OCD2

Oh no, was looking forward to seeing this process. Rest and feel better!

That sounds like it has potential for fun.

Thank you for clarifying, that helped! Im still getting some strange shadows on some patches, was you can see on the circular doors. Anything I can do to help improve lighting on patches?

Hello all, I have been working on my map project for a good while, making multiple brushwork configurations, making models and all sorts of experimentation. Things have been progressing, but what im having a difficult time getting past, is lighting. Using entity lights in my map causes a lot of shadows around patches and brush edges - which just looks terrible, and not fully lit - even the models are darkened. Now Im attempting to make a shader light for the ceiling panels in hopes that will improve the quality of the lighting - its more lit for certain but its not going how I was hoping! I tried incorporating the light emitting ceiling panel textures into the columnway model. I tried making the light emitting ceiling panel textures into brushwork - both efforts cause the texture to become "hall of mirrors". This is the shader: textures/mytextures/cpglownrps { qer_editorimage textures/mytextures/cpglownrps q3map_surfacelight 500 q3map_backSplash 0.5 8 q3map_nolightmap q3map_lightRGB 1 1 1 { map textures/mytextures/cpglownrps blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_ZERO rgbGen const ( 1.00 1.00 1.00) } } What might be causing the hall of mirror problem, where am I going wrong?

Significantly better celldoor control panel. Before to after:

Pictures are not working.

Dynamic glow is on in the recent photos. Removing all of the ceiling and floor trim brushes (and new textures) helped with the overall look, though I still have yet to work on lighting. It's still entirely lit by entity lights, which you can see pooling on the ceiling and floors... hoping not for much longer, just depending on my schedule and availability - which changes daily lol. Shaders are also on the near future agenda, though with the time I have this weekend I'm focusing on improving the quality of the textures, revising celldoor models, and optimization.

New texture rendition of the connecting hallway "panels" this morning. The other celldoor panels, door textures and refinement of the ceiling panels and door models all in line for upgrades soon, should be some more to show this weekend!

Dabbling with smoother doorframe models and various texture work today: Earliest versions displayed, still more to come this weekend!

Just a little optimization, and the beginning of texture upgrading. The ceiling panels and floor borders were baked into new textures, removing a ton of brushes, and increasing the height profile of the hallways. Before and after: Still making adjustments to the ceiling textures, some textures will eventually need a light wear layer and also shaders. More upgrades coming very soon!

Everyone has been extremely helpful in this ambitious first map endeavor. I could not take credit any increase in activity, that would be of the amazing work people put out recently in the contest and beyond. Im happy to work on something with an end product that people can hopefully enjoy in multiple ways. After this project reaches a moving on point, im hoping to make a few other locations. And hopefully at a quicker pace with everything ive been taught and learned along the way! I have several ideas for follow up projects, all of them in a much more open environment lol! Ah, you caught my attempt at a little easter egg style photo! That is not my work, its actually a movie battles concussion grenade. But making a simple baby yoda grenade ball could have been a fun entry to the contest! Missed opportunity.

Something to look at today, community member ZanderNao came through unexpectedly last night with some custom textures for the control room! They are a good rendition of the control room monitors featured in the show, including "security camera" pictures taken within the map, and placed in the texture with an appropriate filter color to resemble the source material. He also surprised me with the lighting panels and switches that do a good job at representing the source material! Here is the first rendition of slapping those textures on the walls that I did today at lunchtime (They need some alignment and placement adjustment, but worth a look!): Its was a great gift that helped elevated the area, and helped jumpstart me to keep me moving on the rest of the map.

Moving along on the project now that some of my time has opened up, and I have been receiving a ton of great tips and tricks from MJT, and several other really helpful community members! Finally have a grasp on ase "modeling", and have begun to add some more features to the map. Here are a few of the aspects that were recently added: Made a fully functional prison cell - panel hackable to open and close. Yes you can toss people inside and lock them in like on the show! Its fun! Also note the more rounded cell doorframe - another helpful tip from MJT on geometry construction! A rounder, more visually appealing frame will be propagated through the map, which should improve the look immensely! Made the interior Razor Crest ladder scalable. Leading to the cockpit door. And inside the cockpit. And finally, if you have not seen it yet, Zandernaos Security Droid is here! Its an excellent rendition and the perfect companion piece! Go download it! Gratuitous skirmish shots (with Doughnuts Din Djarin model - go download that also!):

After much fussing around, and again guidance and assistance from community members, the Razor Crest is now open for business. The ladder is now a model instead of fussy brushwork, and its scalable by pressing the use key to "ascend" the ladder. This is the first build of the interior, made entirely today, so its barebones styling and cartoony first pass textures. The ladder model will also be revised over time. They both have a lot of work left to complete, though the process is underway. Eventually the cockpit ladder will be made scalable, to a built out cockpit.

Looks outstanding! Ive made some good progress on the map recently, cant wait to see the models in the map!

It lives! Sounds like you have been derailed by real life building, much like me. I'm still working on my project as well, finally started getting some time to spend on it. Can't wait to see your project!

With much of insight from a lot of helpful people in the community, the first heckling prisoner concept is in the map! An homage to the concept art from the episode, a 3 fingered hand reaches out to players who run this particular hallway. The hand has some texture wonkiness on the end of the transparency, but now I have a baseline to introduce better quality renditions, and a better understanding of shaders, and some new tools for troubleshooting. Also, some of the conversion of brushwork to texture can be seen in the photos. Little things, but I'm happy to have some time to put in finally.

Actually had some time to continue optimizing this past weekend! Reduced the columnway brushwork significantly. Retextured the columnways. Reduced brushwork in the endcap corridors, which in turn made the areas larger. Optimized doorways. Reduced brushwork in the maintenance access area. You may not have even noticed, though the front of the columns need the "indent" line textured onto the shader texture. And the sneak peak of a concept heckling prisoner. Both shaders did not work on my first attempt lol. When I edited the texture file with the columnway shader, in the editor it tiled things with "shader not found". The hand is supposed to be a two sided alpha shader with transparency - that I simply may have made the shader incorrectly. I'll have to give them another try, another day. Though progress is being made, there are still ceiling and floor brushes down some halls that need to be baked into textures. The areas that have a temporary texture do have a better depth/area of play. Everything is still placeholder textures, hopefully not for much longer..

Just an idea for a mod: the season finale of Wandavision. Could be a fun project.

Yes, that seemed like the best way to see if I was on the right track lol. They also gave some interesting ideas for marking sections, like perhaps crates/appropriate miscellaneous landmarks down the dead end corridors. This is getting ahead of the current map project, but we also discussed potential follow up projects, and have fun ideas for the next map. It's down to 2-3 candidates which I'll share for input when that time comes. And funny thing- the testor took an interest in perhaps making a mod themselves, and I walked them through using the editor. We created a solid base for their mod, and messed with it for a bit. Not sure if it will ever come to fruition, so I'll share the idea - they had interest in making a novelty map based on a fabled game called Jar Jars Jar Jar Jar. So we may potentially created another modder in the process of testing the prison ship map! And finally, as an update to progress on my map, in the little time I've had, i've been streamlining the geometry by reducing brushework(on the columnways) and replacing them with textures. The control room has also been modified a bit, though nothing worth sharing in pictures just yet. But soon! ( I hope!)

Had the first internal beta test of the map last night, done by someone who had zero knowledge of the project or what it portrayed - but they are a star wars fan. The first review: Pros: The visuals are fun and resemble the source- they knew what it was instantly. It reminds them of the original Battlefront game. They look forward to the further build out and detailing of the map. Cons: Because of the pattern of the map, its probably easy to get turned around/disoriented in the map. They also found the first bug! An area with a patch where you could glitch out of the map. They were smiling while they tried the map section, which I took as a good sign. The con will be addressed, its something I have already considered and have a solution (screaming and animated prisoners to help landmark location) to implement when I have time. The tester was also blown away by Doughnuts Din Djarin model and remarked 'wow they even made the rifle', and when I showed them ZanderNaos WIP NR Security Droid model they could not believe it, saying that it looks like a model from a new game. Im going to try to make this map as fun as possible. The nice feedback from the tester was helpful and motivating, and im really looking forward to sharing the map with a wider group of people.

Would the idea below be a viable method of implementing a random npc spawn? Set up the three potential prison cells, each with an NPC spawner and a trigger on the door panels - both set to inactive. Is there a target random entity? I've not used one before if that exists. If so, I would imagine that I could link the target random to 3 separate target-activate that could activate one of the 3 npc spawner and the door panel sets. Or is it more complicated than that, requiring actual scripting?

I was just thinking about the NPC and some scripting! Your idea sounds like something I would like to try, though I will likely need some pointers when the time comes. I initially hoped for 3 potential locations where they could spawn, just to add some variety. I will have to look into how to make all of that work- im sure ill have questions! Unfortunately, I have really had nearly zero time to do real work on the project. My winter was totally absorbed in work/unexpected home disaster repair, when typically in winter I have a flexible work schedule and time for an actual life and hobbies! I appreciate all of the ideas, support and insights everyone has been providing! Its looking like I may have some free(ish) time coming in a week or so, so expect more work and questions soon!

Amazing!