[KH/DM/TDM] SpireControl5

[take_this_cup_of_poison]

A large terrain map set in (probably) scotland. Mainly a sniper map.

Screenshot hosted on NN:


PK3:
https://cat2.optus.nu/nexuizserv/spirecontrol5.pk3

[torus]

Well, I commend you for listening (presumably) to our advice, and making some welcome changes in your mapping style. It's still not anywhere near perfect, which isn't surprising considering the scale of the map, but it's much better than previous attempts. Also, I actually get a decent frame rate on this map, which is a first. Here's what needs to be fixed, in no particular order (and I URGE you to fix them, this map has lots of potential):

- The towers are nice, but they could use some eye candy on the outside (look at pictures of traditional Scottish towers for reference.






- Please remove the invisible wall preventing you from falling out of the towers- I don't see a reason for them.

- Scale up the textures on the towers/bridges, so the tiling is less noticeable.

- That circle of columns should be changed- this is supposed to be the UK, make it Stonehenge! It would be much more congruous.

Now for the terrain-

- I think it's great that you finally got over using patches for terrian- those are awful. The problem is, while brushes are much better for movement, they look as bad or worse. The solution is, of course, to use a misc_model .ase imported into Radiant. It doesn't have to be super-high poly, but it would be much more convincing. If you need help figuring that out, I or someone else can help you.

- on the same point, you may know that Darkplaces now supports dotproduct2 terrain blending. This would work perfectly on your map, should you choose to re-do the terrain with a model. Again, we can help you figure that out if you are receptive to feedback. For example, one texture would be that nice green grass, the other would be a rocky texture. (see the picture above).

- I know you use those trees in many of your maps, and here they just look stupid. Find a model of a birch tree (most common tree in Scotland), and use that- it would be much more convincing.



- The terrain is quite nice, but it could be better. Mainly, I feel that the terrain should have 2 main elements- the traversable terrain, which would be made of rolling low hills, etc, and then cliffs, which would go through the map, and even off the edge (like the cliffs do in your map, but they would look better since they would be models). The transition between these two zones would be more sudden. Also, with DotProduct, you can make the cliff faces one texture, the tops/rolling hills another texture, and have them blend seamlessly.

- I don't see the point of the water surrounding the map, it kind of looks bad (on the very edges).

One more thing- why isn't this map set up for ONS? It's just the kind of thing that would work, if you fix the things I mentioned.

[take_this_cup_of_poison]

There is no tutorial for ONS and the ons_reborn map is too complex in the way it is connected to figure out w/o a tut. I put in 2 generators and ons connected spawnpoints, but don't know about connecting them.

I like using brushwork because it's editable in radiant. With phongshading and the texture blending it could look better. (My laptop can't textureblend though...)

This map took 24 hr to compile (almost longer than it took to make, including new skybox, towers and stronghold etc) with a _blocksize of over 16000 (16 thousand).

The reason there are not many ONS and assault maps is that connecting their entities up is much more complex then DM, CTF, etc. Tuts are needed, or the game modes have a simplified alternative way of setting them up (w/ keyvalues that the engine interprets rather than triggers and links and connectors) where you can still use the complex way if you need to, but most people could use the simpler way.

I used the pine trees because that's the only type of tree I have constructed myself out of brushes. Models don't show up in my radiant so I can't place them correctly, thus I use brushes, also it's much easier using radiant then blender... especially for textures etc.

Thankyou for your feedback.

The playerclips, as in all my castle maps, are so I don't fall off the edge while sniping.

[torus]

Yea, I don't know how to set up ONS either, so I can't fault you on that.

I suspect that .ase models don't show up in your Radiant because you are exporting them incorrectly, or putting them in the wrong directory (that can cause them not to appear in Radiant, or appear as a cube).

If you refuse to learn that process, things will be much harder for you. Building a terrain in Blender is very easy with the sculpt tool and far less labor-intensive than making a terrain from brushes. The product also looks much more natural. Also, you don't need to apply caulk and such (just some caulk brushes inside mounds to block visibility).

As for the trees, the same applies- your 'christmas' trees are very expensive, and they don't look good or match the theme of the map. One could make a nice 3d model of a pine tree that would be more efficient and look better.

If I lent you a textured pine tree .ase, would you use it in your map?

What about the other stuff I mentioned? Are you even willing to work on the map more?

[take_this_cup_of_poison]

I'd definatly like to do the cliff shading. What texture should I use for cliffs (must be gpl or opensource) and if the grass and cliffs textures are made into a shader for blending what is the shader code? Could you circle some good places to put cliff texture?

I might do the eye candy for towers, where should the eyecandy be?
The reason i didn't do it initially was because I wasn't sure what it should look like and how much it would bog down the map.

I used the excellent GPL ImgToMap java utility that is on this forum to make the terrain (made a 64x64 terrainmap in the gimp, smoothed some things more, added some valleys, sent through ImgToMap).

As for trees... maybe I could make a brushwork birchtree and put them around?
If I could find a good opensource texture for the leaves and bark.

As for water: I like the water, at the edges it is a bit weird (maybe I should make the edges octaganal rather then squared as they are now.

Any ideas for more things I should put in etc.

Since it takes so long to compile I will have to make many improvements before doing another full compile.

/me wonders why vis takes so long? The trees arent structual...

[torus]

Dotproduct2 works by shading the triangle based on it's slope. You can define the angle at which it will change from one to the other, and the amount that it blends- but everything at an angle greater than n° will be shaded as cliff. Check out my map Arboria for the shader code for dotproduct.

http://torus.mkzelda.net/Cliffwall.zip

You can use that if you want, I made it so it's gpl.

I think it's a worthwhile endeavor to figure out the model-in-radiant thing. There are things that cannot be done with a heightmap that would be very interesting- for example, as the angle of a heightmap increases, the detail of the slope also decreases. This doesn't need to be true for a model. Also, a model can have all sorts of dramatic, overhanging cliffs.

Basically, the key thing about models is that the model and texture paths have to be in the right places. If you remain civil, Rad_Ished might be able to help you figure it out with Blender (I use 3ds Max). I do NOT think it's a good idea to try to create a tree out of brushwork, it will have all the same problems that the current ones do.

As for the towers, it's mostly eye candy on the outside- a quick google search for "Scottish towers" will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Honestly though, the towers are the part of this map that needs the least work- the stairs and such work just fine.

[take_this_cup_of_poison]

I can't get terrain blending to work at all, not even on any surfaces anywhere. I have no Idea how to set the angle. EVERYTHING is coming up as rock. NOTHING as grass (I want most things to be grass). There are NO NO NO NO NO ZERO ZILCH tuts ANYWHERE that I can find.

I don't think I'll be doing terraining. Why is everything undocumented?
ONS. Assault. Terrainblending.

Code: Select all

textures/spirecontrolshaders/terrain
{
   qer_editorimage textures/arboria/rockmod.tga
   q3map_lightmapSampleOffset 8
   q3map_globalTexture
   q3map_nonplanar
   q3map_shadeangle 95
   q3map_alphaMod dotproduct2 ( 0 0 0.95 )
   q3map_tcmod scale 1.7 1.7
   q3map_tcMod rotate 30

   {
      map textures/bztourny/arkhart-grass2.png  // Primary
   }

   {
      map textures/bztourny/ppracer_rock.png   // Secondary
      blendFunc GL_SRC_ALPHA GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA     
      alphaGen vertex
   }

   {
      map $lightmap
      blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_ZERO
   }
}



[torus]

Have you looked at the Q3 shader manual? Nexuiz dotproduct is the same as the q3 one. Why not just use the same exact shader as I did, but replace the textures with your texture paths? Arboria shades wall faces very similarly to what you would need. You could even try using the Arboria dp2 shader I wrote unmodified, for testing purposes.

Also, for terrain blending to work, you need OpenGL 2 shaders enabled in Nexuiz. They will NOT show up as blended in Radiant; it doesn't have that capability. Instead, you will see the qer_editorimage (however that is defined).

[take_this_cup_of_poison]

Also, if that is not enough, the texture is TINY!!!!!!
TINY SCALING!
Looks better with the regular grass texture.
Texture blending does not work, it just gives crap.
There are no tuts anywhere.

My laptop doesn't support opengl 2.0 shaders in anyway.
I need this to look atleast like grass on opengl1x things.
with this shader it looks like horrible horrible rock everywhere.

I need it to atleast default to grass.
Also it scales it so damned small
it really looks bad.

[take_this_cup_of_poison]

I was excited to make this improvement but it doesn't work so I'm giving up unless there is a solution or someone tells how to set the angle etc... right now I'm in the dark and there are no tutorials ANYWHERE!

I have to go do chemistry, bye.
I do not have time for decerning hidden information and have it look like crap on my own laptop as the "fallback" texture.