Hey all.

I wanted to discuss a project im doing and hopefully share comments and suggestions .

let me describe myself. im darth doughnut. ive most recently done quite a few sabers. (however its been a month since i uploaded my hilt pack to jk2files and it still isnt up )

im VERY VERY new to mapping.. but ive tinkered enough to know basics.. i have an active imagination.. 1001 ideas in my head.. and i need to get them out.. one of these ideas is Total Jedi War (tentitive title)

Now.. everything on here isnt set in stone... i have permission to ask for a few things to use.. and am looking for opinions and help .. i want this one to be widly loved and used.

im set in stone that this map WILL be a city type map.. typical ugly tall buildings.. textured lightly (to keep FPS high) i dont want it to look too detailed for the fact that this map WILL be huge...

There are 2 bases.. one on each side of the city.. each with a power core deep inside..

Each base will have hand turrents, jet packs, ATST walkers, Swoop bikes, Rideable animals, and (with hope) Kensai's Mini Tie Fighters. (if theres anything else you think should be added please tell me)

the basic of the map is to get into enemys base... destroy the Protection Door Guarding the power core... and then.. destroy the power core.
i am not going to make it easy eather.. i want the power core to rack the team up about 100 pts.

so in a way its like a cross between CTF and Seige.. except theres no flag.. and no SET objective.. just be the team with the most points at the end.

there will be a few hidden rooms in the building windows.. making accessable some items.. like larger weapons. however most of the weapons and health will be stored at the bases to make things fair.

im making it for use with weapons cause it wouldnt seem fair going up against all the atsts, ships and such with only a light saber.. things would get done too quick. so its ment for weapon play!

i do plan on adding a duel platform for the ones that feel they need to whipout a saber without having to be bothered by weapons (use the Dual chalange if you REALLY want thist o happen) other wise.. no rules. unless something seriously lame comes up.. then ill fix it LOL


ok.. enough of the description.....
heres the things i need to solve !

1. Lighting... i dont wanna add light entities... shadows slow down FPS. so i need to know how to make the default gamma lighting high..

2. The sky.. ive tried so much to get that damn sky to work.. i tried using the texture.. it didnt work.. i tried using. "SKY" .. dont work..
can someone detail this process out to me so i can add a skybox to my map??

3. Setting a point value to a destructable item/wall ! how do i do it? is there a way to do it???


4. a list of all vehicles ... i know there are a few different type of swoops.. can someone give me a list?

5. Rocket packs.. how do you make them accessable in the map?

6. rancor in a sewer drain area under a bridge.... do you think that would be cool? like 2 bridges going over a stone trench where water would drain (no water in trench)


please Give me comments and suggestions and if i use them ill add you on the list of credits and thanks..

please help me make this map the god of all fun maps

1. No they don't and I'll prove it if needs be :p
2. Check shaderlist.txt has an entry (a line) that says skies. Also use latest Q3Map2

Rest....well if you want specific help, PM me or IM me and I'll help. don't mind...just reading that whole thing right now is so painful.

i thoughjt i would post a screen shot of the horror that is my POS map .. keep in mind.. its beta.. VERY beta.. however ive entertained the thought of only having 1 city block ... this way the action is closer to eachother.. but i dont know yet..

http://jk3hilts.evilzz.net/SS1.jpg)

There are 4 screenshots in this pic.. ill describe them

#1. Top of the base with Mini Tie fighter.. This a good shot to show how long one of the city streets are. there are actually 4 streets this long..

#2. This is the front of the base.. notice the windows.. perfect for sniping from when an enemy gets close. the blue base will also have blue crystals in front. as well as a blue power core. also notice the vehichle garage ramp

#3. Vehicle Animal Garage... still in process of editing.

#4. The power core.. This is what everyone from the opposite team is out to destroy (lighting is very off in here.. but its the concept that counts.)


Tell me what you think and what i should do... should i shorten the city street and make more.. or keep it long and have less streets.

This is my map... sucks dont it? LOL

im considering Street lights if i have to do lighting... and that white stuff in the sky.. thats the "Sky" option from skies... i dont see why it dont work....

if you dont put light in, your map will look aweful. but if you really dont want to just compile with no light.. i can do it in jk2 radiant, but im not sure in GTK.. or Q3map2 toolz...

The screenshots dont look that bad though, 1 and 2 look the best.

Also, if you cant get the sky to work, type in r_fastsky 0 in the console, that could be why its not working...

and yes, i think the rancor idea sounds cool :whtsmile:

#1 and #2 look good, #3's textures are kind of repetitive, and plain, #4 looks only vaguely like a power core. Even so, I know its a beta, so, I'm not expecting much yet. Do your best. :D

well i put in a bunch of street lights.. which brought the compile time up to dramatic ammounts... i can only wonder what its gonna do to the map

when running the map.. with 20 NPCs. on a swoop bike and me on screen at once... in the worst area the map ran a 48 FPS but looking at the game itself... i couldnt tell the FPS was low till i deliberatly made it to 19 fps.. keep in mind too my graphic card is a built in card.. so its not as good as most of the people out there. so im sure nobody should have a problem using this map.

However i dont know how the street lamps will effect this.. if it damages the FPS too much.. im gonna opt for a different type of lighting that wont use brushes to make lamp posts.

i have finished the 90% of the map.. im considering killing off the "kill the power source" idea.. and mabey just make it a CTF.. with a heck of a lot of vehicles.. this will give me a reduction of that HUGE ugly room. and just place the flag in or ontop of the base..

i cant see this map being a regular FFA map.. due to the fact that all the vehicles are in 2 concentrated areas.. and wouldnt make much sence to have all the battles in the base area.. i want it to span out in the streets..

even under the bridge makes a wicked Swoop Joust area.. and the map itself could definatly double for a JKRacing map...



BTW.. i need detailed info on how to get my Skyboxes working.. nothing i do seems to be working.. can someone help??

Dude don't make the map too big. If you do, the computer will have to draw so many polys at once that the fps will drop dramatically. I've tried that and you wouldn't believe the lag on that thing. I'd help you out with the mapping, but I don't have the game yet. Can I test out JA maps on the JA demo? Is that possible?

i made the map already and it doesnt suffer from FPS problems.. due to so many sharp corners.. you cant look down more then 2 streets at once.. ive been testing the FPS cause i didnt want it to be bad.. but its been good to me.. i like it... ill be taking beta testers soon... hopefully someone with a server to test it out with a few friends.. thats when the real fps testing begins.. but theres not alot on the map.. jsut streets and 2 small bases..

ive made it a CTF insted.. but with a hella lot of options for travel.. including jetpacks.. atsts.. and mini tie fighters


these are the most recent screenshots.

http://jk3hilts.evilzz.net/ss2.jpg)
http://jk3hilts.evilzz.net/ss3.jpg)
http://jk3hilts.evilzz.net/ss4.jpg)
http://jk3hilts.evilzz.net/ss5.jpg)


Current problems i need solved

SKY!! I CANT GET THE SKY TO WORK!!!!!! ive seen so many posts.. and i still dont know what white outlined texture people are talking about.. i only see one thing that even resembles that.. its a white box that says sky in it.. and when i paste it to the box above.. its all white.. no sky.. is it supposed to be a plain brush? what is the sky supposed to be???

--------

Making brushes gamma level increased. (i wanna make the street lights look like they are giving light off.. right now they are just a texture... but very dark.. i dont wanna put a light on every one of them cause it would slow compile time and make it a pain..
is there any way just to increase the gamma of a texture to make it look like its lit up? (like the old Doom map maker LOL)




hope you all enjoy the new screen shots.. and as always.. feed back is needed!!!

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it looks as though there isn't too much space for flying. Too little space = Lots of crashes. If you want a good map, it doesn't matter if the compile time is long.

im using keshires Mini Tie fighter mod..

The tie is smaller then a player model.. and actually goes slow enough for easy control. there honestly is pleanty of room to fly without crashing.. honest!

Here.. check out this screen shot for a size comparison... its quite the neat little mod..

http://jk3hilts.evilzz.net/ss6.jpg)

it doesnt look bad at all... i like it. :whtsmile:


sky shader:

http://www.darkspireclan.net/hosted/luke/sky_shader.JPG)

see the white ones? put those on your walls where you want the sky.. actually, in my opinion, that "sky" fits the city... idk.... i only looked at 3 of the shots.

See.. i dont have all of those little sky texture things... i only have one of them.. (the one without a white box around it)

I have show shaders on.. so what am i doing wrong??

BTW i changed the street lights.. ill be making a SC as soon as i get the sky working *somehow*

If you could tell me why i dont see those other sky shaders i would appreciate it very much

http://richdiesal.jedioutcastmaps.com/tutorials/gc102lsn6.html)

this is for jk2 but should help anyway.

thank you for trying to help.. unfortunatly.. this was the first thing i tried.. and didnt work :(

Neat ties. I like it. Looks like I was wrong. Anyway, I look forward to playing this map. :thmbup1:

I can't possible imagine what could be so difficult with skies. Try both:

1. Select the brush you want to apply the sky, very likely your area roof/ceiling brush. At the start it should be caulked (apply textures/system/caulk to all sides). Then select only the side that is visible from the inside of your map (CTRL-Shift-Right click in 3d-view for that face) and press key "S".
Now that the handy surface inspector has opened, click on the texture line. Type in example "textures/skies/normallight" without ". If that side looks a bit like sky now in the editor it should work in-game as well.

2. Load "skies/" texture folder for your texture browser. If you have installed many custom maps the fastest way doing this is using the "Load Directory" below Textures - toolbar. When sky shaders have loaded select the visible face of your sky brush (selecting explained in 1.) and apply any of sky shaders (NOT basic textures. Shaders have white line around them in texture browser).

I hope these help.