Robo_Platypus

Friends - Houdini

Hello Mapcore!

I added some new dynamic elements including: hydraulic presses that crush players underneath, and a periodic flood of the lower levels.

Here is a link to google drive containing my newest iteration: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B34kXOf_oNPseVQxSW5LSEozUGM/view?usp=sharing

I've already playtested these new dynamic elements, but I'm looking for any other feedback from these forums!

Welcome!

Great progress so far, I really like the engagement map. That shows some real forethought about how players are going to flow through your level. I think you may have taken the engagement map a little too literally when you started planning out the details. Look at your map. Now try to find an angle that isn't a perfect ninety degrees! Don't take the distances between engagement points in the map to be literal, connections between engagement areas can be longer or shorter depending on how fast players flow through them. Unreal Tournament has a lot of complex rooms and hallways intersecting at odd angles, this allows advanced players to make skillful maneuvers. Great start so far, you'll be thankful for your detailed design documentation when you encounter problems later during playtesting! If you haven't seen this resource, check it out: http://bobbyross.com/library/mpleveldesign it's probably the best tutorial I've found so far.

When are you going to give us a playable .pak of the level? I'll happily test it if it's up!

Hello Mapcoreans! I have updated the map by:

• lowering the catwalk section to prevent taking damage from falling
• Adding water to the reactor level that slowly damages players that fall in (players can escape)
• removing the two sheild belts in the reactor level, and adding one shield belt to the assembly line section
• Making hte map more visually distinct by using 12 different textures to distinguish zones instead of four
• added more health to the assembly line section

I have attached an updated .pak as well as a few screenshots of the ingame level. (sorry for using a couple of .png files, I'm away from a software that can convert them to jpeg - I'll update them later)

Any feedback on the design an dlayout of the map is greatly appreciated

CTF-AquaFactory3-WindowsNoEditor.pak

Give yourself credit this is some impressive modeling and scene compositing! Focus on what the space is for a little bit, what is this place manufacturing, and how does each room contribute to that assembly process? Just keep spending more time into it and we'll both be surprised by what you accomplish. Keep it up!

On 4/14/2017 at 1:11 PM, cglewis said:

Excellent work these past few months!

I'm liking the new reddish orange post-processing. 

Some of the blending between textures sets seems a little off, especially the transition between polished metallic floors and dirt mounds in the quoted image. 

The buildings in the background seem very out of focus and almost muddy, it's hard to make out details from the screenshots provided.

The transition between the pipe outside and the surrounding ground seems pretty harsh.

The reference image you posted a few months ago had a grey / orange color pallette. Your current exterior is almost entirely orange with the exception of the blue lights coming from the broken wall. Was this your intent?

It's hard to tell the focal point of most of your shots, with the exception of the blue light in the exterior.

Keep going! I look forward to playing your level soon, it's hard to get a full sense for the space from a few screenshots, the above points are simply things I noticed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2oDxgeBPlIThe general approach is to make the area as fun as possible before spending time beautifying. UT is a game with a lot of movement abilities (especially from advanced players), so even things as simple as adding a few decorative brushes in the rafters have the potential to change gameplay due to bouncing flak shards, grenade launchers shots, etc. You may have seen Zaccubus's excellent and long-running video series of Unreal Tournament highlights, check it out (if you haven't already) to see what players are capable of doing in this fast-paced and unpredictable game.

In terms of general tutorials, I've found Ben Bauer's small bible of Multiplayer Level Design to be a tremendous resource: http://www.farcry2.cz/czech_menu/ke_stazeni/mapy-download/Benova-bible-mapy.pdf. Bobby Ross recently did an update that translates Ben Bauer's information into easily digestible infographic form! http://bobbyross.com/library/mpleveldesign

I personally like to do a lot of documentation before starting a project, since it saves time in the later stages of development. This is personal preference, what's great about UT is it's fantastic out of the box gameplay and the quickness you can get a map playable with bots. This 13 minute video shows you everything you need to know to get a map playable with bots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2oDxgeBPlI

UT's BSP is flexible and gives a lot of control over individual vertices, and the ability to use subtractive brushes to carve out spaces in BSP is great for making corridors and rooms - it's something that Unreal does differently from the source engine. Making navmesh in Unreal is as simple as dragging in a box and adjusting it's bounds to cover the gameplay space, it makes iterations fast and easy so get in there and get mapping!

Interesting concept so far, keep it up! One thing I'm noticing is that everything looks too clean. Your references show most of the metal has been warped, scalded, bent and discolored by the intense heat it directly contacts with. It's currently hard to tell that your map is a foundry full of molten metal without looking at those references and the orange post processing you put it in. What is the purpose of this space? Your references show large vats full of slag or funnels where the superheated metal pours through, right now your space kind of seems like an empty warehouse that happens to have a sliver of hot stuff dripping through it.

I like the map, would you consider labeling your screenshots with where they are in relation to the map? It's currently hard to tell where exactly I'm looking at. Can't wait to see a downloadable version of this that I can walk through!

Quick update,

      Huge shoutout to Bobby Ross, I followed his visual guide to multiplayer level design here during the planning and documentation stages of this project, I'm confident that the time spent learning the new workflow is going to save me a lot of time down the road.

 I'm planning on putting this up on the Dallas Hub for a playtest this Saturday at 4pm US Central time, everyone is welcome to join in. In the meantime I would appreciate any feedback about the design of the level, it's my first time building a map in 3DS Max and then exporting it into Unreal, so I'm looking for any kinks in the geometry.

Cheers!

-P.S: anyone know how to embed images within the text of a post itself? I would like to give a breakdown of certain areas, rather than just an image dump. Thanks!

Hello!

Here is a downloadable and playable .pak of a map called CTF-AquaFactory. It's the first time I've built a map in 3DS Max and exported it into Unreal before playtesting, so I'm looking for feedback about strange geometry. I am aware that as of 4/17 there are a few issues with z fighting, I can fix that when I rebuilt the map, I'm mostly looking for comments about the flow of the level. Shoutout to Bobby Ross and Ben Bauer for giving me an example of how to design the flow of a multiplayer map before building it. I plan on updating this thread, I'm mostly putting this .pak on here before I pass out!

Here is a link to the design document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B34kXOf_oNPsQ3lUQjdXV19oR2c/view?usp=sharing

(mostly pictures don't worry!)

CTF-AquaPrototype-WindowsNoEditor.pak

I love long takes, this clip from the classic Hong Kong action Flick Hardboiled features a 2 and a half minute action shot. I can only imagine how long it took them to set up the explosives after every missed take.

It is a very busy time in my life as I juggle job applications, design tests, portfolio updates and an ambitious map called "CTF-AquaFactory" that's due in six weeks. I look forward to mid-may when I have less stuff on my plate, although I find myself weirdly satisfied with how hard I have been working lately.

Thank you for the amazing image. I definitely agree that the map needs more visual distinction, I just wanted to focus on the core gameplay for now. I plan on giving each room more defined brushwork (such as windows) and different materials soon. I appreciate the feedback!

OctoRocket is an early gameplay shell of an Unreal Tournament Map. It's shaped like an Octagon and has lots of rocket launchers. This map works best with 8 players.

Download the map here 

Installation: Place the .pak file in My Documents-UnrealTournamnet-Saved-Paks-MyContent then launch the game and create a custom match and choose Diego as a map (If there is no Paks map create one with a MyContent map inside of it and place the map there) - Thanks to Mr E for providing instruction reference.

I've already done some playtesting with colleagues to get the map ready for the forums, I want to get this into the community for feedback.

Any and all feedback about gameplay is greaty appreciated!

Heads up, when I click "trade show booth: on your home page I'm taken to another page with six thumbnails. Right now, I can't click the thumbnails to zoom in on them like I can in other parts of your site. I hope you see this and fix it! The trade show booth looks promising

Get a dedicated portfolio site! Gurayemen.com is currently free you know! Right now I have no way of contacting you besides adding you on ArtStation or MapCore or something. I think you have a strong portfolio of props and environments - the fellas on Polycount can give you great feedback on specific props if you ask them. I really like the medieval tavern, it's super high quality - I also like how most of your models are rendered in a game engine - that's a nice touch. It seems inconsistent to me that you specified the tri count on the revolver but nothing else - are the other models super unoptimized or did you forget? 

Keep up the good work!

Welcome!

It's my first post on the forum too - twinsies!

Overall, I think that you are on the path to victory. There's nothing wrong with your portfolio site as far as I can see, it's easy to navigate and your contact information is readily accessible. I would like to see a little more context given to your props other than "some texture form this environment is available on the texture galerie." Information about tri count, texture resolution, and reference sourcing is always a plus. Some of your props seem much better than others. The hero tree looks way cooler than the Fly Caisse for example. I'm not a prop artist, so I recommend you consult with professors/industry contacts for low-level art direction feedback on that. Personally, I would love to see a 3D model preview such as marmoset or Sketchfab (like this) so I can view wireframe or view the whole thing in 3D. I would like to see more texture pulldowns, right now it's hard to view a model's Albedo/Roughness/Normal without clicking through several pages to reach your texture section...

I know I'm late to the party, I hope that this helps. Best of luck as you start your career!