Preview: DM(or CTF)-Cathedral

[Tyr]

Hi all,

it's been a long time since i played around with the good old UT99 game and his beautiful editor. I'm happy to see that there is still an active community nowadays.

In the past, i had a great time to build up some maps for myself or LAN-Party events, so i'll gave it a try and checked out how much of my knowledge is still around in my head. I'm working currently on somewhat called "Cathedral". After several hours spending to only one room, i'm still unsure in which direction the map will be going. I started to create a simple deathmatch map, but as you can see the screenshot clearly screams CTF. This is a very rough state, but the overall idea should be clear. It's a bit influenced by Swanky's Texture Pack used in DM-TMC-Narean, which i theft shamelessly.

Some things on the map aren't perfect. The limitations of the old editor doesn't let me do some things (like a dust pillar around the beam, or i'm too stupid to do this), there are some bsp holes in the editor which doesn't appear ingame. Also i'm using texture packs from several games that i want to put together in one .utx file for sharing the map.

More to come and thanks for reading.

Tyr







Album link:

[papercoffee]

Hi there and welcome to the forum... is this a possible entry for the Terrain Mapping Contest?

[UTX]

That's looking good.

[Renegade]

Welcome, and nice start on your map. I'd consider changing the map name, though. "Cathedral" is a little generic
There are plenty of resource databases available if you need more assets: http://www.ut-files.com/ is one of the best.
Always good to have another mapper in the ranks.

[Dr.Flay]

Welcome back to UT99

I agree, the name is too generic, and may clash with others.
If your Cathedral has a back story or place in history or time, you may be able to think of something to name the Cathedral.
Looks quite nice so far (I like dark moody maps).

[EvilGrins]

Pretty!

[Tyr]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts @ all.

Cathedral is a generic working title (i need a name for the file).

@ Renegade: Wow, thanks mate. I'm always looking for some resources. That's great!

Hi there and welcome to the forum... is this a possible entry for the Terrain Mapping Contest?

To be honest, i don't think the map will have any great looking terrain. I tried it many times, but i'm simply too stupid to design a good terrain. Not that it's difficult to create some hills or complex caves but i hate the terrain options of the old UEd with a burning passion. No multitexture support, no direct painting, it's a pain in the ass to make something work with the given alignment options. Even with Nem's tools (which is great btw.) i have a hard time to create something which i can live with. Sitting on photoshop and creating huge terrains with up to 6144 x 6144px, slicing, importing and even then it doesn't look right is bugging me. Maybe i need more practice or i'm simply not happy with the result, even it's the best which can be achieved.

[Tyr]

Hi everyone,

i've added some new images to the album:

I've started creating the hallway down on the left site. Also the main room got a slight update with more windows at the top. Also added a dummy skybox for testing.

Currently i'm experiencing a weird bug:



As you can see, i've added the fence texture from City.utx to the sheet brushes in front of the windows. They are showing in the editor but not ingame. There are no flags set, to make them invisible or so.

Any idea? My Mapping is exact as possible to prevent bsp holes and such.

[papercoffee]

Is this sheet two sided?
Maybe a semi solid is eating this particular sheet.

[Renegade]

Nice progress. I'm not sure about that sheet issue, though. Try changing the brush order "to last"? Also, check for collision with other brushes. Vertex edit it so it's not touching anything and see what happens.

[Tyr]

It seems that something is wrong with the fence texture.

I've tried building a new sheet somewhere else with the same texture, still no visibility ingame. Changed texture to another one -> it works.

Fixed it with an export to pcx, changing the color for transparent to green -> saved as bitmap -> reimport into my own texture lib.

[Tyr]

More polished version of the hallway

[UTX]

It's looking really good, keep it up.

[Tyr]

Next Room:



Still undecided in which direction the map will be going.

[Swanky]

Interesting choice of textures. I always found those pillar textures too repetetive to use on a continued wall, but you made it work on those shots. Would have to check ingame for a better opinion on it.
Are you using fog or flares for the fog effect? I remember my old Radeon 5770HD had a lot of issues with fogging in general. But the effect is looking subtle and interesting. Oh and there is still some missing trim. You're gonna fix that, right?
One thing I cannot see right now is Z-Axis. Will be interesting to see you included it when your map is progressing.