Void
I finished an old map i started back in the edge days. Its an attempt to play trem in an open field with two bases. It has probly very bad performance but its nice to look at it.
Download: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=03019350506183144076
It looks great. Sadly I will not be able to play/test it in the near future or even in the distant future (For about 6 months only).
I have too much on hand lately and with my new job I come back home too late to be able to do anything else beside go to sleep and maybe check the forums for a few minutes.
But yea, it looks amazing.
As for the performances I am pretty sure tremulous can handle such map without too much problem, but maybe an adjustment to the engine might be required as such map will be highly needed in my opinion in the future or at least before announcements of any sort should be done.
Very awesome map 
! Iām looking forward to trying this with matches.
I did notice a couple of minor bugs so far.
There is a sound error: WARNING: music file sounds/void_amb.wav is not 22k stereo.
It seems that everything outside of the alien base is labeled as āHuman Baseā.
I do have a couple of initial feature suggestions (although since I didnāt get to play this map yet, these might not be needed):
It might be cool to have one or 2 or 3 other empty bases, similar in design to the alien and human default bases, that could be conquered by either team.
Perhaps it would be good to have somewhat of an underground tunnel/cave network, that may or may not be connected to any/some/all/none surface buildings.
Looks a lot like the map Mars in Xonotic that was open ranged. Loved that map, but it did get low frames per second, even in Xonotic. I think there might be a way to enhance its performance though. Awesome looking map 
It would also be nice to see planet like maps where you can go all the way around back to where you were standing, like a scaled down version of planets like Roku San(a fictional bug planet in StarShip Troopers three Marauder). Smaller maps could even be made with slightly less gravity if they were wrapped around a sphere like a planet. Great map, I like it 
I get about 90 fps on this map with my old laptop, so I donāt think that is going to be an issue on this map 
.
Very nice, the Xonotic map must have had other reasons for such low FPS rates. Glad to see this one will be faster
Thanks for all replies. I donāt have an old machine to test this map on so i canāt say anything about performance on old machines. This kind of map has big issues with VIS portals in the first place. The q3map2 compiler cant handle as much portal that would be produced if the terrain would be structural. Therefore the only structual elements are mainly the small bases. What this means is that player clients render the whole map terrain. I reduced the polycount a bit by using a foghull. So very far structures are āblendoutā and are not rendered. The fog is supposed to hide these artifacts. It works for the most parts but sometimes it looks weird and players see errors like missing planes etc. Unfortunately we have to deal with this. A fix would be to remove this feature wich would result in even more polycount values.
Adding more details to this map would be nice but im not sure if this would make sense, performance-wise.
I saw this error but i didnt care because the file is working and i hadnāt the nerve to edit it.
I will add more entities to fix this. Or even remove them all.
There is a very big playable part on the surface. Iām strongly against adding more places wich would make this map really big. Players dont like walking around and not finding anyone. Iām more in favor of reducing the playable area.
Void is now available to play on the GrangerLab server and on the Unitremia server.
Fair point. Although I still think it may be fun to have one or two more buildings like the default bases, placed in remote spots, but initially uninhabited, as options for either team to take control of. But it is probably a good idea to see how the current layout plays in actual matches at the dev games tomorrow first, before considering such additions.
It seems that the only real issue with it (that I notice currently) is that the error message can get a bit spammy.
I guess weāll see if players with older computers report any issues. But I have tried the map on my crappy low end laptop that is over 3 years old, and I didnāt notice any significant performance issues.
I was thinking the same but stopped because of the vis problems i encountered. And dont forget that your testing was without any players or props.
We managed to play a few matches with this map on Unitremia today. I enjoyed playing the map (I played only aliens on it so far).
So far I didnāt notice anyone reporting issues with performance. One of the players has a 2009 computer (although he did say that it wasnāt low end for its time), and he said he was getting 90 fps, which is what he has it capped at.
some players did say they had trouble finding their way around in the desert, I think some distinguishable land marks in different areas should help with that. @Edaq recommended a hovering structure at the middile area that could be competed over for a forward location. I still think that there should also be at least one other āconventional base buildingā like the default bases located at one of the remote spots.
Robsteranium suggested that the map should perhaps be smaller, Iām not sure if it should be or not, but imo one or two additional structures as base location options should still work well whether the map remains its current size, or if it is somewhat smaller.
Very awesome map! I realized that this map does running smoothly in my PC. Also itās HUGE terrain places, I canāt find any enemies or bases while on playing. 
Very nice work, but walking for humans is too much, i suggest adding some way of moving without having to cross the desert, maybe jump pads or teleports or some kind of train.
It could also do well with some more hallmarks, such as some rocks and plants, maybe a oasis would do well.
I like the design of the bunkers too, a little basic but no less has good potential.
After further reflection, I would like to note some of the things that I especially like about this map:
I like both the inside and outside layouts of the bunker bases. So far they seem to work out very well for both the humans and aliens. Even with one team inside, and the other team outside of the same bunker base. Maybe more could be done with the design of those bunker bases (maybe there could be some variation in the design of the layout of two bunkers, making the instances more distinct from each other), but they are pretty good currently as is. I especially think that it would work well to have one or two other instances of those bunker bases, initially uninhabited, as another option for either team to take control of.
I like how the dunes/hills are such that while the outside is a lot of open space, you could still take cover and even build a base/forward for both aliens and humans. Aliens actually won some matches by building outside in the āhidden valleysā (no relation to the salad dressing 
), Also a few times humans tried āhill top basesā, which worked out for them winning a couple of matches, and still in at least one match aliens managed to defeat that kind of human base.
From my experience with the map so far, I do think it is good that all combat occurs on the surface or at the bunker bases, rather than in underground tunnels, it is a nice change from other maps where outside areas tend to be avoided for combat. So yeah, I think it is a good idea to generally avoid underground tunnels for this map. With that said, still perhaps it could be good to have a single cave in one of the areas that could be used as a base location option (which would make whichever particular area used for that, more distinct as well ).
I donāt think a jump pad would fit this map well, it may break the immersion of the theme. teleporter or a train could fit in that regard. Although humans can still build and use their own teleporter buildables (that can be destroyed). If any transportation aid is built into the map, I think a train or some other kind of moving platform would be best. But still caution should be taken in adding any transportation aid for this particular map as to not take away the aliensā ability to escape, to sneak up for attacks, and at least momentarily hide a base/forward to a certain extent. However, I should mention that I havenāt really played the map much on humans yet, I have mostly been enjoying the map on the alien team. But perhaps a better solution would be to make the map a bit smaller.
I was thinking too that an oasis might be good to have in one of the areas.
I thought of a possible approach to an addition to the map, Iām not sure ifit is the way to go however. Lets say that there were two other bunkers on the map, but each one was essentially designated as an āoutpostā for one ādefault bunker baseā. They could be tied together as pairs by perhaps teleporter rooms inside the bunkers, or perhaps teleporters on the outside pads that are adjacent to the bunkers, or those pads could be the boarding stations for trains (there could be some tunnels that go straight through the dunes/hills that might be in the way of their paths, those tunnels obviously wonāt be safe to build in, but could still be used as a path to walk through by either team when a train isnāt using them). So there would be an alien ādefault bunker baseā connected to an alien āoutpost bunkerā, and a human ādefault bunker baseā connected to a human āoutpost bunkerā.
Another possibility is to have all of the pads of all of the bunkers connected by trains, Iām not sure if that would be better than having two separate sets of a ādefault base bunkerā, an āoutpost bunkerā, āboarding padsā, and a train/track(or teleporters).
The file isnāt working, in that it doesnāt play due to too high of a sample rate (44.8 Khz instead of 44.1 or lower). With your permission @yalt I can downsample it in Audacity and repackage the map pk3, is that cool?
Some older PC/laptop doesnāt support 48/96KHz for DAC sound card, so I suggest to put those all sample rate as 44.1KHz.
@yalt If any still have issue with those sounds, Iāll help you to fix these sounds for older PC/laptop support.
Howdy @yalt , it was seeing you at the development games yesterday! I scribbled a couple of suggestions on the level shot screenshot:
In blue is a rough recommendation for a shallow river (it doesnāt have to be layed out exactly as I drew it, thatās just meant to give the general idea) at the lowest parts of the major vallies that passes under the bridge and forks essentially dividing the map into three overall areas.
I marked an area in red at about the āsouthernā center of the map as a possible good location for a third bunker unoccupied bunker base that either team could move to. Alternatively maybe there could be one underground structure built into those hills in that area with a couple of entrances as a work around to avoid having too many polys exposed at the same time (it could even be like a mostly buried version of the other two bunker bases, maybe that hill at the āsouth westā corner might work even better for that).
It might be worth trying the map with the jet enabled, I donāt think jet camping would be an issue with how this map is layed out, at least not on the new swirl game play with the jets have fuel, and operated in a not so campy way, and aliens having a flying class to counter. As long as with the use of the jet in combination with the hills and vallies, there are still parts of the outside that donāt have clear lines of sight for any given point of flight.
I also recommend changing the sample rate of that one sound that is regularly āplayedā on the map that spams the error WARNING: music file sounds/void_amb.wav is not 22k stereo.
Iād also like to point out something that I mentioned earlier about the target locations needing to be fixed to more accurately labeling the general areas.
That would be stereo support problem. Try using mono sound instead.
Should have some vegetation on the shores, see e.g. Nile:
