"4Way" map development thread

[Dutch]

I'm not sure if the ogres come with any animations other than idle, move, get hurt, attack and die.

They don't. You would have to turn your map into a mod, add to the source code, and animate the ogre. It would be a fair amount of work but would be pretty cool.

EDIT: actually, I just remembered that there is a rip-cord animation sequence for his chainsaw that was never used in the game, but exists in the model. So technically there are more animations than you listed, but you would still need to modify source code lol

[MadGypsy]

@I'm not sure if ogres...(rest)

Right. Which is why I said it would be a lot of work. Basically, you would have to add new animations. There are 2 ways you could do this

1) use a program like blender and add new shape tweens (probably a huge pain in the ass)
2) pick a slew of disconnected frames from the existing ogre animations that once combined get you pretty close to making it look like he's doing something new and write the QC for the new animation. The QC part is super simple. Even if you didn't know any QC it would be almost nothing to copy/paste existing code and simply change the frame numbers. Picking a bunch of disjointed frames to make it look like he's doing something else would be a pain in the ass though. Well ... depending. Making the ogre look like he's hammering wouldn't be too bad til you got to the part where he needs a hammer/pick axe/ whatever. Digging however, would probably be impossible with the existing frames.


------------
Aside: you know what would be super handy? If someone took all the quake monsters and reanimated them all with bones BUT, instead of releasing mdls, released proper .blend files for each monster for mdl export. That would be extremely useful.

[Admer456]

Oh, turning my map into a mod isn't something I was planning to do. :/
And I use 3ds Max, so I'm not sure if the same can be done as in Blender. Quake is a fairly old game and most modders use Blender, so...

[Dutch]

I use blender religiously. It has a great MDL import/export.

@shape tweens

I never could figure out the shapekey BS...I think there's a way to move vertices around and save a new shape key, but if there indeed is, it's waaay too counter-intuitive. Blender is legit to so many levels, but every now and then there's something you come across that is unecessarily complicated.

@ all monsters w/ bones

This would be awesome. 2 of them are already done if you count capnbubs dog and soldier enemies. It's too bad skiffy's shambler doesn't come with a rigged model file, but he didn't use blender so it would have been useless to me anyways. But the shambler is such a simple model with a decent tpose as it's stand frame that rigging it and re-animating would not be that challenging at all.

EDIT: we're just throwing ideas around Admer. It sounds like you're not wanting to make this a mod, and that's perfectly fine. This little conversation isn't meant to pressure you or say you're map isn't good enough as a stock Quake map.

[MadGypsy]

Just throwing this out there...

If you know 3ds max, learning fundamental blender would be pretty simple for you. It would mostly require you learning the menu equivalents. I used to know a little 3ds max and I never even used it. This is because 3Ds max had some really good modelling tutorials and I would do them but use blender. Doing that forced 2 things on me.

1) it taught me some basic max workflow and navigation
2) it forced me to learn the blender equivalents

It was pretty simple.

[Admer456]

Just throwing this out there...

If you know 3ds max, learning fundamental blender would be pretty simple for you. It would mostly require you learning the menu equivalents. I used to know a little 3ds max and I never even used it. This is because 3Ds max had some really good modelling tutorials and I would do them but use blender. Doing that forced 2 things on me.

1) it taught me some basic max workflow and navigation
2) it forced me to learn the blender equivalents

It was pretty simple.

I love the sculpting tools in Blender, I won't lie to you. But I can't learn Blender right now, because school is in my way. I'm 15, you know...

[Admer456]

So, nothing has been made so far. :/
However, I did think about the start of the level.

The plane will be in a special skybox above the map, separated from it. The player will, after pressing the switch to open the exit, go towards the exit and jump out, being teleported to the main part of the map. That part will have the parachute as a func_train and the rest, blah blah blah, you know.

So, what do people think about this?

[ijazz]

Blender has a 3ds max and maya mode.

[Admer456]

Is that true? Because I haven't got used to Blender's controls yet. I like the way it's done in Max.

[Admer456]

I'm back after some intensive CS 1.6 mapping (I've recently released de_kobbl), and so are my WiP screenshots! >: D

I made some improvements in this area:
cnq4TuYl.jpg

As well as some minor decorations:
odFRwFZl.jpg

I've also done some tweaks on the entity setups.
There's more to come. =)

Edit:
I'm also thinking of changing the colours a little bit:
q3BHKwll.jpg
Ahh, DirectQ gives me that privilege of being able to play at such a high framerate. :3
The lighting here needs some tweaks, though.

[MadGypsy]

A few things... these are just my opinion and none of them are meant to be rude or mean

1) lining entryways in stone walls with thin wooden strips is weird. I understand you are trying to break up the monotony of the walls but that doesn't seem like a good way to do it. It would look better if you broke up the monotony by removing the wood and giving the walls some shape. Everything is flat and square. Just turning that entryway into an arch would be a good start. Making the arch come out of thee wall a little bit would be an even better start. Add some depth.

2) You have a big stone texture for the room and then you get in the hall and have a smaller stone texture. Are the big stones paper thin? They would have to be for that transition to make any sense. 1 solution would be to start the hallway with half a big stone texture so it looks like the sides of those stones...then start with the smaller stone texture but recess them a little bit to add depth. If my description is hard to understand... if you were standing in the hall facing the room with the big stone texture you should be able to see a little bit of the back of the big stones. Maybe 25% of the texture width. This would make it feel like those stones are really there. Also, having the smaller stone texture offset from the edge of the larger stones would make the walls seem independent of one another instead of some whacky wallpaper job.

3) putting a random chip in a big stone wall is nutty. Really look at that. You have pristine walls and something happened that put a little chip in one spot. Also consider that you put a chip in a massive stone block...with what? Did somebody beat on that spot with a pickaxe for 6 months and then walk away? If you are going to make demolition/destruction it should match the material that was destroyed. If anything, remove entire slabs from the wall. Make it look like it fell apart due to time and gravity or something.

4) This one isn't so much a necessity as it is just true. (2 grunts image) Your beam wood grain is vertical. Have you ever seen a beam with vertical wood grain? Rotate the texture 90 degrees so your ceiling doesn't collapse on your grunts

5) lining stone walls with wood makes it look like a self-proclaimed interior decorator visited your map and convinced you to waste a lot of materials so it would "feel more like home". Stone walls can stand on their own. All that wood is unnecessary and a bit comical. Maybe changing it to a metal texture would at least look more tough but, even that is not going to do much to save this design. I would suggest deleting ALL of the trim and focus more on getting rid of all these square and flat shapes. Work with the existing stone texture and add depth to your walls. Make the room octagonal in shape or something. Stick beefy things in the corners. Throw something like a fireplace on the walls. Put a random stone arch on the wall as if a doorway has been bricked over. Tilt the entire ceiling at some angle. Invent some interesting structure to hold up the ceiling. Break away from squareness. Then play with light to make all that depth really pop with interesting shadows.

[Admer456]

That's what I want to hear, lol.

1)
I have an idea.

2)
Poor planning, lol. I'll see what I can do about it.

3)
Hmm, okay.

4)
I know that. I'm not a noob (don't worry, you didn't imply that I was a noob, I'm just saying). I simply didn't spend time aligning the textures.

5)
Hmm... looks like I need some smoothness. Hihihihi. >: )

[Admer456]

Alright, I've made some stuff:



TP6IBs6.jpg
I.m.o. this is acceptable, except there's a couple of dark corners there and there.

1yi5sU1.jpg
Also, this. What do you think?

[MadGypsy]

I'm confused. Your stuff (especially the last post) is pretty damn good so, how do you end up with a steamy pile of doodoo like the images my last post addressed? It's almost like the work of 2 completely different mappers.

Really good job on the most recent stuff. Actually, all of your stuff is really good EXCEPT that wood/stone section IMO.

I would make that dark room a lot brighter. You have all that pretty brushwork and you are hiding it all in darkness. Why spend so much time on interesting architecture if you are just going to blanket it all in black?

[MadGypsy]

regarding what I was saying in #2 of my second to last post. I was trying to describe something like this.


obviously that is just a lil 2 second example and a lot more could be done to make it better but, the point is that it looks like it is really there instead of resembling wallpaper. Ignore the top. I spent almost zero seconds trying to make this perfect.