four 

that's not ...

why do i even try with you people 

I often would put clip brushes over 16 unit stairs to turn them into ramps so as to stop the bobbin'. They still looked like stairs but the player would glide up them. 

We did that all through Unreal Tournament as well ... players would rather slide up staircases. It's less jarring to the camera. 

I think in Quake, the player will slide down when standing on those fake ramps, no? 

He will. But who stands still in Quake? :P 

This is why I don't clip stairs in Quake. I do clip stairs in other engines though. 

Quake also has ramp jumps, which shouldn't happen on stairs.

I think the small bit of camera bob, done with some smoothness so it's not too obscene, helps with immersion. People are used to stairs in real life, and stepping up a step is accompanied by your head being lifted up at that moment as well, not a smooth gradient upwards that a character's bounding box would do as it slides up a ramp. 

if this view-tilting is not smooth enough, it's obscene? strong word choice I would have gone with "annoying." 

Standing still happens in Quake. Fighting often happens on or around stairs, and since they physically behave differently players will expect their movement to be one thing or another, cued by the geometry that they see. Sometimes the best safe place to peg an ogre or taunt a fiend might be standing on some stairs, and sliding out of position in that case when you don't expect to would be annoying.

Also, everyone avoids ever jumping around on stairs because stepfinding doesn't happen while you aren't FL_ONGROUND so stairs become momentum-killing walls, so ramp-clipped stairs is a confusing signal that way, too.

easy solution: actual ramps!


Quake3 had nicely fixed camera movement and physics going both up and down stairs (so you don't run off the top of the top stair and go DOOF DOOF DOOF all the way down), but messing with Quake player physics in .qc or the engine is probably unreasonable. 

although now that I've said that the engine guys who read this forum will see it and by the weekend we'll have three new network protocols and "sv_useoldstairphysics 0" 

for screenshots 

 

 

... We would be completely bored.

Make some.

For example, you can do something for the jam2. In the 48 hours that remain till the deadline, you can finish something as big as the shortest ones in jam1. 

Here's something I'm working on. in editor because I'm new to this and have yet to compile a map/didn't research how yet!!!

http://i.imgur.com/7DgjCqy.png
http://i.imgur.com/3dz61m2.png
http://i.imgur.com/YmDaDx7.png

also texturing comes later! I hope you fill in the details with your brain so it's not so ugly. 

Have you mapped before? That looks pretty decent!

I suggest learning how to compile sooner rather than later, just in case you have some gotchas. It can be easy to make bad brushes or something that the compiler won't like, and it's nice to know that as you build!

Here's where I link my getting started mapping tutorial and point you at 'Tools of the Trade' and 'Time to Compile' sections! 

I played a lot in Hammer before, and DromED (which was a failure), and dark radiant but never released anything. I've finished a number of maps that were mostly quick throw-togethers.

http://i.imgur.com/dYGKPU2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9FXDhni.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/drFbf7E.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CUkwRJA.jpg

This is some of my older stuff I made in Hammer, never really had much of a game play plan for it, but it was intended to be ported to the dark mod. I like to think I'm very good at storytelling, and think of a lot of ways to tell stories through level design and lots of creepy stories to tell. That's what I'm doing with my map up there, but I'd never sacrifice game play for story...I want to be great at both.

I'll have to look at that later on, and thanks for the advice! I'm trying to go on the general rule if it doesn't crash trenchbroom it won't make a compiler kill itself. 

I should know it, I still have a Thief map in the backburner that's on hold due to stupid compilation errors. NewDark made things easier but the interface is still a pain and the compilers are dogshit.

Your stuff looks pretty cool map, keep it up! 

Nice shots, reblinds! This one is particularly intriguing. I'm ready to play when it's done.

Make some.

I am :) Just not screenshot material yet. I posted a couple dozen shots these last 30 days. I wanna see what other people are doing! 

by "this one" i meant http://i.imgur.com/3dz61m2.png 

Good brushwork there. Looks good, I can see that the inspiration comes from sources outside Quake.

When you finish reading the wiki continue with this and this, this and this are for later. 

Man you guys are really supportive. I should have posted years ago when Quake mapping interested me. My main inspirations are Thief and Quake. I just hope I can make an effective non-linear level where the secrets are more focused on alternate routes and giving the player combat advantages through that. That's one of my goals. I'm gonna have quite a bit of reading to do, but thank you for everything, this is all really exciting for me! I'll try to get back to you guys with some more finished content later on. 

This community must have changed in recent years. He called us supportive! 

Continuing on the supportive note, you should check out sock's maps, esp. zendar. It's a prime example of exactly what you're trying to do. He also wrote a along article on his web where he explains many of his choices.