FreeGameDev

This is mainly a pure Deathmatch map, just a fun project. The map has a simple and asymetric layout. The map consists of two main floors, which are wide open and oversized, to have a special atmosphere and feeling in the map. While making I thought a bit about classic shooters, like quake I,II,III and similar ones.

:::edited:::

changelog

changes since version 1.2:
_removed entities for bomberball and ctf, because of balance issues
_replaced grenades by mines in 4 cases
_adjusted sounds
_retextured and freshed up some details

changes since version 1.1:
_improved texturing in some places
_changed colour and distance of fog to underline the mood
_added some details like a big chain, buildings and spaceships in the background
_added the necessary clipping
_added a music track "metal" or if you like, "metalhead" as an alternative

changes since version 1.0:
_changed the position of multiteamstarts a bit
_recolored the skybox (decent) and added coloured envlayer and cloudlayer
_diverse changes for geometry
_additional texturing and smoke in one case
_additional death material to the acid of the broken pipe

Another fine map Raiden! It's fairly simple, but the atmosphere and lighting is simply amazing. Texturing could be improved here and there, and the levels are quite flat (you could make some parts ascend / descend more to prevent this) but I like it a lot already! One thing I'm not so sure about is the skybox. It doesn't fit the map that well imo. The colors are much different than the map itself.

I really like this map, it has nice quality and a decent layout...the skybox is a very good choice for it I think, it has a nice mix of blue and green.
One very minor suggestion, I think while there is acid spraying out of the wall you might as well have some death material there too.

This would make a great MekArcade map: it's big and open, but indoors and 3-dimensional.

The lighting is good, but I'd really advise you to use more lights- by this I don't necessarily mean make it brighter, just have fewer unlit areas.

Thanks for the replies, I get more and more homeworks .

Ulukai {l Wrote}:...Texturing could be improved here and there, and the levels are quite flat (you could make some parts ascend / descend more to prevent this) but I like it a lot already! One thing I'm not so sure about is the skybox. It doesn't fit the map that well imo. The colors are much different than the map itself.

Texturing, yes clearly. The height differences: yeah I could try this here and there, combined with texturing. But I'll have to take care not to overdo this. I realized, that the map syndicate cames near to the boarder of acceptable frame rates. The skybox is tricky. I've tried different ones in combination with skylight, skycolour, envlayers ... - none of these tries where really usefull. So I took this "interstellar" one, which gave an interesting contrast to the map, better than only a pure harmonizing and dark one. But I can give it a second try.

Rabidbutton {l Wrote}: ... I think while there is acid spraying out of the wall you might as well have some death material there too.

I had this also in mind, but wasn't sure. Ok this can come.

greaserpirate {l Wrote}:This would make a great MekArcade map: it's big and open, but indoors and 3-dimensional. The lighting is good, but I'd really advise you to use more lights- by this I don't necessarily mean make it brighter, just have fewer unlit areas.

MekArcade: Yes, I also thought about it. With special changes for that game this could be a possibility.
For the lighting I have to see. I have to set my gamma value to default at first. I have it always a bit higher for playing . It was clear for me that the lighting would play a big role in this map and I bet on distinctive contrasts. I will look on this again. The amount of lights has still to be limited, with framerates in mind (have much of them alrady, to give the acid a glowing look - this shows up in the filesize also ).

I found the lighting to be pretty good already, I like the darker parts with the yellow lights here and there. That's half of the atmosphere of this map. I little bit more woudln't hurt, but I don't think it's really necessary. I forgot to mention that you have very beautiful particle effects on this map which make it really unique. I would like the extra death material near the acid leakage as well.

Looking forward to v1.1

No revolutionary changes, but usefull ones I hope. Mainly improvements for texturing and geometry where made. I also experimented with skyboxes again and decided to still use "interstellar" without skylight, although a bit recolored. I wanted to implement an industrial/ambient music track, but let it out, since different problems showed up. One was that although I set "mapmusic "xy"" in the config file, the game still played random music instead of my specified track (music was set to mapmusic in options menue). Still I could test my music , by simply click to the next song in the options until my track came. So I could realize that the result wasn't perfect enough. When I should have enough time, I can make a special composed piece of music for this map maybe later.
As in v 1.0 already, I'm proud that the bots use the material portals very well . That isn't natural, I had to find out a simple trick before .

changelog

changes since version 1.0:
_changed the position of multiteamstarts a bit
_recolored the skybox (decent) and added coloured envlayer and cloudlayer
_diverse changes for geometry
_additional texturing and smoke in one case
_additional death material to the acid of the broken pipe

:::edit:::

I reuploaded the files, after recognizing a missing texture while a flythrough. This texture is invisible in normal gameplay, so it's not neccessary to download again (3 people). It disturbed myself only.

Music in editing will always be random unless you use: /musicedit $musictype

Nice map. I like the deserted feel of it. Your improvements over 1.0 are noticeable and I didn't find any problems with the map. Well done!

Here comes an update. I tried to improve the mood of the map by some additional details. I did a texturecull also, because the config file was bloat too much after I tried some things. So it is a bit more handy.

Please don't wonder about the bigger Zip-filesize, it's just because I added a selfmade musictrack. That track is my second try. The first one can also be downloaded. That one isn't the best track (somewhere between ambient and industrial) but fits the mood of the map. The second one (included in the main zip and defined in the maps config) is a bit closer to the original music of Re, but still independent.

One thing is still unsolved for me: in the editor the music works fine for me after setting " /musicedit 3". In the game Re gives me still random music although I have set everything to mapmusic in the game menue. I don't know what I did wrong or what I forgot here, but surely someone does.
Another thing: in a costly process I tried my best to improve the volume levels of the tracks, by gaining the volumes as much as it was possible, but they are still very silent compared to the original tracks. Something has still to happen here.

- with music track

- my first try is the alternative track now

changelog

changes since version 1.1:
_improved texturing in some places
_changed colour and distance of fog to underline the mood
_added some details like a big chain, buildings and spaceships in the background
_added the necessary clipping
_added a music track "metal" or if you like, "metalhead" as an alternative

I reuploaded the files (here only). The mapfiles don't contain the version-number anymore (the readme does). Because I didn't get any feedback about the music tracks, I simply let them out from this package now.

I was testing it today, and all that i can say is: GREAT!
The layout is very nice, good gameplay and such.
The ambient music you provided fits perfectly the map;
The only problem i can see, is people trying to get up in one plataform without Shotgun jumping, as you can see in the screenshot.

thank you. You are the first who mentions the music. Seen from your Screenshot, to the players right, there is a portal, which beams you up to the platform.

I like how the floating ships in the background with this well fitting skybox enhaces the scenery. And good job on lightning, though you forgot one, quite important thing: /skylight (Current value is 0x000000 = none.) You can see even on screenshots that though there is a big window above, it seems to not enlighting surface below at all (You can see very dark surface.). (Basically, only lamps makes it brighter in some places.). You tried to simulate it by sunlight entity, but it doesn't work well like that with an offset "90"! For this is meant "skylight". So there are basically two options:

1. Decide, if slowly rotating skybox is really needed (Personally I like it.) If not, then you can use a sunlight entity (Directing from the largest sun on skybox.) combinated with skylight.

Or 2. Keep the slowly rotating skybox and use only a "skylight". (Optionally you can use one common point light entity placed enough above.)

I didn't forget this aspect of lighting. All I did was with purpose, as I remember, while working on the map. I tried your suggestions out already, but had the opinion that it would be too much. I was not satisfied by the results of the shadows I got. They looked too hard and unnatural inside the upper level of the map and it was a bit too bright there also. Everything I tried out with different levels of brightnes and color for the skylight, wasn't satisfiing for me. So I decided to use a sunlight, only to enlight the far ships very softly.
However, thank you for looking into the map. Maybe I take a second look on it, if it should be wished later again.

Ok. :)

I will delete all entities for the game modes CTF and Bomberball. Because of the layout of the map it's nearly impossible to balance these modes without a bigger change of the map. So probably the map will stay as it was intended: a pure DM/Instagib-map.
If anybody has an idea how to implement ctf or bomberball though, please feel free to post it here. A screenshot could be helpfull in this case.

I have a small problem here: after updating the necessary points, I wanted to change some details by using the newer textures of RE1.4.. But the commandline /exec textures.cfg couldn't bring back the textures, because the textures.cfg couldn't be read. I guess that something in my cfg-file is missing or has wrong entries. I remember that I edited this file after I had too much textures in one texture slot. I also deleted doubled entries (sound, mapmodels) in the maps cfg-file.
Does anybody know another way to take the hands on all textures again though?

raiden {l Wrote}:I have a small problem here: after updating the necessary points, I wanted to change some details by using the newer textures of RE1.4.. But the commandline /exec textures.cfg couldn't bring back the textures, because the textures.cfg couldn't be read. I guess that something in my cfg-file is missing or has wrong entries. I remember that I edited this file after I had too much textures in one texture slot. I also deleted doubled entries (sound, mapmodels) in the maps cfg-file.
Does anybody know another way to take the hands on all textures again though?

metalhead v.1.3.zip

changes since version 1.2:
_removed entities for bomberball and ctf, because of balance issues
_replaced grenades by mines in 4 cases
_volume balances for sounds
_minor texture and geometry changes

To get all the textures back, type /exec config/map/textures.cfg. It is not your fault, it's because the cfg files have been moved from directories during the 1.3.1 --> 1.4 update.

Yes that was the reason. Thank you very much, this was helpful and everything works perfect.

Ok thats the version 1.3 of metalhead now:

changelog

_removed entities for bomberball and ctf, because of balance issues
_replaced grenades by mines in 4 cases
_adjusted sounds
_retextured and freshed up some details here and there

Like in the map "error" there are no entities for defend the flag, ctf or bomberball anymore. It's just for the reason that this is nearly impossible to balance these modes fairly for all teams. Furthermore the map was mainly intended for classic deathmatches.

nice, raiden. Good to see someone else is thinking of plain deathmatch maps
However, this map really needs something to set it apart; the pathways stretch forever sometimes. I feel like if you tried a more intricate layout, and developed it logically, this could be great.
OR add another set of teleporters, to decrease the map's relative size.

BTW i love your teleporter design and i am stealing it to use across my maps. :3

ballist1c {l Wrote}:...
However, this map really needs something to set it apart; the pathways stretch forever sometimes. I feel like if you tried a more intricate layout, and developed it logically, this could be great.
OR add another set of teleporters, to decrease the map's relative size. ...

Yeah, I admit that the layout isn't the luckiest although it seems to work. Other than in most of my maps, I had no strictly plan or concept. Only some things where clear, while building. So the reason may be the building process. Lastly I think that the map is a bit too finished, to turn it upside down again. There are not many possible locations for new teleports, where it would make sense. So an alteration may be the only consequence.
I mean the gameflow works, even though it means many sniper attacs in the instagib variant. It's not the perfect map, but it is not too bad also. I tend to let it how it is atm.