I think 16 unit steps are fine as well. 

not errors. 

8 units can be nice. 12 units is also nice. The player can step up a 16 unit step. Stairwells come in all kinds of gradients and dimensions. 

32 units high... because screw you guys. 

nybody in this thread that wants their sense of scale to be more impressive, try using 8-unit steps instead of 16-unit steps.

It can be done, but requires more thinking and way more work than that to work well, and there is two problems with that:

- First of all, if we were to do that, we would have to do the full change. There is A LOT of things that are off scale in Quake, beginning with the player entity itself, that to be on scale and so the player can fit through real world doors it would need to be at most 56x24x24 (realistic would be 56x16x16), or that he should stop running at 40+ km/h, or we shouldn't use textures with stone block that are 16 units high or more, as that size (16) in a stone block can only be seen in a few fortifications and the like (i have seen in person more stone fortifications that use something like rock3_2, city2_8 or smaller blocks, for example), and there is lots of textures that have stone blocks 32 units high. Maybe it could be doable if we were to scale all the textures in the maps to 0,5, but then the look on the outdoor or cave areas would suck.

- Second, if we were to make the stairs fit the scale of the player, they should need to be 4 units high, as most stairs in the buildings built in the last 100 years are. 8 units high (and usually 6-8 wide too) i have only seen in the towers of castles and fortifications, where they need to reach great heights with little space, and those are hard to go up, and very dangerous when going down, 8 units is a lot compared to the size of the player.

But the problem comes that if we do 8 units high stairs, it doesn't look well, at least in Quake. One of the reasons is that we are used to see brushes so big everywhere. The second, that it doesn't fit with the game, and as have been advised a lot in this board, so small details in Quake doesn't look as good as it should. 

Don't release the map. I refuse to play anything with 16 unit steps. Besides tale of abbots rune.

...
Which, incidentally, should be the next texture architecture theme.

@than: correct, directed at Tronyn. But make something! 

Maybe there should be a vote for the next mapjam theme? ikwhite seems to have put some people off and a low grav theme I'm none too excited about particularly if it's in the void (coagula). Nor Rubicon since we already have that Rubicon pack.

What about a Doom4 theme - the way D4 should be done. With a mix of a doom2 and doom3 set, obviously hand picked. I'm never a fan of q1 base maps, but if done more like alien sci-fi/industrial then it's okay. It's just quakes interpretation of military bases that was the weakest link in quake, imo, yet probably the most overdone theme since. But yeah the d3 texture set had a limited success rate, some of them looked pretty bad, some were okay. Maybe it could actually mix some different stuff like some of the sci-fi textures from these sets:
https://www.quaddicted.com/files/wads/charon_liquidc1_q1.zip_chrn_lc1.wad.jpg
https://www.quaddicted.com/files/wads/charon_liquidcarbon.zip_charon_liquidcarbon.wad.jpg
Or Dtspacemad... that was the last set I was using to make something (was going to be an alien spaceship), but never finished it.

I just searched for 'video game textures' in goog, because I've got no idea where you get textures these days, but that put on this page: http://www.pinterest.com/GameTextures/video-game-textures/
Now wtf, there's some awesome fucking textures on that page. Some might not tile, and they'll all need converted down to quake. I notice a lot are kind of hand-painted, maybe there could be a cartoony texture theme, kind of like Borderlands.

Some of those textures remind me of alice... another good underused set.

How about gentex02. That's an awesome texture set that's underused.

Or an industrial mix of ogro/jackboot. Think a modern zerstorer (but not literally zers textures!).

Evil has some great textures in it, but it would take someone sifting through 1000 of them picking out a consistent theme.

Rorshach did many awesome textures. In fact here's a whitish texture set that works, though it's clearly not the same architectural style of ikwhite: http://www.kevinjohnstone.com/Polycount/textures/singlemalt.htm

In fact, some of you guys should look through rorshach's textures, they're all a similar style but all frickin awesome. http://www.kevinjohnstone.com/Polycount/index2.shtml

Schloss or a ww2/nazi/wolfenstein theme (maybe wolf textures? I haven't seen those out there though, at least not that I can remember.

I don't know what I did with the fakk2 textures, or who converted them (maybe it was me when I knew how), but those textures were good and no ones used them since I did in http://www.electricescape.com/etherealhell/index.php/my-levels/item/carved-in-flesh

Someone might have to re-install fakk2 to get them though.

Unreal skycity? There's lots of medieval type sets out there that have been used sometimes... dkt, heretic, hexen, q3, kingpin, rune, undying, blood, praeven, but I'm sort of thinking along the lines of stuff that really is underused (or never used).

But anyway those are just my thoughts... 

I have no idea what it does in a technical sense, but nope even with fitzquake, I prefer the idgamma look. So Lun, there is at least one person driving you insane :) 

and not just to brightness. Where is frib when you need him, I remember he had a pretty good explanation. 

Thanks for that informative post; I'll bet I'm not alone in saying I'd be even more likely to approve if you were to make something - heh. 

Everything seems to be going well. I'm currently away from home at the pochanos withy family and their friends 

This isn't connected to whatever theme is chosen, or any of that. I am simply taking a break from Quake. I wanted to after Jam1, and Jam2 is going to be a smaller simpler map for that same reason (want to try and finish it up this weekend).

So do whatever theme you want. I don't think people who aren't going to map should have a voice, much of the whiners about ikblue/ikwhite weren't going to map either. This thread in general has too much of a peanut gallery. Take some suggestions and try to understand the general desires of the mappers... but make a final decision Sock.

My only suggestion is to go for themes that are well established and open to a wide variety. Like, 'Low Gravity, Runic Metal'. Simple, everyone knows what that is, and can do their own interpretation in that. 

my map is going to be in bsp2 format, unvised, with hordes, and will be released in 3 years.

lol just jokes. 

@Rick, you can make your steps in your map whatever you feel like doing, I am simply stating I think 16 units looks awkward.

@RickyT23, exactly, step sizes 8, 12 and 16 are all valid, mappers can use whatever they are comfortable with.

@Scampie, that is indeed a great shame because jam3 was going to be the last one from me. I am thinking about a runic/metal texture theme, but jam2 is not even finished yet so I will sort that out next month when I finish off the custom progs. 

My working schedule was too hectic this month to have a realistic shot at producing anything worthwhile.

Sock, mind pushing jam3 to September? I'd like some time to recharge creatively... 

Sock, mind pushing jam3 to September? I'd like some time to recharge creatively...

Yes please. 

All fucking great, keep it up u guys :) 

If I was stronger
I could be a mountain range
If night was longer
Could I escape the day?

btw why the river goes rather flows 

can�t get the light to look good, it�s bad..
Never should have started playin with them:)

Hrmmpf! 

confession: I'm playing with them. decided to put my money where my mouth is. and, yes, they are - I'm finding I have to be real subtle with the lighting or the subtle detail in the textures vanishes, and using any other textures in combination ruins the effect.

So, I am learning, but I wouldn't build with these textures for anything other than a jam. 

I�m only playin with them too, don�t know if this ends up in a released map:)

I even scriptconverted the texures into some reddish Agba gate stone.

LOL

Shit script didn�t work so well, looks like Barbies palace.. Where�s Ken? 

The only thing left for you both is a trigger_changelevel now. 

build half a nice building, put the player start inside the changelevel trigger, and just point info_intermission at the building :) 

And an automatic 18/20 from Tronyn. 

maybe. An intermission map.. So i don�t have to struggle with gameplay? Perfect!