March 12, 2001 [XPd]Hydra =============================================================================== --= Check out my new mod that I'm working on - Explosive Q3! =-- --= (Class Based CTF, new weapons, new maps, it's all good!) =-- Visit... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |_| \/ | \ |_\ |_\ /_ _ \ / / \ |_\ | | \ www.| | / |_/ | \ | | _/ \/\/ \_/ | \ |__ |_/.com [= Got any comments ? Post them at LvL! =] [= http://www.planetquake.com/lvl/beta/betacomments.asp?id=559 =] =============================================================================== IF YOU HAVE TRIED PREVIOUS BETA VERSIONS OF THIS MAP, THEN READ THE CHANGES BELOW, AND GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK ON WHAT YOU THINK OF THEM. =============================================================================== Title : Danger: High Voltage! MapFilename : HydraCTF03.bsp Filenames : maps/HydraCTF03.bsp (mapfile) maps/HydraCTF03.aas (botdata) levelshots/HydraCTF03.* (levelshot) scripts/HydraCTF03.arena (arena script) scripts/HydraCTF03.shader (shader script) textures/HydraCTF03/*.* (texture files) Author : Dominic "Hydra" Clifton Email Address : hydra@dsltd.force9.co.uk Web Site : www.hydras-world.com <-- get more maps here!!! Map Type : CTF 6-16 players Plays best with two teams of 4 or 5. Also contains ClassicCTF entities! Map description : A medium CTF map in a clean tech style. The map features two identical bases, each with multiple entrances. Gameplay : Bots play the map pretty well, often getting the quad and the Red Armour. The don't use the water entrance very much, but they will follow you if you nick the flag and go back via it. Sometimes they even score caps via the water area. Bots in Q3 can't jump to items, hence the don't really go for the Yellow Armour. (Try standing by it and issuing a "FOLLOW ME" team order if you want a laugh) Notes : Platform heights are set correctly for rocket jumping. (But you need to be precise!) RA Location should provide for some fun. :-) The beveled edges of the water covers in the central area were designed like that to trap grenades better! The items on the raised areas in the midfield and the flagrooms are supposed to be a litle bit hard to get. The R_Speeds are a touch to high for my liking, they max out at 10k in the corner of the flag room and the corners of the midfield. But hey, even Q3DM11 has r_speeds of 15k in places. People commented that my other maps weren't detailed enough, so here's a map that's much more detailed! Thanks to : id software, without you guys this would not exist Mad Props to : Tatzlaff, Sundown, Cyco Dude and BeyonDeath and Wex_Viator for beta testing. The people on the quake3world level editing forums. Everyone in #qeradiant IBM, for making a laptop that I can actually run Q3 on, albeit at a lowly 25FPS. :-) LvL for a great level review/pimping site. DjBob, for the great GTKRadiant plugin: Bobtoolz! GNU for making totally cool powder snowboards! You, for reading this text! Requirements: : Quake III A machine capable of running a medium CTF map Beer, and plenty of it. =============================================================================== Strategy Guide (or: damn, the bsp -light -extra stage takes ages) ----------------------------------------------------------------- - There's lots of hiding places for the flag carrier in the rafters of the flag rooms if you look around. - The megahealth area makes a nice camping area if you stock up with ammo. - Items like small healths, armour shards and ammo are placed so that you can tell where a player is by the item pickup sounds. - The water gap was designed to be wide enough to be strafe jumped. - All flag-to-flag routes take the same time (30 seconds), however you can use the jumppads to shave off a few seconds on the upper route. =============================================================================== ***** Construction ***** Base : New level from scratch Textures : Bases from ID, MrClean and Q3F. Along with some new ones that I made. Editor used : GTKRadiant-1.1-Alpha customised by Me! :-) Known Bugs : None. Please notify me if you find anything. Compile machine : P3 750 / 384MB RAM Build Time : 10 days, of pretty much constantly working on it. (I banged my knee on rocks while snowboarding, so had nothing else to do but make Q3 maps :-) ***** Build Times ***** Compile Times Beta 4 : BSP 27 secs; VIS 951 secs; LIGHT 6915 secs AAS 110 secs Build Method : BSP fullvis -light -extra Brushes : 3407 (Lower r_speeds than beta 3 though!) Entities : 277 Clusters : 18 Max Rechability : 462 (1808 total, 100.4 average) Compile Times Beta 3 : BSP 21 secs; VIS 638 secs; LIGHT 5622 secs AAS 101 secs Build Method : BSP fullvis -light -extra Brushes : 2796 (Less than beta 2, and with more detail too!) Entities : 235 Clusters : 10 Max Rechability : 544 (171 average) Compile Times Beta 2 : BSP 20 secs; VIS 783 secs; LIGHT 4875 secs AAS 94 secs Build Method : BSP fullvis -light -extra Brushes : 2955 Clusters : 8 Max Rechability : 385 (202 average) Compile Times Beta 1 : BSP 7 secs; VIS 50 secs; LIGHT 682 secs AAS 42 secs Build Method : BSP fullvis -light Brushes : 1363 Clusters : 2 Max Rechability : 684 (No clusterportal brushes yet!) =============================================================================== ***** Usage ***** 1. extract all files from the the zip file to your baseq3 directory 2. run Q3A and at the console type "/map HydraCTF03" 3. Enjoy! 4. E-Mail me if you liked it. =============================================================================== ***** Copyright / Permissions ***** Quake III Arena is a registered trademark of id Software, Inc. You may distribute this map FREELY via internet, provided you include this .TXT file and leave the archive intact with no modifications. If you would like to use this map in any other way, please contact me via e-mail. If you let me know and give me a credit, I'll probably give you the permission to use it. Do not use my map as a base to make more maps from please! You're free to use the included textures and/or shader scripts in your MOD/MAP, just let me know if you use them and please state: "Some textures by Hydra -= www.Hydras-World.com =-" =============================================================================== ***** ChangeLog ***** Beta R1 ======= First release Beta R2 ======= Erm, it'd be easier to list was *hasn't* changed! :-) Oh well, here goes.. This map is now very different from the first beta version. V 28/Feb/2001 Changed layout of flag room Changed layout of midfield, it's now bigger has an up-stairs with a quad room too. More clip brushes in the water. Fixed the z-fighting on the water-covering platform supports. Added more health and armour in a few places. Added the RL's behind the RG's. Made some of the longer corridors shorter (to much scope for defense with the RG in the old version). Added lots of little alcoves to the midfield and bases. Added GL's outside the quad-room. Removed the YA's (need to find somewhere else to put them...) Flag-to-flag times are longer, and the upstairs route is now a bit longer as it was too short before. Flag-to-flag times using Rocket Jumping to return from the lower level route to to the midfield and then the high route to the flag room as now the quickest way back. Added lots of decoration/trim/detail (it's cool what you can do with just 12 textures though! (3 red, 3 blue, water, light, dark stone, light stone, lava and a metal) Added cool re-spawn tubes to the flag rooms, they're cool! V 01/March/2001 Changed the flag rooms Added cool pillars with lights and sfx, they help to make the base less easy to defend as now you can't see all three entrance/exits from anywhere. Worked lots on the lighting of the flag-rooms. Added lots of little raised platforms to the flag rooms and midfield. Added a YA platform between the pillars in the flagrooms. Extended the roof of the main flag room entrance, made it team coloured and stuck the mega health on top of it. (Good place, as it's arkward to get to) Added a water feature to the quad-room :-) Made some shaders and some new light surround textures (+shaders) Added detail, detail, detail! Did a bit of work on the lighting in the midfield and water areas (less shadowy under water now) Added more steps to the midfield water entrance/exit. Added clusterportal brushes. Added target_location entities. Added SG ammo to the midfield. Added some new lights under the beams just outside the quad room. (And they flicker off and back on again too!) V 02/March/2001 Moved two target_location entities to fix the "unknown" in the corridors. Renamed two target_location entities, as the text didn't quite fit. Fixed some z-fighting in the main base entrance door surrounds. (The door surrounds were all made the same, but the ones you can see from a long way away started to exhibit z-fighting, so they've been changed. The ones that you can't see from a long way way are the same as they use less triangles to draw) Made the platforms with the 3 "health_small"'s lower, same as the ones in the flag rooms. Gave the "health_small"'s in the midfield "notbot"="1" as the bots *always* dropped off the platform by the quadroom to get them. (Maybe I should use some bot_roam's instead ?) --> nope, that didn't fix it, I stuck 3 bot_roams up there too, sorted. Added sunken T's to the midfield. Added a couple of spawn points to the midfield by the corridor entrances. Added some RG slugs to outside the quad room. Play-tested the map, ALOT! :-) (I heartily recommend Rage Against the Machine as background music!) Beta 3 ====== V 3/March/2001 Fixed a sparklie in the red base upper level that I'd already fixed before but the change was lost when GTKRadiant crashed on me.. Created some new textures (God damn, photoshop 6 has a f**kin high learning curve man, I just want DPaint on the PC and I'd be happy as larry..) Created sunken areas in the red and blue bases, makes it look much nicer. Added water to the sunken bits too. Changed the design of the steps in the midfield (ok now keditok?) Added ClassicCTF entitiy definitions to the map for weapon_Nailgun and ammo_nailgun. Created a couple of new shaders for my flashing spark logos. Added *lots* of trim here and there. Playtested the map with ClassicCTF *ALOT* (This map rocks!) Playtested the map with PureCTF a bit (CCTF is better!) Learnt alot more about Photoshop 6's quirks. Added more lighting to the base areas. Optimized quite a few brushes on the beams across the roofs (what was I thinking when I made the blue and red surrounds out of four brushes when only one was needed! Ho hum!) Added some Q3 Logos outside the quad room. (They look cooooool) V 4/March/2001 Added some text just above the entrances to the blue and red areas. Changed lots of textures Worked more on the lighting in the midfield and the base areas. Worked on lowering r_speeds in the base areas as they were hitting 14k. They're much lower now. Joined lots of brushes that were part of modular sections of corridors Changed the entrance to the water route from the flag-room entrance. It now goes along the corridor, round the corner and down to the water rather than along the corridor, down to the water and round the corner. This is to make the route via the water quicker. (Thanks Tetzlaff) Added info_rune_spawn's for cctf to the map in several locations. Added little plinths under the flags, they looked a bit odd stuck there all by themselves. I might change to just to use a texture instead of a plinth though, in order to keep the r_speeds down. Added a couple more start points to the edge of the midfield to keep things interesting! Decided on a name for the map while I was making another texture: "Danger: High Voltage!" Added some clip brushes around the "doors" on the upper levels so you can't get caught up on them (not that I ever did anyway, but now you *really* can't :-) Changed loads more textures. Made all the lights detail brushes to make VIS faster and smaller. (except some of the neon lights) Added *_ow.jpg textures for underneath some of the weapons (the ones where the r_speeds were lower). Had to make one _ow.jpg texture myself too..) Rearranged some of the lava in the lower corridors. Aligned lots of textures. Added sunken and raised bits to the new flag-room water exits to make them more exciting. Playtested the map with ClassicCTF *ALOT*, can't find much wrong with it now! (except the r_speeds, which are a little to high for my liking, but what the hey, not alot more I can do to lower them) V 5/March/2001 Removed the grating under the quad, to help R_Speeds. Changed the quad room loads, more detail, more textures, etc. Added strips outside the quadroom, at the same height as the platform, to the walls of the base entrances. Looks cool.. Made the raised bits a bit easier to get up on top of to get the items on top of them. Bot play is now much better for this release, The new water section is used by the bots quite a bit. And they'll happily go for the flag that way now too. Added some armour shards and some health to the upper level as it was a bit devoid of them. Moved the info_player_intermission entity down a bit. Yeah, 251 *LESS* brushes than Beta 2. And with all this extra detail too... Went snowboarding again while the map compiled Uploaded it! Oh, and I must thank the members of the Q3World forums for giving me amazing amounts of useful feedback - NOT!! Come on guys! Sort it out!! Beta 3b ======= V 5/March/2001 Removed the bottom part of the T in the sunken T's in the midfield and replaced them with another brush that provides a little bit more cover in the midfield area. (Thanks Sundown) Fixed 6 lava textures (3 per base) that were flipped. Changed the names of the water textures from liquids/* to hydractf03/* and included them in the pk3. (Thanks Tatzlaff) Note: The final version of this map won't be available because it will *hopefully* be included in the next version AllianceCTF. Beta 4 ====== V 10/March/2001 Changed the lava in the blue bases to blue slime. Added grates above the blue slime and lava. Added two small areas to the side of the midfield that house jumppads which take the player to the inside of the quad room. Replaced the upper GL's with PG's due to requests. Added some PG ammo Added a couple of windows to the corridors and the jumppad rooms with a space skybox, not sure if I'll keep them though... However the window in the jumppad rooms makes it nice and easy to get DOWN from the quad room without loosing any health. (Jump to the top ledge) V 11/March/2001 Made most of the lights DECALS to save lots of triangles being drawn (This has improved r_speeds greatly as I could then merge a few brushes around the lights!) Mitered a few edges that weren't mitered (most of them already were, and of course I miter edges by default anyway... ) Removed the space skybox, I didn't think it fit. Not that you'll ever know what it looked like anyway. :-) Put coloured logos and coloured lights by the jumppads for player orientation. Adjusted the lighting of the blue slime to match the lava Created two new light textures, used by the RL and RG in the lower corridors. Changed the corridors! Now they're much nicer (and much more r_speed unfriendly, but hey!) Made the two raised bits that hold up the 3 SH's in the midfield lower so bots can get the SH's V 12/March/2001 GAH! Changing the corridors caused all my clusterportals to fail, had to spend about 3 f**kin' hours fixing them! arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Totally bizarre too, the map is COMPLETELY SYMETRICAL (apart from the info_player_intermission and it's target) and yet clusterportals on one side of the map fail when others on the other side work fine! Even when the brushes are edit/copy-edit/paste-rotate-rotate-and-move'd. BAH! I *hate* clusterportals and making maps work for bots that's can't even play CTF for shit anyway. I just hope you guys appreciate all my hard work. ===============================================================================