Quake 3 Arena© mapping

Before I write something about my work in Quake 3 Arena©, I won’t forget to say that the roots of all modern computer games are based on one single programmer’s work. His name: John Carmack. Together with three others he founded the company „id-Software©“ on 1 February 1991. „id- Software©“ published the first 3D- first-person-shooter „Wolfenstein-3D©“ with an additional level- editor in May 1992. Its technical realization was pioneering, pathbreaking and revolutionary. This year (2016) they created the „Wolfenstein-3D-Engine©“. John Carmack developed many techniques too. For example the „scrolling“, which allows image movements on PCs. Through insisting on the realization of his ideas and the advance of new techniques he offered crucial support to the development of graphic accelerators. John Carmack permanently pushed the boundaries of technical possibilities. He is one of the most important people in the field of technical development and inventions. In 2001 he was admitted to the „ Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame “ and got a star on the „ Walk Of Fame “ in March 2006. Furthermore he got an Emmy and an honorary award on the Games Developers Conference in 2010. And last but not least in 2016 he got the Fellowship Award at the „ BAFTA Video Games Awards “. Maybe someone has noticed that he is involved in the development of the „Oculus-VR-headset©“ as well. Any player who plays a 3D-game today uses his roots. Beside a few other people, he got my deepest respect and greatest gratitude for his work and inspiration!

But why do I tell you all this? Well, the game Quake 3 Arena© is published by id-Software©, too. Like so many other things by John Carmack and id-Software©, this game set new standards and was used as benchmark for processor- and graphic performance for years. And it was my true root in realizing modifications for PC-games. If you read my previous period you know that my primary talent at this time was the editing of hexadecimal- or assembly codes. But with Quake 3 Arena© I found new enthusiasm in the modification of visual game content, because the game was also supported by an official level editor ( GTKRadiant ). Unfortunately almost all our old links in the internet are dead. This concerns: www.q3a.net www.betamap.de www.planetquake.de (can be found on www.inquake.de but contains no archived entries from 1999).

For my Quake 3© projects I have written an short shader tutorial, to archive the setup of my maps. With this game, I never tried cheating projects like for the former PlayStation© games, because it was the first one I also played on the internet as Multiplayer. The period from 1999 till 2002 seems long but I did not spend the same amount of time in mapping and scripting as for later projects. In 1999 I bought my first modern muscle car, a Chevrolet Camaro Z28© and of course spent a lot of time with its modification, too. Please never forget that in the 1990´s our whole life environment was completely different. Back then, we didn’t have mobile phones, Full-HD, TFT- or OLED-displays, fast internet connections and much more… I used a 56k analog-modem till the year 2000 and switched to 64k ISDN afterwards. It wasn’t until September 2002 that I got one of the new DSL-connections (T-DSL 1000). (Source for John Carmack´s details partially Wikipedia) Additionally a few pictures of my Quake 3 Arena© work below: