What was the hardest thing you came across while working on maps?

[Chamberly]

I'm interested to hear some idea, project and stories of what other had done. What was some work around you have done? It can be similar as getting rid of invisible movers, linking the right nodes for path, and so on.

Just curious to see if any issue had came up in unrealed and what makes it so difficult to work with.

Randomly, a few months ago I created a room full of movers but then all of them quit moving. No idea how.

[EvilGrins]

So far as editing goes, I have no idea how to remove the invisible. Because in Spectator Mode and sometimes while playing, I find invisible stuff because it's solid and I'm standing on it and I can't get to the ground beneath it.

For example:
https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/153949.html
Some edits I only release on facebook.

In the center of that map, between 2 buildings, there's this ramp that goes up and turns. If you step off the edge on 1 side you land on something invisible... and I have no idea how to remove it. Mostly it doesn't really get in the way of playing, because it's only solid if you're on top of it... from the sides you can run right through it. Didn't figure it was much of any big deal, so I left it.

But it would be nice to know how to remove those things, because I've got other maps that have them, 1 of which is an MH map.

[UnrealGGecko]

Just in general some BSP bugs can be a huge pain in the ... ya know where. Had an invisble ramp on my DM-UFFO map that I only managed to fix months later working on the map (it was a corner of one of the brushes that was a few uu off grid). Most of the time the fix might not be too hard to do, but just locating the problem takes a looong time.

[Hellkeeper]

Grimball lock. My friend wanted to make a rotation grimball in UT2004 (I don't remember if it works the same in UT). Three concentric ring-shaped movers, each one rotating on its own axis and being attached to the next larger one, with the third and largest one rotating around Z. Works fine with two rings but as soon as you add the third one to the mix, it stops working as wanted, one of the ring stops having its own rotation and remains locked with one of the other two. We tried everything : inverting the attachment order, changing the rotation speed, changing the axes around which each rotated, it's just a limitation you can't work around. The project was abandoned in the end.

[Barbie]

Grimball lock

Something like in map badcargo?

PS: I'm still working on a MH conversion... since Oct 2018.

[Buggie]

I'm interested to hear some idea, project and stories of what other had done. What was some work around you have done? It can be similar as getting rid of invisible movers, linking the right nodes for path, and so on.

Just curious to see if any issue had came up in unrealed and what makes it so difficult to work with.

Just few words: The Fifth Vortex.

It was all complicated there, from the very beginning.

Even at the preparatory stage.

One level had to be rotated 90 degrees.

The brushes were with transformations. they were distorted when turning.
If you merge transformations, then textures moved out.

After the turn, it was necessary to adjust all the movers.

And that was just the beginning.

Constant editor crashes. Literally after 1-2 actions. This means that you need to save almost after every action.
Saving is not fast. But if you do not save, then almost everything must be done several times.

Constant problems with limits. Zones appeared out of nowhere and disappeared into nowhere.
5 + 3 can be 9 and 8 and 7.

Adding a brush to a level could ruin everything.

Multi-stage reassembly for 30-40 minutes.

BSP bugs, HOM and more.

The portals were not made the first time. Moreover, with shamanism. They just didn't want to work. It was required to create 2 intermediate zones, otherwise the portal would give HOM.

Water disappeared in places if one sheet was in another, although these are different parts of the level.

The number of planes took on a life of its own.

Lighting is a separate topic altogether. At some point, the lighting in the castle broke down and all the actors became black forever. Only rollback from backup helped.

Fumbling with pipes to save zones.

After adding a pipe connecting the zones, the floor of the level could disappear. Or zones will be added or disappeared.

Duplicate tags from different maps also added hassle.

Three brushes were destroyed in the original maps. Trying to fix them killed the editor.

The biggest problem was the limits.

Map was not saved when building with default settings.
The consolidation of zones led to the fact that water was suddenly encountered in the premises.
Then came the problems with invisible movers.
After eliminating them, departures with an excess of the number of points went.

I already wrote about this here: viewtopic.php?p=123697#p123697

Latest stuff: invisible obstacles in air.
You move random brushes in random position, start build, wait 40+ minutes and pray for you random changes solve bug.
If not then you repeat.

[TexasGtar]

To answer the question in the title, for me, it's finding the right textures. But after reading the thread, I see that is not what you are asking.

[sektor2111]

BSP bugs by "awesome" builders.... which I think I'll free Editor's resources of them... geometry generally is bitching, the rest is childish level...

[FraGnBraG]

Grimball lock ... Three concentric ring-shaped movers, each one rotating on its own axis and being attached to the next larger one, with the third and largest one rotating around Z.

Not sure if this is the same thing, exactly, but in the map ctf-ctc-warpcore I had the three spinning ring movers working
sort of like as in the movie "contact". There was some funny stuff at first but eventually did get them spinning independently inside each other.
They all just rotated around their origin point. It looked really cool, actually.
However, The rings in the final map were fixed (non-spinning) due mainly to a really bad framerate drop when viewed in-game.
They were located in a very high-poly area and the effect really wasn't worth it.
There might have been some server mover issues as well, as I recall. Seems like servers hate complicated movers

wc2_Shot0255.jpg

[Hellkeeper]

Grimball lock

Something like in map badcargo?

Just tried this one, it's not the same thing as all rings have an independent rotation. They are not attached to each other but spin independently around the same center. The illusion is fine but my friend (crazy old Jival) likes things to work as intended and does not like to "cheat".

Not sure if this is the same thing, exactly, but in the map ctf-ctc-warpcore I had the three spinning ring movers working
sort of like as in the movie "contact". There was some funny stuff at first but eventually did get them spinning independently inside each other.
They all just rotated around their origin point. It looked really cool, actually.

Tried it and it doesn't spin, I took a look in the editor and the rings are semi-solids.

[Barbie]

However, The rings in the final map were fixed (non-spinning)

Tried it and it doesn't spin, I took a look in the editor and the rings are semi-solids.

tl;dr?

[papercoffee]

Portal-zones.
...they doesn't like to be vertical.
I'm right now tinker around on my Insane Tower map to fix a problem with a certain portal-zone (online) which causes GPFs and sometime you won't actually go through but end up in the zone chamber itself.
At least I managed to get the bots to use them.

Another thing ...the direction of the portal sheet for a portal has to be exact and sometimes it's just voodoo and follows no rules at all.
When you think you got it finally ...then you are totally wrong again.

[TexasGtar]

As long as we are talking about movers, I was frustrated that there are a limited number of keyframes a mover had. I wanted to see if there was a way to get a higher number of keyframes and there is. I used this attach method in the map DM-The Spinner. I don't remember how many keyframes that mover has now, but I think I proved the point that a mover can have a lot more than 8 keyframes. That was a fun project. I think I attached another mover to the multiple move one so each keyframe was able to have 8 keyframes so a total of 64 keyframes or something like that passing the original mover off to the 8 other attached movers using their keyframes as it's own.

I'd have to go back and look how i did it exactly, but my memory fails me. I can't take full credit since someone at UnrealPlayground gave me the idea on how I might be able to do it. I just actually did it.

Portal-zones.
...
Another thing ...the direction of the portal sheet for a portal has to be exact and sometimes it's just voodoo and follows no rules at all.
When you think you got it finally ...then you are totally wrong again.

You are right. I think they have to be pointing the same way and that also includes the flip of the sheet. Both have to be flipped the same. Portal zones are difficult to get working. I can agree with that.

[papercoffee]

You are right. I think they have to be pointing the same way and that also includes the flip of the sheet. Both have to be flipped the same. Portal zones are difficult to get working. I can agree with that.

Yes and no ...you can turn them into different directions to produce something like this.

But you have to be very accurate or else the map Ass-plodes.

Which it did in that case.
But maybe I have an idea now to fix this ...hm need to look into it.

[ExpEM]

Motivation to try again. When you pour hours or days into a project and realize it just doesn't work. It can be really hard to go back and start again.