Author Topic: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1  (Read 7918 times)

Savage

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new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« on: May 23, 2005, 02:37:44 PM »
Hello,

this is my first map for dp (and my first map for the Q2 engine).

I have no experience with item placement - you may find it highly flawed. The layout of this map is very simple - I started mapping this thing yesterday.

Feedback appreciated.

http://savage747.sa.funpic.de/warehouse.html

(ZIP includes .bsp and .map - I intend to release it GPL'ed once finished)

Savage

P.S.

I know the name of this map sucks ;)

IronFist

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« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2005, 06:15:12 PM »
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« Last Edit: July 25, 2010, 11:33:35 PM by IronFist »

Dirty_Taco

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« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2005, 10:20:01 PM »
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« Last Edit: July 26, 2010, 01:18:00 AM by Dirty_Taco »

Savage

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2005, 02:04:02 AM »
Thanks for your encouraging comments.

The name "Warehouse" is badly chosen - it indeed is more a generig storage theme. I would love to include more details like some machinery but I have not seen anything fitting in the available textures (and I try not to ship with additional textures because it's hard to find GPLed ones).

Plus I have trouble keeping the polycount low. q2map really creates loads of small polygons (which may have something to do with my 0.5 default texture scale - q3bsp handles this much, much better). Nonetheless I managed to keep it below 1000 wpolys (usually 400-800). Judging from midnight2 I thought this would be okay.

The map is fairly small and the basic layout is definitely nothing you haven't seen yet. My primary focus is to learn the basics (and I felt a more sophisticated layout may be hard to get right with the first try). This map hasn't seen *any* gameplay (I somehow fail to spawn bots for basic testing due to insufficient op status - on a server I locally started) so any feedback on what "works" in this map and what not would be cool.

Savage

Eiii

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #4 on: May 24, 2005, 07:05:28 AM »
Bots do not help with figuring out gameplay. They just run around and PGP you from afar.

Savage

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2005, 09:48:13 AM »
true, but with bots I could at least have tested if capturing the flags works properly :)

iron@school

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #6 on: May 24, 2005, 10:42:35 AM »
If the executing BAT file for starting your map doesn't already have "debug1 1" set, go ahead and do it! It starts up the round like both sides have players...you can then go from team-to-team to make sure flag capping, etc is all good.

Dirty_Taco

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« Reply #7 on: May 24, 2005, 11:19:37 AM »
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« Last Edit: July 26, 2010, 01:17:57 AM by Dirty_Taco »

Savage

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #8 on: May 24, 2005, 11:27:26 AM »
I am using GTKRadiant 1.4 running under Linux. Thanks for the debug1 tip - very useful :)

jitspoe

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2005, 11:44:19 AM »
Looking great so far.  Yes, Q2 maps are terrible about chopping up polygons.  Unfortunately that's what we're stuck with until a) I finally get my ideas for a new map format implemented (which could well be 1-2yrs worth of work), b) id releases the quake3 tools under the GPL, or c) somebody creates a q3map compiler from scratch and releases it under the GPL.

I think there are some tools released that reduce the polygon chopping, though.  Another side effect of scaling textures is that it scales the lightmap as well.  I'd avoid extreme values like you have with the dirt/graveldirt/gravel piles.  To see why, load the map up with deathmatch 0, then type gl_showtris 1.  This will let you see how bad the polygons are chopped up.  Perhaps a different texture at a normal scale would be more suitable.  Keep in mind that we are (slowly) working on a highres texture pack with 4x the resolution, so things will look much nicer in the future.

Also, near those dirt piles, if you jump up, you can see there's nothing there -- it looks rather weird.  I'd put a ledge or something to at least give the illusion that the building is solid.

I wouldn't mess with any machinery or stuff like that.  Building that stuff out of brushes always looks cheesy in my opinion and eats up wpolys like no tomorrow.

Your bases need more light -- the outer edges are either too dark to see at all, or if you crank the gamma up, you get weird colored splotches.  The rest of the map is lit fairly well, but I would consider using arghrad's sun feature outside in order to make it a little less bland.  Documentation is at http://www.planetquake.com/arghrad/ .  This will also fix the weird shadows along the top of the buildings.

The sides of the barrels are scaled down a little too much - the top rung should line up with the top of the barrel.  Also, a couple blue barrels have the wrong texture on the top (near the piles).  I like how you've made them a more realistic scale, though, rather than the 7 foot tall barrels most of us make. :)  Also, very slight misalignment on the top of the boxes by the blue base.

Some of the barrels/boxes are spaced far enough from the wall that it looks like there's enough room to squeeze through, but there isn't quite enough.  I'd either move them closer, so they make for a defensive spot to shoot through, or move them further away so you can fit through.  It's frustrating when you're in a critical situation and try to run through something but can't fit.

Another thing you might consider adding is support for multiple game modes - I think this map might work with a single flag in the middle warehouse as well.

To test your map, you can either do debug1 1, or sv addbot.  set skill -1 makes the bots not shoot.  If you want to test jails, you'll also need to set debug3 1 and debug4 1 and type kill.

Savage

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2005, 02:42:28 PM »
Thanks for your advise.

I uploaded beta 2 at http://savage747.sa.funpic.de/warehouse.html

Not final, but I already fixed a couple of things.

Savage

Edit: aaahh... spotted a blue barrel with a misaligned texture. Good this is not final ;)

Savage

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #11 on: May 25, 2005, 01:24:21 PM »
beta 2: http://savage747.sa.funpic.de/warehouse.html

This includes some usable doors. I hope this improves gameplay... but it could damage gameplay, too. Includes 1-flag CTF, too

Eiii

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #12 on: May 25, 2005, 06:33:31 PM »
You mean beta3. ;)
What did you use to RAD it? When I try to compile it, the level comes out really dark.

jitspoe

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #13 on: May 25, 2005, 06:38:44 PM »
I looked at beta2 (before you added the functional doors).  The outdoor lighting looks a lot better, but doesn't quite line up with where the sun is -- needs to be rotated about 180 degrees.

Also, I forgot to mention that a lot of the textures you're using came from Q3 Urban Terror.  WarWulf (Unibonger) asked for permission to use them in his map, but I'm not sure what kind of license they're under.  You might want to check into that and include the appropriate credits in a text file along with your map.

And I know this is how the textures were scaled, but the green doors are huge!  Hehe, you'd have to jump to grab the handle and the q2 player is supposedly 7ft tall! :)

I'll check out the new beta2 when I get back home.

Oh, and the lighting... are you using point lights or surface lights?  It looks like point lights, but I could be wrong.  If you are using point lights, I'd suggest switching over to surface lights as they tend to look a little more natural.

jitspoe

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #14 on: May 25, 2005, 11:18:54 PM »
Ok, I looked at beta3 and made a few minor tweaks (hope you don't mind).
- Removed all the light entities and upped the brightness on the surface lights -- looks a lot more natural this way.
- Adjusted the sun to line up with the sun in the sky -- also removed the color in it so it would provide more contrast to the indoor, yellowish light.
- Set appropriate gamemode values on the flags so they'd spawn in the right game mode and only there.
- Added some ledges to fix the "void" area (see sshot).
- Some minor texture tweaks here 'n there.
- Made the doors open out instead of in -- when they opened in, I was getting stuck/squished. Also made them shut faster, so they don't sit there open for a round and a half -- paintball2 is fast-paced! :)

As for the functional doors...  I have mixed feelings.  On the green double doors, there was a noticeable r_speeds increase, as now the whole center warehouse is "open" and "visible" now.  That means no matter what path people take, the server will have to send updates to other clients, because even when the door is closed, they're potentially visible.  That is, unless, you can get a func_areaportal to work there.  I tried it and didn't have much luck.  http://www.gamedesign.net/node/243 if you're interested in trying it out.  Basically it cuts off that area when the doors are closed, and opens it when they're open.

The garage doors... if they're closed that means you just have one tiny door into the base.  What might be cool is to take the other set of garage doors on each side -- the ones that go nowhere -- and make them able to be toggled with a path into the side of the base.  Problem with that is, they're a straight shot from one side to the other without any vis blockers, so if you added a whole room of detail on each side, your r_speeds could jump up to 2k.  Perhaps you could just leave everything static for this map and make a bigger and better one with more planned out functioning doors.  Whatever you decide to do, I'd use something different for the switches.  Small jail doors just look kind of silly. :)

Anyway, the tweaks I've made are attached.

Savage

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #15 on: May 26, 2005, 05:58:32 AM »
Thanks for your efforts. The lighting indeed looks much better now.

I think I will make all the doors static. The garage doors have high annoyance potential and the middle doors increase r_speeds without giving any serious tactical enhancement (I for sure wouldn't want to run into a more or less open field without knowing exactly where other players are). Plus you can always go back a few meters (through a more or less secured area) and end up on the other side of the (closed) door.

New (final?) beta coming soon.

Savage

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #16 on: May 26, 2005, 10:46:40 AM »
Based on jitspoe's tweaked version here comes beta 4:

http://savage747.sa.funpic.de/warehouse.html (with screenshots).

This one uses very expensive rad lighting (-extra and -chopsky 16)... so it takes 40 minutes to compile it.


Savage

Eiii

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #17 on: May 27, 2005, 07:38:32 AM »
That doesn't explain much. When I compile it, it's very dark on one side. Ambient lighting?

jitspoe

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #18 on: May 27, 2005, 11:26:37 AM »
I compiled it with the compilers I have included in the BSP package and the lighting was fine -- dunno what's wrong for you, unless you're compiling beta1, which was a bit dark in places.

Oh, and somewhere around 4:00pm EST while I'm on my break, I'll try to get this up on the freshly donated digitalpiantball.net server for testing.

jitspoe

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Re: new map: "Warehouse" beta 1
« Reply #19 on: May 31, 2005, 10:12:44 AM »
A couple more small things.  One is that your map doesn't have a title.  You can set this by putting "message" "Warehouse\n\nBy Savage" or something like that in the worldspawn.  The second is that the textures on the steps in the red base look like they were locked, so every step has the same texture coordinates.  Not a show stopper, but it looks funky.

The map is in rotation on the digitalpaintball.net server if anybody wants to try it out.