VCTF-RT-TrainCrossing v2

[Budboy]

downloaded this the other day

the map looks good, although obviously there are some issues but that's expected since the map is just on alpha stages

for some reason, the cicida seems out of place(unless you plan on expanding the map)

[UnShame]

almost finished everything, beta will be released very soon
[shot]http://i.imgur.com/QR5bCsw.jpg[/shot]

[shot]http://i.imgur.com/6nFRnuS.jpg[/shot]

[maxdamage]

@UnShame

How big is the map?Also I see you converted a lot of the static meshes from UT3 into the map.Did you add the self illumination maps from UT3 to the meshes as well?I did that by using shaders to add the self illumination maps for the static meshes for my semi-abandoned version of VCTF-Suspense.I got about 99% of the UT3 meshes that are in the UT3 map in that version.

[UnShame]

How big is the map?

well, i guess it's medium-sized...
[shot]http://i.imgur.com/wNuEImm.jpg[/shot]

Also I see you converted a lot of the static meshes from UT3 into the map.

did not convert anything at all
i used meshes from WAR-Downtown port and VCTF-Suspense port
it supplied me with almost everything i needed and the rest i borrowed from other maps
so i dunno about shaders and stuff

[UnShame]

Beta1 is released, download
See the first post for screenshots and more info.

[chronox]

Hey, Unshame , seems like you doing a lot of efforts out there :P.
Well, loved the map. keep up the good work ,bro!

[UnShame]

chronox, ty, i try
update: found a bunch of bugs, one of which was a random collision in the air... dammit. changed the version from 0.583 to 0.584 and updated the archive. hope i didn't cause any more bugs...

[Crusha K. Rool]

Download does not work.

EDIT: Ah, that's why.

[Wail of Suicide]

Looks very nice. VCTF is not my thing, but for a nice looking new map I'll download it and have a look around when I can.

[Crusha K. Rool]

Ok, I gave it a try. And let's put it this way: there is room for improvements.

Gameplay first: Do we really need those watercrafts? I have tried them out before, but all in all are they nothing but a gimmicky feature. No working team colors, partly overpowered and with awful handling by bots it seems.
Plus it negates one of the map's primary features: a large river that makes it difficult to get to the other side. You have to time the arrival of the train well; you have to capture and hold the bridge; you have to give players rides in a Manta; you have to make good use of the rare aircrafts. Right now there doesn't seem to be much point in going anywhere else than the bottom part of the map where the flag base is and then right to the boat house and across the river.

I am in favor of removing them, or at least reduce their number a lot and increase the respawn time.



Ok, technical side next. That's a big one.

So, you were wondering about BSP holes… I mean… seriously?
You are lucky that the UnrealEd Goblin only took your car keys ransom and did not cut your throat, reanimated you and burned you alive.

The boat house roof is another candidate, but it's not as avoidable as this piece that we have right there.


Your zoning is also horrible. It probably does more harm than actual use and seems to be based on a misconception about what proper zoning actually is.
Let's start by making clear that the entire ZonePortal needs to be out of view as well in order to not render the zone. That means that you can NOT just take one large sheet, lay it once through your building and have it stand out on all sides and expect that to make a working zone. Same as there is absolutely no use to put a ZonePortal right in the middle of a huge outdoor environment since it will never cull anything but instead just cause unnecessary BSP cuts. And it's also no use to try to make the alley between two houses a zone either - why not put some AntiPortals into the buildings instead?
Many of your zones are incomplete, some could have more separations to make more use of the occlusion mechanics, some of your zones that seem complete are leaking instead and some are completely counterproductive. Maybe you should take a look at this if you haven't done it yet.


Also, pretty much ALL YOUR BRUSHES ARE OFF THE GRID!!! No wonder that your zones are leaking.
The Goblin will send you the head of a horse for that.



Next two minor points:
Your NewWeaponBases still use the old texture and look ugly that way. You need to manually assign the new texture.
And those pickups in the shelves around the flag area: they are also pretty gimmicky but rather suboptimal for network performance. When a player walks up to that shelf, he will pick all the stuff up nearly at once. That causes them all to be destroyed at once and to also respawn at once. Both are rather expensive operations in network replication and I have already had a map that ended up with massive packetloss after playing it long enough due to that. You might want to revisit that idea. And if you decide to keep them, maybe remove the RotationRate at least.



Ok, next up the ocean:
It's quite pointless to use a FluidSurfaceInfo for such large amounts of water. The grid would have to be made up of A LOT of elements if you wanted a somewhat noticeable effect, but the result would not warrant the performance impact. The FSI that we have right now is so barely noticeable that I couldn't even distinguish it from a regular sheet when playing for the first time. You might want to make a simple unlit StaticMesh sheet with an animated and largely tiled water texture to get more bang for your buck.
You should also find a better waterfall texture. This one looked more like ice on the screenshots.

The ground of the ocean seems pretty flat and boring. It's just one BSP surface. You should consider to use Terrain here instead to add some nice elevations and give a smooth transition to the rocky island parts from sand.


You are also using an outdated version of the JumpBoots. You should look up Wormbo's version, which has a HUD indicator for them, bot support, uses them only on double jumps and allows to use them in dodge jumps.


Another thing: why did you myLevel the Downtown assets? Was there anything misunderstandable when I wrote that I provide the assets for the Downtown map in separate packages, so other mappers can make use of them and players only need to download the stuff once instead of having unnecessarily long downloads and so much duplicated data in the form of huge map files on their drive?
I would really appreciate it if you could reference the assets directly in their packages, not in myLevel. Since you used pretty much all of them anyway, there shouldn't be much unnecessary load involved in the package.


Your ZoneInfos should have bClearToFogColor set to True, otherwise players get a HOM effect when using Sniper Rifle zoom.

Bots and players often get stuck on your JumpPad-ladders.

And last but not least: try to make use of SurfaceTypes and EAX support, please.

[UnShame]

I should start taking notes because that's too much of feedback for me to memorize
In my defense i want to say that i do understand how zoning works i just gave up on it because it was creating even more bsp-holes because all my brushes are misaligned and overcomplicated... so that doesn't defend me at all
Would you suggest me to rebuild geometry completely from scratch and then move static meshes to the new structure or try to fix and align what i have?
and what is EAX support?
also i still don't understand how to align bsp to the grid, it keeps slipping away from it. what do i click?

why did you myLevel the Downtown assets?

i wanted the map not to use any custom external packages to simplify distribution but then boats screwed it up... and also i was packing all sorts of packages into the map so i said "why not?"
Thanks a lot for all your help!
edit: oh one last question. zones' titles are shown up in the team messages and utcomp's stat screen. can i zone outdoor areas to help players understand where their teammates are? i mean does zoning outdoor areas causes any framerate drops or something like that or is it just pointless in terms of optimization but won't harm the performance?

[Crusha K. Rool]

You use Volumes for the LocationNames. Volumes take precedence over ZoneInfos.

EAX support means to utilize the VolumeEffect and ZoneEffect properties in PhysicsVolumes and ZoneInfos to assign the correct I3DL2Listener that will modify the way sound inside that area sounds like for users with EAX compatible hardware. (It's most prominent for Underwater effects)

To align BSP properly on the grid, you use the Vertex Edit tool, select the vertex you want to correct and then right-click it a few times until it snaps to the nearest grid point. It's a tedious but necessary step.
I would suggest fixing what you have, since recreating would also require additional texturing work.

[maxdamage]

well, i guess it's medium-sized...
[shot]http://i.imgur.com/wNuEImm.jpg[/shot]
did not convert anything at all
i used meshes from WAR-Downtown port and VCTF-Suspense port
it supplied me with almost everything i needed and the rest i borrowed from other maps
so i dunno about shaders and stuff

Sorry I meant the file size.I have the same vcft-suspense map and from what I remember a lot of those static meshes are really dodgy.No offense but that is why I have about 97% of the original ut3 static meshes plus their textures compressed to dxt1 imported into my map.The file size is about 60MB as everything is myleveled minus the terrain though.

[meowcat]

At the moment the map is too much for my old computer I'd recommend reworking the BSP like Crusha has recommended (snapping everything to the grid), and remove the other non-standard vehicles. I'd be happy to help out with the boat mesh/model for the crossing in place of the speedboats.

I like custom vehicles and all, but I really don't like to play maps that have a bunch of custom weapons/vehicle content based in the map (unless it is for a total conversion mod).

[UnShame]

I will fix bsp, that's for sure, because otherwise i won't even be able to continue working on the map - constantly appearing bsp-holes will drive me insane
I think i have a compromise for the waterpart of the map though: i will add the crossing ship (which i guess i'll export with the umodel and then i'll send it to meowcat...) inplace of yojoe boats, move one or two rafts to the little island in the middle (that's of course if i'll be able to fix them) and remove the rest of them.
basically, that's my to do list:
Fix and align BSP
Add zones and volumes
Add terrain
Remove Fluidsurface
Consider changing waterfall texture
Mod rafts
Remove boats
Add cargo ship
Add SurfaceTypes and EAX support
Fix Jumppads
ZoneInfos - bClearToFogColor
Update Jumpboots
Change NewWeaponBase texture
Add killing moving volumes under trains
Consider removing collision from rocks
Add cull distance to meshes
Remove stacked pickups
Add hidden places
Add some more pickups
Fix some meshes placement

The file size is about 60MB as everything is myleveled minus the terrain though.

well the size of my map is actually 63mb, that includes everything in the map except boats and rafts so i don't see where you're going with this