As far as Quake maps go, what value is best suited for which environment? Most maps I see use either 2 or 4.

Looking at ericw's example on his site shows that the shadow blends a bit more the higher you go...I think?

Finally I did a side by side comparison from my own map with 2 and then 4 and I am not entirely sure I see a difference! 

im siing trenchbroom 2 for mapping, for compiling im using EricW's compiler and for the quake client im using quakespasm. 

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

The starting area is still abit ugly, and im changing it as we speak, I added another ogre in the starting area and 2 super knights in the blue key yard.

At the moment of giving you guys this first test version of the map I didnt know about clipping brushes and illusionary. Now i have added it around the diffucult terrain to make the gameplay alot smoother.

total_newbie,
I will run thru the map to see about the texture alignment. Thats the type of feedback that helps me to polish the mep! :)

skacky,
im honored! :)
i will add clipping brushes, illusionary and double check for errors.

Shamblernaut
Thanks for the feedback!!
I know the hallway is tight, and i will make it wider and bigger. At first i made it small because i was afraid of long compiling times. As you may have read about my 10 hour compiling issue with my first map. XD
now that i know about func_detail im no longer afraid of bigger areas. Soofa took me 9-10 minutes to compile.

Bloughsburgh, thank you!
I will balance out the gameplay more!

khreathor,
Once im finished with my map can I get a youtube playthru!? That would be frikin awesome! 

Where do i place the demo file and what do i write into console when i have the client open? 

Type "playdemo [demoname]" in the console. You put the demofile in id1 or in the relevant mod folder. 

-Place the demo file in your id1 directory.

-playdemo xxx 

No need to repeat what the others have said. I liked the architecture in the green armor/silver key room, also your gateways with the larger part at the top. Torches planted on top of pillars and walls look weird, it would be better to just use a flame, possibly rising from a brasero/cauldron type of brush.
Combat isn't very challenging. It would probably be fine for skill 0 or 1 but I need more difficulty. You also should add a final combat in the exit room. 8 monsters never teleported in and stayed in their boxes outside of the map.

Be mindful of your triggers for secret count: it didn't activate when I first picked up the LG, only when I walked over a specific point in this area (same with the red armor secret). Usually, these triggers cover the entire width of secret rooms or are associated with the goodie.

Speaking of secrets, where is the third one? I couldn't find it, even when noclipping through the map - which, incidentally, oddly caused me a few instadeaths 

It's only a detail but you should make your water pipes deeper, or at least texture the deep end with a black texture instead of a wall texture. And check the orientation of the texture on ALL sides of your water brushes: the little bit at the top of the vertical brush moves laterally while it should go in the direction of the current. 

thanks Mugwump! I'll change the flame, you are right, on top of the pillar the torch looks wierd also on top of the wall. The third secret is near the LG. Where the wooden bridge is over the wall. youll have to do some advanced parcoure to get there.

Im working on a area that you are teleported from the gold key teleporter. first you get alot of pickups and then youll enter the final area.It will take me this weekend to finish this map. 

You got this. 

Anyone using J.A.C.K with AD mod? I've recently picked up this editor and it's great but I'm having some issues with placing entities. I don't know how well entities follow the grid in editors, but in Jack it feels especially wonky, am I missing something? For instance, candles placed 1-2 units above the floor still end up inside the floor brush.. help! :) 

Candles are to be placed 16 units above the ground. I think its mentioned in the readme or ad_quake.fgd.

Any other problematic entities? 

But it is supposedly fixed in the latest steam release. Haven't tried it yet. 

I can't remember putting them 16 above in QuArk but it sure worked in J.A.C.K. Entities just look a little off the grid, is that normal? Hogre box is huge compared to hogremac, what was the bug in J.A.C.K? 

Bounding box size and handles match the model. Should instead match the fgd definition. 

Is it okay come compile time if I have vertices that are "off the grid" in the editor? Does that work?

I know editing such brushwork is a nightmare, I'm just asking if the map compiles/renders/displays fine in Quake. 

but sometimes you get things that will make the player drop through the floor or similar.

If you need to go way off grid for your geometry, make sure that it is on detail brushes or unimportant shit that the player won't interract with. 

Your indications for the last secret seem to match the RED ARMOR secret, which I've already mentioned, so I thought it was obvious I wasn't talking about this one. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. The two secrets I've found are the LG and RA. 

sry, i read your comments hastely. XP
The last then is near the goldkey door, if you make 180 dgree turn (at the gold door) you'll see the super shotgun.
then you have to manuver your self carefully to the edge of a rock and jump to the weapon, if you mess it up you'll drop into the void and die. 

Hi guys,
I took all the feedback, and made changes to the gameplay, also fixed floors with clipping brushes, and water with illusionary, checked for texture alignment(as well as i can), and changed the torches into flames in some areas where i thought it was necesary.

I watched Skaky's demo and it had some really solid feedback, and fixed the things he pointed out. (couldnt fix the first hallway texture alignment, i even tried rebuilding parts of it but couldnt make it work)


Now im giving you guys another version of soofa for nitpicking. Demos are excelent ways to point out mistakes in the map. If possible send me a demo where you pointout mistakes and fixes. This will be the last test version, after this ill fix everything you guys will point out and then I'll publish the map.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/sflnsw5jo9if45o/soofa_beta2%282%29.bsp


P.s. If i missed some fixes in the first round, I'm sorry. There was alot of feedback and i didnt write them down, but this time ill try be more precise. :) 

Some feedback:

1) Still loving this map, and excited to see it developing further.

2) I've played the previous version (properly) in the mean time and watched Skacky's demo, which has excellent advice. But maybe tone things down a bit for skills 0 and 1, once you implement skill settings. The map seems calibrated for skills 2/3 or for really skilled players at the moment. I usually play on skill 1, and at the moment I find this a little too hard/frustrating.

3) Texturing/texture alignment: are you talking about the hallway with the grey bricks on sloped surfaces, where Skacky suggested rotating the texture? It looks a LOT better now, but you could improve things further by decreasing the scale of the texture on the sloped parts slightly, until it more or less matches up with the rest. The angle looks right, though.

I still think the wooden texture on the staircase leading up to the SK door should be completely horizontal all over (as opposed to having one sloped piece, as it does at the moment) -- but maybe others would disagree...

4) Brushwork: I can't tell if you've changed this at all, but as I think others have pointed out too, the brushes on the edges of the map are cut off a little abruptly. It would look better/more convincing if you moved your sky brushes a bit further out and made your rock and wall brushes around the edges of the map a bit thicker/rounded/three-dimensional.

5) The new area towards the beginning is a nice addition, but it feels a little pointless at the moment, as there is nothing really there. Perhaps add a secret to this area?

6) Speaking of which, I feel that the cells in the little underwater alcove should count as a secret. Or if that's too obvious, maybe hide a secret door behind the cells.

7) I don't know if it's still incomplete, but I couldn't figure out how to complete the final arena and get the bars in front of the exit to lower. I couldn't trigger the door hiding the Shambler either.

8) The two windows that are on floor level in the final area look a bit weird too, as it looks as if you should be able to jump out, but then you're blocked by a skybrush. If you can't jump out, it shouldn't look as if you can -- so I'd say either make it possible to jump out (with a pain trigger/void if you're feeling sadistic or a teleporter back if you're not) or cover the window with bars or something. 

I've taken a few screenshots to illustrate some of what I wrote above. I feel weird about uploading screenshots of someone else's WIP onto imgur, so I wanted to ask you first if that would be ok. 

Demo with comments.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/108695968/fornait.dem.zip 

Sure, go ahead. 

i don't know if it's only me, but i get a 'heretic' vibe in the silver key area. or maybe heretic mixed with quake. i like the style.


http://imgur.com/a/xiAC5
i can jump and bypass those iron bars and i did just that the first time and it worked. it's not a hard jump.