Quake3World

Cast Iron (obq3castiron Alpha 2) by Obsidian

Quake III Arena
DM/TDM, 2-4 players

[lvlshot]http://www.robotrenegade.com/maps/obq3castiron/screenshots/alpha01_20070821.jpg[/lvlshot]

I tossed this alpha layout together in about a day and a half as a way of flexing my creative muscles again after a year and a half hiatus from level design before I re-tackle some of my more ambitious projects that I still have swimming around in my head. I have a pretty good visual idea of how this map is going to turn out with some quick ink sketches and am starting to paint a few textures.

To run, copy to baseq3 folder and type /map obq3castiron in the console.



2007-09-01 alpha 0.0.1

A few things to test:
* Scale - some of the hallways may seem a little tight with lots of 90° turns. Let me know what you think.
* Game play - I tried to maximize verticality and some fun trick jumps that really shortens distances to some objects. I'm concerned about jump monkeys reaching too many high value items too quickly and dominating.
* Item placement - I kind of tossed them in quickly so let me know if I should move stuff around.
* Bot support.
* CPMA testing - I currently don't have this installed, so give it a run and give me some suggestions.

Known issues:
* Skybox skyline is a bit low given the hight of the top floor, but that's intentional. I wanted a lot of sunlight and I'm going to be adding an entire backdrop up there sometime with a few other visual surprises I still have up my sleeve (I'll be making use of 3ds MAX).
* Textures - there are none, but I'm working on it.
* No arena file and levelshot... I'm lazy.
* No ambient sounds.



2007-09-03 alpha 0.0.2

Fixed a few things:
* A phantom vis leak that was causing the whole map to draw.
* Fixed bots getting stuck on stairs in main atrium.
* Fixed triggers in pit o' death (actually deadly now).
* Bots will now get health under stairs near GL.
* Playerclipped pipes at megahealth.
* Bots actually go for the megahealth.
* Added LG at top floor (bots now visit the top as well).
* Added additional spawnpoints to a total of 8.
* Added .arena and levelshot.
* Added random bits of extra items and ammo.
* Increased width of some of the longer hallways.
* Switched YA and RG locations. I'm hoping the dead end for the YA now adds a bit more risk involved if trying to pick up both YA's. Other suggestions requested.
* I'm impressed at how often the bots will try to rocket jump to different areas of the map.

To do:
* Portal optimization.
* There is *supposed* to be a grate texture along the top floor beams, but since I haven't gotten around to doing textures, it's just playerclipped.
* Visual cues along jumppads to tell upper level orientation.


Download obq3castiron alpha 2


Oh, I'm also a little out of the loop. Any other forums or communities that I should post this for more feedback?

layout:

• i like the connectivity, and the central arena has just enough obstacles in it to provide added fun during duels
  
  the corridors around back are a bit square. perhaps add 45deg turns?
  
  weapons layout seems ok though a little more ammo/health would be nice, also consider adding the LG
  
  not sure about the dead-end RG room. teleporter out, maybe to the top area where the beams are (and balance it out by not providing any additional RG ammo)?

bots:

• they have problems with those stairs in the main arena - they get into a weird loop. i got a shedload of rocket frags that way
  
  they never go up to the beams. a teleporter up there from the RG room would fix that

misc:

• clip the pipes leading up to the MH!
  
  perhaps light parts of the side passages with ambient light using overhead windows to the sky, with lower light on the connections between there and the main arena. it would also help the side areas seem more 'connected' to the rest of the map

lighting:

• i know it's not final, but the overall light level in the centre is good. resist the temptation to make it gloomy (to fit the industrial theme)

sorry the layout isn't the same as yours but this is roughly what i mean about the lighting:



i'd suggest putting the weapons in the centre of each mini atrium

Some impressions (CPMA):

* Some of the corridors feel a bit tight (especially when compared to their length and with the 90° corners in there).

* One can reach MH by simple jumping against the pipes from the upper part of the stairs - most likely intended but feels strange.

* Using the crates and pipes to get to MH works but it feels random because there's so many small height differences. I felt that all I could do to get there was to press jump quickly and hope it would work...

* Using the upper route feels rather pointless 'cause it has little to offer - SG and GL didn't convince me. Suggestion: one YA should go up there (yes, to that thing right *above* the bridge).

* CPM physics make some parts of the map useless. The image below illustrates what I'm talking about.


You can grab JA and RG *very* fast from the central room (green and pink lines) and you can get from the bridge to the top level with a good ramp jump (red line).

nice, i like the compact size of the overall map. i'll echo what the other guys said about some of the corridors feeling a little tight and weapon placement being a bit off.

the only things i can add:
* the spawn points are a bit on the predictable side. if i killed (or got killed!) by a bot, the quite often i would know where he was going to spawn.
* the overhead beams/bridges are a bit inconsistent, on the parts that lead to paths, you can't fall down between them, but where they are not leading to a path, you can.
* what's with the foggy well? was i missing something in there? i didn't even find any empty beer cans at the bottom while i was hanging about waiting for bones to finish me off (which he didn't btw... i went out in a blaze of self-induced plasma)

Thanks for the feedback so far, lots of new changes (see first post).

those sound like good changes. i still think the mini-atria idea is sound, though they'd have to achieve a balance between unifying the map visually and not detracting from the main atrium

If you referring to creating skylights and other natural lighting in the small atriums then I completely agree, and will probably be adding them once I get closer to beta. It's mostly just white point lights I have dropped in as filler.

If it's something else you are referring to, please explain again, since I may have missed the point.

Thanks.

You need to open up the corridors a lot and don't have players interacting with such complex pipe geometry - try squaring it off as support beams or something and having pipes built into the structures and walls so they can achieve their visual effect but be clipped away from the action.

I like it. Nice quick playing map.

Areas work well for nice little duels. Main area works really well as a hub.
JPs teneded to hit me against the celing and if I didn't use air control I would fall back down the JP shaft.
I also felt it a bit to easy to just jump as I was headed down the stairs to get the MH. The YA room seems like it should be more centered compaired to it's opening. That or maybe offset it completely to one side or the other. That is unless you have plans for the small lip on the left side as you enter the room.
I like the industrial shapes and the sky/sun light set at the angle it is. It should look great once you get it all nicely textured.
The LG being set to the side of the path on those top rails seems to just feel wrong. Perhaps set the LG more in the center of the path.
If it were me(and of course it is not..lol) I would turn that big hanging canister into a large hanging smelting pot with half the lid open and suspend the MH down inside it and place a trigger_teleport in the bottom. So a player could drop into the pot get the MH on the way down and tele out just before they hit bottom to somewhere in the map that will likely put them into some heavy battle.
I would also consider swiching the positions of the LG and RG.

All in all a nice map though. Hope to see the finished product soon.

Nice tourney map. I like that it has a theme that hasn't been done yet...something new=) The double-jump spots for promode are a nice add-ons(add's some spice movement-wise), but it's definitely a vq3 map. It took me a lil bit of playin to get used to the really tight spots.
It will be nice to see it all textured up....kind of looks like a geo-map right now =o

@Magnus:
* JP's are on the todo list.
* MH to stairs distance has been increased a bit, so you shouldn't be able to just jump, though rocket jump is still possible.
* YA: yeah, that was on my todo list already. That room will be resized a bit with some other visual details tossed in to make the YA more fitting.
* LG: That's embarrassing. There is supposed to be a grate texture along that top beam but don't have the texture/shader for it yet so it's just filled with playerclip. So the LG kept falling down through the playerclip, that's why it's off to the side for now. Looks weird, I know.
* Visually, that "canister" will be "hot" but won't actually affect gameplay. It's really there as a shortcut between the bridge and the railgun platform.
* RG/LG: It's not exactly easy sniping from up top, but I want to limit camping up there. LG has limited range so that keeps people moving. I'll experiment though.

@V1|3: Yeah, it was built for vQ3 in mind (don't even have promode installed, ATM) but I didn't want to single it out from the promode players so I mentally tossed in some CPMA elements to it. I didn't want to leave out the vQ3 players either with CPMA exclusive reachabilities so it's a bit of an odd hybrid.

I also find the hallways a little tight still despite changes. Some of those twists are there for hint/visibility reasons. I have a few ideas to tweak them that should also fix some hinting issues I've been having. Two birds. One stone. Phear.

Working on textures at the moment which is a time consuming process, but you'll definitely see a beta sometime in the future (done when done). Keep leaving feedback if you have any. Thanks.

I didn't want to leave out the vQ3 players either with CPMA exclusive reachabilities so it's a bit of an odd hybrid.

A good rule of thumb is that everything should be reachable with +forward and jump only, regardless of the gameplay. Tricks can provide shortcuts.

Tried downloading but the link didn't work. Guess it could be my connection, I'll try it again later!

Download worked now, tried it out a bit. I really like the central area and the details like the wires and the oil tank. It already looks good without any texturing.

It feels a bit cramped to me. If I meet an enemy it's like the one who shoots first wins, there's not much room to run around and fight in. This alpha is better than the previous though, and it'll probably will get better and better I reckon. Looking forward to the next.