DM-Substrate

[Smick_Dibbly]

Hi all. I'm not known here but I'd like to start by mentioning I had an account here named Zeddy_Ryan, however I am now going by Smick_Dibbly.

Anyway, I recently found an external hard drive that I thought I had lost, and it had some Unreal projects I was working on in late December 2020 to early January 2021 before I got sidetracked by real-life responsibilities. In particular I found a deathmatch map I was working on called DM-Substrate. I am sharing it here now in its current unfinished form because to be honest I'm just not that interested in mapping for Unreal games at this time. It's either this or nothing. That being said, the map at least looks cool, it flows well I think, and the the bot-pathing seems to work mostly. I think it's also a good example of how particular I was about texture choice and alignment. I do think the map is a bit too big, and there are too many competing architecture styles; if I had the ambition I'd expand upon each of these styles in their own dedicated map.

Anyway, I'm sharing this just in case someone gets something from it: an idea for their own project, or even just a moment of "hey this part looks pretty good".

Download

I still play other people's maps on a fairly regular basis, so keep up the good work everyone!

[ExpEM]

Can you please add some pic's to your post? Most people here wont DL without an idea of what they are getting.

[EvilGrins]

I mostly popped onto the map for a quick look around, and to get screenshots... as ExpEM is correct. Most map releases work best with screenshots.

Quick review, until I do a more thorough look later: decent map. Very large playing area, with all variants of places. Good use of ramps and water and varying levels.

[OjitroC]

Yeah, fun map with good flow around - plenty of z-axis action. A nice size of map, neither too small nor too big

There are, indeed, too many styles/textures used which do create a degree of 'visual incoherence'.

There's a couple of ammo pickups that bots won't get and one pathnode on steps without incoming connections (meaning that bots won't use that route except by accident).

[UnrealGGecko]

Mind if I make an edit sometime? Could play around with a custom texture set to blend it a bit better together and fix the little things pointed out while Im at it :p

[browndl]

Neat level. Lots of things going on. All it needs is a little unifying in the visuals. It has a real UT 'early days' feel to it. Good job!

[Smick_Dibbly]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry about not including pictures; not sure why I thought that was okay. But EvilGrins posted a representative sample of screenshots above.

Mind if I make an edit sometime? Could play around with a custom texture set to blend it a bit better together and fix the little things pointed out while Im at it :p

I would love to see what you can do with this map, yes!

[Swanky]

Interesting map... very 90's in its design. Not necessarily a bad thing though...
Just did a small check, so no actual in depth feedback about layout weaknesses and bots not using something. That said...
- there is lot of uniform white light without form, and that's making the map a bit boring. Don't be afraid to use light or dirty yellow hues and radii to differentiate the different areas. This is very noticeable in the areas around the shock rifle area.
- There is a good amount of texture misalignments such as the sludge pit under the U-Dam, and the ZED sign letter polygons should be aligned to wall and then merged per letter.
- Round lights shouldn't cast a circular lightbox effect (Brush234), easy fix by changing the texture to something matching.
- I can see potential issues with pathing for bots to get the Super Health and U-Dam. The latter may need jumpspots while the former may have bots bonk under the ceiling. Also, can't get the super health without xloc or hammerjump in classic gameplay.
- Pathing looks ok for the most part. Lower Biorifle could have some slight adjustments to the pathing network (Pathnode117 -> Pathnode178)
Outside of that, looks decent enough, good big maps are rare enough.

...I need to fix my UT installation sometimes, even though I'm getting steady 59fps it feels like the game is microstuttering.

[OjitroC]

PathsChecker and MapGarbage report that
1) the problematic pathnodes are PathNode4 and PathNode170 - neither has incoming connections. Pathnode170 is not really of use but PathNode4 is important and needs to be lowered a little;
2) the problematic Inventory items are BioAmmo3 and MiniAmmo5 - no route to these.

[jmartin]

Nice work. I'm impressed to see that it requires only default textures and audio.

[sektor2111]

PathsChecker and MapGarbage report that
1) the problematic pathnodes are PathNode4 and PathNode170 - neither has incoming connections. Pathnode170 is not really of use but PathNode4 is important and needs to be lowered a little;
2) the problematic Inventory items are BioAmmo3 and MiniAmmo5 - no route to these.

This is #1 *problem...
#2 is movement logic - not everywhere is logic. Combos are TWO-WAY things... Random images...

SStr_0.PNG

SStr_1.PNG

Second image doesn't only have a pointless route (RAMP has a SHORTER way), but I doubt that Bot will translocate to LiftExit or doing any stunt over there - has also a bad angle with ledge closer to a wall, and then that JumpSpot has no business with nearby ripper - A LiftCenter and child classes won't get connected with any other node than a LiftExit and its child classes. And there are other ones under doubts anyway.

Luckily it might include normal paths, and applied multiple combos instead of these impossible "Triads" because geometry is good and normal so it supports normal paths for logic navigation.

Edit: Dropping it away - rendering is not smoother during run-time.

[Smick_Dibbly]

The pathing issues are good to know. Of all the things involved in making a map, I'd say bot pathing is what I had the least experience with, and I definitely tried some things without understanding fully how they work.

I'm feeling inclined to make various improvements to the map based on feedback here, if time permits. Right now most of my "free" time is devoted to building a game engine, but maybe working on UT stuff would be a good way to take a break from that.