DM-DemonsKeep

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

DM-DemonsKeep

stevelois · ...

I'll give it a go buddy smile

I didn't play the original so I'm not the die hard fan who will complain about this or that if it's not 100% accurate lol

THX for the credits wink

stevelois · ...

Did a quick run against 3 bots & it was cool smile

I had some big issues gameplay / flow wise. As mention, I dunno about the original so I can't compare & I'll post as a UT player as I ever do, not a Quake player.

1- Some weapon pickup base aren't well placed & look / feel out of place. The stinger / Flak are located in a tight corner. This is something very inappropriate for a standard weapon & better suit for armors like helmet / tights or few vials or medium health.

2- In the Udamage corridor, you have a small armor + invisibility + a ton of vials. Two powerups in the same small room is already no good & even worst with additional stuff. I strongly suggest you keep only 1 powerup & place elsewhere the remaining stuff.

2.1 Suggestions ; also, in that small room, add some chains sounds so the swimming balls will feel more dangerous. In that same room, add a physic volume to inflict pain (like 50-100) when players fall into the lava so it doesn't take to long to die. I fall there full of health / armor & took forever to die, I just shoot myself to spawn back into the action.

3. Placing ammo in corner or very close to walls or straight in the middle of the path is no good for flow. Doing this in specific area is Ok but not at large like in this case. It's simply because it bring "lazy & boring movements" to a map.

Basically, players & specially bots don't need to move a lot since while your traveling place to place, everyone tend to be in the middle of the passage since it provide the most "secure & safe way" to use the path & bring some space on both side to dodge or jump in case of an attack. It's something instinctive. It make the movements predictable, rather boring & it's even worst with the bots. For bots, just shoot in the middle of the path & your sure to inflict damage. It's even crappier in CTF when the enemy as your flag, your following him but since he's in front of you, he collect pickups in the middle of the path leaving nothing to you the follower so you get out of health & ammo & die trying to kill him. Quite crappy with advance bots when they have the sniper & kill you with 1 bullet (headshot)...

Placing pickups in the middle of the paths as always bring damn boring predictable gameplay & this is not since yesterday. In UT99, Epic & a lot of custom maps where going at the extreme & placing pickups very close to walls, this is as worst as in the middle of the path because even if your quick enough to not being hit by the first projectile while dodging or jumping & your trying to collect the pickups close to the wall, you still can get damage by a projectile that as rebounded on the wall (RL grenade per example), it's rather frustrating if you have done a cool move to escape from the first projectile.

Also, bots tend to stuck sometime in corners since there line of sight is very limited when facing a corner. The AI have issues with that.

4- Armors should be relocated. You have 2 vest which is to much (specially the one beside the belt).

5- When your at the belt structure, at the lower level near the lava, I suggest you remove the pickups there. Since the belt is the more powerful armor, all stuff in the area should be remove. It's just to much for 1 area (counting you have a weapon + vest + medium health nearby).

6- I notice there is a playerstart just beside the belt. You must always think of "risk vs. reward" aspect. The more the risk, the better the reward. Like the Udamage room, make the armor worthy & not just a hazard / lucky item to collect.

Now I have others things not related to gameplay / flow.

All place at the lower level where the player can be very close / in contact to the lava would be better if you add lava sound.

There are some corners that I was getting caught by the static meshes. Blocking volume is advise in this case. It happen in to much places so I didn't take pics.

For lighting, you need to some pointlights on assets that emit lights. It's not mandatory to make them very bright but at least add some lights to bring some contrast & a bit of color. Something like a brightness of 0.5 - 1.0 with a radius of 96 - 192 with a fallout exponent of 3 - 6 for your actual meshes should be nice.

That's it for the moment.

A part those, the map is a good start. The layout / atmosphere / music is cool biggrin

Hope it help.

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

all family here had lot of fun while playing this one; we all luv the big balls on the lava...unreal fear factor haha^^

nice job mate and srry i m late on feedback about gameplay but i had long day :p...i m gonna post tommorow ;)

i must say that i m really impressed by the athmo of the map and i like ur lighting and ur contrasts very much ; perfectly according to my "old style" and very UTish thx for ur work and keep it up

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

Now here's a map I haven't played for quite a few years!

I'll check this out on tha weekend M8! biggrin

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

@stevelois:

Thx for testing and pointing out some issues.. wink

I'll have a look at the weapon placing, but as far I remember, it is nearly the same like it was in Q3.

In the original map there is some kind of LinkGun at the Flak and Stinger position. I did not like to have 2 linkguns in that places, and the Flak/Stinger is a good incentive for players to go down there.

In the original map there were also 2 powerups down there..., if I can call a portable teleporter a powerup... I thought that normally (at least with many players) no-one should live long enough to get upstairs with the powerups. Another reason why I placed the Flak near this area... I will have to watch this. confuse

Yes, it might be too many vials down there, will remove some. I placed them there because this place fealed so empty... Maybe I have to create some more deco, lol... No idea atm.

The 3 ball-pendulums already have 2 sounds bound to each. I would also like to have them louder, but the problem was to get the sound audible in this area, while it should be not audible in the rocket hall above...
I played around a lot with the settings, but nothing could fit my plan. Don't know atm how to fix this.

I will increase pain in the lave area, no-one should suffer too long, lol.

Yeah, you are right, some ammo should be moved out of the corners.

Armors: I'll remove one of the 2 vest. Will have a look in Q3 later how they did this here.

Playerstart beside belt has been removed.

Lava Sound: I haven't found a really good sound yet.
At the moment I have some bubbling sound from stock package which I did modify in Adobe Audition. Not the best, I know.
It's on my todo list.

Thx for the hint with pointlights and emitting assets. I will play around with that and see what I will get.

Interesting that you mention that with Blocking Volumes and some SMs.
I was already thinking of that, but in all my test runs I only got caught 1 or 2 times by them.
Maybe because I know every cm of this map since it was one of my favorit maps in Q3... I will place some Blocking Volumes, thx ;)

I am glad that you like atmosphere and music;) smile

@Bl!tz:
Thx for your praise :)
I think we have the same feelings about "old style". Our maps do always have the same touch of athmosphere..., rofl... biggrin

-- Edited by rulaman on Friday 9th of April 2010 09:46:50 AM

-- Edited by rulaman on Friday 9th of April 2010 09:49:02 AM

-- Edited by rulaman on Friday 9th of April 2010 10:00:37 PM

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

héhé i played it in a more deep way (though i just realise that it s the first version....ooops)

100% agree with steve for the bottom level around the lave it s way far overpowered in many ways:

- 9 x 5 health vials + 2 x 25 health = 95 points....+ the helmet = always in good form if u camp there & enough to survive here (no motivation to leave the place if u play for the win only^^)

-the flack cannon + 2 enforcer ammos + 2shockriffle ammos + UDamage = if u grab the shock riffle and camp there u will always damage ur opponents with powerfull weapons
+ the shock is a puching weapon and it s very easy to push peeps in lava there i had not put the shock ammo in that kind of place but far from lave to attract peeps in othas places
the flak is a spamming weapon in that kind of places it s easy to shot peeps that try to cross the lava balls rooms...a good sniper; a bioriffle or a double enforcer are more appropriate imo there

-i like the redeemer spot :p and the opposite jumppads with the vials collect on ceiling ..fun fun^^

-i was expecting some scaring noise from thoses lethal balls a strident noise of corroded metal for example or a loud earthquake noise...same for the lava some "blop blop" noise is always welcome

-the clouds outside moove very fast; looks kinda... unreal...lol^^

here on that picture i like thoses nice colors/lighting variations on the ceiling (2) but sometimes it dont come from light sources (not well adjusted with the holes on the floor in some places) and the lamp(1) looks like if it dont casts shadows did u add a light point in that lamp ?...if not try to add a lightpoint in the center of the lamp(the lighty part)... unlock the "cast shadows" option in the lamp properties and it will look more natural ;)

for the rest it s a very fun map and exactly my kind of stuff....excellent job mate for a first try on ut3 it jump to eyes that u have some experience from otha tools :)

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

Hi,

first of all again many thx to Steve and Bl!tz for testing the first Beta. aww

Your information was very usefull, and I have tried to fix a few things.

- Sounds for Lava and Pendulum-Balls have been completely reworked.
- a lot of blocking Meshes have been added
- some items have been moved or removed
- One armor vest has been replaced with weapon Enforcer (thx to Steve again biggrin

)
- Teleporter now has 2 destinations, same like in the original map. Thx to Lord PorkSword for posting the tutorial! aww

- an invisible hole in one of the 1st floors has been fixed. (I wonder that nobody noticed this, lol)

There are still the 2 powerups in that one room..., I do not know now what I will do there... hmm

I have already uploaded Beta3, there have been too many faults in Beta2.
I will update the Download Link in first post.

@Bli!tz: hehe, I was sure that somebody will mention the lighting/shadows in this area. The problem is that this area is a mix of SM and BSP. I had to replace a few walls with SM because there is a problem with the game engine and vertexes not snapped to the grid. Unfortunately most of the brushes and SM are not snapped to grid, because I did a to 90% 1:1 geometry remake of the map. From Q3 to UT3 you have to scale up to 175 %. Therefore most of the vertexes do no longer snap to grid.

This should normally be not such a big problem, because the game engine is quite intelligent. While the build process, the engine does automaticly use some repair functions to fix this (I noticed this in the logs). But unfortunately it happens sometimes that such holes like I had in the 1st floor, or invisible walls or something like that are produced. I had a lot of this problems in the entrance area at the lava, and could only fix them by replacing brushes with SM.

It took me many hours to get the lighting there how it is now. I have even tried to get better results by more Point Lights, or with Spotlights down there, but it looked even worse than now. Some results even reminded somehow at Al Borlands flannel shirt... rofl biggrin

But I will give it a new try some days later...

Regarding the clouds/sky: I know that this looks not realistic...

I have slowed down the speed a bit, but it is quite the same... But... it was also absolutely NOT realistic in the original map. I have uploaded a video from q3dm15, so that you can see the original map. Maybe I'll find a better texture/material for that...
There is even one funny thing in the map: The mapper from ID Software who did this map, left his clipped head in one corner... You'll see it in the video... biggrin

Thanks so far for all your help, much appreciated! aww

Here is the link for the video:

q3dm15.wmv

-- Edited by rulaman on Saturday 10th of April 2010 04:02:28 PM

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

Ok..., I have solved the problem with the 2 powerups in the Pendulum room.
Both powerups are still there, but will only spawn to different times. If one powerup is taken by a player, then this powerup is blocked, but the second powerup will spawn 120 sec later.

@Bl!tz:
The sky has complete new material now. Looks much better in my eyes.

These changes will take place in the next (I hope final...) release... wink

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

héhé cant wait to try that final release candidate version :p

good choice for the powerups imo :)

-- Edited by Bl!tz on Monday 12th of April 2010 11:44:43 AM

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

I gave it a try on the weekend and had quite a nice blast from the past with this one!

Bots seemed to navigate quite well which was good to see!

Apart from some comments mentioned above I'd say that I'd like to see more trimming, but from watching the video, the original never did so keep it as is!

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

just played the beta3 and i like the changes...muhahaha.... i found the secret place :p

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

@Lord PorkSword:
Thx for testing! I am glad you liked it. You were playing Q3 in earlier times? aww

Maybe i will add a little bit mor deco..., I am working on some meshes. I'll see if they will fit the atmosphere...

@Bl!tz:
hehe..., you haven't found the secret room before? biggrin

I guess you stumbled in it...

PS: lava cages are glowing now..., I knew there was something wrong with them...

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

I just play a long round in the beta3 version. I haven't read any of the previous post and more importantly, I don't know how "finished" you are with the map, so I will keep my suggestions "generalized".

If this map was in Quake 3, I probably played the original, but most of the Q3 maps are fuzzy for me, so I am basing my comments on the map I played in UT 3.

1. I think the map needs more decoration. Even for a "old school" map, some ares look more detailed (even if there aren't a lot of meshes), while others look very bare. I don't think you need to mesh the map to death, but it needs more detail.

One option is to use "brush sinking", especially for the floors. This can help add simple detail just by using BSP. It's especially useful for trim work.

2. Weapons need to be better spaced out. In the upper section, thee is one area that has 3 weapons really close to each other, but other areas are bare. Given the map is fairly big, you can always add extra weapon bases, especially for the lower level weapons.

3. Item/ammo/power ups seem to be placed randomly. The shield belt seems like it should be in a more "dangerous" place. I like where the Udamage is located (especially with the swinging spiked balls of doom), but there are a lot of other pickups (including the invisibility) that you can get in the same area.

Item placement should be more consistent through out the level. Also, having too much of the same items in one area doesn't encourage the player to move around the map as much. I know Epic puts 2 of the same ammo next to each weapon pickup, but I think it's better to mix things up.

4. Is it just me or is there no way to get to the Redeemer? hmm

5. I think the moving clouds/sky is a bit too low, especially if there is a way to get to the redeemer.

6. At times, I though there were too many different types of materials for the walls/floor/ceilings. Some of them seem to look right at home with the theme of the map, while others didn't.

Overall, the map is looking good and plays fairly well (some areas seem a bit too big/long, like the upper side hallways).

My 2 biggest issues are overall item placement (all types of pickups) and to make the map look better balanced in the detail department. Keep in mind that a map doesn't need a lot of meshes to make it look "detailed" and polished. The HOLP maps are a good example of this.

Keep up the good work. blankstare

Edit: Glad to see you are using the direction jump pads. If you find a different texture that you want to use or can create your own (I saw some custom signs in your map), let me know and I can make the changes or help you to make them.

For example, in my last map, I used a circular texture from the UN_Team package. For a side map I am doing, I am actually using the words "UP" with an arrow at the top of the "U".

All you need to do is create a 256x256 texture with a black background and a white "symbol" or "text". You can change the color of it in the emitter.

-- Edited by Odedge on Tuesday 13th of April 2010 04:58:43 AM

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

Hey Odedge ;)

Thx for testing my first UT3 map! smile

I think we have played some of your Ravenshield maps in my former ATEG clan, don't remember the map names now. We always liked them smile

http://ateg-multigamers.de/ravenshield/server.html

I know about 2 or 3 areas which could have a bit more deco even in my eyes. Until now I don't know what I will do there, or if I will change anything at all.
"Brush sinking" I do not really like in this map. The design and geometry is nearly 1:1 to the original map, so I would prefer meshes.
I am still impressed what the gamenengine can handle. Some meshes have a huge vertex count, and still fps >= 60.
Working with BSP is also not so easy in this map because of the Grid-snapping problem I have mentioned some posts above.
With every change there is a chance to get some unpredictable faults in the BSP structure (invisible walls, missing collusion).
Reason is that I used vertex snapping to the template for brush working. I would never do this again, that's sure. disbelief

But therefore it is a really 1:1 remake (except some custom changes).

Weapon placement is identical to the original map, except one missing location.

Powerups are now also placed identical to the original map (one powerup was still missing in the Beta3). Have placed Berserk now in the location of the original "Haste Rune" (outside).
Invisibility and Udamage can't be taken at the same time now, one of them has first to be picked up to let the other spawn later...
I have delayed Powerup spawning now with 120 sec., so the powerup situation is defused a bit.

I still have to think about the other item placement, although I personally like it as it is. hmm

There are 2 ways to get the Redeemer:
First one is to play the map on a server with "Hacker replace Impact Hammer" mutator (like mine biggrin

) = Rocketjump in Q3, the second one I have added for "normal" UT3 movements... Bee quick or be dead...

The clouds are totally different now, are looking more like some swirl in the atmosphere.
I like this much more.

I am not sure which materials you feel displaced..., I have replaced some outside, and there are 2 or 3 walls inside where I also have the feeling that something is wrong. Will have to take more attention to this... evileye

Thanks for the tips with the emitter, but I like it exactly how it was in your package. Great improvement! smile

In many maps I don't like the 90° emitters...

Thank you for telling me all issues you have found, I will have an eye on it.

The problem with such remakes always is that it are totally different games. I am still playing Quake 3 from time to time, and my intention is to get nearly the same feeling in the remake how it was/is in the original map... But this feeling sometimes just isn't the feeling that players of UT games are expecting...

-- Edited by rulaman on Tuesday 13th of April 2010 01:56:21 PM

-- Edited by rulaman on Tuesday 13th of April 2010 01:58:36 PM

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

rulaman wrote:

The problem with such remakes always is that it are totally different games. I am still playing Quake 3 from time to time, and my intention is to get nearly the same feeling in the remake how it was/is in the original map... But this feeling sometimes just isn't the feeling that players of UT games are expecting...

A very good point made there my friend!

Technically both games are the same thing. However they both feel completly different!
I used to swap between Quake3 and UT2k4. I'd get bored of one so I'd play the other. Ironically I was just doing the same thing but it still felt like I was playing a different game. Of course gfx and weapons are the first main difference but other things like movement in general make each game unique against each other.

This is probably the hardest thing for you to achieve is getting the right feel of a Quake 3 level in a UT environment!
..hopefully that makes sence... aww

Thrallala · Level Designer

rulaman wrote:
"Brush sinking" I do not really like in this map. The design and geometry is nearly 1:1 to the original map, so I would prefer meshes.
I am still impressed what the gamenengine can handle. Some meshes have a huge vertex count, and still fps >= 60.
Working with BSP is also not so easy in this map because of the Grid-snapping problem I have mentioned some posts above.
With every change there is a chance to get some unpredictable faults in the BSP structure (invisible walls, missing collusion).
Reason is that I used vertex snapping to the template for brush working. I would never do this again, that's sure.

While I don't really understand what you're saying about "vertex snapping" I'm pretty sure that by unchecking the drag grid options (under view options), brush sinking would not be a problem at all. Anyhow, I haven't actually played the map yet but I'm downloading it now and I will give it a go later tonight.

Thrallala · Level Designer

Played it and some things came to my attention, someone might have already pointed some of this stuff out already but here goes.

1. The preview shot should not show any weapon/hud, open up the console and write "togglescreenshotmode" 2 times (iirc) and it should be clean for screenshots.

2. The clouds don't really look like clouds tbh and they move waaaaaaaaay too fast :P

3. The DOF in postprocess settings is way off and makes everything look wierd and pixelated from distance.

4. The lava could probably use a different material. If you want, you could use the one I have in my Incinerate map, http://img29.imageshack.us/i/lavax.jpg/
(nothing spectacular but decent imo.)

5. Some of the wall textures in the ouside areas would look better if you scaled them, like 2 times the current scale atleast.

6. There's a room with 3 NEC lights, 1 would be enough :). And if I where you I'd probably use one of those NEC lanterns instead of the bigger one, personal choice though I guess.

7. The fire emitters in the outside area doesn't seem to light up the surrounding area much at all

8. I'm not sure about the music, it seemed a bit india themed to me and it doesn't really go well with the hellish theme imo, also I prefer game music without any vocals :P

9. There's one place where there's 16 vials floating mid-air, I wouldn't keep them there, not only is 16 vials in one place a bit overkill but it also looks wierd with them floating there :P (please note that I have not played the original map)

10. The wall textures with the small skulls that you use on some walls looks pretty meh, can't even see that there are skulls unless I walk up next to the wall heh

11. The redeemer placement, I think someone already mentioned this so I won't repeat

12. Could use some trimming on some places but not that necessary.

13. Some indoor parts are a bit too dark :)

14. Is there a way to get the sniper rifle without hammerjumping?

while this may seem like a lot of stuff I found that could use improvements, it's really mostly minor stuff and I must say that despite some flaws I really enjoyed the map and as it is your first UT3 work, good job man!

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

Thx for testing Thrallala! I am glad that you liked it. smile

I should have posted a Beta4 lol, some of the "issues" have already been fixed (Clouds, some textures outside, some other minor things) biggrin

Some others I will have to check, thx for posting them... confuse

And thx for the offer to use your lava, but I needed one or two days to create that texture and material, I would like to use it. First I wanted to use that one from Epic forum (I think from shadow), but no download link was working. So I created this one myself.
I have already removed some other textures before, on which I was working quite long. This is always frustrating when you have to delete the work of many hours because it did look totally different than you had it in your idea. cry

The music I would also like to have. Was a long way to get the permission to use it, and it's one of my favorite tracks. I think it gives the map double action. But music taste is always a very personal issue. hmm

Ans YES: Redeemer AND Sniper can be reached without hammerjumping. I did not even know that it is possible to do this with the hammer, lol. I don't have the hammer on my server.

Bl!tz also told me that some places are a way too dark... What monitors do you have?

I know that it is a dark map, but I can see everything (ASUS 26'').

Ah, and these 16 vials: There were 2 kind of medium health in the original map. This was the only way I could realize something similar.

The issue with the DOF in postprocess: What exactly do you mean with this? I have not much experience with "postprocess". We did not have this in Hammer Editor.
I have placed two postprocess volumes in the two lava places and nowhere else..

Ah and thx for the "togglescreenshotmode" hint, didn't know that! So previews should not have weapons? hmm...

Thrallala · Level Designer

Ait, I understand that you want to keep a material that took you a lot of time to create, I would probably feel the same way on that :)

I don't really know what kind of monitor I have, I'm not a hardware freak ;P. All I know is that it is 21". But it's only some indoor parts of the maps that are almost completely black.

Ah right, the postprocessing stuff I mentioned is cause by not having any postprocessing :P, you should try setting some postprocessing throughout the map, if you don't know how. You could open one of Epic's maps and copy a postprocessing volume from there, (they are usually very large and covers up most/all of the playable area)

@ previews, a weapon pickup could be visible in the image ofc but the weapon the player is holding shouldn't :)

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

I haven't tried beta 3 yet, however I didn't notice any really dark places myself. Admittidly I have a highish gamma set on my rig though.

Just FYI on screenshots... I normally take screenshots when I enter the map on the game but haven't clicked the mouse (pressed Enter) to start the game.
During this 'pre-game' period press TAB and type "showhud 0". Now you can fly around the level and take screenshots (F9) without any UI cluttering the screen.

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

I replied in blue to your response below. I do agree with Thrallala that some of the areas are too dark. If a BSP surface or mesh can only be seen when you fire a weapon near it, in my opinion, it's too dark. I did notice you have a skylight, but no direction light. For the outside light effects, I would use a directional light for the outside light (redish color) and use the skylight to help fill in the "dark" areas of the map with a light color that's common inside the map.

rulaman wrote:

Hey Odedge ;)

Thx for testing my first UT3 map!
I think we have played some of your Ravenshield maps in my former ATEG clan, don't remember the map names now. We always liked them
http://ateg-multigamers.de/ravenshield/server.html
A blast from my mapping past. Basically all of the maps that have a "cwv" on the end of it, I made (most with the help of my friend). On the list there is Shopping Spree, H2 Oppression (Day and Night) and Kr8tes & 8arrels.
A
"Brush sinking" I do not really like in this map. The design and geometry is nearly 1:1 to the original map, so I would prefer meshes.
I am still impressed what the gamenengine can handle. Some meshes have a huge vertex count, and still fps >= 60.
Working with BSP is also not so easy in this map because of the Grid-snapping problem I have mentioned some posts above.
With every change there is a chance to get some unpredictable faults in the BSP structure (invisible walls, missing collusion).
Reason is that I used vertex snapping to the template for brush working. I would never do this again, that's sure.
But therefore it is a really 1:1 remake (except some custom changes).
Did you import the BSP from the original game? If so, I can see why it's off the grid. That being the case, it might be dangerous to add it (though I think it would make it look better). I am sure you already know this, but to be safe... the BSP should always be snapped to the grid (at least the 1x1 grid size).
D
Weapon placement is identical to the original map, except one missing location.

I have made a couple "inspired" remakes for UT 3 (Beyond Unreality=Q3 The Longest Yard & DM-Tomac=DM-Antalus). I also made a set of maps based on AntiCamper from RVS). Personally, I enjoy "inspired" remakes rather than "exact" ports as the game play will be different enough (including weapons, item pickups, etc). Though I can understand the desire to make as close to the original as you can.

I am not sure which materials you feel displaced..., I have replaced some outside, and there are 2 or 3 walls inside where I also have the feeling that something is wrong. Will have to take more attention to this...
The 2 that stand out the most are the ones from the ASC and NEC package (walls). I guess the design/patterns are what caught my eye.

Thank you for telling me all issues you have found, I will have an eye on it.
You are welcome. I can only offer my opinion.

The problem with such remakes always is that it are totally different games. I am still playing Quake 3 from time to time, and my intention is to get nearly the same feeling in the remake how it was/is in the original map... But this feeling sometimes just isn't the feeling that players of UT games are expecting...
I had the same thing with DM-Tomac (Antalus remake). Even though they are part of the same series, the game play is different enough from UT2003/4. People kept suggesting I make it like the original, but that's practically impossible and sometimes impractical (given the UT 3 changes in movement). I did try to keep the map the same scale (even timed myself running around the outter edges of the map. You just have to do what inspires you and if people like it, that's a bonus.

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

@Thrallala:
I had a few tries with postprocessing volumes and this did not help. The reason for some things (f.e. the cages outside) look some kind of pixelated is that I am using a fog volume for the upper atmosphere (the clouds). Until now I haven't find a way to get it look how I like it without using a fog volume...

@Lord PorkSword:
thx for the console command for hiding the hud. This one I didn't know...
PS: I have resampled and added some original Q3 sounds for the powerups: quaddamage, invisibility, haste. Extremly good for Q3 feeling in my opinion... smile

@Odedge:
The skylight is nearly off atm, the outside lighting comes from some spotlights which are placed very high in this map. Sometimes not so easy to find them all, lol.

Just for info (didn't want to say that first because many mappers do not like this way of mapping...):

This map is completely build with 3dsmax. I had to import the original map as a single mesh and upscale 175%. Then I have build all brushes by searching for the right vertexes and snapping to them.
After this I imported them into UED. Therefore there aren't many brushes on grid. Working this way was not such a big problem with the Source engine, but UT3 seems not to like that. Sometimes I have modified one brush on one side of the map, and after rebuilding there was a defect brush on the other side of the map, lol...
If I'll ever do a remake again, then I will use a different way...
But this does also have an advantage: I am now able to import this map in every game that supports 3dsmax export formats. I'll just have to take a pot of coffee, some snaks, and after a few hours of export import action the main geometry is done. biggrin

Thrallala · Level Designer

You should probably have a skylight with like 0.2 brightness and orange color, and you should replace the spotlight placed above the playable area with directional lights. I still think the map could look even better with the use of a properly set PostProcess Volume, it doesn't have to be something that completely changes the look of the map but rather something subtle :)

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

Thrallala wrote:

You should probably have a skylight with like 0.2 brightness and orange color, and you should replace the spotlight placed above the playable area with directional lights.

To echo Thrallala, spotlights are meant for smaller light sources (man made mostly). A directional light will cast light across the entire map from a given angle. It would go through BSP or meshes though and is meant to light the outside area of a map.

The skylight, as mentioned before, should be used to help get rid of the "dark" areas of a map. In my opinion, it should be similar to a common light color that's inside your buildings and generally, should be kept at lower levels, but high enough to do it's job.

Bane the Zergling · crocodile dundee

I used to like this map when I play Q3 a few years ago now.

ATM I cant test or play these maps my note book just can't run the game like my desktop.

rulaman · Unreal Old Friend

Hi all,

I have uploaded RC1c of this map (first post updated).

I tried to fix as many issues you all pointed out as I could.
Although I could not fix everything, I have learned much due to your comments, which will be very helpful for the next map (if I ever will make one again lol).

Changelist:

-Delayed powerups, Udamage and Invisibility cannot spawn at the same time.
-The sky (atmosphere) has complete new material now.
-The lava-cages are glowing now.
-Quakesounds (powerups) added
-Lava and Pendulum-Balls sound reworked
-some brushes reworked, brushwork detail enhanced
-a lot of blocking meshes added for faster gameplay
-some material replaced
-some deco added
-some dark areas fixed
-more detailed lighting
-bot paths improved
-a lot of items removed/replaced

Thx again to all for your helpful comments!!! aww

-- Edited by rulaman on Monday 19th of April 2010 12:03:59 PM

-- Edited by rulaman on Monday 19th of April 2010 12:11:31 PM

Noob_Zaibot · Unreal Old Friend

ah awesome map man; this was 1 of my favorites in Q3, plays very well in ut3. but 2 things, when you go through the portal to the redeemer, yo can down again to the lava, you should turn a bit the path node, for get the jumpad, and is very dark the floor in the roket room. anyways :D congrats!!

-- Edited by Noob_Zaibot on Wednesday 11th of August 2010 03:14:26 PM