[MAP] Castle

[FaTony]

[SylvieLorxu]

Although the art direction just screams Sauerbraten, the map itself is fairly decent. Every place can be reached with merely a simple jump, and most places don't even require that. Using REs walljumping does, however, give a serious movement advantage.

The corriders are small, but may be just large enough, especially for a map meant for duels. I have little experience in judging this. My main disappointment is that it is really only a deathmatch map, but perhaps it could shine there for up to 4 players.

[freezurbern]

I remember playing this on a server, it wasn't bad. I think it works out well for small deathmatch games, a welcome choice compared to some of the huge maps.

I agree with TLP that it does seem very Sauerbraten, but I'm not sure how else you'd make a castle look Red Eclipse-eyy

[qreeves]

The bright red contrast of the carpet is probably off-putting to most people, and possibly why it seems Sauerbraten-ish.

[FaTony]

[Sakrecoer]

I like this map alot. Keep in mind i'm n00b, be it mapping or playing. I like the fact it has good prakour possibilities, and the layers of floors are well contected. I wish it would be textured with something more cyberpunk and dirty, but i think that is a pure matter of taste. The only negative feedback about it i have is: the bots keep winning over me. but i doubt it has so much with the map to do...

[FaTony]

[JDWhyte]

Red Carpet Treatment...

[FaTony]

[FaTony]

So apparently, the map currently looks like this:


Looks like it was done by shirepirate, please revert it back to the acerspyro version.

[shirepirate]

the lighting in this map (especially outdoors) was sort of a mess, the bright white light from the torches did not contrast well at all with the lighting world variables. it looks remarkably better to blend these sources of light closer to each other. that said, if you have an idea on how this could be done differently take a stab at it (it's your map after all), but lets not revert it back to the mess that it was with different colored splotches of light everywhere outside. after all, why would fire torches shine a light without some sort of tint to it?

EDIT: here are two images to compare what i'm talking about. which looks better?

[freezurbern]

[shirepirate]

[blakthunder]

Of the two, I think I like the first one more, the yellow light version looks washed out. I do like the shadows it has, however.

[shirepirate]

[SniperGoth]

The Yellow version looks quite bad. It's too uniform.

[qreeves]

I'd say the original version was OK, just the skybox was a bit too bright for the lighting (and lack of shadows). I think changing the environment to suit the lighting would be better than the other way around in this particular case.

[shirepirate]

i'll take a look and see if it can be brought back closer to the original color scheme without the contrasting lights it had before (white here, yellow there, shadows pointing in opposite directions, etc). if anything the engine makes environment highly adaptable with all the world variables and entities at disposal.

my intention was never to take a shit on your well-designed map, but from the moment i walked around it i found the lightmap to be rather ugly and in need of change. i can realize that the changes were not what you were going for at all though, and will try something else that we might find a happy medium.

[FaTony]

Just keep the light from torches. They are there to light the map. Also, ambient light should be default or so.

[shirepirate]

[restcoser]

Okay, im going to state how i would do this

yes, the yellow version looks washed out. this is because it has little contrast. in order to generate contrast there, you need a blue skylight with the orange-yellow sun and some blue-purple relativly dark fog.
the castle version im looking at now (not sure what version that is lol, just the one i have in game here, i suppose latest stable release version ) needs some contrast in that way, and it needs the torches brighter or lit at all, every torch needs a light or else it looks a bit strange.
Id also make the flames a bit slower and make them fade out slower, this can be easily tweaked with the RE particle system and maybe a bit denser.

The version shire posted is overly grey on the sunlight, even though the blue sunlight gives a good contrast with the yellow torches, the blue is too weak to have any good effect and does not fit the skybox at all. in order to work with shires lighting, imho you need a different skybox.
his torches are nice, but overall too yellow and would need to be a bit more orange to fit closer to the source.

in all versions i think it is odd that light shines through a spotlight onto the portal, and not the portal shining out, in testing for me it looked better when the light was placed dead center very close to the portal surface and the spotlight removed.

[if you want to go for a dark gloomy atmosphere, you would need a different skybox, say penguins/divine and that skybox would give you a purple-black fog and skylight and a small, relativly dim slightly yellow sunlight. i tested this, and it looked ok, but very different and im not sure if that is the direction fatony wants to take it]

quickedit: i did some testing on the stable version to try and un-wash it what worked best for me is to make the ambient more blue, the skylight a bluish-purple and tune the fog back a bit or make it dark blue, i had 0x3a3540 for /fogcolour

[freezurbern]

By the way,don't forget you can change the skybox with the <mad> symbol, for instance to darken it.

[qreeves]

[freezurbern]

[shirepirate]

[SniperGoth]

The biggest problem, for me, on Castle, was it's torch's light.
The torch is orange, but the light it emits is almost total white. Made no sense...
Im going to do a little edit on it to see if i can get a nice result.

[qreeves]

[shirepirate]

[restcoser]

This is the only offender of light overlap that i could find. Needless to say, it is not too big, and is removed by toning down the light from 75 to 70 easily.

Portal-Torch Overlap?

I was able to tell the difference easily (i knew the light was not at the source and then went into editmode to look atit, the portals didnt look like they "emitted" a bright enough light) I might be more sensitive to it though because i <3 lighting, but given the barebones conflicts I don't see why not to change it.

That said, the difference isn't that big and i can live with it, because especially if youd tone the torches up then you might get some more conflicts (im looking at shires version here)

If i understand correctly, what was mostly criticized about the new lighting was the indoor lighting not matching and it still doesn't, the contrast range displayed (for example in his first post) is bigger than what i could see in the new version, and if the lights in his original version were made more colourful i'd easily prefer them.
Getting this more contrasty-look is easily done by decreasing the overly grey ambient (the blue on the ambient is de facto not noticeable)

the latest version posted here by shire.

The version i would prefer the most is in the third screenshot, pretty dark, blue ambient. (giving the lights the chance to actually cast any significant shadow)
This creates a nive contrast imho, even if its a bit too noticeable on the near pillars. (the distance looks washed out because the fog is already affecting it)

personal idea

In any case, a darker ambient would create a more moody sad atmosphere, probably closer to what fatony originally wanted. (and in my opinion it looks better)
adding a ton of bots showed me that red eclipse has good ways of making players stand out, and even in the darkest areas visibility was not afffected for me (i usually play with gamma 130, but with any form of mapping or testing i go to 100)

The first post about how lighting could be was just how i would do it, i dont find any of the versions posted here ideal (then again, im VERY picky )
(Maybe i should just post my own version?)

[SniperGoth]

[FaTony]

I'm sticking with acerspyro version. Go nuts, guys.

[shirepirate]

[bonifarz]

[freezurbern]

[bonifarz]

Sorry, that statement was clearly wrong. Evidently, there is even some comment explaining why exactly it was not merged. I just liked the screenshots and did not mean to cause confusion. Hope you guys find a good way to get the best of those map versions without much effort.

[FaTony]

Whoever messed with castle last time wins big props from me. Nice work.