My Travail maps featured a lot of rockwork actually. The second one in particular was pretty 100% rock caverns. Too bad you didn't play them (and left them out of your UWF review). But it's true, I don't seem to do that very often. 

UWF did the UWF review. I admit I focused most on the first part when I did my review, mostly because I was a big fan of Scragbait, and I still am. I didn't do any further reviews, at that point, and it's true I did get a bit lazier regarding the project as a whole. 

I'm now going to play all the way through, and I won't try to think who designed what. Fuck that. Anyway Trvail was one of the #1 orgies since Quake was released. So I'mma a play now, and I apologize for being gayer earlier., 

Caverns full of spiders in Travail. That was you, Negke?

Travail was fun. Make another one!

By the way, dm7 will probably sit between dm5 and dm6 as a secret map, though it might just be that last map. Who knows eh? :)

It won't be the first and exit to dm1 though. dm1rmx is the easiest map so far (of the 3 I've nearly done). They're all likely to be stand-alone releases at first anyway, then if I get them done it might be called dmrmxrmx :) 

there\s a great news bout than's rmx maps.

particularly a dm1 remix 

what ever happened to uwf? he and the site just completed stopped, never even a closing update. 

Probably gave up on the Underworld series too. 

i always thought he was a fan of the band, not the movie... 

would make much more sense.
for many reasons. 

he was going to be hosted at quaddicted but vanished. 

Your first thought should have been he was a fan of the concept of the underworld and everything ghoulish within (hence the Quake reviews). I suppose he then joined the army and died in one of the middle east crusades. RIP :( 

He did a real life first person shooter? cool.

Speaking of which, I've emailed Neil Manke's personal email addy a few weeks ago. Never heard back. No one has heard from him online since 2008, where he was reportedly very sick. The game he was making was never finished. So my guess is he must have died. 

i've always wondered that about people i've previously known online. they could have died suddenly, at any moment, without anyone outside real-life circles ever knowing. depressing thought 

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=24251518

nobody seems to have heard anything. Surely if he'd died there would be someone that knows and would tell people. I enjoyed his work for hl alot, and I'm sure he had plenty of fans. 

There were others working on the game with him (einar saukas). I looked up a couple on Facebook, was thinking about messaging them...
His email didn't bounce back, so someone got it but chose not to reply.

Neil was always good with updates and loyal to fans, so I think if he was able to, he eventually would have put an announcement on his website. Someone on some forum also mentioned cancer. Not sure if that was true or just Chinese whispers. But if he did die, I guess that could explain why no one he ever worked with wants to announce it, as it's kinda a big deal and they might not feel it's their place to say.

yeah it's a scary thought rj, many people in the past we would never know about. 

did he not? anyone know where he went? 

I think Tronyn managed to contact him once about the gmsp2 sources? That was around 2010 though.

And since this thread took a turn toward the depressing, have an appropiately shitty WIP shot: http://i48.tinypic.com/34gvcz9.jpg 

Call me a hopeless optimist, but whenever a modding luminary disappears from the scene I tend to just assume they were swallowed up by some faceless dev studio and nolonger have time for their humble roots. 

Looks like a nice selection. 

Looks good, but try roughing out a layout before getting caught up in details. If it's just a decoration test then cool - look forward to seeing the finished map. 

Ok, so I've spent the past few evenings slowly putting in rock brushwork. I'm still only about 2/3 done. Not sure why I am so slow at doing this... I think it must be partly psychological.

Anyway, here is a very rough in progress shot, which also shows some of the other changes. Final will have a little more detail, textured rocks and hopefully better lighting (still using minllight 50.)

http://i.imgur.com/CisIo.jpg 

Ricky: Thanks, I have a huge hardon for texture combos so it made sense I gave it a try too.

than: Yeah, I was going to do more detail work but then I ran into the same rock problem as you. So I guess I'll just block out instead.
DM7 is looking swell, glad you didn't listen to sock (sorry sock :(). The rusty metals are interesting, what wad is that? 

opt: it's a good start, but i'll reiterate that you shouldn't do too much detail early on.

than: there's terrain in that shot? i couldn't see any as my eyes were glued to the _awesome_ castle in the center. ;) 

In cath, did you use Hipshot's stormydays skybox as is, or did you resample it? I could swear it looks different my current map. 

i used rle compression on the TGAs, but that shouldn't affect anything in the way it looks.

nice choice for a sky btw, hipshot's skies are awesome!