VCTF-UltraDark Beta

[tarnationsauce2]

DOWNLOAD: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...traDark_B3.zip

This map is Dark as the name suggests. You can use the darkness to your advantage or it can hinder you as well.
Here is the ReadMe:
Note: Please check for newer version before loading on your server!

Please report map issues to me and help make this map better!
Collision bugs.
Display issues.
Things that look ugly.
Performance issues.
Oddities.
Bugs.
Annoyances.
Item placement.
Flow issues.
Music.
Etc..

Change log:
B1
- Initial release

B2
- Fixed some meshes not showing in Low detail
- Made UltraDark pickup give green light that only the player that grabbed pickup can see.

B2a
- Rebuilt lighting.

B2b
- Fixed timing on UltraDark powerup (was set for testing).

B2c
- Fixed UltraDark powerup light not turning off on on-line games.
- Added emitter for UltraDark powerup.
- Tweaked Playerstarts
- Bot path tweaks
- Added ScreenShot texture & ini file

B3
- Made map much brighter overall.
- Added guard rails by sniper spots.
- Changed Kegs of Health for Vest Armor.
- Less health vials on center structure.
- Added some clouds.
- Added color and lift indicators.
- UltraDark pickup now covers the player in a dark orb.
- Optimized some collision.
- Opened the holes to the lower area so you can jump through more easily.
- Fixed music so players can change the music volume.
- Vehicle blocking in lower areas.
- Walkways have more team color saturation.
- Added jumppad in crates to lead to the area by Manta.
- Center lifts tweaked.
- Helmet crate is a bit smaller so it is easier to hoverboard jump onto.
- Fixed blocking on side "Dance Floors".
- Center area color tweaked and brightness of center materials change when pickup available.
- UltraDark pickup grabbed explosion causes more damage to surrounding enemies.
- Misc minor changes with texturing and lighting.



================================================== ===============

Description:

UltraDark has many unique features. Here is a list:
- The UltraDark pickup that float at the middle of the map. This is what the pickup does: It spawns a light around you making it easier for you to see. There is a dark orb that will surround you making you more difficult to kill in the darkness. It also makes everything turn dark in the map - except for you. Everything does not get dark.
- The vehicles have working projector headlights.
- There are hallways with green lasers that when you break the laser you turn on a light in the hall.
- There are some areas where the floor tiles light up when you walk on them, much like Michael Jackson's Billie Jean video.
- The lifts in the bases have a button by them. When you press the button long enough (or shoot the button with AVRIL), the lifts will charge up and go at turbo speed.
- The lifts in the bases have sloped ceilings above them. When you liftjump and the lift is turbo speed, you can launch very far by sliding your head off the roof.
- When you grab a flag the light above them turns off, and the flag light is darkened.
- There is a video monitor behind each flag. When you view the monitor your view switches to a camera above your base, or if your flag is taken the camera follows the flag wherever it goes.
- Many escape routes and many places for hammer jumps.
- Bases are designed so camping with vehicles is greatly reduced. Vehicles are better suited to infiltrate enemy base, and supporting flag carriers.




Music track list:
Trifonic - Parks on Fire (Hybrids Soundsystem Mix)
Hybrid - Keep it in the family
Extinction Charlie Clouser - Convoy (Remix)
Apocalyptica - Ion
NIN - The Line Begins To Blur
The Prodigy - Omen


Until next time.
-tarnationsauce2


Thanks:
The Last Team!
.mg.
penpen86
Solarsys
NickG
L4WG1V3R
my8os
Joeaccord
Epic Games

Here is a test video showing off some of the map features:

[Neillithan]

I look forward to checking this out! Will return with comments!

[Neillithan]

Allright I've playtested it and I gotta say I really like it. I guess the concept is, when you pick up the enemy flag, you become shrouded in darkness... and parts of the level giveaway your position (example: the light up floors, and when you become irradiated due to the central explosion)... really cool concept. I dig it.

Some things I noticed that you might consider changing.

- The music plays regardless of whether you have music disabled. I like the music, but since it's force enabled, that means that some might not want to play this map competitively... Most competitive players play without music so that they can devote their attention to environmental and player sounds, rather than the music. If there's a way you can make the music obey the in game music volume settings, that would be good. At the very least, add in like a command that players can type to disable or enable music. And then show that command at the beginning of map load.

- Perhaps make the collision radius for the central explosion a little bit bigger? I missed grabbing it a few times because I didn't have pinpoint accuracy.

- Perhaps give the central explosion pickup like a really noticeable glow so that players know it's there? Or perhaps, some kind of particle effect? Perhaps some kind of really big vertical beam of light that only appears when the explosion pickup returns? The big blue bowl shape could also become darker when the pickup isn't there... and brighter when it returns... anything you can do to indicate that the powerup is ready to be taken.

- Also, I recommend using a team neutral color like, green or yellow for the central area. Currently, it looks like it belongs to blue team.

- There are a few lifts in the level that caught me by surprise. When placing lifts, always be sure to put some kind of indicator on a nearby wall. Also make sure that the lifts move fast enough so that players can use them to do lift jumps. It might be a little bit hard to tell from this picture, but if you look at the wall next to the lift, you'll see some kind of arrow mesh that indicates there's a lift here. Picture

- There is a circular lift at the front of each base, but it caught me by surprise because I thought it was just a little floor detail. You should consider adding some kind of particle effect, or translucent animating mesh on top of it to indicate to players that there is a lift there. I also think the circular lift doesn't go down fast enough so that it can be used again by other players.

- As a general rule when making lifts, try to make the lift collision extend well into the floor that way players cannot go underneath the lift.... and also, it helps if the lift is like a big solid cube or a big solid cylinder... that way there's absolutely no confusion to the players. I recently saw a map that used force fields as walls for the lift. Pretty cool concept.

- The jump pads don't have any air control on them. I generally recommend putting 0.2 air control on all jump pads. This gives players just the right amount of air control.

- At each base, there are some crates that players can use to jump up to the top. Perhaps consider putting a jump pad at the half way point so that players do not have to spend too much time jumping up crates. Climbing crates has always been a sore spot for me in every UT3 map and I feel like most map makers do not realize just how annoying crates can be sometimes, especially when you're in the heat of battle.. especially when you're trying to return a flag.

- The map really does become extremely dark when the flag gets picked up. I like that, but I also feel like the walkways could use a bit more emissive materials... to outline walkways or paths etc. The materials wouldn't light up the area... it would just make it a little easier to find your way around.

- I noticed that this map doesn't have a lot of color coding for the bases. I suggest color coding the emissive materials on the walkways. Walkways on red side would have really saturated red emissive materials, and really saturated blue on blue side. Also, those glass floors that are on the giant donuts... could be color coded as well. Blue glass for blue side, red glass for red side. etc. Anything to indicate to the player which side of the map he's on, or needs to go.

- The vehicles seem to get trapped in some of the lower areas of the map. Maybe you could put blocking volumes specifically for vehicles? I dunno.

Overall I think it's a fun map and I really like it. Keep up the good work.

-Neil (CaptainFlaccid)

[RattleSN4K3]

Isn't there a secret "Jump lift control" to speed up the lift (judging from the video)? That would allow liftjumps.

- The lifts in the bases have a button by them. When you press the button long enough (or shoot the button with AVRIL), the lifts will charge up and go at turbo speed.

[tarnationsauce2]

....

Fantastic feedback. Next version will certainly have a bunch of these changes.

[tarnationsauce2]

This map is now active on UT3 Server PRO Best Maps (T.L.G.S.E.) - 94.23.167.108:7777 if you want to play on-line with other players.

[Darkn3ss is QnL]

Love what you have done on the kismet features. Some things like the monitor spectator cam is great idea, but needs more tweaking.

I see most of the features were already commented upon by Neillithan, but I noticed one thing in particular at 2:05 of your video you posted in the original post:

The UltraDark pickup puts a pointlight above the player, while the overall brightness decreases on the map.
This is a nice touch, but the pointlight radius is way too large to serve as such a big light source, for such a small thing above your head.
It would be better to have multiple pointlights, with a different radius and brightness settings. To make it serve more like its lit up.
The giant radius makes the lightning behave weird.

Something like this setting: Circle is the radius. You may fill in brightness yourself depending on what you use.



1. Your source is always the brighest.
Thats why the closest pointlight should have a very high brightness setting, such as 12.0 but a very small radius. To really stand out making it glow.
2. A somewhat further off pointlight with a high brightness setting, such as 6.0 / 7.0 but a small radius, to boost believeness that the other pointlight weakens after a small radius, but is still strong.
3. A halfway pointlight with a medium/normal radius and normal brightness, such as 2.0/1.0
4. A far pointlight with a big radius, but a low brightness, such as 0.5/0.25
5. The highest radius point, but with a very very low brightness, to end the lightning cycle, such as 0.1/0.25

Hope this helps.

I will try this map out soon as it reaches final, since I'm interested in how this beta develops.
Keep it up!

[tarnationsauce2]

Thanks!
I am actually thinking of getting rid of the light and the green particle over your head. And instead have a dark orb around whoever activates the Ultra Dark pickup. It will make you very hard to hit. Plus you will not see the darkness like every one else.
The map will also be significantly brighter overall. This is the biggest complaint (other than music cannot change the volume).

A note about the way the light currently is: Only you can see it, not other players. And I tried to cut back on as many dynamic lights as possible for performance reasons. So I would only use 1 light for that purpose. Just cranking up the falloff exponent to get the same effect. The green thing was more of an afterthought so all players know who has the Ultra Dark. It wasn't originally meant to be the source of the green light but it worked out that way. But it might be all for not if I use the dark orb surrounding the player. I might still have a light mainly so the player knows they actively have the pickup.

[tarnationsauce2]

- The music plays regardless of whether you have music disabled. I like the music, but since it's force enabled, that means that some might not want to play this map competitively... Most competitive players play without music so that they can devote their attention to environmental and player sounds, rather than the music. If there's a way you can make the music obey the in game music volume settings, that would be good. At the very least, add in like a command that players can type to disable or enable music. And then show that command at the beginning of map load.

Fixed.

- Perhaps make the collision radius for the central explosion a little bit bigger? I missed grabbing it a few times because I didn't have pinpoint accuracy.

Yeah that was annoying. The touch radius is much larger now.

- Perhaps give the central explosion pickup like a really noticeable glow so that players know it's there? Or perhaps, some kind of particle effect? Perhaps some kind of really big vertical beam of light that only appears when the explosion pickup returns? The big blue bowl shape could also become darker when the pickup isn't there... and brighter when it returns... anything you can do to indicate that the powerup is ready to be taken.

The textures in the center bouncy room now change when the pickup is active. There is also now a spiral thing that fades in that will let youo know the pickup is available.

- Also, I recommend using a team neutral color like, green or yellow for the central area. Currently, it looks like it belongs to blue team.

It's pinkish purple now.

- There are a few lifts in the level that caught me by surprise. When placing lifts, always be sure to put some kind of indicator on a nearby wall. Also make sure that the lifts move fast enough so that players can use them to do lift jumps. It might be a little bit hard to tell from this picture, but if you look at the wall next to the lift, you'll see some kind of arrow mesh that indicates there's a lift here. Picture

Excellent idea. Done.

- There is a circular lift at the front of each base, but it caught me by surprise because I thought it was just a little floor detail. You should consider adding some kind of particle effect, or translucent animating mesh on top of it to indicate to players that there is a lift there. I also think the circular lift doesn't go down fast enough so that it can be used again by other players.

Done. the lift now goes down at full speed and will reverse as soon as you step off it. unless it reaches max lift then it goes down slow.

- As a general rule when making lifts, try to make the lift collision extend well into the floor that way players cannot go underneath the lift.... and also, it helps if the lift is like a big solid cube or a big solid cylinder... that way there's absolutely no confusion to the players. I recently saw a map that used force fields as walls for the lift. Pretty cool concept.

Yeah I've done that in the past. The side lifts will not be blocked by someone standing under them, they will just continue to the floor. The center lifts have an invisible collision that pushes you (and vehicles) out from beneath.

- The jump pads don't have any air control on them. I generally recommend putting 0.2 air control on all jump pads. This gives players just the right amount of air control.

With the big center jumps that is intentional. Otherwise people will be able to capture the flag too easily while using boot/jumppad combo and holding side arrow.

- At each base, there are some crates that players can use to jump up to the top. Perhaps consider putting a jump pad at the half way point so that players do not have to spend too much time jumping up crates. Climbing crates has always been a sore spot for me in every UT3 map and I feel like most map makers do not realize just how annoying crates can be sometimes, especially when you're in the heat of battle.. especially when you're trying to return a flag.

Yeah I know what you mean. I added a jump pad. But it still takes some effort to get to it.

- The map really does become extremely dark when the flag gets picked up. I like that, but I also feel like the walkways could use a bit more emissive materials... to outline walkways or paths etc. The materials wouldn't light up the area... it would just make it a little easier to find your way around.

Not really needed now that the whole map is a lot brighter. The brightness (and the music volume) were the biggest complaints.

- I noticed that this map doesn't have a lot of color coding for the bases. I suggest color coding the emissive materials on the walkways. Walkways on red side would have really saturated red emissive materials, and really saturated blue on blue side. Also, those glass floors that are on the giant donuts... could be color coded as well. Blue glass for blue side, red glass for red side. etc. Anything to indicate to the player which side of the map he's on, or needs to go.

With color coding it is a fine line between team queues and throwing people off thinking the color is an enemy. So it has to not be very saturated. I did bump up the saturation a bit on the walkway emissive lights.

- The vehicles seem to get trapped in some of the lower areas of the map. Maybe you could put blocking volumes specifically for vehicles? I dunno.

Done. I put some force dir volumes but bots still manage to do stupid things with the vehicles sometimes.

Thanks for all the input. Very valuable!

[tarnationsauce2]

First post updated to Beta 3!

[Bah_Mee]

go tarnation go tarnation go! Downloading now!!!

[PlayForGG]

Great job, the map plays very well and the concept around light and darkness is really well done. No issues that i found so far that weren't fixed

[joeaccord]

Tutorial
How to take Spidermine Trap ? - another way*

*i don't know still the base way

[joeaccord]

How to take Spidermine Trap ? - base way

[Rumplehedskin]

Wow dude you must have your game settings on bland. I don't know how people can play this game with the detail set so low. It looks like blarg!