More third-party Q3 maps for Nexuiz!

[animus]

I just noticed this thread over at OpenArena's forums. "w1zrd" has put together a map pack featuring 100 third-party Q3 maps. Many of them look good and are playable in Nexuiz, with one caveat: you need to drop OA's pak4-textures.pk3 file into your Nexuiz data folder. I tested that myself and it does provide replacements for baseq3 textures that are otherwise missing on some maps.

Note: A lot of Q3 maps don't work well with Nexuiz's realtime world lighting; your framerate will be abysmal with it enabled. So, you may want to bind a key to toggle that feature if you use it for Nexuiz maps. Here's what I use:

Code: Select all

bind h "toggle r_shadow_realtime_world; echo Realtime World Lighting: $r_shadow_realtime_world"

Have fun checking them out! I hope to see some of them on public servers, especially the CTF ones.

[TVR]

The maps will require .BSP' will require size scaling in order to make them playable in Nexuiz
[Nexuiz player models are about 1.5:1 as large as Q3 models; the movement speed is also about twice as fast]

[animus]

That could be a problem; the license for many of the maps might prohibit any modification. The authors may be unreachable as well. However, I think that most of the maps should be quite playable in Nexuiz, without changes. There are already a bunch of small, tight maps designed for Nexuiz and being played online. As a result, I don't see how introducing some of these could possibly make things worse.

I'll go through the maps and make a list of the ones that seem to be playable. If anyone else has some better ideas, though, go ahead and say so.

[Ed]

As these maps require a Q3 PK3 file which is not free, they can not be used online as everyone would have to have that PK3 file.

They need retexturing and scaling if they're actually going to be considered Nexuiz maps.

[animus]

As these maps require a Q3 PK3 file which is not free, they can not be used online as everyone would have to have that PK3 file.

As I pointed out, they work fine with OpenArena's texture pack, which is intended to replace the non-Free baseq3 textures with its own. If players don't want to download and use that for some reason, then I can also make a list of the maps that look fine without any additional files. Let me know!

They need retexturing and scaling if they're actually going to be considered Nexuiz maps.

Who said they need to be considered "Nexuiz maps?" They're Q3 maps that can be played in Nexuiz. Honestly, it seems like you're grasping at straws here. Quite a few of the maps are certainly spacious, and the textures aren't too bad either.

A more valid concern would be: Will they will work with Nexuiz' game types? I'm not clear on that part, since I don't know how Nexuiz handles that. Do Q3 maps that support CTF need to be modified at all for Nexuiz CTF?

[Strahlemann]

...As I pointed out, they work fine with OpenArena's texture pack, which is intended to replace the non-Free baseq3 textures with its own....

Wheew, someone replaced the baseq3 textures ! I hope they look good
So i don't see any problems with playing those maps in Nexuiz. They won't have the features of standard Nexuiz maps (they won't show up in the menu / no rtlights / no optimized bot support which needs waypoints etc.) but the basic dm gameplay should work fine.
I 'll take a look at this.

I don't know if the q3 ctf entities are supported, have to try this out.

Otherwise great news!
Having them as official Nexuiz-maps won't happen though, cause as mentioned earlier the map-sources won't be available in most cases and often the authors are not reachable, so they can't GPL the content they may have created for the map.

I worked on the previous q3mappack for Nexuiz and i just didn't include most of the maps due to the original q3 textures that were used in them. Having a replacement now should nearly make every q3 map playable in Nexuiz.

[animus]

Wheew, someone replaced the baseq3 textures ! I hope they look good

They haven't replaced all of the baseq3 textures yet. Even so, I'd love to see Nexuiz include OA's texture pack in a future release, complete or not. That's better than what there is now (nothing).

So i don't see any problems with playing those maps in Nexuiz. ... the basic dm gameplay should work fine.

Sounds good... but what about other game types? Is DM the only one that will work without changing the pk3?

[Strahlemann]

Last Man Standing, Arena and i think Keyhunt should also work.
And of course Team Deathmatch and Minstagib.
For Domination and Runematch you'll need extra entities that are not a part of q3 maps. But it'd possilbe to add these with a lot of patience....

Still haven't tested CTF.

[leileilol]

For Domination and Runematch you'll need extra entities that are not a part of q3 maps.

Darkplaces supports .ENT files.

[Strahlemann]

Yes but you'd still need to edit those and add the dom_points and rune_spawns which would be a lot of work for so many maps.