Battle of Geonosis - Siege

Well here we have a Siege map that I’m sure many of you will like. Its based off the Geonosis Arena from Episode 2. This was an FFA map: http://jediknight2.filefront.com/file/Battle_of_Geonosis;48974 however the author has converted it to siege :)

As far as I can see it is much the same as the FFA version, with the addition of locks on the doors leading to the Siege objective (you didn’t expect to just be able to walk through did you? :P). Also the FPS is much better, and the lighting appears to be slightly different (personally I liked the lighting better before, it was more orangy and kinda fit with the setting better). Also there has been a change of skybox, which I must say looks very good, for a base JKA skybox it fits very well with the Geonosis setting!

Let me get to the main point of this map though, sure it’s a siege map, but its special because there is only ONE objective. This is the only siege map that I have ever seen that only has one objective. What this would play like in a siege game I don’t really know, I would imagine that it would be fast paced and frenzied! Seeing as there’s only one objective to capture / defend to win the game. There are a couple of ways into the objective room, so I would imagine it would be great fun (and tough) to try and get in / defend that room!

Now onto the rest of the map. Overall this is a very nice map, theres plenty of nice details that really give it that Geonosis arena feeling. From the main arena you must either jump up to the next level or walk through very narrow steep passages, which im sure would be interesting places to try and get through in the middle of a battle.

There are a few things that could do with fixing though, one would be that there are a few weird looking shadows around. Now, I believe these may have been caused by the author using phong shader/textures. Remember, if you use a phong shader on a surface that has been clipped in too many places (for instace if there are a lot of cuts going through eachother) then that can sometimes throw up weird looking lighting/shadows in that area. Overall the shadows arent too bad, its just in a few places they look a bit strange.

One other thing also to do with the lighting would be the passageways that you must climb to reach the various levels of the arena. The passageways are all very bright inside, which looks a bit strange considering that there are no light sources to make that light :S Also the floor is very dark in contrast to the walls, which may have been caused by the phong texture/shaders the author used. To improve this you could maybe use a texture that isnt attatched to a phong shader for the floor, and also have maybe some kind of light source inside. You could use one of the base JKA models, they look a little like landing strip lights. You can find this model in the misc_model/map_objects/desert folder, the model itself is called landing_light.

If you find that this model is a bit big for the passage ways you could just scale it down. To anyone who doesn’t know how to change the sizes of models, all you need to do is select the model and press the N key to get the entity window up. Then in the Key bit, put: modelscale and in the value bit put the number that you want to scale the model up/down by. For instance 2 would make the model twice the size, and 0.5 would make it half the size. :)

Overall this map is nicely made, and is a pretty good representation of the Geonosis arena from Episode 2! The single siege objective should certainly make for some interesting games, so if you like the look of it, give it a download! ;)

Bot Support: No New Textures: No New Sounds: No New Music: Yes Game Types: Siege

~Nozyspy~

(Also included are skins of people who appeared at the Arena, including some Clones, Count Dooku and Kit Fisto, made by various authors. It definitely gives the map even more of a Geonosis arena feeling when you play with these skins! ;) )