Will Splash be supporting extra maps for QW

[Wils]

How will this new mapping software compare to Radiant?
Will any of my Radiant skills (don’t laugh) translate easily to the new program or will it be a new experience?

The editor is pretty much the same as Radiant, with a few notable differences (terrain inspector, new rotation widget, etc).

basically…it looks amazingly simple. as long as you know how to make triangular terrain, i think you’ll be in good shape.
i think the hardest part is going to be transitioning from a system where you have large restraints on what you can map, to an engine where you can pretty much do anything you want. large outdoor mapping is going to be a new experience for most of us.

I would describe it as straightforward, rather than simple. There are still restraints on what you can make, they’re just different to what you know from mapping for other, smaller-scale FPS games.

my favorite part is that you don’t have to create your own mega texture. make the terrain, click a button, and it automatically generates one for you

It’s not quite that simple

Once you’ve made the terrain you still need to decide what to texture it with - the terrain inspector et al just let you decide how and where to apply those textures. Deciding where to use undergrowth textures for foliage, or worn routes for well-travelled areas is still a hands-on process.

[Hakuryu]

How will this new mapping software compare to Radiant?
Will any of my Radiant skills (don’t laugh) translate easily to the new program or will it be a new experience?

This is part guesswork and part knowledge from interviews, but I believe the editor will be basically a next-gen Radiant in terms of features. Alot of common tasks such as brushwork will be the same, but some things will be new to handle the large outdoor enviroments like lighting, terrain models, and the megatexture.

The biggest hurdle for current Radiant users will be translating their skills to the larger enviroments. Instead of creating ‘paths’ and objectives that keep gameplay moving like in ET, you now have to consider flying vehicles and the wide open terrain. It’s a totally different gameplay mechanic than the enclosed space found in Radiant games, and will take some new design methods. Instead of creating paths to objectives and using vis portals, player clips, and simply things like high fences to keep players out of an area, you now have to design and build with the fact that a player can go anywhere. This brings new challenges in designing a map that will play and run well.

my favorite part is that you don’t have to create your own mega texture. make the terrain, click a button, and it automatically generates one for you

It’s probably a bit more complicated than that. I’ve used similar programs to texture a large terrain mesh, and I bet Quake Wars is similar. You define layers of textures like grass, rock, and sand and then define where these will be placed based upon terrain characteristics like height and slope. Like if you wanted sand on a beach and below water, and you know your beach ends at 1024 units, then you would set the sand layer to display from 0-1024 units. If you wanted rock on mountain slopes then set it to appear on every slope greater than 45 degrees that is also above your sand (1024).

[mortis]

A squirrel told me that Zombie at SD really would prefer for us to map using unrealed 1.0 instead of Radiant. He says it is the über game level tool of our time. Especially if you use pink ambient light… :eek:

/me runs for cover

[airon]

A friend of mine is a realy good Unreal editor mapper. I’m the Radiant type of guy, so I damn well hope Radiant got some stuff to catch up to UnrealEd, because I hear so much damn praise for it all the time. Coming off Truecombat, I’m VERY VERY curious to see how modable it’ll be for us.

I’m a sound person by trade. What’s the story on the sound side of things ? Any tech update on that ?

[Evil69]

Have to was not a real fan of the Dam map, but found Tram and Rocket to be a lot of fun, especially Rocket in a clan match as it kept the action coming, no sooner had to ended the oppositions assault and they were right back at you with in minutes, now thats an action packed map and ideal for clan matches. Obviously Tram being much bigger was a fun map for pub games, but it did lose something in clan matches.

As for maps for QW, I would agree that I would hate to see a mini mod that gave out some new maps as it does as others have stated, divide the community, what would be a better way to go would be to
release a “game of the year map pack”, so once QW wins game of the year release a map pack for it with 4 maps thrown in, may be even toss in some changes in weaponary, I would not make this free either.

If the game is as good as we all hope then 95% of people would have no problem paying a small amount for some extra maps down the track, hell most people would part with the money just to continue to
support a company thats looking after the community.

This is essentially were others go wrong, all they do is try and bleed the community dry and offer a second rate product with little support. Its no wonder they lose customers and respect in the gaming community.

[Nail]

I think we can safely assume most of the new maps will come from the community