Posts by 2d-chris

I'm super busy with fortnite recently, and I'm about to go away for 3 weeks on holiday, I'll make it once the mode has matured and I've got time to make changes (the mode is still being worked on heavily :P)

Dragon Age, Mass Effect D: Skyrim

[Blocked Image: http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/f.gif]

crazy cool bro

Quote from TheGlecter

22 minutes ago, TheGlecter said: Is there anything wrong with keeping the BSP from your level instead of redoing everything as staticmeshes? The only downside I see is that you can't use the mesh paint tool and I heard that BSP is more costly performance-wise than staticmeshes... but my level is pretty much finished visually at this point, and it runs a little faster than the official maps while ~80% of the original BSP is still there. I replaced the parts of my BSP that could easily be turned into modular pieces, but most of my playable area has tons of intersecting paths and shapes, which would not be easy at all to break into pieces and redo in an external 3d application, which I hardly know how to use...

So, what am I missing there? Why are you Epic guys obsesively turning everything you can into meshes that can't be used as modular assets?

BSP is not more expensive outright, it's just if you start adding equal detail (polygons, shader complexity) to a bsp it will become unworkable for a bunch of reasons, artist would be better off explaining why but it's been phased out from most modern games and engine for that reason above all else. Artists like to use tools designed for their craft, and it's always changing. If you have a flat wall, floor, and you don't need to cut it up into tons of small shapes, then it's perfectly fine, as I said check dm-biotower I use bsp there. It all comes down to the amount of artistic control and workflow, not just performance (but remember that models are LOD'd automatically by the engine which is very important, bsp is not)

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.

Part 5 is now done, I'll be waiting as bit for part 6, will show the changes I did after testing with humans!

There is no standardization, it's too broad of a subject, with the exception of don't add too much detail early on (tons of props, complex geometry) organic maps are easier to prototype in a separate 3d application (Maya/Max) and urban maps can be made easily with in editor tools. Here, check this out.

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.

Quote from Sprony

39 minutes ago, Sprony said: Apparently it's a hero shooter. Nothing wrong with those but I guess I'm a bit old school. Especially when it comes to Doom, Quake and Unreal Tournament. I'd much rather let the guns do the talking than have random special abilities determine outcomes based on specific characters.

abilities are not random, where you spawn might be (so the guns/items you can get feel that way, in team games and for average players) somebody might poach them from you, suppose that is why 1v1 became the majority of quake and UT pro scene, by random I assume you mean rock paper scissors in heroes/class games, which is far from random obviously, frustrating sometimes? Yes Personally I enjoy both, but right now I enjoy playing ability/class games more because I'm an old fart with slow reaction times D:

Part 4 is ready,

Quote from blackdog

5 hours ago, blackdog said: Thanks Chris for taking the time. Watched the first video and is very interesting to get your insight and not just the action.

I notice your UI of the editor is very crisp, is your monitor more than 1080p, or there's some setting to set in the configuration? Cos mine on a 1080p screen is less readable… dunno if it makes sense.

pretty sure i added a little post sharpening in adobe premier ;P my monitors are 16:10 at 24" though, but that should make no difference

Quote from tomm

4 hours ago, tomm said: Loving these vids. I suppose you won't be covering the "Art" phase so I was curious how much work it is to replace all the brushwork with meshes, how many of the pieces do you roughly need, how do you decide what meshes you'll need etc. I guess a lot of it is just communication with an artist, but still I'd be happy for any tips.

we don't have an asset set that would match this environment yet, and a level this big, lets just say it would be hundreds of hours of work, certainly possible but would be insanely long, when we art this up I will consider something though. Part 6 will actually be a summery of all the changes I made after play testing and most importantly why we were trying them.

added part 3

Quote from WD

1 hour ago, WD said: The map is looking amazing so far.

So the theme of this map will have the ut2004 Egypt Tech? Boy did I love that theme of whole of UT2004, I basically did anything but maps with that theme I just loved using the golds, blues and greens the textures and the light props & trims it offered. It seemed whatever you did with those just looked awesome. Can't wait to see what this turns out in the end.

Hey, thanks! Possibly Egyptian, but perhaps Mayan or even a mixture of that kind of style, I too love the combination of old with new, Temple of Anubis in Overwatch was a big recent inspiration for this, it's certainly not the first to do the mixture of old and new, but it does do it really well. At the end of the day, the artists will have a big stamp on the final direction and theme, but I've learned that if it's built in a way that really excites people it might very well end up somewhere along the lines that I pictured in my mind.

Part 2 is up

Quote from ChA1NsAw

42 minutes ago, ChA1NsAw said: Very pleasing to watch and listen to. The deep voice lost tomb in the beginning was pretty cringe to me though.

lmao, why so serious?

Quote from El_Exodus

5 hours ago, El_Exodus said: Just couldn't stop watching this earlier, although i have tons to do More!

Edit: One thing though: Turn the music volume down a bit in the next episodes. It's at times distracting from your voice.

Yep thanks, that's exactly what I need to know.

Sup guys, I've been working on a new level for an experimental game mode in the Unreal Tournament alpha, only this time I decided to record myself working on it, I've produced a commentary style video of it's development, every session was fully captured, so you can make fun of all my mistakes It's sped up 5x, because in the end it was about 30 hours of work, I feel that speed works quite well so you can somewhat understand what is going on with the addition of commentary. So far I've added commentary for 5 parts, I'll crack on with the other parts very soon and link them in this post.

I've only seen a few level designers doing something like this, @Castle produced some cool time-lapse style videos, I've seen plenty of artists producing similar videos, but rarely something focused on design, so this is a bit of new territory, at least for me. Hope this is useful for aspiring level designers out there!

Part 1

-Chris

Quote from Jetsetlemming

15 minutes ago, Jetsetlemming said: I have a lot of fun in pub games depending on my character. Mei is great, Reinhardt can be surprisingly okay because he's hueg and very visible, extra with his shield, so people actually gravitate towards you. Pharah's okay if the other team doesn't have an actually good sniper.

The only enjoyable support character is Lucio in most matches because he doesn't have to pay attention to his team at all, it's all just passive effects.

Nawww, lucio needs to keep a good eye on his team to do well, need to be at the right place and in line of sight, need to support others by knocking back tanks etc, disrupting, swapping songs all the time to give teammates the correct advantage (sticking on heal all the time in battle isn't always the best tactic)

I've played 99% Lucio, he's very in depth to play him well. Positioning relative to your team is super critical and skillful.

Quote from Filipe Goncalves

27 minutes ago, Filipe Goncalves said: I had the crazy idea of using wood on a portion of the wall. Is there wood in space? Of course not! This is just a synthetic coating imitating wood! What do you think? Keep it or lose it? Changed the scene back to daytime.

I feel like if it's a part of the decoration of single restaurant it would be more effective, some earthly meals place or somethin' I wouldn't go too crazy with it, but small personal accents go a long way, it;s like your telling a story with it.