Getting better at blocking out required a conscious effort on my part, several times over using different methods (dev textures, boxing map and just focusing on the layout, using endlessly tiling texture and just building). I always admired how quickly ijed could just plop down a layout. Most of episode 3 seemed to appear really quickly, while I was still doodling.

Practically everybody in RMQ is better at this than me - ijed, Ricky, rj, digs, probably Lardarse as well. :-)

Doing details and lighting as you go has drawbacks (it might look as if you're not producing much), but it also has its pluses:

- you establish a theme for details that you can re-use and vary later, instantly providing a high level of detail (and basic lighting) for new areas, instead of sitting and staring at a blank layout, having to detail it "somehow"

- you might come up with unusual things while detailing that later help to lend identity to your level

- you're forced to dedicate some time to coding and making assets, or even talking to engine coders, even recruiting help, which is ultimately good for everybody on the team

Basically you're slower when you plan and detail as you go, but you save a lot of time later because your theme is fully developed, and your technical base (mod) expands earlier than it otherwise would. 

But it depends on if you prefer top down or bottom up design.

Work in teams (with multiple people on the same level) I think top down is better - getting the big pieces in place first.

Bottom up is better when working on your own on a level, since you have a clear idea of what you're making. 

Yeah, I know that's how it's usually done. We can try that in some of the E4 maps.

LA and I worked pretty effectively on that chainmap we started. Ep. 1 also uses his spirals and the "cubeamid" which he built for me (I suck at maths), and both of the boss fights are actually largely designed by Supa.

Abusing func for our rambling again. Let's discuss collaboration at the trac. 

This discussion reminds me of those sexy development textures you occasionally see in HL2/CS-S maps. Searching for a picture yielded this tutorial about blocking things in.
http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/level_design_tutorials/art_of_blocking_in_your_map.php

This guy seemed to be making a huge outdoor Counter-Strike map, so naturally large cubes for buildings works great for him. But the idea may apply to quake in spirit. You can free yourself from staring at that infernal blank canvas very quickly with this method. 

http://kneedeepinthedoomed.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/gborange.jpg 

of all the threads the bot could have posted on... 

Can you guys finish the final boss of Zer so we can finally fight the thing? 

that would be so awesome. i'd use him in the e2 secret level if no-one else wanted to! 

That would be ten kinds of awesome. I think I've said here before how it annoyed me that he was only used in a cutscene. Big upside-down shub that he is. 

 

 

RemakeReservoirDogs will now feature more locations, which wasn't possible with the original's small budget, and will now include the unfinished heist scene. 

I think it's more like Predators finally showing Hanzo fighting the Predator in H2H, instead of Billy who died like a bitch 

i can see why people would have reservations about redoing zer with an end battle, because that would detract from part of what zer fundamentally was. nonetheless i'd still love to see him finished up and used in another mod (it probably won't be this one though) 

This'll probably sound really blasphemous, but am I the only Quake fan in the world that didn't really like Zerst�rer?

I mean, I get that it was about the oppressive atmosphere and stuff, but it just didn't do it for me. I played through the first couple maps before getting bored, really didn't enjoy the new weapons or the combat at all, and did some level-hopping to see if it got any more interesting. Eventually I fired up the final map, encountered the big bad boss, and thought "Cool! I get to fight THAT?", and then the player is killed in a cutscene and it just... ends? And I'm like "...what. That's it?", I thought maybe I had missed something as I just loaded the map from the console, but nope.

So glad I didn't play through it from the beginning only to get such an anticlimatic, shitty ending.

Maybe it's just me who plays Quake solely for the action, and not story or atmosphere... eh, whatever. 

you fucking heretic.

Did you at least play "True Love Waits?" 

But I found a playthrough of it on Youtube. Nope, but it actually looks somewhat decent, so maybe I should have given it more of a chance.

Still, it didn't manage to catch my interest in any way, and it doesn't help that the levels look really bland. Just not my cup of tea I guess. 

Someone should have turned the ZerDM maps into a second SP episode. 

...get to it then :P 

Besides, no one seemed to care about DMC3 so it would probably be a wasted effort. 

But I will replay it just to make sure... 

of course it's great. Don't be silly.