I may release a beta soon myself, so I'd like to earn some good karma here. :D

Overall I liked the map. Very sprawling, kinda hard to get a sense of the layout. I don't see any way to get to the penned off area on top of the building or the rooms just below that without a rocket jump. I don't much care for that myself, but that's a personal choice.

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/shortfuse/shot0000.jpg
Room with the lg. If you look to the right at the red beam of light there's some z-fighting, which of course never shows up well in a screenshot. That's the only instance I found, and that sort of thing tends to catch my eye.

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/shortfuse/shot0001.jpg
You have all this great rock formation throughout the map, and then you have this lame platform here. It wouldn't be so noticable if it didn't stand in such a contrast. Make the rest of your map suck more, make this area look more rocky, or better yet choose a metal texture.

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/shortfuse/shot0002.jpg
You have this dead-end in a cave with only two itty-bitty pickups to make it worth your while. More over they're kinda hard to get to. If I was playing I'd be pissed off I'd bothered to go this way. I always like crystals though. Great shader on your's.

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/shortfuse/shot0003.jpg
I like that a lot.

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/shortfuse/shot0005.jpg
http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/shortfuse/shot0004.jpg
I was able to rocket jump into this crevice and had trouble getting out. It looked like there should be something of interest over there.

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/shortfuse/shot0006.jpg
Come on, that's just lazy.

I also thought the quad was overly hard to get to. My personal feeling is that the best players have enough of an advantage in a map without intentionally trying to tilt the map in their favour.

Great work over all. 

thx a ton for the detailed feedback pushplay.

the deadend cave, my intention was having greedy players go into the deadend for extra health and armor, get caught and obliterated. maybe ill up the reward for that risk.

the quad trap thing is me adhering to the guidelines for hte burial-grounds mapping competition, i agree with you, but im trying to win an ipod mini :)

you caught me with reference to that lazy corridor and rock platform, sometimes you skip ahead to finish off the remainders. ill try to make the detailing more consistent in those spots. i still have a 2nd round of crate distribution and other details in mind to fill those voids.

by any chance did you observe a seam where the skybox meets? or is that just an artifact on my vid card? 

I said I'd enter the burial grounds contest and I have a map almost done, but it's not the sort of thing they're looking for. Oh well. I think they want something that's specifically a trap, and not just a tricky maneuver.

The thick black outline on the skybox is actually correct, ironically. The geforce opengl driver is supposed to clamp some value but doesn't which makes the skybox look as intended. The ati drivers get something right for once, which unfortunately causes the box. It would be nice if q3 was patched to fix it or the ati drivers autodetected q3 and compensated. 

That's looking much better than before !! Better screenshots to ;)
That same texture for floor and ceiling in shot 1 does look a bit funny, as Daz said.
Keep at it. 

'Come on, that's just lazy. '

Do you mean it looks a bit auto-brushed?

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/q...

I agree with you there. That is some very convincing brushwork in that picture. 

Hello,
I've noticed that too after Daz comments.. This is changed now... Screenshots will be updated as soon as possible..
Bye... 

I just meant it was a cookie-cutter hallway that could have come from one of a billion maps. 

First screenshot updated !!
PS: All others part with floor and ceiling with same texture are also modified: thanks for the advice... it looks better now
Enjoy !!! 

Yes, that looks much better than it did with the same texture as the floor.

Here is something that may be of interest to you, when you get time, have a look at this tutorial from xenon,(if you haven't seen it already)

http://xen.quakepit.com/tut1.htm

It may give you some ideas, or get you thinking more/differently about how you go about things. You may or maynot be able to implement the ideas in your current project, but it is good to keep this sort of thing in mind.

I'm glad to see that you are keeping at it, good on you. 

You can run q3map2 (the latest version) with the -skyfix switch to fix the black skybox border on ati cards. 

balance is the basis of design harmony. Balance and symmetry are not the same - ( see: The Golden Section )

inertia: you mispelt both those words. Is that supposed to be irony? 

Thanks for the link, it really interesting to have an overview how to modify a hall in order to improve its quality...
Bye... 

Thanks, I'll use that from now on. It still looks the same on geforce, right? 

In the first shot:

Flat ceilings in large rooms are a design no no. No offence, but this room reminds me of something from Wolfenstein (the original). Consider a recessed ceiling.

The sides of the sarcophagi don't gel with the tops, I believe there is a sarco "side" texture available from the DoE set that matches the tops you are using.

In the second shot:

The "rock" walls are too clean/square, natural caverns do not have such perfect geometry. Try messing 'em up a bit and maybe introducing some outcroppings in a different but complementary texture. (I made a similar "mistake" in my first level, but was saved by the small size of the area concerned...your huge cavern will be very unforgiving in this respect)

In the third shot:

This also looks a little too "clean". Just a few brushes (to break up the lines) can make all the difference. Does jumping down the well get you to pic 4?

In the forth shot:

I actually like the lighting effect quite a bit. Once more though, perhaps a rail around the columns would break up the plain ceiling.

Otherwise, keep it going... I'm craving a good temple level. 

Time for a full-scale pimp of my upcoming debut map:

http://photopile.com/photos/sloochyslooch/auctions/112129.jpg

http://photopile.com/photos/sloochyslooch/auctions/112130.jpg

http://photopile.com/photos/sloochyslooch/auctions/112131.jpg

http://photopile.com/photos/sloochyslooch/auctions/112132.jpg

http://photopile.com/photos/sloochyslooch/auctions/112133.jpg

http://photopile.com/photos/sloochyslooch/auctions/112155.jpg

http://photopile.com/photos/sloochyslooch/auctions/112156.jpg

Quake 1 single player; new monsters, Q2 weapons; compatible with all engines.

The first of many, I hope :) 

Do those weapons have the changeover/reload time of the ones used in Q2 also? One of the game's major flaws imho. 

changeover time is halved from q2 - i have kept the "weapon up" anim, but "weapon down" has been dropped in default mode.

I plan to support 4 weapon modes in my SP mod (dubbed "Total Slaughter" of which BotU is the first map):

Q2 Enhanced (Default) - weapon up but no weapon down.
Q2 Classic - weapon up and down.
Q2 Instant - instant switching like Q1.
Classic - classic Q1 guns.

Some weapons may not be in though - the railgun doesn't really sit with the Quake 1 feel imo, and i haven't even begun on the BFG. Hyperblaster is currently a plasmagun but i may change it to a nailgun for a "grittier" feel. 

lighting looks very washed out, could be a lot lot more moodier. 

Kinn: I'd suggest not releasing a map with models and textures that aren't legal for distribution. The textures could be overlooked, and normally are... but when you start grabbing models as well... well, that's just asking for a letter from id's legal department.

The map looks decent enough, rather dull architecture in my opinion, q3gothic needs a ton of details to look cool. Agree with nitin's comment about the lighting. Not fond of colored lights in q1 maps, but that's your choice. Sounds like you're looking to keep things cross engine and such, which gains you points in my book, as I'd be playing in standard glquake only.

I will say, it looks like you have ambition to spare and that map looks a hell a lot better than most people's first map. Hope to see it do well and be a fun map. 

'The textures could be overlooked, and normally are... but when you start grabbing models as well... well, that's just asking for a letter from id's legal department'

There are custom made versions of the standard weapons from Quake 3 and UnReal2. One guy had a site booth at last year's QuakeCon. I remember that they looked pretty nice but I don't remember the name of the mod. 

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/pushscb1.pk3 (5megs ish)

This is my first q3 map, but I'd really like this to be a good map. I'd appreciate a lot of feedback on what I can do better and what I did right. The more specific the better. :) 

I'll try to take a look tonight. 

i don't get it...

is this a q2 map for quake2 with monsters from q1 ported over or is this q1 with q2 weapons ported over?

what engines?

what's going on! i'm confused!

the map looks cool though 

from what he said, its a q1 map with q2 weapons. 

Hello, thanks for your comments..

As I said, these screenshots are previews... so even if comments are not good, I take them into account to improve map quality... Don't be afraid, I'm not offenced if someone doesn't like my work... while good advices are given....

About the first screenshot, it's true, sarcophage textures doesn't match with the top... because I only have the top texture, and not the side.. I haven't find it yet... grrr...

About the second screenshot, I have not added yet some brushes to break the clean rock look... I'm still working on it...

For the third screenshot, that's the same... sorry..

For the fourth screenshot, yes, this is the arrival of the well (see third screenshot)... a little swim in lava naver kill the player unless he misses the pentagram ;-)) he he he ...

Anyway, I will made another screenshots release in a near future.... trying to improve map look quality...

Thanks again...

Bye