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Tronyn's Arcanum Released (Q1SP)
Being without easy access to internet, Tronyn asked me to release his Map/Mod collaboration pack for him. I'm quite pleased to present Arcanum for your Q1SP needs.

This is a fantastic collaboration that contains 5 very large blue/metal/knave maps + start map; one map by distrans, one map by Pulsar and four maps by Tronyn! Grab it here: Arcanum (18mb)

Please note: This map pack relies on the Drake mod by PM, which features many new monsters and weapons. If you don't have it, you can grab it here: Drake (17mb)

Installation instructions from the readme:
Place all files in your DRAKE subdirectory in your Quake directory, ie c:\quake\drake290111.
Start the game (Quake engine of choice).exe -game (drake directory) +map arcstart.
You probably want to use a larger heapsize. Custom engine required: FitzQuake, Quakespasm, RMQEngine, Darkplaces, etc. You know the drill.


necros' note: If you have a slower machine, you may wish to enable the "r_flatlightstyles 1" console command (in fitzquake variants at least or otherwise try 'r_dynamic 0') to disable flickering lights as some maps have quite a lot of them and it can drastically increase framerate on some computers.

Tronyn was also kind enough to release the source files for his maps if you want to poke around in them. On top of that, there are two extra maps contained in this archive, which are unfinished but still very cool and totally worth a look-see. Grab the sources here: Arcanum Sources (8mb)

necros' note on the sources: at the moment, only Worldcraft users will be able to make use of them, as, though Tronyn did include raw .map files alongside the .rmf files, they contain extended texturing parameters that may not be parsed correctly by other map editors. It wasn't worth delaying this excellent release to try to fix it though. If some solution is found, I'll happily update the archive.

Also note that while Tronyn is gone, he won't be able to respond directly in this thread (although, i believe he mentioned he has somewhat consistent internet connectivity until monday) so he won't be able to answer questions or whatnot but he didn't want to delay this release any longer.

Enjoy! ^_^


Screenshots:

http://necros.quaddicted.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum1.jpg
http://necros.quaddicted.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum2.jpg
http://necros.quaddicted.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum3.jpg
http://necros.quaddicted.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum4.jpg
http://necros.quaddicted.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum5.jpg
http://necros.quaddicted.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum6.jpg
http://necros.quaddicted.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum7.jpg
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Hardcore Players 
Anyone tried the Hell skill level yet? 
Hell... NO! 
Just when I thought I was done with this thing!!!!

Anyways, a little more rant.

Did not mention how much I like the WAND. It's the Quake equivalent of the Painkiller: a multi purpose weapon, jump booster, potentially lethal, if you're out of ammo but you have cover. WONDERFUL.

All maps seem to run perfectly on my 2004 rig, even without vising, on all skill levels...

A few more nits: a coupla centerprints keep appearing when passing through. Most notably the message about the magicians in last room, but there are more that I don't remember right now.

Also, can anyone (Tronyn?) confirm what I said in my spoiler about an empty secret with no way out? Am I missing something?

And last. Don't get me wrong, I like this a whole lot!

On to hell. 
Empty Secret With No Exit 
I hit that too - in a well in map 3 or 4? I figured it was a bug.

Oh boy, there's a hell difficulty? I've only played skill 0 so far :0 
I Always Feel Bad After Stomping Tronyn Like That... 
jt_: Please do light them while you're at it. It doesn't take long. I just did a quick -extra4 run (with fade gate 1 to speed it up) and the shadows looked much better. Though I foolishly overwrote the original maps and couldn't compare. The jagged ones were only really noticable on the ceilings iirc.

necros: So it's all intentional now? Hmmmm.. Fair enough, though I did notice at least one ogre that was stuck but (imo) wasn't supposed to. Two items fall out in arc3 on skill 2: a box of rockets at -448 1544 38 and a box of spikes at -528 1544 38.
In arcanum5 the doors "wtfvore" and "wtfvore1" have an unmatched target "lightning".
There're also invalid fields in worldspawn (mapversion, wadversion, 0.85). And a note to anyone who intents to use the .map sources: Be sure to delete the multiple worldspawn entries in some of them!

A drop-in-the-ocean hotfix for people who are affected by novis slowdown:
Download visbjp.zip and extract bspinfo.exe and vis.exe to the same folder as the maps. Then run bspinfo -prt arcanum1 and vis -fast arcanum1; do the same with arcanum4 and arcanum5. This will not make the maps super-playable, but the polycount will be a bit lower in some areas which should make for a slight increase in fps.

Haven't checked out the other two maps, were there precompiled versions in the source zip? 
3. 
I tried to open the source in an editor to check things, and it looks as THERE ARE items in the pool(25 health, rockets, cells).

So, these fail to spawn? Or did an unfinished version of this map creep in? 
I Guess These Are Falling Out? 
Yes, there are precompiled versions in the sources pack. 
Items In The Pool 
i'm not sure which pool exactly you have in mind, but i encountered one pool with this set of items in arcanum3 (not sure, i'll check when i get home) and all the items were knee deep stuck in a bottom of this pool/well. i had to noclip to pick these up (darkplaces).
-
jakub 
..Vis Or Not Vis 
..Let's say rough: many people (I for sure) hate Vising their maps simply because is boring, time consuming and liable to errors.

so as a(relatively) new mapper I ask you: IS IT REALLY NECESSARY TO FULL-VIS EVERY MAP ?

replies needed :) 
Yes 
applies to 95 % of maps 
 
Ooooh, yeah I think I went into the final wizard room with invisibility, but I assumed that was going to be the final battle and didn't realise you were supposed to run right past them upstairs. I don't search around much - found maybe 4 secrets in the entire pack. So instead I fired a rocket into the toughest, then madly strafed around the room until they were all dead. Couldn't have done it without full lg and ra though. But shit, going upstairs would have been easier!!!

The battle I really liked was those 3 big ogre things that run fucking fast towards you. Basically double-sg only enemies. They were really cool!

The 1st map I didn't like much either. The underground looked good enough, but all the annoying zombies didn't enhance gameplay. And you need to have put the chainsaw in, not a triple-hit-gibbing-axe.

2nd map was great, but got confusing sometimes. After the bridge extended to the sk, I couldn't see how I was supposed to get back up without backtracking over a large amount. Some good fights though.

3rd level was really good, definitely my favourite. battles were tough and epic as well. The textures all looked good.

4th level was good, but it seemed like a huge room filled with lots of different levels and stairs, etc. Which weakened it. Moving into the final area was good though and improved it. The ogres and vores scattered on distant ledges were just a pain in the ass.

5th level was good. The constant noise from the pool was annoying, but apart from that a good final level. Apart from the epic wizard fight it was all pretty easy though.

Anyway great pack! Enemies were all good. The only one I didn't like so much was the super bastard hell knight that blocks all your weapons expect dsg and lg, and fires those red cunt projectiles at you. That's a quickload nightmare taking him on unless you have lots of space for 1-direction-only strafing (which seems to be his only weakness). 
Delor 
It's good practice to fullvis your stuff for the final release. Find someone with Wvis and a fast machine and ask them to do it for you.

What would be even more awesome is a distributed vis system like Vis@home... � la distcc, only for vis. 
 
What would be even more awesome is a distributed vis system like Vis@home... � la distcc, only for vis.

Now that would be an awesome idea! 
Ideas Are My Job 
 
 
ZHLT netvis does it.
Also the idea is ancient, see http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=4&start=16&end=17

I doubt it would be too reasonable to make this. We got multi-threaded VIS just recently.

MH recently posted somewhere about how a well written modern engine can even be faster with unvised data if I recall correctly. 
 
> ZHLT netvis does it.

link? 
 
Unvised is something I might test sometime; it's a tradeoff though. The theory is that you can put the entire world into a big static vertex buffer and draw it without having to send any data to the GPU. Use shaders for water and sky and there is absolutely no need to modify vertexes at run time.

The tradeoff of course is that you'll have extra overdraw, but if bandwidth savings can more than compensate for it then you're in business. 
Vis 
Always vis a map. Or DIE!!!! 
Drawing Everything In Large VBO 
it's not a problem even for large maps, at least on semi-recent hardware. Overdraw is not so much of a problem as bandwidth usually is (for 3D accelerator cards). 
Whooo! 
I'm glad I stayed to play more maps than the first one. The first map was pretty annoying in my opinion.
But the second map!!! Wow! This is a big very amazing map, Good stuff everywere, Good brushwork and texture use and a nice layout! Loved it (but not the wizards!)
I can see from the other comments that the good stuff continues!
Looking forward to play the next maps!
Thank you for making this pack folks! 
Hehe 
maybe i should have added an additional note in the OP: 'if you hate the first map, just skip to arc2!' :P 
 
it's not a problem even for large maps, at least on semi-recent hardware. Overdraw is not so much of a problem as bandwidth usually is (for 3D accelerator cards).

My thoughts exactly. Early Z and a few other things can work wonders for overdraw. It's not an alternative to fullvis, and will still run slower than fullvis (not least because you still need to exercise your vertex shader in order to get early Z), but at the least it should (could!) eliminate a lot of the badness from no vis. All purely theoretical and not to mention hardware dependent, of course. 
Not Sure 
What you mean by early Z. But anyway, I have implemented a VBO renderer that can render for example Vondurs AC without ever looking at the BSP (it loads the map file). It's pretty fast and still has a lot of potential for optimization. 
 
that's pretty wild, loading it directly from the map file.
perhaps some stress testing with these arcanum maps? :P 
Would Love To Try 
but the map files are in WC format. 
 
I guess I will play this maps for the next month... love then so much... I'm keeping first demos even when I died in 30 monters or so... anyone want then?

full reply after play then all

But must thanks you guys a lot, this is something I will never make... the quality, layout and bushwork is top is the kind of stuff few guys born for it!

I didn't :) 
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