Chexy Minecraft Action?

[wiweeyum]

Well a lot can happen in three days, even if there's no cool pictures to prove it.

Over the weekend, Atarian put together a sweet server that (at this point) will only be up for the rest of the week. Let me know PM style if you'd like access to it so you can help build. I'm going to go crazy blocking out the levels, if other folks want to focus on doing detail work making it look pretty.

My only request is that once you do something, you take a screenshot and post it up for the rest of us to see. Let's DO this thing!

[MajorSlime]

I forgot to hop on for a bit over the weekend


And Atari, you forgot to let me know how the FTP server was going on Saturday Still got the remote launching program if you want it.

[wiweeyum]

Well, Atarian and I did a lot today. I took screens of everything, and managed to boil it down to the 10 most important ones. So, hold on to your britches. There's a ton of detail work that needs to be done to this level so that it doesn't feel so sterile, but almost the entire level is blocked out!

First thing I noticed was that someone over the weekend made to outside of the storage facility look more believeable. Right on to whoever did it, it looks good.



We added the observation deck where you get the yellow key.




Made the yellow key teleporter rooms look better, and added working teleports! Atarian was a total boss and figured out how to harness the new command blocks and the tp command. It works uber legit. (actually these don't work yet, but only because they don't have rooms built to lead off to yet.)



We built the entire section that leads down to the laboratory at the end of the level. If this doesn't look familiar, it's because the big red doors aren't there. I haven't quite decided how I want to do big doors yet.



Got the slime pool room. (what is this room supposed to be?!) I'm going to be making a texture pack to turn the lava into slime.



The red/blue key doors go into this room.



The real working teleporters.



The room that opens the path to the laboratory.



Aaaaand lastly, the hallway to the end of the level. We were thinking this might could be a mainframe room or something.

[ChexCommander]

Wow, this is so legit. I wish I had the time to help you guys but until then keep it up!

[Atariangamer]

Just FYI, I made every 'structure' that was visible from the playable E1M1 area look as if it could exist. So some of the hallways have decorative tops, and the storage facility has an actual 'exterior'. Makes sense.


But ChexMaster was working on an actual, piston moving system for the big red door, for use in key areas (such as this one...the door helps break up the line of sight more like the original game). Due to space constraints IDK if we'll have all the doors the same way, but at least some.

A few other areas were touched up in an attempt to make it more and more like the maps ingame.

~

Current things in progress:

-the areas containing the red and blue keys (after the teleporters)
-final detail pass on E1M1 area
-initial detail pass on E1M2 area (nearly done)
-the link between the Labs and the Storage Facility

Things to be done:

-construction of Labs area (and likewise, detail passes and link to next area)
-landscape rectification (?)



The last one is literally just making the visible mountains and surrounding areas more congruent and sensical. Not exactly necessary at the moment, and depending on how well things work, it might not be needed at all.


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

I just thought of something amazing, BTW.

Currently, the labs are going to end up very much underground. Not much of a problem, there are no windows or major outdoorsy areas to be had. But this poses something interesting with the arboretum, especially the fact that it needs to be above ground to take advantage of the 'sunlight'. Well, if you'll notice, the arboretum starts off with a large elevator up. TADA. That's surprising how well that works out...did Digital Cafe actually plan this out to kind of work in 3d space? I remember someone made a continuous map of CQ E1 awhile back...but it was in Doom, and therefore not able to do floor over floor like we can...this is proving to be quite a fun project.


Kinda sadly, after so much win today, I've actually got a stacked day of classes on Tuesday, so no stuff till late night...or early evening, depending on the time zone. Oh well.

Good luck to whoever is constructing tomorrow/today!

[LAZ Trooper]

Yes, I discovered the usefulness of the giant elevator when I overlayed the levels, and wondered the same thing.

[wiweeyum]

I started work on a custom texture pack. It still has a lot to get done, but it's coming along.

For the transport area, I made two paintings for this texture. Also, I made a tiny teleport pad block. Not a fan of it. I also changed the glowstone to look like a light.



Changed the dirt to match the bazoik landscape.



Changed the brick to be the red concrete.



changed the textures on four of the outlandish wools so I could piece together a correctly sized Teleport pad. It looks a lot better, but the sides need to be covered up.



And made a couple other paintings.

[xbolt]

Last night, I worked on the yellow key hallway in E1M2, adding in all the boxes and lights and stuff:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

I don't know if I like the two sideways brown boxes that trap the Cycloptis, though. If you can think of a better way to do it, go ahead:
[spoiler][/spoiler]


ninja'd: Cool texture pack!

[Atariangamer]

Well, quite a bit of work has gone on...

-M1 area is pretty much complete! Some minor details may be added as time goes on but we'll just see what happens.
-M2 area is structurally complete, but the teleporters to the key rooms need to be wired up. Otherwise, it may require another detail pass for some objects we didn't see in the geometry...
-M3 is nearly fully blocked out, and has about 65% 1st pass detailed. Almost sadly, this is a very bland level decoration wise (loads of metal halls), so might be near final stage...
-M4 is taking awhile to get done, because linking the end of M3 and the start of M4 required a bit of maneuvering to work well. We finally settled on a design that should work and still be 'believable'. No major construction has started on it.

~
Feature wise, ChexMaster finally got his door working (we're all impressed...seriously, its quite amazing to watch), and of course, teleporters will be installed at all necessary locations. There is a small texture pack in the works for making certain CQ things get ingame.



!!
So, just after we finished up for the night (actually, we weren't quite finished), the server got a hiccup that I can't fix remotely. I can't FTP, SSH, or even join the MC server. My only hope is that the Java server is still running (it appears to run, but won't let us join), and saving the work I didn't fully back up. I won't be able to get hands on until 3pm EST tomorrow, so...sorry guys. -_-;

[MajorSlime]

Thanks, I rather like the door. When I get time, i'll do some WorldEdit copy/pasting to any other place that needs one. I'll work on the elevators next. The only thing with the doors is that occasionally a sand block will break and disappear. I've only had it happen to me once, so it might have just been a weird mishap, but :/

[wiweeyum]

Atarian, you're a stud. No worries on the server. Technology tends to do that. I'll be stoked to jump on when it's back up.

Thanks to everyone that's jumped in and helped! Honestly, it's so much easier and bearable to work on a large scale project like this when so many folks that have jumped on from time to time. I'm used to doing projects solo, so the online collaboration rocks.

Especially since you all know CQ better than I do in a lot of cases, I haven't felt like I've needed to make sure things get built right. I'll go work on something, and come back to find an entire room decorated! Now that rocks!

Pretty soon, I'll finish up the texture pack and release it publicly again, as well as make a super youtube vid. The world needs to know!

[Atariangamer]

Server is back up! I still can't quite see what caused it. Alot of ext3 errors and nothing would respond. My command history had a long string of random characters punched in (that I didn't type). But a quick restart and we're back up and running!

SSH is good, FTP is good, and the MC server is running! Back in business.

[MajorSlime]

Something land on your keyboard?

[Atariangamer]

Something land on your keyboard?

The lid was a little more open...I'm wondering if my kitten got up in the computer somehow before it started making too much noise -_-;

Either way, it just went down AGAIN.
I was hoping I could raise someone at my house to get it restarted so I could try and migrate the map over to my desktop PC (I'd be home tomorrow anyways), but nobody is responding...it is quite late.

So! Update:

E1M1: DONE
E1M2: DONE
E1M3: Final Detail Pass
E1M4: Initial Construction
E1M5: Not Started

E1M1 is pretty much final. Not much can change, and there's very little to add or take away.
E1M2 is also pretty final. All teleporters are in place and working, even the secret ones. Might could use a go over for detail again, but there's loads of time for that.
E1M3 got its final construction done last night, but today and this evening we got alot of the lighting and basic decor done. Teleporters are all working as planned, but it needs some of the wall decor added, as we haven't focused on that at all.
E1M4 had basic construction going on when I left today, and it all fits quite nicely together.

So! great stuff going on.

We've also got a WIP texture pack going on (that I'll add to the server when I get it back running tomorrow), so if anyone wants in on this, there's always the weekend.


AGAIN: Server is currently down. But if you'd like to mess with it, let me know, and I'll send you the IP as well as a note via PM (or just check this topic) when it goes live again.

but one note: use chex3 or chex.wad for your measurements, and we're using 32 map pixels (like, set a 32px grid in Doom Builder) as one minecraft block. So a teleporter pad (single) is 2x2 blocks.

[MajorSlime]

My 2nd guess: a pet like a cat. Too bad I didn't voice it...


Anyways, there's still the doors to do, right?