My new UT2K3 map screens

[Wild Falkon]

Feedback would be cool. (http://wildfalcon.iwarp.com/photo2.html)

[Bean]

questions/comments:

1. is it easily accessable from one rock formation to another back and forth?
2. make sure you set bhighdetailonly to far out trees so low-end systems can enjoy the map.
3. maybe add some crud on the water cubemap using a shader?
4. make sure you have a fluidsurfaceoccillator by the waterfall so the water moves whenthe waterfall hits it (if you are using fluidsurfaceinfo)
5. i would make the bases a tad bigger of it's gonna get crowded in there.
6. third screen, lower left corner... plant clipping into the tree?
7. make sure the trees dont impede the flow of the map.
8. to give more pleasing terrain light, add a sunlight actor up top to give a cool shade across the terrain.
9. im sure some trees would give shadows? fire up those projectors!

that's what ive gathered from the screens. looking good man, keep it up!

[widowmaker]

It looks good. It is hard to tell what the scale is from the screen shots though. Are the rock formations of the bases about the hieght of a character, higher or lower?

Is the gap between the rock formations in screen #1 a jumpable gap or is it an impossible leap that requires the xloc?

The water is too shiny, it looks like a mirror. I must admit that Digital Extremes was guilty of that too. Water can be shiny but not to the point you cannot see into it.

[Wild Falkon]

Originally posted by Bean:
questions/comments:

1. is it easily accessable from one rock formation to another back and forth?
2. make sure you set bhighdetailonly to far out trees so low-end systems can enjoy the map.
3. maybe add some crud on the water cubemap using a shader?
4. make sure you have a fluidsurfaceoccillator by the waterfall so the water moves whenthe waterfall hits it (if you are using fluidsurfaceinfo)
5. i would make the bases a tad bigger of it's gonna get crowded in there.
6. third screen, lower left corner... plant clipping into the tree?
7. make sure the trees dont impede the flow of the map.
8. to give more pleasing terrain light, add a sunlight actor up top to give a cool shade across the terrain.
9. im sure some trees would give shadows? fire up those projectors!

that's what ive gathered from the screens. looking good man, keep it up! <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">1. Kind of. I made the scale of the rocks fit so that it would require a double-jump to get to the upper elevations, but I've put other rocks and trees to block the players from going all over the map. You can walk above the rocks, but you cannot get at a real advantage, because you are perched close to the edges the entire time, and other enemies can spot you if you're on the top elevations.

2. Will do.

3. One note - that 'river' is actually a waterfall. If you fall in, the current will push you away and off a massive waterfall, as seen in CTF-LostFaith, which is why I wouldn't put any algae on the water unless it was panning. I will be putting a panning texture on the water to make it 'move'.

4. I haven't been successful with FluidSurfaces yet, but I fully intend to put one there so that the water ripples by the waterfall. That surface is actually a static mesh.

5. I thought so too, and I plan on working on that. Glad someone else feels the same way images/icons/tongue.gif

6. It's a DecoLayer. I'll try to put some creative mesh placement so that as few plants as possible clip into the other surfaces.

7. I've placed the trees as far off the main paths as possible. It doesn't hinder too much right now, but that's something I'm trying to polish at the moment.

8. Blech. I tried the Sunlight actor, but it left the shadows really, really blocky. If there's a way around that, I'd really appreciate to know.

9. Oh, I did fire up those projectors. And they sent the frame rate to hell. It looked reallygood however when they were in. I'm going to optimize the level as much as I can, then put in the projectors. But you're right, it would look much prettier if they were in.

Thanks for all the feedback, guys.

[Wild Falkon]

Originally posted by widowmaker:
It looks good. It is hard to tell what the scale is from the screen shots though. Are the rock formations of the bases about the hieght of a character, higher or lower?

Is the gap between the rock formations in screen #1 a jumpable gap or is it an impossible leap that requires the xloc?

The water is too shiny, it looks like a mirror. I must admit that Digital Extremes was guilty of that too. Water can be shiny but not to the point you cannot see into it. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That gap is impossible to double-jump. It's the gap between the two bases, but there's actually 3 areas to cross over. There's that bridge, the waterfall is walkable, and there's an unseen area where there's another land bridge.

I'll work on setting the water to a more transparent hue.
Oh, one more thing - anyone know how to have terrain in a WaterVolume be foggy? Mine doesn't have the blue DistanceFog displayed on it, and it looks really awkward.

[Bean]

the watervolume fog should render auto, try deleting the volume and re adding it.

[Daedalus]

Looks good. Did you use the terrain editor of UnrealEd 3.0 to build it?

[JSB]

Yeah. Did ya?

[Wild Falkon]

Yep.

And it is easily one of the coolest and best terrain editors I've ever worked with.

[Wild Falkon]

I just got the FluidSurface working, complete with transparency, panning water, and character collisions. It's absolutely hillarious when you see an enemy fall in, watch him float away, see him dip down and disappear, then finally see the death message that he just spawned.

images/icons/grin.gif

[Wild Falkon]

Originally posted by Bean:
the watervolume fog should render auto, try deleting the volume and re adding it. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It does render the other meshes and objects and brushes with the fog, but not the terrain. It's really weird - but I think that this is an engine problem - in Facing Worlds, the pools don't render the terrain blue there, either.

[Tip]

Having trees growing out of rocks just looks entirely wrong.
Other than that it looks pretty nice, but its hard to judge a map on screenshots.

[Wild Falkon]

Originally posted by Tip:
Having trees growing out of rocks just looks entirely wrong.
Other than that it looks pretty nice, but its hard to judge a map on screenshots. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've been looking at ways around that as well. I may make roots jut out from the trees and brace over the rocks to make them look more natural and 'in-place'.

I'm just trying to optimize this sucker so it plays really well, and that will take some time, but I hope to release it soon, so you can see the gameplay on this thing - it really does have a distinct feel and pace that makes this a very enjoyable map to me, personally.

Thanks for the honest feedback.

[MrEricSir]

Looks awesome!

Would you say that UnrealEd 3.0 is better than 2.0? Easier, more difficult, etc?

[Wild Falkon]

I'd say it's at the same skill level, but it's like moving from a set of 2 screwdrivers and 5 wrenches to an auto-mechanic's garage - there's so many more tools and refinements that it's hard to come up with something less spectacular than your first tool set.

[Wild Falkon]

I got two screenshots of the water and the waterfall here. (http://wildfalcon.iwarp.com/photo3.html)