You might be better off with alpha blending (blendfunc blend) rather than alphafunc, although you could run into sorting issues and the lighting might not be as good.

nopicmip won't actually help in this case, although if you use alphafunc then it should be in there anyway to prevent the grate becoming invisible or solid with picmip 10. 

So Maj, I would change the 'alphafunc GE128' stage to 'blendfunc GE128'??

textures/base_floor/proto_grate4
{
surfaceparm metalsteps
surfaceparm trans
surfaceparm nonsolid //Tim's fuckage
cull none
nopicmip

// A GRATE OR GRILL THAT CAN BE SEEN FROM BOTH SIDES
{
map textures/base_floor/proto_grate4.tga
//tcMod scale 2 2
blendFunc GL_ONE GL_ZERO
alphaFunc GE128
depthWrite
rgbGen identity
}
{
map $lightmap
rgbGen identity
blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_ZERO
depthFunc equal
}
} 

green crystal shader

Make some green crystals out of brushes. Make a whole bunch. R_speeds be damned. 

The first stage should be:

{
map textures/base_floor/proto_grate4.t...
blendfunc blend
rgbgen vertex
}

And the second stage would have to be removed, cos you can't combine lightmaps with alphablending (except in some rare cases).

I haven't written any shaders for yonks though so take that all with salt... 

For the rocks, to make them look much less bland (and tiley for that matter) switch to a two-stage rock shader, and scale the two rock textures differently. Something like:

textures/yourmap/rock
{
q3map_nonplanar
q3map_shadeangle 89
{
map $lightmap
rgbGen identity
}
{
map textures/yourmap/rock.tga
blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_ZERO
rgbGen identity
tcMod scale 1.2 1.2
}
{
map textures/pjw3dm6/rock2.tga
blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_SRC_COLOR
rgbGen identity
tcMod scale 0.7 0.7
}
}

Looking good. :) 

missed the second "pjw3dm6". Heh. 

that's a fucking brillent hack pjw, I'll implant that in the q3 maps I promised to finish ages ago :P 

his rocks always look really cool (I liked pjw3dm3 rocks the best). 

whoa great feedback peeps thx. pjw the passes might rack up too high with a two stage shader, a lot of these crystals are visible behind each other which is basically like a window looking through a window looking through a window etc... that supposedly is bad. i'll give it a shot for sure though, still got room for more detail though avg r_speeds around 5k-6k 

Things are flowing smoothly so far, not even near 30% done though...

- http://www.angelfire.com/scary/ph8accompli/quake/img/dm1a.jpg
- http://www.angelfire.com/scary/ph8accompli/quake/img/dm1b.jpg
- http://www.angelfire.com/scary/ph8accompli/quake/img/dm1c.jpg 

looks good, but you have too many different wall panelings going on. 

Think that blue wall would be distracting?
Here's a bigger/better shot:
http://www.angelfire.com/scary/ph8accompli/quake/ph8dm1.jpg 

Looks good to me. 

looks good to me too. 

Nitin, can you more specifically point to what you mean? Do you mean the grey tex that takes up most of the wall, the lines going across (defining 'panels'?)? 

I meant the windows/panels (in shot 1a, there's 6 of them and they are all different - ie cadaver in one, just skulls in another and so on) 

Gotcha... I'll consider it, still got more to do. Thanks all. 

Can wait for you to finish it. 

i actually like the shots the way they are. keep it up! 

Try sticking to 2-4 insets/panels for the map. Using that many in one room is especially distracting. You could try replacing one of the central inset pieces with a support column of some sort. It's not a really huge deal, it just could be done better and that small thing would really improve the map. 

Thanks again! I'll post more shots when I get more done and I think I will remove some panels, a few more areas need them yet anyway =) 

http://www.freewebs.com/myetsite/d4veemap.jpg 

If you loop back to this site...
than loop back to good old school Quake...

http://members.home.nl/gimli/Quake19.jpg

I lost the shape of the tiffany,
by scaling the level again. 

Gib: I can't load the image. It just loops back here.

MadFox: looks good. 

While texturing the window for the third time,
it comes to me from a distance the black surrounding square won't leave!
I have changed all the pixels into lighter ones, but the dark square stays.

Funny result after all that texturing.