Wirehead Studios

Not sure how well this will go.. but seeing Tab's map progress gave me the inspiration I needed to start up and try my hand at mapping again. I was trying to think of ideas and maps.. and I think I came up with a pretty good one for the ol' DM5 map from Q1 (The Cistern).

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Main Entry: cis?tern
Pronunciation: 'sis-t&rn
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin cisterna, from cista box, chest
1 : an artificial reservoir (as an underground tank) for storing liquids and especially water
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I never knew what 'cistern' meant to tell the truth, so the definition of the word helped with inspiration as well. I might run into problems later due to Q3's limited selection of textures and shaders (mostly these).. but I'll deal with those when I come across them.

I also plan on going slow.. which is probably a given since I'm not an overly skilled mapper. The detail may or may not be limited, depending on the direction I take.. which will be area to area. I am hoping there will at least be enough to make things seem less bland. But ideas keep popping into my head, which is a good thing.

I have one room done, after a lot of testing with different textures (q3 default).. trying to find a decent combination.. and tweaking the details a bit, adding minor things as they come to mind, etc. Doing so provided me with some ideas for the rest of the map.

I'm optimistic as to how it will turn out when compared to the original map.. but I wouldn't keep my hopes up. My last attempt at mapping might be a good indicator as to what will happen with this one.

:) nice to see the mapping live here again, and i hope to see some progress from u soon (spawn) thomas mink (why all these nick changes...)

The Bad Place came out pretty good, so I'm confident you'll do a good job on The Cistern.  We could use some more classic DM maps and it would be a welcome addition.  DISCHARGE TIME!!!  :ninja:

The Bad Place is an awesome remake, so I'm sure this'll be as good as the bad place is.
Also, take your time. I don't think anyone here wants an incomplete map.

The original 'The Bad Place' was my overall favorite DM map from all the FPS games I've played up to that point (and it still ranks up there). That being said.. I wanted it to come out 'perfect' when I was making it. I even went so far as to upgrade and slightly alter the map as time went on.. I'm sure some of you remember that horrendous first version. I've said it before, but it's probably a good thing that Radiant decided to stop loading the .map file after a while.. otherwise I'd probably still alter and change it in places..

And Lord knows I want to.. watching demos and looking at screenshots taken at certain angles irk me at times. When I was making that map, I didn't know about the 'find/replace' feature for changing textures. So when I updated the textures from the first version.. I did them ALL manually.. every visible face of every brush.. except for the few I missed. It was a very long and annoying process, and it turns out that it wasn't too efficient either.

Gameplay wise, I think I accomplished my goal.. and lighting.. I like the lighting. But if I could still alter the map.. I'd fix the textures.. and I'd add clip brushes to the all the holes and dips in the floor (ever notice how the bots either run down the middle, or keep to the edges?). But.. learn and move on, I guess.

As for The Cistern.. progress is slow.. very slow actually. But progress is progress. A lot of trial and error with a stairway mostly.. making a basic and temporary hallway.. and some trial and error with a small archway. Due to the design of the map, screenshots might be a ways off yet to be of any use.. if they even come at all.

errr.. wow.. double posted. that was weird..

Bots have a tendency to walk in straight lines anyway unless they're fighting each other at close range.  That's why they're much easier railgun targets than live players... well some players anyway.  I seem to have some kind of magnetic attraction to depleted uranium.

Well progress has been almost nothing for just about the last week due to the release of the TF2 beta.. but I do plan on picking this back up.

For those curious as to what is actually done... the Megahealth room is done.. the stairs going up from there are done.. the teleporter room up there is mostly done save for the random details I want to add to it.

And uhhhh.. that's it.

Note that 'done' is used figuratively.. since, it's not really. Weapon/health/ammo/armor placement isn't even started yet and lighting is only temporary. Screenshots are still far from being acceptable since I have temporary walls and ceilings in places where walkways and big open areas will eventually be.

Anyway.. just keeping things updated. At this rate.. it'll be a long while, but.. I'm content with that. Tho it might be a long while for a subpar map. Use my logic: Expect the worst.. then it might be a bit surprising. :)

Despite my lack of any major work, I have done a few things as far as detail goes (in the teleporter room).

I've also found that screenshots are possible if I avoid the big picture and focus on the smaller things (room to room, pretty much). Guess it also helps that I started in a section of the map where it's a bit more possible.

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/Vaeladven/Quake3/The%20Cistern/shot0007.jpg
The MegaHealth and Rocket Launcher room in the original map. I've found that windows are somewhat hard to accomplish.. unless I'm missing something (which is likely). The one on the ceiling looks up to show that that section of the map happens to be under water. Instead of ugly ceiling supports, I turned them into pipes (pretty much the idea I got after reading the definition of cistern).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/Vaeladven/Quake3/The%20Cistern/shot0006.jpg
A basic and kind of ugly doorway with nothing fancy around it. It kind of disturbs me because of that..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/Vaeladven/Quake3/The%20Cistern/shot0009.jpg
Basic stairway that was actually annoying to make because of the angled floor.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/Vaeladven/Quake3/The%20Cistern/shot0010.jpg
Pretty much where I am now. I need to dig up my teleporter texture and plop it into the frame seen in the center.. tho that whole teleporter bugs me, even in the original map. It's just kind of floating there without any real reason. Need to think of an idea to make it more logical.
(EDIT: After fixing the texture misalignment seen in this picture, the skull texture looks a bit better.. tho it still might change if I find something better)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/Vaeladven/Quake3/The%20Cistern/shot0011.jpg
Another perspective of the same room. Another window showing water above. The pipes need some more work because, as they are now, they're just sitting there. I need to add some support for them and kind of make them seem more like part of the design. If I can't get them to look right, the ones running along the floor will get removed. The skull texture going around the room will also likely change because it just bugs me.. mostly because it doesn't end perfectly.
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The brown brick texture is something I'm a bit pessimistic about.. but.. we'll see how it goes. The texture used for the pipes is a bit basic, but it's ok for what it's used for. The water.. I wish was a bit more.. 'dirty', I guess you could say.. like the ugly looking q1 water. Right now it's clean and clear.

Progress will likely keep to the snail's pace I'm going at now.. but, like I said before.. at least it's progress.

Anyway.. questions, comments, critiques, and suggestions are welcome. Flames will be ignored. If you see something I should be doing that I'm not.. better to tell me now.

You are right about that door, there's something about that door that doesn't feel right. Also, will you be using that ceiling texture in the entire map? It looks a bit plain, IMO. Maybe it's because of the lighting of the map (it's blinding me! But, then again, you're still making the map).

More correctly there is no lightmap at all so of cuz the map looks bright :)
Well the basics of the maps is shaped, but its rly hard to say anything about it in the current stage until you've started to add abit more details. However im not sure about the brick texture, maybe if you use it as a trim texture.

Why not use curves to improve the looks of the doorway? That's pretty much what they were designed for (both the doors and curves).. :]

I think some lighting and shadow can help with the door area too.  I see torch decorations on either side.  Right now the fullbright look makes things kind of plain.  Maybe detail that area after there's some lighting?

Being the amateur mapper that I am, I would still advise strongly against that approach. Lighting helps a huge deal in making rooms look good, but it's also harder to judge what's lacking in terms of brushwork/detail once lighting is in place. It makes for lazy mappage, so to speak. Or so it turns out for me--perhaps in your case it's better to take Pho's advice, but there's my two cents, anyway.

I tend to do lights once im somewhat done with the details, its easier to light something when most brushes are placed where they should be :)

With models there's usually one or two point lights in the scene to give me a good idea how the model geometry will light and shadow.  That's just how I'm used to working.  I can understand how mapping could be a lot different there.  Mapping is still like voodoo to me, but I do agree that door needs something.  Maybe if it had a Quake door texture on it?

Lop: I royally hate the ceiling texture, myself. I forgot to list it when I was talking about textures. Good q3 ceiling textures are pretty much nonexistent tho.. and every texture seen is default q3. And Reb was correct about the lighting not even being started yet.. so the whole map is fullbright and washed out.

Reb: I'm still skeptical of the brick texture myself.. but the original map was all brick, albeit yellow. I personally hate yellow, so I went with brown. I wanted to use something different than the basic textures I used on my previous maps (the first version of q1dm4v2 and q1e3m7v2). You know.. the cathedral block texture or whatever. Finding good textures, and a good combo of them, isn't really a strong point of mine.. probably my weakest actually. I'll roll with the bricks until I decide they suck and have to go through hell changing it later.

Tab: I was thinking about that myself.. but curves alone won't help the doorway. Or.. I could be wrong. I'll add them in later and see what happens.

Pho: Good lighting can help any map look better. With my previous mapping attempts, I did the lighting room by room. With this one, I plan on waiting until I finish the overall geometry and detail because it's really my first attempt at mapping that's going to incorporate at least a few details.. not just flat walls (still mostly flat tho.. lawlz).. and they might change or more get added in. Altho the screenshots of the areas now don't suggest that. The floor of the one does tho. The torches are in place where they were in the original map.. tho I'm not sure if I like them. I might replace them with wall lamps.

Tab & Reb: A couple years ago, I wouldn't have agreed.. but I do now. Lighting will probably come near the end.

With skinning however, it's important not to have lights in the scene. It's kind of odd that way: on the one hand lighting helps see shading and brush shape potential, on the other it obscures choice of texture and hides bad brushwork from view or attention. Ofcourse, it does help that Radiant shows the map fullbright..

A better texture would help, but the brushwork is a little "flat" there, too, making the door look "unintentional" or "fake"-ish. More pronounced bevels or a pompous door frame might help give a more natural impression, architectonically.

Well imo that "egyptian" texture pack someone whom i dont rember the nick on created whould work quite well in this map. and no i have no links to it :S

If I remember, someone already made a Cistern using the Egyptian themed textures. The map was a bit large tho (I'd even say overly huge). No idea who made it or what became of it.. but I do remember it somewhat.

That's a bit besides the point tho. My visioning of the map is far from Egyptian.. more of an odd gothicized industrial.. thing.. hence the pipes.

The Egyptian textures are probably Sock's.  They've been used on a lot of maps, including devsever.  It's one of my favorite texture sets but I agree that industrial-gothic would work better here.

I apologize for resurrecting this dead topic, but hey.. I felt I had to.

I feel my version of The Cistern is ready for testing. You can download it here:
q1dm5v2-beta1 (http://cid-f6aebe4baad67164.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/q1dm5v2-beta1.zip)
(I apologize for having to use one of these 'free' things, but it's really all that's available to me)

Let's see.. issues I know about. The arches filled with skulls along the wall, the texture of the arch, the bit that curves, doesn't match the rest of the wall. That leads me to a question... how do you rotate the texture of an arch? The surface inspector doesn't do anything.

Bots act like bots. They do things, but it's sporadic and inconsistent.

The flooring underwater. You know.. I'm unsure. I was hard pressed to come up with a good floor, and I really don't know why I went with what I did. In fact, that whole underwater area left me a bit stumped.

Anyway, if anything jumps out at you visually or with how the map plays.. let me know. Other critiques are welcome, but keep in mind that the map is simply designed.. pretty much by choice, because I'm really not a top of the line mapper.

curve manipulation is done via the curve surface tool (Shift+S), not the normal brush surface window (S).
You can also use Ctrl+Shift+N to cycle capping of the texture, which can be useful. Finally, you can place or shape a curve in such a way that the texture can look right, then bend it into shape, and the texture will stick to the surface of the patch -- I've used that trick to prevent stretching on my ceiling.

Welp.. I'm gonna go ahead and call this done. I fixed those mini-arches as much as I was willing to, and I also fixed a small HOM in the underwater area that I found.

Other than that, everything's virtually the same as it was before. Some were curious to see me take on another 'classic' map.. and this is the result. Enjoy.

q1dm5v2 (http://cid-f6aebe4baad67164.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/q1dm5v2.zip)
(again, I apologize for using a 'free' thing.. but I felt skydrive as being the most tolerable)

Oh. I had hoped to get some time to give comments sooner, and now I'm too late it seems. Been away from home all weekend, so I'd planned to tackle it today or tomorrow. Oh well, you weren't that keen on my input, so I take it that's no serious problem. I'll download the new version now.

I do have one suggestion: you might rename the map from the generic q1dm5 to something that shows it's your map (like the way I prepend most of my work with "tab"). That seems the way to go to keep things neat and easy to find.

Sorry for the late reply.  I was working on hardware on this machine, and I could not download the map for some reason on my backup computer.

I just had a run of the map.  It's definitely larger than the original, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  It is nice to play Q1DM5 in Gen.  It's not the most famous Q1 dm map, but like most early dm maps, the fun is in the lopsided nature of the gameplay.  Surprisingly the bots did fairly decent at maneuvering, even pushing the button and going into the health room.  Grunt even got the invuln once.  The only downside with bots is they always tend to congregate somewhere on a map.  It's not always the same place, but you usually find bots either clumped together or just spawning.  On the upside, where they clustered changed a bit.  It wasn't a matter of always going to the MH door or always going to the armor spawn.  I had to look for them a bit, which is a plus.

The only texture I don't care for is the border texture on the walls running near the ceiling.  It gives a white line that goes all the way around the top of the level.  Just a personal gripe.  Regarding the pillars vs pipes... I played around on the original map, and the metalwork near the armor looks like support pillars to me as opposed to water pipes.  The columns don't seem out of place at all.  I couldn't do a bug check from the console as I've got a debug version of Generations.exe running which dumps out a lot more data that's not usually shown in the release version.

I also agree with Tab's suggestion.  You might rename it tmq1dm5v2 instead, tm for Thomas Mink.  :slippy_thumb:

The trim near the ceiling was changed many times, but the one used is the one that I felt looked the best out of all the ones I tried. I'm sure I missed at least a couple.

And I gave in and changed the name. I wasn't going to.. but, doing so also gave me a reason to want to fix the teleports.. which I was also going to let alone. If you shot a rocket at them, the teleport would absorb the rocket.. kinda like the sky. That was fixed. They now pass through as they should.

minkdm5 (http://cid-f6aebe4baad67164.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/minkdm5.zip)

And yes.. I opted for the cheesier name, but for some reason it sounds better. To me anyway. :)

EDIT: Bah.. forgot to edit the text file with the new name. URL removed for a couple minutes.
EDIT2: Fixed. URL restored.

There was another naming issue in the .arena file that I missed until now. Guess I just tried to get the rename out of the way as fast as possible instead of being careful about it. Oh well..

minkdm5 ..3rd time's a charm (http://cid-f6aebe4baad67164.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/minkdm5.zip)

Hmm. Well, here are some comments from my end, anyway. Just ignore if unwelcome or too late. :]

Screenshots in this folder, numbers referenced [####] like so.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~zia/tmp/minkdm5/

[0000]
The teleporter texture looks blurry and is a bit simple. It would look much nicer if it was sharper and perhaps had more of a "starscape"-ish look. If you want, I can send you my slipgate teleporter shader, which is a three-layered combination of tcmod turb'd textures.

[0001]
All of these doorways are a bit too low for Q3. It can too easily happen that you bump your head in the frame while trying to jump through it. It also looks a bit simplistic -- but then it is almost an exact copy of the original's brushwork, so that should probably be no real problem.

[0002]
Step heights are a bit too large here, and with every other staircase in the map. It would look nicer (to me) if the steps would be about half as high as these (and it would play a bit smoother aswell).

[0003]
All of these wall-lights are unclipped. You can walk right through them. Usually they're high up enough for this to go unnoticed most of the time, but here between the pillars you can get ugly effects such as pictured here..

[0004]
This is a very low ceiling, allowing for hardly any jump at all. It's always been that way in Quake, but it bothered me and I had to work at it to get it a little roomier without breaking the design. One thing that you may consider is to embed the light brushes into the roof, rather than let them sit on its surface, so that at least they won't make it lower. If not, then they could at least be clipped (with angled brushes) so that you won't bump into them.

[0005]
These light fixtures look a bit too massive. There are quite a few of them, and they look a bit too heavy/blobby to make much sense. I also think the texture could be closer to the overall tone of the map (more brownish or reddish, perhaps).

[0006]
Water is nice (shader could perhaps use another layer for a more realistic wavey effect), especially the color looks good and murky. The floor, however, contrasts too much with that. It looks clean and shiny, whereas the water surface would suggest something tarnished and stained.

[0007]
I like the way you cut up the tiles here - a nice detail that the map could do with in more places, perhaps. What is odd to me here, is the placement of the GL and the health so close to eachother, especially since the GL is sitting neatly in the middle of the hole in the floor, while the health is off center.

[0008]
Looks a little weird to me, the way the light overlaps with the inset. Looks like it could work physically, so maybe not a problem at all.

[0009]
This texture (wooden underside) could be rotated to match the orientation of the brush. That'd make it look more natural.

[0010]
Why not build these insets with curves? You can get a really nice rounded arch (or half-arch) without having to worry about r_speeds at all in this map.

[0011]
I found this a little odd. The teleporter frame is very thick here, whereas the other teleporter is a bit thinner even than the originals in q1dm5. Looks to me like the two teleporters should be pretty much the same. Moving the teleporter a bit closer to the wall can also prevent people from sneaking behind it.

[0012]
The door texture is very Quaky. The contrast between it and the very smooth texture of the frame looks odd, however. In both color and grit, the difference between the textures makes it look unmatched, like a door was put in a place intended for a star-trek-type door.. ;]

[0013]
I like these kinds of details. The only thing that detracts from the attempt, is that all the tiles are still "on the grid". If one or two would be shifted a fraction and rotated, it would look more realistically like a bunch of tiles loosely sitting on the ground.

[0014]
This, like the area between the RA-room and the GL-area, is very low. Jumping into it happens almost every time you try to make speed. With this scale, I don't see how it could be fixed without make serious alterations to the design, however.

[0015]
Finally, these pillars look very massive. They look like they need to support a huge weight, but nothing else in the design suggests that there is something to be supported. Looks a little odd to me. If you don't expect the map to make any sense (and as a cistern, the original made little to no sense, anyway) that's not really a problem.

If your input wasn't as detailed as it turned out to be, I'd have probably said it was too late. But that was some great feedback, so some changes will be made.

0000 - The teleport texture and shader was ripped straight from my q1dm4v2 map and plugged in here.. yet somehow the shader acted more like a sky, who knows. I considered trying to make another with basic q3 effects, but decided to take the lazy route instead. I could see how your shader looks, but I wouldn't want to steal any flair from your version of the map.

0001 - I'll change most of the doorways, but not all of them. Probably just me being a bit more 'purist' than I need to be.. but I remember that happening with some of them in the original map.

0002 - The steps probably won't get changed. At one time, I was thinking about making them smaller.. but the large and bulky look grew on me over time.

0003 - Not clipping the lamps was a personal choice from the start, even though I knew it was somewhat odd. I didn't want them to feel like a hindrance along the walls.. so I left them unclipped. I'll try clipping some of them and see how it plays out before clipping them all.

0004 - The low ceilings were a choice of mine to keep. I didn't want to make them too high, so as to keep the claustrophobic feel of the area. I will embed the lights into the roof though.

0005 - I'll make the fixtures smaller, but with how far I've went with having them there.. I guess it's kind of set that they will be there in one way or other.

0006 - The water is from the Quake Retexturing Project. I have another layer added, but it doesn't seem to show up too well. I'll mess with the shader a bit and see if I can get it right. The floor, I was iffy about anyway.. so I'll look into changing that.

0007 - The GL and health there were always close to each other. I actually have them more spread out than they were in the original map. :)

0008 - It looked weird to me as well, but like you said.. it also seemed like it was able to work. So I left it alone.

0009 - Something I probably should have done to begin with. Was overlooked.

0010 - They were originally built with curves, but they really weren't all that curved in game.. at least to me. They way I rebuilt them is pretty much how they looked in the map when they were curves.. only now they're not curves. I rebuilt them manually to get better texturing results.

0011 - Agreed. Will be done.

0012 -  The door was put in place of a more 'high tech' looking door. That is, a default q3 door texture. I'll see what I can do about the frame.

0013 - I'll shift the separated tiles around and see how it looks. Felt a little odd to me as well, but looked nice.. so I let it go.

0014 - This is the area where I originally decided on how cramped I wanted those two areas (since I started in the MH room and worked from there). I may have made it a bit too cramped, but it seemed to work for me.

0015 - The pillars are big, and I agree.. but they didn't make much sense in the original map either. Then again, they weren't as massive. When I was still trying to go with the 'pipe dream'.. there was to be a huge tank of water up on top of that ceiling to make more sense out of them (then again, a huge tank of water up there would eliminate the need for a cistern, but whatever). But.. I dunno. In their transformation from pipes, all I did was retexture them and replace the extra 'attatchment' cylinders with the skull trim blocks. I could shrink them down a tad and see how it looks.


As for the bots.. the only thing that annoys me is when they clump under water. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind taking a swim.. but on the Cistern, I dunno.. I prefer fighting on the dry bits. Discharging to kill 3 or 4 bots is amusing though.. with or without the invuln. :)

No pressure intended. I did try to avoid useless feedback, keeping it within bounds of your goals/limitations for the map.


Here you go: tmp_minkdm5.zip (http://www.tabun.nl/tmp/gen/tmp_minkdm5.zip).
Should be easy enough to install and look at. No worries about "stealing" of any kind -- I wrote this myself and it's free for anyone to use or edit. That includes this map, no worries about "sharing the flair".


I only mind them not being clipped in places where it results in the stuff that you see in the screenshot.. :)


As long as you can accept potential annoyance with jumping, it should be ok. One other downside is that most models will have their heads clip the ceiling in such areas. No effect on gameplay, but that will look odd/ugly -- but can't be helped.


You can always try adding some layers from id's water shaders to add nice ripples and such. I'd only take the time if you don't actually hate toying with shaders, though..


Hmm. Texturing problems should play no part in the decision here -- it's fairly easy to make curves obey once you get to grips with them. I don't see how going purist on something like that works, but you've obviously thought it through. No problem then.


I haven't actually played the map (vs. bots) yet. So little time and I prefer tinkering over playing. Will probably give it a go soon. Though you're probably better served by Phoenix's insights when it comes to gameplay, anyway.

One note: that shader I zipped up there will absorb projectiles/weapon fire, so you'll have to adjust it the same way you did your own. Still need to fix that myself :)

Thanks for the heads up on that. I was too mesmerized by watching the shader each time, that I forgot to actually test it. ;)

Anyway, I updated the map.. mostly small, minute changes that were suggested. Water, teleports, pillars, a few texturing changes.. etc etc etc.

Get it here:
minkdm5 (http://cid-f6aebe4baad67164.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/minkdm5.zip)

Yea.. sorry for using the same filenames. Guess I kinda pigeon-holed myself into that situation.

Wow i missed alot here it seems, i'll try to have your map a spin if i get sometime over... hopefully tomorrow! :)

..and i rly need to finnish my own map -.-

Not sure if I jumped the gun again here or not.. but, I felt that there was nothing else to change. That said, I sent the map along to LvL. So those who prefer getting it that way, instead of skydrive, can do so. It's currently on the map queue here (http://lvlworld.com/#c=m1&d=5%20Sep%202009&m=All&p=queue) as minkdm5.