Radiant Domed Arches

[Sza]

No, you are tired or sleepy^^

[MadGypsy]

Thanks Sza, I can't believe I missed these mistakes. I'm fuckin stupid, brah.

[Sza]

look in the post nr 12 there is a problem too. one stained glass showing a dragon without wings, and the other is showing only wings.

[MadGypsy]

Oh wow, you're right. HAH! I symmetrically fucked up perfect! Each piece of glass is wrong in the exact same way. What are the odds?!

[Sza]

what happened there?^^ i see only half texture.

[MadGypsy]

At this point, my dome is too fancy for the structure it is sitting on. The dome is now really domed. The last dome was just a series of 8 ramps (1 brush each). This dome is quite a bit more involved. I also went kabonkers on the stained glass. I actually tried to align the texture normally and it was impossible. Always off a hair here or there. So, I decided to just "repaint" the whole thing. It's the same dragon glass from the last one.




I'm actually going to remove the dome from this structure. If this structure had a dome, it would be an iron one. Maybe I'll even do that.

[golden_boy]

Re: symmetry; yes, faces are not 100% symmetrical, but their main features are symmetrical. It's the combination of those things that appeals.

[MadGypsy]

Maybe I should make a prefab pack. I have tons of highly detailed (for q1) map pieces. Most of them are even prelit and they generally use the same 4 or 5 textures. As long as no one ever rotated them they are ready to go. Even the slightest rotation would create an ass-load of repositioning of textures.

Primarily my work is "Gothic". It's images of gothic architecture that inspire me to try to reinvent the shapes in Radiant. However, I generally texture these away from an actual gothic feel. So, I don't know how to "genre" my work. Gothic shapes with city and industrial textures?

Let me know if there is an interest in this. If I get at least 10 people that want it I'll compile a prefab pack. It will consist primarily of way too brushy arches and columns, outdoor pieces like purgulas, palladiums, amphitheaters. Decorative pieces like various wall mounts that add dimension to an area. Kinda like a firepace would, but I never made an actual fireplace.

One thing to consider before you jump and say "make it". My map pieces look like I made them. What I mean by that is: Just dumping my prefabs in your map is going to look out of place, unless you are doing the same things to your prefabs that I do to mine. For instance I never use "axial" in the surface inspector. Mainly because creating a lot of detail leads to "axial" breaking all the design. Let me give you an example

axial


gypxial


Ya see the huge difference? Dumping my prefabs in an axial map is not going to look right. You will have to take just as much time with your texture placement as I take with mine. Which is a hell of a lot. If you really study the gypxial image you will notice that I didn't just rotate and align the textures according to some algorithm. They are rotated and aligned uniquely to break up any possible repetition that I could break. The point is to remove the seams without simply looping the texture. This goes down into the finest of details. The little sticking up part in the 4:30(ish) position (in the corners of the octagon) is textured differently that the 10:30(ish) position. This is such a small detail but they add up.

I'm a firm believer that perfect symmetry in a map is bad. There is no perfect symmetry in real life. Even the left side of your own face is different than the right, so why approach a map with an "axial" or "symmetrical" view? Even the smallest, possibly generally unnoticed, details which throw off the symmetry, make a big deal when taken in as a whole.

[talisa]

fancy, me like

at some point if i ever make any maps i will def use something like this some time.

i always love such stuff ^^

[Sza]

I meaned only that those stained glass pieces are to small.

[MadGypsy]

@stained glass doesn't look good

Your opinion is noted. However, you have to consider what I was doing and what I had to work with. One thing I noticed is people attempt a map and they either:

1: make "something"
2: get frustrated and give up

In both of these cases there is generally much to be desired. I have a different approach. I don't make maps. I make chunks of maps and it is never with the intention of "finishing". The intention is to become a brush and texture pro, constantly pushing the status quo and even the limitations of q1 mapping. You could go over every texture in my map with a fine tooth comb and you won't find a mis-aligned one. Well, let me rephrase that. You wont find a spot where the texture abruptly misaligns. I misalign them on purpose. Those brick arches have handmade caps on them. Each little piece of that cap was "repainted", not to follow some perfect brick texture conformity, but in a way that screws up the brick conformity without screwing up the look. They are also all unique. None of that is copy and paste and none of it followed the same rotation and align of the pieces as the one before it. In short, maybe my stained glass windows don't look good, but they are amazing in consideration.

[Sza]

@MG the stained glass looks not so good



@GB nice work, but so much details will kill the gameplay (quake)

amen

[MadGypsy]

Cathedral Wars

You trying to have cathedral wars or summin? OK, I got summin for ya'
[[thumbs nose and shadow boxes for a minute]]

I have been practicing inventing textures from existing textures. Up til now my metal texture on the doming details was a good example. Everything is way bigger than 64, yet, where is the tile lines? I'll tell you where they are, they are blended out due to rotations and align.

I took the concept much further and used one of the stained glass window textures to create a new stained glass window texture using rotation and align




My concept is to take existing textures and treat them like paint. "Apply" strokes in various directions and usually isolate only a small portion of the texture. The long straight parts of my metal corners is 96 units tall. By breaking it into 2 48 unit sections I can move the texture around quite a bit without ever hitting its 64 unit edge. The same goes for the window panes. They are much smaller than the texture and recurring in a loop. This allows for double modification as:

1) the brush is too small for the texture so i can "paint" without hitting edges
2) one texture is actually 2 halfs of seemingly 2 textures

Here's the stained glass window texture I used. As you can see it looks nothing like my final results.

[golden_boy]

Good stuff.

It inspired me to go and try doing the cathedral shape with patch meshes.







The shapes are very easy to do with patches, however there are serious drawbacks to using patches. It's hard to texture and light them correctly - they only have a few preset texture alignments available, and the one you need is typically not among them. Lighting and ambient occlusion also crap out on patch meshes. Finally, they're easy to make simple shapes with, but hard to subdivide eg for making those rows of windows.

That's the point where Blender or some other modeling software would take the cookie and come out on top.

Anyway.

Edit: OK I did hack some light emitting window strips in there. It's quite interesting how the light behaves in those shapes (I enabled radiosity in q3map2).



Must resist taking this into Blender.

[JDSTONE]

lol no money needed just some map help
http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-tal...ix-my-map.html

but this is not the first time i have seen little test that you have made that were very impressive.