The Jedi Knight 2 Community

Download: Permission granted by JaggedCougar, august 2015.

Title: Ca Bespin Clientside

Author: JaggedCougar

File size: 32.9 MB.

Release date: January 31 2010

There is no description availble, so instead I will provide the changelog for the map, as well as a review right after that.

Changelog: Review:
This Bespin clientside was created by JaggedCougar back in 2010, for use on the Ca and [DARK] servers. He made sure to not break any base areas of the map, except for removing a few boundaries on the rooftops, as well as on the tower, while instead adding most new content to completely new areas or inside the previously unused buildings of the base map, which is the approach any good mapper would/should take.

The map has a good variety of areas, such as a village meant for all out warfare, a duel arena, and even a part of Acrobat's "A-Mountain" challenge, as well as a few other minor areas such as a beach, a pool, a slide, and of course a bar. In Acrobat's challenge, which is meant to be beat using only force jump (Though you can obviously cheat and use force, or even team up with a friend, but real pro's make it to the top only using force jump), there is already a ton of replayability, as you will probably spend many hours and/or countless attempts making it to the top. The duel area have a simply design with great fps, and the rest of the areas can also provide a good bit of fun.

All in all this is by far the best and also most popular Bespin clientside that the game have ever had, and it will probably remain like that until the game one day dies out.

This map is a clear 10/10 in my book, both from a mapping perspective, but also on the fun factor, and I would even go as far as to say that this is a must have!

Screenshots:

THIS MODIFICATION IS NOT MADE, DISTRIBUTED, OR SUPPORTED BY ACTIVISION, RAVEN, OR LUCASARTS ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY LLC. ELEMENTS TM & © LUCASARTS ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY LLC AND/OR ITS LICENSORS.

I was very fascinated, when trying this some months ago, that anyone could connect to a server with this map, and not crash or have any issues if they didn't have it. So for those who has this map, it's like an expansion to Bespin in a very unique way. A totally new way (for me) to experience JK2.

This "clientside" has brought countless hours of fun and excitment to many of us.
Can't imagine bespin without it anymore. It feels so tiny without. :mrgreen:

May I ask how this modification was done? From what I know, decompiling doesn't really work well, but I remember eezstreet released some .map-files, one of which I believe was a version of ffa_bespin.

Tom Arrow wrote:May I ask how this modification was done? From what I know, decompiling doesn't really work well, but I remember eezstreet released some .map-files, one of which I believe was a version of ffa_bespin.

By decompiling the bsp and fixing all of the shaders again :mrgreen:

Damn, my respect.

There's this thing I've been wondering about ... whether it is possible to create better more atmospheric lightmaps with q3map2. For example, I read that q3map2 supports ambient occlusion. I know the size is limited to 256x256, but maybe something could be done to create a more atmospheric version of the map.

http://openarena.wikia.com/wiki/High_re ... _lightmaps
Haven't tried it but I probably wouldn't recommend it for multiplayer maps. There are many special cases for lightmaps in the engine (some mentioned in the article) and they would not work for external lightmaps.

I wonder how much work it would be to change the engine to support higher resolution lightmaps inside the BSP, say, up to 2048.

2 lines of code. But not compatible with old .bsp format.
On a quick look, probably you could come up with a .bsp format that would contain higher res lightmaps AND be compatible with old engines. Wonder if anyone did that already.

Cool. Worth trying. The other problem I see, tho, is that q3map2 does not support creating those bsps, so you would need to change that tool as well and I was not able to compile Radiant yet.

"Me"? ;-) If you give me some visually outstanding JK2/JKA map sources, I can make few comparison screenshots for starters.

Hah! No, I meant an impersonal 'you'.

I'm the wrong person for that. No idea how to create visually impressive maps, unfortunately. That is, I have no idea how to create maps at all. Used to do a handful for Unreal Tournament once, but never really did anything with Radiant.

Is cougar still around? I'd like to ask him something if he is

Shouldn't this be in Maps?

Boothand wrote: ↑03 Jul 2017, 16:11 Shouldn't this be in Maps?

Well, it is a clientside modification?

Only called so. It's a map + skin + broken arenas.txt scripts making other default maps being unvotable.

fau wrote: ↑03 Jul 2017, 19:03 Only called so.

Not a standalone map though? And yes, the bugs it carries is annoying and unknown to most

If it doesn't modify the QVMs I wouldn't call it a clientside, rather just a map needed to see all the things in for example the DARK server. Just feel it's a bit confusing to look for clientside mods, then find a map, or to look for this map but it's not in the maps section. Don't know about the skin though, why is a skin shipped with this in the first place?

Boothand wrote: ↑04 Jul 2017, 09:56 If it doesn't modify the QVMs I wouldn't call it a clientside, rather just a map needed to see all the things in for example the DARK server. Just feel it's a bit confusing to look for clientside mods, then find a map, or to look for this map but it's not in the maps section. Don't know about the skin though, why is a skin shipped with this in the first place?

When speaking of map modifications there are both serverside map modifications / additional content without any download requirement (Mainly just entity modifications/additions), e.g. Reborn's Deathstar serverside modification, or the Yavin found on DARK (Also made by Reborn), and then there's clientside modifications, which requires a clientside download to see the additional content, such as new rooms and other things, so while it is not a QVM clientside modification, it still fall into the same category.

As for the skin, JaggedCougar shipped it with his own skin, which is a stormtrooper officer with some serious bling going on, two "hilts" / swords, as well as a broken arena.txt file, which makes you unable to callvote a map change to most ffa maps. Aside from Fau having just recently told me about it after the latest Gun Game event, I am obviously not allowed to make modifications to JC's mod without his permission.

OK, fair enough.