Digital Amusement Game Development

Talk about the pond in the forums!

The n00b's Make It Go
guide to making a map in minutes.

The pond is run by a wily duck (aka tadau).

Currently in the pond:
(dynamically generated)

a_wily_duck.jpg
a_wily_duck2.jpg
a_wily_duck3.jpg
barrettdaniel.doc
da-net-images
exhibition
gamedev.shtml.bak
gamedev_test.html
images
mapping
maps
quakecon2003
stuff
urban_terror_splat.jpg
wilyduck

Archived pond pages:
(dynamically generated)

archive01.shtml
archive02.shtml
archive03.shtml
archive04.shtml
archive05.shtml
archive06.shtml
archive07.shtml
archive08.shtml
archive09.shtml
archive10.shtml
archive11.shtml
archive12.shtml
archive13.shtml
archive14.shtml
archive15.shtml
archive16.shtml
archive17.shtml

Urban Terror - a Quake 3 Total Conversion - www.urbanterror.net
Clan FSK405 - The most generous clan in the community!




Claim your name in the pond!

Nick:

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Urban Terrorists
@ the pond!

V3ND3TTA
hey wily :V nice work... whatz'bout a new article?

Gladi8r
I need a Superman 10 step program...

htKbhhbzfhmMs
yHQXsDJDuQdbq

LyPTsIwbda
oeIIOWfYWweDhQQy

Sp33dy

dnchtjbc
JHWtyFNuLPWwTbjH

MaxC.
lol, that's my 64 player server :p

Son
hello mr duck :D nice stories ;)

ShminkyBoy
Cool deal =) Sup duck?

reapersgrin
love your levels wily!

Littlefoot
Eh...what's up, duck?

AceTone
Go Ducky Go!

EZ-TARGET

Longi
Hi from Australia

Tranc3r
WAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZAAAAAAAA!!

Slideways

hawt dude
i <3 island!

TeamPlayer08
THE 08S HAVE RETURNED. FEAR THE 08S

.:IE:.S1CKMAD3
PROPS ON SUPERMAN

6th| Littlefoot |UR|
'Sup Duck? We need to do lunch again...

keres
wow this site is ancient

Nightcrawl
Btw, add a timestamp to msg's here :)

Nightcrawl
Looking forward to start chewing on temple :)

|fn|Theocracy
to much readinggggggggggg

Timmy
TIMMMAHHHHHHHHH

6th| Littlefoot |UR|
Waddup Duckie?!?!?!

buzi
None

xyster

Senior~Llama

Karib
Your are great wily, i made a 4x4m map :;)

mushroom
duck! where are you?

zimm
I AM ZIMMMMMMMM




10-29-2005
Whoops! Last 3 pond updates weren't visible! Sorry about that!

Picked up Quake 4 for the first time in a week. Damn that's a fun game. My laptop has been eating up all my time as I attempt to load FreeBSD on it... more like configure it to my specifications. Once solid, I plan on loading GtkRadiant on it. The whole install process has been a struggle, and I'm starting to consider a linux distro. We'll see how things pan out.

Traffic has been picking up at FSK405's public server! Go play a game, come for the action stay for the socializing. Grab TeamSpeak2 and connect to fsk405.org. Visit kickassctf.com and get ready to rumble, Dierth has his scope on you. :)



10-24-2005
Bought a new toy... got a laptop. Spent the whole night a so far a good chunk of today attempting to install freebsd with some sort of gui. Not easy. It's about time I get portable though.

I've paused work on q3_railtest. Waiting for digismack to get back to me with some info. I'll probably start more work on superman, maybe dabble in q4 dev too. Still haven't finished single player! Amazing... suppose I'm savoring it some. :) That's all for now.



10-20-2005
I picked up Quake 4 on Tuesday. Needless to say it's dominated my non-work time. Sort of a review for youz... It's everything I could have asked for in a single player Quake game and more. It's squeezed the disappointment of Doom3 out of my mind. Actually I'm realizing what a fully staffed team can really do. Id Software is only a couple dozen people. Raven Software is much larger. It shows, with the sprawling maps, excellent artwork, and more importantly a matured and well used second generation Doom 3 engine.

I really want to see what this game looks like on some strong hardware. Even in 640x480 it's still beautiful. Some really nice additions: constant chatter, talking, radio chatter, battle chatter... there's a lot of vocals. You have squadmates most of the time. You're no supersoldier with special abilities, you're just as good as your squadmates, backing them up and they're backing you up. The vehicles are fun, and constant missions keep the direction of the game moving.

A major point I must make is that the game is intense. It's not scary. Some parts are really eerie and chilling. The action is nearly non-stop. There's no Doom3 cheese with creatures jumping out at you, or running up behind you, or "I bought this new videocard just to render darkness??". More info to come.



10-15-2005
What's development without tools? The tools I speak of is none other than the very hardware that drives the games I play. The PC and it's guts. It beginning to be time to start researching my next generation machine. To give you an idea of what kind of time, work, research, and dedication I have to this project, I'll give you comparisons of what I've done to what I'm going to do. Again.

I built my current machine, designated Phoenix Omega, with Doom3 in mind. D3 had not even been officially announced and the only real information on it's existance was an unnamed GeForce3 demo at a Mac convention. My determination was to build a machine that would perform fully to my expectations for 3 years and would be capable of playing a game that was generations away. All for the most reasonable price. I'm not asking for much am I?

That's what I did. It took me a couple months of reseach on each individual component, sometimes spending a whole day dedicated to a single component. Simply spending big bucks on the bestest piece of hardware available was out of the question. Strategy was key. All this has to do with the next of kin in the Phoenix family.

I expect to begin building towards February. My current machine will then be 4 years old. Price strategy is February should be a sweet spot for falling prices. The newest hardware will probably be released, pushing 2nd gen prices down. Waiting can suck, but so can paying way too much for inferiour hardware.



10-12-2005
Steadily working on q3_railtest. Couple of nice screenies for you.



I spent yet more time on the fire because I still wasn't satisfied. I've used a q3map_cloneshader on the blue flame to allow once-through blending into itself on the inside of the flame, but no blending into the background. With this I acheived the dark blue flame I wanted, and the orange surrounding flame worked right in. I believe I'm done completely with the flame, it looks good. :)

Now I'm trying to create the front of the ship. Where's my imagination and talent for building interesting structures...? It takes me a lot of time. Sorry Digismack, didn't realize this would take so friggin long. It's also that I put myself on a time crunch because I want to see what I'd do in a real world situation having a deadline. I don't believe I'd survive in a real level designer position. However with the help of a concept artist I bet that would alieviate a lot of the problems I'm having. Random thoughts for tonight.



10-5-2005
Haven't posted a screenshot of anything in a while! Well here's a change of pace. This is an early screeny of the map I'm working on for FragArcade. More to come.



Oh... and some other news, not good news. Shaderlab has closed shop on the shadermanual. That's a terrible shame for all Quake3 based level development. Why ydnar, why?



9-29-2005
Ok so that whole hurricane thing turned out to be a non-issue. Finally starting to get things back in order. Going back through my fragarcade map, I've effectively scrapped most of what I had minus the cool-as-hell flame and started rebuilding. I had been working on a base of crappy design, mostly test stuff I continued to build onto. Again, another project that was supposed to be quick-n-easy gone full blown all out.

I've taken some influence from a 16-bit game I have called Raiden Trad 2. It's an overhead shooter with a lot of detail and art. The problem for me has been a lack of material to work with to make this map. You may or may not know that the Matrix has had a significant amount of influence on the superman maps. When I find a resource I can tap into, everything seems to come together. Other events have been pulling me away from retaining any kind of focus on these maps, so the more material I have the better.



9-22-2005
If you've noticed, there's a large hurricane heading towards texas. In fact, the eye will probably pass right over Austin. Would you know it, I live in Austin! Amazing! However I've been assigned to fly to Chicago for backup operations for my work. The pond may or may not be online this weekend depending on how power holds out. I'll be seeing youz later. Tis a shame I won't be able to stick around for the worst... I mean really, how're you supposed to recreate the real thing if you don't know what the real thing really is? :)



9-20-2005
With the slow transition to digitalamusement.net, I've now created a wilyduck directory, which you can see in the pond. Currently it has my new ride posted. I'll put stuff in there that relates to me or whatever non gamedev stuff I feel like wasting your internet bandwidth on.

I'm also cleaning up the pond a bit, putting the maps into a new dir called maps. Not sure what to do with the archives yet, guess I'll leave em alone for now. Pictures of me are always entertaining, at my own expense. Try my punchman game, it's old but mindless fun. Yes it's an exe but not laden I promise. Time to delete that urt-to-et port log. Thanks again SID. Those demos are old so they're toast too. My resume stays, which is one way you can learn way too much about me over the net.

Should get to some work here. Feeling slightly productive, not really creative tonight though. Actually now that I'm thinking about it, one of the things that keeps the pond from being a blog is the fact that I talk about myself only minimally, hardly my personal life. Perhaps I'll put more of that into my wilyduck section. Bleh, I like the pond. :)



9-18-2005
Whew long break. The post-quakecon winddown has gotten to me I believe, plus a couple other ongoing events. I'm feeling the motivation return, finding inspiration to complete my map for FragArcade, thinking and looking out of more inspiration for superman. Downtown Austin seems to be another great place to find good buildings to hop around from. Another thing I'm going to work on is the level of detail for the buildings. I want towers to look good, be it architectually or with some shadering, whatever it takes to make you feel even more sucked in. Quake4 is coming out soon, plus Christmas coming up. Systems should be able to handle the punishment I'm ready to administer to your video card. Real Men render with calculators, not video cards!!! :)



9-8-2005
Back from vacation. Really nothing new to tell... first time I've had freetime in over a week. The plane trip back yesterday was a helluva fiasco, taking about 4 times as long to fly from green bay to austin as intended. These things happen I suppose.

I've been working on the conceptual part of my map in my thinking time. I wish I was better at conceptual design, always been better at reactive design. That, in my mind, makes me a poor level designer. Not to say I'm a bad level designer, it's that I have a hard time bringing forth the ideas in my mind into tangible things. I've done art in the past, and all my best work was other art I reproduced by hand. I like art, in many forms. Some forms may be a bit weird, like say machinery for example, but my idea of art is expansive. Including level design/mapping.

To all you out there in the shadows that come to the pond for purposes unknown, I hope I give you something worthwhile everytime you end up here.

-wily duck



8-25-2005
I've been working on a map for fragarcade, came up with some realtime concepts. Been spending a while working on shaders and techniques. I've realized that mapping for q3 is a bit harder than Urban Terror. Twentyseven must have spent some quality time fixing certain things up to clean up various q3 nuancies. There's been problems I've run into that wouldn't have happened in urt, but I've managed to get around them all thus far.

Took a break from it all last night, and tonight I am almost no longer hung over. btw if you try my test page below and it renders weird, hit F5 to refresh and it'll line up correctly. I've got my quakecon movies up in the qcon2005 section, so check that out if you want. Be sure to read the readme.txt. That wraps it up for tonight, catch you later.



8-19-2005
I'm working on a new homepage for digitalamusement.net. For the uninformed, I'm moving the gamedev/pond site here over there. This is the first layout I've come up with, check it out.

Haven't really touched any media today, nor have I touched urt.net. Feels kinda good. Lots to work on. Three day weekends turn into a few hours, and it's over... got to get to work. Let me know your opinions on the first concept homepage.



8-16-2005
Spending a bunch of time tonight sorting and converting my quakecon movie files. While doing so, I found images that were not put up. After a reassessment, I have to go back and redo all my images, and update the code that named them. Not fun, but necessary. Still going through Post Quakecon Fatigue, probably will until the weekend.

I should probably clear up something. Although I am intending on leaving Urban Terror level design, that does not mean that q3 or urban terror are not great games to map for. In fact, I got exactly what I wanted out of urt level design - a stepping stone to the next big thing, which I thought was going to be Doom3 - instead it's Quake4 (same difference really just with more features).

Not much else going on tonight. Just thinking about the future and what to do with it.



8-15-2005
Whew... finally got the pics online and ready! Go HERE to check out the 2d version of some quakecon moments. Still working on the movies portion. That's going to take some time so be patient. I'll start doing write-ups of my adventures soon. Still way tired tonight and possibly have a cold now... body must have broke down, either that or wading through all the crap in the byoc for teardown got me. :)

So much to do. Fortunately I got right to unpacking last night before I crashed. Yeah the week really was intense. Sleep was hard to come by - too much going on for that.

My official announcement: after the next, and last, release of superman, I'm done mapping for urban terror. The only thing left on my plate is temple2, but it's simply not worth the time and effort to finish. I'll gladly hand down my current work to anyone that wishes to continue it. Next will be level design for Quake4 and ET:Quake Wars. There's also a pending proposition from digismack involving frag arcade to do some level design work there. More on that later. I've made this decision because of my views on urban terror, it's current status and it's foreseeable future, and due to the way Silicon Ice/Frozen Sand has treated its community over the past year. To tell you the truth, although I like level design a lot, the business of gaming is becoming a bit more attractive to me. That's something which will come in time though. For now, I finish the final superman, then begin my wily ways with the quake4 engine (starting with some doom3 training).

Quakecon was a blast, like a rapid-fire rocket launcher. It was great to meet familiar people and a bunch of new people. Unfortunately my level designers conference never happened. There was miscommunication, and the powers that be put the lid on the event. It was possible to have it approved and scheduled later in the week, but the next day I told them not to worry about it. Too much else going on and no need for more confusion. Everyone involved was very cool, respectful, and retained an open mind. It was disappointing that the LDC didn't happen, but the plan is for next year to hold it. I'll work on that this year.

So when does planning for quakecon2006 start? Already has. And will continue all year round. Almost hard to imagine... are you thinking about quakecon after thanksgiving? middle of january? two months from now? let alone seriously planning and coordinating events, sponsors, capacity, rates, exchanging agreements, databases, programming, etc?? yikes! But this is what it takes. The end result is quite worth the effort.

Still more to do to catch you up on this year's events. As mentioned, ssh and ftp was shut down from the lan so there was no good way to get updates here in a timely fashion. Connection from my bro's laptop in the room was ok, but it ssh would drop often. Perhaps a PDA would help, being able to record in realtime and d/l the info quickly. First I need a laptop. :) Til tomorrow!

btw one quick sidenote, there's more quakecon pics here which have some good visuals as to how things happen there.



8-14-2005
Back home and now I can make some updates!

Tonight will be short because I'm really tired and beat. For tonight I'll get all pictures in the pond, then the movies will get up there soon. This quakecon was absolutely the best so far. Yeah I'm definitely tired, trying to write what I want to say and I'm just spacing. Anyway check out the pond. I intend to do some labeling, thumbnails, and all that sexy shit asap. GG quakecon!



8-12-2005
Well I've been lacking updates... been having a great time. Between my bro and myself, we've got a large amount of footage and pics. I'm working on catagorizing the footage and editing out my blundering drunken quips - I mean our intriguing interviews (well actually there are a couple of good ones). Check the pond link to the left, quakecon205 has current material... well whatever I've uploaded thus far which has only been the first day. Other problem is that I can't ssh through the byoc lan, so updates are sparse. Either way, if you want to find me, I'm the second pylon support thingy behind the info desk, directly to the right of it when facing the info booth. Stop by sometime! Already me some interesting and amusing people there.



8-10-2005
We now have a time for the level designers' workshop. Thursday, 1PM, front of the BYOC, left of the main doors where nvidia was last year.

Yeah we're down here in Grapevine having a great time. So far, here's what's happened:

  • I got out of a 81 in a 65mph zone with a warning
  • Picked up bro from airport after running (literally) laps around DFW in a frenzy
  • Since we got to the hotel a day early, didn't have to deal with the qcon arival surge
  • Within 10 minutes of getting our stuff in our room, we had a full LAN w/ 2 machines, VOIP service, printer, and speakers (cause music is just as much a part of the LAN)
  • Hit Fry's for some needed components
  • Ate like DAMN PIGS at Ritzys, a fine place to grub down the way from the hotel
  • Mingled with familiar and new faces abound

Everything has gone quite smoothly since we've been here. As you see Spicey came through for us and the LDC will be happening tomorrow! I've got some material to finish up before the day is up, then I'll be ready to go. Keeping ya updated!



8-5-2005
The interview with Xan, winner of the "Find the superman logo" contest!

How long have you been playing superman? What's your thoughts on the map?
I've been playing superman for about 4 months or so. The first time I played the map was on the WildCardz 24/7 server, and like someone told me "you either love it or you hate it". You can definitely tell the ones who love it, they are on everyday almost all day. It's very addictive, there's no other map like it.

How long have you played Urban Terror? What are your favorite maps?
I've been playing Urban Terror for about a year, off and on. As for my favorite maps, superman is so fun all the other maps don't hold my attention for very long anymore. I like (but rarely ever play) casa, uptown, and i'm sure there's a few others I can't think of.

Anything that you would like to see in the next superman version?
I love the map as it is. I like your plans for the next version like closing off the garage, more buildings, and did I hear something about a river? I don't know... Whatever you do i'm sure it's just gonna make the map even more awesome.

Any final thoughts to the urban terrorists out there?
Special thanks to WildCardz for hosting such an awesome map 24/7, Mr. White, and to everybody else, keep it real.


And the moment you've been waiting for:



And there you have it. I built that into the map. Have you found the wily duck logo yet? Check the hotel 2nd floor... easter eggs are fun. I'll see how I'll add more into the next superman version.

Keep up with the pond on quakecon coverage. I'll be reporting locations and events when I can. I'll see you there, or hope to hear from ya! It's always great talking with people, getting the lowdown on gaming and having a good time. See you soon!

btw if you don't see anymore pond updates after next Friday, it's because FSK405|Dierth mauled me after the superman logo was revealed. :)



8-4-2005
The "find the superman logo" contest is over! It's been found and proven by Xan, with help from Mr. White. As a prize, I've done a little interview with Xan, which I will post later tonight with the winning screenshot.



8-3-2005
The last hint of the "find the superman logo contest!". Many have tried, none have succeeded. There's been a few hits on the location by various players, but no one has been able to bring me hard evidence. If you want to be the winner, you must get me a screenshot! As mentioned in hint #4... you can only see the logo from one spot. Let me clarify that with a freebee, you can see the logo in it's true shape from only one spot. The final hint!

Hint number 1... if the superman were to miss his own logo upon flight, his doom would be imminent.

Oh I like that one! Guys I've let the cat out of the bag on my secret project I've been working on for quakecon2005. I'm going to be hosting a beginner's level design session! Your favorite "damn he's wily!" duck will be giving spongy minds the lowdown on how to get geared up for the everest of climbing with map making. I've got a thread going on in the quakecon.org forums which will track the event. To see the itinerary of topics I'll be discussing, check this page out! For anyone that can make it, please do!!! I'll have a giveaway or two, and possibly do a couple short one-on-one's afterwards to answer questions.



Unless you've been to a QuakeCon, you really can't fathom how epic the whole event is. Since my first one in 2003, it's ThE yearly event that's on my mind all year around. I'll take a second to clear up some misconceptions that most people I've talked to have about quakecon. It's not a room full of greasy immature nerds playing Quake3 for 5 days straight. I will admit that there are a short few who do match this stereotype (out of the what, 8000 people there throughout the week?). It's a really social, friendly event with most attendees ranging in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Lot of high-energy moments in the BYOC. Vendors and sponsors are welcomed instead of brushed off as annoyances (hordes of giveaways and free stuff, very interactive with attendees). You'll find Id Software employees blending into the crowd. Chilling around the hotel is a great getaway from all the action (the gaylord resort is a damn city all of itself). Basically if you find yourself bored at any time, it doesn't take much more than walking around to find something interesting going on that you had no idea was happening. Of course there's the LAN, where gaming and general mass consumption of bandwidth takes place. This is QuakeCon, in all it's glory.

I'll be attempting to update the pond during the week with anything interesting. From past experience, those not attending are not nearly as interested as those there. Well pay attention, haven't I made it obvious this is the place to be?? :) Show some love, drop a shoutout in the pond!



7-29-2005
Reglow - reverse glow

First word: finally! With help from $NulL, my "reglow" shader finally works!!! Ok, you need to know the what's, why's, and how's, so here goes!

The image you see appears to be "normal". This is the best possible situation, because you'd never think of the actual work involved to get this looking (and behaving) so clean. What's going on here is both simple and complicated. As I defined it in #urbanmappers:

(FSK405|wily_duck) normal water brush, standard swirly blue shader as the waterbrush surface
(FSK405|wily_duck) using a backshader on the water surface shader to glow surfacelight to the ground, one can recolor the underwater brushes lightmap to create a more natural environment, and save shader passes using the lightmap as color overlay
(@FSK405|wily_duck) there are 4 brushes making up the basin
(@FSK405|wily_duck) with lightfilter, I'd have to apply the shader to each visible surface, in effect covering the whole surface top to bottom
(@FSK405|wily_duck) whereas with reglow the lightmap colors only what needs to be colored on the surface
(@FSK405|wily_duck) reglow gives control, lightfilter is a blanket
(@FSK405|wily_duck) 2 separate colored sections, one brush face. This means less texture memory, less shader passes, all while getting more detail with better fps

So what does any of this mean? The simple answer is that I can use the lightmap to change the appearance of parts of brush surfaces without creating a new texture or shader. This saves texture memory, pk3 file size, FPS, while giving us detail and control.

What the water surface shader is doing is actually two-fold. There's the surface shader, then there's the undersurface shader. The surface shader is pretty normal, except that it uses q3map_cloneshader to call the dependancy undershader. Also note that cloneshader inherits the properties of the dependancy, such as q3map, surfaceparm, etc, but not shader passes (i.e. map { }).

The undershader uses q3map_surfacelight and q3map_lightimage. The important part here is that it also uses q3map_invert. This inverts the shader face, so now it faces the underside of the brush. This causes the glow of surfacelight to point downward where we need it.

The shader combo gives the mapper ease of use. Simply apply the reglow shader to the brush surface, and tweak the shader to your desire if you want.

Why is this useful??? Come on you haven't figured it out yet? ;) You get far more realistic underwater lighting for no performance cost. Of course it's not completely free, you still have to compile -light right? hehe. Also, on these surfaces, I reduced _lightmapscale to something tiny like .125 which lined up the color edge. That's not necessary though. Also radiosity can clean the edges up a bit too.

Possible downsides are that since it's the lightmap, having func_bobbing water might look slightly out of place. And maybe longer compile times. I can't think of any more... yeah!

Here's the shader:

// REGLOW SHADER
// Apply me to brush face! Reglow_assist shader handles the reverse surface.
textures/wilyduck_1/water_reglow
{

	qer_editorimage textures/wilyduck_1/duck_water2.tga
	qer_trans 0.5
	q3map_cloneshader textures/wilyduck_1/water_reglow_assist
	{
		map textures/wilyduck_1/duck_water2.tga
		blendfunc filter
		tcMod scroll 0.01 0.1
	}
	{
		map textures/wilyduck_1/duck_water2.tga
		blendfunc add
		tcMod turb 0 0.5 0.05 0.05
	}
	{
		map $lightmap 
		blendfunc filter
	}

}

// I reverse to become the inverted face. Go reglow! -wily_duck
textures/wilyduck_1/water_reglow_assist
{
	surfaceparm nolightmap
	surfaceparm nomarks
	surfaceparm nonsolid
	surfaceparm trans
	q3map_lightimage textures/wilyduck_1/duck_water2.tga
	q3map_surfacelight 1000
	q3map_invert
	{
		map textures/wilyduck_1/duck_water2.tga
		blendfunc filter
		tcMod scroll 0.01 0.1
	}
	{
		map textures/wilyduck_1/duck_water2.tga
		blendfunc add
		tcMod turb 0 0.5 0.05 0.05
	}
	{
		map $lightmap 
		blendfunc filter
	}
}


All in all, pretty damn slick! I've literally worked on figuring this puzzle out for almost a full week's worth of time. Null came through with some ideas, and in the end it works great! I've got some other similar lightmap tricks I'm intending to use in superman_b4. I recommend using the reglow shader because of it's simplicity and functionallity. Another clever quake3 hack by a wily duck!

:V



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