Updated- Beta3 is below. Perhaps someone can host it on their server?

I added a really atmospheric soundtrack, and fixed the hole between the wall and floor, and made the water bottom no-draw. The water shader problem was on my Windows copy of Nexuiz, not my Mac's, so it will work for you.

http://www.mediafire.com/?dnnttjzevba



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It's sort of been taken for granted that Nexuiz maps have to be these angular, boxy contraptions, or use models in certain areas only. When tZork made Brokenworld, I realized this wasn't necessarily true.

In response, I've made a more organic map, almost entirely made of .ASE models (aside from the walkways, which are brushes). I got my inspiration from Tokara Forest in UT. This is no Crysis, but I think it will help up the ante for how maps look in Nexuiz.

There are the problems that will be resolved in the next build-

[fixed]

Almost all the textures are either by me or with Nexuiz aside from the tree trunk textures and the rock wall textures. I have no idea where these came from, but they were free (probably not GPL), and they were modified by me from the originals. If someone can identify their source, please do. All the models are by me, and GPL.

Please tell me what you think! This is my second real mapping attempt. The trainstation one, if you were wondering, is indefinitely postponed.


Enjoy!

Looking real good. I think I will love this map. I don't know why but I love outdoors and this is exactly what I feared Nexuiz would never get, the more organic style.

Great job! I hope this turns out to be an awesome map. (I reminds me of Final Fantasy XI and I love that kind of style).

Nice feel, I'll have to give it a try (my machine I have is an AMD 2500+ with a GeForce 6200 card), I normally only get 30 to 40 fps on just about anything. I like the look!

On my wife's machine (AMD 3200+ with on-board ATI x200 video), get about 20-30 fps (with lots of effects turned down).

I notice the ladder doesn't work, I walk right through it.

Thanks for the tip. It was fine the last compile, maybe not this one.

this map is a cool

water is inanely awful though. need a good water shader perhaps a reflective one could look cool

The next Nex release is going to have reflective water shaders, I believe. However from what's been said it makes performance take a big hit.

Wow, talk about thinking out of the box! That looks really nice!

I'm going to upload a new build in a few hours. I'm trying out different water shaders, but I can't find anything that looks really good.

The "water" looks more like a web to me, which IMO would look even cooler

I think I want to keep it water. I'll do some reading on water shaders, and try to make my own.


@ TK471- The ladder was actually intentionally too short- it allows you to walk under it if desired. My logic was that if you wanted to climb, you could just jump and look up at the same time. I guess this wasn't apparent.

I'll lower the ladder anyway.

This looks really good, I especially like the use of fog (underused in maps, imo). Performance took quite a hit, however, though I suppose it's to be expected.

There's probably a lot of things that could be done to improve visuals here and there, but considering Nexuiz isn't known for its outside maps, this is a very good start.

I had a lot of things in mind for visuals, but decided to tone down my original concepts for performance's sake. I'm going to try to push it even further with my next map, which is also going to be quasi-organic.

Still, I would love to hear your ideas for improving the visuals.


Has anyone actually run around in it? What are your thoughts on how it works as a playable map? My expectations aren't too high; it's more of an experiment, but feedback would be great.

I felt like the water was too high, and was hindering movement- I've lowered it some, and changed weapon placement.

I also changed the water position to fix an odd graphical glitch in the water brush (weird creases).

I've also switched the water shader to "ruiner water", which seems to be the best looking. The shader is broken on my copy of Nexuiz methinks, not in general. I'll test it out on my Mac, and if it doesn't experience the same problem (it just looks really low res for some reason), it's in.

I ran round it some, and noticed the creases in the water also, i thought it was the edges of different brushes. I tried to make a leafy texture before and i quite liked the result but nobody else seemed to like it, guess they aren't on lo-spec-nex like me. I like the raised edges on the walkways so you can tell if you're getting to close to the edge. What kind of map will it be? DM?

The creases in the water are the result of using the cut tool on the water. I fixed that, and lowered the water level, so there is more running room.


It was going to be purely DM, but I've decided to add CTF functionality. Lets see how that works.

VERY similar to tokara forest from UT2004, nice work torus from the looks of it, i'll need to give it a whirl.

Uploading version 2- new shaders, fixes, ctf support (hopefully if it worked)

I personally like tokara forest and having made maps in ut understand the work that goes into creating one (made a few in g.o.t.y ut) water is always hard to get right the first time and dont worry about having xtra health and other thingsas players will like it (especially us noobs).
Appreciate the effort ,have you tried lift platforms and water tunnels yet,they can be good in some maps and automated turrets would be good on some of the more assault type maps,just a thought,keep up the good work. : ^ )

Automated turrets are very unstable right now, and I didn't think that lifts would be appropriate here. Maybe next time.

The hidden water surfaces need to be nodraw:

You can fall out of the map here:


Other than that it's an interesting map. Keep it up!

You are playing the old version. The hole was fixed in v2.

I love the map. I really enjoy the out door feel.

Beta 3 is up. Has anyone played this with other people?

At '-443 1082 1549', you can enter the trunk and hide there. Did you use q3map2 with my patch or without? It is exactly the kind of bug my patch fixes. As you didn't include the .ase models with your map, I can't try out of my patch fixes it.

http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/~p ... sionholes/

r_showcollisionbrushes 0.8
r_showcollisionbrushes_polygonfactor -16

helps finding those.

I'll try it out.

Problems encountered with beta3:

• The tree canopy is ghastly - really needs some redesign.
• My instincts as a level designer tell me the item placement and walkway layout is not conducive to good gameplay, some rethinking of the walkway layout would pay off - perhaps some platforms expanding out from some of the corners and such, and more connectivity (the levels should connect in multiple places, not just one each).
• The ground texture is mapped too large, I recommend reducing the uv scale to make the forest-floor litter and debris look the right size, it will be more obviously tiled but I think it will look better overall, especially when you're on the ground.
• I fixed the fog settings in the svn engine, the fog rendering had been incorrect for years (both ugly and wrong), now that it is fixed (so that the Quake mod Nehahra renders correctly again) the fog is now just a wispy haze, needing about twice the density to look like your screenshot, on the other hand the wispy haze look is not too bad, something to fix later when Nexuiz 2.4 is out, not to worry about with 2.3.
• The central ground jump pad doesn't land me on the walkways unless I push (relying on air control), this means it won't work properly with bots and confuses players the first time.
• Waypoints for the bots would be greatly appreciated, right now they just stand around like idiots and shoot eachother, occasionally walking to an item.
• The water could be improved.
• I would texture the yellow globe lights a bit more, so they have some sort of sooty edges and such to make them blend in with the caps that are holding them, rather than just being a blinding yellow at the edges.
• The lighting could be much more dramatic and detailed - the yellow globes emit too little light to even be noticed on the nearby walkways, and the walkways emit too much light themselves, giving the map a white lighting tone, when clearly it should be yellow and with a slightly green-ish sun light (from the tree canopy filtering the light).

Overall the map looks great, just some finishing touches left.

My texture photos directory might be of use for your maps - http://ghdigital.com/~havoc/texturephotos - although I didn't take any forest photos (I live in a forested area, so I certainly could sometime).[/list]

It appears that I am stuck in a tree...

Thanks for the input Lord Havoc and Psych.

I'll add those to my list of things to fix- I'm actually planning to lift the canopy up and make it more detailed- right now it is just a last minute job. I share your sentiments on all those points, really. Div0 also gave me some pointers on how to reduce the filesize, which is at the moment massive.

I know about the bug you encountered Psych, it's a colliding brush in the canopy. It's been fixed.

And god knows why you are using HDR, psych.

torus wrote:And god knows why you are using HDR, psych.

FYI I have compiz running in the background and I forgot to turn it off so normally my framerate is higher...

is beta3 already with the map compiler fix?

No 3 just fixed a literal gap between the wall and the edge, and a few other things- I'm going to go ahead and work on it some more before I compile a new version with that fix, so some of the things that Lord Havoc said will be done.