VCTF-Abrasive-Arena-XMAS

[tarnationsauce2]

This is a Christmas version of one of my older maps (Abrasive-Arena-2).

Download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/71522349/VCT...a-XMAS_1.1.zip 11.3MB

Seasons Greetings!

For fans of the original Abrasive-Arean-2 is the Christmas version.
Inclused Christmas metal music.
Festive lights, textures, snow, movable presents, different vehicles, pickups re-arranged, slippery ice, and you can't put Scavenger over portal anymore.

Have fun and love your neighbor!

-tarnationsauce2

Thanks:
The Last Team!

Changelog:
V1.1 fixed music bug.

[Darkn3ss is QnL]

Looks fun man, Ill try it out tonight.

You might wanna consider having this released as an RC1.
Coming from the pictures:

- Your skydome looks darker then the overall lightning which somehow looks a bit strange, Ill check in game, but I'm guessing either your Direcitonal or Skylight actor has its a too high brightness.
What settings do you use?
- Some of your textures look weird, like the Christmas lights in picture 3. It seems they dont have a Normal map assigned. In some maps that could get away, but since these textures blend in with some of Epic's good worked out textures. I think you should consider at least tweaking it with a Normal and a Bumpmap perhaps to add dynamic to the lights, their too flat.
- What happened to the snow where the flagstand is? Its all kind of red and blurry.

Here is a suggestion: Decrease the overall brightness, and somehow create a ton of ambient lights around the christmas lights with a really small scale.
In real life they would emit a small amount of lightning as well. That would make the lights "Stand out" much more in this scene

Keep it up.

[stevelois]

Good job on the winter theme Really like the falling snow, snow man & others things.

Cool to see new custom stuff. It look & feel xmas indeed héhé

I agree about the overall brightness. Lowering your skylight value will bring more contrast & your blue / red colors will be crispier.

THX for this xmas map & happy holidays to you too

[tarnationsauce2]

Looks fun man, Ill try it out tonight.

You might wanna consider having this released as an RC1.
Coming from the pictures:

- Your skydome looks darker then the overall lightning which somehow looks a bit strange, Ill check in game, but I'm guessing either your Direcitonal or Skylight actor has its a too high brightness.
What settings do you use?
- Some of your textures look weird, like the Christmas lights in picture 3. It seems they dont have a Normal map assigned. In some maps that could get away, but since these textures blend in with some of Epic's good worked out textures. I think you should consider at least tweaking it with a Normal and a Bumpmap perhaps to add dynamic to the lights, their too flat.
- What happened to the snow where the flagstand is? Its all kind of red and blurry.

Here is a suggestion: Decrease the overall brightness, and somehow create a ton of ambient lights around the christmas lights with a really small scale.
In real life they would emit a small amount of lightning as well. That would make the lights "Stand out" much more in this scene

Keep it up.

Thanks Darkness & steve!

I see your points, but I am still going to call it final. Mainly because XMAS is almost here lol! Also I just realized the bottom 2 pics are from a beta version of the map.

The skydome you see from the images is a roof that slopes inward, meaning it shouldn't take on much snow. I created a MI constant for that roof and tried different brightnesses and that was what I felt was appropriate there. But yeah the actual skydome is pretty dark too.

I agree the lightning itsn't the most contrasted. The original map has pretty flat lighting, and the Xmas version has so much stuff going on I didn't see the need to go all-outh wit the lights. (this is a simple Arena map afterall lol)

Normal maps on the lights! I was going to do that, but they are unlit and emissive. I don't think you can do normal maps on them? I tried and didn't get good results. Instead I did a cheap cube map reflection. The lights are just simple sheets to save resources.

The blurry red next to the flag is a red SM under the snow. The snow in that area has depth bias / translucency so you can see through it. That's the blurry effect you see.

Again, thank you guys!

[tarnationsauce2]

Updated to v1.1 to fix music bug.

[SkaarjMaster]

What music bug?

[SkaarjMaster]

Awesome, another Christmas map and just in time! I like the textured walls/floors in places, lights, snowmen, trees, sounds, snow, music choices, presents, rafters, teleporters, vehicle locations, jumppads, all team-side indicators, striped corner poles, ice flow, strange powerups and The Last Spirit. The bots are good and mine can defend even without orders. The only thing missing is “Santa Baby”.

EDIT: Ah, OK, I'll download the new one then.

[tarnationsauce2]

Thank you Skaarj.
It had a bug where on occasion it would switch to a stock UT3 song for a moment (I forgot to delete it out of a slot). Then it would reset the Christmas music to beginning.

[i_am_binky]

yeh this is great, so far like it more than orig! ...have added it to the server. thx!

[Darkn3ss is QnL]

Thanks Darkness & steve!

I see your points, but I am still going to call it final. Mainly because XMAS is almost here lol! Also I just realized the bottom 2 pics are from a beta version of the map.

The skydome you see from the images is a roof that slopes inward, meaning it shouldn't take on much snow. I created a MI constant for that roof and tried different brightnesses and that was what I felt was appropriate there. But yeah the actual skydome is pretty dark too.

I agree the lightning itsn't the most contrasted. The original map has pretty flat lighting, and the Xmas version has so much stuff going on I didn't see the need to go all-outh wit the lights. (this is a simple Arena map afterall lol)

Normal maps on the lights! I was going to do that, but they are unlit and emissive. I don't think you can do normal maps on them? I tried and didn't get good results. Instead I did a cheap cube map reflection. The lights are just simple sheets to save resources.

The blurry red next to the flag is a red SM under the snow. The snow in that area has depth bias / translucency so you can see through it. That's the blurry effect you see.

Again, thank you guys!

- The lightning is your call All those lit spots didnt really felt natural, even in an arena map some contrast would help the scene.

- For the christmas lights, Here is another suggestion for a next map perhaps: Use BSP. Just make a really small 12 sided Tetrahedron and lit all its faces with a strong emissive material.
Use a black material to remove the unlit faces. That way it would include more depth in the scene. Because I was just thinking a bumpmap would not have worked then.

Nice map btw, had alot of fun on it

Good christmas days to you and thanks for the map

[Private Tux]

Nice Christmas VCTF map dude. I'll check it out. (The world still exists.)

PS: Someone rated this thread a one star.