CTF-CamperCrossings beta1

[GIdenJoe]

Info on last post thx.

[Cobra]

I'll whait ontil it is finish. And I will path it. Just give me your adress. And tell me when you are finish whit it.

[DeRailer]

Downloading.

[DeRailer]

Firstly, I don't play q3's ctf. So I've never seem this map
I can see why you choose to do this conversion: it's awesome. One of the favorite online map for competitive tdm right now is campground(same author I presume), and CC have all the quality of that map, but it's raw ctf action. This map have some of the most excellent chokepoints I've seem for UT2k3, I know this is a conversion but let me drool for a while.

The map runs fine on my dino(800mhz, 384mbsdr, g3). I turned off coronas but from the screenshots you posted before, they look good. The corridors and hallways look sweet, but the sky at the blue/red base and the main fighting atrium looks blend. I don't know if you have the intention to touch up that area, but some complex decos there will be nice. Other than that, the map looks fine.
Slight nitpicks here but I hope you'll block those little gaps in the hallway as shown in the attached image. They are quite irritating, but it's no major issue.
I also got stuck using the jumppad sometimes, the same problem with campground beta. The le version of campground kinda fixed the problem though, maybe take a look at that?

I hope you'll post this map at prounreal ut2k3 forum? This map is brilliant for competitions, and it's a real waste if it doesn't get use. If you don't want to register an account there, I wouldn't mind posting it for you. :)
http://forums.prounreal.com/viewforum.php?f=1

[DeRailer]

Oops, I notice the roof meshes only appears with high world details, my bad. Anyway, this part is too dark. You can't really see the ledge.

[DeRailer]

A trickjump I found, useful for capping. =P Doublejump, execute walldodge, release shield primary for boost.

The image also shown some greening effect cause by the light actors, you might want to fix that.

[edited]ah screw that jumptrick, You can reach the flagbase by using dodgejump. hehe

[GIdenJoe]

Thx for the offer of help cobra :)

And thx for the enthusiasm Derailer, The issue with the jumppads and the issue with that falling into thing I know about and those will ofcourse be fixed as they do really irritate me.

After touching up the first feedback of everyone on the map I might drop in prounreal and ask those guys opinion about the weaponplacement coz really, I was so damn excited that I did pathing, weaponing and spawns in a mere 15 minutes to quickly be able to say like bam this is my beta :) That's also why I didn't see the jumppad problem in time and also the little ledge.

Touching up the sky, well dno, maybe later, I was growing quite tired of the building of the geometry. I even touched some things up before building the map a final time coz some corridors (the lowest leading to mid and the corridor goign left after midjumppad) were just dark squares with that anim texture coz I was so damn lazy :p So I those last meshes I made in there with a few lights to go with em and those corrids looked better already.

[DeRailer]

The picture attached shown some awful triangular blackening. I got into 'rmode 1' and notice that it's a simple static meshes. For this case I think you should just use BSP, or create a mesh with more triangles so the lights will get across the vertexes better.
This tutorial from hourences will be helpful:
http://www.planetunreal.com/phalanx/tut%27s/tutorial_vertex.htm

[GIdenJoe]

thx for the help again, I wish all the others were as enthusiastic like you. I get positive feelings from others but way too little attention from all the others.

[DeRailer]

Usually very little players wanna betatest a map. Even fewer knows how to pull off and discover cool jumptricks in a map, and a lot don't have a clue how cool z-axis combat can be. I'm sure once this map is released, it's going to get the approval of most hardcore players.

Your thread at prou got responses btw. :)

[GIdenJoe]

Well, I think that players are afraid of new mappers.

They're so into worshipping the ones they know already, well that's quite obvious on atari forums btw :p

I can only make this map work, if every nook and cranny gets some feedback.

Ex: I would like your opinion about the very small room with the small jumppad towards the small shield and flak. You have that little ledge of the lower doormesh, when dropping down too fast you sometimes stand on it, should I leave it like that or should I put a blocking volume so you just fall down.

Another one: The highest route has these electrical pillars, now you can stand between them is that ok or do they ruin flow and is a blocking volume needed again.

Stuff like that :)

[DeRailer]

I think apart from the stucky jumppad transporter, the rest are ok. If there are some juts created by the static meshes, and you felt it needs blocking volume, go ahead and block it. All that will make it a better map without those annoying interference. I personally add blocking volumes to get rid of those juts if I am you. :)

From prounreal:
Originally posted by wd
-replace goo with lg
-replace amp with 100 or keg
-fix the large jump pad in the base, u can get stuck on it while trying to go up

really nice map tho. and.. just a thought by me. i think it would be cool if the small jump pad in base was replaced with an elevator so that you could jump off the elevator up to the goo area instead of takin the large jump pad.
I totally agree with this, and the lift idea sounds cool also, add a bit of personality into the base design. And also if the lift is done right, players can also use liftjump to get to the flagbase, and that will add another cool gameplay possibility.
But don't take out the longer jumpad transporter, it's still useful, and the bots don't use liftjump anyway.

Regarding the guys at atari. I think you should rename your thread's title, state that Beta1 is released or something like that. Or start a new thread. I think your potential betatesters whom first entered the thread didn't bothered to get back and check it's release.

[GIdenJoe]

I changed the topicname on atari forums and placed a reply on proU.

Now come one, mortalplague, gui, blitz, hort, scourgem, ....

Tell me what you think.

[Gui]

He he, I almost forgot you :D

OK, some long hallway ends are empty. When you run along a corridor, you tend to keep looking at the opposite extremity, therefore it's 'better' to put something in there to attract the eyes: a comp pannel, a busy tex, some archi detail, whatever,...

[Gui]

This animated texture from CTF-Chrome is nice and well used all along the map but I noticed you used always the same for jumppads: it could be cool to have some blue rays for the red jumppads to make a good contrast with the red-orange ones you used for the blue jumppads

Also, you can get stuck on the border at the top of the jumppad, which is pretty boring: some simple blocking volumes can easily solve this

[Gui]

This floor is empty and boring as hell: try some other textures to fill it better because the shadow effect is not enough atm. Maybe a projector effect can be cool here: this would allow you to put more details on the ceiling which is rather open and empty aswell for now

Also, there's some greenish effects on the sides: you can remove these issues in lowering the brightness of the light actors. Greenish begins to appear when the overall brightness is above 210 or so, at least it was the case with UT1 but I think more brightness is required to get this issue in UT2K3, dunno the exact value though...

[Gui]

The sides of these short hallways are also very empty. Because you put blocking volumes to avoid players get stuck, it makes sense to put some stuff in there

[Gui]

The platform at the top of the jumppad on the right is far too much dark. Take a look to some of the light effects in DM-Oceanic: Checker found a nice use of LE_Static_Spot for this (the blue lights against the walls nearby the jumppads or in the Shock Rifle area) and something similar may fit well this area, especially if combined with some of the light static meshe fixtures from AlleriaHardware (light02AL particularly)

[Gui]

Way too much dark: you may have to fill the voids on the walls when you'll have added more light but we'll see this later if needed. Also, you can easily get stuck behind the light thing in the corner on the right of the pic: this happens in a lot of places too, so you may want to reconsider the use of this static mesh varying with the areas

[Gui]

Also very empty: don't hesitate to fill these walls with some static meshes, if you place them high enough, they'll never hinder the flow of the games. Some additional LE_Static_Spot lights can be welcome in here also but it's up to you of course

[Gui]

I defeinitively don't like these sort of neon lights (foreground, floor and right of the screen): they really lack of material and don't look tangible/real at all, their red (or blue varying with the base) is too much homogene and presents no point shining more though this should be the case

Skybox is really empty: it seems your map's in the middle of nowhere. Some static meshes of buildings from Skyline or Plunge can be welcome to give a stronger sense of a location. Set them as bHighDetails and bSuperHighDetails=True to make them visible only at the highest World Details setting and the weakest comps will have no problem with these decos

While I'm at it, the red and blue banners have nothing to do in your high-tech setting: I strongly recommend you to remove and replace them with something more adequate. The transparent glass tex is also very white: maybe a subtle blue in can be welcome

[Gui]

She doesn't stand on the floor: the blocking volume is too much high. Place it lower and use a little stair to make the transition betwen the side of the sort of sidewalk on the left of the screen (invisible in the pic...) and the grid (which doesn't produce metal sound when you walk on btw...)

I noticed you have a lot of cuts in your tex usage: for example, in each flag-room, the Shock Rifle is put in a thin substract whose two sides are hidden behind some bordes static meshes which also hide the transition of texs. More things like this would be welcome everywhere applicable, just check out the archi tut of Hourences (in the tutorail/utility database of the Level Editing Forum) to get further infos, it's towards the end of the tut if I remember correctly

[Gui]

Really a nice map, maybe a bit lacking of z-axis but... oh well...

Do you plan to add some doors/movers? This can greatly enhance the predictability factor and so the gameplay in the same time, something you may find interesting to think about

Sorry if I talked about things which have been already pointed but I didn't find the time to read everything :D

[GIdenJoe]

thx for the extensive walkthrough, although the last pic will not be possible coz that floorgrate is 1 mesh and it's quite detailed to just set the simpleblocking to false coz that mesh has a collision mesh.

For the rest I think I can do some of what you said :p I'll start with looking at oceanic to those static spots you said. :)

[Gui]

Originally posted by GIdenJoe
the last pic will not be possible coz that floorgrate is 1 mesh and it's quite detailed to just set the simpleblocking to false coz that mesh has a collision mesh.
Why don't you simply remove the collisions properties of this simple static mesh and use a blocking volume instead?

[Donator]

Wow. That's what I call constructive feedback. :D
I therefor humbly apply for Gui to please take an unbiased look at Dm-LaHaine ( :p ) should time allow it, as I'm becoming more and more blind to my own errors the more often I walk through that thing, and I want to release it before enthusiasm begins to deminish in favor of other projects I've started...

[SpottedTiger]

GIdenJoe
I wanted to post something about this map a few days ago...but I just couldn't do it until... I found, reloaded, and played the Q3A ThreeWave map (q3wcp14) that this level is a compliment of. It does capture the gameplay flow of the original in many ways, while changing some of the areas to make it flow even better. Of course, combat is way different because of Unreal's two-modes of firing for each weapon and the ability to use the transporter (if it's checked on to use when the map is loaded). However, it does show thru-out the map that you tried very hard to stay true the Q3A-3W version while adding changes to it for the UT2K3 version. I just wish you could've found a way to have kept the Accelerater-Pad that was in the Flag-Room area which jump across the room to the Electric-Gun (Hell I forget what it was called...but you know what I mean). :p

Now all you gotta do is follow Gui's advice for improvements, maybe let Cobra have a last look at tighting the bots (if he doesn't mind), and release this baby to the world!! ;) I know I'll enjoy running thru this map over and over!! Below I just had to put together some screen-shots of the map comparing Q3A-3W against the UT2K3 versions.

[GIdenJoe]

Originally posted by Donator
Wow. That's what I call constructive feedback. :D
I therefor humbly apply for Gui to please take an unbiased look at Dm-LaHaine ( :p ) should time allow it, as I'm becoming more and more blind to my own errors the more often I walk through that thing, and I want to release it before enthusiasm begins to deminish in favor of other projects I've started...

I share the same flaw Donator, already 1/3rd of most maps I already start gathering new ideas that in most cases gain more interest than the current project working on.

Originally posted by SpottedTiger

I just wish you could've found a way to have kept the Accelerater-Pad that was in the Flag-Room area which jump across the room to the Electric-Gun (Hell I forget what it was called...but you know what I mean).


Nice going with the comparisonshots :) but they do make me realise that the broken bsp engine of ut2k3 hampers the making of maps, like in some areas I believe the q3a version even looks better than mine just because of that. As I'm still not so experienced and have lesser planning than others have I cannot plan out for meshes how they will fit into the whole.

Anyway, I'll have to dissapoint you about the forward jumppad as I found it to be a little useless when starting on the flagroom.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To conclude

Gui's comments were excellent but I will only follow some of them as I am at the end of this map and am wanting to release it soon.

I have now added screenshotsequence to my map and did another lighting build and now it's time to get into contact with cobra to get that map decently pathed for which I am thankful in advance.

Next version will be beta2 and at the same time a Release Candidate.

Changelog sofar:

(add) Corridor behind flag: Extra lights
(chg) Changed all flagbanners into xmonitors
(chg) Flagroom: Moved lightpoles a bit away from the platforms
(chg) Used darker glasstexture
(add) Left Corridor: Add xmonitor
(fix) Flagroom: Fixed lighting issue on platform static mesh
(add) Location names for zones
(add) Flagroom: Lightfixtures next to the large jumppad
(add) Flakarea: Lightfixtures between the supports
(chg) Biorifle now became sniper
(add) Flagroom: Added some trim to the upper ledge
(add) High Corridor: Added blocking volumes at the electrical pillars
(add) Behind Base: Added blocking volumes at the pillars next to the platform to prevent getting stuck
(chg) Relocated shields
(chg) Midfield now has Supershield instead of Amp
(chg) The little lights on midfield have been dimmed slightly
(chg) Flagroom: The forward smaller jumppad is now an elevator
(fix) The jumppadborder no longer collides
(chg) Changed the skin of the coronas
(chg) Made Flak and Minigun separate zones
(chg) Made the scrolling textures on red jumppads blue and on blue jumppads remain red
(add) One of the entrances of the base got Blocking volumes to avoid getting stuck on the lights

[cUnNiNg_StUnTs]

Kick ass map how can I receive notification when she's final?

This one will be a keeper.

[GIdenJoe]

That will depend on when Cobra reads my pm :)

If all goes well, it will be released in the next week. And I'll try uploading it to this site if it works this time coz last time I uploaded like 5x and always got stuff like invalid zip, or file not found ... :( I already took matters to hort and I hope things will be solved when this baby will be uploaded.

[Cobra]

When I D/L it, it is in a format. That I don't no?.

[GIdenJoe]

The ut2 file is inside the rar, to extract it you need winrar, but if you don't have it, just ask me for the zip file, maybe give me your email? :p

Anyway, plz respond as soon as you can. And again I'm very grateful for your help!

[Cobra]

My email 428cobrajet@videotron.ca

[SpottedTiger]

GIdenJoe
Maybe WinRAR is not really the best choice to have people to use if you're storing your stuff in a .RAR file instead of the normal .ZIP file that most people expect, since its not a free tool, and the trial-ware version only works for 30 days or so...a better a tool to point people to use is the free tool IZArc (which does both .RAR and .ZIP files...and many more file types beside those).

Here's a link that is one of many different places to download this tool (a less than a 3MB download) from: http://www.softnews.ro/public/cat/2/2-18.shtml

One addtional note...I didn't have any problems using IZArc to extract your map files from the .RAR they resided in, and would highly recommend this compression tool to others to use. :)

[GIdenJoe]

Final beta is now available at:

http://users.pandora.be/gidenjoe/downloads/ut2003/CampercrossingsRC.zip

This version includes some of the fixes proposed by GUI, and way much improved botnavigation thx to Cobra.

I also posted this on other forums, so here too I will ask, if some of you want to take a look at the itemplacement if something really needs changing, but I mean REALLY :p then speak up now and I will consider it.

Look towards a final release this week. Then the zip will include map, screenshot, readme and the music file again.

[DeRailer]

No real problem here, it feels much more polished now. There seem to be a lot of healthchargers in this version? Can't really remember but looks like two HC replaced the small shield at the flak area, and 1 more at the teambases. Never notice them in the first beta.

Imho, that's a lot for a medium size ctf map. 2 @ base, 2 @ midfield is enough. You don't want to make it too easy for the FlagCarrier also. Plus, there are a lot of armor in the map,
Instead maybe just remove 1 of the charger in both flak areas and teambase. If you felt there's a real need for more healths, just use a couple of minihealths, not too many in a row.

New lift is great., I kinda miss the biorifle, but who cares. :)

[GIdenJoe]

Final release is ready.


download link

http://users.pandora.be/gidenjoe/downloads/ut2003/ctf-campercrossings.zip