Personally I want a socialist utopia, ice cream and Kate Beckinsale, but there we go.

On a more helpful note, I like the 50% scale books tbh, although maybe mix it in with some '100%' scale books. Most old books (which'd fit with the theme) are kinda giant anyway (think ancient tomes rather than a paperback novel).
The advantage of the 50% books is that you can make them into two shelves, so you still have the same space filled but with a less strange scale. 75% just looks wrong since the bookcase/shelf doesn't match the space under the window.
Depends on how extreme your poly saving gets tho, obviously two shelves of half size books means twice the polys, but I can't see them using that many if build properly...

Oh, and I think you've gotta work from 1st person view, as already stated, the player models always look so wrongly small compared to the view from the first person camera that you have to build 'soviet scale' (great phrase btw)


Oh, and why do totalitarian regimes always have such good architecture? (retorical, same reason churches are giganto ofc... not that I'm comparing religion to totalitarianism at all ;) 

How dare you steal the useful half of my post while I was typing? ;p 

Oh, and does anyone else feel sock is making a WoW instance? 

lol at the first part of your first comment nonentity. If only...

for me the question is do the giants who built this place happen to use bigger pages because they're comfortable handling bigger books (2x the words per page)...? 

looks better to me too. 

but what i noticed is that the Egyptian Scale and the Soviet Scale are similar, same for of government, i though Egypt more as a Monarchy kinda deal...? 

- 

I want to live in your map.

Also I think the 50% books look fine, it just makes the windows look more grandiose. 

@necros, yeah that is the problem I made everything the same size. I was too excited about having books as props that I did not tweak the relative sizes. Certainly will add smaller books as well.

@Tronyn, wow thanks :)

Large structures always feel awe inspiring to me, which is probably why I love most ancient structures. The same with churches, got to feel the awe of god and he does need a big house, apparently.

I will try and stick to the same scale for all the props so at least they will look consistent next to each other. Need to build some smaller props so scale is more apparent. Time to build some candles and stools with books on them!

@nonentity, yeah I would love to build a wow instance, I so love that game that I could easily live 24/7 playing it. 

A big thing about Quake, for me, is the feeling of foreignness. Inserting comfortable objects, like books, reduces that a LOT for me. If it's on the edge of forever, who is going to be reading books there? It's meant for more important things :-) 

The book is bound in human skin, inked in blood and rips your face off if you open it? 

Yes, yes, I like where this is going... 

"Hasn' anyone bin able ter open their books? Yeh've got to stroke 'em." 

 

If it's on the edge of forever, who is going to be reading books there?

Ever read The Bridge by Iain Banks? (I think I mean The Bridge, it might be another one of his (non-sci-fi) books). The bit with the old man and woman constantly playing board games in some giant castle/tower in the middle of icey nowhere. It's kinda like that.

And some of the later WoW instances, especially in the expansion packs, are masterful pieces of gameplay/level design. I'd be proud to have made one of them. (I love that game so much I had to go through rehab ;) The puzzle element and graphic style are very reminiscent (especially those exterior shots with the eaves). 

Actually, I always wanted to make a level based on the bridge city from The Bridge. A section of an infinite bridge covered in art-noveau/retro future style houses/stores/buildings... 

Along with The Bridge and The Wasp Factory, his best non-SF books. 

The latest expansion pack of wow has some jaw dropping amazing instances, the art and style is just perfect. Everything is large because of gameplay reasons (no one wants to fight bosses in cupboards, plus it be would exploited like crazy) but yet there are small alcoves and sections with details that bring everything together on consistancy. The instances are where wow shines the most for me, the huge game world is cool but the real wow factor is indoors.

Last weekend I had a small mapping break from my forever map and decided to try an experiment with rich coloured lighting, decals and sky portals.

http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/maps_q3/focal1ac1l_1024.jpg
http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/maps_q3/focal1ac1l_1024.jpg

The above screenshots feature simple blue panels wrapped around geo architecture and accented with gold and blue lighting. Most of the time was spent with the animated item marker on the floor. I really wanted the decal to maintain edge shadows, have solid fill colours and yet be a decal at the same time!

Something I always find lacking in my maps is the connection between world geometry and skybox, so the next experiment was connecting this together with various shaders, models and a portal skybox.

http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/maps_q3/focal1ac3l_1024.jpg
http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/maps_q3/focal1ac4l_1024.jpg

The blue light beam flows upwards to the portal sky and the models in the portal sky then carry on the illusion up to multiple swirling cloud layers which gradually alpha away to blue sky horizon. The architecture around the focal point is just to accent the view upwards and make the players viewpoint vertical. 

Ooops I messed up one of the screenshot links, so here is the first two again, but correct links:

http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/maps_q3/focal1ac1l_1024.jpg
http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/maps_q3/focal1ac2l_1024.jpg 

Stellar, awesome, kick ass! Go go go! Love that look and feel. 

 

I really like this style: cartoon-ish but design advanced... it looks like a fan-art map :)
It reminds me a lot the Willem's White Room Q1SP... Good job :) 

what willem drinks in the morning! Wow now that must be some serious coffeeeeeeeee! :)

Yeah it just a doodle map, nothing serious or playable, just playing with q3map2 tech. Seriously, why so few people post screenshots of what they are mapping? :( 

... either nobody is actually mapping, or current projects are not progressing as stucked in the limbs of Hell (my case) :P 

Might post a screenie or two as it gets towards completion.

As for ever getting to play it - well if enough people work on maps for the rest of the project it might actually get released before the apocalypse in 2012