First off, an apology: The voice-over .wav files in the first level were supposed to be done in a sound studio... but that fell through; so you have to be tortured by me and my microphone. Sorry! All files and everything they contain are copyright 1998 Noel Wade UNLESS they were a part of "Quake" or "Scourge of Armagon". Quake and all of its components are copyrighted by id software, and all textures, models, and components of "Scourge of Armagon" (also known as the Quake mission pack No. 1) are copyrighted by Hipnotic/ Ritual Entertainment. These two companies put in a heck of a lot of work, so don' mess with their stuff; and please don't dork with mine either. Thanks, and have fun! You MAY NOT distribute this file, the other text file, or the .BSP files that accompany this text UNLESS: 1) You do so for free (no commercial distribution) 2) NO FILES ARE MODIFIED IN ANY WAY 3) ALL 3 FILES ARE KEPT TOGETHER The setting: "Great," you mutter to yourself, "assigned as a temporary attache to a health and safety inspector. What fun..." "At least I'll have two men I know and trust to help me," you add as you read over the orders. It seems that a nearby chemicals plant east of L.A. has had some mysteries arising around it - animals dissappearing, people gone missing; and rumors of drug or money deals going down there. So the LAPD has assigned you and a couple of other plain-clothes cops to accompany a saftey inspector to check the place out. Upon arriving at the site, you are escorted to the Plant manager's office suite. "What the hell are you doing here," he demands. "I know our next regular inspection isn't scheduled for 2 months!" "Well, sir," the inspector bumbles," we noticed that the materials you use are beginning to show signs of aging - we thought it best to do a check-up." "Fine, " he replies, "just remember that you're only here because I can't deny the inspection check." "Charming fellow," you think, "could be on the Partridge Family..." "Now get outta my sight, " he growls, interrupting your thoughts, "I have work to do." With that, he sits at his enormous (but drab corporate grey) desk and punches a few buttons on the consoles built into it. As the four of you are escorted out to the main building, you notice more security guards than you would've expected. When you query your escort, her only reply is that "the chemicals we use for processing are dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands". How cliche, you think. For a while, you and your men watch the inspector crawl around the various vats, piping, and equipment; pretending now and then to actually be a part of the process. As you get towards the back, you see fewer and fewer employees. Shifting to put a reassuring hand on your concealed .45 caliber pistol, you see 6 security guards come briskly around the corner. They have some kind of gun in their hand, but it doesn't appear to fire a bullet. You are already reaching for your gun when they fire. As the darts hit your chest, you catch a glimpse of one going through the inspector's eye. His scream echoes in your ears as the shock hits you. All you can think of before you black out is one word: "taser".... And you didn't even get a shot off....... Installation and other MUST-READ items (Please please please please PLEASE PPLLEEAASSEE!!!!) : Hey, here's the quickie instructions on how to install / run this Level; as well as notes and a detailed look at the level through the eyes of its designer. I include this as several crucial trade-off decisions had to be made; and the end result was not entirely to my satisfaction. How to install / run this: 1) Create a directory under your Quake directory. Name it something like "HB" or another appropriate name that you will remember. (For the purposes of this file, the subdirectory will be referred to as "HB" - substitute your name if different) 2) Unzip the .PAK file (or copy it if already unzipped) into this subdirectory). 3) Run quake with your normal settings; except add "-game HB" (without the quotes) to the command line. 4) Voila! If you have any problems, please email me at: hbringer@pacbell.net Notes: No deathmatch capability. No diff. settings (yet). Too linear for my tastes, so I compenstated with plenty of monsters. My problem was that I played Jedi Knight just before designing this level; and failed to realize that Quake simply couldn't handle the extensive levels and large rooms that JK could. This led to a drastic change in the number of paths through the level; and was a big dissappointement to me, both in the fact that I wasted a lot of compile time on it; and that my design couldn't be fully implimented. The talk/walk-through of the 1st of two levels (second one coming soon)... (Broken up by areas): Area 1, the "bed" room: Here's where you start the level. This was actually quite fun to do. I got a lot of experience in vertex manip. and odd-shaped brushes by filling in this square room with brushes. You can't see them well, but there are almost-circular "bump" brushes around the floor and corners to break up the straight lines of intersection that would've occurred otherwise (but made tex alignment tough). I was lucky, as this was the only area with irregularly-shaped brushes that DIDN'T crash QBSP or RVIS at some point or another. The bed itself was a bit of a challenge, as QBSP (again, dealing with odd-angles) constantly tried to screw up the small brushes making up the "shackles" every time I took the bed from a flat to a tilted position. In preview (and when viewed flat), these brushes mesh seamlessly. But as soon as it gets tilted up to show it off; the brushes are not quite created the same. The small wall was an addition as VIS would not exclude the cavern section without it. The curve of the tunnel was too broad for that. The sound that is played (as well as other voice-overs) were done by me at the last minute. My sound guy failed to produce, and I hate the little text messages that pop-up. I tried adding some reverb and things to make it sound either like it was inner thoughts or cavern reverb; but I don't care for it.... I just care for the text less *chuckle*. Area 2, the tunnels and caverns: This section turned out fairly well; though its the biggest "headache" section of the entire thing. I figure this area cost me 80 hours of re-design and trouble-shooting time (after creation). The odd angles, open space; and QBSP problems with "seeing things" in / around brush junctions in the tunnels caused un-ending nightmares. I have had to patch and re-patch non-existing leaks so many times that I eventually let the performance drop a little by making a massive hollow cube that this whole section sits in. I can't believe that I originally wanted two of the big caverns. I would've gone bald by ripping my hair out over it. Luckily, I have resilient hair enough for one *grin*. The light fixtures and cieling supports in the tunnels were added at the suggestion / request of a 3do artist *chuckle*. I didn't add supports for the cieling of the cavern for two reasons: 1) Poly counts were already close to 500 (my standard limit), and 2) I figured a natural cavern of this size could exist by its own accord without fancy supports - they do in real life. All in all, this section at least came close to what I envisioned. The other cavern would've branched from this one with small side- caves and dead-ends, eventually leading to more items and the lift. The lift - is a lift *grin* Area 3, the cages / maze area: This section was also a lot of fun to do. The compilers and editors had no problems with the simple 90-degree angles; and making the lighting moody was interesting but not painful. The train was nifty and came together with only marginal problems - chiefly that the sound source for its movement doesn't move with it; meaning that I had to use ambient sounds further down the track to keep it from fading out completely. Also, I made the door incorrectly at first on the far side; so I had to make the track for the train at an angle. This was a bit of a challenge to get the train to navigate perfectly; but it worked flawlessly. I added some extra brushes to the top of the model just for kicks so that it looked more realistic. Area 4, the 4-way intersection & lift: Actually not hard at all, the only problem with this section is that Quake can't determine how to adjust the tex offsets on the platform track as they're on a precise 45 degree angle; which causes Quake to ignore any offset info. Area 5, the first and second doors to the right: I had to cut the polys in here, sacrificing the countertop decorations like test-tubes, beakers, and books. The original spike contraption holding the crucified zombie / ex_partner was much more complex; but kept causing VIS to fail. The particle fields were tough too; as the high counts kept them from functioning. Also, a bug in the code causes a Quake crash when two particle flashes go off at the same time in the same portal area. This was a big problem as I wanted two of zombies in two seperate tubes. Which reminds me: the particle flashes only go on 90 degree angles; so I couldn't do true tubes (no 50's sci-fi tribute... damn!) - I had to settle for a boxy contraption. The triggers for the sounds when you've killed both were also a toughie to get to work, due to the high entity counts of the two rooms. Area 6, the security station: This was a kick to do; and the grey control panels and such were taken from ideas when I got watching the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition. No, not all my ideas come from star wars; and I do have original thoughts... but these looked so cool in the movie that I wanted to try them in quake. The sequenced buttons kinda harkened back to the Duke Nukem Forever days before I was enlightened by the Quake gods... hehehe... They were also my last ditch effort to keep the level from being entirely linear (save for the gold key). And yes, the layered double-doors were from Star Wars... remember when Han is running from the storm troopers in the death star?? Anyways, those three are all of the star wars ideas in this level *chuckle* . Area 7, the lift and exit: This was just another part of the level; until it got so complex that I had to split it...then I added the bars at the top to make a more obvious exit. (The "Exit" sign helps I'm sure... hehehe). I like this lift the best of all because of the inspirational little "clamps" that hold it to the rails. 6 brushes each, but small enough that they don't add any slow-down -- And everyone knows that a lift operates better when there are guide-rails... so I wanted to make it believe-able too... ( *Insert overly enthusiastic used-car-salesman voice* Yes, coming to a chemical plant near you, its the Animal & genetics Testing lab basement!! Tour our fine facility of mayhem and freakish science! Check out our gift shop and delightfully big and silent security staff... bring the whole family!!). Anyways, gotta go catch up on about 100 hours of lost sleep now... look for the second level in about a week (I'm takin a day or two off to see if the sun's still here, and for sanity reasons). Factoids: Approx. time to complete this half (discounting compile times): 250 hours Approx. brush count: 1500 Approx. face count: 8000-8300 Approx. entity count: 300-400 Approx. time spent creating things: 110 hours Approx. time spent fixing bugs and re-working things: 140 hours Approx. time spent on second half: 100 hours. Approx est. time left (barring re-working any critical problems): 40 hours. Date began project: 10/26/97 (approx. 30 hours already put into project)