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Q3Test in development
Out with the old, in with the new
How much Quake 3 can you handle? Or more specifically, how much old Quake 3 can you handle? You may remember back in February, Thresh reported on his visit to id and Q3 beta testing experience. Well, he didn't come back empty handed, even in a literal sense.
One for the road? Dennis was lucky enough to take with him a ZIP disk full of Q3A level screenshots! Now, what's interesting is how complete (or rather, incomplete) these screenshots are. When designing a level, it's good practice to start with basic geometry, fleshing out the major areas and hotspots, and delve more into the details and aesthetics later. While browsing through the screenies, we came across two that caught our eye! Now, these look pretty damned familiar, and you should recognize them pretty easily. First, let's take a look at Q3test1:
Plasma/Megahealth room
Q3test1 revisited
As you can see, the main differences in Q3test1 are in lighting and detail placement. A usable "adrenaline pack" replaces the plasma gun here, and in the 1.08 picture you can see that one of the 3 support beams has been taken out and replaced by a wall decoration in the form of a model_misc.
Bird's eye view
Pillars of death
Q3test2 gets more of a geometry overhaul, and what originated as looming towers is now literally a floating arena in space. Yellow armor now replaces the red at the top of the acceleration pad, and you can make out the old untextured rocket launcher in the distance. The railgun and megahealth still sit in the distance, but you'll notice that at one time, there was extra machinegun ammo on the level.
What do these pics show? Well, if anything it's damned interesting to see the evolution of a map as it goes through the various levels of design. The key of course is to design the map so it's action-oriented and fun to play, and touch up on details afterwards. Polygon counts also need to be tweaked and optimized as design progresses.
Well, that's all folks. Keep up the fragging, and don't forget to check out our own 1.08 deathmatch and teamplay servers at donut.GamersX.com and donut.GamersX.com:27961!
Quick update: if you're using gamespy and encountering a problem where the server isn't full, but is password protected, it's gamespy's fault :P Both Donut servers are fully active and public. The passwords are only for a few reserved slots in case some of the FS/GX staff guys want to play. So if you try to connect and get a "server is full" message, it really is full, keep trying!
Batman: Arkham City PC Review Batman: Arkham City is the sequel to 2009’s smash-hit action game Batman: Arkham Asylum. As the name suggests, you will be reprising your role as the Caped Crusader and going against an even larger 'prison' filled with Gotham's criminals and villains. A textbook example on how to do a proper sequel, Arkham City takes what worked in the original, excised or improved upon what didn’t, and elevated everything to an even greater scope. The PC version suffered from a few months of delay, but in that time, Rocksteady worked closely to NVIDIA to implement some familiar technologies from the last game, such as PhysX and 3D Vision, along with new DirectX 11 optimizations. But how well was the whole package executed? Read on to find out!
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Stronghold 3 Review
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Battlefield 3 PC Review - Single-player Impressions
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Wrecked: Revenge Revisited Hands-on Preview
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![Quake3Test Development Pics [ Plasma/Megahealth room @ 640 x 480 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](images/q3test1new-s.jpg)
![Quake3Test Development Pics [ Q3test1 revisited @ 640 x 480 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](images/tim_dm8-s.jpg)
![Quake3Test Development Pics [ Bird's eye view @ 640 x 480 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](images/q3test2new-s.jpg)
![Quake3Test Development Pics [ Pillars of death @ 640 x 480 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](images/km_arena7-s.jpg)
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