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Title : The Bright Building
Filename : BB32CTF0.BSP
Author : Jack Perdue (aka Silicon Slick)
Email Address : jkp2866@cs.tamu.edu
Date : August 23rd, 1997
Description : A very large (32+ player) CTF level based upon
: the H.R."Bum" Bright Building -- home of the
: Computer Science department at Texas A&M University
Homepage : http://www.cs.tamu.edu/people/jkp2866/BrightCTF/
Additional Credits to : see the Credits page on the homepage
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* Play Information *
Single Player : Sure (For review)
Cooperative : No
Deathmatch : Yes (but you'll get errors for the team starts and flags)
Deathmatch CTF : Yes!
Difficulty Settings : No
New Sounds : No
New Graphics : No
New Music : No
Demos Replaced : None
* Construction *
Base : Based upon the floorplans of the Bright Building available
: on the CS department's web server (www.cs.tamu.edu)
Editor(s) used : BMP2MAP mostly, Worldcraft for carving and texturing
Known Bugs : None
Build Time : about 3 months to create the .MAP
: about 5 hours for wQBSP/ARTHLITE/RVIS to convert the .MAP to a .BSP
* Installation Instructions *
1) You have to have the registered version of Quake from id Software.
2) For CTF (Capture the Flag), you will need the Threewave CTF client/server stuff
(available at www.threewave.com)
3) Put BB32CTF0.BSP in your \quake\id1\maps subdirectory. If you don't have a id1\maps
subdirectory in your Quake subdirectory, you will have to create it (go figure).
4) When you start Quake, you will want to make sure Quake's heap is at least 12MB.
If you are running from DOS, Quake should allocate all available memory.
If you are running from Win95, you'll want to add the "-winmem 12" (or 16 or whatever)
to the command line to force Quake to grab additional memory from Win95.
This is because any .BSP above ~1.5MB won't run with a 8MB heap.
5) If you just want to run around and check it out, you can 1) add the "+map bb32ctf0"
option to the command line, or 2) after Quake starts, bring down the console and
enter "MAP BB32CTF0".
6) If you want to play CTF, check the documentation that comes with the CTF server/client
for details.
* Author's Notes *
This is a project I've wanted do to since I first learned about Quake editting
late in '96. Summer finally afforded me the oppurtunity to do it.
I've tried to follow the floorplans of the Bright Building as much as possible.
Some exceptions made were:
1) Floorplans weren't available for the sixth and seventh floor (they're aerospace
folks up there), or the basement. So, the basement was ignored. Since it was
to be a CTF level, and I'm a big fan of symmetry in CTF levels, I decided to
model the sixth and seventh after the fourth and third, respectively. This
means the CTF arena (floors 3 through 7) mirror each other around the fifth floor.
2) Doorways were moved in some cases to avoid "snags", those annoying bits that
make doorways difficult when playing on a slow Internet connection. Furthermore,
most doorways were widened to be at least two player widths wide (>64), for the
same reason.
3) Rounded and diagonal surfaces were squared off to make a more visually appealling
level using BMP2MAP. Hallways, to some extent, were modified for the same reason.
4) AFAIK, there isn't a giant cavern behind the elevator shafts. It is actually
where all the mechanical/electrical stuff is housed and is off-limits to those
who don't belong there. I added the cavern because a friend suggested I needed
some vertical space for some grappling hook action. This addition also required
that I modify the second floor just a little to provide a place to get out
of the swimming pool (which I _had_ to add for those of you who have GL cards --
I used Ken Alverson's wQBSP so the water should be transparent. Let me know
if it isn't, as I have no way of testing it myself.).
In case you were wondering, the bases are located just outside the department
head's office (third floor). The Quad is in the graduate advisor's office.
In addition to the .BSP, I am releasing the .MAP and all the other bits
and pieces I used to create this level. They should all be available on
the home page. My hopes is that others here at A&M (or elsewhere) will
take the project created thus far further. Perhaps provide more realistic
texturing and maybe turn it into a single player level (ie. with monsters).
However, knowing that I pretty much pushed the limits of the Quake engine
just creating this level, I imagine that any derivative projects will
probably want to wait until the Quake2 engine is available. I'd also
like to see it completely retextured with original textures so that it
could be used with a JAVA/VRML .BSP viewer on the WWW (they do exist).
Then, prospective visitors to the Bright Building could take a virtual
tour of the building from their desktop (once the bandwidth is available ;).
If you create a level based upon this level, let me know! I want to
make it available to others, therefore I will want the .MAP/.WAD. I plan
to make each derivative work available at the home page so that others
can add to it, kind of like one of those pop art pages available on
the Web. Perhaps, when I get enough variations, I'll put together a
new CTF .PAK consisting of different peoples interpretations of the
Bright Building.
There's more, but I won't bore you more than I already have.
I _highly_ recommend you visit the home page to look at the floorplans
before playing -- it _is_ big and you could spend hours wandering around
if you don't know where things are.
If you set up a server running this level, PLEASE let me know. It was
written with 32 player action in mind, and as of yet, I haven't had
the oppurtunity to see/play it with that many people.
Gib'em,
jack (aka Silicon Slick)
si_slick@cy-net.net
Clan 13th Man - http://http.tamu.edu/~jkp2866/Clan13thMan/
* Copyright / Permissions *
Authors MAY use this level as a base to build additional levels.
The building blocks for this level (eg. .MAP/original .BMPs) will be available
at the Bright CTF home page listed above. You MAY distribute for free this BSP,
provided you include this file, with no modifications. However, since the
textures are copyrighted id Software, Dave "Zoid" Kirsch and Brian "Whaleboy" Cozzens
and the original floorplans belong to the TAMU CS CSG/IPS, YOU MAY NOT SELL THIS
LEVEL AT ALL. (period)
* Where to get this Map *
ftp.cdrom.com and the home page listed above