yay, medieval!

have you thought about using a skybox?
Duske at https://www.quaddicted.com/webarchive/kell.quaddicted.com/skyboxes.html is a bit overused, but I think it might look good with your map. 

Damn that looks good. Something about it looks clean and modern, even if the textures are dirty medieval. The brushwork is also elegant and effective, looking swell! 

yeah duske is nice. or even tramonto looks good. 

 

That map does not need a skybox. 

A couple things:

- maybe make the wooden roofs darker and the windows yellow?

- the grass would look more organic and less Minecrafty if you rotated the texture a bit, like 30 or 45 degrees.

- might be a good idea to use a seamless texture on top of the white trims. 

OTP I'm not trying to argue for the new for its own sake. Indeed, if you know my maps, I've lazily done next to nothing to accommodate new tech, except as it allows for bigger scale.

I think that the outdoors-inclined mapper, can have rocks in the background (see Beyond Belief 2008) or a skybox. BBelief2008 could have led the player to higher levels - as could have Termination Mental - if they built more rocks to surround the level. Anyway, I like levels to give the illusion of being part of a larger area, and while I totally fucked that over specifically and deliberately with Masque, I think a skybox is better than a normal sky for a map with a visible horizon. 

Hey, thanks for all the feedback everyone.

Onetruepurple, great points, I'm going to action each of them.

I won't use a skybox in this map because I don't want to use anything that takes away from the feel of original Quake. The skyboxes that have been linked to are absolutely fantastic, and would really help create the feeling of the level existing as a part of something much larger around it, but it's not period accurate. The overarching theme of this level is that when you play it, it should feel like it could have just come from some BBS in 1996.

With slightly higher r_speeds.

I also really think that the way the sky material flows and warps in quake is absolutely lovely, it's an effect that hasn't quite been done before or since. 

they tried to recreate the Q1-style scrolling sky in Q3, but it was never the same. I really like the idea of making a Quake map with the idea of making a 1996 map, rather than making a Quake map of 2013.

Still though, my ideal Quake map has always been The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which never gave you a look at the Quake sky's scroll-point, despite how ridiculously panoramic it was. What I'm trying to say is, build more rocks around the outside, like hipnotic did back in the day, god bless. 

Here is a prototype of my remake of DM-Stalwart from UT99. No screenshot or video, because it's not really tuned for looks yet. Source so far is included.

http://db.tt/UpUx2JIL

It plays pretty well, but hasn't been detailed yet. The boxes you see littered about are mostly just placeholders until I think of a theme to build some widgets around. Same for the textures, just wanted to see how big/small the rooms felt without the greybox.

I altered the proportions of some places (the halls mostly) to make more room. Movement in Quake is faster than UT99, so the thinner halls from the source material felt too cramped and bouncy. I also altered the weapon placement for the same reason, with how fast Quake players can move it was too easy to camp all of the weapons.

I left myself plenty of room to do detailing and and lighting. The ceilings are all going to have channels/grooves for lighting like the original. I just threw some torches around in this version, so lighting is temporary as well. Still deciding on a theme for the map, so I'm not sure if the lighting will be industrial, or moody, or torch/fire based or what. The original would suggest metal, but I think it might be fun to do something different. 

Keeping in mind this is a boxy beta I plan to make less boxy when I detail and shape the rooms more, please be brutally honest and correct me if you see any bad habits developing, or if I'm doing something outright stupid I'm not aware of. Source was included for this reason.

I can take it! 

Can't wait to see, I loved unreal tournament 

I'm trying to keep in mind advice I've heard from various places. The most helpful of which so far has been from Daz during one of his videos on Custom Gamer, where he says it's best to put detail in places the player can't get to, such as ceilings, or high on walls. I certainly have a lot of space like that to work with, so I started brainstorming.

If I stay with the metal theme, I think it'd be easiest to preserve the feeling of Stalwart with a cargo, storage vibe. I have lots of areas I could add bays, racks, and shelves for flavor and fun yet functional lighting. I figured I'd start with the ceiling.

http://db.tt/x49W5N9n

Then I thought it'd be cool to have in-wall bays, something to make them feel less flat.

http://db.tt/8WgAOIJ9

Probably not best to have it right under the rack. I think I'll make it run the length of the wall. There's a clipping brush to stop players running up into it, but I don't like using those. I think it's better to build a way to keep players out, or do something else to communicate that the area is for decoration, which feeds back into the advice of keeping detail out of arms reach. I may make the in-wall bay double-decker, move it out from under the ceiling mounted one, and put items in it that were previously on the floor. Maybe an alcove. Still thinking and experimenting.

I'm also considering a medieval theme. I usually use torches or fireballs for temp lighting because it's easier to visualize once you get in game where shadows are coming and going from when you can see all light points. The fire is kind of growing on me, and I have some ideas to make sure of the awesome stained glass textures wake has. Like I said still thinking. 

Make sure to check out Kell's Knave texture wad. It blends between rusted metal and medieval quite nicely (a bit q3ish in that regard) 

I had forgotten how boring the layout of Stalwart is.

I think Knave is a bit of an overused texture set at the minute (even I have a knave map on the go). But it is probably much better to have that than the current set, I probably would have gone with a base theme. You know what would rock? If someone made DM-Peak. 

it's best to put detail in places the player can't get to, such as ceilings, or high on walls

Does he give a reason for that? What video did he say it in? 

He was talking about a map he was making that he gave up on, called "Factory".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7FZAuWfNNg

At about 11:45. If you want to have fun with geometry, put it up high or otherwise where the player can't get to it. The gameplay area should be functional and apparent, and having superfluous geometry/excess props and fixtures where the player has to navigate, or consider navigating, makes the area less immediately understandable.

Of course if your goal is to make it less understandable or to make the path not obvious, then it doesn't apply, but if you're just trying to add detail it's probably best/good to do it in a way it can't impede/confuse/mislead the player in any way. 

extrapolation on the theory is mine, those aren't his words exactly 

It sounds reasonable, and I mostly agree for abstract games such as Quake. But if you look at the world around you, detail is usually all round you. 

It's not realistic, but it makes a lot of sense for gameplay. Realism alone is not a desirable quality. The most important thing you should consider is for your games to 'read' right. Players and monsters should be easy to discern from the background. So when you put in the eyecandy you add it in places where it adds to the visuals without interfering in the gameplay oriented visuals.

Detail is a misnomer by the way, it really should be 'contrast' or big changes in luminosity. You can do a lot of geometric detail, if the lightness stays within acceptable range it should look fine.

For instance, a black and white checkerboard texture on the floor will start competing for attention with other scene elements. You want to focus player attention to where it matters. 

but it's still excellent for Quake :) 

In a Quake DM map, players can reach pretty much every spot as soon as they have explosives.

So ceiling detail isn't out of the way in a Quake map.

And if you clip it off, players are gonna ask why they can't get to that nice camping spot.

This is probably why the original maps are relatively bare, as are most Q3 maps. You give them a grenade launcher, and they can get everywhere. Hence I usually try to make detail useful for gameplay at the same time. 

Not sure I agree. I think Romero just had a fetish for ceiling detail. It's also a logical spot for complex beams, lighting, etc, and, if you build so much detail that the player COULD go there, why not just make it a secret (ala near the end of e1m2)?
This is all assuming it's indoors. Wall detail is good but requires a lot more clipping so as not to interfere with gameplay.
Floor detail - who's done it?

Not that I've put a lot of thought into this. My approach has just been to entertain the player visually by having large/outdoor areas visible, rather than detailed indoor areas. 

Is something I love to do... 

But I enjoy good outdoor detail more than indoor. Especially in a game like Quake where anything goes. You can design whatever kind of weird, off the wall structure you want, and it'll fit right in. Cathedrals with cool spires/roofs, castles with crumbled walls and bulwarks/battlements, military bases, prisons, depots, it's all fair game and the player will eat it up. I know I do.

I especially love maps that appear to be a place in a larger environment, like with surrounding cliffs or with vistas that give you glimpses of areas off in the distance.