Wanton Hubris

Yeah, so that looks like a failure to me! A month later and I haven’t had any motivation to work on it in weeks so I think it’s dead. It was worth a try but obviously this strategy isn’t going to work for me. I’ll try something else next. Blueprinting was clearly not enough for me to maintain momentum – try and try again!

I think I’m nearing the end of these blog posts. I know where I want the level to go from here and, as I said, it’s a small level so it shouldn’t take too long.

I’ve begun texturing some areas so I definitely feel like my brain is satisfied with the general structure at this point. Looking forward to finishing this layout!

I’m torn on how to post screen shots these days as the level progresses. I want to show how the level is moving along but at the same time I don’t want to give it all away before you even play it. I guess I’ll focus on tighter 3D shots from now on but go full monty on the orthographic view.

We’ve moved just over 700 brushes now and I think the end is in sight. As I said, this level won’t be huge or complicated – it’s just an experiment.

I’ve started to flesh in some combat here and there as I see a good scenario emerge. This doesn’t seem to conflict with the overall goal here as the combat is emerging from the blueprint process and the blueprint isn’t being compromised for the sake of it. It’s nice to have the two things feed on each other.

As an added bonus, I think I see what I want a large part of the level to be, thematically speaking. I also have a large chunk of the player path worked out in my head. Just gotta lay down the brushes.

You’ll also see some textures in the newer shots. I’ve decided that I’m going to texture any entities that are in the level. This allows me to see at a glance what is interactive in the level. This is having a cool side effect where I find myself wanting to add more entities because the area seems too static. Even if it’s busy work, it’s always cool to see something moving rather than a completely static environment.

Expanded the level a little, added some minor detail here and there and cleaned up texturing alignment.

266 Brushes

I’ve decided to try a new tactic for building Quake levels. I recognize that a large part of why my Quake levels often end up on the scrap heap is because I get too caught up in the details. You know, what textures should I use, adding more detail, tweaking lighting, etc. And those things are valuable, don’t get me wrong! But when the level itself isn’t complete, they are something of a waste of time.

When I was a younger man, this worked out alright regardless. I would have enough energy and focus that I could detail out a map as well as develop the layout and restructure things (aka throw away work) as I needed to. I didn’t care. These days, I care.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to start with this WAD file that I created:

This is what I call my “blueprint” WAD. This contains the basic texture shapes that most Quake WAD files use (including the case where you rotate them 90 degrees, of course). My plan is as follows:

1. Lay out the level in it’s entirety using the blueprint textures, focusing on flow and monster gameplay.
2. Add a minlight and a sunlight. Tweak the sunlight until it gives the level the look that I want.
3. Add extra geometric detail and hot spot lighting sources. This will probably also be the stage where I start to apply real textures since lighting and it’s interaction with the textures becomes important.
4. Remove the minlight and add small fill lights where necessary.

This is the basic plan but things may change – we’ll see! For now, I’ll update fairly regularly with the status of the level and where I’m at with it. This is where we’re starting from: