Interview with Lunitari, Quebecois Quake 2 mapmaker, 8-24-98, the day he released Space1WF to the public

August interview with Lunitari the day he released Space1WF to the public

WFD – We open the interview with the mandatory question: who are you and what do you do?

Lunitari – My name is Richard Gore and I work for a small ISP in Quebec, Canada. I am the system administrator there and also in charge of customer support. I have always like everything that touched computers but my 2 main interests are gaming and the networks. I am 27 years old and been playing with 3d shooter since the very first one. (Wolfeinstein) I made maps back some years ago for doom2. I didn’t get into mapmaking in Quake1 but decided to give it a shot in Quake2 :)

WFD – What prompted you to design the map lrun1?

Lunitari – Hmmm.. Many reasons. First, I was a BIG fan of Team Fortress. I always liked the detail you could add to a map to make the gameplay very different from one map to another. So I wanted to make a map involving many strategies and possibilities as well as beeing BIG enough to prevent a lone flag runner from capturing alone. That’s part of the second reason: Teamwork. Small maps don’t ususally require as much team work as big ones since the distance between the 2 flags is short. I tried to make the way very long but at the same time giving the player many different paths to follow the farther you get away from the enemy flag. My third and last reason is that I have a small system which can’t take too much pressure form a detailed or very open level. So I wanted to make a level optimizing the speed to the best of my abilities without sacrificing too much detail.

WFD – Approximately how much time did it take you to construct the map?

Lunitari – Roughly 120 hours. I have a certain personnal standard of quality and I didn’t want to release the map until I was satisfied with the result. You can add to that about 20-25 hours of thinking how I wanted the layout and basic gameplay of the map.This is also my 1st publicly released map so I took great care to squish all bugs and texture errors away.

WFD – How long did it take to compile the map?

Lunitari – On my small P166 with 32 Mb ram QBSP3 took about 40 minutes, QVIS3 took a little over 5 hours and QRAD3 took at least 3 and a half hour. That makes about 9 hours 10 minutes for the whole compile time. The compile time ususally lower the more you get mapping experience since you get to construct your levels very efficiently and clean. Also, Big levels like the Long Run tend to take much time to compile.

WFD – What were your feelings when you were asked to be an official map maker for WFS?

Lunitari – I was amazed! I thought my work was “ok” but Tom seemed to be impressed about what he saw when I presented to him a very much alpha of my map (it was in 2 separate files at that time if I remember correctly). So he asked me if I wanted to join the WF team. Like I said earlier I was a big fan of TF and seeing WF as the “Team Fortress” for Quake2 I could not let that chance pass. Also the guys on the team are all nice and we seem to get along very well for people who haven’t met each other :) It is always good to be part of a team that supports you.

WFD – Are there any maps you are currently working on? If so care to give us some details?

Lunitari – Hehehe… If you would have asked me that question 1 week ago I could not have told you anything unless I killed you after… :) Seriously, I just sent to Tom my new map called Spaceship Control. It is much smaller than The Long Run but I tried to keep an average size. The 2 bases are 2 parts of a Spaceship floating adrift is some remote region of space. You have a middle part that is composed of a Cargo hold with 2 facing sniper ledges. I also made 2 glassed tubes a bit like in lrun1wf but those are filled with water instead of air. There are only 2 ammo rooms instead of 3 in lrun1wf and the map has the same respawn system where you get to choose in which ammo room you will go. I hope everybody will like it!

WFD – Any tips you would like to give to other WF map makers?

Lunitari – Try to keep the face count low!!! That’s the first priority any mapmaker should have in mind. Low poly count makes a good, fluid gameplay for everyone even when there is 3-4 players fighting in the same room. Try to work with textures instead of detailed architectures. Sometimes textures have a way of making you believe what you see is actually structure.. not a simple 1 or 2 block wall with 1 or 2 textures on it. Light levels also help to create a “mood” to your map. Add some ambient sounds to that and you have a nice feeling when you play the map.

WFD – Any parting comments?

Lunitari – I really appreciate the support I get form all the WF team and sites like yours. The only reward I need for the maps I make are good games played in them and some ppl on the server saying “Hey Luni! Great map!” I must say I have been really pleased at the feedback I got from the Long Run and that encourages me to work on more. I love making maps and I will continue as long as time permits it :) Thanks a lot Sean!