add my voice to the general chorus of hell yes. in terms of the custom-but-oldschool style, new textures, custom stuff and impeccable design, this looks like the medieval Rubicon 2! 

....not TRIMLESS edges, but edges where the trim is only on one side of the edge so it looks painted on 2D, rather than an actual trim. Trimless would be fine with the right textures.

Sock, looks like you are managing this Quake mapping malarkey just fine ;) 

Sock, looks great. You make the brown palette look good.

About those rocks, have you ever tried q1rad? I think it'll smooth out gradations depending on the angle changes. Only downside I can see with q1rad is the chunky shadows even with the -extra option set. 

All your stuff looks bum-spankingly badarse. Can't wait. 

http://www.suspenlute.com/fitz0000.jpg 

Apart from the general excitement of a new fr3n map, there's some cool new things to look at there - I particularly like the gold and black runic combos, it reminds me of the Kaaba at Mecca. The red and blue to go with it seems like one too many colours in my opinion, although I do think either could work solo.

The other thing is that the lighting is not really flattering the dome at the moment, emphasising the angles rather than smoothing them. I'm sure there is a switch for "anglesense" or something in some lighting programs which will try and fix that, maybe someone with more experience lighting can remind us. An alternative would be to use a .mdl file for the visual part of the dome, and I just happen to have such a model lying unreleased. So if you want to give that a try grab:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapterhonour/dome.zip 

Well temperd cavey treat you have, Fr3n.
The pillars make me think of Tron. 

the "story" behind this map takes place, at least nominally, in Tunisia so I'm glad you picked up on the architectural influence. ;)

i'm undecided about the colors - right now the blue is only used sparingly in "outdoors"-like areas so I think it might balance out.

this will be a quoth map so the dome will probably be an external model anyway. thanks for the resouce. 

Nice one! 

Love the theme! Feel good about the colours, glad it is quoth. Dodgy rock face on left though. 

Love the theme! Feel good about the colours, glad it is quoth. Dodgy rock face on left though. 

Love the theme! Feel good about the colours, glad it is quoth. Dodgy rock face on left though. 

 

So, anyway Drew, tell us what you think about the theme... 

theme drew me to one of the 2001 nights. 

http://negke.slipgateconstruct.com/images/mce.jpg 

nice, though that staircase seems less impossible than i remember. 

To get the stairs to look 'right' in a 3D environment, one has to use a trick that only works for the screenshot - the stairs have a different length and don't touch in the top left corner. I wanted to keep it playable, though. 

Negke ! Publish that level, I'm an Escher fanatic !

Escher-like architectures in Quake would be totaly AWESOME ! 

You could try to show what happens when the Quake monsters are building impossible architectures : the architecture falls into ruins. Ruined impossible stairs, etc... 

At first I thought about putting a stairs puzzle in the interior, possibly a copy of Escher's Relativity, but it'd be pretty messy and hard to do. His most Quakey works, my favorites, which I'd love to see mapped, are the Planetoids. My SM117 is in that vein somewhat. 

I actually had a similar idea recently but more Serafini than Escher style (thin threads and filaments bearing weight and transmitting impossible force, etc.)

Might even try incorporating it into my current wip... 

link's dead: please restore, don't tell me I missed a good shot of your new project.

has there ever been a year in Q1SP history, that more tantalizing shots have been posted?
maybe at the end of the year I'll tally what was previewed vs what was released, I'm pretty sure this is a great year for previews even though actual releases have slowed since the winter (understandable, not-winter includes other things to do).

PS, anyone have any scraps? seems like it's been forever since a mapper released scraps.

I wish mappers who are done like Kell or long ago, Glassman, would release the scraps they had. You can't benefit from our imagining how awesome these maps would have been if you're not around anymore. Might as well admit that, like the HL2 'demo' it was all just built for a couple sweet shots - and then let us finish the maps. 

Enjoy the extreme suckness of these.

http://www.suspenlute.com/stuff/fr3nscrap2.bsp

An attempt to make insanely over-detailed architecture with curves. Had destroyed every compiler on my machine by the time I gave up on it.

http://www.suspenlute.com/stuff/fr3nscrap1.bsp

A self-kidding attempt to do the opposite of the above - making insanely over-detailed architecture using only right angles and on-grid brushwork. I should actually finish this one - it looks much cooler than I remember. 

every map could use some more secret areas eh?
haven't had a look yet but, don't sell yourself short. Especially after the last screenshot.