JiltedSoulM8_76 Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 I'm determined to remake the "surprised" level in JA, but I want to do some terrain adjustments..I can't for the life of me figure out how to load a finished map or bsp or whatever in radient or anyother tool..How do I do this..is it possible? it has to be i know i've seen some map remakes done, they couldn't have had to resculpt the terrain by hand, could somone please enlighten me on this, is there a feature in radiant that I am overlooking?(ps I know its gotta be a noob question, but there is like no info on this subject that i've found so far at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDN14 Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 Actually all those remakes are probably from official released maps that have been released by Raven. You cant load a bsp file in radiant. You have to convert the bsp to a map file. There is a way to do it but I am not going to tell you how. I just dont like to tell people how to decompile maps. But if you do ever get it decompiled you should know that all the texture alignment will be off anyway so you will have to go through alot of work to line everything back up correctly and there will also be clip brushes all over the place that you should probably delete. I think you would be better off asking raven to release the map file of the finished version of that map, it would probably be easier and less work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JiltedSoulM8_76 Posted January 4, 2006 Author Share Posted January 4, 2006 The map I'm wanting to remake is in the sp game its the one with the sandcrawler..and if you know how to do it you had to learn some how how did you learn it, why wont you tell me? is it some kind've trade secret? your afraid of someone using your map ideas to make new ones? isn't that what everyone is doing, using Lucas's ideas and revolutionizing them to suit thier fancies? If someone uses your idea and publishes it without your consent thats when they've done you wrong, but it's not the ability to decompile maps thats the problem there, its the inconsideration of the person . But I will take your advice, I'll contact Raven..or better yet I'll just make a whole new level altogether as crappy as it might be I just thought I'd take a cool level and make it cooler but now the world will see a crappy newbie map with maybe some interesting new ideas. good DAY sir! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lassev Posted January 6, 2006 Share Posted January 6, 2006 You shouldn't hold your breath while waiting for Raven to release more map sources. They have ceased their live developer support to these games, and apparently archived their files, according to the info I got from them, when I asked for something (not a map source but something more useful, reasonable and sensible). One problem might be that as a company, probably some lawyer has to be contacted before they can release anything really useful. This is of course all my speculation, but somehow it needs to be reasoned why things are so hard... And besides, getting a map source and editing and then releasing it under your name are two totally different things. And to be honest, if you don't know how to map in the first place, I don't really see how you could make an existing professional map any better, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JiltedSoulM8_76 Posted January 10, 2006 Author Share Posted January 10, 2006 >>if you don't know how to map in the first place, I don't really see how you could make an existing professional map any better, anyway.<< thats a pretty huge assumption Lassev, besides I never said I don't know HOW to make a new map i just implied it would likely be of noob quality if i did..what can i say I like to aim high..who would've thought I'd need a lawyer just to get a gdamn editing tip from an editing message board. I've never met so much secrecy and stinginess in a game modding community as the jka community its as if everyone has copyrighted LucasArts and Raven material for themselves. maybe I just am not getting something. when I was being a part of the battlezone modding community, no one seemed so possessive of their mods because Activision, made it clear that anything they did or had done using elements of their game was subject to their copyright policies.. so everyone just accepted the fact and had fun..of course people wanted recognition for their work, but you seldom found people refusing to help one another with tools and tips as to how to work on existing works because the whole idea of modding is to modify an existing work plus the idea was that something even cooler could likely result..and indeed, the result was a few sponsored mappacks and eventually an official near total conversion made at least partly by fan modders... well i don't want to get inbto some ethics discussion anymore i just want to get started working on my "mod" ideas. so if anyone wants to give me a helpful tip about my question thats fine anybody else who can but won't can go f themselves. thats the shine of it to me.like I said eventually I'll just start from scratch any way..I probably need practice anyway and i was kind've being sarcastic about the "noob map statement even though it is likely going to be true. i'll just reinvent the wheel to while Im at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JiltedSoulM8_76 Posted January 10, 2006 Author Share Posted January 10, 2006 oh but i do appreciate the advice you guys ARE giving me though. sorry if I seem bitter but i'm amazed about this problem. Pandemic studios for battlezone always included this kind've info with thier easy to use mission editors, but that was another engine and another community! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wedge2211 Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 Hey, don't take issue with the whole community...Yes, it is possible to decompile BSPs with q3map2, but it's generally looked down on as using someone else's work as the basis for your own. As MDN14 mentioned, the decompiling process also doesn't give you a complete, clean .map file. You'll get screwy texture information, and some entities like point lights won't appear in the decompiled .map. So you'd still have your work cut out for you. If you just want the map layout or to figure out how to do some particular editing trick, though, it might be a useful tool. Just don't use a decompiled map as the basis for your own work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JiltedSoulM8_76 Posted January 11, 2006 Author Share Posted January 11, 2006 thanks Wedge I knew there were voices of reason in this community, but I was getting no help from two jka forums and it was getting quite irksome..in a community of editors not to be abled to get a simple tip..on fears of morality..this is both a science and an art to me..and I fully understand that no artist wants to be cheapened by an imitator, but I also know that i am no imitator..it's like this I have plenty of origional ideas, but i also have visions that are inspired by preexisting works. IF i'm a beginner then I might chose to work with something thats already sweated out, I would be an ahole to think that a community of artists would accept my efforts if i were to release work that was based on work not my own without acknowledgement and or permission, but sometimes a vision is not a whole new idea but a sequel to a preexisting one! or in this case prequel... as a matter of fact I don't need to remake the t1_surprised map for my vision..but I was hoping to nurture the vision while I worked on its components by bringing it to life in a landscape that closely resembles it and that was already completed and sculpted to functionality by experts...from this I might learn what features and landscapes I do and do not want or need to include in my own origional work..honestly thats what I was hoping, because in reality i don't think that it as it is will be adequate.. if it proves to be perfect then if I did want to use it I know I would need permission and acknowledgment to use their work in any public release, it could give me a bad reputation any other way, and diminish the value of my work whatever value that work will have anyway. But remember this neither artists nor scientists have ever been completely afraid of being frowned upon or even shunned, to persue their visions of progress or perfection..everybody knows the T1_surprised map was made by raven developers, and of course maybe none knows for certain if thats the map i'm really trying to study, but it's not cool to hide information on the unprovokd fear that I will piss someone off by ripping their masterpiece apart and crapping out out to the public as my own..especially since im sure it would not be hard to prove that it was ripped off..if it's already been published. Yknow if you study copyright protocols, that is the basis of how your work is protected by the mere fact that the writer claimed the idea first everything else is just a meaans to prove without doubt that that is the case. thats why sometimes a person might send something to themselves in the postal service just to officiate its existance.. p.s. has this been a big problem in the jka modding community? people claiming other peoples work as their own? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JiltedSoulM8_76 Posted January 11, 2006 Author Share Posted January 11, 2006 I suppose that is a question for another thread in the forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wedge2211 Posted January 11, 2006 Share Posted January 11, 2006 In that case, I don't suppose there's any harm in decompiling t1_surprise. Check out the q3map2 wikibook and look for the -convert switch, that'll tell you what you need to know. Honestly, though, all t1_surprise is is basically a set of models like this one, arranged to form a maze and layered on top of one another. You'd be able to see just as much (possibly more, depending on whether Raven used misc_model_statics, which don't show up in-editor) just by running around the map in-game and taking screenshots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lassev Posted January 14, 2006 Share Posted January 14, 2006 thats a pretty huge assumption Lassev, besides I never said I don't know HOW to make a new map i just implied it would likely be of noob quality if i did..what can i say I like to aim high..who would've thought I'd need a lawyer just to get a gdamn editing tip from an editing message board. I've never met so much secrecy and stinginess in a game modding community as the jka community its as if everyone has copyrighted LucasArts and Raven material for themselves. maybe I just am not getting something. Sorry about that. Don't mind me. I'm just old and bitter, and any question not concerning directly Radiant or ICARUS is likely to get an indecent answer from me. Don't take it personally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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