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Author Topic: Map: Sleek Grinder  (Read 24616 times)
cosmo
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« on: September 11, 2007, 02:14:42 AM »

Hi,

I stumbled over OA a week ago and found the Mac mapping entry in the wiki. I have had enough time these days to create a map. It's been years I mapped the last time so I needed some time for warming up.
I release the first beta of this map and I'm willing to release it with GPL as soon as I'm finished with it. Right now playtesting and gameplay is important for me. During my mapping process several areas got deleted and rebuild again and again. Before I add more details I have to know if gameplay is fine or if you have issues that I'm willing to fix.

Known bugs: z-fighting on one of the walls near the elevator (small), bots cannot go for red armor (can YOU reach it?), sky flickering in one of the big rooms. Many walls haven't been clipped yet, so there are potential obstacles.

There is an OA Server which rotates this map for online playtesting. (/connect spaceboyz.net)
You can download this beta: https://spaceboyz.net/~cosmo/openarena/sleekgrinder_b1.pk3  (save target as...)
Please feel free to post any suggestions as I need them to improve this. (all your issues please, think about texturing, details, brushwork, r_speeds, your feelings when you play this map, linking of areas ...)

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pulchr
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« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2007, 02:35:24 AM »

sweet!

i'll try to connect to the server when i get home from work. we need as many good maps for OA we can get Smiley
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digitalhead
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« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2007, 03:09:08 AM »

Not bad. I made a 5 minute run through to check it out. I found a couple walls that had glitches and it took me a while, but I found the red armor (by accident) then figured out how I could get to it on purpose. Other than that, there were some platform placements that I wouldn't include, but then again, I've never mapped a day in my life. ;-)

DH
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cosmo
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« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2007, 07:31:50 AM »

Thanks!

@digitalhead: Thanks for your comments. You don't have to be a mapper to have your own opinion. I know about the issue of the wall flickering texture near the yellow armor/elevator. This will be fixed in next version. Somehow I didn't recognize it when I compiled the map with preview settings.
About the red armor: It's not easy to reach it but when you know the way it's a fine and adds more flavour to the map because you have to watch your step and are a pretty target. I think I will remove the pod where the yellow armor is located and place the armor somewhere else. Same goes for Haste powerup.

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have items in places that are harder to reach.

There are several problems with the sky I didn't want to cope with due changes of room layout that happen often.
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digitalhead
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« Reply #4 on: September 11, 2007, 10:45:03 PM »

Thought I'd also let you know that in the room in the picture, I found some cheese. If you stand right where the rocket launcher is, you can keep blasting your enemies rather easily as they enter the room from either the doorway or the stairs and never run out of ammo since the weapon respawns before you can run out unless your aim really sucks and it takes 10 shots per kill. I setup a local server with 5 bots and tried it out and I was able to get 50 frags and not get touched a single time (got really bored around 10 though). Not sure what can be done about it, or if there's really a point to changing it, but I thought I'd let you know just the same.

DH
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fromhell
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« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2007, 11:04:15 PM »

You could probably variate with patterned floors

is that rise of the robots :X
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asking when OA3 will be done won't get OA3 done.
Progress of OA3 currently occurs behind closed doors alone

I do not provide technical support either.

new code development on github
cosmo
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« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2007, 02:58:42 AM »

Thanks for testing the map.

@fromhell: yes, it's rise of the robots. Smiley
I'll use more floor texture variants, it's quiet dull at the moment.

@digitalhead: thanks for getting on the strain. This room needs balancing as well but I'm not sure how to change it. I tried to recreate your scenario, added 5 bots and stayed at the Rocketlauncher all the time.
The bots didn't go for that area much. It's possible to shoot an unlimited amount of rockets due this very short spawn time. Maybe I'm not a skilled player but staying there was easy and I could kill many bots but they were able to hurt me with their weapons and health supply is short in that area and other bots got far more frags while running around the map.

It is a problem and might become boring so I'll change this. Thanks a lot. I appreciate your help.
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digitalhead
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« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2007, 06:01:24 AM »

It might have just been a luck of the spawn. That was the room where I first spawned and after I grabbed the rocketlauncher, the bots quickly started coming into the room. I can tell you that I'm not anywhere near being the best player, but I guess with the circumstances I had, it was possible. I only tried it once though.

DH
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cosmo
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« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2007, 05:37:44 PM »

You've been right. I lack bspc for mac so it's difficult to test the map (at least with bots) after every build. I will release a new build tomorrow. Here are a few screenshots.




Itemplacement changed. I tried to play the map a lot and it seems more balanced to me now. The map is a little bit darker in some spots now. I'm not sure if I should leave it to that tone.

I didn't manage to add some decals. Somehow they don't show up in the map after compiling although q3map2 tells me it recognizes them. I need to test that with a smaller map.
How do I have to encode music? I took an ogg vorbis file but OpenArena cannot read it or cannot use the extension when I don't add '.ogg' to the name. There are no helpful hints or errormessages on this. Sad

OpenArena models/skins (this goes for players and items) are way too dark for me especially when the map is dark. While it's okay in realism fps it's disturbing in 'speedy' games when you cannot see the weapon because it's too dark. I compiled the map without lightgrid for dynamic model lighting and I like the item visibilty now.
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dmn_clown
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« Reply #9 on: September 13, 2007, 06:21:40 PM »

How do I have to encode music? I took an ogg vorbis file but OpenArena cannot read it or cannot use the extension when I don't add '.ogg' to the name. There are no helpful hints or errormessages on this. Sad

You have to specify the file extension (add .ogg to the name), the substitute code is still a bit buggy and not included in the release (or the experimental).
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cosmo
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« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2007, 03:57:44 AM »

Here you go: https://spaceboyz.net/~cosmo/openarena/sleekgrinder_b2.pk3 (save target as...) it's about 750kb.

Play it. Bots do fine.
Tell me what needs improvement.
I do a final build then and put it under GPL.

Seems I don't get ogg vorbis music working. OA doesn't play it with or without '.ogg' compiled in the map. Are there any special needs in encoding (128kbs, 22kHz)?
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digitalhead
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« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2007, 05:26:17 AM »

I like what you've done with the place cosmo. Smiley It's rather playable and sniper spots are limited. I only found one spot that could be done well, but it also leaves either your back side or your skull wide open to be blown away (or maybe do a rocket jump off your head to the red armor). However, I did find one glitch, which it could have just been the game engine. I jumped down and landed inside of where the pictured teleporter is and it locked up a bit on me. Not completely though. It wouldn't send me through the teleport, but it took around a full minute to get back out.

<edit>Was that teleporter always there and I just missed it before?</edit>

As for the music files, I never use the in-game music, so I wouldn't be able to comment on that one.

I also think it was a good idea to get rid of the rocketlauncher and the armor is a nice substitute. And, I found two other ways of getting to the red armor, at least different than the way I have been getting to it.

DH
« Last Edit: September 14, 2007, 05:29:08 AM by digitalhead » Logged

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dmn_clown
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« Reply #12 on: September 14, 2007, 03:33:54 PM »

Seems I don't get ogg vorbis music working. OA doesn't play it with or without '.ogg' compiled in the map. Are there any special needs in encoding (128kbs, 22kHz)?

If you can hear music in the other levels then you are putting the ogg in the wrong place, if you can't hear the ogg's included with the game at all then something is wrong with your install.

Usually music is in music/*.ogg
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cosmo
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« Reply #13 on: September 20, 2007, 10:45:35 AM »

Thanks digitalhead and dmn_clown.
The 'teleporter' was there since beta 1 Wink but I found that problem and fixed it.

Due GPL issues I was not able to add more music and used one of the sonic tracks that's already included in OA.

I release my final version of this map under GPL (license is included in pk3 as well as in zip with the radiant mapfile)

Everything that belongs to it can be find there:
http://oa.spaceboyz.net/

Thanks again to dmn_clown, digitalhead and everybody else who has given me advice to improve it.
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digitalhead
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« Reply #14 on: September 20, 2007, 11:21:13 AM »

I just did a 30 frag run with the final version. Personally, I think it's turned out really good. It's very playable and fun. Kudos.

DH
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kick52
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« Reply #15 on: December 28, 2007, 03:34:30 PM »

Good to see my mapping wiki post was useful for someone
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cosmo
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« Reply #16 on: December 28, 2007, 05:19:41 PM »

Yes, thank you kick52. It's been different to get it running on osx than it was under my linux box.
Nevertheless the wiki could use more entries about all those fundamental problems about 'sources' and how difficult it is to create a map which can be used by this project. Sad
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Dayz
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« Reply #17 on: January 16, 2008, 07:39:08 PM »

Nice map. At times, I found myself looking for a fight while the bots racked up frags, but that just means I should have more bots, right?
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cosmo
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« Reply #18 on: January 19, 2008, 04:28:48 AM »

Hey Days,

you're right. I didn't follow one important rule here: "Never release your first map."
It's been years I mapped last time. The overall layout doesn't satisfy me here.

I will have a closer look on your mappack soon. Thank you.
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