DM-MountainHomes

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Deepu
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DM-MountainHomes

Post by Deepu »

Title : Mountain Homes
Author : Deepu
Release Date : August 17, 2018
Editor(s) used : Unreal ED & Terrain Generator
Construction Time : 1 day.
DM-MountainHomes.jpg
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by Terraniux »

Beautifull map! Killing people in such place is a waste of the scenery! I just played a match and then just enjoyed the map for the lovely theme it represents, in ghost mode for a time. :gj: :tu:
Just stand still or float..... very relaxing!

Very nice map :thuup:


Is there more where that came from? Please say yes!
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by papercoffee »

Sorry for asking ...but is this the entire map I see on that screenshot?
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by Deepu »

papercoffee wrote:Sorry for asking ...but is this the entire map I see on that screenshot?
Missing the pond and tree areas
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by sektor2111 »

Number 1) - Map has design, Sky-Box do looks properly - new mappers, feel free to take a look here and just learn/steal/copy, do whatever is necessary - ONLY this design point because...

Number 2)
a) - I'm thinking if I have to write another patch destructor for Navigation aiming XC_Engine based games/servers - probably it takes under 0.2 seconds to reconstruct a simple network discarding everything from here - I'm guessing including PlayerStart actors;
b) - I'm thinking to rewrite the most of paths here, aiming ALL gaming with/without XC_Engine.
Bot pathing here is probably a joke or something like this, because in this area Bot can move without to many nodes - place is small but overwhelmed with useless higher nodes and others way to many and too close in the same spot.
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by Gustavo6046 »

sektor2111 wrote:Number 1) - Map has design, [...] - new mappers, feel free to take a look here and just learn/steal/copy
I've made good terrain (not necessarily better - that's subjective), and terrain is more about moving the vertices horizontally than vertically, otherwise there become 45 and 90 degree corners, like in the picture below (notice the curvature of the cliff's wall).

Image

Nothing is better than manually vertex editing in the 3D viewer. This tutorial should be the example for beginners, and continues being my recommendation.

EDIT: Actually, your map is fine, although the terrain seems unlit. You may try setting it to bSpecialLit in the Surface Properties and make a large, bright light (high LightRadius and high LightBrightness) in a corner with bSpecialLit set to True in the Actor Properties I believe that, to diminish terrain shadows, one may also use with a SMALL amount of ZoneLight.

Other than that, it seems quite good. The picture certainly lied about the grass' flatness. :P

Good job!
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by Deepu »

sektor2111 wrote:Number 1) - Map has design, Sky-Box do looks properly - new mappers, feel free to take a look here and just learn/steal/copy, do whatever is necessary - ONLY this design point because...

Number 2)
a) - I'm thinking if I have to write another patch destructor for Navigation aiming XC_Engine based games/servers - probably it takes under 0.2 seconds to reconstruct a simple network discarding everything from here - I'm guessing including PlayerStart actors;
b) - I'm thinking to rewrite the most of paths here, aiming ALL gaming with/without XC_Engine.
Bot pathing here is probably a joke or something like this, because in this area Bot can move without to many nodes - place is small but overwhelmed with useless higher nodes and others way to many and too close in the same spot.
This terrain is not stealed from anywhere, it's generated from a image & bot pathing is not done by me it's autogenerated by Unreal Editor...
Gustavo6046 wrote:
sektor2111 wrote:Number 1) - Map has design, [...] - new mappers, feel free to take a look here and just learn/steal/copy
I've made good terrain (not necessarily better - that's subjective), and terrain is more about moving the vertices horizontally than vertically, otherwise there become 45 and 90 degree corners, like in the picture below (notice the curvature of the cliff's wall).

Image

Nothing is better than manually vertex editing in the 3D viewer. This tutorial should be the example for beginners, and continues being my recommendation.

EDIT: Actually, your map is fine, although the terrain seems unlit. You may try setting it to bSpecialLit in the Surface Properties and make a large, bright light (high LightRadius and high LightBrightness) in a corner with bSpecialLit set to True in the Actor Properties I believe that, to diminish terrain shadows, one may also use with a SMALL amount of ZoneLight.

Other than that, it seems quite good. The picture certainly lied about the grass' flatness. :P

Good job!
Thanks for your info...
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by Gustavo6046 »

Deepak O V wrote:This terrain is not stealed from anywhere, it's generated from a image
It's, in my opinion, better to partly steal a good terrain, and evolve a good map on it, than to lazily generate terrains using images, in TerraEdit. I think TerraEdit sucks and its output isn't very realistic, although you did manage to have a decent output from it.
Deepak O V wrote:bot pathing is not done by me it's autogenerated by Unreal Editor...
The path node generation in UnrealEd 2 plain sucks. It just links inventory items in the map, and will make many pathnodes at the wrong place. Always manually path your maps - it's easy, and satisfying, to create manual paths.

Nonetheless, I think you should focus on the lighting here. That's the blandest so far.
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by sektor2111 »

I was referring to SKY-Box not to the terrain - once again, new mappers take a look at a nice simple Sky-Box - you don't have to turn my sentences as you like because, you know well what I was saying. This is a nice representation of a sky.

So... you have used auto-pathing - good luck with that mess then. I think people in forum were talking 100+ times to FORGET paths auto-generation, it's utter garbage trust me, I've read a doc and that algorithm is not suitable for terrain maps as it's not suitable even in simple cubes. Took 10-20 minutes to fully re-configure a better paths network happily fooling Editor Goblin in its Skaarj type plonks, I mean pathing, which did not include any XC hack but only simple building.

@Gustavo
About geometry and "tutorials" - PERHAPS I WANT the building Log for that "awesome" terrain - oops, author has "forgot" the log for some "reason"... In your previous map(s ?) which is not bug free here, Editor.Log has convinced me to drop it away. Editor.log it's important as Server.log and UnrealTournament.log or whatever LOGS.
There is a topic called probably "A way to smooth shadows", where
Higor wrote: Don't substract terrains, do not substract terrans and lastly, never substract terrains.
I believe a man working in those collision problems and mesh conversion, tracing, etc. knows better what is saying as long as No One of those smarts have never wrote what Higor was writing for this UE1, except U227 chapter which is another advanced thing. The rest is blabbering, took almost a month to solve a bit that Tarmation2+fixX UNR junk - oops, I mean map, and there I could learn how damaging is to do a big map and to not align geometry properly, plus what non-coplanars are doing - I was closer to quit trying a fix but at final stage I got a better Level for my gaming, yeah said better because it might still have a few problems that can be ignored as long as it's more times better than "fix5" was.

Edit: a typo-mistake - wrong word
Last edited by sektor2111 on Sat Sep 01, 2018 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by Gustavo6046 »

As far as I understood you, you are trying to tell me that subtractive terrain is bad.

That makes no sense, in my opinion. I think subtracting a cube and adding the terrain to it, a la TerraEdit, is not only ugly, but also worse, in terms of BSP. And I don't think that quote is true, or even close to true, given Higor knows well about English, and that doesn't seem well spelt.

But fine. The skybox is good.
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by sektor2111 »

Gustavo6046 wrote:And I don't think that quote is true
Doesn't matter the THINKING, just use damn search button from top, you don't have to trust what I'm saying, just do some check.
Or... more easy is THIS Link. Else I don't care about spelling after all. For spelling problem there is enough entertaining stuff posted by various post makers which don't need to much search.

Not to be redundant but I WANT LOGS referring to Editor.log and then if you want other information, some of those custom "builders" by community are trash by default at once with many of those prefabs. I was trying to do once some complex tunnel, then I checked log and later bugs have been confirmed. So you will need more time to convince me for having a terrain party.
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by Gustavo6046 »

He was talking about not subtracting terrains from existing architecture, e.g. a small garden. It is fine to subtract terrains with A) good brushes, or B) whole terrain maps. I think you are the one misunderstanding him.

Nonetheless, I think we have important things to discuss. Do you have any means of (English) voice chat?
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by sektor2111 »

Private speaking is not helpful for community but posting stuff in forums is readable by everyone. We can start picking random posted maps, doing rebuilds and posting LOGS, then let's see debates about "game facts".

On the other side of my interest.
About what I know toward Bot support probably I can write many pages and Higor can write even books. This chapter would need some public debates as well rather than private sounds. I see that people are loving to read docs rather than watch videos. After Videos posted by Smeerkat it looks like people are still not having too much interest in learning. Not a big deal, Editor can be opened, bad maps fixed - even those done for cheating against bots with doors not opened by Bots but called bug-free maps and having smilies like :gj: :tu: :rock: , everything evil can be done properly - perhaps this is subject for private debates and without posting nowhere about fixes, who fixed and what has been fixed, and everyone can breath happy.

Edit:
So far Monster Gaming Server has a fixed version of this map until an official fix will be released (has suffix _rv1, btw - speaking about NAMING maps...).
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by Feralidragon »

As usual sektor2111 will quote the very man he fanboys over without even trying to understand a single damn thing of what he was actually talking about, and then "yelling" at others for not doing the proper "search". :lol2:


Anyway, trying then to shed a bit more light on the matter myself then:
Subtractive terrain is not inherently better nor worse than additive terrain, they both make BSP cuts, it's just that one is subtractive and the other additive, there isn't much more to say about this, as far as I know, it's a pure CSG difference.
And additive can indeed be slightly worse because you need to subtract a cube first given that the editor is subtractive by default without the possibility to change it to additive (although the functionality is there as far as I am aware), which inherently creates some more BSP nodes and cuts and whatnot, although it's a negligible difference imo.

However, what Higor was actually trying to point out there, is actually a fact that goes for any BSP shape you don't intend to subtract from: make it a semi-solid.

Most mappers will run from semi-solids like if they were the plague that would screw their entire maps over, however they are the friendliest BSP additive type the engine has, being just highly misunderstood by the general community.
They do not add any extra BSP cuts (unlike every other type), so you can add as many of them as you like and BSP-wise they won't mess anything up at all elsewhere, they're safe to add.

But it's also a fact that they are not problem-free, and this is the main reason why most mappers run away from them instead of loving them, as they have a few cons:
- you cannot use it to create things like trims and some floor/wall/ceiling details which consist in sinking the BSP shape onto another surface, as solid types take priority (and subtractive is also solid);
- the most common bug they have is an occlusion bug where the surfaces may reverse their behavior: are hidden when you see them, and are rendered when they are supposed to not be seen.

The last problem is the main reason mappers run away from them, and is a problem caused by the very same property that makes them safe to use BSP-cut-wise: rather than adding more BSP cuts when added, they receive all of them instead, their polys are split and cut down by every other solid and non-solid BSP in the map, which also means that with semi-solids the number of nodes will be lower, but the number of polys to render may be higher (due to the surfaces being cut from many different directions), although the latter is not necessarily true, especially if the cuts come mainly from strictly cubic shapes, instead of diagonal cuts made by other odd or rounder shapes.

Because of this, semi-solids are also used in a way to reduce the number of cuts overall, simplifying the BSP tree, and thus also reducing the chance of nasty HOMs and collision issues.
This is why mappers who actually use semi-solids, tend to reserve that usage to the most complex shapes that they have, so that those complex shapes do not add a ridiculous amount of nodes for no gain whatsoever (exotic shapes, or even things like stairs), which is part of what Higor is suggesting there by advising to use a semi-solid terrain rather than subtracting it, since terrain is up there with the most complex BSP shapes you can create, they are generally very "random", without any symmetry, to look as natural as possible.

As for the occlusion problem, it's directly caused by these cuts, generally when a cut passes along the surface plane (think of the cut and the surface being on top of one another, like 2 sheets of paper stuck together), where it sometimes induces the surface to think it should be hidden instead of visible.
To fix this, what mappers tend to do, which is also Higor's suggestion with his terrain, is to offset the semi-solid BSP a bit, even if 1uu from the ground or whichever solid surface it's intersecting, so it no longer gets those surfaces caught by these cuts, thus drastically reducing the chance of this occlusion bug from ever happening.

And when that doesn't work, you could just turn that shape, or some other shape in the map, to solid to change the cuts a bit, which is generally enough to solve it, but there are times when it's trickier than that and you have to take time toggling BSP types, which is another reason why mappers tend to avoid them.


So, in the end, the TL/DR version is:
- if you are doing terrain and you don't intend to subtract from it, make it a semi-solid instead, to avoid the terrain complexity from interfering with what is otherwise a map made of simpler shapes, BSP cut-wise;
- sometimes you may want to offset it a little to avoid occlusion bugs, or toggle some other shapes between semi-solid and solid to influence the BSP cuts (although personally I prefer the latter, as the former may lead to a break of immersion if noticed, or gameplay bugs where things can pass through where they shouldn't, where this spacing is).

If you want an example of a lot of semi-solids in action, you can check my latest map which uses a ton of them, and some shapes are fairly complex:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12401
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Re: DM-MountainHomes

Post by sektor2111 »

Feralidragon wrote:As usual sektor2111 will quote the very man he fanboys over without even trying to understand a single damn thing of what he was actually talking about, and then "yelling" at others for not doing the proper "search". :lol2:
And I will ALWAYS be a fan of those which are able to write some great natives adding things compatible with default UE1 - probably this subject being out of your range, it's normal to mock me or attempting to convince me about stuff or stories which I don't care about and... I will not care due to my free-time, age, etc.
Btw, speaking about ...as usual... not understanding a single damn thing, you have forgot to reply about pathing bugs from LandOFNapali, because as I recall so far I wrote mutators/tools by self and myself from byte 0 without to copy nothing from nowhere as a lousy non-coder as I am, yeah, because nobody did such stuff before, Not even coders. Didn't you say that you have done with me before ? We did not even started any work together if memory doesn't cheat me.

Point two. Show me some complex terrain maps bug-free and do write the "how to" or maybe I've failed an already "How To" :P .

Point three. About my subtracting and "don't do this" self paranoia
Let me see. While I got a map idea, I was interested to use a terrain builder embedded in Editor - more exactly using Editor to generate something random for some zone. I was picking one like here and increasing several values twice.
[attachment=2]stage_0.PNG[/attachment]

Okay let's see how goes area with these random generated terrain types
[attachment=1]stage_1.PNG[/attachment]

Can you see what log is saying - we simply do have bugs right from first brush, continuing this way means a default failure, which made me to not even think at continuing this way, and probably the best way is doing a manual work for a random terrain. But... even if you setup your terrain manually, if log does warnings this is wrong route, and you cannot convince me about that terrain as being a such good one if building is reporting problems :sleep: .

Point four. Setting up grid to scale 1 and looking at some vertexes. Really "awesome"
[attachment=0]stage_2.PNG[/attachment]
By any matter aligning to grid is a must-have not an option.
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