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**legacy-ION3** · 06-23-2006, 03:24 PM

Wow! Really impressed by that map! Congratulations on the visuals, performance and Atmosphere!

Hourences dinora tex is missing.

**legacy-Sjosz** · 06-23-2006, 06:33 PM

(copied from UCMP forums)
I checked out this map for you Whonoz, and I must commend you on the excellent consistency I see in it so far! Quite nice!
To give you feedback about what I thought about the map:

- It is *tight*. In a lot of places, if not everywhere, the layout and size of the layout make it hard for the players to use the full advantage of movement, like dodgejumps etc. If anything, you could maybe try and scale up the map a bit. I know it's late in the development process of your map... but the scale felt constricting.

- There isn't much colour. You've created a pretty consistent visual theme with a lot of tech stuff, but you used mostly white or close to white coloured lights. Lights are sourced fine, but you could use some more colour in the light scheme. My suggestions for more colour in the scheme:
* The windows showing the underwater setting (which is quite nice) offer a great possibility to use a sort of marine blue or emerald blue-green to 'shine' into the building. For reference you could use other underwater themed maps like my own CTF-UCMP-Aquatica, or DM-Oceanic or DM-CBP2-Tydal.
* Use more colour on the indoor lights. Light saturations of yellow, orange, red, or blue would work well, use some sort of really subtle blue for areas that have less lights. You could experiment with it plenty. More colour variation would do this map good.

- Mesh clutter. The amount of meshes you used creates a nice and consistent theme, but combined with the really tight scale they clutter up movement as well. With this I mean that you can get stuck on a lot of meshes that have been used on walls etc. By using blocking volumes along the walls, covering up small spaces between the placed meshes, you could improve that quite a bit.

- I don't think I heard a lot of audio in the map. Ambient sounds and such. Those could really contribute to the map's atmosphere.

I hope this helps a bit. Good luck with the map!

**AnubanUT2** · 06-23-2006, 07:44 PM

After reading the last post and reading other posts that seem to always complain about the scale of maps being too large I had to play this one even though I rarely check out beta maps anymore ... (Hazel's latest excellent one and Keene's ONS map are the only beta maps I have played in the last 3-4 months ... though I should really take Slain's and Raffi's maps for a whirl before they become finals) and I rarely comment on maps anymore. But I have to disagree with the observation that the scale is too small ... imvho it is PERFECT at last ... finally a map where people can't just dodge jump easily out the way and when I am in 3rd person things just look more realistic in the right ways. For me this will make the DMs much more intense and insane but not impossible ... I played it on Godlike against Perfect bots and I still won though it was a battle I must admit. Anyway just my two cents ... the map is a gem so far ... some better lighting (as has also been mentioned and fully explained) and ambient sounds will really make this map a fav 1v1 map. :up:

**legacy-ION3** · 06-23-2006, 09:40 PM

Played it now and i must say gameplay is REALLY well for me! I think Epic would say it's "in you face". I like the fact, that the geometry is intresting to fight in and it's really fun. Take this as a huge congrats and thank you to you as i never played a map before which gave me this feeling.(atleast not that strong and not in UE2) Maybe you just hit my lucky day but thats unlikely. The feel, look and gameplay are all unique. I'd not like it to become one of these very colorful maps.

Again: I like it. Thanks.

**legacy-Whonoz** · 06-27-2006, 01:36 PM

Thanks!

*UPDATE* Glacialis-Beta-2 above…new screens and downloads!

Thanks for the awesome feedback! I really am glad to hear that it is an enjoyable map to play. I have worked with some of the lighting ION3, but I’m hoping you still like it. If not, let me know!

Thanks again.

**legacy-ION3** · 06-27-2006, 10:09 PM

I like the light from the windows. What about increasing their radius a bit? And the radius of the teleporter lights, too?
I don't like the new color of the floor lights though. I think in reality they would have more exactly the color of the other lights. In reality there wouldn't even be any floorlights at all cause it blends persons and because humans are used to light coming from above.

The sound of the teleporter doesn't seem to fit to the graphics.

Could you post a complete changelist?

**cUnNiNg_StUnTs** · 06-28-2006, 01:21 AM

So how come you haven't started a thread at UP?

**legacy-Whonoz** · 06-28-2006, 06:11 AM

Originally posted by ION3

I like the light from the windows. What about increasing their radius a bit? And the radius of the teleporter lights, too?
I don't like the new color of the floor lights though. I think in reality they would have more exactly the color of the other lights. In reality there wouldn't even be any floorlights at all cause it blends persons and because humans are used to light coming from above.

The sound of the teleporter doesn't seem to fit to the graphics.

Could you post a complete changelist?

I got the general change list up top, but to go into detail the only things I changed were the lights: such as underwater glare through windows, rustic red on floor lights, yellow-green pole lights and brown tint on the elevator/wall lights.

For sounds I added a general underwater ambient sound in each room and placed a bubbling type sound over the green ooze pits. And tweaked two spawn points to look the opposite direction they were currently at.

Everything else has stayed the same from Beta1.

Originally posted by cUnNiNg_StUnTs

So how come you haven't started a thread at UP?

I'm thinking the exact same thing as I read this…

UP…I’m on my way!!! :noob:

**legacy-Sjosz** · 06-28-2006, 11:28 AM

*copied post from UCMP forums*

Feedback:

- Give somewhat more radius and strength to the underwater lightsource, it will create a bit more contrast, which is something this map lacks IMO.
- Nice use of yellow and brown-orange on certain floor and ceiling lights. Good identification of a type of lightsource giving a certain type of light. Good job on that. I would give the orange floorlights 2-4 more radius, and 5-10 more brightness.
- Your use of colour has started to improve, but I personally would like to see a bit more colour, changing certain whites to a very gentle, subtle whitish blue. You have a great amount of ambient lights without actual sources, using the blues on that would IMO look quite satisfying, without sacrificing your white lightsources. The light actors I mean here are the white lights that are coupled with lightbrown ones all over the level. (you should really start grouping your lights, makes tweaking an entire level so much easier, only selecting a group instead of every single lightsource). If you made the white ones of the coupled lights into lightblue ones (I tried the same brightness as when it was white, 170 LightHue and 220 LightSaturation, and I thought it looked quite cool)
- Weaponbase skins. They are the default ones, which look kind of ugly. If you go into the Display properties of the weaponbases and remove all the Skins attached to them, you will have much better looking weaponbases.
- Details. Waterpuddles, particle emitters, you name it, try and add some more details in the level

- Blocking volumes. Movement is cluttery even in this beta. One of the suggested locations for additional blocking volumes is near the windows that let you view outside, those can snag players pretty easily. Try and walking along walls in your own level and consider placing blocking volumes where you get snagged.
- Collision. Remove collision on small meshes. Their collision causes players to get stuck on them and usually you don't need collision on those. An example for this would be 'cp_Mechstaticpack1.Lights.cp_lp_Mechlight1' and 'SG_LO_meshes.Lights.sg_Mech_floodl'. This will increase performance and cause less snags in general.
- Define your texturing a bit more. Right now you use 2 textures in total for the different floors you have. Try if you can find one more texture that would fit to spice it up just a bit more. You want variety in your level, not monotony. Also, make sure that you align your textures in an understandable and cohesive way throughout the level. Your floortextures are aligned in a peculiar way IMO.
- Audio. You have several different sounds in your level, but when you see the amount of machinery and compare it to the sound that you hear, it's almost nothing. True, there is ambient sound, but try to add a few sounds that are more local, near heavy looking machinery etc. Also, a few triggered sounds would not be unwanted IMO.

I hope this helps you out a bit. Good luck with the map!

**legacy-ION3** · 06-29-2006, 04:19 PM

Wow Sjosz! This is almost exactly the opposite of what i want!

Pay attention to that variety! Don't break your theme with it. Also there already is much detail in the map and not every machine has to make loud noise.

**legacy-Sjosz** · 06-29-2006, 05:08 PM

Originally posted by ION3

Wow Sjosz! This is almost exactly the opposite of what i want!

Pay attention to that variety! Don't break your theme with it. Also there already is much detail in the map and not every machine has to make loud noise.

Difference of taste/opinion is all... I'm not suggesting extreme variations here, and of course not every machine has to make a loud noise, I never suggested this either. Regardless, I hope this map will turn out to be interesting.

**legacy-eviL<3** · 06-30-2006, 03:49 PM

Cool map, i like it! But i don't like this place: it's too cramped.

**AnubanUT2** · 06-30-2006, 03:59 PM

I find that it is not too cramped at all ... nice and tight for hardcore death matches ... you really have to be on your toes and at your best on this map ... But of course that is just my pov. Anyway looking forward to the final ... hope it stays the same scale.

**legacy-Whonoz** · 07-01-2006, 02:02 PM

Originally posted by ION3

Wow Sjosz! This is almost exactly the opposite of what i want!

Pay attention to that variety! Don't break your theme with it. Also there already is much detail in the map and not every machine has to make loud noise.

Originally posted by Sjosz

Difference of taste/opinion is all... I'm not suggesting extreme variations here, and of course not every machine has to make a loud noise, I never suggested this either. Regardless, I hope this map will turn out to be interesting.

I’m still going for a gritty type look, but Sjosz feedback has helped out greatly. I didn’t feel comfortable trying to implement a lot of these things, but because of his input I think it is becoming a much better map. I won’t add everything, but he has pushed me to become better at what I want to do…Level Design.

Originally posted by eviL<

Cool map, i like it! But i don't like this place: it's too cramped.

Glad you like it! In future maps I will have public tests of the layout to find a good variation of play styles. My main problem is I hate oversized maps, but to play UT0X with all the game mechanics this is sometimes a requirement. The challenge is to make it look normal, but have room to play.

Originally posted by AnubanUT2

I find that it is not too cramped at all ... nice and tight for hardcore death matches ... you really have to be on your toes and at your best on this map ... But of course that is just my pov. Anyway looking forward to the final ... hope it stays the same scale.

Scale will always be the same. I will try and balance different game styles with my next map, but I will remember those of us that like the in-your-face fights.

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