[UT3] - Waterfall

[sarge mat]

Hello.

This is the result so far of an 11 day mapping challenge that I set me self. Basically I went from a concept to beta in 11 days just for the fun of it and to improve my time skills and mapping skills in general. I finished on Tuesday and have a beta up and would be very grateful if a few people would take a look and let me know what’s good, bad etc. (I should add I got the 11 day idea from AlexG) I know it’s not quite up the standards of most other work on this site but I am getting there.

Apart from the little flare all the textures and mesh’s are Unreal default.

Anyone with UT3 can download the beta if they wish from here: http://files.filefront.com/Watefall+Bet ... o.html/1/1

O and if you interested I kept a record of each of the 11 days on my site: http://www.gearsofgames.net

Thanks guys

Some screenshots as well (I have made a few changes since the beta above in the form of some more cover etc and am starting to work on the finer details):

[Lee3dee]

I walked around your map in the editor, you definitely need to implement some optimization. I outlined a few areas where collision can be simplified with blocking volumes. Once you've optimized it a bit it it will be a fun map for a few people.

Remove these the collision on these pieces of rock and make a blocking volume that is the shame of it. I found myself getting stuck occasionally.

I would do the same thing here also, simplify the collision mesh using a blocking volumes.

This island is only accessible from a certain direction which makes if frustrating depending where you are located. I would add a blocking volume that on the sides where the collision stops the player from collecting the health, or rebuild the collision using a blocking volume.

These rocks in the distance don't need to have collision, its wasted processing power. Make some simple blocking out there. incase a projectile happens to go there.

Same with these rock pieces, they are wasted processing power, be better to simplify the collision with a volume.

If you are unsure about how to remove collision from a mesh, Hit F4 and goto collision tab and theres a drop down menu, just select nocollision.

[sarge mat]

Thanks lee for taking the time to do all that. I will get right on it.

[Lee3dee]

no problem, lets us know when you have done some optimization so i can run through it again. If you have any questions just ask

[Freak]

well, you called it Waterfall, so i think you should make that waterfall more outstanding, something that´ll catch you´re eye... but maybe it´s just that unnoticable in those screens

and in the second screend lee3dee posted the rock is kinda too big for it´s tiny pillar isn´t it? :

[sarge mat]

Thanks freak.

[Lee3dee]

maybe adding some water splashes to the waterfall

[sarge mat]

Thanks.

I have added most of the feedback people have talked about and a few things people said on GA.net. I am going to look at the waterfall a bit and I will post beta 2 later today.

Thanks again guys.

[KungFuSquirrel]

Hey, this might be a little late for this version, but wanted to toss some feedback into the mix...

Your second shot really stuck out to me; take a look at it a little differently:

#1:

Look at this area next to the shot that I linked... It's much weaker by comparison. The mesh underneath has way too little texture resolution, it looks like you scaled it up too far. Try a different mesh or combination of meshes (unfortunately you probably can't use terrain as it's set up right now) or do more to cover that up. Try the "Texture Density" render mode in the editor to get a better visualization of this. The warmer/brighter the color, the higher the resolution. You should try to keep this consistent as much as you can.

Add some shrubbery like in the shot I posted, some bushes, grass, other smaller rock chunks, etc. You can create something of a "path" with the way you place those which should look a lot more interesting than a big flat open space. The light in this area is kind of a sickly greenish yellow, which is kind of a poor lighting tone. I couldn't tell you off-hand what to replace it with, but I'd play around with it. A good lesson I learned from our design lead back on Q4 was to "lean" on colors rather than oversaturating them - pick the color and tone you want, but keep the slider up near the white range so it's more subtle. The bluish tone off to the right looks far more appropriate for the area.

#2:

This shot stopped loading for me, but the good news is it's the one I posted above What works well here is the strong accent lighting that pops out the normals on the rocks and surrounding plants. Texture detail on the ground is good, and the bridge looks great - I would strongly recommend replacing your other bridge pieces in the level with this. There's still some of the sickly light color in the background that I blurred out (is that the same area as in shot 1?). Something you might be able to get away with here is a really faint reddish light over by the walls to make it look like some of the light from the flares is reaching all the way over there... might give some nice normal highlighting and help tie things together... but it'd have to be so subtle to work well that it might not be worth it.

#3:

I think the main island in this shot works pretty well, it's much closer to the area in shot #2. I don't know if the sharp rocks are the best fit for it but it's got plants and rocks breaking it up, what looks like good texture resolution, and some nice light highlights. It might benefit from a low brightness fill light covering the whole area a bit, but it's a stronger area of the map.

I don't like the two pillar things near the center of the image, they seem really out of place compared to the rest of the geometry. I'd recommend replacing them if not deleting them outright. Unless there's more map on the other side of them, I think you should get rid of the little arches near the back of this pic. I think this area will work better if you treat it as a self-contained cavern. The water drop-off on the right side looks weird, too, I'll touch more on this when I mention the waterfall in pic 6.

The water texture should really be scaled up here, it tiles way too often. this is also really visible in pic 6. 2-4x larger at least, I'd say.

#4:

The platform on the right I think is a mismatch for the rest of the map. I'd re-visit this with meshes more consistent with the others. This might also be large enough that you could paint up a terrain base and cover the sides with enough mesh work to hide the texture stretching. The rocks on top here aren't a great fit either.

Obviously I like the rock platform with the flares, but I also really like the small one near the middle. it's simple, but has a nice look to it.

On the left side, the rock platform is a little plain but could be easily dressed up to look pretty nice. The biggest thing that sticks out here (and in the last couple shots) is the lighting on the crystals. It's not a perfect color match for the color of the crystals, and it's way too bright. I pointed out a similar issue in AlexG's lighthouse map - a single point light here just wont look good. Try using a bright light with a much smaller radius, then a couple darker lights with larger radii to simulate better falloff and bounce - remember, you don't have HL2's radiosity here

#5:

Same point with the crystal light here. It's just too flat.

Assuming the floor here is terrain, I'd recommend painting in more height variation to create a more "pathy" feel. Paint it up around the sides to blend in better with the rocks, and toss in some smaller rock piles and/or plants to hide the seams where those meshes stick into the ground. At the center of the path, paint down a little to create a less flat floor. I'd put the crystals in tighter clusters and, like the rock seams, mix them with some foliage to blend them in better. The mushroom mesh is cool, but by itself it looks weird. Stick a few of those under some other plants or poking out of some grass and you'll have an interesting accent piece.

This angle shows the weakness in the platform I mentioned in the previous shot, that flat top is a jarring change that doesn't really match the other stuff.

#6:

I'm the biggest grid nazi you'll ever meet, but you need to get way less axial in here. Everything is in really obvious 90 degree angles. Unreal's BSP may be archaic, but it has by far the best angular and off-grid support of any of the major FPS editors (especially with the fact that these rock meshes technically don't have to line up with anything!) A less angular look will really help this feel more organic. This is especially true of the terrain area on the left side.

The waterfall, as mentioned, isn't quite enough of a landmark. I think part of the problem is how it's placed. I mentioned earlier the idea of creating this area as a self-contained cavern. I think the best way to do this is to remove the sunken area to the upper left, replacing it with either a wall or more playable floor space, and changing how the waterfall enters the area. Right now you have a forced barrier with sharp rocks where it drops off into a big open expanse... why not make the waterfall itself the barrier? I'd get rid of all the little spiky rocks entirely, and instead of having the playable area drop into where the waterfall lands, change the sunken area into a raised area and have the waterfall cascading down a few terraces of rocks into the playable space instead! This will give you a much more natural barrier on this side of the map as well as something more interesting to look at with plenty more opportunity for added fog/splash effects to make it look much more impressive.

Speaking of fog, I think the area could benefit from a very subtle height fog over the water, but not tall enough to cover the rock platforms. This could tie in great with the waterfall idea I mentioned.

You've got some bits that show a lot of future potential here, good luck taking it the rest of the way Hope this helps!

[sarge mat]

Thank you so much it means a lot to get so much feedback like this. Its late here so I wont post a new version tonight but I will read over what you posted now and start to work on adding it in.

Thanks again.

I will post an update tomorrow.

[Freak]

KungFuSquirrel you´re awesome

Hope this helps!

yeah, sure it does

[KungFuSquirrel]

yeah, sure it does

it's not even your map!

[sarge mat]

Just a quick update. The large island area was in fact a few mesh’s but its terrain now. I have changed a load of stuff but lightings are a bit off etc in some places so they are not work posting until tomorrow when I have it looking better. But I have started work on the new waterfall as you can see. I think it’s a good bit better than the last one but still needs work in a few areas. I have been trying out the red reflecting off the wall. Its a bit strong at the moment to the left of the screenshot.

[KungFuSquirrel]

that is a huge difference. The red might not work on that side since it's so far, was just an idea. But the rest is looking a lot better already. The extra effects on the waterfall and the new lighting tone against the back wall is looking great. Looking forward to seeing what you've done with the rest

[Freak]

Now the waterfall really catches someones eye!