Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

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TheDane
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by TheDane »

EvilGrins wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 4:56 pm Oh, they're not too powerful.
Now, that might be less of an issue if someone ever got around to making NW4...
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Dang, you weren't supposed to reply that fast, now maybe Ferali won't do his 3 pages reply? :loool:

but you may be right, I haven't played for years, just poking arround. But it was an issue back when I left, NW destroyed all the fun as they where too overpowered, but we can't blame Ferali, it's the fault of the server admins adding the weapons to the servers without fitting them into the correct balance map/strength wise.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by papercoffee »

Overpowered weapons are older than any NW version ...the Big Boy, the Rainbow Redeemer or Fireworks (what ever the name is), all those over powered rifles with ridicules fire rate, damage per hit and LSD colours.
There are weapons which are just fugly and kill with one shot a 1.000.000 health Titan.

NW3 looks at least nice.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by Feralidragon »

Before I got even around doing anything remotely code-related, there was no shortage of servers like that already, it's just that servers with high damage weapons had about the same amount of popularity as normal ones, so if you wanted the challenge, you would go for normal, and if you just wanted to just run and kill monsters, you could go for the alternative.
Pretty much the same way you had Zark/Binslayer, SLV, Rocket-X, Ghandi's, and a bunch of other popular servers with overpowered weapons.

NW3 in particular was designed to be more balanced, and it actually is by itself.
The only "issue", if you want to call it, is the modifiers system (which were inspired by the UT2004 RPG mod), which I have seen used even in populated PvP servers a while ago, which is actually what makes the weapons quite overpowered, since I gave them quite high values by default.

The nukes themselves aren't that big of a deal, because players are only able to shoot one every now and then (except in maps filled with them on purpose, of course), and they are indeed supposed to wipe an area clean from monsters... I mean, they're nukes, that's what they are for.

Having that said, I also saw that admins did make configuration adjustments on the mod, to the point of disabling some of the stronger stuff (mostly the vortex cybots, which are annoying, and the ultimaprotos oversurrection, which was probably over ending the match itself, if not configured otherwise).

But in hindsight, I gave what essentially boils down to a "plane cockpit" worth of controls, and some of these controls were set to full throttle, and it happens that admins aren't pilots, so they either ran with what the mod gave by default, or adjusted the mod or other things in fairly limited ways.

If I ever made another weapon pack of any kind, that's something I would be extra careful next time, and give an experience which by default is more balanced and reasonable, and a much shorter range of controls and configurations, but in a way to not remove how configurable it can be.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by sektor2111 »

I'm gonna point a few things for EG with regard to useless... Scales and dumb pawns.
He asked me about pathing some UTDMT CTF map - with two big Talking-Titans. First time I had to examine what mapper wanted because Bot can handle long lifts which usually makes player to fall and die. I copied at Bot such human format because I destroyed their stupid cheating in using lift as a button and roaming to an air-teleporter using "kidnapping" - not their goal, but hijacked for moving out of base with flag. This was easier part.

Entertaining part is below:
The two UTDMT titans have 2 at drawscale. AT this scale when Titan is moving for some enemy and is getting tired by a few moves being an useless fat-ass, will block spot bugging team Bots in their attack. I need here a Titan tracker capable to lock paths around it and making Bots to switch routes and... side-effect: making enemy Bots to avoid him as well. As result, they will go less useful and mainly good only at spamming chat. And these are "options" about Scales. We don't need to forget Translocation needs in such map-type where UTDMT can be telefragged in two seconds or less...

For MonsterHunt I already mentioned "options" - if they aren't wisely used then... can be turned in flies or pupaes...
One MH map which had Big Monsters properly used was that one with the Big Boat (called Titanic ?) where was some evil "rain" of course with Devilfishies and Squids out of water spamming errors as should, and not much Bot Support.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by OjitroC »

I did a quick experiment with putting a 'giant' Skaarj Warrior into a mini-me map - DM-[SV]Savage_Records][-Pathed.unr - which was posted on this forum some months ago.
BigSkaarj.jpg
The DrawScale here is 15 and it is reasonably in scale with the furniture etc. It certainly renders OK in my view anyway at that kind of DrawScale. The bigger it gets, the less well the skin is rendered (I did try a DrawScale of 20 but I think that's a bit too much).

A few points for anyone who wants to try this
1 As sektor has noted, the collision cylinder adjusts automatically to the scale and so does the health which increases by 100% for each increase in the DrawScale by 1 (so the health of this Skaarj was 15 x 210 = 3150) - so any manural increase in the Health property needs to take account of this;
2 The speed of movement does not change of course, so it moves very slowly - other default properties that would need to be changed include Acceleration, Mass, Bouyancy, ZJump etc:
3 Despite the size of the Skaarj, it does little damage when jumping/landing on the player;
4 The projectile speed is, and appears to be, slow compared to the size of the monster.

It's hard to say how many monsters of that size one could reasonably put in a map like that - possibly four or five - bearing in mind that their ability to move around is going to be restricted (plus, of course, other gameplay factors)?

If you want an example of a badly done 'giant' (with due respect to the maker) have a look at MUPawns.Abaddon.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by EvilGrins »

OjitroC wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 3:32 pmI did a quick experiment with putting a 'giant' Skaarj Warrior into a mini-me map
That is very cool!

Obviously some things would have to be changed to make it effective. On some edits I've been switching Skaarj projectiles with the taser bursts, as it looks more like what the Skaarj shoot in Unreal2... but for something this big something else energetic would be best, though I'm drawing a blank right now what.

My initial thought to projectiles for monsters this large was redeemers, but that's got the negative consequence of harming the monsters too if they're caught in the blast zone.

Possibly find a way to add that shaking thing titans do to everything nearby when they walk? Not sure if that's doable but it makes sense for creatures that large.

Actually, the inability to move so much due to being blocked by furniture or other things in the LARGE house is good for accuracy. From many movies where tiny people deal with giants in their own home, it's the ducking under things that works best strategy wise for the tiny people.
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medor wrote:Replace Skaarj with EvilGrins :mrgreen:
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by OjitroC »

As a general point, in order to get the movement, in particular, of 'giants' right, I think a fair amount of experimentation with some of the default properties would be required. As I've noted, this one above moves slowly and in consequence the animations look a bit odd.
EvilGrins wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:13 pm My initial thought to projectiles for monsters this large was redeemers, but that's got the negative consequence of harming the monsters too if they're caught in the blast zone.
The standard warshell (redeemer) has a damagetype (Redeemer Death) and so presumably one could give the monsters 100% damage reduction against this type of damage.

Personally I think arming anything with redeemer projectiles is over the top, though I agree that my example does need a more-in-scale projectile than the standard SkaarjProjectile - I have no idea what the effect would be of increasing its DrawScale (at present it is 0.7) - possibly it wouldn't look good but I don't know. One could try increasing the drawscale of other projectiles or their speed - I'm a fan of the speeded-up GasBagBelch which produces a fireball - with the right skin the skaarj would become a giant FireSkaarj.

EvilGrins wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:13 pm Possibly find a way to add that shaking thing titans do to everything nearby when they walk? Not sure if that's doable but it makes sense for creatures that large.
I imagine it would be easy enough to add in the Throw/Footstep/Stomp (or whatever) code from the Titan to get groundshaking though, personally, I wouldn't make give the shaking the same strength as the Titan as that might become monotonous and magnified with several giants in the fairly enclosed spaces of the rooms in a mini-me house.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by Red_Fist »

You need to make the animation rate faster for larger pawns, slower for smaller pawns settings. I am not sure if it equals out to the same amount ratio as the dimension increase.

Changing the size of projectiles becomes problematic while messing around with projectile properties.
I think you need to pick a type of projectile first that will work before you could make it different, as opposed to using just any projectile to modify.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by sektor2111 »

You forgot ON-Line testing - OFF-Line to me means nothing.
When Monster is not visible in the middle but only several parts, depending on server setup it will be in short time invisible or animations not rendered - THAT'S the game, not Off-Line playing with nobody. These invisible features are happening even with a common monster in default Scale, problem is accelerated for so called Giant ones.
Right now I'm thinking at some experiment, trying to attach something at monster and, doing some stuff only in client attempting to recover what server doesn't send. For me, if head of creature is visible or legs or whatever, server should update pawn but this is not always happening...
So to speak you are wasting time talking about a concept which won't sit in any healthy server place, at least not with plain engine, unless you want your players gone.
Did any of you tested that map with Primitive Mesh stuff from XCGE for figuring what you get when mesh is centered out of view ? No ? Okay, that's why you don't get what I mean. Meshes in plain UE1 are not for big cylinders - else I don't mind if you are used to collect trash in your UT installation, these won't sit on my drives - not even in backups.

Another valid sample stuff: Monster Gaming Server hosted at HOF has a patch plugin for NavAdder going in map MH-MinasTirith for making some stupid invisible walls visible. It's not that nice to look at those fake walls only at parts of them and center of mesh out of field of view - and they are part of client, btw. If you can convince UT's render to operate such a big mesh properly I would be grateful. If I'm looking at TITLE saying GIANT SIZE you might want to light me about HOW GIANT should be. I think this "about BIG" discussion took place elsewhere in forum and this is only a bump with nothing new than the same story - a sort of GODZILLA obsession, and for plain UT this is nothing like "mapping concept" it's only a new method to ruin good maps.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by OjitroC »

sektor2111 wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 7:15 pm You forgot ON-Line testing - OFF-Line to me means nothing.
I was not so much testing it as using that example to merely illustrate what size of monster might be appropriate in that kind of map. I accept totally what you say about on-line rendering and yes, of course I didn't take on-lne into consideration - I have no knowledge of that. So no, I didn't forget - it didn't enter my head. I'm the exact opposite to you - on-line means nothing to me (and my viewpoint is, of course, equally valid given that this is a game to be enjoyed off line or on line - enjoy being the operative word here - I only play for fun and accept some imperfections in what I do that some purists might not).

As a matter of interest, why is it a waste of time to talk about a concept that can be used off-line?

I presume the other points I made remain valid for on-line potential giant monsters as well (not that these are feasible given what you say)?
Red_Fist wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 7:03 pm You need to make the animation rate faster for larger pawns, slower for smaller pawns settings. I am not sure if it equals out to the same amount ratio as the dimension increase.

Changing the size of projectiles becomes problematic while messing around with projectile properties.
I think you need to pick a type of projectile first that will work before you could make it different, as opposed to using just any projectile to modify.
Didn't know about your first point. You're right on the second point as well - not sure I have ever increased the size of a gasbag belch but certainly changing the speed changes it to something else (which is OK actually).
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by Red_Fist »

This article was last updated on Wednesday, March 28, 2001

Written by:
Marc EG Gravett
marc @ avatar co uk


Bigger Monsters/Creatures

When you"ve got over the exitement of seeing your NALI walking by himself, hit CTRL+W to duplicate him, then do this:
Open his properties and go to +Display, go down to where it says DrawScale. You will see it says 1.000000 - change that to 2.000000. What this does is makes the NALI 2x bigger, you can put any value you want, make him smaller or bigger (I made a Skaarj 20x bigger....now that is scary!!!) - but for now just put in 2.000000.
Now when you play the game you"ll see he is 2x bigger.....BUT.....he is still moving at the same speed as if he were the normal size, so go back into UED.
Open up his properties and go down to +Movement, in here you"ll find all the air/land/water speeds that need to be changed.
Now this is fairly simple, we made the NALI 2x bigger so therefore most of the things in +Movement need to be doubled -
here is a list of what needs to be changed and what it should be changed too: (you dont need to put in all the 0"s, just the digits before the . are good enough)
AccelRate from 900.000000 to 1800.000000
AirSpeed from 320.000000 to 640.000000
GroundSpeed from 300.000000 to 600.000000
MaxStepHeight from 25.000000 t0 50.000000
The other things may be needed but are not that important right now, more exploration with them will show you what they do.
Basically what we just did was to tell the NALI that he"s been made bigger so therefore he needs to walk like he"s bigger. For example the GroundSpeed keeps the animation of the NALI walking to match his overall size, so it does"nt look like he"s skating or walking dead slow for someone so big. You can of course make him smaller, say the DrawScale of 0.750000 - but then the AccelRate/GroundSpeed etc need to have 25% taken off so it keeps to the animation of the Nali properly. Otherwise you get a small NALI walking around dead fast!!!
Experiment with other creatures and see what you can do with them, a 40x bigger NaliRabbit is cool, or how about 3 smaller Krall all being lead by a Bigger Krall.
Other Stuff
In your selected monsters properties go to +Display and down to Fatness, this changes the overall fatness of the desiredmonster, i.e. Make NALI"s thinner and COW"s fatter.

If you make a Bigger/Smaller creature/monster then go down to +Pawn and make them Stronger/Weaker in the Health box, give them something to drop when killed, change their Field Of View so they can see behind themselves :)

Various monsters have different attributes you can change, for example:
With a Skaarj you can change the amount of damage he does by going to +Skaarj in his properties, from here you can also have him Fake Death and push buttons. In the above +Combat area you can change his RangedProjectile by doing this:
go to the Scripting window on the right side of UED, and expand the Projectiles area, select anything you want....say the
Arrow, then in RangedProjectile hit USE, now your Skaarj will attack with an Arrow when he"s firing from long range.

In Conclusion
I have only scratched the surface with the Monster/Creature properties, fiddle around with them yourselves and see what you can come up with.....and all of this without having to do ANY scripting. What this also adds is great replay value to Unreal single player levels. You may well play on level where Skaarj are twice as big, where Brutes fire BioGel instead of rockets, where every Monster roams the level from start up making the same level play differently every time you play it. The Decorations can also be made bigger/fatter - plus everything can give off sounds and lighting.....the best thing to do is experiment with UED and find all its hidden secrets.

_______________________________________
EDIT- RF

I think the acceleration rate gave me trouble a few times, it seems as if there is a cap, or a synchronization thing going on.
In other words I think is has to do with how many frames of animation, and-or it's synch using some other calculation other than a 1 to 1 ratio. Such as an increase of 15, but the animation won't jive at that rate, maybe a factor of how many frames vs speed. I think they glitch out if it don't mesh correctly for the size vs speed. Like if the speed is working fine but the animation is not.
Last edited by Red_Fist on Wed May 13, 2020 10:37 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by EvilGrins »

Of course, this is all part of my master plan to get some modeler to build a functional Godzilla · viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3975

First we nail down all the size requirements, and then we work out how to turn that blue...
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EvilGrins wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:56 pmImage
...and make it the monster's attack!
*insert evil anime laugh here*
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medor wrote:Replace Skaarj with EvilGrins :mrgreen:
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by OjitroC »

EvilGrins wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 9:49 pm Of course, this is all part of my master plan to get some modeler to build a functional Godzilla ...
...but it won't work properly on-line!

Using the Shrinker.ShrinkerBlaster on the x15 Skaarj is quite entertaing - first, when shrunk, it shrinks to the normal x1 drawscale but doesn't go back to the giant size; then, when blasted again, it shrinks from x1 to about 0.2 or 0.1 but then grows back to x1 - all the while it retains its original 15x210 (or whatever) health.
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by EvilGrins »

OjitroC wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 11:38 pm
EvilGrins wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 9:49 pm Of course, this is all part of my master plan to get some modeler to build a functional Godzilla ...
...but it won't work properly on-line!
I'm less concerned about online play. When I do edits I'm glad if they work online, love when people add them to their games, but I mostly play offline so that's not my focus.
OjitroC wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 11:38 pmUsing the Shrinker.ShrinkerBlaster on the x15 Skaarj is quite entertaing - first, when shrunk, it shrinks to the normal x1 drawscale but doesn't go back to the giant size; then, when blasted again, it shrinks from x1 to about 0.2 or 0.1 but then grows back to x1 - all the while it retains its original 15x210 (or whatever) health.
It is a fun gun... although, given enough time anything reduced does revert back to its original size. I would think eventually that GIANT skaarj would become just as big as it was before.
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medor wrote:Replace Skaarj with EvilGrins :mrgreen:
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Re: Mapping Concept for MonsterHunt, GIANT SIZED!

Post by OjitroC »

EvilGrins wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 11:57 pm It is a fun gun... although, given enough time anything reduced does revert back to its original size. I would think eventually that GIANT skaarj would become just as big as it was before.
Actually what happens (and I wasn't quite accurate before) is that when first shrunk the Skaarj goes very small, probably 0.2 or 0.1 DrawScale; then after a while it grows to the default DrawScale of 1 for the Skaarj; if shrunk again it gets very small and then grows back to x1 but no, it doesn't go back to being a giant even after 10 minutes or so (which is a pity).
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