DM-Quatro08 Beta [PC][PICS][DOWNLOAD]

[Firefly]

See what you think.





More pics here

PC Download
PS3 Download
Big thanks to Ionium for doing the cooking.


Current issues i know about

1. The Sky Dome isn’t scaled properly yet.
2. There are two areas of concrete walkway on the top level. These will snag.
3. The shadows on some of the meshes aren’t quite right. (i could do with a hand on these).

Big, big thank you

EDIT: PS3 beta available above

[Ionium]

I can cook it for PS3 for you, if you'd give me the uncooked version. Zip it up, upload to sendspace.com, is easiest.

[Interbellum]

I'll check it out, but based on the pics it looks solid though maybe a little generic. This could be fixed by, for example, adding a visually impressive, interactive trap. Way too few trap maps nowadays...

[Firefly]

Cheers Ionium, i'm on it

Cheers Interbellum
Yeh, I know it's pretty generic. I was trying to catch up with the new editor. I last mapped for UT99. Next map will be more custom and interactive. I like trap maps.

[M.A.D.X.W]

Originally Posted by Interbellum

I'll check it out, but based on the pics it looks solid though maybe a little generic. This could be fixed by, for example, adding a visually impressive, interactive trap. Way too few trap maps nowadays...

Then you will like my map it will have three environmental traps; once complete, triggered at random

~I like the map firefly; might download when i get home

[Interbellum]

Originally Posted by Firefly

Yeh, I know it's pretty generic. I was trying to catch up with the new editor. I last mapped for UT99. Next map will be more custom and interactive. I like trap maps.

Ah, cool! Some random suggestions: beast (Krall) pit, stake pit, impaling stinger shards that shoot from walls or other places, electrified water (in a pool around the DD, Deemer etc.), breakable glass with toxic goo.

Originally Posted by M.A.D.X.W

Then you will like my map it will have three environmental traps; once complete, triggered at random

When it rains, it poors.

[Firefly]

I did two trap maps for ut99, DM-Brickdust and DM-Sacrifice if you're interested.

[Interbellum]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I did two trap maps for ut99, DM-Brickdust and DM-Sacrifice if you're interested.

I don't have UT99 installed on my current rig, but if/when I reinstall (got to find that damn disc first, and will it even run on Vista?), I'll be sure to check them out.

[Firefly]

does anybody else find it too dark?

[M.A.D.X.W]

Originally Posted by Interbellum

I don't have UT99 installed on my current rig, but if/when I reinstall (got to find that damn disc first, and will it even run on Vista?), I'll be sure to check them out.

Yeah it works on Vista.

[M.A.D.X.W]

Originally Posted by Firefly

does anybody else find it too dark?

I like the lighting, its either got to be dark or really bright, to be cool and interesting; yours is pretty dark and i like it!

[Firefly]

cool. i think it's a preference thing.

[_N_]

Originally Posted by Firefly

does anybody else find it too dark?

I wouldn't say the lighting issue is that it's too dark but rather that it has a few too many "black patches" (i.e. areas where it's pitch-black without a single (virtual) photon of light bouncing off anything). These spots kind of stuck-out to me as unrealistic a bit because, in reality, no matter how dark a room is, if there are lights in the room, even the underside your desk will have at least a tiny bit of ambient light bouncing off of it.

The only change I would recommend is to add an ambient light (i.e. a Skylight actor) to your map to mimic this effect. I tried adding a skylight in the editor and tweaked various settings and found that a skylight actor with a very small brightness of only 0.125 with a shift towards blue (I used RGB values of 192,192,255) really enhanced the level. All these details that I never knew existed suddenly came into view . It felt like I was looking at a whole brand new version of the map!

I definitely wouldn't make the skylight too bright though, because then you start running the risk of making the lighting bland and removing contrast. Also, the amount of blue should be tweaked according to how interesting you want to make the shadowy areas. Too much blue will probably look a little silly, whereas no colour again looks kind of bland.

Other than the lighting though, the map feels like it would fit right in with the stock UT3 maps. The layout and quality are right up there. The only gameplay concern is that there are a few areas in need of collision volumes. For example, I got knocked over the railing in that big "wall of pipes" room and got trapped in the water there between the railing and the wall.

Overall, great job though. What's next in your mapping plans?

[Firefly]

Thanks for the response and compliments.

I've tried adding a skylight but the editor seems to hang when rebuilding. How long does it normally take? Without a skylight it takes less than five minutes. Does it matter that it's a subtractive map?
I'll try again with your suggestion though.

There's already a collision volume there. obviously I'll look at that. cheers

future plans include brushing up on blender and creating a completely original vctf (or possibly war) map.

cheers again

[_N_]

Originally Posted by Firefly

Thanks for the response and compliments.

I've tried adding a skylight but the editor seems to hang when rebuilding. How long does it normally take? Without a skylight it takes less than five minutes. Does it matter that it's a subtractive map?

Aww dang, yeah... I recall reading somewhere that skylights (and maybe directional lights too) don't work properly if you made your map "subtractive". Every site I've seen suggests that, even for completely indoor maps, you _always_ want to make your map additive, otherwise you'll run into unforseen issues down the road (like so ). Given that your map has a gigantic (non-playable) outdoor area, I'm kinda surprised to hear that it's subtractive. Either way, you just need to make a new additive map and copy-paste all your stuff into it.

Originally Posted by Firefly

Thanks for the response and compliments.
Future plans include brushing up on blender and creating a completely original vctf (or possibly war) map.

cheers again

Awesome, after making a couple DM and CTF maps, I too switched over to WAR and VCTF, and have never gone back! Although, I have to say that given their scale, they tend to take quite a bit longer and performance is always a much larger concern, but in terms of Epic-ness nothing beats a vehicular map . It's also important to play the gametype quite a bit online to find out what players like or dislike in maps, but I suppose that's true for any gametype.

[RennyManJr]

Originally Posted by Firefly

does anybody else find it too dark?

/me raises hand

I know that the map is still wip, but there are some spots that are pitch black in my screen, especially on the flak room and up on the second floor. I also found out by mistake that there's a corridor from the udamage to the jump pad because it's almost impossibile to see it right now
Damn, it would be cool to have it bright like the old Quatro, but i understand that liandri tech works better in a darker environment.

I also found a lots of areas that have collision problem. Especially those narrow doors on the attached image, if you are not perfectly on the center it's really easy to get stuck. Even those two small steps you added here are not very comfortable, i believe it would work best if you remove them making the slope reach that platform.

[Firefly]

thanks again
the reason its subtractive is because I used this convertor. It needs a blank subtractive map to work.

I'll try CnPing stuff over. At least this will clean up the bsp
cheers

[Firefly]

RennyManJr
Cheers for the feedback
Instaposted me

I thought those doors had been fixed. I might redo them completely.
It will be brighter when it's finished. I think that convertor I used has caused some of the problems.

Cheers again

[cooloola]

Originally Posted by Firefly

RennyManJr
Cheers for the feedback
Instaposted me

I thought those doors had been fixed. I might redo them completely.
It will be brighter when it's finished. I think that convertor I used has caused some of the problems.

Cheers again

I'll test this tomorrow, but the LT theme is killing the lighting, you can either mess with post processing to enhance the colors or make the materials brighter, because from what i see you have a nice lighting scheme and it's a shame to waste it on such dark testures.