Here are my latest progress of DM-Mariane, roughly 90% finished. I work on it on my spare time since I released DM-Mégane.
I don't intent put to much time to make it look awesome & no fancy meshing neither. PS: don't expect a awesome looking level, my goal is to reach a visually descent level to look at but I put the emphasis on gameplay. Beside, it's rather a quick map (±3 months of work).
Enjoy the WIP (the pics do not show well the actual visuals, it's much better ingame)
Many little visuals things need to be finished but gameplay wise, it's done and the gameplay satisfy me, the rest is purely aesthetic. the to do list is :
- Finish ambient sounds.
- Finish the floor with the red stone material where there is a flak + link + bio ammo.
- Add a bit more BV here & there.
- Add emitters for the 4 remaining jumpad (the 4 in the air).
- Add preview screen + readme txt file.
- Fix bugs if any.
-- Edited by stevelois on Thursday 16th of August 2012 03:25:15 PM
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Stevie's corner A blog dedicated to UE4, UDK, UT99 / 2004 / III / 4.
looking very good Steve, classic orange/blue lighting color contrast always gives top result....like u just prooved it do u plane to add some heavy pp around the playable area to materialise the heat from the lava?(u can check Chonglee DM-Glacial, he have some kind of nice distortion over his lava) visually it s good but i dont think u need a lot of suggestions to get a nice visual result ...lol, u always do eyecandy levels^^ on the gameplay & layout side we cant really help without a run on the map....not that much things to point to you till u give us a first beta
It already have distortion but you can't see it from the pics. I made one indeed & it look nice, been putting a good amount of time on that actually.
THX for the compliment about the visuals, but it will be lower than my standard this time, just want to make it look "ok". Not as awesome looking as Glacial, Cipe or Magma
A beta will be available asap my friend but I intent to post progress once in a while
@Dark
THX m8
Stay tune for the updates
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Stevie's corner A blog dedicated to UE4, UDK, UT99 / 2004 / III / 4.
+1 to the others comments! The Necris assets work very nicely in this enviroment. Lava based maps always catch my attention due to the strong contrast in lighting schemes!
Thrallala done a beautiful job on his lava/garden themed Legacy map so I look forward to playing another lava themed map!
In fact, I look at Thrallala lava material to get started & I maded my own funky lava-like material. My first use of the lava theme & I quite enjoy it. Ther map use 4 terrains (never use them that much in such a small map lol). Hope you like it m8 !
@Winter
THX
Happy you like it. I work on it mostly the weekends since I released DM-Mégane. I didn't put to much time on it but now I'm in vacation so I work on it more. The layout was the longest part. The deco in the other hand is a bit complicated because I don't want to put to much time on the visuals but I'm seeking for something that look good & with a minimum of assets / materials Quite chalenging !
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Stevie's corner A blog dedicated to UE4, UDK, UT99 / 2004 / III / 4.
Nice and sexy looking! Reminds me a bit of a mix of Unreal and Diablo in style, perhaps with a touch of DM-Inferno from UT2004.
I have a suggestion regarding lighting on the rocks of the map complex: As you can see, the cliffwalls in the background of the castle-structure are way more lit than the rocks of the castle, I suggest to turn up the brightness of the lighting the lava emits and increase radius so the rock is covered in blood red and orange lighting from the lava up to the floor! Also, some of the castle structure could be affected by the lava lighting through "bounce light" (rocks and rock pillars that are lit reflect the light after all if you get what I mean ).
Just an idea, do as you please and see if it's worth it, but given the surroundings, I guess it would be a better approach to increase lighting there too. Looking forward to a playable version (and this time I'll try to get to test it in time lol)..
It can welcome at least 10 adept players to 16 without problem. It look maybe small but apart Citius, it's my biggest DM so far, bigger than Nano I think ! It's a pleasure to throw players out in the lava hihihi LD
@Tux Android
THX m8 & I hope NOT to work to much on it AND release it soon too héhé :)
@Sly.
THX bro :)
I do plan to add a bit more brightness on the play area but the lighting on the surrounding isn't the same as the play area. I know it's not logical but I like this "not realistic" approach for a first time. A bit of Unreal lol. But in the end, I presume it will look nice because I'm a very "touchy" mapper lol
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Stevie's corner A blog dedicated to UE4, UDK, UT99 / 2004 / III / 4.
Many little visuals things need to be finished but gameplay wise, it's done and the gameplay satisfy me, the rest is purely aesthetic. the to do list is :
- Finish ambient sounds.
- Finish the floor with the red stone material where there is a flak + link + bio ammo.
- Add a bit more BV here & there.
- Add emitters for the 4 remaining jumpad (the 4 in the air).
- Add preview screen + readme txt file.
- Fix bugs if any.
Note: don't expect a awesome looking level, my goal is to reach a visually descent level to look at but I put the emphasis on gameplay. Beside, it's rather a quick map (±3 months of work).
__________________
Stevie's corner A blog dedicated to UE4, UDK, UT99 / 2004 / III / 4.
just tryed it and i think i get your point about ur "objectives" on this map
gameplay is good, layout is efficient, music and sounds fits and lighting work nicely
details from thoses sections that i like less or not:
sounds:
-the jumppads sound is horrible to me ! lol...fits to a flipper imo!
-the lift sound is too "sweet"
visuals:
-not sure of thoses floatting jumppads...no way to give em a decent support?lol thoses are good for odedge space maps!
-the portal coming from the redeemer could be inaccessible to all players if it was on a lil platform or so....going through it with no effect is weird and till u ve use the deemer the first time u ask you wtf this is ...
Gameplay:
-the deemer platform is a pure camping fortress!! wait there with a shock or a sniper and a flack and u can welcome thoses who try to join u in "A" with ur flak and overspam the game with sniping skill...+ u get the deemer and have than from the portal easy access to health 25pts and the belt in a jump....too much!
perhaps can u place the deemer on a lil risky ramp over the lava in "D" instead of leaving it in "B"...
Collisions:
-here i m still standing on the BV of this rock....i m floating on nothing in fact
-here u can get stuck in that angle on both sides
-no damage whan standing near this flame
all in all it s a very good and fun level again my cousin, i think i had push more on the dark side of this map to get a more scary athmo: music and name are very "sweet" to such a toasting place but bahh it s a question of tastes!
i had lot of fun to play this one, thx for sharing and keep it up
Hey Steve, I gave this a quik shot last friday but my PC was stuffing around so my play time was cut short. I intend to have a much longer run on this over the next day or two! From what I saw it's looking and playing very nicely so far M8! Theme is turning out superbly!
I like the area where the shield belt is with planks overhead. The standalone tower is a nice touch too, it's cool jumping out over the lava thinking for a split second "am I going to make it?". (I'm happy to say I did. :))
I only had one notable issue with collision, after getting the shield belt if I go up the wooden plank and try to take a hard left next to the pillar I get stuck there quite easily. I also find the teleporter exit a distraction, often mistaking it as a pickup because it's near a health. All in all, excellent imo!
- The layout. At first sight it looks pretty unorganized and thus natural for such an environment, however, once you make your first steps you know what paths to take and within the first match I was able to navigate trough the entire map - and I enjoyed it!
- Nice atmosphere and surroundings, the skydome material is neat, however, it could need a bit more as it looks a bit bland, maybe the milkyway?
- Personally, I like the floating kickers, we need more surrealism in maps like it was in the good old days of arena shooters. Quake did have such too and this style reminds me a bit of a Quake III map I liked a lot.
- The fact that you used kickers once again makes me smile - I love them! They add a lot of speed to maps!
Things to improve: - I suggest to add a bit more light/shadow contrasting via post process.
- The planks need a better texture, last plank leading to tiled floor/Bio Rifle passes a static mesh with stretched texture, you might want to do something against that.
- Bots seem to have a tendency to camp the Link Gun on the platform, no idea why, they tend to do this at every difficulty, not 24/7 though, but when I fought one I just stood still and the bot shoot at the spot where I was before, ignoring my new location, after some seconds he started to move. You should check this place.
- The round place with the Udamage needs another cylinder to create a step, it's a bit nasty if you can get stuck on it.
- Talking about getting stuck and planks, I suggest to deactivate the player-collision of the planks and replace it with a blocking volume that sticks into the ground at the ends of the planks because I got stuck at some places when attempting to walk on them.
- The lift seems a bit slow to me for the pace of the map. Just an idea what you could do with the lift: If you increase the speed, you could remove the roof of the construction, replace it by a broken one or something of that kind and make it possible to do liftjumps, I can imagine this can be fun combined with the Sniper Rifle.
- As the entire place is surrounded by lava, why not add a cylindric static mesh with a distortion material applied to it? The heat would be clearly visible due to this and the atmosphere can only profit from that!