Wow, really amazing screenshots... Very good work ! 

next lan party with Q3 I know what I'm playing. 

Yeah, you're right. There is the area with a sort of a ravine thing going on. It looked good, but it needed to be tied back to the temple. Some cool mesoamerican knick-knacks lying around would have done it.

http://members.aol.com/emdelcamp/altarp1.jpg
http://members.aol.com/cabrakan/bearerb.jpg

Knick-knack is of course the layman's term for what is technically known as statues 'n shit. 

Fucking class work, Sock. I have no idea how it plays so I can't comment on that, but I was kind of disappointed to see r_speeds topping 24,000 in some places. Hardly a problem any more, but there's still something to be said for strong skill with vis/optimization.

I desperately want to see this map with a cloudy sky and white fog. 

really?? because on my POS system it still runs reasonably well compared to other maps that are considered high end. 

This makes a mockery of heightmap-based terrain tools. Far Cry, UT2K4, pfft.

The three-way blending trick is also very neat. I didn't think that could be done in Q3. 

Awesome.

That's all I need to say, this is an excellant map. Layout is awesome, you can hop around to every area and get above opponents very quickly. Visuals are fantastic, and the brushwork is a thing of beauty. I'm going to start crying tears of joy just thinking of how cool this map is. 

i love how there is so much detail... all the little plants and such, and the trees actually look pretty good.
the ambient sounds also go a long way towards making the whole map feel like a real place.

didn't actually play the map, so no comments on gameplay.

it's a very beautiful map. looks like something out of Uru actually! :)
if only the plants could have been animated in some way to make them sway a bit, that would have been awesome. 

looks great.
hope a new version that supports botplay can be released soon. 

Wow alot of comments I did not know existed! Yeah the map is mainly two things, one to see how far the terrain blending could go and a personal mapping project for me.

metlslime: Yeah the brickwork is part digital source and part hand drawn. Could not find a good digital source of brickwork that I liked.

Ironically most people don't like the weapon spawn markers but it was a design choice and I have to stick by it. I wanted something similiar in style to the jump pads and the whole mayan god of rain theme. I created them very early on and they sort of grew on me.

Lunaran: There are indeed several sections of the map which are poorly designed for fps but the map was too far along to change.

The source files are available if you want to have a look.

http://www.planetquake.com/simland/pages/q3maps/pom_source.htm

Thanks everyone for your comments.
Sock 

I'm glad you kept the weapon spawn markers, they're pretty cool. 

After a lot of writing and constant proof reading the Terrain Blending article is finished.

http://www.planetquake.com/simland/pages/articles/terrain1_1.htm

It started life as a small collection of ideas and suggestions, but some how turned into a 7 page monster! The article does contain a lot of technical jargon but hopefully its presented in a nice and easily understandable format.

With all three items finished, (example map/source files/article) hopefully that should be enough information on terrain blending to help most people get started.

Sock 

we need bots!

Seriously, is it even possible to get botplay going on this map (maybe with the new q3map)? 

I think I love you. 

Unfortunately, the way BSPC divides up a map's internal space when creating the AAS is incredibly intolerant of uneven, heavily triangulated geometry, especially floors. This map has plenty of these, and are undeniably vital to its amazing look and feel. I can well imagine that to get a viable AAS, you would have to botclip the map to such a point that the bots would basically be obviously skating around above the floor over about 90% of the map, and would pretty much be able to cheat in some places because of being able to walk where the player couldn't. That's assuming that BSPC would work at all, and in a map this complex there is absolutely no guarantee of that. 

Thanks for the tutorial. 

After a lot of conversations with MrE and Ydnar I did get a bot file working but the clusterf*ckin portals kept on breaking all the time. To compile the map with BSPC it takes a hour and tbh I got fed up waiting around, just to find out that as I fixed one portal another decided to die.

Someone has offered to try and create a BOT file for the map and good luck to them. I wasted a week watching BPSC compile screens and I really dont want to do that again.

Sock 

I grabbed this map just to check out the visuals since I'm not much into DM. I'm very impressed by all aspects of this map and the terrain is amazing. The plant life really adds to the jungle feel and the caves are very cool.

This style of map would be great for SP. 

sock's work is amazing 

This is fantastic work on the Q3 engine. It could pass for a UT2K4 map easily.

Obviously alot of work went into the alphablending and it looks great. The rock formations are excellent -- not a misaligned or oddly shaped brush to be found...and that is no small feat in a Quake engine to have rocks like that and not have any weirdness.

The atmosphere was very enveloping and the custom sounds fit seamlessly into the environment. I really did feel a sense of an ancient mystical power or something lurking just beyond...very well done.

The thing I was most blown away by was the model/texturing work on the trees!! I know you didn't make the base model sock, but that tree texture is outstanding, and the trees were perfectly organic looking. In the readme I also saw that you went out and photographed the sources for some of the textures yourself, which again, is unbelivable considering how well they came out.

I can't comment on gameplay yet because bots don't work (obviously) but I'm hoping someone will throw this bad boy up on a server so we can have a func_msg/#terrafusion match on it.

Outstanding work sock -- this is the best Q3 map I've seen yet. 

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback on the map. About 90% of the textures included in the map were taken with my digital camera. It took me several weeks to get all the images together from various locations close by to where I live. If anyone is interested in how the textures were put together, there is source pack with various PSD,PSP files on my site.

If anyone wants to test out the map online with some friends, it is available on the PQ bunker server.

http://www.planetquake.com/bunker/servers.html
Pop by the PQ channel and ask for the password etc. You will need the latest ver. of OSP and PunkBuster installed.

Sock 

A couple of weeks ago and yeah its amazing work, technically and visually inspiring.

As blitz said, the rocks and trees look great, and all the blended texture layers really bring home the look of an overgrown jungle temple, lovin' it hard right here :)

Now give us doom3 maps! :D 

Let's set a date to play it -- some time when everyone has a little free time and we can have a jolly 'ol fragfest.

Any day is good for me any time after 7PM GMT. Suggestions from anyone else interested in getting a game going on this? 

just got to see this Level...
impressive....
sock u rock! 

How is today for everyone? Can I convince you to play in about 9 hours from now? (it's 6:30AM here) I figured people are probably off from work and what not, so let's GAME!