Yo.
I decided I should enter this competition and use it as motivation to actually get a map released for once

I'm leanin' towards FFA in design but I might end up shifting it towards TDM. I haven't really decided yet.

All I know is, there's going to be lava, and there's going to be metal.

Name - Brandon "Silicone_Milk" Haston
Email's being pmed.

My server is also offline so no website

You should 100% release it even if it's a box!
Glad to see more q3w'ers

The world has too many box maps as it is Kaz I don't want to add to that problem.

I took some screenshots of some doodling I did last night. Focusing on making sure there's plenty of vertical gameplay with this one.

First post edited to show the screens.

Seeing cityy's alpha made me choose to change the theme of my map.

Decided to break away from the usual Q2-ish metal/lava theme I usually focus on and play around some. Also going to take this chance at making external .ase models for the competition which is something I've never done before.






Forgot to bring up the entity inspector to write in whisker on the first shot

I'm thinking about having these signs scattered around and maybe some billboards to hold the sponsor logos. We'll see...

I like the idea of those signs, Silicon_Milk.

Your Blender windows are the other way around to mine I'm that used to the UV window being on the left!

haha, mine is set up like GTKRadiant with the editing on the left and the "camera view" on the right. In this case, I was working on making sure the model was unwrapping correctly so it was the "camera view" or "result window".

I must say, I'm getting quite frustrated with trying to get a model in Q3. My UV coordinates aren't being saved correctly o_O

I've not had that trouble. I'm using Blender 2.49a and goofas 0.6.10 export script.
I set 'center objects' (each of my models has its own unique POO, this way I can arrange them in Blender how I want them in game), 'materials', 'face UV' and 'selection only' (again because I've built huge sections of my map inside Blender and I only want to export individual model sections at a time). The Goofas script, if you don't have it is on Kat's site.

Actually...while I think about it...remember blender ase models and Q3 don't use submaterials properly. Just in case you didn't know how to set the export up...I'm sure you do, but just in case:
Each material assigned to the model must have a single texture applied to it. Assign the material then apply the texture (rather like wall paper paste and wall paper). With single texture models that's all you need do, with multi-material models you have to separate each section with a unique material (p-separate selection). In object mode, delete the unwanted materials from each subobject, so each only has a single material/texture, then select all the sections of the model and export as ase. That process is a pain, especially if you need to go back and edit the mesh. Experience has taught me to save a copy before separating the model out, to save time if I need to come back and adjust things. I forgot to do that for my big flag room terrain, which is using 3 materials, and it was a pain when I had to keep adjusting the UV.

I went and gave it another shot with only 'materials', 'face uv', and 'selection only' selected (disabling the apply modifiers and vert colors) and it's in radiant and happy. UVs are correct. Interesting.

Thanks for the help Donkey. Stoked to have this sorted out.

Finally came to a theme I feel I can pull off in the time limit. It's also something I've been wanting to do for years but never got around to doing it.

Doing a dark "urban" environment type of theme.

Doing some texture work while I doodle on some graph paper to revise my old layout.



It was surprisingly simple to pull the spray off the lighter wall now that I understand how to use the levels tool in photoshop

I still need to clean it up quite a bit and I have a ton of other images to work on.

Helloooo Nurse. I'm liking what I see so far.

shaders are making me feel retarded. I can't quite get the alpha working correctly without Q3 mangling the hell out of the texture applying white outlines, resizing the image, and/or giving it a washed out dark gray look.

I think I need to go through the shader manual again

Thanks Maverick

lol copy and paste the image into the alpha channel

level it to an extreme threshold
either mostly white with grey light lines
or mostly black with grey dark lines
depending on the blend funk


colorize the alpha channel to the main color of the texture
or greyscale it depending on the type of alphablending effects which may multiply variably



one of the shiny base textures modified

I merely cloned the Blue color channel and renamed it as Alpha. Gave a nice, clean result.

It's dealing with the shader syntax that's throwing me off. I tried copying some simple grate textures but those are using all-or-nothing alpha tests while I have a grayscale alpha channel. I'm trying to get a "spray paint" type of effect going on but I'm just getting what looks like really bad 1999 era decal attempts.