Columnar Basalt really does look like a map generation bug ;)

It's fucking awesome though 

Link: http://www.moddb.com/mods/strogg-empire

Version 2016/10/11:

* Added support Variable FPS on clients/servers based on Q2Pro (crussial for Plasma Beam and Chaingun)
* Plasma Beam ported from Ground Zero (Rogue) with the following characteristics (to see the weapon model itself, please, copy pak0.pak from "rogue" folder into the "empire" folder with name pak8.pak):
- Rate Of Fire: 2400 (per minute)
- Damage: 4 per shot
- Ammo Consumption: 0.5 cell per shot
- Range: 768 units
- Behavior at Q2 10FPS ordinary server/client: 16 damage per shot, 2 cells per shot consumed
* Health behavior:
- Initial HP is 125
- Health reduced by 1 every 1.0s, provided that current HP value is greater then 100
- Reduction rate is delayed by 1.5s after Stimpack (item_health_small) was picked up
- Reduction rate is delayed by 5.0s after Mega Health (item_health_mega) was picked up
- Absolute HP maximum is 200, none of health items can be picked up at this value
* Armor behavior:
- Armor reduced by 1 every 1.5s, provided that armor value is greater then maximum value of current armor type (situation with Armor Shard)
- Reduction rate is delayed by 1.5s after Armor Shard (item_armor_shard) was picked up
- Absolute armor maximum is 150% of maximum value of current armor type, Armor Shard can not be picked up after this value
* CG (Chaingun) changes:
- Damage value per bullet is 7 now (was 6)
- Spread is reduced by 10%
* MG (Machinegun) changes:
- Damage value per bullet is 6 now (was 7)
- Spread is reduced by 60%
* Added auto-jump ability
* For testing purpose (like DM in Warsow, FFA is totally another thing there), all players are spawned with all weapons (except BFG10K) and ammo

Current build is coming with Q2Pro built with Variable FPS and Anti Cheat (Server-Side) support. Both, x86 and x86_64, builds for Windows are provided. To launch game, please, use ".CMD" launchers instead of ".EXE" directly. To install this version, please, delete your previous "empire" folder.

Version 2016/10/11:

* New hit sounds based on damage amount or kill
* Announcer messages

Version 2016/10/07:

* 125 points of initial health
* Lowering the level of health points to 100 if the current level is greater than the maximum, not only when a player has a Mega Health
* Quick weapon switching
* Hit sounds for better feedback to an attacker 

https://i.imgur.com/jFfhpde.jpg 

Cradle to Grave screenshot

I'm not sure. 

Pretty sure. 

Are the graininess and sieve effect caused by your 8-bit conversion? The grain could be cool, like a filter of sorts, but the sieve looks weird IMHO. 

@mankrip: Does the dithering animate, like film grain? I imagine that would look nice. 

hey boys doing my yearly 1on1/2on2 map creation. Here's what I have so far:

http://i.imgur.com/kNhUBo6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mJcdK81.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/SQ3tAJu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0POm7Fq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NUuxIWK.jpg

quakeworld.nu forum thread for download:
http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/topic/7023/105506/pipe-up-1on12on2-dm-map

Any critiques or suggestions are welcome! 

mfx: Thanks, I feel a bit unsure about the quality of the alphamasking.

Mugwump: The graininess is caused by multiple stages of dithering from several different parts of the renderer.
The sieve effect is due to the palette. The closer to the palette a 32-bit image is, the more balanced the colors gets (example).

#14014: I've tried this once, and it didn't look good. At first it worked well, when I was using only one 2x2 kernel for the texture and another 2x2 kernel for the lighting, but once things got more complex it got too distracting. 

@mankrip: I might be wrong, but that sounds like it might be due to the noise distribution. You perhaps could try "blue noise" as described in the two articles below. Though I have no idea how well that would map to software Quake's case, looks great either way :)

http://gpuopen.com/vdr-follow-up-fine-art-of-film-grain/
http://gpuopen.com/vdr-follow-up-grain-and-fine-details/ 

The noise in those articles is for modifying channel intensity; this requires a RGB framebuffer, but Retroquad's renderer operates in 8-bit indexed color all the way (all RGB color operations are precomputed upon loading).

Even if I were to try implementing that as a brightness modifier only, all the different dithering kernels in Retroquad must stay aligned in a very specific way for all the different blending and smoothing operations to work properly; some of the kernels took me weeks to figure out their best layout. And shifting the layouts of all kernels together gives abrupt results, which doesn't look good when animated. 

The most effective way to achieve an animated grain look would be to blend an animated texture over the framebuffer; this way, the kernels would still be static, and kennel alignment would be preserved.

But of course, this would slow down the rendering some more. 

 

"i should post a screenshot. first im gonna do some touch ups"

repeat ad infinitum

ill try and break the cycle in the next few hours... 

Don't be shy.

This screenshots thread is for unfinished stuff. To get feedback about unfinished stuff, there's no need to finish it. 

I conquered a massive design block the other day so my confidence has gone up quite a bit.

I think i bit off more than i can chew in regards to scale. Ive only two out of five areas done and im already 5k units in size...i thought my whole map was gonna be this big.. 

http://imgur.com/IlLznKN
http://imgur.com/WWkCW9S

itll be a bit before i get some compiled shots.

AD mod, of course. Necrokeep inspired, if ya couldnt tell...:P 

 

That looks fantastic man, nothing to be self-conscious about!

The front facade looks great, if you are looking for criticism perhaps add some background brushes past the rock wall so it doesn't just cut to skybox.

Look forward to more of your progress! 

Really good looking, interested to see how you're going to use those wide-open areas, a lots of flying monsters I assume* (If I can see correctly, there is one soulless placed already). 

Looks awesome pal, keep it going! :) 

Thanks everyone!

@bloughsburgh exactly whats in store once the main bits are nailed down. the rockwall will get some hefty vertex manipulation as well. trenchbroom has given me a lot more confidence in my brushwork with the clipping tool and vertex manipulation. all my prior experience was in hammer, and as great as it is, I always felts weighed down in some ways. I imagine it was that I was trying to map for Counter Strike and it requires too much "realism". Every room had to have a purpose and a rhyme and reason. Quake has been a breath of fresh air to map for.

A big thanks to the Sock and the AD development team for all the fun stuff to play with! Also, sleepwalkr for Trenchbroom! 

Looks well nice, apart from that rock texture. Good stuff. 

https://i.imgur.com/RpnGmsP.png 

Looking great btw, try changing the rock texture as shambler already said.
Go map!