Nexuiz Ninjaz - Practicing the Ninja Art of Nexuiz

Nexuiz Ninjaz - 1st Year Anniversary Celebration!



Repackage, Remake, Reinspire Mapping Contest


Introduction

November 15th marks the day I posted the first news post on Nexuiz Ninjaz. Optimistic and inspiring, it sent out a positive message to those receptive to its energy. Together we found each other and have built all of this out of love for Nexuiz and hope for the future of our games. Together we have helped each other understand. Looking at problems from different perspectives and collaborating ideas on ways to solve them, using various toolz, such as this forum, the map repository, image hosting, training classes and many other methods.

Today, in celebration of the Nexuiz Ninjaz' one year anniversary, we seek to build and improve another aspect of the game. Something divVerent's hard work is surely deserving of. Updated, properly packaged, improved or otherwise remade maps. The options are pretty limitless within the limits of being properly packaged. That is to say the minimum requirement is to repackage a map but you go as far to remaking an existing map from scratch. It doesn't even have to be from this game!

Rules and Regulations
Please read the following information carefully if you wish to yield the highest points possible per submission

To compensate fort the varying abilities of current and future mappers, participants are allowed to submit as many maps as they'd like, this contest will be point based. Players will get 3 points for a properly packaged maps and an additional 4 points in 5 respective categories for level of improvement. Textures, Sounds, Music, Item Placement, Flow. Participants are allowed to collaborate with other ninjaz, upon submission just tell us how to divide the points.

Packaging
Proper packaging consists of the structure linked above which participants will receive 1 point. An additional point is available for including bot waypoints. The final point is for generating a mini map radar (used in SVN). This can be done with an SVN client with the command sv_cmd radarmap. that should generate a .xpm file which you can convert to .tga using software such as GIMP. Put this file should be called put in a "gfx" folder inside your pk3 with the name MAPNAME_radar.tga. For examples, gfx/whizardv1r4_radar.tga.

Textures
Textures will be graded on overall quality, creativity and usage. As this is a map remake contest, judges may consider your textures against the quality of the previous textures. This means, if you've got some sweet textures with awesome usage... but they were this way prior to your remake, you may not get many more points. Adversely, if they were total crap and you've improved them drastically you may be rewarded the full 4 points.

Sounds
Sounds will be judged based on usage, creativity and quality. The same sort of rules apply here as they do in all dimensions of this contest, we're judging based on improvements. If the map had no sounds and you've added some, you are guaranteed at least 1 point.


Music
Err what? Isn't music sound? Yes... it's a sound technically but music is very different in consideration to the map. It's often overlooked as many players don't play with their music on. There are a lot of music-less maps that could benefit from this added dimension to further build the environment. This will be judged on creativity and quality. LICENSING IS VERY IMPORTANT HERE. Make sure you're VERY clear about this. If you're unsure, it's best to use something available under the Creative Commons.

Item Placement
Item placement and creativity goes together a bit with flow. You don't want to put 40 rocket launchers inside the bases... it will essentially break game play. SVN has brought in New weapons. Using these new weapons creatively will earn you more points.

Flow
Flow has to do with the shape of the map, the hallways, the varying altitudes, the trick jumps, portals, jump pads etc. It's hard to explain exactly what it is, for me at least. It's more something that you feel. This will be based on opinion/experience of the judges. Check out other maps and figure out "that feeling".


PRIZES will be given for first, second and third place.
All 3 top placing contestants will win a custom edition mapjutsu guru t-shirt. Only three of these shirts will EVER be printed.

1st Prize: Mapjutsu Guru t-shirt, a Razer Diamondback and a forum award
2nd Prize: Mapjutsu Guru t-shirt, a Nexuiz Ninjaz t-shirt and a forum award
3rd Prize: Mapjutsu Guru t-shirt and a forum award



All participants are eligible for a Nexuiz Ninjaz t-shirt at the discount price of $15 (down from $20). You can help Nexuiz and help the Ninjaz by purchasing a shirt. All profits are reinvested into this site and it's services (which costs ~$100 a month to run). These prizes are being paid for out of my pocket. Shirts are provided by my Bostonian friends, We Print Shirts 4 Less who are sponsoring this contest making the cost a little less painful. These guys are an open-source based company (all software, OSes, and philosophy). They do a damn good job too. Dex Ter, one of the guys from We Print Shirts 4 Less, was kind enough to make a run to the store to pick up some quality black t-shirts last order I made (cause he was out) and printed them with one days notice, THE DAY BEFORE I needed them! How awesome is that?!?

Resources

You can ask questions or otherwise chat about the mapping contest in the #nn.contest channel on QuakeNet. For more specific mapping questions, you may want to check out #nexuiz.editing

Need help mapping? Check out [How-to] Making Your First Nexuiz Map for a REALLY basic proof of concept on getting a map in the game, [How-to] Begin mapping like a ninja for some more advanced information and ai's Mapping video tutorials for so me advanced methods. Grasshopper has posted a nice collection of mapping resources which are helpful as well.

Check out Mapjutsu and the AlienTrap Nexuiz - Editing Forum for more help, tips, tricks and prefabs.

NetRadiant by divVerent is the most up to data Nexuiz mapping program!
You can download a Windows Build Here. Linux users, read the thread for directions on compiling.

You should use this over GtkRadiant. It's a new and improved version.


End of the Road

Judges will be Dokujisan, esteel, C. Brutail, pavlvs and myself. Judging will be done during the duration of the contest which will work to mapper's benefits by getting offered advice on how to further improve their maps. DO NOT ABUSE THIS WITH LAZINESS. If we feel you are simply not trying, we will limit the amount of (re)submissions on a per user basis. If you're taking your work seriously, don't let this note scare you. We just don't want to waste time :). Judges are ineligible for prizes but they can earn as many points as they want.

With the holidays coming up and perhaps some skills to be learned, we want to give people ample time to ask their questions, collaborate and build their ideas. This competition will last 3 months.

The official end date of the contest is 2/15/09, that is Feburary 15th of 2009! No points will be awarded for maps submitted after this date!

Sounds exciting. Congratulations with this site -z-. I'd like to celebrate 1 year me playing Nexuiz too. That is next week.

I'll be participating, I just want to be clear- does the map have to be one of those things at the top, or are those just a suggestion for what one can do? Also, about the more than 1 map thing- if a person submits more than 1 map, will the points simply be added for the mapper's final score? Or will the scores for each map be separate?

Great work, -z-, you've really outdone yourself with this one. :D 3 months is a great amount of time, hopefully people will use it well.

It doesn't have to be any of the things above EXCEPT properly packaged. The remake/remix thing is just suggestions. There are a lot of great maps out there that a missing the little things here and there, the gentle touch of a good contributor could really bring about a lot of positive change and energy into the community. However, you may feel free to create brand new maps if that's what you prefer.

All points are totaled. You can submit as many maps as you'd like.

I submit arenaautomatica13 by request of shaggy (if it's elligible)
"Mike, you should enter the competition... "
https://cat2.optus.nu/nexuizserv/arenaautomatica13.pk3

It is a "remake" of a map I made for unreal and unrealtournament a long time ago called autoplay-arena. Ofcoruse, this one for nexuiz is better :)

Not sure if it's elligible because I spontaniously made it, not with the competition in mind.

There should be a minimum number of people participating before prizes are able to be aquired; that way there is sure to be many good contribs and thus people won't get discouraged from trying out.

Well the big reason for this contest is to raise awareness of proper packaging and begin to standardize the process. What defines a proper package is still a gray area, at least for me. You seem to do pretty well though. There are a few things I'd like to mention before excepting this but I think you're within bounds as I never set a start date. Though, I'm going to cap it a month from today.

Things I do know and would like to see (these aren't necessarily just for you to be aware of):
- mapcfg is deprecated, what's your stance on dropping this file?
- radar image should be included (no radar image?)
- sounds (no sounds?)
- music (no music?)
- flow (lacks flow)
- item placement (good start but scarce)

You added a porto which is nice :)

I will accept it but I'd like you to address at least a few of these things before we officially accept / judge it. I think we'll limit it to ~3 resubmissions per map but please try not to abuse this.

Thank you for your interest, good luck in the competition.

I'd like to see what others have to say about this.

Since it's a arena map rather than ctf/kh etc the radar image wouldn't be shown, so I didn't include it.

There is music, it uses nexuiz default music for this one (battle-insane) as I could find no other opensource fast music. It works on my laptop and the desktop, though these are both svn clients.

I always include a mapcfg so if someone has an ancient version of nexuiz and they download my map they will still beable to play it. The mapinfo is there too.

Speaking of proper packaging, there has been a sort of consensus to name revisions and versions of maps with the _v1r1 etc. suffix.

I actually did mention something about this when I was first writing my reply to mikee but apparently I deleted it somewhere along the way.

There are two things in respect to naming that I'd like to try and standardize in map packaging. The first, I don't think too many people will have a problem with is a "map-" prefix. I believe this will help keep the data directory cleaner and also it can act as a symbol of quality making a good reference for new mappers if we were to start the trend during this contest.

The second is the suffix that pavlvs has mentioned. I've already had this argument with mikee who is currently happy with his naming convention. I'm not sure if he's changed his mind since then but I do think it's for the common good if we can all suffix our maps with v#r#.

Great things are happening to nexuiz . this is good stuff .

Ithink the minimum amount of contestants wont be a problem for prize winnings .I have noticed that mapping is starting to take off a bitt more . So i dont think this will be a problem .
thanx -z- for going out of your way to supply prizes

The packaging _v#r# is i think the best way to keep things organized for many purposes . unless someone comes up with a more efficient way .

gawd i love nexuiz :)