here (http://pwn.kicks-ass.net/chapel.pk3) is a beta version of my map, the "Chapel of the Ysalamiri." Be warned: there are a few errors (one of them quite huge: a large caulked wall), the architecture is only about two thirds of the way done, and there aren't any sounds or music or anything yet. Most importantly (annoyingly), no hinting has been done yet, so fps may well suck for you in parts of the map. I had the map nicely portaled off by walls, but it was just starting too feel too claustrophobic; I'm going to give hint brushes another shot. You can, however, get a feel for how this level will look and feel, and be sure to let me know what you think!

An interesting map, rgoer. In my opinion, the chapel itself is the best and most beautiful part of the map (reminds me actually of a newly redesigned section of my own map project).

Some of the other places in the map are a bit strange. I don't like being able to run on the skybox, for example. ;) And in some places the textures seem to repeat a bit too much, but that can happen with large structures like you've got. Try to break that up a bit with some more architecture.
Still, nice attention to detail. I like the fact that the chapel has flying butressess outside. Makes it very structurally sound. :D

I'll hold off an a full-blown review until there's a more complete version of the map up (with sounds and hinting and whatnot).

Thanks for the input, Eldritch! Yeah, I agree with you completely about the half-assed state of some of the things in the map, but, rest assured, I'm working on them. Glad you like it so far! And, might I say, hinting this thing is quite a handful. Anybody have any complex hinting tips?

I'm intrigued as well. At first, I thought that I had found tons of bugs in that I could jump on top of buildings and get places that I didn't think I should have been able to get to...and then I found paths that led to those rooftop areas. Be sure to place details/weapons etc up there so that it makes sense.

Watch your sense of scale in a couple places. For example, the chapel interior is H-U-G-E, with lots of vertical space, and a catwalk at the very top, but on the catwalk, there is barely enough headroom for a player to walk under the beams. Also, try to avoid dead-ends like the room with the ysalamiri.

Oh, and the lighting is really harsh in places, such as right around each of the small white light fixtures. Try reducing the scale value on those light ents.

I don't think you have to worry too much about hinting, actually, I got a steady 60-70 FPS over much of the map. Impressive, for the large areas.

Be sure to remember to include your ysalamiri custom textures when you make the final pk3!

I agree with most of what Wedge said, but I think the huge vertical interior space works well for the chapel. I would watch it in other places, though.

Hey, thanks for the input, Wedge. I was just playing around in your ctf map "imp_base" the other day, what a solid map! Yeah, the dead end down in the basement ysalamiri room was a symptom of the "beta-ness" of this map. Have no fear: (as far as I can tell) there won't be any awful dead ends in the finished product.

As far as the scaling of the lights: for some reason, I can't get the "scale" key to work for me... I'm using GtkRadiant 1.3.8 (beta), and the "scale" key just won't do anything. I've used it extensively in the past, but that was mainly in JK2Radiant; is the syntax different in Gtk? Did they change it to "_scale" or something? Or does a "scale" value not change the visual representation of the "light-spheres" in the 2D/3D viewports any more? Maybe my "scale" keys were working, I just couldn't tell from within Radiant... bah! Humbug!

I'll re-pak a new beta of a more recent compile later tonight, and repost the link. Again, thanks for the input!

you wanna change the light size use "light" as the key, not scale

There used to be (as far as I can remember) two keys, "light" and "scale." The "light" key determines an overall size for the total falloff spheres; the "scale" key determined how far from the light source the light's maximum intensity would last. Two light entites, both with "light" values of "100" but one with a "scale" value of "2," would affect the lightmap with identical values of luminosity, but the one with a "scale" of "2" would appear somewhat brighter-ish because the area of maximum intensity was larger. Kind of like a "radius" key, but for point lights instead of spots.

I think you lost him, 'cause that's about as technical a definition as you can give. ;)

I look forward to trying out the new version.

Originally posted by rgoer
Hey, thanks for the input, Wedge. I was just playing around in your ctf map "imp_base" the other day, what a solid map!

I think you may actually have confused me with *LivingDeadJedi.* All credit for the CTF imp_base goes to him, I did review it at www.jk2review.com), though. My repertiore is thus far Mars, CotA, OTS, the expected Tal Erulanei and Derelict in the NRG FFA pack, and my own CTF_Thunder and CTF_Facets this summer.

You're exactly right with scale vs light keys. The reason I said to use scale was so that the overall intensity wasn't decreased, only the amount of "spot" lighting and glare right near the brushes.

"scale" works fine for me in Gtk, I'm using 1.2.somethingorother though, not the 1.3 beta. If you have the light display set to "q3map true" (in preferences), then you should get three spheres to appear when you select a light ent. The inner sphere is the radius of maximum brightness, middle sphere is "average" birghtness, and outer sphere is the point where light falls to zero. The cool thing about this is that they show up in the 3D view as well as 2D, unlike JK2Radiant. If you mess with either the scale or light keys, you should see a definite visual effect. It could be a bug in the beta.

Oops, sorry for the misplaced props... you're right, I think I was confused (stupidly) by your review on jk2review.com; silly me. However, I do keep OTS_ships in my map rotation, so you can smile about that if you want ;^)

Yeah, I don't know what's up with my scale keys, but I think I fixed the problem you were seeing. I hadn't actually scaled any of the lights (since scale hasn't been working for me), but in a couple of places there were (accidental) duplicate light entities stacked upon one another and blowing out some of the lightmap. The outside door up at the very top of the back wall of the sanctuary (at the top of the "fire escape" staircase) was one of these places; I assume that's where you were talking about? Anyway, there's but one light entity there now, and I think it looks a bit more correct.

You're right about the absolute dope-ness of getting a luminosity-sphere preview in the 3D view. I've loved it since I switched to Gtk, and now I don't know how I ever did without it!

here (http://pwn.kicks-ass.net/chapel.pk3) is a newer .pk3 of the map. The "mediocre quality test" compile.bat script I'd been using started to take too damned long, so this one is more of a "crappy/mediocre quality test" compile. Can't really tell the difference until you look at the shadows... the only light options on this one are -fast and -patchshadows *shudder* I gave up on optimizing and resigned myself to let, whenver the time comes, my finalcompile.bat with all the uber-badass compile options run overnight, even with -threads 4...

You know what? I think there's still a big hole in the floor in one spot where you can fall through the map onto the skybox. I keep forgetting to fix that, need to write that one down.

Originally posted by rgoer
There used to be (as far as I can remember) two keys, "light" and "scale." The "light" key determines an overall size for the total falloff spheres; the "scale" key determined how far from the light source the light's maximum intensity would last. Two light entites, both with "light" values of "100" but one with a "scale" value of "2," would affect the lightmap with identical values of luminosity, but the one with a "scale" of "2" would appear somewhat brighter-ish because the area of maximum intensity was larger. Kind of like a "radius" key, but for point lights instead of spots.

ya, you lost somewhere around the part about...(*thinks*) the brighter-ish part

There's a new beta located at the same url, http://pwn.kicks-ass.net/chapel.pk3)

It has much better FPS and there is a lot more architecture to break up some of the monotonous areas. Most of the holes have been fixed. I moved the sun in the sky shader, but accidentally moved it in the wrong direction so now the stained glass windows are in shadow. I'll fix that for the next release ;^)

The map continues to get better, but it seems difficult to navigate some parts of the map. And other times you spawn on top of out of the way places, like buttresses.

Maybe I'm just not finding all the right paths, but you definitely seem to need force powers to get to all the places in this map.

You were right about paths for no-force players being a bit (read: awfully) hard to find. I've tweaked the "flow" a bit, now, and I think that you can navigate the entire map now pretty easily even without force powers. It may take you a lot longer to get around, but there's only a few places you absolutely can not get to without a decent level of force_jump any more (and they aren't particularly interesting places, anyway). The "final" stage of architecture+lighting is compiling right now; I'll pak it up when it finishes and post it to the same URL as before. Hopefully I'll have bot waypoints in by tomorrow (how's that for optimism?).

Speaking of waypoints: how far can you get a bot to jump by using the "j" waypoint flag? Can you convince a bot to follow a path that requires a level 3 force_jump? I've never tried to waypoint a level with this much z-height before...

Hmmm...I have never done any specific experimentation with the j waypoint flag, but my general experience with it is that bots are stupid. Case in point: play CotA, and watch bots try to jump the gap in the docks by the little boat. They never make it. Or, watch the bots try to get the flechette in the Grand Hall. They bounce all over and keep missing the waypoint, and they try again, miss, repeat, miss, repeat...

You might try some func_plats or even "air streams" in the form of trigger_pushes to make the map more accessible to non-force users and bots.

Oh, and by the way, here (http://pwn.kicks-ass.net/chapel.pk3) is the "final" beta version of the map I'm going to release before v1.0 development wraps up. Still wrapping my head around how, exactly, to break apart certain parts of the map to make properly _lightmapscale'ed func_groups and achieve uber-sexy shadow casting ;^)

The flow is definitely improved, and the map is much easier to navigate now. Only a few other nitpicks:

1. The skybox looks a little odd as it is right now. From the higher locations, it sort of looks like a box in the sky. Perhaps try adding some kind of surrounding environment?

2. The framerate drops in some of the larger areas. There's not much you can do about this due to the way the engine handles the large open spaces, but I thought I'd mention it.

3. Botroutes.

Have you given any thought to musical selection for this map? A nice track would bring it all together.

There are two major problems that I have with this map. First, the aesthetic: you REALLY need to turn down the lighting in the map, it's horribly bright most everywhere. Is there ambient lighting? How about light ents in the exterior? Replace both of those with a light-emitting skybox. Turn down the scales and light values of the other light entities...the glare is horrid right now (case in point: look at the corridor on the way to the "ysalarimi room" with the pool of water, or the doorways to various points in the map).

The more serious problem I have is that I found much of the map to be disappointingly linear. Again, that ysalamiri room: there are two ways to fall into the room, and only one way out--but what if someone ENTERS from that path? They have no option but to turn around. Some of the other paths I took also hit the wrong side of one-way passages, or places where I could see a way out, but couldn't jump up to it, or something along those lines. Also hurting in this department: the ladders. Piece of cake to ascend, screaming terror to descend.

In my opinion, that all shouldn't be too hard to fix, you just add a couple extra passages or lower a wall or add a stepping-stone. In a MP map, remember there should always be at least 2 entry points and 2 exit points from each room (they can coincide as 2 entry/exit points). Remember that a player could enter a room from what you think of as the exit.

One other, minor aesthetic issue. You should put angles clip brushes over the stairs so players don't "bump" while they climb them.

Yeah, Wedge, I hate that about the basement area. If you fall down the well, fine, you can walk up the stairs, but it's the only way out. If you choose to walk down the stairs, you've got no choice but to walk back up. So now, from the "cave" room (where you fall down to from the well), there is a passage that leads to another chamber, kind of a catacomb-y place, that comes back up to the surfice on the far side of the sanctuary--an area that had been feeling somewhat unused in previous iterations.

As for the light: yeah, it was the bouncscale that did it. I'm changing the images (I'm sick of ugly Artus desert), too, but I'll tell you how the shader is set up: It's got a 250-intensity sun light (you can see all the shadows from it) and a 35-intensity skylight property. This most recent compile was a -bounce 8 with a -bouncescale 3, so in some areas where entity lights were somewhat "closed in"--like the passages around the doors--the bounces drove the lightmap up to "fullbright" intensity. Those I'll tone down, to work with the bounces. The outdoor areas, when in sunlight, are probably going to stay fairly bright, although the next compile might only have 5 bounces instead of 8 and a bouncescale of 2 instead of 3.

Hey rgoer, how's this map coming? Still in beta? It's been a little while...

[edit: congrats on the jk2files featured download!]

rgoer must be doing something.

Ah, tres desole mes amis... just got back from vacation. The final should hit the streets in the next couple of days. Happily I tell you that I have fixed the abhorrant ugliness that "-bouncescale 3" wrought on my beautiful baby...

Hey, I just noticed the beta of this map is on the JK2Files Game Server rotation!

http://www.jk2files.com/file.stuff?body=server_maps)

Man, not bad for a beta map eh :)