Quake3World

xfdm4_beta2, a CPMA 1v1 map, is now available.

From this particular forum i'm hoping for feedback on the looks. I think it doesn't look the best now, and i've never been known for my pretty maps (lol xftourney1a), so give me some tips / feedback.

Changes from beta1

Redesigned rail room (top and bottom)
Added a bunch of lighting (dear god not final)
Moved LG, 50hp, PG
Added a GA and 2nd YA
Opened up mega window

Screenshots

http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 062ey3.jpg
http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 063qw9.jpg

Download (filefront)

http://files.filefront.com/map_xfdm4_be ... einfo.html

It may not be the prettiest map but it's far from ugly! A few things that stuck out to me:

Adding a buffer area with a plain texture on the edges of the stairs will help here and a couple of other places I think. Stair edges (or any edges) that cut straight into textures with definite features usually look bad.


Where stairs are made by cloning from a single tread you tend to end up with these striping effects, as bright bits in the texture are all lined up from step to step. Randomly selecting groups of step faces and nudging the texture horizontally until there are no apparent repeats can sort this out.


Where you have thin trims along the edges of floors, it usually looks better to slightly angle or mitre the joins between those brushes, giving a more consistent thickness to the trim.


For textures which have long repeating elements, like the hazard stripes, try to have them align and point in the same direction all the way around. (See bottom corner of second stair pic for a misalignment)

I was expecting the jump pad to be a lift from how it looks - perhaps a fan under a grate would fit the run-down industrial theme. Similarly the teleporter could do with looking more teleporty.

The stairs at the slime pool come to an abrupt end, they are much wider than the bridge they connect to which looks very odd. Perhaps the bridge edges could be broken up, suggesting it was originally the same width as the stairs.

Pipes are the new crates. Perhaps a few pipes set into the walls here and there (even just straight ones) could break up the flatness a bit. You also have some nice angled insets in walls here and there, it would be good to see more of this, perhaps on the sides of the blocks above the main play area.

You could always collab with someone willing to do the graphical side of the design. Maps usually turn out better all round from having gameplay and design focused people work on the map together.

I have to reinstall and patch Q3A before I can look at it, but in the picture of your stairs that Shallow posted, I noticed that where the angled wall meets the wall with the stairs, the "caution" texture flips its axis, so the two walls don't tile together smoothly.

It is a little thing, but there are two easy things you can do to make it easier to match the texturing on your angled walls to the texturing on your axial walls.

• Flip the texture alignment (if needed).
• Change the texture scale on 45-degree angled faces to .35

In your case, flipping the texture will make the stripes run in the same direction on both walls, and changing the scale will make the stripes the same width, making it much easier to align the textures across the two walls.

I guess you have to use the texture properties window to set these values. It's been a long time since I had to do this by hand - the editor I use has buttons to flip texture alignment. You add a minus sign to one of the values and it flips the texture. Sorry I can't tell you exactly which one, but give it a try and you'll figure it out right away.

ok, it's the texture stretch or scale value that you use to flip the texture alignment by adding or removing a minus sign. Sorry to waste everyones time with multiple posts of commonly known info, but that is how I roll.

Thanks for the input guys, i'll be sure to implement most of it.

You could always collab with someone willing to do the graphical side of the design. Maps usually turn out better all round from having gameplay and design focused people work on the map together.

Hey thanks!

Keep the good feedback coming

Just a couple of quick post-walkthrough comments with further feedback later. You're missing two textures:

cpm24/floor1.tga
cpm27/floor7.tga

Also, I prefer textures that look like the things they are. I thought it was a plat; it turned out to be a JP. I was paying no particular attention to a wall feature; it turned out to be a TP.

Whoops textures

And yes, the jpad and tele texture are fillers atm.