consolidating the xoniverse

The Xoniverse

Planet Dust
... Red planet

Asteroid Field 1337
... Xoylent

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remember nexuiz (the classic nexuiz) ...
now ... where did nexuiz classic take place ....
....
...
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yeah ....

One of the major problems with the nexuiz project was the fragmented art style. Each level is either an attempt at some environment ... or some random assortment of blocks floating in the void (lostspace)

Xonotic was a fresh start ... and an attempt to fix this problem ...
If you compare the player model selection between xonotic and nexuiz it is clear to see that xonotic's character are more focused, they come in pairs, and visually match eachother. When nexuiz's are just random things from random places all mashed together into one game ...

The state of xonotic's maps are not quite so good ...

what I want to do is focus all of the default (and non default) maps into various categories/environments ... with the end goal of having the entire xoniverse well defined with the official maps spanning a small number of well defined environments. (i would go for 5 or 6)

The best environments will be made deeper and stronger by adding new textures ... and turning some of the maps elements into useable props

here is the format for submitting ideas
MapName --> Location Name
... possible prop
... possible prop

or

Location Name
... wishlist texture/prop
... wishlist texture/prop

also for props or things that belong to multiple environments

Xoniverse
... wishlist texture/prop
... wishlist texture/prop

Example -------------

Redplanet --> Planet Dust
... Glass Doors
... Ammo door/boxes
... Railing Segment
... Elevator

Planet Dust
... terrain crater
... flatscreen monitor

Xoniverse
... a better (drivable) forklift

[I will edit this post with pictues/examples/resuts later.]

so ... how would you categorize the maps

Hmm maybe a general Operation Spitshine would be good and could prepare for a new official release. It worked wonders on Red Eclipse.

possibly ... but this is more a way of figuring out what works ... and how to make things easier for mappers ...

... not fixing the maps we have ...
... that will come later ...

I dont know... All of Xonotic maps are so different, as everyone wants to be original, and hates copying. I once tried to make a map in a style invented by somebody else, and ended up rage-deleting it and being ashamed of myself.

yeah ... i can see that ...

but incase you didn't notice ... there are multiple mars/redish terrain maps ...
glowplant, afterslime, and darkzone seem to be in the same territory

xoylent and stormkeep are both on asteroids ...
people are reusing the light and crate props ... which is a good start ...

there are plenty of ways to make original things without copying or leaving style consistency to the wind ...

Well, the skybox can determine which location the map is played, not the maps style itself. How many skyboxes are there btw?

I agree with hutty - it would be good to have a set of consistent settings for maps to be placed. This allows for some background storyline too (like in UT, if anyone read all the map descriptions there is quite a nice story to be put together there).

heres what radiant comes with


although a separate ... and less important project ... would be to change the way we are using skys ...
instead of relying on the hills in the skybox ... the sky should really just be sky ... and hills should be built with brushes/meshes in the skybox entity (like redplanet ... although they may just be out of player bounds ... not in the skybox entity specifically)

Ew man, we really need to get more skyboxes! I wonder if I could ever man up and make some. Also I think that we should consolidate the weapon artstyle for the introduction of the lightning gun so that we can get a more consistent style across.

I have a half done tutorial on the wiki of hour to make blender render a sky ... but that mentions making hills and such ... something that shouldn't be in the skybox texture ...


If im correct ... lightning gun already has a solid concept ... (so does MG)
... So future weapons should be built to match the current laser/nex/LG/Minstanex ...

There ARE more skyboxes! The Osirion ones! Althought all of them are quite bare, without features like asteroids, they are good. At least as backgrounds.

http://www.3delyvisions.com/skf1.htm

License CC-by, e.g. should be possible to include in Xonotic. Also links to a tutorial how to make skyboxes in Bruce.

it really depends on the specific type of CC
they might not be compatible with gpl

but ... do we need new skys? ... what maps are in need of new skys? ...
what new sky's would we use?

besides the dance one .... that sky has problems

As CC-by isn't copyleft, it is possible to combine with GPL artwork, but IANAL.

but all of xonotic is released as gpl ... so it would have to be able to be converted to a gpl liscence ....
there are many different cc licenses with their own rules ...

Not strictly speaking as there is a "mere aggregation" clause in the GPL which is generally considered to apply for games. But I am sure if we contact the original author of these, it will be no problem to relicense the skyboxed to GPL too to keep everything clearly GPL.

yeah ... thats what you would have to do (for example ... this is what happened with the exx texture set)

Not strictly speaking as there is a "mere aggregation" clause in the GPL which is generally considered to apply for games. But I am sure if we contact the original author of these, it will be no problem to relicense the skyboxed to GPL too to keep everything clearly GPL.

According to our licensing guidelines, CC-By should be alright. I suggest you ask divVerent on irc about this if he's available (and update this thread if you find out!)

That's what I thought, perfect then The space skybox on that site would fit perfectly in Xonotic!

Those skyboxes look awesome! I personally like the ones looking like some kind of barren planets.