q2rdm7 remake

[[BTF] Reflex]

Been plugging away at it here and there over the last month.

Any thoughts from the duelers?

Some of the angles are shot to hell, and others opened up.
A bit more roomy than the original.

The teleport is GONE! Hope its replacement is functional enough

Rail room and chain room are totally done different.
There is a double jump up to the hyper if you hit it just right.

**Warnings** The lighting is just what I tossed in during construction.
Looks great on my setup, but its probably going to be too dark for some.
I'm posting a screenie to show what it looks like to me.

The jump pads aren't marked, they are there, I just haven't figured out what to do with them yet.

Still a ton of texture rotating and such to do, I spent 2 days fixing an error in texture that
got copied I dunno how many times in the map... felt like at least 100.

Anyhow, feedback welcome.
Wondering on some of my item tweaks.  Bigger map so there is more ammo around.
Thinking about adding a spawn or two.

[Whirlingdervish]

In general I like the changes in layout and the tele removal.

Only issues I can forsee are the ceiling heights being a bit low for any sort of rj movement, and the transparent walls tend to make it bog down hard in terms of fps if you look thru a couple.

Scale feels about right, but a little tight in spots (might just be ceiling height making it a bit claustrophobic). I think the cg room change is quite nifty but the flat roof takes away from it a bit and the floor height at the RL doesn't allow you to spam a shot at CG which is my favorite shot on the whole map to hit in a tense duel. Looking at it, adding a ramp and bringing the RL spawn area up about half a player height would allow for the spam shot thru the hole to CG and it wouldn't affect any other movement or geometry on the map in a negative way.

The drop down to the backpack is a bit tight to hit if you're moving at any speed, so a few units back from the ledge might go well there.

texturing:

I'd pick some areas you absolutely have to have visibility thru the walls to get the look/utility that you want, and solidify/texture the rest for maximum fps for the majority of players. Low fps on a q2 map is worse than bad ping sometimes.

For the jump pads you might take a page from maric's book and use an animated texture on a fairly simple flat box. It gives the liveliness of a jump pad (makes it obviously a pad) without all the spinning fans and air grates and such that take a lot of shapes and tris to accomplish in many custom maps.
You can get lots of bang for your buck with a simple animated texture and a good sound effect and use no more tris than making a floor there.

in terms of item/spawn placement:

more spawns never hurts on a small map and I feel many of them suffer from ptrip syndrome.

one thing I noticed missing is the small healthpacks in the RG and CG rooms. I feel these are vital for duel on this map bc a quick drop down at RG can save you if you took a spam hit up at the ledge where the HB resides, and the same if you took a hit at CG. This way you don't have to run straight to the one below the YA which is almost always a trap.

I try not to funnel people into health pickup traps like that because most of the duel maps are already short on HP sources and people are already lying in wait for you to go for the armors.

[VaeVictis]

rdm7 is already a good map

so before anyone can give a great opinion on your remake... what was your goal on the remake? did you find the original map lacking in certain areas? what are you aiming for?

its all relative... if you just want a slightly larger fun ffa map, mission accomplished, if you want something thats gonna see EDL then the original's less is more approach is what made it great

[VaeVictis]

see a couple problems...

ga is so easy to deny for one... it was easy to punish before, but now it is just ridiculous lol... very cool placement though i have to say

the halls with shards are too narrow to sneak past without making a sound...

the 50 health on the ramp is kinda... hmm... too much for the positional control it already has...

the clear corners are quite wide so it ruins good corner shots that could be used to help regain control with free damage

i like all the different ways to grab backpack though

far as the gl placement, you kinda screw over anyone who spawns in GA room that can't jump pad to chain (rail waiting or whatever)

almost every position plays COMPLETELY differently from the original version... can't really say whether or not that is good or bad until the map sees some actual play

looks damn good and i love the creative geometry... just kinda unsure about angles and some small differences in item placement... that teleport used to play GREAT as a teleport, so doing it as a ramp now is a little sketchy... feels like it will greatly restrict movement of the down player

[adz1La]

I'd have to play it to give real feedback, but I don't really dig the clear walls or the ramp

[[BTF] Reflex]

Only issues I can forsee are the ceiling heights being a bit low for any sort of rj movement, and the transparent walls tend to make it bog down hard in terms of fps if you look thru a couple.

Not sure were you mean,  I looked around, and everywhere you might rj in the original seems to work ok.  Chaingun room walkway is lower, so the rj is overpowered for the height difference, but rare I would think to do one in there anyhow.

I came up with a solution in my head at work that would help the corners, to cut down on the amount of places you see thru more than one pane of glass. Couple of solutions actually, for different areas.  The doorways by the rocket launcher are going to be tougher though,  and that's where the overlapping ones happen the most.  Also, for fps, the beta is only a fast vis, so nothing is being culled.  The r_speeds at rl and tele replacing ramp facing inward are ~2000.  Full vis should cut that drastically.

The drop down to the backpack is a bit tight to hit if you're moving at any speed, so a few units back from the ledge might go well there.

   

Solution already for that one.  It will probably look kewl, I almost did it before but it made the double jump from rail ramp to hyper easy peasy.  But I think that might be ok.
Although, it wasn't designed to run and jump over to from the top, just kinda come to it and walk off.  Interested to see where you can land jumping down to it coming from chain.

one thing I noticed missing is the small healthpacks in the RG and CG rooms. I feel these are vital for duel on this map bc a quick drop down at RG can save you if you took a spam hit up at the ledge where the HB resides, and the same if you took a hit at CG. This way you don't have to run straight to the one below the YA which is almost always a trap.
 

Chaingun room health packs are there, I'll d/l again and check.  But they are in the same place as the regular rdm7.  Thinking you picked them up without noticing

The railgun health packs I took out because of the ones on the tele-replacing-ramp area.  I think I'll change those to stimpacks and move the healths to the bottom of the ramp by rail. Drop them down from 20 health back to 10 as well.   That gets them back to the rail room proper, and gets rid of them as a trap at the ramp.

Thanks for the feedback,  I'll see what I can do to get an angle back on chain.  Raising the rocket launcher floor will be a balance, enough to see to chain platform but not enough to jump up there.   (never knew about that shot *Thanks, I learnt something new*)

rdm7 is already a good map

so before anyone can give a great opinion on your remake... what was your goal on the remake? did you find the original map lacking in certain areas? what are you aiming for?

its all relative... if you just want a slightly larger fun ffa map, mission accomplished, if you want something thats gonna see EDL then the original's less is more approach is what made it great

Agree rdm7 is a good map.  I never played it enough to really learn the ins and outs of it.  Don't even know why I picked it to rebuild    My main goal was to make it pretty.
The idea struck me at work one day, and I built parts of it in my head here and there for weeks...  Figured it would just stay in my head, but I got the bug and regular free time after work.   Don't expect it to see tournaments or anything.   If you're on some night and we vote it up and try it out I'll be happy.  Slightly bigger it might even be kewl for 2v2

ga is so easy to deny for one... it was easy to punish before, but now it is just ridiculous lol... very cool placement though i have to say

Thought at first you meant the other armor...  You'll have to show me this punishment so I can get a feel for how to balance it

the halls with shards are too narrow to sneak past without making a sound...

Yup, I'll add just enough space on each side so you can ninja your way on back there, or out. 

the 50 health on the ramp is kinda... hmm... too much for the positional control it already has...

the clear corners are quite wide so it ruins good corner shots that could be used to help regain control with free damage


far as the gl placement, you kinda screw over anyone who spawns in GA room that can't jump pad to chain (rail waiting or whatever)

Covered the health and clear corners with derv's post.

I see what you mean on the grenade launcher,  I'll move it back into that room.  It originally was where the slugs are now, I have another spot in mind.


Thanks for the great feedback Vae,   Sketchy or not, I'm eager to try out that ramp. 

I'd have to play it to give real feedback, but I don't really dig the clear walls or the ramp

Lemme get some of these tweaks in, and I'll get it up on tourney so it can be played.

The clear walls stay,  but I am going to lessen them on the corners. 
I promise, if the ramp is an utter disaster in-game and unanimously poo pooed,  I will of course put the tele back in





I think in the time I typed this out I could have done all the tweaks
Thanks again everyone.  I'll get back soon with an update.

 
 

[Whirlingdervish]

ah yeah fast vis.. thatll do the fps like that definitely.

can't wait to see the next version.

[[BTF] Reflex]

I just about have everything addressed..

Really digging the changes.  Few more things to do and I'll have another version up.  Sometime this weekend probably.

Did a full vis this morning just for the hell of it right before I went to sleep,  figuring I would have to cancel it for someone in the afternoon, but it was done when I got up 4 hours later.  Closed the process window without seeing just how long it took but I'm happy with that short a vis time.

[[BTF] Reflex]

All done, least for tonight.  Got alot of tweaks in.



Without describing them again, I think I got to almost every tweak suggested. 
With the exception of the glass texture and the ramp still being there

Did a full vis for this one.  Turns out it was shorter than i thought, 282 seconds.
Cut 800 polys on one end and over 1000 on the other.  Rest of the map is pretty reasonable.



Any problems or suggestions as it is now?

[|iR|Focalor]

Cut 800 polys on one end

But Polly no likey being cut on one end.

[[BTF] Reflex]

Reminds me, I need to start the chicken marinating for tomorrow.

[ex]

I do like the layout of this version better, however one main issue:

Fix the darkness.  It's WAAAAYYY too dark, as I had to set my gl_modulate and vid_gamma up several degrees just to be able to properly see everything.

Other than that, it looks fairly alright, although I'd open up the top for the sky, because otherwise it'll become a spamfest for splash damage folks out there who like to use that to win.  Just my .02 c

[[BTF] Reflex]

Fixed teh dark.  Should be OK for default Q2 users.

Added some height to CG room, and finally figured out a good jump pad.
The smaller one will just stay an arrow, jump pad looked to crowded in the CG room.

Great idea opening up to the sky,  I think I'll give that a shot at the YA upper floor.

[[BTF] Reflex]

Oops,  I broke the glass by railgun


More tweaks,  getting closer to finished.

[fdrjk]

is this supposed to be for duel or ffa? coz 4 rox by rl seems a little too much.