DM-U4E-GraveyardHills

[legacy-WinkyBoy]

Name: DM-U4E-GraveyardHills
Version: 2
Compatibility: UT2004 v3339ECE +, with Unreal4Ever mod

Description: Spookay! Finally a variation from the mini-me theme I've had for so many months, this is my second entry into the Unreal4Ever contest. It's vaguely inspired by Ghosts N Goblins, Ghouls N Ghosts, etc -- as you can tell from the demon towers. It's a nice-sized map for about 6-10 players.

Comments: Last week when I first released this map, I rushed it in order to get it into the Unreal4Ever contest, and there did turn out to be some minor glitches. Although I really regret having to re-release it, here is the final-final version, v3. Changes are as follows:

- The grass texture is more realistic; I originally purposely chose a pixellated texture because I wanted it to feel pretty old school. Several people complained about this, and as such I decided to please the masses.

- I reduced the staticmesh count by a couple of hundred staticmeshes, by replacing several piles of skulls with mini piles of skulls, and since I took out so many, I added a few (grass staticmeshes) back in here & there for good looks.

- I reskinned the demon towers to look more like they did in the original, with black interiors. Looks a lot nicer.

- repathed the bots. Even less jumping-to-their-death action! I completely removed the attempt of pathing the ConstatLoop lifts; this was even more of a pain because they were previously standing on lifts while waiting for lifts that they had to JUMP to get to... not an easy task.

- I increased the AmbientLighting to 4, which should help with the board being too dark.

Screenshot:
http://www.winkyboy.com/maps/images/dm-u4e-GraveyardHills/grave01.jpg

http://www.winkyboy.com/maps/images/dm-u4e-GraveyardHills/grave02.jpg

http://www.winkyboy.com/maps/images/dm-u4e-GraveyardHills/grave03.jpg

http://www.winkyboy.com/maps/images/dm-u4e-GraveyardHills/screenshot.jpg

Credits: Winkyboy, DaJMasta for GoodKarma, and Bonehed316 for SetTeamSymbols

Homepage: Winkyboy.com (http://www.winkyboy.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=78)

Download: Currently from the homepage (click the link above).

[toniglandyl]

looks good.
let's see the goodkarma sechs:D

[legacy-Riktar]

Originally posted by WinkyBoy
http://www.winkyboy.com/maps/images/dm-u4e-GraveyardHills/grave02.jpg


OMG

teh skulls! :up:

[legacy-fftunes]

((...in that pic, the grass texture looks bad. Uber-tiling...
BTW, would brown, rotten, dark ground textures fit better? Colors are almost too strong now (at least the green grass).))

EDIT. you fixed it. Looks great now.

[legacy-WinkyBoy]

It's actually very pixellated, too -- but both of that is on purpose. Being based on platformers (Ghouls N Ghosts, primarily), I wanted it to have a semi "yesteryear" feel, while still having styles of today applied. The shape/look of all the ground/platforms... all of the custom staticmeshes... the movers... these are ALL supposed to look similar to that 16-bit gaming goodness.

When you're playing, BTW, you don't notice this AT ALL. Give it a whirl & let me know what you think after you've tried it.



Originally posted by toniglandyl
looks good.
let's see the goodkarma sechs:D

BTW the GoodKarma is applied to the large, white skulls in this map only. They're for picking up & tossing at each other with the U4E gravgun, and they do a pretty good wallop.

[legacy-fftunes]

Originally posted by WinkyBoy
...but both of that is on purpose. Being based on platformers (Ghouls N Ghosts, primarily)

;) Then it's ok of course.

[legacy-eviL<3]

Wow, this looks awesome! I love the skulls! And the rain looks great!
:):up:

[toniglandyl]

payed it.
OMFG the map is unplayable for me !!!:cry:
i have 2.6Ghz P4
768 DDR RAM
FX5200 :sour:
i dunno why it goes sooo badly.:confused:

[legacy-WinkyBoy]

Crud - that's not good to hear... The things I wonder are:

Maybe the weatherEffect is slowing it down? You can turn that off in your display settings...

MAYbe the GoodKarma objects are making it slow? Have you tried SterlingFlood (the other board I just released)? I saw you replied there but didn't hear how that worked for you. That board actually contains much more intensive GoodKarma, so if that runs, then it can't be the reason...

Other than that, I think I'm stumped. :(

[toniglandyl]

i turn weather effects of by "my" default.
it was already slow in spec mode before the match started.:confused:
maybe it's that my GFX generates everything even beyond the fog, and since there is alot of static meshes :confused:

[legacy-Riktar]

Antiportals?

*cackles, and flees*

[legacy-WinkyBoy]

Yeah there's one big antiportal in the middle, blocking crossing views - but that's about the only place where one was effective, so that's all I put in there.

[legacy-WinkyBoy]

GRrRR!!!!!

I never thought I'd have to do this AGAIN, but I'm taking down a full-release map (this one, of course) to make some changes. I've had a couple of negative comments on this AND I've found something myself (which no one else will ever find, but it irks me greatly). There will be a V3 available in a few days. My apologies.

I'll try to add more antiportals in the meantime -- MAYbe it'll help.

:(

[legacy-Riktar]

I was just joking about that antipotals comment, just being my usual self you know? =)

Because seriously, I wouldn't know where you could put any/many antiportals to smoothly optimize this map.

Granted, that doesn't mean dick, because I am a horrible map maker; but err.. yeah, I'll just stop talking now.


Aside: Don't worry about revising it even if it is in the "final releases" section. Everybody makes a mistake, and I'm sure no one will be too upset.


The theme of this map alone makes me anxious for your work to be truly finished =)

[legacy-WinkyBoy]

Thanks, Riktar - it's comforting to read that (honestly); I tend toward the perfectionist side of things and normally don't release maps on such a short production schedule. Of course, I'm doing it AGAIN with my next map, which should be done by Thursday -- but that's 6 more days of rushing than I had when I rushed GraveyardHills, so it should be smoother.

It wasn't the antiportals comment that pushed me to revise, although it contributed. I thought of a few things, even one that should improve toniglandyl's rate (I'm turning the "initially active" setting on all the NetKActors (GoodKarma) to OFF, which should improve things a little bit, because the NKAs don't need to interact with things until players get the IAM (gravitygun) or Airblast going, and not all the NKAs will be touched even then.)

But I also got comments that the grass terrain is fugly (although I did it like that on purpose, to try to capture 16-bit Genesis feel) and that the map is DARK. In addition to all that, the thing "that no one else would find but irks me greatly" is that some of the little round, floaty platforms are supposed to ViewShake and then drop from underneath you if you stand on them (like platformer games always have) and because I was trying to use a self-created MovingBlockingVolume in there, something got messed up. That'll be fixed, too.

[legacy-Riktar]

Yeah... I like the grass texture. I totally understood why you included it. It's like... paying homage.

It helps set the theme of the map... a theme I really like.

Oh and those things are supposed to fall?! OMG kick ass. =)

Edit: OH YEAH

And I was going to say... in fact I think you could have done more for the theme too.. like... you made those trees way too detailed and whatnot...

Though I'm not sure how you would get a more classically themed tree in the map anyways... without going overboard and heading too far into the "look at me 8 bit gfx!" zone which I think is just a bit over the other way ^^

I think it's more the clash of the grass with the other graphics that lead to those complaints...

[legacy-WinkyBoy]

Cool - I like it (the grass texture) too... I MIGHT keep it, although I wasn't talking about the comments that ffftunes had -- more than one person actually complained about the grass texture, which is why I mention it in the list.

I'm going to see what I can do to improve it -- maybe there's a kind-of middle ground somewhere.

[legacy-Riktar]

Maybe adding more than ju st one grass texture throughout the whole map?

Is there a dirt texture you can place around to kind of offset the green?

But they would still complain wouldn't they? Still too... erm, "pixel-y" or something...

*shrug*

[legacy-fftunes]

Originally posted by WinkyBoy
...although I wasn't talking about the comments that ffftunes had

...uff. Glad i'm not the "murderer". ;) The magic word to me was "Ghouls'n'Ghosts", maybe the people complaining just don't know the good ol'(skool-) games...

[legacy-WinkyBoy]

heh Yeah, I actually got a good shake of negatives -- but I suppose it's to be expected from rushing to get the board done, last week. I can move really fast when I've got a deadline, but it's oh-so-wrong to have a testing phase that is NOT exhaustive.

I updated the download to V3! Go ahead & grab it again. I added this to my first post (above) but the changes are as follows:


- The grass texture is more realistic; I originally purposely chose a pixellated texture because I wanted it to feel pretty old school. Several people complained about this, and as such I decided to please the masses.

- I reduced the staticmesh count by a couple of hundred staticmeshes, by replacing several piles of skulls with mini piles of skulls, and since I took out so many, I added a few (grass staticmeshes) back in here & there for good looks.

- I reskinned the demon towers to look more like they did in the original, with black interiors. Looks a lot nicer.

- repathed the bots. Even less jumping-to-their-death action! I completely removed the attempt of pathing the ConstatLoop lifts; this was even more of a pain because they were previously standing on lifts while waiting for lifts that they had to JUMP to get to... not an easy task.

- I increased the AmbientLighting to 4, which should help with the board being too dark.

[legacy-Riktar]

Originally posted by WinkyBoy
- The grass texture is more realistic; I originally purposely chose a pixellated texture because I wanted it to feel pretty old school. Several people complained about this, and as such I decided to please the masses.

Awwwwww =/



yeah I know this is like three weeks late I completely forgot about this >_>

well I will dl new version ^^