Temple of the Massassi

Description
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Normally, as per our submission rules, we would not accept a map submitted by someone that was in fact made by another author after being converted over to Jedi Academy from a different game that it was originally made for, but here we have a very special exception.

Some of you may be familiar with the Temple of the Massassi, or in its original guise, Pyramid of the Magician. The JKA map has been floating around the net for a long time now; it was originally converted by persons unknown from the Quake III Arena source files released by its original author, mapping genius [url=http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design/maps_q3/pom.htm]Simon 'Sock' O'Callaghan[/url]. And when I say genius, I really do mean that. I know we have had amazing mappers like Darth Norman and Sith J Cull here over the years, but Sock's work is of a level which I do not think any map released here has ever been able to match. Seriously, go to the link above and check out his work (he also has some excellent tutorials on some more advanced mapping features)!

Anyway, at first I was going to reject this map as per our rules, however it would be a shame to deny this map an 'official' presence on a JKA modding site, and so I emailed Sock to ask him what he wanted me to do with the map, and to my great surprise he said he was absolutely fine with it. That's extremely good of you Sock! So since the submitter did not make the map I think I should review this on its own merits as though it has had a few changes in the conversion over from its original source material, it is largely the same map.

So, why is this map so incredible? Perhaps the stand out feature is the naturalness of the terrain and cavern systems. In more modern games we are spoiled with fantastic visuals made from high poly models and high resolution bump mapped textures, but getting natural looking terrain and caves in the older Q3 engine is not that easy and takes a lot of practice. Add to that the amazing dot2product terrain texture blending between the grass and the rock walls and other areas and this is just about the most realistic and natural looking terrain I think it is possible to get with the Q3 engine.

The map itself is not massive, rather it is medium sized but seems much bigger because of the caves and multiple levels accessible via holes in the cave roof and jump pads below which provide an interesting form of vertical transportation! The sounds they produce are also quite amusing... doiinngg!

That brings me onto the ambient sounds, or which there are many; birds and insects chirping and singing away in quite a cacophony. There is no music with this conversion unfortunately, I don’t know whether the original map had any music, but I think some music from the Indiana Jones films would fit right in with this map, especially when you come across the Temple/Pyramid itself. Though it is fairly small it fits snugly into the environment and blends in brilliantly.

The only real complaint I have with the original map is that the textures are a little low resolution. Don’t get me wrong, they look still look good, but with a map who’s structure and construction is this good it seems a shame that the textures aren’t a little sharper in their detail. Unfortunately one of the things that didn’t convert across when the map was converted to work with JKA is the skybox, which is now the default Yavin one. That said it actually fits pretty well with the map as does its new name; Temple of the Massassi. In fact, this whole area looks just like Yavin IV anyway.

Overall an absolutely amazing map, and it is great to finally, and legitimately have it up for download here on JKFiles. I want to say a big thank you to the submitter also; Jvins2289 for finding this map and putting it back in the spotlight!

If there is only one map you download this week, I think this is well worth that download. ;)

[b]Bot Support:[/b] Yes
[b]New Textures:[/b] Yes
[b]New Sounds:[/b] Yes
[b]New Music:[/b] No
[b]Game Types:[/b] FFA, TFFA, Duel

~Nozyspy~

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[b]*Edit* Sock told me that he believes the original conversion to Jedi Academy was made by Salinga![/b]