Epic Games & MapCore's Unreal Tournament Level Design Contest Discussion

The epic maps are all entirely blocking volumed, not even sure why they bother with normal collision on the assets at all.

Quote from Vilham

10 minutes ago, Vilham said: The epic maps are all entirely blocking volumed, not even sure why they bother with normal collision on the assets at all.

If that's the case, why the heck is there no 'replace BSP with blocking volume'-functionality?! D: Life is hard. Would a 'nodraw'-material on BSPs do fine or do I really have to replace them all with blocking volumes?

Quote from Sjonsson

24 minutes ago, Sjonsson said: If that's the case, why the heck is there no 'replace BSP with blocking volume'-functionality?! D:

If you select a brush, at the bottom of the Details box there is a 'Convert Actor' list. If you select 'BlockingVolume' on the list, the Brush will be converted. It will only convert individual brushes though, so if you have substractive geometry, you'll most likely have to block things the hard way...

Quote from TheGlecter

Just now, TheGlecter said: If you select a brush, at the bottom of the Details box there is a 'Convert Actor' list. If you select 'BlockingVolume' on the list, the Brush will be converted. It will only convert individual brushes though, so if you have substractive geometry, you'll most likely have to block things the hard way...

Well that's something at least! I only knew you could convert BSPs to Static meshes. Saves me at least a bit of the pain if that's the way I have to do it. Thanks!

Quote from Sjonsson

13 hours ago, Sjonsson said: Well that's something at least! I only knew you could convert BSPs to Static meshes. Saves me at least a bit of the pain if that's the way I have to do it. Thanks!

It may also resize or reshape the brush back to default once you convert it to a volume.

Quote from Sjonsson

On 31/05/2016 at 11:04 AM, Sjonsson said: Well that's something at least! I only knew you could convert BSPs to Static meshes. Saves me at least a bit of the pain if that's the way I have to do it. Thanks!

1: Select all additive and subtractive brushes

2: Click on 'CONVERT TO STATIC MESH'

3: Once converted, open the static mesh settings, scroll down to collision and CHANGE the COLLISION COMPLEXITY to "USE COMPLEX AS SIMPLE".

Grats! Your entire BSP level is now 1 static mesh with all of its collision skin-tight and all of its materials assigned exactly as they were in BSP mode.

Your draw calls and build times will now be non-existent, your blocking volumes can be deleted and the frame rate will go through the roof.

Quote from Mitch Mitchell

14 hours ago, Mitch Mitchell said: 1: Select all additive and subtractive brushes

2: Click on 'CONVERT TO STATIC MESH'

3: Once converted, open the static mesh settings, scroll down to collision and CHANGE the COLLISION COMPLEXITY to "USE COMPLEX AS SIMPLE".

Grats! Your entire BSP level is now 1 static mesh with all of its collision skin-tight and all of its materials assigned exactly as they were in BSP mode.

Your draw calls and build times will now be non-existent, your blocking volumes can be deleted and the frame rate will go through the roof.

Display More

Dayum.. That's a really neat trick! Thanks for sharing!

Meshing a level is never accurate enough to the bsp for this method to be useful beyond the initial mesh placement part. You'll have to do a proper blocking volume pass eventually.

Hey everyone. Mine was one of the mentioned maps that didnt make it onto the test servers because of technical issues. ive been trying to figure out what those issues may be but have so far come up empty. im new to UT mapping and was wondering if anyone can point me to some resources that could help me identify and solve the issue. My map also doesnt appear in the custom maps list when i boot UT if thats related. would really appreciate the assist. feel free to pm me if you prefer. excited to see everyone's finished stuff!

You need to cook your map for people to be able to play it. Open up your map in the editor, press the share button, then share this level. This will cook and pak your map for others to play. It'll spit out a .pak file after a (fairly) long time and normally put it in your Documents\UnrealTournament\Saved\Paks\MyContent folder. That's what you need to give people to play

Quote from NATO

10 hours ago, NATO said: You need to cook your map for people to be able to play it. Open up your map in the editor, press the share button, then share this level. This will cook and pak your map for others to play. It'll spit out a .pak file after a (fairly) long time and normally put it in your Documents\UnrealTournament\Saved\Paks\MyContent folder. That's what you need to give people to play

i have! the map is playable if i access it through console. but it wasnt able to be uploaded to test for some reason and its not in my map list.

Quote from Bearplane

8 hours ago, Bearplane said: I have! the map is playable if i access it through console. but it wasn't able to be uploaded to test for some reason and its not in my map list.

That has happened to quite a few people once they get a map cooked and I'm sure over the next two weeks we'll see lots of 'cooking' and 'packing' problems.

Quote from Bearplane

10 hours ago, Bearplane said: i have! the map is playable if i access it through console. but it wasnt able to be uploaded to test for some reason and its not in my map list.

In your level's World Settings, make sure the 'Game Mode Override' field is empty (None). I heard that levels that had Showdown in that field stopped working since the last patch. Your map name also needs a DM- prefix to be properly shown in the game menus.

Ok cool, I assumed that might be the issue since you submitted a .umap in the phase 1 thread.

Other than what TheGlecter suggests I dono what to say; never really had any paking issues myself

So I did the first indoor lightpass on my map. Any pointers? I'm afraid it's a bit too dark atm.

[Blocked Image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClPh0VaUsAAiqxH.jpg:large]

I'm having a bit of trouble with lighting indoor spaces also. Static point lights help a lot as they don't bite into performance.

Also - Great minds think alike: I put together my fire braziers almost identical to the one in your screenshot

Quote from Sjonsson

1 hour ago, Sjonsson said: So I did the first indoor lightpass on my map. Any pointers?

In terms of brightness I think it's not bad... It's supposed to be a dark room isn't it? However, I think the hole in the ceiling should be your main lightsource and make a stronger impact on the room, whereas the fire and torch could be more of a second-order lighting.

Someone made a thread about lighting in the UT forums BTW:

https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtourname…he-entire-level

I have a question. What is the best way to make the step from a BSP shell to a meshed out Level? I feel like I am missing something. When looking at existing maps, Epic does not use any BSP. Did they convert the BSP to a mesh and worked from there? If so, how can i make sure Subtractive BSP blocks are taken into account properly? I always get very weird results were some subtractive blocks were actually carved, but most were not. And what's the deal with blocking volumes? Are they hand crafted and basically block out the entire level anew?

Please shed some light on this for me.

Thanks in advance!

Quote from TheGlecter

On 2016-06-18 at 6:28 PM, TheGlecter said: In terms of brightness I think it's not bad... It's supposed to be a dark room isn't it? However, I think the hole in the ceiling should be your main lightsource and make a stronger impact on the room, whereas the fire and torch could be more of a second-order lighting.

Someone made a thread about lighting in the UT forums BTW:

https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtourname…he-entire-level

Thanks for the tip and the link. After you said that I realised I should utilize the natural light more. So now I'm making opening bigger, punching holes in ceilings, adding new window etc. Just to get some "free" lighting inside, haha!So a bit of an update: Trying to cut all the corner to make this come together. It won't be like envisioned it, with treeforts in the middle of a swamp. It will more be like a temple ruin with wooden support structures. Not very realistic but maybe I will get some time to get more believability into the map. Right now I just feel that I need to convert it to meshes to get the dressing going and then if I get the time (probably not) I will go and do believability passes. Usually I decide on what theme each area should have on forehand (such as deciding that a certain area should function as a harbour, kitchen or whatver you'd call it) but this time I simply had to cut the pre-production. Still having tons of fun though![Blocked Image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClbQGuiWIAA5tLv.jpg:large]

Quote from poLemin

22 hours ago, poLemin said: I have a question. What is the best way to make the step from a BSP shell to a meshed out Level? I feel like I am missing something. When looking at existing maps, Epic does not use any BSP. Did they convert the BSP to a mesh and worked from there? If so, how can i make sure Subtractive BSP blocks are taken into account properly? I always get very weird results were some subtractive blocks were actually carved, but most were not. And what's the deal with blocking volumes? Are they hand crafted and basically block out the entire level anew?

Please shed some light on this for me.

Thanks in advance!

No, we do not important an entire levels bsp into a 3d app and work from there, we might do that for selective hero assets (one off's) or sometimes the bsp terrain as that will eventually be converted into a unique model.

Think of it like a big jigsaw puzzle, you have lots of smaller models (modular, or just decoration) and then you add them one by one, until the map is looking good. It's actually less work than the alternative. We make exceptions for things like the floor in some levels (outpost 23) where it's easier to model it than try to make everything fit with tiling assets, Ultimately, it's a hybrid depending on the pros and cons, you'll also notice some assets are grouped together as a single mesh, this is an optimization, however, they did start modular. Don't be afraid to jam models into each other, this is called kit bashing and is very common, but obviously you want the majority of the model to be visible otherwise your wasting performance. I made Dm-Biotower with this method, no new models, just kit bashing with a mix of BSP for the floor and a few walls.

hope that helps, the topic is very complicated to understand it clearly, but my advise is to start with a small area, get a feel for the assets your using, then translate that method to the rest of the level. tasks like this can be very overwhelming when looked at as a whole, break it down and start with a small area. If in doubt, look at the official maps. Assuming your using our assets, you'll have little choice but to follow our process.