After 12 years, Matthias Worch is making a new Quake map. Just for the hell of it (and as we all know, id has neglected Hell a lot in recent Quake games ;)). Follow along his new adventures in Wizard.wad, QBSP and func_door.
September 07 - Burning The Midnight Oil
If there haven’t been a lot of updates on Beyond Belief 2008 lately it’s because I’ve resisted the urge to post simple editing blurbs like “And now I’ve added this room! Take a look!” With nobody having played the level those posts wouldn’t make much sense, anyway. And if I explained every little detail you wouldn’t have to play the level anymore because I’d already have spoiled everything! ;)
With that said, my output has definitely decreased in the last couple of weeks, and that’s for a very simple reason:
the Olympics are over.
[Read More]September 02 - Status/Timeframe
Unfortunately I haven't done anything in Quake recently that's post-worthy. My free time has gone into making
changes to the Wordpress code that is running my homepage. But hopefully that will change this week and I'll get back to Quake. I've been trying to get a few custom .mdl files into the game, but am running into problems with Quick3D I have to sort out. So it's back to doing brushwork in BSP for the time being.
Not sure if this will work out, but I'm trying to release the level at the end of QExpo.
August 26 - About Guiding Principles (and a screenshot)
The weekend was filled with racing, and I haven’t done much level editing. So now might be a good time to discuss the criteria that I apply when making decisions about what goes into Beyond Belief 2008 and what doesn’t. And to muse about guiding principles in general.
When embarking on any artistic endeavor, it’s good to establish focus early on. On multi-faceted projects, these principles help the author determine which ideas should be included in the work and which ones should be left out. This is true for many creative undertakings: commercial games, books, screenplays, movie… It’s true for hobby levels, as well. So here’s the guiding principle I established for BBelief2008:
I want to evoke fond memories of the original Quake.
That’s a decidedly mundane ambition, especially if you consider that 12 years have passed in which the Quake community has moved on to much more ambitious projects. Looks like my plan is to make a map that amounts to nothing more than a tribute level. But this guideline makes a lot of sense to me for various reasons:
[Read More]August 24 - Level Flow
One of the fun parts about making this level is that I don’t have to worry at all about planning ahead. That’s the way of working that comes naturally to me: I never planned out my levels in the Doom and Quake days. I just started working on something and discovered where the level would take me.
You can’t do that in today’s professional game development, of course. When working with a team on a commercial game, things tend to be much more planned out from the start. Every level has a place in the game. The start and finish are usually predetermined. Certain story points need to be hit, specific gameplay elements need to be utilized. And things are so complex today, with several people working on the same environment, that the level needs to be roughed out as early as possible. So that the environment artists can start working on the building blocks. So that lighting artists (if the game has them) can start thinking about the look of the level. So that gameplay elements (which might not necessarily all be proven out yet) can be tested as early as possible - in the levels that they’re supposed to appear in.
Not so on this Quake level!
[Read More]August 22 - First Post
There really isn't much information yet, but you're welcome to visit
my homepage to find out more about my Quake history. Here's an initial editor screenshot:
