first UDK level WIP

[Gandarufu]

wow, this is impressive!
i really like the lighting and the overall feel of it, the contrasts between orange and blue work very well.


i'm working on my first map, too, atm. nothing compared to yours, hahaha. not even half way there yet.


would you mind talking about the rock meshes a little bit, about the textures and stuff that would be greatly appreciated!

take care,
gandarufu

[Stabz]

Looks very nice! I'm always kind of inspired when I see things like this, then I try to make something neat and fail like crazy. I especially like the textures. I have no idea how people texture things and have them all look uniform, like they are supposed to be in the same place. The lighting is really nice too. Hope to see some updates

[PrimitivePatriot]

Awesome level dude, very Mustafar-ish (Star Wars ep.3 for u non-geeks). And an inspiration to would be level designers.

Keep up the good work!

[freek3d]

yes I did found that out, it is just the fact that the photons after hitting a surface do fly outside of the radius of the original light (which is what one would usually want)but it flattens the scene a bit too much....

but thanks for the tip anyway
currently working on getting some more structures in there as well as creating a custom material that puts sand on the paths (not sure whether to use vertex colors or normals... but will see later ) this should help clear p the scene considerably as well, defining the paths properly,
I will post progress when I have something to show again ;D

[Xendance]

Remember to not confuse the "physical" radius of the point light's sphere that emits light (I think this option is under the lightmass tab) with the actual influence radius of the light. The larger the physical radius, the larger the shadow penumbra.

[freek3d]

thanks for the comments!

thanks for all the nice comments!
I will try to post updates as I go along, there is still a lot of work to do, cleaning up UV seams making sure pathways get a material blend to distinguish the walkable area's, make a proper collision mesh, decorate the environment etc.

That, and also in the dominant directional light's settings, under lightmass tab, tweak the Indirect Lighting Scale setting. Lower value effectively lowers the brightness of bounce/indirect lighting.
And then there's the material specific settings, which you can tweak in material editor.

i have tried working with those, so far however they have not gotten me the same high contrast results I want as doing it manully though, so if i can't get it tweaked the way I want I will just contnue to do it by hand, which also saves me some build times. I have not tried enabling ambient acclusion, I will try that out some time thanks!

whatever turns out to be the solution, lightmass is a great tool but it can be a bit hard to control, outside environments seem to work great, but dark enclosed area's are hard to create with photons bouncing everywhere, even outside lights raduisses (radii??).
I might try having a few fill lights with lightmass turned on and turn it off for the lava lights or something...

thanks a lot for the tips
and i will try to post a progress report soon

Freek

[Xendance]

I second the motion that the lighting is nice, it's good to see some nice strong lighting again.

@ Xendance
So thats how you do it, I been fighting with my lighting to make shadows and stop being so washed out.

That, and also in the dominant directional light's settings, under lightmass tab, tweak the Indirect Lighting Scale setting. Lower value effectively lowers the brightness of bounce/indirect lighting.
And then there's the material specific settings, which you can tweak in material editor.

[Aappleyard]

Thats cool. :3

[Sir. Polaris]

I second the motion that the lighting is nice, it's good to see some nice strong lighting again.

@ Xendance
So thats how you do it, I been fighting with my lighting to make shadows and stop being so washed out.

[TheKorruptOne]

This looks awesome especially if its your first level.

[Xendance]

****. I clicked on this topic expecting some static meshes in cube rooms but... ****.
The lighting looks really awesome.

Regarding lightmass, you could decrease the amount of light bounces to give your scene more contrast and enable baking of static ambient occlusion.

[freek3d]

[SHOT]http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/328/1/a/udk_deathmatch_level_2_by_freaqie-d33i28a.jpg[/SHOT]
[SHOT]http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/328/c/6/wip_deathmatch_map__by_freaqie-d33i1lb.jpg[/SHOT]

a first showing of a WIP level of mine,
the big cavemesh is custom most other assets are not (yet)
i will replace some later, but some generic items will still be used to keep the packages small.

To create an interesting high contrast look lava was put at the bottem of the crevass, it has been used to light most of the area, also helping to define the shapes of the objects for clear navigation (although it is a bit cluttered still)

lightmass was not used for this scene as the effect it created was too washed out destroying the high contrast feel, maybe I will use it in the final, but I need t control it better to be able to get the high contrast i need lighting for dramatic effect. I might use it for the final map but I'd have to find a ways of preperly dialing down the lightbouncing, any tips are appreciated, (I have found the global controls and per light controls, but I still get a wahsed out look.

it is still work in progress, hope to finish it in the coming months.
comments are most appreciated!

Freek