WIP The Temple of Mechanism

[lil_binger]

The Temple of Mechanism is a long lost Jedi temple located in a lush forest of (wherever ).

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw0wzU8JHlPkNVAxdzlHRTgxWkU/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

 

 

I actually started making this map back in the day, during the year 2005 according to the time stamp on an old backup.  The map was going to be a sequel to the infamous Outhouse map which was a clan map for my old clan Leveling Mechanism.  I had made the main area and had made many members rooms and we played the map some but it never got very far in it's development.  The main area was pretty effing big, too big in fact.  It was a bit on the laggy side and lacked detail.  I really liked the map and decided to work with it and suddenly got an inspiration to redesign the map after messing around with a few things.

 

This map has been totally transformed into a much better and polished gem than it used to be.  I spent a few days just making shaders for it.  I've also put many hours manipulating new royalty free sound effects to create a very inviting forest ambience that makes you feel like you are deep in a secluded forest somewhere in Jediland.

 

 

 

 

This map is no longer a clan map, and I am sure some will be glad to hear it.  All the members rooms are gone.  I am instead creating more of a Jedi temple themed map trying to work it more like the Forest House map with many secrets and surprises however, I have spent most of my time polishing the exterior of the map and I haven't added too many secrets just yet but I have a plethora of ideas written down and have designed a sound file to add a little something extra when I get around to it.  I really like how this map is going and wanted to get a WIP posted here on JKHub once I felt it was ready for a test.

 

 

 

 

The map is built currently for Jedi Outcast.  In Jedi Academy, a few trees may not be visible if there is a _b tree somewhere.  The jump targets around the temple that jump you to the top of the temple will not work correctly in JA.  And there is another secret trigger in a tree that won't be usable in JA but no matter which JK game you use, you will have a very hard time finding it anyway.  Everything else should be just dandy for testing the map in Jedi Academy.  I will convert the map to work in Jedi Academy when I get closer to a final release.  There are also some textures for JO that may not show up in JA but many are custom textures or if you have a JO texture pack you'll be fine.

 

 

 

 

There are a few things to take note:

 

All spawn points are on top of the temple.  The Outhouse was done this way and makes for a lot of fun for ffa or "King of the Temple".

 

There are 4 entrances to the temple.  2 of them on the sides that go down (indicated by a picture above them that looks like an egyptian guy with 2 lightsabers in his hands) go nowhere.  Eventually they will go somewhere.  The other 2 entrances go up into the temple that has only just been started and I plan on making some star wars memorabilia or some holocrons or some weapons or something.  That area has only been started yesterday I think so I am unsure what it will become when I work on it some more.

 

 

Underneath the top of the temple there are 4 top entrances.  Inside there are 4 stone tablets with fire underneath.  When you jump into the fire of 2 of the tables there are teleports to access other areas. The tablet with the cracked looking JK2 base texture is for the middle of the temple that can be accessed on the bottom level.  The tablet with the egyptian Jedi will teleport you to another area that can only be accessed by that teleport or using no clip.  I will be adding access to that without teleport eventually but I have not done so just yet.  Also to get out of the bottom area just follow the corridor and jump into the glowing evil face to teleport back out to the top of the temple.

 

 

There's lots of no damage shaders around so falling off the temple won't get you hurt.  Sorry to the JA guys not being able to use the triggers for the jumps to the top of the temple which is really fun to do and for the JK2'ers using 1.02, you can use those jumps to jump up and over and land in the deep water and if you hold the jump button down you will be launched into the air able to land back on the temple.  (it's a JK2 1.02 bug and is fun to do also like in Shroom's Country Academy map).

 

There are a couple other bugs in 1.02 with rotating vultures and eagles and lilly pads in  the map.  I can't really get rid of those in 1.02 but I think the bugs are gone for 1.04 and JA where if you die they may stop rotating or moving for a short period of time but I have done whatever I know how to do to keep it from happening.  If anyone knows how to fix those bugs please let me know.

 

 

I hope you guys enjoy.  I am still working on a couple other projects in my spare time, trying to finish up bespin arena also released as a wip here on the forums which has been slow going.  Working on the Temple of Mechanism has been more satisfying lately so I've been making it more of a priority.  Tell me what you guys think.  I'd greatly appreciate any advice you can give me.  =)

[Lamented]

Another Temple. Lol

 

Sounds kewl

[lil_binger]

Yes another temple lol.  I think I got a head start on this one compared to newer ones being worked on currently.  Started in 2005   I began reworking the map a couple of months ago.  I do see many Sith temples however this one is a Jedi temple so I am thinking there are less Jedi temples than Sith ones so maybe that will help it out.

 

I am going to try to keep this in a more older style with some modern additions with the thought that this was an ancient temple discovered by Jedi in recent times retro fitting some modern touches to adapt the temple to a modern society.  Doing so, I won't have to over complicate the geometry hoping this will help me expand the map more for JO with it's limited map restrictions.  I believe the brush count is around 2000 currently and for Jedi Outcast that's about 50% done or maybe a little more.  I often hit the shader limit around 4000 brushes (give or take a few hundred brushes) in Jedi Outcast which really sucks compared to Jedi Academy which can max out at over 30000 brushes.  I may look into trying to make ase models to increase the brush count by cheating a little bit but I have not tested that in JO against shader limits.  I would love to figure out how to fix that but I might have to wait for JK2 HD maybe?  If anyone knows how to extend the JO restrictions I'd love to know what I needed to do to make it work with a higher brush count.  But maybe that's an issue I can bring up in modding assistance.

 

This map has lots of sounds outside.  Frogs, crickets, owls, hawks, jaguars, cougars, rattlesnakes, water, wind, fire and a few JO base creature sounds with more to come.  All of those sounds combined with the fog give the exterior an eerie dark realistic feel.  It's kinda like listening to a symphony of animals outside and it's all done using individual sounds without the use of global ambiance. 

[IrocJeff]

Do you hit a shader limit or do you get the max shader limit error? 

[lil_binger]

The max shader limit error is what I was talking about.  I always keep a few custom player models in base folder because of this.  I must make sure at least a few custom player models can be used when using any maps I am testing even if I don't use them.  Once the max shader limit is hit the player models will start to lose their detail turning their clothes etc into grey squares and their images from the selection screen will disappear or become a grey square also.  Aren't the two the same though?  Is there a shader limit in JK2 an JKA or Is the shader limit non-related to the max shader limit error?

[IrocJeff]

The max shader limit error is what I was talking about.  I always keep a few custom player models in base folder because of this.  I must make sure at least a few custom player models can be used when using any maps I am testing even if I don't use them.  Once the max shader limit is hit the player models will start to lose their detail turning their clothes etc into grey squares and their images from the selection screen will disappear or become a grey square also.  Aren't the two the same though?  Is there a shader limit in JK2 an JKA or Is the shader limit non-related to the max shader limit error?

 

I think there is a physical shader limit and then there is the max shader error. It has something to do with internally generated shaders from lightmaps or something during the compiling process.

 

Lets say you have some complex brushwork. I have a ton of railings in my maps around pits and stuff. I don't adhere to the Star Wars Universe lack of railings policy around bottomless pits. Each segment of the railing is made up of 12 brushes. I may have 40 segments around a pit. Even if it is made up of detail brushes, the lightmap process doesn't see it as one big railing. Actually, I'm not sure if sees each brush or segments them or what. Someone more knowledgeable may explain that better. At any rate, this is what adds to that shader count. So, again, not sure how many it would add. This holds true for stacks of cargo crates, a shelf you made, and so on..

 

To combat this shader count from going up you can do a few things.

 

First, the easiest way to go is open up the worldspawn and add a Key: _lightmapscale  and a value:2 . What this will do is lower the quality of the shadows by a bit. This in itself should free you up quite a bit. On the flip side, you can add a value of .5 and make the shadows even better, but, it'll raise the limit.

 

You can also target a specific func_group and add the _lightmapscale and value to it. Now, whatever you made will only be affected by the _lightmapscale and whatever value you gave it.

 

Also, you can combine these. You can add it to your worldspawn and you can add it to func_groups. 

 

Overall, it doesn't really reduce quality by much. You may notice a slightly lighter shadow but i can't honestly tell much difference.

[lil_binger]

IrocJeff urock!!!  I just tested this in the bespin arena map I was working on.  I deleted an area I had in there for the JO version because of the max shader limit problem.  The area was around 1100 brushes.  I copied the entire map and pasted it into the same map increasing the brush count to around 7200 or so brushes threw in the _lightmapscale 2 and seemed to work very well.  Looks good too.  If only I had known that years ago. 

 

thanks a bunch for that.

 

 

Back to the Temple of Mechanism.  Nobody has posted here about anything regarding the temple of mechanism.  I would really like some input. 

[Circa]

It looks really cool. I look forward to it's completion!

[IrocJeff]

IrocJeff urock!!!  I just tested this in the bespin arena map I was working on.  I deleted an area I had in there for the JO version because of the max shader limit problem.  The area was around 1100 brushes.  I copied the entire map and pasted it into the same map increasing the brush count to around 7200 or so brushes threw in the _lightmapscale 2 and seemed to work very well.  Looks good too.  If only I had known that years ago. 

 

thanks a bunch for that.

 

 

Back to the Temple of Mechanism.  Nobody has posted here about anything regarding the temple of mechanism.  I would really like some input. 

 

Glad that worked.

 

If you type in your problem into Google and put Jedi Outcast or jk2 or something after it it seems to get results from the old Lucasforums or Massasi forums that were answered 10 years ago. Same with using Quake3. That's a good word to use in a search as well with errors or something because the Quake3 forums are actually still active.

 

Here is a direct link to that forum. The sticky threads are really helpful with errors and stuff.

http://www.quake3world.com/forum/index.php

[lil_binger]

It looks really cool. I look forward to it's completion!

 

did you just look at the pics?  Or try to load the map in JA or something?  I'm really looking for input from you guys actually loading the map and looking around.  Giving me some input on frame rate outside and any aesthetics that may not be very pleasing or something.  There's something in there nobody has said anything about so if you don't say something about it I am sure you haven't  loaded the map.  ty though for the encouragement Circa.

 

Also if you guys want me to convert the map to JA to test it because you won't check it out unless it fully works in JA let me know and I can work something out.

 

 

As far as searching for max shader limits I normally use yahoo for my default search engine.  I normally read a bunch of the news there day to day so I also use it to search for stuff I am looking for but I have a hard time finding stuff sometimes.  I did a search on Google and found it right away.  I've tried searching for q3map materials too for JO but never found a solution for that.  I did finally get the shader program working and see all of the ones for JA but not for JO and because of the way GTk is installed on my computer may attribute to why it doesn't show me q3map materials for JO.

[IrocJeff]

If its for Jedi Outcast send it me in PM. I'll have a look around. 

[Circa]

If its for Jedi Outcast send it me in PM. I'll have a look around. 

There's a link in the first post.

[IrocJeff]

There's a link in the first post.

 

I never even knew that was there... 

[IrocJeff]

I'll give a review. Ahem.

 

I really liked the temple but I have no clue what the mechanism is. So, I'm a bit upset about that part. I was picturing like they worshiped a nuclear bomb like in Beneath the Planet of the Apes.  

 

The switches on the 4 sliding rock doors on the top level... they are too large and out of place looking.  I'd just replace them with red lights or something. 

 

In the main room with the glass floor. The wall texture has pipes on it. Cut out that part of the texture and make real pipes in there . It'd look better. Under the glass is a bit dark and I had a hard time getting around down there.The fire effect, the curly thing on the stake, and the portal door thing had no textures show up for me. I did hear the fire sound, though. 

 

The ground level has missing texture where the two statues are where you go down into a dead end.

 

Also, add some lights or something to the other area on the ground with the big wooden/stone thing. There weren't any light sources in that room.

 

I did have a tendency to die when going through the 4 portals on the top room from time to time. 

 

I really liked the room in spoiler #3 the best. That is really neat and well done. You should make more of that design. 

 

I'm not into multiplayer maps or playing them so I'm not going to get into that part of it.  I'd just add a bit more detail to some areas and add some more lights where it looks too black.  

 

I went all over your map and my framerates stayed at 90 no matter where I went. In fact, no matter who's map I play they pretty much stay at 90. Your map works fine with 4gb of Ram, a GTX 460 SE, and a Phenom X4 955. 

 

You have a good map there. It'd look better with terrain but that's a bit more work. I liked the sound effects and the flying things. I even liked the lilypads. Those were neat, too.

[lil_binger]

Temple of Mechanism.....my old clan was called =LM= Leveling Mechanism, thus the name of the map.  It was originally made to be a clan map.  Our temple clan map.  I don't know if you ever saw the map I made called the Outhouse but the dimensions of the very top of the temple and the height are the same as the outhouse however The Outhouse was more vertical and didn't have angles on the sides.  It was a huge outhouse in the woods with multiple levels inside lol.  My 2 best friends and I started the clan and our clan was the mechanism keeping us all as equal parts.  The mechanism I guess stands for "fun" in it's context and was meant that we were all equal and nobody should fight over who's the best.  I admit though, if you take away the clan, the name doesn't exactly make sense, I will look into doing something to substantiate the name a little more.

 

The fire effect should be base jk2 fire.  At least I thought it was.  I'll check it out.

 

I think some of the textures you describe might have been overlooked when I pk3'd the map.  I didn't want to throw out the pk3 I use because it's around 70mb in size due to many extra sounds files I am working with and a bunch of textures I have in reserve.  I deleted a bunch for that pk3 so I may have deleted a few too many.  And I'll have to grab that curly texture which is in a different pk3 I also have in reserve I work from a little bit pulling textures out as I need them and I think there are around 200 or so custom textures in the separate pk3s.

 

The wooden stone thing / room is brand new.   No light sources yet.  I do plan on keeping most of the lighting looking light natural light using fire. But retro fitted here and there with modern lighting.  I plan on working some light sources in there.

 

I am guessing you saw something in the sky maybe?  Floating around?  Currently it's on a continuous loop so I can test the map and check out the patch etc.  I will eventually add a wait time for it so it can be seen less often.  I've got a couple other ideas for it also but we'll see.  Did you see anything looking back at you in the trees or growling at you from a bush?

 

I am not sure why you would die going through the portals from time to time.  I do have them target multiple target_teleporters so if someone follows you through they won't kill you by spawning in the same space.  Maybe that could be a bug.  It could be they might be too close to the ground?  I'll look into it.

 

I do like the area in spoiler #3 also.  And yes I do intend to expand on that idea.  Actually, I don't really indend for people to spend much time outside or in the middle where the wooden stone thing is, however the top of the map with all the spawn points is a great place for ffa style king of the hill stuff.  I intend the map to be riddled with secret rooms and pathways kind of like forest house was.  And thanks to you Jeff with the help with the max shader problem I won't have to worry about hitting that again and expand this map the way I want to.  The picture with spoiler 3 will be mainly what the rest of the underground will be styled upon.  I look forward to working more with it.

 

 

As the fps goes, I can probably just use myself as the low end control cpu. If it lags for me it'll lag for anyone but most gamers nowadays are far beyond my gpu performance.  I have a quad core laptop but graphics I would estimate are about the same as my old Windows Me computer I used to make maps with back in the day.  I would estimate around a 256mb type performance for my laptop.  Outside in the temple map my fps will drop down to the mid 40 fps if I am in a corner.  If I do too much more with the terrain outside I would have problems playing my own map.  I've tried a few things to reduce the tris my computer draws outside but there is only so much I can do.

 

And thanks again Jeff for the help with the max shader problem.  I never thought there was a way around that one.  I never could find an answer for that.  I used to use map-craft I think for mapping years ago.  I guess I was using the wrong forum.  If only I had a time machine to send me a message back then about that when I was mapping lol.

[IrocJeff]

No problem. Glad I can help.

 

Since you have an older system I'll send you one of my maps to play and see how your system handles it. I just have to pack them up into a pk3. 

[lil_binger]

Sounds good.

 

The only problem I have with the workaround for shader limits is you've given me a whole lot more work to do to finish up a couple maps I am working on lol.  The Bespin arena was close to being finished because of the restrictions but now I have much more work I can do to it and finish it the way I originally envisioned it.  Should be a great addition for the map line up for JK2.  The bespin arena map in wip section I'd like to see or hear your thoughts about it however I am adding more to it.  I will get another WIP out for it when I can and give you a heads up.  I think it's by far one of my best maps to date and only going to get better now that I can add more to the map without having to worry about shader restrictions.  I've added one part back to the map I had to remove because of the max shader error and I had planned on making some more areas but had to bite my creative tongue just to finish it as it was because too much more and it would become unplayable. 

 

I'll be glad to take a look at the map for you.  Just give me a holler.

[lil_binger]

I found the Mech WIP thread   More to come.......

[z3filus]

gimme dis map

[Darth Reborn]

Screens looks almazing.

[DrXann]

I might actually try this out is it for Outcast or Academy.

[lil_binger]

As far as the Temple of Mechanism meaning.....

 

Our old clan model was that everyone was equal.  We are all just players in a game we enjoy.  We are that mechanism.  The players are the ones who keep the gears spinning.  Our clan name was Leveling Mechanism (Which was first derived thinking up band names for our band at the time.)  We liked the name and decided to set it in stone.  (Mainly I was telling my buds one day, We play this game a lot, we mess around making up or own clan name, lets make it official and recruit some members....and it took off from there and grew into one of the largest active clans in JK2 during our time.  We had 6 servers at one point and made a dedicated server reboot of saberology when they decided to migrate to 1.04.

 

Now, the Temple of Mechanism no longer stands as a celebration of our clan participants.  (Which was originally designed as a follow up for the outhouse map).  The map now is a tribute to all players involved in the game, past present and future.  We are the Mechanism which has kept our beloved game alive for so many years.  .....Long Live JK2.

 

I've got a lot of great ideas in store for this map and I think I can publish this map without too much difficulty or time.  I am guessing a couple weeks or so and I could have a beta version for download for you guys.  I am employing a lot of ways to keep fps at a maximum even with a map without doors to block vis.  (There are some doors in the map but they are used as elevators.  I am also trying not to be too sfx / efx happy.

 

There is one thing I could use some assistance with for anyone who is interested.

And can be anyone, Master mapper or beginner.

 

It's an ancient stone temple right......I want to keep modern stuff like electricity from being used.  There is one thing I haven't created which has been in the back of my mind for a while.  I need a natural looking light source that doesn't involve a fire efx.  I have thought about candles and the like and have tested a candle sprite shader I made a while back but I do need some unique light source to light the map.

 

I would be willing to use anything you guys have to offer and will give credits so please supply a readme file with any submissions.  Do note, I do plan of releasing this map as open source to allow anyone to use stuff or even areas in their maps.  I would even allow keeping the outside area intact and deleting everything else so someone could make their own temple interior. (as long as credit to the maker is given and of course the name of the map must be different).

 

If anyone has anything premade or is working on or wants to build from scratch, I could use some variety and would accept different styles.  I will try to use any submission I can get as long as I can find a place for it that fits.  Include a custom texture and scratch your initials or something (just don't make it too obvious).  Could be something that glows or just a bright texture or gem (I've seen some gems or crystals in JK3 that look really good with a certain shader but the shader doesn't look quite the same in JK2)..   I can make a shader or something if needed or add a light source to make it look like it's glowing or something if one is not provided.

 

If anyone is interested in submitting something please make a short post here and send me a pm with a link.  If someone needs an entire area to design lighting in one area I am sure I could wrap up a map file for you with that area to work on some lighting.  You don't need to light the map of course, I just need a source or few.

 

Thanks for the comments guys.  I hope to give you dis map soon

 

(the map file in this thread to this point is way outdated.)  Anything after this post should be good to go for either JK2 or JK3.  I have already associated all textures associated with this map within the map file so the map does not rely currently on any textures or sound effects or efffects from JK2. or JK3.  Which may change in the future to reduce the pk3 file size using textures which  both games have.  (I mainly included them all for my own purposes just to keep things ordered and less confusing.)  Plus if I use of of the textures I know I don't have to search down where It came from or come up with a missing texture when I load the map.

[lil_binger]

Well, I've fixed a few things and made some changes.  Tried to get a few more pics this time and tried to get better images too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've been excited working with the map recently.  It's turning out to be pretty cool so far. I hope these pics do it better justice than the last ones

 

 

 

 

[IrocJeff]

This looks great. It looks like a huge improvement over what I played last time. Those rope bridges look really great and I like how all of that is interconnected. Could you maybe put some floating rocks in the middle of the lava? Does func_bob work in MP? I threw a floating crate in my sewer area and used func_bob and it turned out pretty cool.

[lil_binger]

That's what I had in mind for the last pic of lava.  I made an area years ago I had some in I was going to copy and paste but I have to flip through an old map file to find it not in my base folder atm.