DM-HardFall-RC2
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A Level for UT3.
This is a release candidate but not yet the final release.
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General Info
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Title: DM-HardFall-RC2
Filename: DM-HardFall-RC2.zip
Author: Jesse [SuperAlgae] Banet
Email: [email][email protected][/email]
Release Date: 2010 Jan 20
Version: 1.0.0 RC2
Compatibility: Any version of UT3. This does not require any bonus packs.
Suggested Player Count: 6 to 12 for DM. For Team DM, 10 to 18 is more
reasonable.
Credits:
Thanks to the people on the 3D Buzz and BeyondUnreal forums for feedback
and help.
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Story
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Thanks to some seats Liandri acquired on the local antiquities board, they
were able to gain rights to a historic building in sprawling downtown Akron.
Its rooftop garden along with adjacent buildings made a perfect opportunity
for some cross-rooftop jump-pad madness. But if you don't like the idea of
flying across urban canyons, don't worry. The rooftops have plenty of less
precarious areas as well.
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Author's Comments
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This is a release candidate of DM-HardFall for the purpose of community
testing and feedback. If no significant issues are found, then this will
become the final release with little or no change.
The story describes a future where the small towns of today have become
massive cities. In regard to the "historic building" at the center of the
map, I designed it to have a rooftop garden like something more generally
found at ground level. Perhaps it was once a park occupying valuable real
estate, and when the space was needed, the park was preserved by placing
it atop the new building constructed there. Of course, under the the
Liandri regime, preservation of landmarks now takes a lower priority.
There are two buildings whose rooftops can be fully traversed and two
others with small areas accessible. The two primary buildings are the
historic "garden" building described above and a smaller building referred
to as the "radio" building due to a radio dish and antenna on top. The main
play areas get a lot of traffic, but there are also a lot of more isolated
areas including small ledges around the garden building. The major power-ups
are the U-Damage, Berserk, and Shield Belt. Getting the U-Damage is
straightforward, but it requires two double-jumps (similar to DM-ShangriLa).
The Berserk is isolated on a small ledge. The Shield Belt is on a rafter
that is accessible in three different ways but none of which are obvious.
This map was started as an entry for the 3D Buzz UT3 Old School Contest.
The goal was to create a map using only stock assets. They wanted to show
that high quality, unique maps could still be created for UT3 in the way so
many were done for the original UT-- using just the Unreal Editor with no
expertise required in external tools. By the deadline, I had gotten a lot of
work done but not enough to release. Once I was no longer on a short
schedule I went back and added a lot more detail to the map. I have been
working on the map on and off for more than a year since then. In the end, I
am glad I did rush it, because the map is much better for it. Even though I
did not complete the map for the contest, I stuck to the original guidelines.
Except for a couple basic textures (like the preview screenshot), everything
was created using only the Unreal Editor and stock assets.
I wanted to create a map with more of an original UT feel than most UT3
maps. This meant more BSP and heavier use of cast shadows (a strength of
BSP). However, I did not abandon the strengths of the UT3 engine. The map
contains more than 2000 static meshes and many customized materials.
There is a lot of deco, but it does not cover every inch of space. The map
has a cleaner look than most stock UT3 maps. This was surprisingly difficult
at times given that this is an urban map, and those stock assets tend to be
heavily grungified. If you like the look of the map but find it looks
nothing like UT3, then I am happy with that result.
The following forum threads follow the map's creation.
[url]http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=167492[/url]
[url]http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t=180996[/url]
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Technical Notes
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These are distinctive technical elements of the map. Some of this is also
covered in the threads linked above.
- BSP BSP BSP -
As mentioned above, this has a lot of BSP for a UT3 map-- 1386 brushes to
be exact. I have been impressed with how well UT3 handles large amounts of
BSP. For a game that focuses so much on static meshes, the BSP engine is
very robust. I have hit none of the BSP hole issues I remember from my days
of UT1 mapping. The biggest problem I have hit is that BSP cuts sometimes
create hard edges in the light/shadow maps. By playing with the brush order
I removed most of those, and I covered the remaining ones with various
static mesh deco.
- Extra Sunlight Channels for Contrast -
Early on, I noticed that the effect of sunlight on BSP looked very flat. Any
surface getting light from the sun seemed to be about the same brightness
with little variation for of angle of incidence. Maybe this is realistic,
maybe not, but it looked bad regardless. The best way I found to fix this was
to create a couple extra copies of my sunlight source on special channels
with varying brightness. In addition to the base sunlight (on the usual
channels), surfaces facing more directly toward the sun have an extra
channel enabled to brighten them. To achieve this, I manually set extra
channels on about a third of all my outdoor BSP surfaces.
- Radiosity -
In the real world, light bouncing off a surface lights up the area around
it. This is particularly true if the light source is bright as with sunlight.
Since this effect is not modeled by UT3, it is common for map authors to
place dim lights on brightly lit surfaces to approximate the reflected
light. With so much of DM-HardFall bathed in high-contrast sunlight, I use
more than 350 such "bounce lights". This gives a realistic effect of light
"filling" the space. To help avoid undesired lighting artifacts, I use 89
degree spotlights rather than regular point lights. I also enable only the
BSP and Static channels to minimize any performance impact.
- Light-Catching Dust -
The rear hallway in the lower level of the radio building has has a moving
dust effect. In addition to the usual light cones, there is also a subtle
dust/fog effect through the rest of the hall. I used a grid of sheets with a
material that disappears at shallow angles and as you get close. I also used
DepthBiasedAlpha to prevent hard edges where it intersects geometry.
These techiniques are pretty common, but my implementation differs in that
it actually catches the light by using the diffuse and transmissive channels
rather than just being emissive.
- Custom Materials -
It may not be obvious, but DM-HardFall contains 77 customized materials and
24 material instances. Some are just tweaks of stock materials, and some
are more ambitious. All textures used are stock, with the exception of one
reflection map and one sine wave. I use the sine wave texture in a couple
corrugated metal materials instead of using a Cosine expression with
TextureCoordinate input. The advantage is that the mip map levels of the
texture reduce moire effects as compared to using an expression.
- Kismet Traffic -
If you look at the streets below the play area, you will see moving traffic.
There are a dozen cars driving in various loops. I kept the number small to
avoid potential performance impacts. Also, despite appearances, the cars are
not lit by the map's normal sunlight (directional lights). Enabling the
dynamic channel on those hurts performance too much. The cars are
actually lit by smaller-radii dynamic lights placed above the road.
- Kismet Sound Enhancements -
In addition to the 260 ambient sounds in the map, there are also some
kismet-triggered sound effects. The jump pad to the shield belt sends the
player flying over several rafters. Via kismet, you hear a whoosh sound as
you pass each one. Another jump pad sends the player high into the air to
land in water on the opposite side of the map. When entering the water at
high speed, kismet creates a louder, more convincing splash sound.
- Meshes Built in the Editor -
As mentioned above, I stuck with the guidelines of the 3D Buzz contest and
created no content outside the UT3 editor. This means I have no externally
created meshes. However, I did create some custom meshes within the UT3
editor by converting from BSP. This is not an ideal way to create meshes,
and the conversion process has some problems with rotated materials, but it
can be done. A good example is the lift in the radio building.
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Installation
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Unzip DM-HardFall-RC2.zip
Move all files into C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents\My
Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Published\CookedPC\CustomMaps
If the directory does not exist, create it manually.
Type "open DM-HardFall-RC2" in the console, or select the level in a
multiplayer/instant action game.
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Copyright / Permissions
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This level is copyright 2008-2010, by Jesse Banet.
Authors MAY NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels without
explicit permission from the original author.
ANY bug fixes, fixes, changes, and tweaks may only be implemented by the
author. No other person or party is allowed to release a modified version of
this map without the author's permission.
You MAY NOT charge any money for this map or any of its embedded
content.
You MAY distribute this level through any electronic media (internet
(web/ftp), FIDO, local BBS, Magazine coverdisk etc.), provided you include
this file.
All other trademarks and trade names are properties of their respective
owners.
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and I'm glad you like it.
