Map Releases : Towers of Doom / Hell Incarnate

[Strahlemann]

Basically you set the main values for your sun in the sun-shader

Yours is lacking the q3map_sun key.
And i don't think that you need the q3map_globaltexture key
Also for sky shaders you should use q3map_skylight instead of q3map_lightsubdivide.

The q3map_sun key sets the color, the intensity, the degrees and the elevation from the sun
The use is like that:

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q3map_sun <red> <green> <blue> <intensity> <degrees> <elevation>

So your sky shader could look like that:

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textures/docs_hell_incarnate/hellincarnate_skybox
{
   qer_editorimage textures/docs_hell_incarnate/hellincarnate_skybox.jpg

   surfaceparm noimpact
   surfaceparm nolightmap
        surfaceparm nomarks
   surfaceparm sky
       
   skyparms env/docs_hell_incarnate/docs_hell_incarnate - -
   q3map_surfacelight 350
        //q3map_sun <red> <green> <blue> <intensity> <degrees> <elevation>
   q3map_sun 1 0.3 0.3 400 300 40
}

That should do the trick.
You don't need to set a _sun key on a light in your map to make a sun.
This will only create additional sunlights (parallel light sources).
For example i used additional "suns" to light farewell. There i added 3 additional suns to simulate the blue light that arrives from the hemisphere to give the map a more realistic feeling and to brighten up the parts that would otherwise have been in dark shadow of the "real" sun. Of course i had to use a low light value for this "diffuse" light to make sure that the "real" sun still is the main light-source and that the shadows don't get washed out.

You can make such an additional sun very easy: just create a light entity with the key "_sun" and the value "1".
Target a target_position with it to specify the direction of the parallel light that your new sun will cast and you're done.
You can take a look at it in the farewell.map

You can get more detailed and additional information in the q3map shader manual.
You can take a look at it here: http://members.lycos.co.uk/quakeroats/q3map2/shader_manual/
Or get it here:http://airrocket.net/mirror/quake3/shadermanual/

[Strahlemann]

ah, and you're lava doesn't need to be a patch. a normal brush should work as well.

And for a good final compile i'm lately using these switches for example:

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"G:\GtkRadiant1.5.0\q3map2.exe" -meta -samplesize 8 -v "G:\Quake III Arena\baseq3\maps\revenga.map"
"G:\GtkRadiant1.5.0\q3map2.exe" -vis "G:\Quake III Arena\baseq3\maps\revenga.bsp"
"G:\GtkRadiant1.5.0\q3map2.exe" -light -bounce 8 -compensate 1.3 -fast -gamma 1.3 -patchshadows -samples 6 -v "G:\Quake III Arena\baseq3\maps\revenga.bsp"


you should play around with the compensate and the gamma switch to get what you want.
More information:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Q3Map2#A_Good_.22Final.22_Compile

[Doc-Pyton]

thanks for that tips in using the shader sunlight ... <_< ... i should have taken a look on that manuals by my self ... -_-' ... like i said im a bit fishi wirt such things.

i made that lava to a patch to make it round at all ... so that u cant see any corners at the horizon ...
I dont know why, but i often get errors with GTK when i use brushes with more than 6 sides.

i have the problem, that GTK shows me an error sometimes, if there are cylinder brushes on the maps.
In Most of that cases the editor gets closed, and when i restart it and load the map its just empty. In worst cases the autosave files are gone the same way.
Thats why i used a patch to get sure.
I didn find any reason for that errors, so im tryin to keep cylindric brushes out of my maps ...

[Spaceman]

I finally played ctf_docs_hell_incarnate last night, it looks very red.

There was a player from the red team with a Nex, you couldn't see him at all. He dominated the whole game.

Eventually I changed sides and lasered him into the lava, but he carried on using the Nex.

My FPS went down a lot, it's usually about 90 and peaks in excess of 200, however ctf_docs_hell_incarnate gave me about 20 FPS with peaks of 50.

My net graph went mad, unfortunately I don't have a screen shot, about 33% of the graph was yellow, usually it's about 5% yellow.

I will endevour to change servers if ctf_docs_hell_incarnate ever wins a map selection.

[Rad Ished]

Victim, it's the hi res sky shader i think try r_sky 0 or sky_r 0 or something like that to turn it off.

[Clueless Newbie]

I've played this map a couple of times now. It's a good map. Nice level flow, and so on. But it's too red. Way too red. Blue players are easily visible from one end of the map to the other while red are invisible.

I'd suggest doing away with the extreme red. Let the rock be grey, the wood be brown, etc, and change the lava to yellow and white instead. The illuminate the map with yellow and white lights. This would make it fair to the blue team and easier on the eyes.

My second suggestion would be to remove some of the spiky stuff in the lava. Yes, it looks good, but it gets laggy for some players.

[Doc-Pyton]

Im workin on that map between the lines atm.

Im on some other maps and stucking in the texture creation, so the new setup of Hell Incarnate wont get further.
I changed some details in that map atm.
I addet white lights on the walkway, making the red players easyer to spott.
The protolava Texture will be changed too, that idea of some more yellow one sounds pretty good.

The skybox was changed a bit too, i changed parts of it coloration to yellow/orange ...
That frameproblem that u explained sounds hardly after my highres skybox like someone said ...

in addition to that changes, i addet some of that half rock rings to the other side too cause that one goin over that small path at only one of the two bases brought kind of inbalance ...

A clipping zone in the places between the small walking stones was addet too.
Im not sure, but i think on to implement some of the textures from gothic rush and add kind of ruins to that map to get a bit more variation into it.

However again im sorry for that early release of that map.
I didn testplay it enough and made some really noobish mistakes to that map.

I hope i will get the updated version compiled soon.

[Rad Ished]

This is what beta versions are for.

[Doc-Pyton]

yepp ...

[Spaceman]

Rad, after a very quick bit of research, I searched the forum and read the second result I've found that it's

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r_sky x

Where x is either 0 or 1, 0 turns the sky off and 1 turns it on. Many thanks for the help.

Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to play docs_hell_incarnate again. I've tried r_sky 0 whilst playing on other maps and not noticed any difference in FPS.

Note to self, don't post messages at 2am. Post messages when you're awake and feeling positive.