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2-3-2004 - too early in the morning update
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I'm tired. It's 7:30am and I can now go to bed because ut_cahos is officially released! All you early birds can
grab it from the pond. If you can host the file that is appreciated. Fight some bots and check it out for yourself!
Ok so I've decided to get back into mapping, since I found myself on the pub server a bit more often. I've been
doing some thinking about ut_superman, looking at ut_temple, and finishing up ut_cahos. The word is officially that
Urban Terror will move to the Enemy Territory engine. I think this is a good move, of course there will be some
growing pains. For all you mappers or people that have technical interest in UrT, check the .txt link in the pond,
consisting of an irc chat with ydnar, dragonne, and everyone in #urbanmappers. It's especially useful for mappers.
Hopefully I'll have cahos ready for a new release by the end of tonight. The bleeding edge of development is lurking
around irc as updates happen, so if you're not there, I'll have something up here regarding the progress of cahos
by tomorrow.
Here I am, looking into the distance. No time for game development for a while. Why? I have to concentrate on
investing. I'm taking some business classes soon, I have books to read, I have research to do. It sucks having
to step away from these things that I like to do, map making and such, but dammit, the neccessities have taken
priority. So for a while there probably won't be updates here.
Turning investing into income. Ugh, what a friggin task. So much to do, so little time. See you around.
I'm about to release ut_cahos_beta2. Seems like there's a lot of excitement over cahos! You can grab
the pk3 from the pond here, but grab it from fsk ftp please so I can use my cable connection ;)
CaHos now supports CTF. This will be a welcome addition especially in the CTF community where I dwell.
Everything has been retextured. The bases have been gutted. The lights in the water now correspond to the
teams' color they reside in. Still have some small additions before I release the final. Try beta2 today!
Don't have a lot of time at the moment, but here's the deal. Dip into the pond and pull out ut_cahos_beta1.pk3. This
is my first of three planned fun maps. This map currently only supports capture and hold (and FFA/TDM). The map was
not created for CTF. This is the test release, pending what feedback I get, I will then release the final version.
Have fun!
Today marks the end of 2k3. Go out and have fun, or stay in and relax. Whatever works for you. 2004 shall be the year
of productivity. I've been preparing for almost a month now to get this new year started right. It will be a bit
of a struggle to stay on top of things, but all worth it in the end. GL and HF 2k4!
Now, here comes the candy. Screenies of a couple areas from ut_temple2!
Standing around by what was the statue
Under the well (new area)
Beautiful sky view of the main watercourse
With fps, and you can see the new area up top
The temple, still working on this though
Another late night. 7am. Not my fault this time. I'm currently doing a compile using new GtkRadiant 1.4. I like it so far.
However I am having one problem with it. Minor, but annoying.
I'm also getting used to my new Logitech MX700 mouse. It's really nice for a cordless. It's heavy though... getting used to
a weighty mouse vs the feather weight basic Logitech optical has been quite a challenge. Also turning off mouse precision in
Windows has added some new obsticals as well. Instead of having to move the mouse a few pixels to get the cursor to move,
now the cursor is free, which creates yet another learning curve. Bleh.
I was thinking about the possibility of releasing temple2 alpha 1 to get some immediate feedback on people's opinions. It
would not be meant to be played of course.
I've been so busy lately... trying to learn a lot about stocks, money market, etc, so I can have $$$ to fund my exploits.
That's taken away a lot of current time to map, but necessary if I'm going to continue to map.
FSK405 Kag is getting pretty deep into mapping now. I've seen some of his current work for a "ferris wheel" for ut_superman.
I'm impressed thus far. He had scrapped his first, and is working on a darker, more tense version. It will fit the visual theme
for superman. What's the theme? Similar to a Gotham city feel. I'll give you more details on this later.
Lastly tonight/this morning, I've been hulling up areas of temple2 for better -vis. Instead of areas that are built one
could potentially see if looking over the edge of another area (looking over brushes that you weren't supposed to), I've
added caulk brushes from edges of rooms and areas that enclose the entire area. So far in tests this has helped -vis
tremendously, and even in places I haven't gotten around to hinting yet, fps is raising up quickly. I like that, you
should like that too. :)
Oh what am I doing lately... mapping-wise, when I'm using my machine, I'm hinting my map (i.e. increasing fps...). When I'm
not by my machine and mapping, I'm laying out story, flow, entity placement, working out details with the environment, etc.
With the details portion, I've got a couple books from the library now to give me a better feel for the atmosphere I'm
trying to create. Lots of work that won't be thought about later by the casual eye.
Lt1, now a member of Silicon Ice Development (SID), has made a model of a tiger offering stature for me!! This statue
was used by the Aztecs as a human sacrifice alter. The model looks freakin' awesome!!! Big thanks to Lt1, and for
any models he might build for this project in the future. :)
Since I'm here and waiting for a -vis compile, I can talk a little about hinting again. This is a process I'm learning
as I'm going... How to make q3 render only the polgons visible rather than way lots more polygons that can't be seen. Right
now if I do just a bsp and -light compile (no -vis), I can get less than 10fps sometimes! Cool eh? Ready for a beta? Hahaha,
NO! I'll get hinting initially done so fps stays reasonable throughout the map, then later go through again and clean up
any rough areas. Stick around for updates at the pond!
I got a chance to check out
planetdoom.com, where I found many many good sources revolving around
Doom3. However, buried in all that goodness is a link to a mappers' texture pack. A very large texture pack!! Photorealistic
textures and a shader to go with it! Go here to
get them.
Alright, for your interest, I have a few notes to tack onto the progress of temple2.
First, the theme as it is currently known:
- The time is about 40 years after the first temple encounter
- Scientists and researchers have begun populating the area for study
- The temple is a very exquisite tourist attraction, only select people may visit
- In a manner similar to ut_scottsbase, something strange was found, but it was live
- Escaped researcher personal told of the situation after disaster struck
- Two military powers found out about the discovery and sent their teams in to secure the area and retrieve the specimen, with orders of eliminating anyone who interferes
About the environment:
- Aztec/Mayan temple or similar design
- Scientists/researchers have somewhat domesticated the area
- A lot of water/wet areas.
So you can surely guess that allies and commies aren't too happy about one-another's presence.
I have made more changes, as I have been working vigorously. There were tri-soup areas for complex terrain that
were added in temple1.1 (which I'll call from this time forward, refering to the released .map file for ut_temple).
I removed a few large chunks of those, cutting well over a half thousand brushes, not to mention each brush was
textured on all sides. Yuk. I primarily did this in high-action areas to save lots of fps.
Brushwork brushwork brushwork!!! I have completed the upper path in watercourse now (new path) for functional use.
Readded two areas that were deleted in 1.1. I'll probably be changing the cross in the temple as it seems to be
being misunderstood for a christian cross. The dinning area will probably undergo some more change, possibly becoming
completely detached from the temple. More info as it comes.
Other news. I played temple1 for a while to see what differences there were. I put in about 10 bots vs me in one-sided
ctf (I had to get their flag). This inspired the recommendation of a new mode called Survival (or individual survival).
Kind of like Unreal Tournaments' assault mode, but getting to the flag is the goal. When I played against the bots
doing a survival scenario, I had a whole lot of fun! This along with other things makes me wonder if SID would be
open to widening Urban Terror's single player features. I think of my bro living up north in the middle of nowhere
with a crappy 28.8k modem barely able to get a 150 ping if lucky... and how fun it would to be to at least play the
game locally with fun single player modes rather than emulated multiplayer. You listening SID?
Yarr. I haven't done anything yet today! Why the Hoek am I putting an update up then? No real good reason I guess.
I made a couple updates below to the "what I still have to do" portion of temple2. Maybe I'll splatter a useful update
here later tonight/morning. :)
I've got a lot to talk about today. I've been meaning to get an update here sooner, but I've
been having so much fun making ut_temple2! Yes, the new temple map will be called temple 2.
I'm going to go down the list of what has been done so far, what I'm currently working on,
and what there is to do yet. Let's get started!
What I've done since the beginning:
- Brushwork. LOTS of brushwork. Removing and merging useless brushes.
- Redoing textures. Reapplying brush faces. Fixing missing textures. Removing textures
from unseen brushes.
- Implementing missing shaders. Created more shaders with new purposes.
- Removed almost all static point lights.
- Added natural light elements like torches to dark areas for realistic lighting.
- Added world lighting to brighten very dark areas without lights.
- Fixed skybox problems. The original author did something with skyboxes that
somehow worked before, but I won't stand for.
- Fixed problems with missing models.
- Spent a LOT of time on the water portion of the map. Waterfalls, waterflow, cleaning
up water brushes to save FPS. Areas with water are far more astetically pleasing now.
- Rehinted about 20% of the map for -vis. Still have a long way to go here. Currently
FPS will hurt badly in any part of the map. Ignore FPS in current screenshots. The finished
temple2 will run fast.
- Defined the direction of the map, what elements it will be based on, theme, etc.
- Restructured new portions of the map, added since temple 1.
- Added exciting and intuitive new paths, particuarilly for CTF. Places previously unreachable
may now be reachable and go to entirely new areas.
- Added many more breakable entities. I like breaking stuff, and you probably do too.
- Redid playerclips to open new areas and close certain areas.
- Spent a great deal of time adding all new jungle vine swing at the main waterfall. You
can now "swing" from the waterfall to the right ledge, or vice versa. Currently a bush I made
located below the vine can potentially save you from fall damage if you mess up.
- Spent a lot of time creating the broken glass panel path in blue spawn. Much time spent
making shattered glass look like shattered glass, plus with the ability to break it once more
for an even more shatter look. Walk through it and you'll get cut though...
- Crate in water tunnel now bobs, new waterfall there too, plus opened up the grate which
splits to 2 new areas.
- New area under temple uses swimming as a necessary means of travel... vertically. Swim
like a salmon. :)
- Improved on new existing cross artifact in temple.
- Spent a lot of time going through the entire map brush by brush turning what was mostly
structural brushes into detail brushes. This helps with -vis.
What I'm currently working on:
- Just finished broken glass portion, need to add additional theme related details now
that I have the glass structure done.
- Researching Mayan and Incan temple designs to add more realism.
- Assessing lighting.
- Assessing paths.
- Fixing remaining broken textures.
- Fixing any remaining really broke stuff.
What I have to do so far:
- More shader work. Many plants shaders are MIA still. I want some places to have
flickering light, ala golgatha2 and nimrod.
- Continue building areas. The scientist research area needs a lot of work - it's really
nothing but a shell of an area right now. There will
probably be underground tunnels - tunnelrats should enjoy this. The water tunnels need work.
New area above watercourse to be built.
- Reshadering waterfalls to be additive not subtractive (color).
- Creating textures for pedistal displays and wall displays.
- Moving textures, shaders, etc from temple/ to temple2/, including updating .map
- Packaging the map.
- Beta testing.
Now for the screenshots!
So as you can see I've come a long way, but still have far to go. At my current
pace you may be playing a beta within a couple short weeks. Really! Since I've pretty much stopped
playing on the FSK pub for now, I've had a lot more time to focus on mapping. Of course
as usual there's real life to take care of too. Either way the map is coming along quite
well. Thanks for your support!!!
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