It looks nice, i like the egptian style. The lighting could be a bit cooler, it seems very bright in places. It need to be kinda moodier - maybe some more sourced lights like torches would look good. Also there are some parts where you have very dark shadows on the ground - remember that enemies will appear at the lighting level of the ground they are above, so the enemies on 100% dark areas will be 100% dark. 

when i took the shots they looked very dark, so i brightened up the image in photoshop by 30% so everything could be seen easily. maybe this wasnt the best idea thinking back.

I intend to brighten up the ground in the last few shots, was just a bit eager to see what people thought about the shots so far.

cheers 

Textures give a high Hexen2 mood.
Good atmosphere.., map on! 

Really like the look overall, a few things that caught my eye..

In shot 3 the walls are quite flat, the texturing suggests a buttress or some-such coming out from the walls, maybe try and work on that a little.

In the later shots of the courtyard it looks quite dark at the bottom, some sort of flame holders or torches would do the trick I think and add to the atmosphere.

Perhaps more of a personal preference, but maybe the map would feel more atmospheric if it was set at dusk/dawn with more torch light and a lower angle on the sunlight. But then again im a sucker for the darker egyptian stuff :)

Looking forward to seeing this one :) I'm guessing its single player??? 

Aye, as said, it's looking very promising. Good work.

My only criticism is similar to Daz's first point, a lot of the walls look very flat/vertical. They look like they're already divided into seperate brushes for texturing, possibly add some variation to the angles (pitch?) of the walls.

But yeh, look forward to seeing more... 

looks like a daz map 

in a good way that is :D
those first two shots the ceiling is too low, i'll bash my head if i jump 

...before I read any post, I was about to say that the screens screamed [Kona] to me!!!

The low ceilings and all!!!

Well, I guess I need a good romp through the alk series!!!
;P 

I like the texture choices. The Q3 blocks go quite well with the egyptian detailing; I don't think I've ever seen that particular combo attempted before.

I agree with what others have said about lighting contrast and flat walls/ceilings, but it looks interesting so far. 

very very tasty ;) cant wait to put my hands on it!

keep the good work! 

It looks indeed very good ! Just a question: will it be DM or SP ? 

The level is going to be both sp and dm.

will see what i can do about the flat walls, im surei'll come up with something.

i did originally have the level set at night but couldnt get the lighting looking right so made it daytime. might give the dusk another try.

hoping to have a beta very soon 

... If you ever need a hand... 

flat walls but otherwise looks good. 

http://www.zfight.com/misc/files/q3/crescent.rar -8.5 MB

Screens and info here:
http://www.levelmakers.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=917&p=5002 

just a list, no time:

- weird flow. some parts i just don't know where to hop next to, others i discovered nice ways after a while. The water doesn't really help with that,
- i love the water before/jump to the teles, and the wood thing at the ya that you're supposed to jump up to,
- the color scheme works well, but is a bit monotonous -- could use some more variation over the map.

hmm, is there a way to do something against the washed out look of lighting with q3map2? i have the same issue in my current map -- it's either too dark or looks washed out. 

- Maybe it takes a few games to learn the flow, me and my friends have played probably over 50 times by now.

- The major reason why I kept myself from adding more variation and detail to the level is because of the file size and the r_speeds. Even though it looks pretty close, it is pretty open. And I wanted to keep the speeds just not to much over 10k at the peak place.

- If you don't use the -gamma parm (or any other "new" special ligth stuff), then there should be no difference between q3map and q3map2s light. I used gamma in this and -dirt. And for the first time, a very low blue overall ambient.

This is what the level looks like w/o my current -gamma and -compensate. Thus, just normal light.
http://img21.imageshack.us/my.php?image=shot0995.jpg
I was seriously considering going for this and "fix it" so it would look good (not to vibrant, not to dark), but in the end I choose to use what I "always" use. The next map I do, I'll probably skip the -gamma value. 

...reminds me of the old skool temple style custom DM maps I used to lose badly to people on "back in the day".

That is a good thing. 

interesting. I'm using -gamma, too. i need to try disabling that. The washed out look is great for realism maps, but for my project its bugging me.

how did you get the bots to jump over the wooden thingie @ ya? :) 

Hay guys. I've been working on some Quake SP maps lately and was wondering if you would like to take a peek at them real quick and offer some feedback. The series I've started is entitled FireCult and currently has just the startmap and one single player gameplay map. Both are pretty close to completion, (the gameplay map just needs that last room finished). There are 2 more maps currently in dev for the series with some more slated. I'd like to get really into this project and would like some ideas as to changes I need to make for what I already have. Thanks guys :)

http://carbon.fragsmack.com/projekts/firecult_beta1x.rar

This .rar contains 2 bsps, 2 .lit files and the readme. 

i like it 

A short but very nice map. Having a horde fight at the end would ruin it for me though, the map deserves better. The atmosphere is amazing. Make it 2-3 times the size/length and it will be perfect!

There is one major issue: Rogue fullbrights on the textures. Try running the map in Fitzquake or a software rendered engine (eg winquake.exe). Some screenshots:

http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/temp/reQuiem006.jpg (sure the "orb" should stay fullbright)
http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/temp/reQuiem007.jpg
http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/temp/reQuiem008.jpg
http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/temp/reQuiem009.jpg
http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/temp/reQuiem010.jpg

Maybe cut those centerprint "comments" they damaged the atmosphere/immersion for me.
Nice idea with the different twist in nightmare skill (the key appears on normal skill too though). I also like the vore surprise, heh. Is the secret available? I did fix the masonry but nothing happened (that I noticed).

PS: Please use a plain .txt file for the final readme. ;) 

I dunno what to do about the textures exactly, outside of changing a few of them. they bloom nicely in modern QW engines.
How many people really run in software mode?

I suppose I could clean those up a bit in PSP and rebuild the wad if it's a major issue. The lava textures are really supposed to glow though. It's a tough call.

The secret is available and is right when you spawn in ecfc1 in the lower area. :P the bricks thing isn't a secret, just a fun thing i put in there.

.rtf converted to .txt for future release.

thanks for the input :) 

It's not really a software thing, it's more a feature from original Quake that glquake was missing and not all later engines fixed (Most majors ones except for aguirRe's glquake do though). Definitely a thing to fix. I think Wally might even have a feature to eliminate them (or I mix up things in my memory).

That secret is well hidden, heh.

I just remember two more things: The wooden beams need some texture alignment fixing. And for me the rusty metal lights look out of place. 

"How many people really run in software mode? "

I will from time to time. It captures that original "feel" that modern engines just can't quite hit. FitzQuake comes closest to matching it though.