Using this chart by Khreathor I learnt about the difference between the wait and delay keys. The delay is the area the light effects, the bigger the number the smaller the area. The Wait is the strength of the light source and again smaller numbers equal a stronger light. I continuously used this as a reference when making lighting changes. Generally I used 1 / 2 delay for torches and sall but denser light. Conversally I used 0 / 5 delay for the more general atmospheric lighting.
[WK 9-11] Lighting and Iterating
Leaks in the level
Getting the lighting in was really difficult because I'd compile the map from the editor but the lighting never seemed to change. After watching a few different youtube tutorials from dumptruck's Quake mapping series I realised he was pressing CTRL + C instead of CTRL + R in the compiling GUI.
This still didn't resolve the issue however pressing CTRL + C compiles the map and you can pause the compilier at each tool to see if there's any issues coming up. I decided to look up on some of the trenchbroom / quakedev forums and spoke to some modders on the Quake Mapping discord server to try and find an answer. One thing I found was that having gaps between the walls / floors / ceilings could be creating leaks in the level, which prevents you from compiling the lighting. One of the errors that kept popping up was that I had lots of leaks in the level. I did have some gaps in the walls of Cave A and I tried overlapping the walls with the lava because I read that the lava doesn't count as a "solid block". This solved the issue with the lighting not compiling.
Staircase
After I made Cave A larger there was this big empty space at the back. I thought it would be really cool if there was a big grand staircase here. The small platform at the corner was just too small and awkward since players kept getting stuck on the pillars.
I initially wanted to use the paths to make the staircases raise out of the lava however I couldn't figure out how to make the train move once and then stop.
When they corners are joined up the train continuously moves back and forth between them however when only one of the paths have a target the platform disappears. I decided to just finish the staircase and come back to the issue.
At first I was worried because I thought the castle like staircase would be out of place in the mine environment. I realised however that the dissonance was perfectly matched for the Quake style of blending fantasy elements with real world.
I decided to make the doors function on buttons to give the player more direction. The arrows direct the player towards doors they can enter. I also wanted the game to be less linear so I wanted to give players access to both areas from the start.
I did a few different iterations of the buttons because it was important that it's clear to the player they look like buttons and function as buttons. I found this texture with rivets in it, which to me, implied that there was sort of electrical connection. Indicating that it performs a function.
At first I made the buttons activate when the player gets within range of the button so the player doesn't have to waste ammo by shooting them however later I change this decision.
I made various small changes to the level just iterating on existing parts. Mostly the changes were around proportionality. After changing the size of some of the caves I realised that some of the proportions of varius features within the caves should also be changed.
In the top left I raised the height of the sky / roof because I realised it wouldn't make sense for the sky to be right there when the player is supposed to be in the pits of mines. In the top right I changed the shape of the entrance since the small height felt too claustrophobic and later I would remove the door entirely to give players a better perspective of the grand view of the cave.
I rearranged the space of the final boss cave and added in these boulders as cover spots. I preffered this arangement because it ment the player first sees the portal and moves towards it however they almost get ambushed by the appearance of the shambler hidden behind one of the boulders. It was also pretty impossible for the player to avoid the lightning from the shambler whern there was no cover to hide behind making it a bit unfair. The lights are set to a lower wait than in other caves, which makes it feel really dingy and contrast the brightness of the lightning attacks from both player and monster making the attacks feel more impactful.