[back]Q4 MP map q4cmp12 'Kat FIGHT!'

Quake 4 MP map details

• author - Ken 'kat' Beyer
• rel' date - Jan 07
• name - Kat FIGHT! (Quake 4 Community Map Pack entry)
• pk4 file - (included in 1.4.2 update)
• game - FFA, Tourney, TDM
• bots - Level is bot clipped
• info - Multi Player level built for and submitted to id software's official Community Map Pack competition c. Jan '07.

  As part of the rules for the competition mappers were only allowed to use assets from the main game trying to come up with something was initially quite tricky because I've been so used to making just about everything for my previous Quake 4 levels.

  I had been toying with an idea of doing something with pillars for a pervious map but thought this competition might be a good opportunity as ever to explore that. The map started as a pair of pillars which were carefully shaped and textured; different things being tried despite their apparent simplicity. Once they had been sorted out from the point of view of size and scale all the components were collected together and converted into a func_static (a brush based 'model'); this initial prefab set the style, tone and relative size of everything in the map.

  Duplicated, the column prefab was placed around Radiant to just get some idea of the size, shape and form of the level; a couple of areas we're padded out by adding 'structure' (walls, floors, ceilings) and as the rest of the layout progressed areas were incrementally built up; better textures and lighting, more detailing; in the absence of copious amounts of concept sketches and given the short time period it's prudent to have done it this way so as to establish a 'look' early in the process.

  Although we couldn't use models and the map was generally 'tech' in nature, I did want to find a way to incorporate some 'organic' content in there somehow, so I fell back on an old brushmonkey skill - 3 point clipping - to shape some brush blocks into 'rocks' which provided a nice contrast to the manmade content.

  Whilst all this building is going on the lighting is being worked on at the same time. Because of the way lights work in the D3/Q4 engine it gets 'expensive' to have too many in place; all minor lights have shadows turned off as well as having a light detail level set, so you end up 'approximating' the look you're after - lights are placed to illuminate 'areas' (the 'sum' of a lot of smaller lights) rather than individual objects (lights placed directly in front of light sources).

  Adding a thin fog is useful as it tends to soften the general appearance of everything. The colour used depends on what you want to do but I used a greenish-grey colour so as to contrast a little against the orangy-browns of the textures (the fog doesn't always need to be the chromatic opposite colour to the lighting/colour theme - orange them/lights -> blue fog).

  It was good being able to push oneself for the competition and aside from not being able to use custom assets the result turned out well.

• weapons - RL, PG, SG, NailG, NapG, MG (default)

Download Locations

File included in Quake 4 1.4.2 point release update patch. Download from here

Kat FIGHT - armour

Kat FIGHT - cave

Kat FIGHT - broken pipe, ouch!

Kat FIGHT - rust abounds