DM-LostForest

[Turbo K]

Title: DM-)TK(-LostForest-Beta2

Description: This is a completely renovated version of my map BattleintheTreetops. It now features improved terrain, new tree and plant layouts, a new pickup system, more places to explore, better fog and skybox, and much more. This is a large outdoor themed map with many uses. You can just explore by yourself, run around on the forest floor shooting bots, sneaking around the treetops sniping other players, or playing with Ballistic Weapons.
When making this map, I tried to balance decorations with gameplay. On my computer it isn't choppy at all and runs smoothly.
This map requires some files from the CBP2. Any needed files should be here: http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=768873
Screenshots:






Download:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20360...rest_Beta4_zip

[StaffSgt]

i like it

[Turbo K]

Looking at the Screenshots doesn't do it justice. You have to get out there and explore!

[jefe]

Looks much, much better. This map is really coming together. I'll post some more detailed feedback later, but here are a few things:

Put in a fog ring. This lets fog blend in smoothly with the skybox. Otherwise you get these ugly patches of sky interspersed with fog. It's also wise to test your map at several fog settings (as well as other settings) so you see what other people experience and determine if it looks good at all levels. I'll post a screenshot of what it looks like on my settings.

There are tons of places where collision is an issue, either you're blocked where you shouldn't be, or you can pass through some things.

You should smooth your terrain near the edges of water, it is very difficult or impossible to get out in some edges. If that's intention, make it clear by making the terrain a bit steeper and higher or putting meshes along the edge.

I think this map would be great with low gravity, similar to tokara forest.

[Turbo K]

Is the collision issue you're talking about that one big tree that is solid on the bottom and not solid on the top part? I'm not sure what to do about that one.

Low gravity might work good on this map. I've never been a fan of it though and I would probably have to redesign some sections.

[Baryonyx]

The map does not show up in the game for me... I have all the CBPs and I did not see any warnings concerning this map in my log...

[Sergeant Todd]

Turbo K,
Played the map with low gravity, and it's like Tokara Forest on crack. Up in the trees it's a sniper's paradise.

Sergeant Todd
---------------
"Long live Rainecloud"

[Baryonyx]

Oh, I forgot It has a tag... Of course I did not find it, then... I found it now and it works fine.

Playtesting now...
EDIT: I tested it and as a fan of jungle maps I also like this one.
Some remarks:
One of the main trees is floating a little bit.
If you place several plants of the same type next to each other, try to vary them in size a bit or rotate them. Sometimes the plant groups are just looking too repetitive and therefore unnatural.
What is that blue glob on one of the walkways? It has no texture on it's bottom too.
Your name is buried by terrain on the egdes, I don't think that was intentional.
Try to decorate the water areas a bit more, add plants to the egdes and underwater to stop making them look like holes filled with water. Perhaps you can use this to hide the super shield a little bit better. Also, there is a bit of the bridge floating.
There are some little "stones" on the ground on the ends of walkways on the ground near the big trees where I can get stuck and need to jump to get over.

I took some screenshots of all the things I mentioned, but Imageshack won't let me upload them for some reason... I will try it again if you don't know what I mean.
Other than what I said, I like the map, you did a good job at creating a jungle like atmosphere.
And

[Turbo K]

My name was originally not buried,but when I fixed the terrain, it got kind of buried. It doesn't make it stand out as much which is ok.
By one of the main trees floating, do you mean that the base needs to be lowered?

The Blue Glob is a crystal mover. It takes you from one platform to another.
Is there a good murky water texture in the stock packages?

[Skred]

Most (really all of) the stock water textures are pretty level sensitive. They all have reflections of a stock map in them which usually doe snot work for any kind of custom map. I posted a tutorial to something to help you in your other thread with the whole water issue. It may seem difficult at first, but it's really not. Just give the tutorial a good look.

[Turbo K]

When I have more time I will have to look into it.

[Baryonyx]

Now I can show you some pics:



This is the floating bridge part.


Those are the "stones" where I can get stuck.


I like this idea.


How about you move those plants to the shore and more or less cover the shore with more of them?


You say that is a mover? I stepped on it and it did not move... But it really needs a bottom texture.


This is what I meant with the plants looking all the same. Try to rotate them and vary them in size. And I recommend to make those red plants significantly smaller, as they don't fit to the others IMO.


That's the floating tree. It's barely noticeable, but it is floating.

EDIT:

[...] They all have reflections of a stock map in them which usually doe snot work for any kind of custom map.[...]

made me laugh.

[jefe]

I think most of what I was going to say been covered. Stuff like the floating tree has to be fixed, and any time you have a map with a ton of static meshes, while it may seem easy to put a bunch down quickly and call it a map, the reality is that collision is a huge issue. That means you'll need to put blocking volumes around a lot of trees... a common technique is to turn off collision on smaller trees and put a volume around the trunk. This will prevent players from getting snagged in the upper branches, but still be fairly solid. Small trees only though. You shouldn't be falling through branches big enough to support a player. Turning off simple karma collision and simple box collision can help on larger trees. Epic meshes are generally set up correctly, but some of these meshes that appear to have come from other maps (CREDIT THEM!) and may not be, especially if the map did not use vehicles, or if they had special collision meshes which may not have been copied. (Vehicles can pass through meshes with simple karma collision, which is an issue on my inv server because we can spawn vehicles, and simple karma is the default for meshes created in unreal ed.)

What has also been mentioned is getting snagged or having to jump on things that look smooth. I ran into a lot of that. If something looks low enough to walk on, you shouldn't have to jump to get on it. There are a couple of ways to handle this on low-to-the ground objects. One, as above is to turn off collision, this works well on tiny decorative things like rocks and small plants. You can also use blocking volumes to close off gaps between meshes. A bit of judicious terrain work can also help, or simply nudging the mesh a bit till it no longer has a protruding edge to get caught on.

I didn't go over the map with a translocator to see if i could get out of bounds, or trans under things or terrain, but that is something you should do while making testing level. Invasion and zark servers tend to have these, and that floating tree is a prime hiding spot that would ruin the experience for a lot of people, and likely get the map removed from the server. (Then again there are few inv servers that encourage buggy maps.)

The first time I tried the map, it was around 2am, but I didn't have any issues opening that i remember, but now I'm getting a runtime error. Opening in the editor says the missing files are part of AW-Cubes, but that a UT2004 file, and not the familiar missing tex env that you see on a lot of maps Epic's maps. I'm puzzled by this one. Did you edit a default package and save it by mistake?

From the editor view I see that there aren't any blocking volumes at all. That's not good. The water volume also extends much farther than it needs to. If someone glitches under the map, they'll be able to float there under the terrain and shoot at people.

Testing your map again I didn't have to play long to find a lot of problems. I didn't have to go out of my way at all to find them either. I found them pretty much everywhere I looked.


Try the smoothing and edge turn tools here where terrain borders water.


You can walk right under this mesh.


What's holding this up?


You should be able to walk right onto this platform without jumping.


This illustrates why you need a fog ring: A fog ring will prevent mesh draw-in against the backdrop - instead you'll seem more fog in the distance.


This reddish-gray mesh from the albatross package is not designed be be seen from below. AND it does NOT look good with the mossy green stones right next to it. This is an example of how the hodgepodge of meshes work against each other. A quick fix for this would be applying a mossy texture to the albatross mesh, duplicate it, go to the draw scale setting in the lower right corner of unreal ed, then put - on the Z value, which flips it. (You might need to put - on some of the other values if it doesn't match up.) Lower the flipped one a bit and it will cover the underside.

And ancient stonework supported by wooden posts? Not very likely. The primitive BSP stairs right next to this stuff just adds to the weirdness. This would all look much better with more consistent texture usage and design. Rather that flipping the albatross mesh, another good option would be building a nice BSP structure, with the albatross mesh on top- which is how that mesh was designed to be used in the first place.


Unnecessarily steep and polygonal terrain. Smooth and round it out a bit. Rough angular terrain does not look good, is not fun to play on, and is easy to glitch under.


More meshes you can see inside. This shouldn't happen.

(Continued in next post, hit the image limit)

[jefe]

Massive stone slabs don't magically intersect, occupying the same space when they collapse. And they don't sit in the highest boughs of trees either. They're heavy and break stuff.


Not good. This mesh was designed to have some supports below.


More floating trees.


So bottom line is you need to work a lot on mesh placement (no exposed undersides to meshes!) and collision. You also need to make sure at least the edges of the map are blocked off so that they cannot be translocated behind. Test with impact jumping and dodge jumping too. And remember these aren't the only issues, just the ones I found looking around for a few minutes.

I do like the general look of the map though, I think it will be very nice when all is said and done.

[Turbo K]

I'll get to work on it as soon as I can.


How do I fix the missing package problem?