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It's good to have some recognition in a game. I tried to do this with the teleporter model but it's flawed since the beginning. Unfortunately md3 mapmodels are converted into brushes during mapcompilation making it worthless to alter the model afterwards. I'm about to fix a bug in ctf_compromise and oa_koth1. Then I'm going to do a huge change in ctf_inyard and finish oa_koth2. All these maps contain the former teleportermodel. I'd like to give a new one a go but when it comes to imaging how such a model should look like my mind goes blank.

Maybe the current one just needs a better skin/better UV layout. Why not creating a complete new one? I need some inspiration. Provide me some sketches and ideas! How would the perfect teleporter look like? Should it be yellow at all? A doorframe with a shiny surface or a glowing tube are not enough!

Will you make a single teleport for all the map or team-colored teleporters as well? Would be a nice idea to have different kinds of teleporters which can suit for some map styles (castle, q3dm17ish-space-like, etc)

Would it be "wrong" to rip off the Q3 teleporter? I think it looked something like this, maybe not though:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/2182/telewd5.png

The gray cylinder being transparent with a green glow from the bottom, perhaps the pad that the green glow comes off of could be similar to the green light on top of a rail ammo. I chose green because that color is most visible to the eyes, one could go the other way and make it violet. The teleporter somewhat reminds me of a door, kind of like those in aggressor, that teleport.

Perhaps a big rusty metal thing shaped like Omega (the greek letter) with a rotating translucent spirally shader in the middle (two or three shader sections each rotating at different speeds might look really cool).

Maybe a big rusty metal capacitor with a bunch shaders between the plates showing small yellow energy bolts flowing left and right.

For gothic theme perhaps your current teleporter replacing the TV-noise with red translucent skulls scrolling horizontally around (like in 3 layers), and make the yellow bits, um, maybe rusty metal :D

Ooh another idea:  A big silver semisphere or bowl (on it's side, so player walks towards the convex space) with three curved pipes that anchor it to the ground (joining at left, right and back).  With some glowy shit in the front area (blue energy particles rotating around).

I have an idea for telep. model:

What about some kind of vortex generator? I attached a sketch on how it could be.
That floating thing is a diamondish. :P

@Neon_Knight aka Armageddon_Man: I thought about just one teleporter for all maps so everybody is able to recognize it in an instant. Themed teleporters would be possible if they have at least a few things in common or use just a different texture. I don't get the clue about teamteleporters since everybody can use them. The only usage I can think of such a custom skin/model would be two teleporters in the middle of a CTF map transporting you in each base. It's possible to mark these with surrounding textures, isn't it?
Anyway I would be glad to create one model I can live with before I think of multiple versions. Your vortex generator looks interesting. Thanks a lot for that sketch. It reminds me a bit of Indiana Jones.

@PsYthe: Well when I did the model we have so far I thought a bit of the Q3 teleporter. That's why it's yellow and has this basic shape. Thanks for your image. It looks like ripped from Commander Keen. The green glow could work well although it's different from what we had/saw so far.
Yes teleporters are extradimensional doors but shouldn't look like rectangular doors. That's too common and boring. There should be more tech or myth about it.

@andrewj: Could you do a sketch of that silver hemisphere teleporter. I like the idea. Often teleporters are entered from just one side (not the teleporter way but from one physical side as there is a wall directly behind it). Please think about how the sphere should look from behind.
The TV-noise and overall skin/shader of the current teleporter is bad. If there is enough time I try to redo it. The omega shaped idea is easy to imagine but it lacks originality and it's too obvious where it comes from.
A big old capacitor with rusty cables and pipes connected to it would be awesome. That's my favourite so far. Who could do a sketch of it or think about details that would be kool to have?

My favs are the Commander Keenish one from PsYthe and andrewjs capacitor so far. Thanks a lot guys for putting your brain on this. Any more ideas? Maybe we get this done quickly.

A mini-Slipgate can work as well?

just so you know, i really hate q3 style teleporters

so lei what do you like instead?

I've made with pulchr's simple textures a model of my idea.
It's an ase model created with GTKR, plus the map file.

Thank you Neon_Knight.

I'll take a look in March. Time is short these days. :(

Render stuff:

Renders aren't very effective showing off models. Try using vanilla 3d view, with flat shading.

Okay. I am about the skin the damn thing and it appears that it would be better to use 1024x1024 or even higher resolutions for this. Next problem is that osx blender port only supports half of the texture painting stuff. :(

Barf, run some LiveCD ;)

Due osx 10.6 does not support my architecture anymore I will install linux another day. Until then I refuse to use a liveCD. That is kind of silly. Thanks for that suggestion anyway. 

Cacatoes: Tell me about a good liveCD for PPCs. Ubuntu is not working good enough and does not support it anymore.

Oh, I'm not familiar at all with LiveCDs, but if it's an architecture problem I'd suggest DebianLive ?
Though, if one was containing Blender preinstalled (http://pterandon.blogspot.com/2008/06/review-of-blender-containing-live-cds.html) it might have been helpful. I'm not sure either some LiveCD can install some custom app, I'd say yes.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCFAQ

Jaunty for PowerPC is available : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCDownloads

But would it make a difference? Maybe there is some stupid x86 assembly in the painting functions.

Slow progress. Half way done. Due reduced features of texture painting in blender I moved over to texture projection painting and used a snake skin as base. (not obvious)
Nature is good. Why not use it? Animals deserve to die.

Actually it is not a snake but a blind worm.

JSYK, I'm using it in the latest am-underworks2, below the stairs. Although I'm not so sure about if it clashes with the look of the map. :/

what ever happened here? what's the current status of the teleporter?

i'm asking because i need a teleporter model in my maps and it would be good if openarena had a teleporter that players can identify easily.

i couldn't find more a recent thread discussing the teleporter...

If I had 200% time...

One is finished but a 2nd skin was on the way.
A second, more industrial one is in early modeling phase since last spring.

i only need one - the style is not that important atm.

is it submitted to the svn? it's not in 0.8.5, right?

Did you ever play 8.5?
It's in the new/updated maps by Neon Knight and me.

yes, i play 0.8.5/0.8.1 (depends on the server) - but i've never seen the teleporter in any of the maps i play online.
i don't play offline so i guess that's why i've missed them.

sounds good! will try the teleporter in the maps i'm working on atm.

Two parts are available. The frame and the portal itself. It even uses a texture made by yourself!
;)

Check ctf_compromise.

am_underworks2
Look below the big stair in the sewers.

Edited: deleted, been like 3 times I hesitate to post my answer and didn't see others.
Oh well (http://download.tuxfamily.org/openarena/files/screenshots/n/am_underworks2_teleporter.jpg)..