Ghandaiah on 2/3/2005 at 07:53
Wow, rujuro just blew my ass out of the water. :cool:
I replaced the screenshot I posted above with a better one anyway, now that the map is a bit easier to take coherent screenshots of. And here's another as long as I'm at it.
Inline Image:
http://www.theoppositeofyes.com/temp/sammap3.jpg But damn, rujuro, already I can't wait to see that in-game. Hah, maybe I should've actually planned a little before starting to just build randomly. :p
Kircaldy on 2/3/2005 at 08:49
Quote Posted by Mandrake
Until the word about this setting gets out a bit more, I can see all the maps that people are making running a lot slower than they should due to BSP surfaces casting shadows by default, when only a few BSP surfaces (such as a pillar) would need to cast shadows. Certainly the ground doesn't need to cast a shadow, if its flat for example :cheeky:
The "Properties > Render > CastShadows" Command is still useful for making certain lights cast shadows, others not. I have 3 lights in the roof area, but only the middle light is generating shadows (on the pillars / from the ceiling only)
Getting there:
(
http://hem.bredband.net/b101012/t33.PNG) Test3
When I'm finished playing around with this, I'll try to make my own static meshes and then starting to build a smaller size church (with custom textures, I'll grab my Canon G3 and go texture hunting next weekend)
USEFUL TIP:
Sometimes (or rather - almost always) the "FX > Emitter > Windowlightshaft / WindowlightshaftLarge" effect gets in the way of editing. Because they are really huge, but almost invisible, you often end up selecting them (because they are in the way) when you want to select, say a surface on the other side of the room. I often ended up moving all the emitters out of the way, edited what i want, and then moved the emitters back. This is extremely annoying. To solve the problem, select all the unwanted emitters and click the "Hide Selected Actors" button in the lower part of the left button menu. Voila! The emitters are still there/active but out of the way when editing.
Brodieman on 2/3/2005 at 09:28
I've managed to create my first level with rudimentary Ai etc... time to scrap it and make a better one ;) Some very nice stuf i'm seing so far from you guys :thumb:
Mandrake on 2/3/2005 at 10:45
Quote Posted by Kircaldy
The "Properties > Render > CastShadows" Command is still useful for making certain lights cast shadows, others not. I have 3 lights in the roof area, but only the middle light is generating shadows (on the pillars / from the ceiling only)
Yep, theres all kinds of tricks that can be used here....but check out the comments from null if you havn't already regarding the casting shadows properties for BSP surfaces:
(
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94083)
He says thats one of the biggest framerate killers if it's not optimized.
Quote:
Getting there:
(
http://hem.bredband.net/b101012/t33.PNG) Test3
When I'm finished playing around with this, I'll try to make my own static meshes and then starting to build a smaller size church (with custom textures, I'll grab my Canon G3 and go texture hunting next weekend)
Nice! I wish I had some artistic skills, but unfortunately I don't, so I only get to play with the technical aspects of the editor, such as object properties, AI, scripting etc ;)
Quote:
USEFUL TIP:
Sometimes (or rather - almost always) the "FX > Emitter > Windowlightshaft / WindowlightshaftLarge" effect gets in the way of editing. Because they are really huge, but almost invisible, you often end up selecting them (because they are in the way) when you want to select, say a surface on the other side of the room. I often ended up moving all the emitters out of the way, edited what i want, and then moved the emitters back. This is extremely annoying. To solve the problem, select all the unwanted emitters and click the "Hide Selected Actors" button in the lower part of the left button menu. Voila! The emitters are still there/active but out of the way when editing.
Great stuff. I saw those buttons there, but didn't really stop to think what they might be useful for.
I can see that things could become unbearably cluttered without them. It is kindof amusing though, if you use it to hide entire buildings made out of static meshes...
The whole teminology of using the word "actor" had me a bit confused when I first started playing around with Unreal Ed, I was used to Quake terminology, and once I realised that "actors" are really just "entities" then it started to make sense :) (Why "actors" ?)
bloodyzeppelins on 2/3/2005 at 14:03
Wow. I'm really liking what I'm seeing so far. I can't wait to play these.
rujuro on 2/3/2005 at 14:50
Thanks for all the encouragement.
I actually think the labyrinthine twisty space you've got going there is pretty cool Ghandaiah. Quick question, how are you mashing all those bits together, are they all static meshes? I'm amout to start working on the inside of the mountain, and I've had some trouble getting brushes to intersect without breaking everything (I've looked at the unreal wikki, but haven't found the info I need).
Ghandaiah on 2/3/2005 at 15:38
The main area seen in those two shots is supposed to be a deep, narrow chasm, so basically it's just one big rectangular brush (with a bit of a tilt to the walls), and then that doorway is just another rectangle carved into one side. Everything else, all the uneven structure of the rock and arched formations, the columns, all that, it's all static meshes. It was kind of funny, the way I just kept dumping loads of them in and slapping them together without really caring what was intersecting what and where, as long as it looked good. A lot of those meshes are 90% in null space at really funny angles and whatnot. Turned out not to be problematic at all, runs fine, looks good. Most of them don't cast shadows so I've gotten a lot of detail in already.
Now if I could just get my damn emitter to work. Figured out how to make a custom door type (rotted little wooden trap door that rotates on a Y axis) just through experimenting, yet I sat there and copied all the settings from a company emitter effect into my own, with slight variations, and the damn thing still shows up weird in-game.
LordK2002 on 2/3/2005 at 18:29
Quote Posted by bloodyzeppelins
Wow. I'm really liking what I'm seeing so far. I can't wait to play these.
I'm still looking forward to finding out how these maps are going to be distributed.
Currently it looks like the only way to play these FMs is to download the 330 MB editor package, and then wait 3.5 minutes to load each level (due to the lack of .ibt files, whatever they are).
Ghandaiah on 2/3/2005 at 18:49
And that will always be the only way to play them.
Regardless I say they be distributed by small donkey.
Trust me on this one. I'm good at giving advice.
rujuro on 2/3/2005 at 19:00
I actually don't think that downloading the editor is going to be necessary, if I understand the stuff that d'Spair is discovering correctly (he seems to have gotten missions playable in the standard T3 install), but they will take a long time to load unless someone figures out how to compile .itb's.
It also looks like there will need to be a lot of replacing and backing up of original content with custom content. Hopefully someone will make a utility to make that process easy on the user.
