UTClassic Maps (Beta 4)

[UnreAlex]

Hi Unrealex,
I have never joined a forum like this before, but I had to join this one in order to congratulate you on your work with this map pack. It was already at beta 4 when I became aware of it, and when I saw it my first thought was '80 maps? - surely they can't be very good quality!' How wrong I was. I have not played them all yet, but the ones I have played are all brilliantly converted and tweaked for UT2004. Such a pleasure to see those AS levels back again, and all those CDOM levels. I have the Classic Domination mod, but am always on the lookout for more CDOM maps, and thought I had played all the ones available, but there are 3 or 4 here that I have never seen (I never got the bonus packs for the original UT99). A real find! And as a primarily offline player, what also inpresses me is the bot pathing. For example, there are so many AS levels where, if you set up a bot only match and spectate it, they are unable to finish the objectives, or do so very poorly - but here, they fly through them. Good stuff. And what a treat to play the original DM-Oblivion again. I have the remake, and played them back to back, and what struck me on this and the other maps is that the lack of more modern eye candy clutter gives these maps a simple elegance that concentrates the mind when playing. Very nostalgic. Are you still working on this map pack? If so, is there any reason why AS-Overlord and AS-Frigate are not included? They are notable by their absence. I think their inclusion would be the icing on the cake! Finally, UT3 never did it for me, so congratulations again on this. I think it is great that people are still playing and supporting UT2004 in 2016.
Cheers!

I'm glad you enjoy it. I tried to make only small tweaks to enhance the maps without going out of the original concept.

As a mostly offline player myself, and for the pack to be enjoyable in the long run, bot pathing is very important and something I need to constantly improve.

Initially I wanted to port only AS OceanFloor and HiSpeed, but somehow I couldn't stop and ended up with a few more. As for now, I don't have plans to port the other two maps. Assault maps are the most time-consuming, I don't really feel like porting them if there are good releases already out. But who knows...

With that amount of maps there's always something to work with, I'm pretty sure I'll go back to it and release at least one more update.

Thanks for your nice feedback!

[JeffXPress]

Hi Unrealex,
I have never joined a forum like this before, but I had to join this one in order to congratulate you on your work with this map pack. It was already at beta 4 when I became aware of it, and when I saw it my first thought was '80 maps? - surely they can't be very good quality!' How wrong I was. I have not played them all yet, but the ones I have played are all brilliantly converted and tweaked for UT2004. Such a pleasure to see those AS levels back again, and all those CDOM levels. I have the Classic Domination mod, but am always on the lookout for more CDOM maps, and thought I had played all the ones available, but there are 3 or 4 here that I have never seen (I never got the bonus packs for the original UT99). A real find! And as a primarily offline player, what also inpresses me is the bot pathing. For example, there are so many AS levels where, if you set up a bot only match and spectate it, they are unable to finish the objectives, or do so very poorly - but here, they fly through them. Good stuff. And what a treat to play the original DM-Oblivion again. I have the remake, and played them back to back, and what struck me on this and the other maps is that the lack of more modern eye candy clutter gives these maps a simple elegance that concentrates the mind when playing. Very nostalgic. Are you still working on this map pack? If so, is there any reason why AS-Overlord and AS-Frigate are not included? They are notable by their absence. I think their inclusion would be the icing on the cake! Finally, UT3 never did it for me, so congratulations again on this. I think it is great that people are still playing and supporting UT2004 in 2016.
Cheers!

[papasfritas]

Great work on these - so much nostalgia goodness. And a big thanks for continued support and ironing out the bugs.

This pack + 2341 = peanutbutter chocolate bliss

[Mrparadize]

Nope, I still have some work with these maps.

Great work on these - so much nostalgia goodness. And a big thanks for continued support and ironing out the bugs.

[UnreAlex]

Think you can do the ChaosUT99 maps?

Nope, I still have some work with these maps.

[hunterman]

Think you can do the ChaosUT99 maps?

[UnreAlex]

Some notable changes/fixes in Beta 4:

Fixed collision issues - CTF-Kosov (cave entrance), CTF-Face (keg), DM-Grit and CTF-Coret (walls).
CTF-HallOfGiants - the speedtubes should now work properly.
AS-OceanFloor - disconnected monitors will show offline mode.
DM-Pressure - no more water splash effect when shooting underwater.
DM-KGalleon,DM-Phobos,CTF-Dreary,CTF-Face - fixed bsp holes.
cDOM-Ghardhen,CTF-Command,CTF-High,CTF-Nucleus - lifts now look correctly.
Walking on metal/wood/dirt will sound like it (made it work for ramps too).
Improved bot pathing and lighting for all maps.

If you'll find any bugs or have some suggestions, let me know.

[UnreAlex]

Why not putting all that stuff on the moddb ? It's also a good way to promote this mod and have the CDom mod as well.

Yeah, I wanted to put it there in the first place, but some maps are too buggy yet. Maybe next time.

[Blade_hunter]

Why not putting all that stuff on the moddb ? It's also a good way to promote this mod and have the CDom mod as well.

[UnreAlex]

Beta 3 is out.

Besides countless fixes, I hid all weapon/health/armor base meshes and changed the Assault Rifle with the Grenade Launcher.

[jefe]

I've been working on maps quite a bit this year, aside from UTCRAFT I also did several map revamps, which you can see in the DC map forum. But this thread isn't the place to discuss that.

[hunterman]

Say Jefe is there anything new for yer Server? I gotten kinda bored from the same ol' stuff.

[jefe]

I didn't even think about testing on low settings. Anyway, it's a quick fix.



I didn't set material sounds because UT99 don't use them. I made only essential changes to the maps, like adding detail textures (without them maps look bad). I might to set the sounds in later betas. Changing ZWrite to false of the finalblend in DM-HealPod fixes the issue.




Alright then, I'll put the GL instead (at least for now). I do agree the UT2003/4 weapon bases don't look too good with UT99 maps. I'll probably hide all the base meshes.



You'll find many different collision issues in Face,Kosov,Niven,SpaceNoxx..., but it's because of the convertion/scaling.

Setting up material sounds doesn't detract from the UT-ness of these maps in any way, and it adds to immersion. You only really need to do it for surfaces that you walk on, it's a quick fix, just like the screenshots, might as well do it at the same time.

As for the collision problems, you can try setting some surfaces to nonsolid and placing a somewhat differently shaped blocking volume in its place (the volumes can be set to have to correct surface sounds too, in the collision properties.) If your BSP won't cooperate, you can try converting some things like ramps to static meshes, turn off collision, then set up your blocking volumes. Static meshes react to lighting differently than BSP, so it can take a bit of work to get them to match surrounding BSP that uses the same texture. A few techniques you can use: try setting the mesh to special lit and place dim special lit light sources nearby, changing the scale glow factor in the static mesh properties, using a color modifier or combiner to darken, or duplicating the texture and darkening it in an image editor. Unfortunately getting collision right is a bit time consuming, but worth it.

[UnreAlex]

I'm going to put these maps on my invasion server to do some more in-depth testing. But I looked at a few of the maps and I noticed a couple of minor things. First, your level preview textures need to be set to LODset_Interface. Try putting your textures to lowest in the display settings, then go to the map selection screen in instant action. Notice how all your previews are extra blurry, but most other maps aren't? This is why.

I didn't even think about testing on low settings. Anyway, it's a quick fix.

Also it doesn't seem you set up materials properly in many of the levels. For one thing, stepping on a metal surface should sound different than concrete. These are in your texture properties, just like the LODset stuff. The material in the Healpod in Heapod has some draw order issues, making characters disappear behind it. I didn't look in the editor on any of these maps or anything, so I don't know what the specific problem is there, but try playing around with shader/final blend settings to fix. Also some textures look overly blurry, which is mostly a problem with the original textures. You can somewhat improve the look of some textures by setting them to LODset_interface as well - as seen above this helps keep them from blurring when world textures are on "normal" or below.

I didn't set material sounds because UT99 don't use them. I made only essential changes to the maps, like adding detail textures (without them maps look bad). I might to set the sounds in later betas. Changing ZWrite to false of the finalblend in DM-HealPod fixes the issue.

Also, I agree with what other have said here, you should be using the grenade launcher as a replacement rather than the AR. Also, personally I think the UT2003 and 2004 weapon bases look awful in the context of UT99 maps. I often reskin the weapon bases in my maps and change or turn off the emitter effect; do something unique there or you can just set the mesh to be hidden to be more like UT99. A darker, grittier texture would look better, which you can also achieve by changing the ambient glow properties in the static mesh settings.

Alright then, I'll put the GL instead (at least for now). I do agree the UT2003/4 weapon bases don't look too good with UT99 maps. I'll probably hide all the base meshes.

EDIT:
Anyway, we played a few maps, so far so good. CTF Ratchet has a Hall of Mirrors at the entrance to the blue base. Also some collision problems on DM-Oblivion when walking up ramps, you get stuck.

You'll find many different collision issues in Face,Kosov,Niven,SpaceNoxx..., but it's because of the convertion/scaling.

[jefe]

I'm going to put these maps on my invasion server to do some more in-depth testing. But I looked at a few of the maps and I noticed a couple of minor things. First, your level preview textures need to be set to LODset_Interface. Try putting your textures to lowest in the display settings, then go to the map selection screen in instant action. Notice how all your previews are extra blurry, but most other maps aren't? This is why.

Also it doesn't seem you set up materials properly in many of the levels. For one thing, stepping on a metal surface should sound different than concrete. These are in your texture properties, just like the LODset stuff. The material in the Healpod in Heapod has some draw order issues, making characters disappear behind it. I didn't look in the editor on any of these maps or anything, so I don't know what the specific problem is there, but try playing around with shader/final blend settings to fix. Also some textures look overly blurry, which is mostly a problem with the original textures. You can somewhat improve the look of some textures by setting them to LODset_interface as well - as seen above this helps keep them from blurring when world textures are on "normal" or below.

On the plus side you didn't give the music files new names, which is good, because the majority of those file names are already around and people will be able to hear the music without downloading a bunch of duplicates. Also I see that you're using the original UT detail textures, which is something that the majority of UT converters neglect. For the most part everything looks great, but compared to a few maps I already run (like StalwartXL, Pyramid) I prefer the ones I currently have on my server, so I will eventually remove most of the duplicates.

Here's the address of my server:

http://www.gametracker.com/server_in....165.172:7777/

It's usually on invasion mode, but you can vote in other gametypes.

Also, I agree with what other have said here, you should be using the grenade launcher as a replacement rather than the AR. Also, personally I think the UT2003 and 2004 weapon bases look awful in the context of UT99 maps. I often reskin the weapon bases in my maps and change or turn off the emitter effect; do something unique there or you can just set the mesh to be hidden to be more like UT99. A darker, grittier texture would look better, which you can also achieve by changing the ambient glow properties in the static mesh settings.

EDIT:
Anyway, we played a few maps, so far so good. CTF Ratchet has a Hall of Mirrors at the entrance to the blue base. Also some collision problems on DM-Oblivion when walking up ramps, you get stuck.