AngelModder

Tennis balls of doom! LOL... Honestly I hope you make this some we can all check out even if just for fun! Can't wait till you get back to the vader quests though!

This is soo true... EagleStriker was the shit! I think I got his name right. But on a serious design note I'm just going to paint a clear picture true fans of a generally dark story do no appreciate a Jar Jar binks like character. Which essentially is what Rosh was; a humor touch to it all, the problem was the because of the lack of interaction with Kyle and again a lack of interaction with Rosh you didn't care about either when it came to the choice of light and dark, all you knew was Rosh was an annoyingly over competitive pos and a cowardly traitor. Kyle you sadly only had two missions where he actually was there. Seriously who sends a Jedi Padawan out on like 9 deadly missions by themselves. It was simnply poor story and plot driving writing that screwed JKA and ultimately lead to there not being another due to sales and opinion reflecting negatively. On the outside of it all, the designers took the easier road by avoiding using Kyle as the main character and went with the easier road of making some thing new. NOW some thing new isn't always bad but in the situation of a legacy driven by a particular character you (if your not going to make them the playable toon) need a LOT of interaction with them. Finding this balance is hard for those who despite affording to say so were severely rushed in making JKA. This rushed concept is not only apparent in the game it's self but also very much the opinion of several of this games designers not simply the one being questioned here. While I wont go so far as to drive up old convo's or topics. many of them acknowledged this game was released ahead of schedule by pressure from the as we'll call them overseers. It's this drive for quick money of a stable name that has killed many things. The JK series is just one of many that deserved more credit then it was given, and despite the embarrassment the JKA brought to the titles prestige, it deserved a second chance. It still in many ways does even now after all these years. How many old games like this do you still see so many people working there ass off to preserve and restore? This also ties into the short sighted nature of most companies these days. MODDING keeps games alive as much as a great story and an awesome multiplayer. The secret? DONT FRIGGIN RUSH YOUR PROJECTS...

Alright, i've tried to stay out of this but last year I played through JKO and JKA again just to recapture some inspiration and for the joy of it. While I see allot of people bombing you with tons of questions at once I have only one. It was a concern as soon as I launched JKA the first time and started watching the opening scenes. Who the hell was responsible for the creation of Rosh Penin and why were they not slapped and fired on the spot for bringing this evil into the world!

Todays list is a long one. 1 - Pull out the maps main courtyard to begin testing and shader creation and final lighting at a faster pace. Creating a testing ground. 2 - Adjust all the used Bespin texture to a more whitish tone as seen in the movies. This allows better blending into the CC styled area's as well acting as a blending point into the JH side of the complex. 3 - Adjust, fine tune, and lastly reshoot the skybox images. 4 - Play around with a sun flare effect idea. 5 - Remove all entity lighting and illuminate via shader lighting. This will involve creating new textures for the lighting rather then just a glowing white surface, some thing more realistic. 6 - Create new env's for specific view point's and begin applying them to the new styled textures for the courtyard. The platform would reflect some thing different then the roofs etc etc. 7 - Run a full NON fast full bounce compile on said test section and prepare for either tragedy or joy. 8 - If tragedy ensues blame @@Langerd for the whole thing. If Joy ensues claim all responsibility and throw Langerd into on of the Bespin pits...

Sigh... Going to be a long day! Time to relight the map with shaders and begin the final phases of shader blending. Will post some pictures later this evening!

BTW POLL IS CLOSED THE WINNER IS OUTRIDER!!!!!!!!!! OTANA WILL BE RECEIVING IT'S OWN MAP!

Sound is VERY important to selling an environment! And yes Spawnflags 6 is the most evil thing ever thought of in the q3 engines. It's been a looong time since I made a ship and it's interior, hence I'm itching to give it another crack considering how much more I've learned since runamock hanger-t31

Thanks @@Langerd ! The water will be taken care of, it was a quick idea throw together. The center of the rooms more of a dinning area so I wanted it to have a bit of a tranquil feel despite you're surrounded by games. I see this mixture a lot in the casino's games and food in a classey manner. I want to create some really amazing holo dancer's for some little lounge spots over by the staircases.

Yes but that's doing things the easy cheap way... Any one can make some thing pretty in these newer engines using modeling apps. Not only do I prefer to do things myself but my love for this engine has always been the fact it's difficult to create beautiful things! I appreciate a challenge, not ease.

OMG I could take Arrevanous to a whole new level... O_O

So wait all the maps we've built can be ported over to this? O_O What about the saber combat? Do you have any plans to move implement this as well? I mean now that I see wtf this can do, dude hell yes I'll help with some maps O_O! I think what I and some others are wondering is, wtf is this? A JKA Mod? A different game/engine all together?

And last but certainly not least (or less time consuming) SLOT MACHINES!

Exactly using it for repetitive details to save the engine (clipping math per say) by using ase's and clipping them your self saves quiet a bit of data. As well it's a huge middle finger to decompilers trying to take my precious away from mesa! For the hole in this ceiling I just used bevels and capped them but yea if you brush built the hole it would be better to convert it to ase's. But really thats a quick fix to what really should (and I should have) brush built the holes.

Ase's should honestly be used sparringly. like most models in JKA you need to stay within the normal poly limit allowed by the engine or else it starts to really bog down your compile and may even make it unplayable for some players, causing crashes low fps etc. The trick if you wanted to properly convert a brushed ship to a model is not only a solid design (clean), but to use patches for about 90% of it removing the extra verticies in the process as you build it. Brushes are fine but only if you really know what you're doing and 45 every angle and can visualize it in a triangular poly sense. I see most make ase's with thousands of poly's. the second trick is to split it up into multiple ase's JKA doesn't mind generating thousands of poly's so much as long as it's not one item. The difference is visible when a map using this method and design in the R_speeds and FPS as well as the user's gameplay. Either way Large complex object ase's are honestly not worth the hassle and possible failure of the overall project that may ensue. Ase's are quiet good for smaller objects (or objects with the model poly limit kept in mind) such as pillars and other misc objects. Keep in mind however that like any work, just because it's an ase and that your are compensaiting the Q3map2's surface meta compile with your own physics (clip) work having to many or too much of an ase designed structure (even in multiple pieces) can result in q3map2 giving you the middle finger as well as other potential problems mentioned thus far. In other words. I would not make such a large object an ase in a max already this complex. No offense intended etc, just stating why it's not that simple.

LOL It's just the system/slick texture from GTK. LOL But I always thought the picture was kind of funny. XD

Space chess !!!!!!!! And new carpet texture.... Early render of the slot machines! Now it just needs textured... >.> There goes 5 more hours HAHA!

Seriously your dealers number or it didn't happen! O_O

So taking your advice all around I've given the walls and structure a seamed paneled feel. I wanted it to have some detail, but to not distract from the other details and view of the area. However the walls really did need atleast THIS detail as flat seamless metal didn't make much sense. However during its construction it like the glass were really just temporary idea's of what I had in mind. Also I did convert the framed structure of the ceiling to an ase and took it into blender and removed some useless verts. Good idea on that one @@Langerd ! I am in the process of creating a better carpet texture however I do seem to like the red tone used in the image below, most of my time this morning was spent creating the Pazaak table however XD. It's interesting to see the effect the red carpet has on the walls and ceiling thanks to the bounce effect during light compile, honestly I don't think I'm going to fight that, it's some thing (a realism) you don't often see due to the color tones used normally in maps being darker. You rarely see this touch of realism. I did make sure the ceiling and floors were a func group and sharpened the lighting on them as much as I dare push it. Generally through out the worlspawn I drop my light map scaling down to a blurry 4 in order to give more power to area's like this. Using the filter switch during the lighting compile to pretty up the blurriness created by lightmapscale 4. Any ways my rambling aside, here is a wip shot of the pazaak tables.

Alright so it's been a week and we have a tie! Otana and Outrider! I'm going to give them 24 more hours! Cast your vote NOW Remember second place gets a map of it's own (sort of like SJC's Falcon) and will ofcourse be given open source to allow others to use it in there maps as they desire (credit given of course please).

LOL Ok this was funny XD

OK so it worked perfectly this time. I guess an important note is that it works with Normans Q3map2GUI as well for those interested in checking this out. Higher limitations and I have to admit a MUCH faster compile, who can gripe?

Sorry man Im in Europe so I was asleep not ignoring you. XD Will check the WZMap out in a sec and get back to you.

BUT wait there IS more! The Lucky Shot Casino's primary build is complete! Now it's time for details and lighting! Gotto say I love the view!

Juust a starting point on the idea of what the Casino will be like. A similar concept may be used for the Council Chambers.