Schools Out - Holiday Detailing Contest

Contest Has Ended

Click here to vote for your favorite map of the final five.

Contest Forum

About the contest:

This is a contest done solo, or in teams of two. Look at general Rules under the rules category for more details. You will be taking a template map and transforming it into a masterpiece. Contestants will have seven days, starting on the 22nd of December, and ending at midnight, on the 29th of December EST (eastern standard time, UTC-5). At that time, all the threads will be locked and a poll will start. You may rate your own map but your vote WILL be discounted. The map with the most votes will be deemed the winner. Bragging rights will be all yours, and maybe a little bit more. ;)

Contestants:

You will be required to start from a template map which will be released here upon the starting date of the contest.
This layout must be used for the contest, and the color rules given must be abided.
Any drastic change to the layout is forbidden and will lead to disqualification.
All works must be completed and submitted before midnight on the final day of the contest. The board will be locked after that time.
Entrants may either work solo, or in teams of two people. Any more than two will result in disqualification.

Entering:

You may enter any time during the contest, but you must submit your name before you begin work. You must create an entry under the Entry & Submission Board. Your entry post must be properly formatted as shown in the How To Enter sticky thread.
To submit your map, you will need to attach an image to your entry post prior the end of the contest, and a link to the map. Look for the modify button!
Use the hyperlink button provided (the globe with a file icon) and the picture button (the icon of a picture) to set up a link and attach an image. Mediafire is a preferable upload site. The forum supports attachments, but none larger than 1024KB.

Example: [url]www.myupload.com[/url] and [img]image-url[/img]

What you have to do:

What you make from the template is up to you, so long as the general layout remains intact.
You may detail to your heart's content, to any theme you wish. Your final entry should be complete, with finished geometry, texturing, and lighting.
Contestants are more or less limited to textures and models included with Sauerbraten with the minor exceptions of a small number of theme specific textures. Custom content as a whole should be avoided for this contest, but a very small amount of theme specific items are allowed; or one or two theme specific textures, for example. Custom skyboxes are allowed.
For the most part, we would like to see what you can do with what you have, but don't want to limit your creativity if something is absolutely needed.

Final Notes:

If you intend on participating, go ahead and make an Entry post. It does not hurt to throw your name in before it starts.
The template map will be released on the day of the contest. You will have 7 days to work on your entry.
If you have any problems or questions, feel free to ask in the Questions Thread

Final entries will be judged and the top five will be picked. A post containing images of the top maps and download links will be made at the end of the contest, with a poll for rating each one.

Have fun!

Important:

For those who do not want to, or cannot make an account on the contest forum, you can email your entry and final submission to:

quadropoliscontest@gmail.com

I will transfer all necessary information to the forum personally.

I would like to run a little contest here on Quadropolis, but need the feedback of others first.
What I want to do is have a contest where I or another member uploads a very basic, bare bones template map. This map will be no more than a roughed out area with a few buildings and whatnot. There will be no lighting, no texturing, and no geometric detail beyond the rough shapes.

This Contest would take 1 ( one ) Node on Quadropolis.
The idea would be for people to download this template, and *detail* it. Each mapper would use what ever theme they choose. They will have to add geometric detail, textures, and lighting.

By detail, I mean DETAIL, in capital letters. The map should be held together in an attractive way. The style or theme used should support itself, and should not look half-done or misplaced. This does NOT mean it needs to be any sort of 'Realism' theme, so long as the visual style fits.
Lighting needs to be complete, and help convey the theme and feel of the map, as well as texturing.
What were looking for is something to grab the interests of whoever is wandering through the map, instantly. The player should be able to look at levels of intricacy down to the smallest item, yet the details should not be a distraction from the map itself.
( It's like walking through the map and being amazed at what you see, then wandering through it again and thinking, "Cool! I didn't see that before!" )

This is all about the artistic eye of the mapper. We want to see what people can come up with, and how well they can use they can use the engine to make an existing structure into that image they see in their head.

Each map, once finished, will be uploaded and sent to an email address which will be specified. From there, the top 5 or 10 maps will picked out by the organizers, via majority vote. The top map chosen will be uploaded to the Contest node. This includes a screenshot and download link, so community members can download, discuss, and rate the final nodes.
( other works that didn't quite make it will likely be accessible elsewhere )

The best works will be chosen by the community. S/he who's content is highest rating gets... erm.. bragging rights, or something. I'm still working on that aspect.

----------------------------------------

Possible rules and guidelines:
= Contestants =
-You must turn in your work to the specified location before the due date. Exceptions "May" be made if organizers are contacted prior.
-Your work may not have content copied ( and pasted ) from other works of your own, or others'.
-Plagiarisation of work will result in disqualification.

-Anybody can join. Age and language don't matter. ( hopefully any language barriers can be overcome, if they arise. )
( Content may be submitted from people organizing the project as well. The maps that are voted to the top 5 or 10 are done via a majority vote, and nobody can vote for their own map. If the votes are very close for submitted maps, that top number may become larger by one or two. Ex. Top 12 )
-Drastic geometric changes to the map provided are not permitted, such as moving a building or something large. A consistent base for ALL contestants is important.
-Final entries must be complete. Geometry, light, texture, etc. Time management is very important for this project.
-Anything in the maps that is discriminatory will result in disqualification.
-Contestants who are negative to others during the contest also risk disqualification. We want a clean and fun challenge.
-Mappers may keep a page updated with screenshots or info on their work, if they choose to. External feedback is permitted, but no changes to the entry are permitted by anybody but contestant.

-Texture usage will be limited to included Saurbraten textures. Or maybe it won't.

= Non-Contestants =
-Any criticism given to the works during or after the contest must be Positive, and Constructive.
-Everybody should keep a positive attitude.

--------------

I need feedback.

-Does this project sound like a good idea?
--If so, who would like to help run it and organize it? ( Quad Admin's would be ideal to help run the contest, due to good eyes, attitudes, judgement, and the whole nine yards. We want unbiased opinions on content. )
-What are some things that could/should be changed?

Open for opinions.
Please try to ignore any spelling or grammatical mistakes. I'll fix them as I find them. ;)

I've gone through tons of content now, including several discussions and I'm sorry if someone already mentioned this here and I'm redundantly bringing it up again, but on the other hand, there's no way I could know, because of the following things that I think Quadropolis is missing out on and which me and many others would like to see in the future, if that's possible.

- Search engine
This is a huge sauerbraten database which you all can be proud of. I haven't checked by whom this page is powered, nor if it's possible for you to just include one or if you'd have to program it... fact is, that this is a must for a huge, vast and rich library like this one. It would sure enhance browsing around, having fun and experimenting.
- Profile details/tracking
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to write my hobbies and religious views on my profile or anything, what I mean is this:
Would be nice if one could see all the posts and content which was created by a specific user. I'm interested in you guys, and I'm sure, so are a lot of other people, so why not let them see what you've made? Would be cool if one could see a chart showing all the created content by a specific person sorted by kind (maps, scripts, mods etc.).

I don't want to sound all dramatic, and if you have a good reason for not doing this, I'm all right with it and I still like this site.
Just want to point out that I'm not the only one thinking that there are still some things to be improved.

Have a nice day
iCrab

I had the idea for a map where you spawn in helicopters. I made it work by setting the mapmodel's 3rd argument to 2, and then putting clip around the model. However, when I restarted the map, the mapmodel acted like it was solid until I clicked on it. Is there any way I can fix this?

Ok heres a pic of a model:
tell me what you think

So, I have ignored this for a while now, but I think its time to bring it up.

No offense, but Justice for mac is awful, there are tons of unfixed bugs, including:
-the launcher play button needs to be clicked on to start the game (trooper allowed enter keyboard shortcut)
-every single field on the launcher IE the "Advanced Options" text field is completely broken and un-functional.
-Ingame binds such as if you were to type /bind h [kill], do NOT save to any file, so that means that if you want to bind something you'll have to write the bind to a cfg such as the autoexec
-the recompiled launcher image with the "caution tape" looks stupid, and in my opinion is unnecessary.

~I might have missed a few, but I think i covered the main problems.

I don't know if any of these problems have been fixed in the SVN, I do not care to check. But I want to bring this to the community's attention if they are not fixed, because as a chronic sauer-player these problems get VERY annoying.

Thanks for reading

-DeathStar

Taking a certain name for a map can be tough sometimes.
That's why I'll try to give some tips for taking a mapname wich you can pick at best.
Of course you can completly ignore those tips and just go on with naming your maps at random, it's your own choice...

The following tips to get a pretty logical name for your maps:

1. Try to observate your probably half- or quarter-finished map and especially look at points like theme, atmosphere (lighting), texturing, details, geometry, gameplay and/or flow. When you name your map, take a few of these points and focus the name on that.
Some simple examples of that are when you make a space-themed map, using "space" in the name (like "lostinspace") or when you make an industrial-themed map, using "factory" in it (like "killfactory"). Even tough this isnt very original but well get on that at the next point...

2. Try to be original and not to copy names of other mappers.
Take a name wich is unique and not taken by much mappers. So like a castle-themed map, don't take "castle" inside of the name of the map, but try to be original by taking names like "fortress" or "citadel".

3. Try to use the points of the map wich looks better than other points of it.
When a certain map has a better gameplay than it's atmosphere, try to focus on the gameplay then.

4. Try not to focus just on 1 of the points wich is in tip #1.
You can only look at the theme, and call a church-themed map just "church", but you block other mappers of using anything with "church" in it, to still being original when naming. Try to be social and look further for focussing on another point, like gameplay. If a valley-themed map is created to play capture on it, take something like "c_valley"...

5. Keep it short, keep it simple.
When you keep the name of a map just short and simple, its much easier to remember than when you take a long name with uncommon words. Since Sauerbraten is from original English based, its not a bad thing to take an english word for your map (but do realise that you still should focus on a few of those points at tip #1).

5. Taking long names isnt a bad thing, but...
It's not a bad thing to take a long map name, but when doing it, try to call it's original name only in the "maptitle" wich get showed up. Try to reduce the name instead. Because of reducing, it's easier to remember and takes less time to write down in a consoleline.
Take as example "loth", wich has as maptitle "Lair Of True Heros" and ironicly in english, "loth" also has another meaning, wich brings us to the next (optional) tip.

6. Take names with a double or ironic meaning.
This isnt a must, but it adds some interest for a player when writing it down to load the map. As example, "curvy_castle" is ironicly enough called "castle", but does it really looks like a castle? ...

7. Adding your own nick into it.
It's not back to put your own nick in the name of a map, but try to combine it with some other point of tip #1. Else youll get several maps with almost the same name, were only a number at the end is the difference (like "mbt1", "mbt10", etc). This can be pretty confusing and isnt logical at all since there's no sense in numbering, exept the time when the map has been created (as example, "mbt1" probably has been made earlier than "mbt10"). Another pretty bad thing wich brings this way of naming is that you cannot see on the map's name it is a deathmatch or a capture the flag map. (as example, you can't see if "mbt1" is a deathmatch map or a capture the flag map, when you only look at the name). So when using your nick in the map's name, try to add at least gameplay in the name too!

I hope these tips can help you taking a proper name. I'll repeat it again, it's your own decission to take a map name and to ignore those tips...

For all those familiar with teamfortress 2 half life or left 4 dead you would know that they are produced through steam, a gaming company. They have a platform for friends which allows you to friend chat voice chat and keep track of your friends. You can use this for cube or any mod of it. To do this do the following:

1. Go to steams website and download there platform.
2. This is located a the top just left of center.
3. Go through the instruction to install on your system.
4. When installed it will ask for a user name and password. Click create new account
5. Give the needed information
6. once this is done you can login
7. Now you will be at the main page inside the steam platform
8. To add cube to your list of games do the following
9. Go to your cube folder (what ever mod you want to install) Note: Ive only done it with Saubraten
10. Open the Bin folder and copy all of the files in there to the main folder (Saubraten folder)
11. Then go back to steam
12. Go to the Menu Bar at the top of the program and click on Games>add a non-steam game to my library
13. all the programs on your computer will show up here, if it is there click on it else go browse and find the exe (not the bat: the exe is one of the files that you pulled out of the bin folder
14. Then click Add selected program
15. At the top under the menu bar click Library, it should appear under here.
16. Then you can click play, and it will run

This platform is absolutely free, and if you would like you can buy some of steams games but it is not required. Doing this allows you do the following:

• In game Chat with steam friends
• In game browser (by clicking shift tab you can open steam in game over top of saubrauten (it looks great)
• Voice Chat with steam friends
• management of who is on and offline
• and much more :)

Heres pics

Hope this helps
chasester

Thinking about gameplay lately I noticed, how much higher and lower levels improve the fun in a map. One of the very few maps which go towards using both horizontal and vertical gameplay is nmp9, which is one of the oldest maps.

Therefore I'm just gonna throw the idea in here: How about a CTF map with vertical gameplay? Would of course have to be a sci-fi map, I could imagine some duomo-like design. The basic idea would be both flags approximately next to each other quite at the bottom of the map. It must be arranged in a way that you can't reach one flag from the other, but instead have to go downwards to some teleporter-array bringing you back up on top of the map.

An advantage would be that there would be absolutely no need to make such a map symmetric, as the bases are next to each other. This would allow some interesting designs.

I hope I could make my idea clear, if not feel free to tell me. I don't know if my idea is worth looking into or even feasible. As I said, I'm just throwing this in here as I'm no mapper at all, but if anyone wants to try such a design, I'd be happy to think about it more detailed.

Edit: Very poor drawings added in a comment.

Blind Rating

Rating a map is important as a critique but i think that commenting is even more important. I would like to note to people that rating a map without commenting is not very helpful to the forum. I would like you to consider commenting on a node before rating to explain why you are giving that rating on the node. This will not only help the design/programmer but also will help you in your critiquing and design/program skill. In that if your critic is wrong or not completely correct, some one can show you why and then show you the correct way to do it. Blind rating is not helpful to the forum and should not be done.

Sincerely,
Chasester