earthQUAKE level re-build (18 screenshots)

[ajay]

I've just completed a large update of the level, changing: road textures, lamppost prefabs and positioning and brightness of the lights themselves - although I've added more lampposts, there's less of them per "square foot" of the map. I've also added more broken lampposts and malfunctioning ones.
To the that end I've done a tour of the level and took some screens - lots of them. To avoid clogging up the "what you're working on" thread with them, I've started one a new one. Anyway, here goes:

1. View from a street corner, up to the garage, showing the new lampposts, both working and not.


2. Back alleys now lit although not completely with working lights...


3. Corner of the street, towards the pub; which now has spotlights, rather than 'fake' lighting


4. Corner near the school


5. New alleyway, between warehouse and churchyard


6. The school; may yet tinker with it's lighting as some is still 'faked'


7. School again


8. Rear of churchyard


9. Beginning of the shop


10. Car park (the wall behind is actually a raised train track)


11. View of "The Gate" from the car park


12. "The Gate" again


13. Pub from rear; the roof is actually finished, and the spotlights on the lower roof are in place.


14. Entrance of the "the cellar", garage beyond


15. Garage and houses


16. Shots from the church tower 1


17. Shots from the church tower 2


18. Shots from the church tower 3



At the moment I've just got a black box surrounding the level. The original skybox is looking a bit incongruous now and I've failed to source a better one, as high res, cities at night are hard to find.

Even for the parts of the level that look finished, there's still lots of finishing off to do; all the warehouses need some item placement, some houses need internals completed, the pub needs a little work, both the garage shop and 'Tesco' shop need completing.
On top of that... the school needs finishing and a mass of sewers need working on.

Before, during or after that, I'll be opening out the east of the map; the area behind the school. Loads to do

[Downsider]

[negke]

[goldenboy]

[negke]

[Spike]

those streetlights fade out too fast.
you should not have totally black areas between the lights.
normal streetlights tend to have reflectors that aim the light in an almost square around their base, slightly overlapping with the neighbouring light.
lights which don't have nearby lights are generally higher up, brighter, and spread their light over a wider area, which is still brighter than moonlight a couple of houses away.
its atmospheric, sure, but its just too dark to be believable.
the garage highlights the unrealism quite nicely. super bright lights that turn the roof bright white, but its not bright enough to even reach the ground.
also, gameplay will likely become a game of spot-the-monster-without-seeing-only-its-lightning-muzzleflash-just-before-it-wtfpwns-you.

[ajay]

I'll start by saying that, as with every map ever made, the lighting is still work in progress, as is most everything in the map - in spite of it's size it's early, early days.
Having said that I'll explain my choices aesthetically:
- the map is going to be dark, I'm just not going to raise the min light level much more than it is; more on that to follow
- it is interesting that a couple of replies mentioned realism, I made an early design choice that, due to my skill levels, Quake restrictions and creative freedom, I wasn't going all out to make it "real" - it would have been an aspiration I would always be falling short of reaching. Therefore my goal was to make a familiar earth-based world, while allowing me creative freedom and licence to make it consistent with a feel and story rather than with 'real-life'
- an example would be street lights; it's been said that in the real world they overlap or that they cover a wider area, true but two points: 1) I could, if so motivated, take photos of streets in my town where the reality is similar to my map, indeed turn off house lights (more on that too) and at night there would be 50-75 metre gaps between 'pools of light'. 2) If I made a consistent swathe of light through the streets it may 'look' more real, but would hold little sense of dread or tension in-game, and 'darkness' is integral to the game. Additionally what might make you nervous in real life, e.g. walking down a deserted street at night (but a brighter one than my map) wouldn't translate as being that nervy in a game
- the context for the game, for why there are street lights on but no house lights, is, at least partly, explained in the background story I wrote for the mod ()
- and I'll say again, when actually exploring the map in-game it doesn't feel as dark as screens/videos make it look, and "spot-the-monster-without-seeing-only-its-lightning-muzzleflash-just-before-it-wtfpwns-you" is far from the truth
- as for a new player orientating themselves as it looks similar: well there's a bit of that in all levels, but I think it is both untrue and broadly irrelevant for this mod
- "Look at a couple screenshots of L4D/Crysis/HL2 maps" I mean, really? I think, even with modern Quake engines, aspiring to the level of detail in more modern games, especially Crysis, would be foolhardy. I'm working from a framework perspective, getting the 'world' built and then filling it with detail to the extent it can take.
- the garage lights aren't actually that bright - the white texture is more at fault, to be honest if I raised the lights' brightness and "dulled" the texture, it would look better
- "I don't know exactly what the gameplay will be, but even in a thief-like game or something it should look more busy and varied." Busy I agree with, to some extent, and as I've said, that will happen over time, but more varied? More than houses, a pub, warehouses, a petrol station (garage), a raised railway line, a church, a shop, a school - plus 33% of the [horizontal] area of the map is still to do
- The Gate should most definitely look out of place; it is. When I first built that part of the level I included rubble, broken streetlights etc, but have taken them out while I fine tune a pathway that the enemies take when they emerge from the gate. What isn't shown in screens is that it, although 'mostly' inactive, has a slowly pulsing light effect. I wanted it to be disquieting, and (if you know what has happened before, what it's purpose is) scary. But it being partly dormant is important too; so that when the'firing' is triggered and the sound effects and lightning happen, followed by the subsequent emergence of the monsters, it is all the more effective. It hasn't come out of the ground, however, it's arrival isn't entirely visualised, but it's a combination of being lowered into the world and appearing in a similar way to the terminator's arrival in the first movie. Looking at the warehouse it's part destroyed and the shape of the gate has carved itself, downwards, through the building.

[goldenboy]

[frag.machine]

While the comments are based in fair reasoning, we must remember that ajay's map is tied to a background story as he already mentioned a couple times. I suggest you guys to first read the story, and try to visualize the place where the events happened, and you'll see from where he came.

[leileilol]

I think the white lamps on lighting is fine, just lacking in some subtle corona effect (in Darkplaces you could just make a rtlights file that only defines coronas)


If you're using HLBSP where's the ambient radiosity coming from in the lamps? You might need that, and i mean really low levels (like 16).

Just because an engine has features and limits doesn't mean you have to go out of your way to exploit them so obviously. The Quake2 way of thinking sucks.

[mh]

[Nahuel]

I wait for this mod, I believe that it goes to be awesome.

[ajay]

I must admit I can be a little over-sensitive pus I've been on nights this week, which doesn't help
I would say one thing though, even if I wasn't ever so slightly over sensitive (especially about something I've spent soooo many hours on) a little balance to critique never goes a miss. The old "shit-sandwich" as it's known (say something nice, something not, something nice) or just suggest something rather than "this is wrong", use "what about trying" etc.
Anyway my sleep-deprived insecurity apart, some comments:
I do intend to up detail in the map and I take on board that Quake can handle more than people often give it credit for, however I am going to balance overall size (I want a big playing area) with the amount of content per square foot. Plus all that detail needs to be created, and there's only one of me. I have a few prefabs already done; bus stops, traffic lights etc, that will be introduced, and some destroyed buildings and rubble etc.
On top of what has already been shown in the map, (there's bits I haven't shown yet) there's sewer areas, inside of all those houses etc.
As an aside cars are proving a problem for me, on one I don't really want to add some plot device to explain away their absence, but likewise I have yet to find some appropriate models to use.
Finally, thanks everyone for their honest feedback, I do appreciate it, but I'll always give honest responses back if I don't agree

[Spirit]

[goldenboy]