= The 512kb MAPPING CONTEST discussion !! =

[GenMoKai]

Start with a cube Or just draw some simple sketches on grid paper

[Myth]

Why not start with a dodecahedron?
Maybe there should be a dodecahedron challenge and judge the maps based on the best use of the dodecahedron.

[Whitey]

Amazing how quickly 512kb gets used.
Gonna be hard to stop adding stuff. These maps will have that "never got finished" feel.

[FraGnBraG]

Why not start with a dodecahedron?
Maybe there should be a dodecahedron challenge and judge the maps based on the best use of the dodecahedron.

heh - for this compo you could start with a futsal" map - similar to that crazy soccer map you made - only in a indoor gym with dodecahedron shaped futsal balls bet that could all fit in 512K ..

[Dr.Flay]

Looking through Fileplanet yesterday, I was reminded that many maps used to be this sort of size and even smaller.
Perhaps look at a few old maps for inspiration on keeping things simple without it being a small arena

[Carbon]

Can someone tell me why the protocol has to exist at all? I mean, if 512 is too restrictive, then folks are going to either drop out or not enter at all. It seems that this is a holdover from another contest which employed such strict rules, but why are we doing it now? I haven't seen any real rationale.

[papercoffee]

Ok here now the official contest advertizing batch.
This is not the batch to use in the maps. We have some converted from memsys ...thank you pal.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5953&p=68440#p68440 <=KLICK ME!!!!

[Radi]

..and this is (non)official token to be placed on a map I tried to make this as low poly as possible. .
This is how it looks with just a stock random texture.
It is almost 30kb in size. If somebody want to use that -then I will upload it here (.u file).
But probably every map will be made without even 1kb free space

[Chamberly]

Post a download link please.

[Radi]

Here it is
To assign a texture, go to token properties and set a one under Display>Texture, mesh is Ready to be rotated, just change Phys type to PHYS_Rotating (under movement) and set needed Rotation Rate value.

[Chamberly]

Awesome. Thanks!

[Red_Fist]

Can someone tell me why the protocol has to exist at all? I mean, if 512 is too restrictive, then folks are going to either drop out or not enter at all. It seems that this is a holdover from another contest which employed such strict rules, but why are we doing it now? I haven't seen any real rationale.

Because it's a challenge to make It look like and play like a 2meg map, there were some very cool levels at 300k still hard to believe.
Try a few things like, add one light, save map see how much it adds.
Do the same thing but increase the light radius save, and check size.

One of the biggest drains is making the walls or whatever is High shadow detail, it sucks a lot away, really a lot.
try to make brushes that seem like it has a lot of vertices, but build it with a few simple brushes.

Use sheets instead of making an indent in a flat wall to make it look like there is another brush carving out the wall.

Ever since that 300k map, I have been selecting all brush, then hit the ying yang icone (invert selection) then right click an actor and Order them to last. That helped something for size, can't remember.

there is a few right there, every actor matters, if you can skimp on bot paths, do it. or any actor.

EDIT
I mean to say use sheets with an unlit texture one (or two) units away from a wall to simulate a panel light, instead of making a new brush IN the wall so you can make it have another texture. that saves a whole other new brush with more vertices.

OH another thing, a zone actor takes up more than I liked, so if you really need a zone use it, but otherwise just leave the map have the default zone settings with out adding a zone actor per zone. I would limit making new zones anyway, it adds another sheet brush, not worth it.

ADD
on a side note, my 300k map was DM-300k Isotope, and it was hard to do, so 512k should help considerably.

[Carbon]

[quote="Red_Fist"Because it's a challenge to make It look like and play like a 2meg map, there were some very cool levels at 300k still hard to believe.
Try a few things like, add one light, save map see how much it adds.
Do the same thing but increase the light radius save, and check size.

One of the biggest drains is making the walls or whatever is High shadow detail, it sucks a lot away, really a lot.
try to make brushes that seem like it has a lot of vertices, but build it with a few simple brushes.

Use sheets instead of making an indent in a flat wall to make it look like there is another brush carving out the wall.

Ever since that 300k map, I have been selecting all brush, then hit the ying yang icone (invert selection) then right click an actor and Order them to last. That helped something for size, can't remember.

there is a few right there, every actor matters, if you can skimp on bot paths, do it. or any actor.[/quote]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I agree and see now that tight constraints really shows the skills of the mappers. Well, not all skills, but certainly forces them to tighten up their game!

[JackGriffin]

I think it's more of an intellectual exercise that comes down to who can squeeze the most detail out. I think along the lines Carbon does, that the size limit is an arbitrary construct that does more harm than good. It doesn't serve any positive purpose for a mapper to spend hours trying different combinations of things to trim that last 30kb when it doesn't affect the map. It's a much better use of said mapper's time to spend those hours improving it or making a new area.

It just occurred to me that the procedural processes used by the compression contests we discussed could be implemented here. I'm pretty sure I could script something that would generate massive amounts of usable BSP at map runtime.... I'm reasonably sure you could have a mostly empty block of space and fill it with a UScript-generated "world" built like lego blocks. In fact you could call a monster amount of map things into existence via UScript and make even a complex map very, very small in file size.

Dammit, now I'm wanting to flesh this out. Higor, you see where I'm going with this? Want to destroy this competition with a map they won't believe fits the file size? hahaha, I've probably said too much now anyway.

[FraGnBraG]

...Dammit, now I'm wanting to flesh this out. Higor, you see where I'm going with this? Want to destroy this competition with a map they won't believe fits the file size? hahaha, I've probably said too much now anyway...

well i'd say go for it

i'd be curious to see this - of course, to win, your map has to be fun and play well ... so if you think you can make something playable let's see what you can do