[map] Bloodprison-CTF

[SavageX]

Apropos base-specific lighting: Would you mind trying to use a red skybox for the red base ?
I'd really like to see it (ok, maybe it'll look like crap but maybe it won't. Please give it a try once )

I don't think it's possible to have several skyboxes at the same time. I once slammed together 3 maps into one .map file (connected with teleporters) and only one skybox showed up.

[KadaverJack]

- Arena mode seems strangely broken in this version for me. The files are correct (the version numbers have been incremented and that's it) but on loading the game it says it can't find the previous arena version and removes it from the database yet I have previously removed all older versions. Doing g_maplist doesn't list it and in fact doesn't list any arena maps. Something odd there. Possibly with my game config. Will have to try a fresh install and see if that does it fine.

g_maplist must always hold 2 valid maps, because of the way the detection for broken maplists works. So you need to set it to "arena_bloodprisonctf arena_bloodprisonctf" or start the map and set "samelevel" to 1 (that'll also reduce the time for level changes).

[Ed]

I fixed the minor misaligned textures. They've been a recurring problem in the blue base that is hard to fix in one go. This is where peer review works!

I've also changed the light entities so that they are coordinated more across the two bases. It's subtle but most people should think it's better.

I've tried as Strahlemann suggested to change the light textures to be blue/red coordinated. For blue this is easy as there is a standard texture for this that was already in use. Red doesn't seem to have worked. There was no standard red light texture so I created one (and the _glow) in the GIMP directly from the blue ones just by switching the channels round.

Although the texture has appeared in radiant (along with the glow map) and it appears in game (along with the glow map), q3bsp2 does not seem to have taken it into account when lighting the level so whereas the blue lights have a blue lit area around them (different from glow, this requires building to support it) the red texture has no lit area round it despite glowing. This makes the red base appear darker than the blue base just because the world is not being lit as it should be.

I noticed that the blue texture has a tinylightblue2k equivalent which I had looked for in the data pk3 but it doesn't exist. Is this 2k texture what I need to make a red version of for the world to be lit by it in q3bsp2? What does the 2k texture do?

Here's the original blue texture and glow, and the red and glow that I made:





Have I done something drastically wrong with my new textures? They are a lot smaller than the originals as I've saved them in GIMP with some fairly aggressive settings but that shouldn't influence how they act as a JPEG.

I thought about the two sky idea but thought it wouldn't work either. One way would be to create a sky that goes from red to blue. That could even be a natural sky at sun set.

The arena game mode problem seems to be something broken with my setup. It has recently refused to accept the existence of any arena maps... for some reason.

TIA

[Ed]

An update:
Edit: obsolete link, see end of thread for latest

Fixed in this release:
- Some more misaligned textures (thanks Strahlemann)
- Colour coordinated jumppads
- Changed light textures in bases to be colour coordinated. Changed them to the brighter glowing textures as my new red one was a bit broken and they weren't red/blue enough more pink/violet. No one could think they're in the wrong base now.
- Added playerclip slopes to the stairs. The scaling of the map makes the steps a bit big so bots sometimes do silly jumping to get up them. By laying a slope in it stops this and makes player movement smoother. Their is a bit of sliding between steps but the player can stop on a step OK. There is also a jumping sound sometimes at the bottom, more accurate in a way. The corner stairs by the mortar aren't quite right but will do. See the .map file for what had to be done. These might also help in vanilla Blood Prison if someone wants to port them across.
- Replaced screenshot, it was a bit out of date. New one is of the red base and the off effect has gone as the natural lighting looks nice.
- Added gpl.txt
- Built .pk3 with 7-zip. Higher compression but file slightly larger than previous versions just because there's more data.

This still isn't final but should be the last beta release (I keep saying this). I know 0.5 is on RBI so it should be replaced. Anyone who downloaded a previous version should delete the old .pk3's after updating so that their is only one version in the maplist.

A screenshot for you:

[Strahlemann]

Good work again.

The only complaint is the lighting this time
You have replaced nearly every yellow light with a very saturated blue or red.
If you would have kept some more yellow lights the overall impression wouldn't be so monotone like it is now, cause the yellow light would brake it up a little.
Now the bases are using too intense lighting which can be annoying in the long run.
(well yeah, i asked for base-specific lighting but that's a bit too much imo).

Alternatively you could use some less saturated blue and red colors.

Of course this is a matter of taste but it would definitely look more professional if the lighting is not that intense.

Overall i think if you fix this point and the ones below this map could definitely be included in the next release.

strange light bug:


some misalignments


weird use of textures here:


maybe try to add some additional player-clip steps to avoid the sliding

[Ed]

Now the bases are using too intense lighting which can be annoying in the long run.

It was difficult choosing what to do. The lights I wanted to use just weren't strong enough and telling what lights to be different is difficult without making it look like a mistake. What I think I will do is make it so that lights that are on the ceiling itself will be back to the pale yellow and that lights that are attached to walls will stay as they are. That way you get decals for the team colour but the effect shouldn't be so strong. The Uzi corridors will stay as they are I think as those areas work well with the strong light.

Overall i think if you fix this point and the ones below this map could definitely be included in the next release.

Well if it's going to be in a full release then I'm happy to change it to how Alientrap collectively wants it. If people are happy with the change to overhead yellows but colours staying on walls then I'll do that.

strange light bug:

It's an odd one. I've seen it for a while and looked at it from various angles. I think it's caused by the blue sky and the red lights both being incident on something a bit shiny that is off-grey. It may be an anomaly of q3map2 that this happens, either that or their are too many incident lights on it.

some misalignments

Fixed.

weird use of textures here:

Changed this area. Put some metal plating round that area and more consistent wood. It only got like that because of the way the two halves were put together and seeing how nobody mentioned it earlier I kept it because I thought people might have liked it.

maybe try to add some additional player-clip steps to avoid the sliding

Done. That works a lot better. Something else I've done is put a block of playerclip behind the mortars. It's the only hole there that wasn't doen and after I managed to get myself jammed there (possibly because of the light above) I decided to block them up. Mortar still accesible and gives a flat edge all along that wall.

The main thing I want comment on is the lighting now. What lights should go yellow? Once we have some kind of consensus I'll build it again.

[tZork]

It's an odd one. I've seen it for a while and looked at it from various angles. I think it's caused by the blue sky and the red lights both being incident on something a bit shiny that is off-grey. It may be an anomaly of q3map2 that this happens, either that or their are too many incident lights on it.

This might be dupicate brushes in the same place.

[Ed]

This might be dupicate brushes in the same place.

It's not z-fighting. I checked and there is only one brush there. I've replaced it with another just to see if it was some strange texture problem and on a test build it looked fine. So either it was the brush or something with the scaling/lighting process. I'm going to try a few things with rebuilding it and see if it comes back. This may mean building it with some custom settings to work round this anomaly.

[tZork]

In not talking abt z-fighting. sometimes, due to radiant.. mature nature *cougth*, it dupicated brushes, sometimes many times. whan this happens vis can get totaly confused, rendering a btush as a transparent strucytural one. Obviosly this wasent the case here tho.

Maps looking good, i plyed it a few times on rbi and liked it. nicely done.

[Ed]

I suspected it was a weird q3map2 bug and it almost certainly is. If I compile the map before scaling it's fine, after scaling it's also fine. If I then relight it this anomaly comes in. The way it appears depends upon the lighting parameters used and bounce 8 seems to change it. The way you have seen it before is made from it being bounce 8 but without that you get something slightly different. This error is only in the red base, not the blue base. Seeing how the red base is the original half I looked in the original Bloodprison to see how it is lit:

The same lighting error is there.

I'm going to try other lighting parameters as some seem to effect it and maybe there's one which will stop it. The other problem I found on both is some pixel errors on the curve above where I've put the flags which is a result of the scaling, I could try vising after scaling which might help this.