Need help with my first map

[legacy-73h1337n00b]

Volumes are bad

The main reason for zone portals are for optmization. So that when you can't see a zone, the engine does not render it. Volumes don't do that. So to create a zone portal, create a plane that is the size of the opening, such as a door, and click on the special brushes button and select zone portal. Be sure to seal off the entire space. To add a indentifier to the "zone" go in the actor browser and to info>zoneinfo and place it in your zone. There should be many options for you to pick from in the properties.

[legacy-MarcFou]

Ok, I made some changes. They are as follows:

Download new map here: DM-Refurbished-Beta2

1. Changed some of the textures to brighten it up some.
2. Added doors on the upper level. (you never know who is on the other side
3. Added a few more props (Burning barrels and cones)
4. Changed a few pickup locations.

I tried to add a few zones and it did help in the performance. Once again I am asking for opinions and help in optimizing this map.

I have a question. Are the double damage and shield pickups in a good place?

Thanks again to everyone for helping!

Marc

[legacy-CaTdAeMoN]

Re: Volumes are bad

Originally posted by 73h1337n00b
The main reason for zone portals are for optmization. So that when you can't see a zone, the engine does not render it. Volumes don't do that. So to create a zone portal, create a plane that is the size of the opening, such as a door, and click on the special brushes button and select zone portal. Be sure to seal off the entire space. To add a indentifier to the "zone" go in the actor browser and to info>zoneinfo and place it in your zone. There should be many options for you to pick from in the properties.

your totaly wrong. thats an ANTIPORTAL :noob:

[legacy-Milo_PEZ]

A Word on Bot Pathing:

First and foremost: http://www.leveldesigner.com/index.p...ion=doc&ID=172

That link is to an awesome tutorial. The best thing it teaches is that you should decide whether or not you want to bot-path the level before you start designing it. Some ins and outs to the bot’s AI need to come under consideration before the level is built.

If you don’t do this… more than likely when you bot-path your map, you will find that your bots do a lot of crouching and shooting without much movement. The reason why so many Unreal maps resemble each other in construction is that the bots don’t understand much else. Big open rooms, pickups tucked out of the way in corners, tricky movement influencers (moving floors, carts, etc..) don’t factor in well with the basic bot AI.

Consider this… A bot has a gun, sees a player across an open room, samples its surroundings and finds nothing on hand worth running after, and it rarely understands that a longer distance could equal a faster trip… what do they do? They crouch and shoot…

Another map with the same ole boring hallways… Same bot looks around but sees nothing. It samples its surrounding path choices and realizes it could get its favorite weapon if it runs down the hallway to the center of a small room. Once it picks up the weapon that pickup-base becomes unusable to it and it does another sample. This time it finds a shield boost in the hallway out the other side of the room. It runs out of the room and down the new hallway. Along the way it runs into a player. There is a battle which the bot wins with its RL. The bot then continues to the shield pickup.

I realize the story is a bit bland and cheesy but that’s basically how it works… When a bot is standing on that apple you place, it is going to look around and if it finds no good understandable reason to move it might not (or it might pace either way it wont be constructive or engaging). If it sees a player the chance of moving decreases further.

Hope this is helpful. Just had to drop this in cause I used to not make the same boring levels too ;-)

Btw, the level looks great. Lots of what looks like interesting BSP work!
Good Luck on its completion.

[legacy-LoadToad]

Overall I think your map looks good. I like the textures you added in your latest release. All of my suggestions are based from this release.

Bot-pathing was one of the first things I noticed but since that has been covered I will only add one thing. Don't forget to add a LiftCenter Actor to the mover in the Main Room. Also, change the tags on your LiftExits to reflect the name of the mover. You currently have these set to happylift4 or something similar. The acutal name in the properties is Mover1.

Main Room
The power-ups (DD, Keg, and Super Shield) are too easy to get to and too close to each other, IMHO. I suggest you spread them throughout the level.

Light 136 - located between the power platform and the I-beams has bCorona set to True. It looks out of place. I suggest you change the setting to False.

Top Floor doors seem it move too slow for a DM map. I foresee alot of peeps dying waiting for the door to open.

Boiler Room
Wall Grates - The mesh you used has a pipe attached, why not cut a hole in the wall. It looks odd to see a wall behind the grate and still here the ambient sounds.

Green Hall
The fluid surface doesn't fully reach both ends of the hallway. I suggest you change at least the X axis to 1.11 and then re-center the actor. These are the adjustments I made - X=1.11, Y= .4 . Then I just re-centered the actor with equal overlap on all sides.

Good luck with your map!

[legacy-sandorski]

Very nice Map. The doors seem kinda slow though and you may want to use a Trigger instead of a touch as they tend to drag the Player and the Player ends up blocking it from opening fully(have this problem as well in a map being made). I'd also suggest adding the pilons as Karma actors so they don't act as obstacles.

Other than those 2 things the Map seems to have a very nice layout and plenty of places that can be used for cover.

[legacy--G-]

for bot pathing: path nodes only link up if they are within 1100 unreal units (UU) of each other and there must be a line of sight between the two nodes.



good luck

[legacy-MarcFou]

Wow thanks everyone! I have made many changes as follows:

Fixed light 136 (Took me a while to find it)
Moved the Double Damage ontop of the crane in place of the viles.
Moved the shield to the upper control room.
Toned the lighting down a bit.
Added light fixtures to the left and right upper levels.
Reduced the time for all doors to open.
Re-aligned water to cover all areas.

Pretty soon I am ready for the paths - and thnks for the info and links!

Download Updated Map Here

[legacy-madbri]

Originally posted by sandorski
Very nice Map. The doors seem kinda slow though and you may want to use a Trigger instead of a touch as they tend to drag the Player and the Player ends up blocking it from opening fully(have this problem as well in a map being made).

Marc, its at your discretion, but if you want to add triggers to the door here is a simple tutorial on how to do it:

Ambient Sounds/Triggered Events

N.B. This tutorial is a bit old, based on an earlier version of UED (probably 2.0). Also, the info on triggered events is about halfway down the tutorial. Its relatively simple to do, just gotta play around with the collision radius of the trigger and test it to see if its working OK.

EDIT: I haven't downloaded your map and checked, but if you want some info regarding sound effects (i.e. on doors/lifts etc) just let me know :up:

[legacy-MarcFou]

Ok... I tried to take everyones advice and let me say I got some really good stuff here! Thanks to everyone. Here is my latest. Please give it a try and let me know what you guys think.

I am at the point of adding the paths and calling it finished.

Thanks again for all your help!

DM-Refurbished

[legacy-madbri]

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[legacy-S-Dot]

Re: Re: Volumes are bad

Originally posted by CaTdAeMoN
your totaly wrong. thats an ANTIPORTAL :noob:

no - antiportals and zones are 2 different things. Zoning is as good for optimization as it was before we had antiportals. Antiportals can be used in open outdoor areas where you can't use zones. (You can use them indoor as well)

[T-Shinzon]

Originally posted by MarcFou
Fixed light 136 (Took me a while to find it)

Uh...you know there is a "find" function in UnrealEd? It is the button at the top that looks like binoculars. Click on it and type in the name of whatever you are trying to find. So you could have just typed in "Light136" or something like that. Double clicking on it centers the view of all the ports on it. Then you can select it, etc.

[legacy-MarcFou]

Ok... At long last I think this map is ready. Thanks to everyone for all your help and ideas.

Changes\Fixes:

Fixed paths for bots
Changed upper level doors to a trigger
Bots no longer get stuck in upper room (See doors fix above)
Added (2) viles behind the crate on left side of main room (find 'em)
Added more ammo pickup's throughout
Brightened the boiler room a little bit

Thats about it. Let me know what you guys think. Aside from any major issues I plan on releasing this in the next few days.

Download: DM-Refurbished

[legacy-coywolf333]

Re: Re: Volumes are bad

Originally posted by CaTdAeMoN
your totaly wrong. thats an ANTIPORTAL :noob:

actually, it is called a zone portal. that is y it is called that as the prefab under the specal brushes? another tip for making these zones, dont put them in big open areas. try to keep them in hallways, doorways, etc.