Sorry if I stept on that toe of yours, I was only philosophizing.

But thanks for the info. : maps can be trick-friendly or non-trick friendly, I'll keep that in mind ;) 

http://members.home.nl/gimli/joequake.jpg
trick-friendly. 

I've had a couple of good days of mapping over the holiday break, and I think this is pretty solid at this point. This is the second (and probably the last) beta.

Obligatory pics:

http://www.planetquake.com/pjw/screenshots/pjw4dm1a.jpg

http://www.planetquake.com/pjw/screenshots/pjw4dm1b.jpg

http://www.planetquake.com/pjw/screenshots/pjw4dm1c.jpg

Any feedback is welcome.
Download: http://www.fileplanet.com/dl.aspx?/planetquake/pjw/mapstorage/pjw4dm1.zip 

that looks very plain in the pics, almost q1 plain. 

Kind of agree with nitin, looks a little plain in the shots. Don't have Q4 yet, so I can't check it out properly.

I do like the tower structures in the first shot, but imho the lighting really spoils it. Is it intended for serious competition? Is that why you have gone for such a simple look?

The pipe walkways are a neat idea but I think they could use bulking up with more smaller pipes to give it a more solid and navigable look - perhaps even put grilles over the top to make a proper walkway. The point about the lighting still stands in this shot too - it's too bright and plain.

The other shot could use some more angles on the main platform edges, and I think some of the walls in the background could be made to slope in or out slightly - assuming that wouldn't destroy the gameplay. Again, the lighting is very bright and it doesn't look like a next gen game at all.

Is it not possible to light it so it looks nice and then configure settings in Q4 to improve visibility for serious DM?

Anyway, sorry to be so blunt about the visuals. I'm sure it has a good layout and plays well, but I think that making it look good should be the next thing you should do. I suppose it depends what you want from the map really.

Cool that you are mapping in your spare time whilst having a full-time games job. I almost stopped completely I was so burnt out and fed up after work :( S'ok now though :) 

Is it not possible to light it so it looks nice and then configure settings in Q4 to improve visibility for serious DM?

I asked myself the same question when wandering around the Q4 MP levels. They're all washed out compared to the SP levels Than.

pjw I'll eventually post some full (and mostly positive) comments re: Q4SP in the Q4 thread. I just need to finish my second (and much slower run) through this awesome game. However, the stock MP levels look... err... crap :( , and I think the reason is the lighting. Suddenly what looks three dimensional under the SP lighting looks two dimensional. What has depth suddenly looks flat. What is interesting suddenly becomes boring. I can understand that Raven probably wanted to pre-empt the sorts of light levels that hard core DM players were going to use anyway, from the start... if this is the case I think it was a mistake. 

I can't actually see any evidence of lighting in those shots, so I assumed that lighting had yet to be done/compiled? 

hey, it must be PRO map - minimum lights, not much geomety 

Yeah, the main reason for the relative plainness (esp. with lighting), is performance. The layout of the level is quite open, and in fact (even with this level of plainness) I had to close up a few entrances/exits and jam a big wall down the middle of one area to get performance at a decent level for MP (which is pretty conservative at this point).

Tris have less impact than lighting, so I'll see if I can throw some more detailing into a few of the plainer areas for the final.

(Oh, and Text_Fish--if there wasn't any lighting, there wouldn't be shadows and light and stuff. It would be dark.) 

One thing I might do for the final is to tone down the ambient a bit--that should help with some of the flatness, since ambient tends to kill the normals. 

Yes, I see some of the shadows upon closer inspection. I was thrown by the lack of any shadow cast by those big pipes. 

so the doom3 engine cant even render that sort of openness ? 

Of course it can...depending on how the map is designed.

It was misleading for me to talk about the openness of the level, since that's not really the issue, and I should have chosen my words a bit more carefully. "Interconnectivity" or "complexity" might have been better words to use, but still not quite right. I'll see if I can explain and be more precise this time. :)

The problem is one of [b]denseness[/b] of maps. There's also an important difference between MP and SP maps...

This particular map is an MP map, and in an MP map it's a bad idea to have any pitch black shadow areas (at least for an MP game of this kind).

This necessitates me finding a magic balance between:

(a) having normal lights sufficient in quantity/placement to light every small dark nook and cranny, which would result in crappy performance on this particular map since lights don't really illuminate to the bounds of their actual volume (more or less depends on the shader used), and would thus overlap quite a bit, and each overlap adds to a performance hit. Or

(b) using a single large ambient light volume (which has a special shader that lights all surfaces within that volume evenly with non-directional light). The problem with this is simply that it *is* non-directional light and thus tends to flatten stuff out and kill your normals and make stuff look like ass.

This particular map is denser than many other maps, with various layers both horizontally and vertically, which means the overlapping of light volumes is harder to avoid.

You could make a gigantic open space map with only a few huge lights and it would run quite well and also look quite good (because you could avoid ambient altogether in a map like that and not have to worry about light density).

You could also make a gigantic map comprised of both indoor and outdoor areas all connected together in a soup of complexity...as long as all the areas were spread out a bit and not smooshed into each other like sardines.

And SP is easier; it doesn't matter if you have dark corners.

Is that helpful at all? 

that explains it reasonably well.

But I dont like the sound of it :)

That sounds as much of a step backwards (engine wise) as it is forwards (most the d3 engine features do look nice). 

...now I understand. Thanks pjw! 

I just noticed that at least half the bajillion lights in this map don't have an assigned shader, and the default is really quite dark. I'm guessing that I saved over the wrong version at some point a few months ago, didn't notice, and haven't bothered checking since.

After I throw myself down a flight of stairs, and weep for a while like a little girl, I'll spend a few dozen hours fixing/adjusting/repositioning/deleting lights and the map should be better lit and run faster to boot. 

eting, that is. Fuck. 

New version up. Same link. The lights that were h0rked are fixed and ambient has been lowered by about 50% and it's looking less washed out. I also added a second SG and RL and some detailing here and there and various and sundry other crap.

Same links, updated pics:
http://www.planetquake.com/pjw/screenshots/pjw4dm1a.jpg
http://www.planetquake.com/pjw/screenshots/pjw4dm1b.jpg
http://www.planetquake.com/pjw/screenshots/pjw4dm1c.jpg

Download:
http://www.fileplanet.com/dl.aspx?/planetquake/pjw/mapstorage/pjw4dm1.zip 

looks much better 

im interested to see how the void plays... :) 

I still think it looks a little flat. I understand that is bare so that it runs well and is easy to play competetively, but I think you can still add a few more interesting designs and shadows in places which won't interfere with the areas players are going to be moving through.

The towers have some nice angles, but the walls just look a bit bare. This is only exacerbated by the fact you have several different textures all sharing the same plane. Perhaps angle some sections of the wall, extrude others slightly and add some interesting lighting or designs to the walls.

Also, I personally think that the curved doorways look a little out of place in a map with such chunk angular designs. Perhaps you could design a more angular doorway and use that instead?

God... commenting on your map has made me really want to have a go myself. I used to love mapping for Q2, and the game itself had some really great designs in places. I'm going to see if I can find a copy for a reasonable price here and buy it if I can.

Unfortunately PC games in Japan are not so popular, so I might have trouble tracking it down, despite how big a title it is. They also still sell pc games in ridiculous fat cardboard boxes rather than slim DVD cases :(　(http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BNY9LW/qid=1136010855/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/250-3209704-5480269 - see!)

Shame I can't download it via Steam or something :(

METL! Can we have a Q4 icon please? 

im interested to see how the void plays... :)
Eh? I'm not sure what you mean. You mean all the drops off the edge?

@Than, I may do a bit of extrusion/angling on some of the wall sections--it's not expensive and will add a bit of variety. Thanks for your feedback. :)

If you want, can't you just order it from the U.S. or Europe, or wherever? 

yes pjw, the drops off the edges :) 

I have finished all the main brushwork. The map has also an exit now. The gameplay is ready in 95%. There will be about 85 monsters on hard skill. The other skills have to be done yet. There is still much work with details and decorations; some bug fixing is needed also.
Here are some pictures again.

http://republika.pl/quake_1/hdn4.html
http://republika.pl/quake_1/hdn5.html
http://republika.pl/quake_1/hdn6.html

I have also created a simple web page :)
http://republika.pl/quake_1/index.html 

Nice screenshots !