and the player's massive jump height, but i have come up with a simple system that rarely steers me wrong.

when you are looking at a reference image, think of what you are seeing in terms of the following dimensions:

foot height: 8-16 units
knee height: 32 units
hip height: 40-48 units
chest height: 64 units
head height: 96 units

note: technically the player is only about 64 units tall, but this guide is not actually based on player height, it's based on how i feel these heights actually look from the player's point of view.

if you look at my recent screenshots you can see some examples. the concrete trim at the base of the brick walls is knee height: 32 units. the crates are hip-height: 40x40 units. (you could also go with 48, but 40 is the max height that is easy to double-jump on.) the metal door on the right side of shot 2 and the shelf in shot 3 are both head height at 96 units. the barrels (not shown) are somewhere between hip and chest height at 52 units.

IIRC player is 56"s high and clearance of 32"

THX again guys!
And no i was not speaking to myself It just looked like

I think this should work.

[lvlshot]http://i.imgur.com/Hhe0xiZ.jpg[/lvlshot]

[lvlshot]http://i.imgur.com/tRQAiLM.jpg[/lvlshot]

[lvlshot]http://i.imgur.com/ZvPvPf4.jpg[/lvlshot]

Sorry for not sending the translation yet, Andy. I'm having some busy days. You will probably be faster using a translator or something.

No prob! I think i got what you meant!

Looks like it from the screenshots! I would exchange the wood ceilling for something metal'ish but you are defenitely getting there.. Are you aware that you can make doors from multiple brushes? As seen here on the right: http://quakelive.ru/uploads/gallery/alb ... _36690.jpg

UFF OMG...
I never saw such Door constructions, very cool!
Yes the ceiling yes the ceiling.. wood was just a test. For me ceiling is the hardest stuff to get a nice look on.
THX

EDIT: Maybe im thinking wrong, but is it just about "group" each part (r-part l-part) of the door to get this to work?

AndyW wrote:Maybe im thinking wrong, but is it just about "group" each part (r-part l-part) of the door to get this to work?

Yes but instead of "func_group" you have to use "func_door" to group the brushes as one door entity. One for the left & one for the right side...

Nice!
THX for that info

OMG seems like i really have a big scaling problem.
The last 3 screenshots looked good so far (to me) but when i switched to thirdperson with distance 250 it was like a shok!

Huh? Why would switching to third person make any difference?

cause you can see the player model scale compared to the geometry...

I guess, but I still don't see how you can walk around somewhere in first person and then be shocked by the scale when you see it in third person. Difference shouldn't be that big. :P

I think i will stop working on this one.. its just a waste of time!
I have to do some basic homework...
DOH!