25th Anniversary of Unreal Tournament

[TankBeef]

allowed maps

No deck...no...deck...

[OjitroC]

allowed maps

No deck...no...deck...

Yeah, would agree with that - soooo many versions of that around. Would be tempted to add HallofGiants and LavaGiant (the EXU version of the latter would be a hard act to follow, so much more interesting than the stock map). Actually the EXU versions of other stock maps are interesting, especially where two or three have been joined together - Peak and Barricade linked by jumppads for example - indicate what those with the skill could do.

[fudgonaut]

Here are all the official UT99 maps: https://unreal.fandom.com/wiki/Unreal_Tournament

Here's a quick list:

Spoiler

CAPTURE THE FLAG
CTF-Beatitude
CTF-Command
CTF-Coret
CTF-Cybrosis][
CTF-Darji16
CTF-Dreary
CTF-EpicBoy
CTF-EternalCave
CTF-Face
CTF-Face][
CTF-Gaunltet
CTF-HallOfGiants
CTF-High
CTF-Hydro16
CTF-Kosov
CTF-LavaGiant
CTF-Niven
CTF-November
CTF-Noxion16
CTF-Nucleus
CTF-Orbital
CTF-Ratchet
DEATHMATCH
DM-Agony
DM-ArcaneTemple
DM-Barricade
DM-Bishop
DM-Closer
DM-Codex
DM-Conveyor
DM-Crane
DM-Curse][
DM-Cybrosis][
DM-Deck16][
DM-Fetid
DM-Fractal
DM-Gothic
DM-Grinder
DM-Grit-TOURNEY
DM-HealPod][
DM-HyperBlast
DM-KGalleon
DM-Liandri
DM-Malevolence
DM-Mojo][
DM-Morbias][
DM-Morpheus
DM-Oblivion
DM-Peak
DM-Phobos
DM-Pressure
DM-Pryamid
DM-Shrapnel][
DM-SpaceNoxx
DM-Stalwart
DM-StalwarXL
DM-Tempest
DM-Turbine
DM-Viridian-TOURNEY
DM-Zeto
DOMINATION
DOM-Bullet
DOM-Cidom
DOM-Cinder
DOM-Condemned
DOM-Cryptic
DOM-GearBolt
DOM-Ghardhen
DOM-Lament
DOM-Lament][
DOM-Leadworks
DOM-MetalDream
DOM-Olden
DOM-Sesmar
DOM-WolfsBay
ASSUALT
AS-Frigate
AS-Guardia
AS-HiSpeed
AS-Mazon
AS-OceanFloor
AS-Overlord
AS-Rook

And here's a Google spreadsheet if any mapper wants to add their name to a map they'd like to tackle. I also added a stub at the bottom if anybody wants to work on an original or non-stock map.

I put myself down for Hydro and Phobos, but I'm happy to collaborate or let someone else take a crack at those if they want.

Google Docs isn't really set up to do polls. Anyone know of a quick & easy method for creating up multiple-choice polls,so I can gauge interest in what maps people want to see most?

EDIT:

I mean, the list should lock out Face, Deck, Morbias (and by proxy Fractal), LavaGiant and HallOfGiants at least. There are already tons of versions of these maps.

I have grayed out these maps in the spreadsheet.

[Neon_Knight]

I mean, the list should lock out Face, Deck, Morbias (and by proxy Fractal), LavaGiant and HallOfGiants at least. There are already tons of versions of these maps.

[fudgonaut]

I set up polls here so people can vote on what maps they'd like to see re-made. No need to register.

[Pikko]

Badge?

[papercoffee]

Badge?

If the people want, yes.

[fudgonaut]

If the people want, yes.

yespleasethankyou!

[ExpEM]

If the people want, yes.

yespleasethankyou!

Seconded by a people.

[papercoffee]

Ok ok... a badge it will be.
I think about some 3D effect in the badge

[Feralidragon]

If you're in on this for the long term (2+ years), I suggest the badge to be high resolution (HD quality), and maybe have a normal texture mapping applied (in the BumpTexture property).

This is because most renderers in the latest UT patches are able to render HD textures in a fairly simple manner and they are the ones used by default (you don't need to set up the whole S3TC stuff, you can do everything from the editor itself, especially starting with v469c which is about to be publicly released), and there's also XOpenGL which has had great improvements and fixes to become similar in performance to regular OpenGL, and that one supports normal maps through the BumpTexture property (which textures always had, but was left unused).

You might also want to use HD textures in your maps overall this time, because by the time the 25th anniversary rolls around, we might already be in v469d or even v470, and renderers continue to be a big focus of these patches, and they keep bringing stuff like this which can be effectively used, and because more and more players are starting to discover things like HD UT weapons and such, which could very well become a default by then.

Last year I was even building a package with dynamic coronas, lensflares, etc, to be used in maps, and the textures I have built there are all HD textures with BC7 compression (it also comes with lower resolution textures as automatic fallback for renderers that do not support them), and when I first saw this thread I even thought in going back to it and finish it (before I noticed the real deadline).

It would also be a good way to test the new patch features during this development, to make them as stable as possible by the time 25th anniversary comes.

If you're going to do this and take the next 2 years to do it, might as well go big or go home.

Just my 2 cents

[papercoffee]

I know in the new Editor PNG is supported, right? does it also count for the transparency part of a PNG?

[fudgonaut]

...the latest UT patches are able to render HD textures in a fairly simple manner and they are the ones used by default (you don't need to set up the whole S3TC stuff, you can do everything from the editor itself, especially starting with v469c which is about to be publicly released), and there's also XOpenGL which has had great improvements and fixes to become similar in performance to regular OpenGL, and that one supports normal maps through the BumpTexture property (which textures always had, but was left unused).

You might also want to use HD textures in your maps overall this time, because by the time the 25th anniversary rolls around, we might already be in v469d or even v470, and renderers continue to be a big focus of these patches, and they keep bringing stuff like this which can be effectively used, and because more and more players are starting to discover things like HD UT weapons and such, which could very well become a default by then.

Last year I was even building a package with dynamic coronas, lensflares, etc, to be used in maps, and the textures I have built there are all HD textures with BC7 compression (it also comes with lower resolution textures as automatic fallback for renderers that do not support them), and when I first saw this thread I even thought in going back to it and finish it (before I noticed the real deadline).

It would also be a good way to test the new patch features during this development, to make them as stable as possible by the time 25th anniversary comes.

If you're going to do this and take the next 2 years to do it, might as well go big or go home.

That is excellent news and an excellent suggestion. For HD textures what would be a good default size, 512? 1024? I feel like 512 would be appropriate in most cases. I'd love to try my hand at making some bump maps to give details some extra depth.

Are there tutorials for any of these improvements? Is anyone willing to make some tutorials? That would realy help mappers (and not just ones participating in this project).

If anybody reading this hasn't already, visit the link in my sig and vote for which maps you would most like to see re-made. I hope it will motivate mappers to pick a map and participate.

A couple people have already signed up to do some maps (link to the spreadsheet is also in my sig).

EDIT: you can vote for more than one map in each poll (the number of votes is relative to the number of maps in the gametype, deathmatch you can vote fore up to five. There a lot fewer assault maps, you can vote for up to two).
It's interesting to see what people are voting for so far:

CTF is a tie between Hydro and Kosov
DM is a tie between Arcane Temple, Koos Galleon, and Phobos
for DOM, Metal Dream is by far the map people want to see remade
Overlord has the most votes for AS
And in the Other category, people seem interested most in new player skins.

[Feralidragon]

There aren't any tutorials yet, because a lot of these features are pretty recent, as in v469c-recent (for which the RC3 was released yesterday, as you can see in Buggie's announcement post), but I can provide some insight into some of them myself later on, maybe I can even do a tutorial.

There is some stuff I am currently validating with the devs concerning the overall support, since I found some issues and limitations in the meanwhile while testing the RC3.

But if you install the RC3 and open the editor, and attempt to import a texture, you can already see a bunch of options on this regard (you can select the compression to use for the HD texture and you can import PNG).
The P8 version will be automatically generated, but I am not sure of its quality, and I am also checking with them how would one import a custom P8 for a given HD texture.

I know in the new Editor PNG is supported, right? does it also count for the transparency part of a PNG?

Yes and no.

You can import PNG with transparency, and the transparency is preserved as an alpha channel as long as you use a compression type that supports it (like BC3 or BC7, the latter of which is only supported by OpenGL, XOpenGL and Vulkan).

However, when it comes to the actual rendering, at least in the latest RC3 version, it seems there are inconsistencies across renderers on how the alpha is rendered.
In XOpenGL and Vulkan the BC3 transparency has a 0.5 threshold between fully transparent and fully opaque (like a masked texture), while for BC7 the alpha channel is completely ignored, whereas in OpenGL BC3 seems to render correctly as expected, but BC7 has the same behavior as XOpenGL (fully opaque).

In D3D9 the whole thing crashes at the moment , which is something I am checking internally with the devs as well, so I am not sure how it's meant to render these.

Having that said, v469 has featured, since the start, a higher resolution of the sniper zoom scope which does use an alpha channel, so alpha is something already used in the base game nowadays (in the HUD itself as well, if you enable alpha in one of the renderers), but it's still a bit iffy and there have been some discussions concerning how exactly it should work, even because P8 textures (the fallback) cannot really have an alpha channel.

Depending on the issues and devs opinion on this, this might still improve before v469c official release, but if not, it will likely get addressed at some point between now and the next 2 years.

[Neon_Knight]

Not to mention there's a related private repo (UnrealTournament-testing) that features a lot of UED improvements Buggie has implemented, that are yet to be added to the actual v469*, and is in dire need of testers.