First map

[BruceJohnJenner]

So I finally got around to learning a bit of GTK-Radiant, many thanks to Mugs great mapping tutorials

 

First one was a wee bit crowded...

 

 

Which was fixed a bit in the second one:

 

 

 

 

 

Im thinking of making it a sort of 'Massassi tomb raider' bit, where the player explores an underground structure on Yavin IV that is trying to kill them with Indiana Jonesish pitfalls, moving walls, etc.

 

Hopefully it will look a lot better with lighting...

[Lazarus]

What kind of bsp compile proces did you use? Also, did you place manually light entities? or is it because of the compile proces? You do better for a first try than I did about 10 years ago

[BruceJohnJenner]

What kind of bsp compile proces did you use? Also, did you place manually light entities? or is it because of the compile proces? You do better for a first try than I did about 10 years ago

Ah just BSP -meta I think? The first option at the top of the tab containing all of the build options. I haven't even started to place lights yet though.

 

If I recompile it with the lighting option, but dont place any lights in the game, is the whole map just dark? (would be kinda cool though, wandering through the halls with only the lightsaber to light the way...)

[Ramikad]

If I recompile it with the lighting option, but dont place any lights in the game, is the whole map just dark? (would be kinda cool though, wandering through the halls with only the lightsaber to light the way...)

 

It's not dark. It's black.

A slightly more friendly way of keeping it dark but still barely-visible is to set up a _minlight value in the worldspawn, that causes every surface to have a bare minimum of light.

[Lazarus]

If you recompile with the light stage, your map will be ... unlit. So it's black as @@Ramikad states. You wont see a thing, unless your lightsaber touches litterly something you wanna see, and your view will be horrible to say the least. Either set up lights (in my map, I just set up a skybox for now with a shadersun, since I am doing I am doing a big part outdoor.

 

Also the _minlight in your worldspawn would help, but I must warn you it will look bad too, cause every brush you placed will emit the value of light you set up. Better place than a few light entities in your map to view that, since it will cast a more realistic dynamical light if you are seeking for shadows.

[BruceJohnJenner]

Also the _minlight in your worldspawn would help, but I must warn you it will look bad too, cause every brush you placed will emit the value of light you set up. Better place than a few light entities in your map to view that, since it will cast a more realistic dynamical light if you are seeking for shadows.

 

Hmmm,

 

But the problem would be figuring out where and what the lightsources are. The idea is to create an underground map thats really dark (ie creepy), but the light has to come from somewhere. If the lightsaber wont properly light things, and I dont really want to do torches on the walls (doesnt make sense, why are they lit...?)

 

Oooh!!! Maybe I can make torches on the wall that the player lights by hitting activate when right beside them (ie the player lights the torches as they go) Is that possible, making dynamic light sources?

[BruceJohnJenner]

Made another version of the map with lighting:

 

 

Which generally looked good, save for that one part near the edges of the ceiling, why is the light leaking down into the next level?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Circa]

Looking good.

 

Don't forget about all the resources that are gathered here:

 

http://mapping.jkhub.org

[Futuza]

Glad to see someone new mapping some stuff!

[BruceJohnJenner]

Glad to see someone new mapping some stuff!

I was anyways, but my gtk radiant setup has gone haywire after I tried to move my game data folder, now all I see is white squares in place of the textures and I cant see them mapped to surfaces in GTK radiant. But Im trying again tonight, so hopefully I can get it all fixed up nicely again.

Looking good.

 

Don't forget about all the resources that are gathered here:

 

http://mapping.jkhub.org

Anything in particular that I missed?

[Circa]

Anything in particular that I missed?

You mentioned this was your first map, so was just pointing out some resources. Rich Diesal's Mapping University is a great one.

[Lazarus]

It looks cool, but you are missing some light references.

 

Remember that the light entity does have a style which you can pick, from strobe to flicker, candle/fire like or whatever comes close to it. Yet also recognize that light entities dont have a source where they shine from. I would suggest to do shader light, rather than light entities, since it will cast a more realist look. There are textures in the JKA folder that cast already some light. Else you could make your own (but thats more the advanced way, unless you want that). 

 

If you pick for textures with a lightshader from the base game, in GTK, if you see the list of textures, some of them have a green border arround them. This means they are linked up to a shader. Look for the light textures that does have the green border arround them (its like a really thin line). Those are the ones you want to use.

 

If you are going for a more advanced way by making your own shader, you have a few options. You could recycle a texture from JKA and make a new shader for it, recycle a texture and modify the current shader (copy paste it in a new shaderfile, add shaderfile to the shaders.txt), or you could make a whole new image with a shader for it. Its best to just look first at how shaders are made. @@Circa pointed you to Richdiesals Mapping tutorial (it's also in my signature). Babyspinach wrote an excellent guide on how to make custom light shaders, as in using a simple blank image from 64 by 64 pixels, which does the trick. I use that one still, but also I went on, made new textures, looked at the shaders from Jedi Knight Academy and made my light like that.

 

Maybe its too much to cover right now. First build off your map and then start improving it

[Link]

I think we've all made that initial mistake with the scaling My rooms were either enormous or really tiny to begin with. Looking really good though!

[BruceJohnJenner]

I think we've all made that initial mistake with the scaling My rooms were either enormous or really tiny to begin with. Looking really good though!

Yeah, for some reason I always seem to build on the side of too small, even when I am trying to build a big room...

 

Anyone have any ideas about the issue I mentioned with my Radiant? I still cant get it running.

[Lazarus]

A good reference is your player model. Place an info player start first thing. This is the regular height (64 blocks) of a player (some models are larger, other smaller) and build out of that perspective.

 

For example, In my current map, I make the regular hallways about 2,5/3 times as big as my player. This would help when you jump through it, but cant jump high enough (since i actually work on a mod without you using forcepowers, this is sufficient) however, when the force comes into play, you have to consider the level of force usage. If its MP, think about the max force power applied, which is 3 times the regular... You have to find the right combination then on what you want max applied to the height, your type of map (rocky caverns can be really big, but if you consider a facility, i never seen a doorway that had a height of roughly 8 meters, for example)

 

Also, if you had installed the developerskit, i think it comes with a bunch of decompiled maps and scripts (not sure if you run JO or JA) For JA, a good reference is Kor1 for like a tomb (heigh ceilings, but also narrow hallways) and t1_rail (which shows a good few jumping pads with some more limited jumping power)