 News | Forum | People | FAQ | Links | Search | Register |
Log in |
|
|
Hey guys, just letting you know that Part 1 of the project is up on The Quake Grave here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozh-0rBIK6k I unfortunately don't have a lot of time at the moment to type out notes for everyone but I do have some things to chat about during each maps playthrough. In the end, I think everyone so far has made a really fun map! I talk a lot about what makes a map look dated versus contemporary in 2017, but who knows, I could be full of it. I'm not much of a quake mapper at all, so keep that in mind as well, I just know what I like and what i think looks dated versus contemporary. =) Part 2 out next week! Great to see this finally released.
Some nice beginners' maps in here, cheers to everyone involved. The maps show potential to varying degrees and I hope to see more from each one of you in the future! brassbite: Three distinctly themed (colored) towers is a neat idea. There's nothing to really set them apart, though, either visually or in terms of gameplay. They all look very plain; long staircases with repetitive, predictable monster placement and weak weapons for most of the map which gets boring quickly. Try to spice things up with variation to encounters and side areas. Danzadan: Somewhat unique theme. I kind of felt like the red star-shaped things should have had seams or some sort of trim around them for a more distinct look. The end fight is a nice touch. I like how the player has a choice of how much action at once he's willing to take by pressing either one button at a time, or multiple ones in succession (or by accident). The final phase of the fight is cool, but also tricky. Only works in combination with the fog. I survived by luck. Seems like it's just a bit too hard with darkness + all tough enemies + supplies only at the (clippy) center. Daya: Good layout, cool "twist" and broken city parts, but excessive monster density in every area, though maybe that's also because I played on hard skill. The end fight is absolute crap- small area, no cover, wtf? I managed to not find a single secret, heh. The glass texture looks out of place. Hexenmapper: The map's setting is clearly visible. Visually a proper 1997 vibe. Some strange texture combinations, but not an issue. Construction is boxy for obvious reasons, so for next time you can try some vertical shifts/angled parts and a tighter grip on scale. GJ on organizing this pack! Kres: Good theme, nice details. Didn't like the colored lighting which looks off in many areas. I managed to miss the grenade launcher for the longest time, it's almsot hidden away from sight around the corner. Went to look for it when I couldn't proceed further and eventually found it. Again arenas with little to no cover and clippy bits... Naitelveni: Nice one, combining classic'ish style with a touch of modern'ish details (e.g. broken bits). Combat feels a bit chokepointish and I would have wished for a better weapon earler- feels like I did half of the map with the shotgun. The small outside area left of the start room looks like it would have been a good place for the DBS. I thought the final area would have worked well connected to the rest of the map in a natural way somehow...ish. Pritchard: A little bit like a speedmap. Not much to say... The first of many! Spud: negke badge of approval. Topher: Feels like a sort of experiment with setpieces rather than a consistent map. Not complaining, of course. I got a bit of an arena fatigue (also thanks to the other maps before). I think it would have felt better if it was an enclosed valley or canyon-type of setting instead of a space map-like one; and in my view it looks better without the fog. Vingal: Good honest classic-style level. Very enjoyable. Shame about the misplaced flame fixtures, though. Wonder how something like this got past testing? Nice closets and areas opening up, and an intriguing secrets theme. Start map: It looks cool, and I like how it picks up elements from each map for their respective exits. However, I found the layout to be overly complicated for my taste so I loaded the maps from the console. The first room in the map selection hub gave me a distinct Madfox vibe. :D By and large, a good effort; and great idea to do a community project like this for people who would possibly otherwise be put off by the jams or their deadlines. Vingal's and Naitelveni's maps were my favorites, I think - not least because they don't (mis)use colored lighting. Demos (protocol 666) At the risk of sounding like a broken record: most of the maps have items falling out and monsters partially stuck in walls. These issues can easily be indentified by using the developer 1 command before loading the map so that game will print warning messages in the console. Thanks for playing ArrCee, some great feedback. Glad you had fun! Look forward to the second installment. I definitely agreed with a lot of what you said.
Cheers for the feedback too negke, very helpful. The reason for their incorrect placement is empty origin fields on the func_illusionary entities. It is some TB thing where empty fields are kept instead of being removed. Some entities even have doubly empty fields "" "". This causes Quakespasm to get confused about their position. It does not seem to be a problem in Fitzquake, for example. At any rate, it's something to watch out for.
I made some quick hotfix for this (which also fixes some item and monster placement conflicts): qump_vingal_entfix.zip Just drop it in the maps directory alongside the It is some TB thing where empty fields are kept instead of being removed. Some entities even have doubly empty fields "" "". This causes Quakespasm to get confused about their position.
This is why brush entities tend to be fucked up at random in my retrojam6 map :( Some clarification on my "clippy" comments. Wasn't meant as nitpicking but rather to point out a common problem to keep in mind.
Quake's style and architecture is big and chunky, so naturally part of the player's required skillset is the ability to 'mind his surroundings' at all time. So better stay clear of that support beam on the wall when there's a fiend approaching... Having said that, the physics can be quite dodgy and can easily make for awkward or frustrating situations. The player (as well as monsters and items) is basically a box, 32*32*56 units. And this is how he clips to the world. Obviously, you don't have to go nuts with clip brushes and turn the map into a smooth pipe. But sometimes clipping geometry helps to make life easier for the player. In tight corridors or arenas, for example. Nothing is more annoying than getting stuck on some protruding or recessed wall part and get cornered by enemies. The AI, too, can benefit from clipped off obstacles sometimes. You know how dumb it is. The same goes for the floor, and this needs to be stressed. Since the player is a box at high speed, small height variations can make for a bumpy ride, especially if it's some small depression, like for instance a lowered 64*64 grate in the floor. Imagine the player box walking over there, dropping down, then immediately having to go up the step again. This can impede movement or even stop it altogether. Again, not nice when fighting monsters. Check out the wodden stairs in Naitelveni's map for a particularly nasty example of dodgy Quake physics. It's not only during combat, though. Essentially any place where it can inconvenience the player, so for example also on narrow walkways, staircases, jumping sections, and so on. You shouldn't use steps higher than 16 units and if there are stairs or platforms of varying heights next to each other, like some open L-shaped staircase where the walking diagonally over the corner would be too high, sometimes a thin 'service clip' can help to avoid the player getting stopped where it looks like he should be able to get across. Just a couple of examples; there are more of course. All to be taken with a pinch of salt. Although invisible, some good clipping adds polish to a map. Cheers for the info on the brushes there negke, good points on the clips as well. There was one area I noticed in naitelveni's map where clip brushes would have been nice (the broken tiles at the start), but he had lost the map file so geometry edits weren't really possible.
Clip brushes are great and I certainly learned how key they are during this project. A bumpy ride is not nice! Some entities even have doubly empty fields "" "". This causes Quakespasm to get confused about their position.
I'll look into this, can you give me map coordinates that show something rendered differently between Fitzquake and QS? The "" "" entries don't seem to be a problem; origin" "" ones on brush entities seems to cause trouble. Example in Vingal's map: (520 2300 60) - from the cave you start in, walk down the corridor and through the door, then just to the left there's a floating illusionary. You can find these in several areas.
I don't see anything wrong at 520 2300 60 which is near the demon face:
https://i.imgur.com/gebZYms.jpg but these torches right before the first door are missing their holders: https://i.imgur.com/epFINpS.jpg The holders disappear with QS 0.92.1 win32, and are visible with Fitz0.85 and QS 0.92.1 macOS so it's some kind of nasty platform-dependent thing. will post further in the QS thread when I see what exactly is happening. I saw the problem in development and caused me intermittent issues on some entities where I had to remove this empty origin field (some mass manipulation gone wrong I'm guessing). Never saw the issue on the final version though and ignored the compile warnings about the remaining empty fields - what a mistake...
I'm going to clean up my No need for a complete compile, the
or use adquedit to load the
http://quaketastic.com/files/tools/windows/misc/ADQUEDIT_v6_beta.zip I fixed naitelvenis trigger_changelevel this way. Just letting you all know that I put up Part 2 with the next 5 maps, can you find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNTAWMaViDc The maps in Part 2 are from Naitelveni, Pritchard, Spud, Topher and Vingal. Nice work everyone, looking forward to your future maps! Oh man, I was looking forward to this, especially after Part 1 which had me shouting "Use your grenades, you fool!" at the screen more than once. Really enjoy your videos in general, you've showcased a number of weird or odd older maps that I normally wouldn't have looked at twice.
get completely destroyed by a Shambler protecting a desktop computer. Yea, I dunno either. he he he Also, someone already commented on the video with something about SOON™ being a DUSK reference, which it definitely isn't so not sure what he's going on about. HA! I'm sure you're not the only one shouting at the screen at me. I get comments about it often. Glad you dig the playthroughs though. =)
Yea, I wasn't sure if he was on the money or not with the TM, as I just thought it was a silly joke. Nice work on your map though, always fun to have something like this thrown in and break up the status quo! After playing this through, i must say it's a nice thing and i hope you guys make a few more maps. The variety that this episode offered is a nice refreshing thing.
Greetings, TKJ. Holy hot damn Keres' map was insane. Got through by the skin of my teeth multiple times.
demo : https://www.dropbox.com/s/52lantcd2um7yuc/daz_keres.zip?dl=0
|
|
| You must be logged in to post in this thread. |
|
| Website copyright © 2002-2024 John Fitzgibbons. All posts are copyright their respective authors. |