Gears of War Proof of Concept Multiplayer Map MP-Picote

[CaptainMurphyRU]

Hey, guys. I've been working on an untitled project that will eventually find it's way into these forums, but while my programmer is busy tinkering on it, I've taken the time to develop a Gears of War styled map in the UDK, using a great deal of the features presented in the May release of the UDK.



MP-Picote [as I'm tentatively calling it] is an outdoors jungle themed map inspired by the GDC_Features map that also came with the UDK. All assets are from the stock .upk packages in the UDK; I designed the level but not the individual parts. I built this primarily as a way to acquaint myself with all the features the UDK has been offering us: the lightmass system, mesh painting, light rays, (etc.) and also to demonstrate to friends what we could expect to see a Gears of War 3 multiplayer map to look like. It's about 90% done with just a "few" more things to put in place. As it is more a conceptualized idea then an actual multiplayer map, I've gone more for quality then performance here, but I will say that testing on the PC, it still runs at 30+fps.

Things still to do:
-Top part of the "Fort" area needs to be fully meshed
-Spawn areas need to be fully meshed
-Collision and Post Process volumes
-Mesh Painting
-Kismet implementation of "The Monster"
-Ambient Sounds

I'm not saying my work is awesome or that it's better then anyone else's here, but I do want to say that I'm quite proud of what I've accomplished so far. Take a look and see what you think!

Rather then posting a dozen pictures here in the thread and linking to my two flyby videos, I'm just gonna provide a link to my MP-Picote map page on my portfolio website. Here's the link:

LogicTree Studios

Thanks for checking out my work!!!

[CaptainMurphyRU]

Here's some new pictures [for those too lazy to head over to my website ] before I head off to work. Click the link after the jump if you're not feeling as lazy today to view the whole page for my map project.









LogicTree Studios

[JiffOrange]

Looking good from what I can see, what sort of frame rates you getting? Did you use Interactive Foliage Actors for all the vegetation?

Cheers,
Jiff

[CaptainMurphyRU]

Looking good from what I can see, what sort of frame rates you getting? Did you use Interactive Foliage Actors for all the vegetation?

Cheers,
Jiff

Thanks for the compliments. I'm currently getting 30+ fps when running PIE and even better when I'm running on the PC. However, they are of course, small resolutions. Haven't tried playing it in my native resolution (1920x1080) yet.

It's funny you mention Interactive Foliage Actors - I've been doing some research on them and actually think I'll try using them in my map (currently none at the moment). They look easy to implement.

*EDIT
...And from what I can recall, they have little performance overhead, so it'll definitely be worked in.

[dameeda]

Nice work CaptainMurphyRU.

Reminds me somewhat of A V P with the mayan/aztec architecture (my favourite era)

Keep up the good work

[BorisK]

niiiiiiiiiiiiice

i saw someones UDK GoW cover system code on a forum somewhere(forgot to bookmark lol)

the epic games decals a nice touch

[JiffOrange]

Thanks for the compliments. I'm currently getting 30+ fps when running PIE and even better when I'm running on the PC. However, they are of course, small resolutions. Haven't tried playing it in my native resolution (1920x1080) yet.

It's funny you mention Interactive Foliage Actors - I've been doing some research on them and actually think I'll try using them in my map (currently none at the moment). They look easy to implement.

*EDIT
...And from what I can recall, they have little performance overhead, so it'll definitely be worked in.

Would be interested to find out what you get @1080p res but 30+ for PIE is still pretty good for all that vegetation ....me and my team are doing an open world island game and we have seen a small drop ( ~5 fps) for Interactive foliage (lots of it too for forests, palms etc), we started from here: http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=718347 and layered the materials of diff complexity to get a more natural feel. Hope that helps. It's certainly a solid start you got going there I'll be watching your progress.

Cheers,

Jiff

Edit: The cover system for GOW is here: http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=727220

[CaptainMurphyRU]

Hey, thanks everyone for the support as well as the great links (UDK-GoW Cover & Interactive Foliage) and suggestions. I just got back from a long 12-hour day of driving, packing, and unpacking over at my new apartment, so I am exhausted and will obviously not be pulling an all-nighter working on my map tonight.

But besides that...

It does kinda remind me of that level from AvP now that I think of it! I'll be honest with you - when I was making the map, I was actually trying my best to picture scenes from the movie Predator cause the thick overgrown jungle in the movie really sold the visceral cat-and-mouse action [it also made for really great resource images too of course]. I kinda wanted this map, if it ever was to become a "real" Gears map, feel like something out of Predator. I wanted the player to feel lost in a "living" jungle - where the subtle sway of grass, trees, and undergrowth could either be just the wind...or somebody looking to pull off an overpowered shotgun blast to the face, lol!

The interactive foliage doesn't look all too hard to place on those meshes; like I said before, Epic says they get very little performance drop when doing it with their's, but I'm pretty sure they also don't have a million grass and plant meshes in their maps like I do! Regardless, I want to give it a try. I saw that one video on YouTube - Interactive Foliage, and thought it was pretty neat, so consider it another checkbox on the list.

The GoW cover looks fantastic too! I really want to get that set up. Nothin' much else to say - I'll do it.

So here's my To-Do List [And I thought I was almost done!]:
-Mesh Passes over the "Fort" area
-Mesh Painting
-Blocking Volumes
-Ambient Sound
-Fixes with the grass (need to be rotated and scaled appropriately for a more "random" look
-Lighting (A little darker then I'd like in certain areas)
-Gears Cover
-Interactive Foliage
-The Smoke Monster*
-EasterEggs?

*Yeah...I've been wanting to do The Smoke Monster for a while now. I have some ideas on how to achieve it, but this cool little idea is still being tested heavily and won't be seen in any pictures/videos yet, until I feel that those who watched the TV series, Lost, won't tear me to pieces cause of a botched tribute to their show. Really cool though, can't wait to get it out to people. Of course I'll make sure to provide development posts and pictures about it as I go, but I might consider doing that in a separate thread. I don't know, not sure.

Oh and BorisK -> it's actually a light function of the Epic Logo on there, lol! I'm pretty embarrassed to say I totally overlooked using a decal for that little easter egg, so I think I'll try and switch over to that from my lightfunction.

I'll try and see if I can't get anything post-worthy done by Saturday. Ideally, I'd like to have this whole thing done by next week [my programmer is back in action, so design-work on our actual project starts next week], but with all these new ideas streaming in, this small little personal project is almost beginning to feel like a big deal, lol! We shall see what happens....

[CaptainMurphyRU]

Wow, it's been extremely busy lately - work, July 4th,.... Anyway, here's some new photos of what I've been doing.



























I have sound, mesh painting, and blocking volumes up, as well as some meshing [finally] on the fort area. Unfortunately, I need to run to work here very shortly, so the pictures will have to do for now until I can get back and upload the video with all the "hip" new jungles sounds in the map!

Gears Cover, Interactive Foliage, and "The Smoke Monster" coming soon!

--Taylor

LogicTree Studios

[CaptainMurphyRU]

Alright, the new video with sound is up on YouTube. I'd link you to there, but since it's already been embedded on my website, why don't you have a look there?

LogicTree Studios - MP-Picote

Sorry in advance if my filmmaking skills are not of J.J. Abrams - quality!



-Taylor

LogicTree Studios

[CaptainMurphyRU]

It's been a really long time since I posted anything about this project, so I thought I'd provide one last video for you.

I've pretty much wrapped up the MP-Picote map, and have begun working on a new project (which'll eventually find its way into another thread!). The interactive foliage and smoke monster didn't get done like I was hoping (at least not yet!), but the level is complete besides those two minor details.

The video I have for you is my demo reel which showcases a few clips of the finished work along with clips of my new UDK project, PongPinball. I've got a small but extremely dedicated team behind this project, so look for it in the forums sometime in the near-future!

Also on the demo reel is several meshes I made and textured (unless otherwise noted). Each map of PongPinball is themed from a particular game or movie, and the one currently being worked on is a Borderlands-inspired map. It's pretty exciting and it's certainly looking pretty cool, so like I said, expect to see this showing up on ModDB/the UDK Project Showoff forums soon!

Thanks for taking a look!

MyDemoReel