VCTF-AggressiveAlleys FINAL VERSION

[ChainsawFilms]

Name: Aggressive Alleys

DOWNLOAD FINAL VERSION HERE PLEASE
http://gearsforums.epicgames.com/sho...3#post25342233
(PC and PS3 versions now available).

Compatibility: Works fine with 1.2

Description: An urban map.

Comments: Inspired by a personal favourite UT2004 map. Not exactly a remake as a lot has changed, but you can certainly see a lot of the original in it.

Edit - final version now available, please follow this link:

http://gearsforums.epicgames.com/sho...3#post25342233

[Giggity]

Whoa, haven't downloaded it yet, but this looks incredible. I'll try it as soon as I can

[Transmitthis]

This is FANTASTIC
I love the complexity of the map. you have really thought about the game play.
there's loads of places to discover, and plenty of routes to the Flags. The hydrants are a nice touch.

I think there is a bit too much rain for me personally though - and would be real glad if you could release a version with no rain.

Or is there a way to turn the rain off for half the match? - make it a shower that clears up. Still that aside the only other problem I hit was the rapter which is a bit limited for space due to the blocking volumes.

This is the best map I have played so far - I hope it gets put on the public servers eventually.


much respect!

EDIT - My reason for wanting less rain is not a performance issue - its a visibility issue just can't see anything outside
So when playing with bots you run into the problem of them being able to see you through the rain, but your not able to see them very well (ended up turning down bot skill)

[BuffyTheSlayer]

omg downloading now

[Transmitthis]

Just noticed something you may want to tweek
Down the steps towards the hologram you come to a weapons locker, in that area there are six spotlight actors - but no staticmesh lights for the light to come from

[Sunshine1709Str]

omg downloading now

buffy, you must post your mind everytime, isn´t it?
NO wonder that you have more than 3000 posts.
lol :P lol :P

[CVROY]

A little polish and this map is will be great! Nice work

[ChainsawFilms]

Thanks for the feedback.

The visibility issue outside is mainly fogging as it happens, the rain is culled quite early. I needed fog that heavy to allow me to cull small objects quicker. I will tinker with it a bit more, try to find a better compromise. I agree it would be nice to see further, but then I really like the thick rain. Other Rain maps I've played have been a bit sparse. Sure something can be sorted

Turning the rain off is possible, I'm going to look at implementing a few nice kismet touches. The big issue would be the need to double up all the ground materials - we'd have Wet and then Raining variations, which may add heavily to the file size and GPU load. I don't know TBH. I do know how to swap materials in Kismet though, so may well be worth a few hours work. I wonder if you can alter depthfog in Kismet?

I will definitely do a Day version once this is final, it won't be a lot more work assuming the simpler materials and less rain / particles balance out the need for increased visibility.

I'll look at the spotlights without actors - TBH I noticed that a few days ago but forgot about it :lol:

Regarding the low clipping level, I totally agree. I can certainly increase the height, but then the play area boundaries would need to be raised as well. May be the best idea will be lowering the Raptor buildings so they don't start as high? In the first version the buildings were actually 50% higher, but that was ridiculous. I'll try increasing the blocking height first.

Again thanks for the feedback, keep it coming. I'm flattered by all the praise

[Giggity]

Balance wise the goliath should be replaced with a Hellbender. Even though I'm a huge fan of a Goliath, it just fits better to have a Hellbender.

[Cr4zy]

Looks nice, im downloading those, ill take a look at it in the editor and see if anything jumps out about those framerates too.

[ChainsawFilms]

Looks nice, im downloading those, ill take a look at it in the editor and see if anything jumps out about those framerates too.

Thank you very much mate, that would be great

I don't know why, but when I build the whole map, it's doing the Static Lighting and then the Light Maps twice. It never used to do that, at least not until recently - maybe when I mirrored it? Is this normal? Because it's always possible I've duplicated brushes or something daft.

Balance wise the goliath should be replaced with a Hellbender. Even though I'm a huge fan of a Goliath, it just fits better to have a Hellbender.

I can see where you're coming from with this. Like you I enjoy the Goliath, but it can get choked up in the middle of the map with one of them. Again maybe two versions First and foremost the map is for my own pleasure, and Goliaths are so much fun, it looks really cool in an urban environment. But thanks for your feedback, and I do agree so maybe two versions. I may do that anyway, one version with everything including the kitchen sink thrown in effects wise, and another stripped down more "competitive" version.

[icecold]

those image shack screenshots suck big time.. I have a broadband connection and it takes like 15 seconds to get that little screenshot up and then I get a few pop ups

[ChainsawFilms]

Sorry to hear about problems with ImageShack. I have no problems with them myself so can't comment.

Any more feedback before the next Beta next week? Changes so far:

Fixed flag area being culled too early.

Reduced main floor lighmap from 8 to 16, doesn't look much difference but hopefully a small perfomance boost. Outer base ceilings now 32. Most other surfaces still on 8 where visual quality is more important.

Moved block on central walkway jump a little so jumping is now easier / more fluid.

Fixed a few pavement placement issues.

Fixed the rain coming in to buildings, though it may still not be perfect just yet.

Culled rain earlier to help performance and slightly improve visibility.

Reduced lower height fog by a third to increase vsibility, had to alter some culled items accordingly.

Culled particle emitters and light volumetrics at 2000 units, if you look really close you can see the emitters starting at that distance but through all the rain it's not obvious at all.

Altered rain based on system settings - Low detail has half the rain falling to help performance.


Still got some blocking issues to resolve, particularly with the Raptor pads. I tried lowering them but it didn't have the impact I wanted. Tried raising the sides of the play area to accomodate a higher blocking volume, but the really ruined the sense of scale in the background as well as adding culling problems. Going to try and reduce the width of the Raptor pad buildings and build a mid-height launch pad coming off them, see how that looks, although I'll have to be careful with tri counts.

Also removing Flak Cannon from all Lockers and replacing with Rocket Launchers, which I'd done on half of them already.

Any other suggestions / input is appreciated

[Cr4zy]

Had a look at it in the editor, the light maps/lighting are the one thing id say are really giving a performance impact. I ran it fine at 62FPS solid on my 8800GTX most the way, just in the center and outside i had more FPS drops to about 45-50. There is heavy use of emitters which may slow some systems down, use light cone meshes instead of the emitters under the lights.

You need to put some forcedDir volumes at entrance to the flag, i managed to geta raptor and even the tank onto the flag, thats bad camping. Raise the height for vehicles, i got in the raptor went up and immediately hit a blocking volume. Instead of using blocking or forced dir volumes go into your world properties and set a StallZ level, that gives the nice soft bounce in most Epic maps, then to stop exploiting add a blocking volume just above it.
In the blue base when you go down to get the chest armour the jump pad is too close to the circle so you hit that and then can't get out unless you hammer jump, so move the jump pad back a little, works fine in Red base.

It plays nicely and looks great.

[ChainsawFilms]

Brilliant feedback many thanks. I'll implement everything you suggest. I didn't know about the StallZ levels or forcedir volumes.

Hopefully now I'm culling emitters at 2000 units that will help outside a little, and the lower lghtmaps on the larger ground areas. I'll admit I didn't realise large lightmaps would have any impact on performance per se, I assumed that as long as they were small enough to all fit in memory the actual rendering of them would make no difference.

Beta 2 will likely be ready Monday so hopefully that will have a small performance boost.

I can't thank you enough fot taking the time to give this a proper test

[ChainsawFilms]

Download: (PC, 50meg RAR) http://files.filefront.com/VCTF+Aggr.../fileinfo.html


This was / is RC1, however it only just occured to me there's still no minimap in it, but that will be fixed in the final. Also I need to redo the Kismet timings for the sound and lightning flashes, nothing major.

Speaking of which, please don't look at my Kismet it's a joke!

Tweaked quite a few things and taken all feedback on board - stall zone, ForceDirs, etc. Added a lot of weather stuff, the rain is still constant but culled earlier, and altered the fog levels so you can see better now. Biggest change is probably the lightning effects, which has resulted in the aforemention Kismet Katastrophy (sorry couldn't resist!). May well be too much for some PCs. I did a lot of optimising from the earlier release, but then ruined it all with the lightning additions.

There will be an effects-sparse Daytime version when the Final is released. Same map, just brighter, no rain and running smoother

Tried doing a PS3 version but just got errors, anyone wanting a go at cooking just give me a shout.

What I'd like to hear about is general gameplay / item placement, as well as any obvious bugs - rain coming in to a building, bad collision, etc. Though the rain may be impossible to make perfect.

Looking for a Final within a few days.

Well enjoy, and feedback is greatly appreciated!

[ChainsawFilms]

Obviously I'm testing as well, and just found two issues - deployables seem locked to me, but bots can use them, and as a Blue player my initial spawn was in the red base. Which was funny

[Giggity]

I'm still curious about this map, so I'm gonna ask if you changed the Goliath with a Hellbender?

[ChainsawFilms]

No sorry, I like the Goliath in it and really don't think it unbalances things. Can make it interesting in the middle for a minute, but they tend to taken out quickly - there's a few Avrils around and lots of corners from which to take the shot. There is a Hellbender, you can always mutate the Goliath out.

I've fixed quite a few issues on this version (forgot to replace a Berzerk with a Stinger when I put another Berzerk in a different location). Just got some tidying up of signage and this will be done, short of anyone having any other issues.

[CVROY]

Every time this map is voted for or I try to manually force it in the web admin it will not load at all. There may be a problem with the map. I've seen this with a few custom maps, and I had to take those off the server. I can't explain why it happens. Other custom maps play fine.

Anyone else have this issue?

This is what I see in my server log

ScriptLog: ProcessServerTravel: VCTF-AggressiveAlleys-RC1
Log: SeamlessTravel to: VCTF-AggressiveAlleys-RC1
Error: Unable to travel to 'VCTF-AggressiveAlleys-RC1' - file not found

I have the .ini file in my config folder and the map in the cookedPC maps folder... I am running 1.2 Linux Server.

[ChainsawFilms]

Firstly, thanks for putting it on your server!

Secondly, I have no idea on the problem but I'll look in to it. Far as I'm concerned, it can't be released Final with this problem even if it does happen on other maps as well. I've followed all procedures I can find on setting up maps with WorldInfo and the ini file. I'll look in to this some more and get back to you. It may necessitate another RC.

Thanks for letting me know.

[JelleRogermees]

Awesome map. No problems encountered.

[ChainsawFilms]

Thank you very much

CVROY and I have been working on the server Travel issue, and it's definitely looking to be a Kismet issue with the lightning. Works no problems with that kismet removed. So I'm not redoing it all and hopefully we'll get a version working with lightning. I'm very happy with that effect, think it adds immensely to the level, would be a shame to drop it....

[ChainsawFilms]

Edit - final version now available, please follow this link:

http://gearsforums.epicgames.com/sho...3#post25342233


Fixed lots of issues and improved the map. If you felt the tank unbalanced it before, please check back now - vehicles can no longer enter the base, and the tank projectiles get blocked by a forcefield, so no base spamming.

Thanks to everyone who helped test it