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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 7:00 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ |
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Well, as I said before, I make 2 versions. A normal primary editon and a special editon.
Perhaps I should put all these nice things(the ideas from the users) in the special editon..... because the normal version is already quite huge.. a low end pc can barely play it. |
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Cyberia-Mix
dU.Mapper
UT Name: Demona UT Since: 2000 Joined: Dec 12, 2010 Posts: 588 Location: irc://irc.epiknet.org/2LO Reputation: 337.5 votes: 10 Status: Offline
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 5:57 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ |
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As rork said there's a nice atmosphere on your screens but it would be so much better with z-axis, especially with multiple floors. |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 12:35 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Beta completed! See first post. |
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Cyberia-Mix
dU.Mapper
UT Name: Demona UT Since: 2000 Joined: Dec 12, 2010 Posts: 588 Location: irc://irc.epiknet.org/2LO Reputation: 337.5 votes: 10 Status: Offline
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 8:51 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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It's on test server.
I gave it a go already. The only bug I found is that the spawn teleporter to point B2 has no destination once activated.
Will do an in depth review later. |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 1:55 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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I have also tested it and your right, other than that the maps runs smooth. : ) |
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HellFire
UT Name: }ElitE{HellFire` UT Since: 1999 Gender: Joined: Jul 20, 2010 Age: 30 Posts: 546 Location: The Netherlands Reputation: 282.4 votes: 6 Status: Offline
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 3:14 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Before I'm going to give some suggestions and little bugs I found I'll start with something else.
First of all I liked the gameplay of this Crystalmine more then the others, even if others might have looked better in some ways this one was more fun to play imo.
Secondly the Boat ride was nice, really liked it.
And the third compliment was for the end cave, gj on that.
Now over to the bugs/suggestions;
The ''research'' part with the piece out of the wall just after start had this small bug;
You can't see it well on the picture but in game I did.
Then the button in the same part isn't going the right way as you'll see;
(Also can push it more times then one, wasn't your intention I think)
Front door has nice trim;
Then the back has nothing;
And the same counts for a bit earlier in the map.
And last the ''window''? in the storage room with the boxes etc;
Might forgot the ''fake backdrop''.
Overall it could use some more trim and decorations but like I said it's fun to play which is the most important.
Btw: the end with the puzzle part was good tho, nice ending. |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 4:33 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Ah ok Thank you helfi, for posting these things!
I will work on it. |
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Cyberia-Mix
dU.Mapper
UT Name: Demona UT Since: 2000 Joined: Dec 12, 2010 Posts: 588 Location: irc://irc.epiknet.org/2LO Reputation: 337.5 votes: 10 Status: Offline
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Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 6:11 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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When polys are black or unusually dark like the holes in the floor here, try the Bright Corners surface flag to fix the lighting (tried here and it works).
There're some typos at the start:
"You're about to get your mission details."
"Alright, here we go!"
"Find out what happened and may you return safely."
"Good luck and be careful."
Also, "Welcome team, in the CrystalMine." -> "Welcome, hunters, to the Crystal Mine." (suggestion).
Lots of objects throughout your map would look a lot better with texture align. It can't be done everywhere, but on the cylindrical part of your crystals at least it can.
Also notice that the vertical blue lights textures behind are misaligned as well.
I like the font. =)
Also, it's awkward to block the lift shaft behind with an invisible wall to prevent them from jumping. How about supporting the lift from below instead of the sides, then make the lift cover the entire lift shaft length, either by making the shaft shorter or making the lift cover it entirely?
And I guess you know already but most movers are lacking sound right now.
I think glass here is kind of out of place, and that a metal grate would look more natural. Doesn't need to be BSP metal beams. Something like the C_BARSM texture in Crypt2.utx would work imo.
Just a thought anyway.
I think this part would be / have been a lot better if you made it look more dynamic. With the stream going down a little, maybe some curved path like in Unreal1 before NaliC, and moving objects like little fishes or the fireflies you used in CrystalMine2.
Other options are making the floor more bumpy and use some more decoration, like the vines and lilypads from GenFX.utx.
Finally, why did you put all your trees straight vertical? The one you placed in the water cave near the end is slanted so why didn't you do the same here? Would look more wild and random, i.e. nicer.
I guess the A1 panels would look better if there was some actual red lamp there, and not having the texture unlit. You'll prolly have to change the shape a little if you want to adjust this tho.
And you might want to center the UDamage texture a bit more.
Besides, rather than having the doors automatically closing after some time, I think it would be better for gameplay to have them stay open until you hit the switch again (TriggerToggle state).
Having the door closing on its own is annoying and won't help to make players entering the room before all visible monsters are dead.
I like the wooden pallets in the crates room. =)
Like I said about the second screen, lots of stuff in the map would look much better with texture align. That would be an easy job in this room with using Align to Floor for all the ground surfaces.
Btw, I think the big white concrete walls in the caves look weird too. What's the thought behind them? Wouldn't it look more natural with wooden or metal pilars instead?
Like Hellfire I too think this one is the nicest room of the map. The lighting however doesn't look logical. Sunlight is very diffuse. There's no way a large opening to the sky would let the surroundings in the dark like here. Try adding some other lights in the dark parts, with low Brightness and large Radius, and it should look much more natural.
You might want to add an extra crystal here or some other light source to make the visuals consistent with the lighting.
Like with the lift at the start, it's awkward to remove the stone beams before the end door if you just collide an invisible wall because you're waiting for the crystal animation.
You should remove this invisible wall completely, and wait for the crystal animation to end before the stone beams move and let you access the door.
---
Now for some more general feedback, I agree it's even better than the previous iterations (I liked CrystalMine1 already).
I think you have a nice running pace in this one, without rhythm breaks except for the boat ride.
I don't think the music you chose matches the overall atmosphere very well however, but perphaps I'll get used to it.
The gasbags projectiles were a nice choice for the skaarjs. At first I thought it was a custom projectile, because the mutator makes them so fast, but nope. Thanks to this the fight is interesting anyway so good job.
Near the end it's easy to get rid of most of the tentacles and gasbags before they see you, but after I went in I was still attacked by a lot of gasbags and mantas and I had to back up to stay alive so I dunno.
When fighting the titan I couldn't find a safe spot to shoot from. Everywhre I'd get hit by rock bounces eventually, which is good. I suppose there must be actual safe spots when you step back far away tho.
Anyway if you want to make the fight even more challenging and lively you can consider spawning little annoyances like flies or mantas during the fight. I can help you in that way if you want, to make spawning stop only when the boss dies.
Overall I hope you plan to add more monsters, because if you except the boat ride part, the map is easily doable by a large team in less than 5 minutes.
I'd especially suggest you to crowd the part between the lift and the boat so it actually is a part of the challenge and not a mere introduction.
And I'll repeat myself a last time, for your next maps, try to give some vertical progression to your layouts. Your maps are all about going forward, left or right. Very rarely you'll be looking up or down.
Good example of use of Z-Axis are the mercenary part in LongCorridor2006, CregorV2, Tarmation, NodeInvaders, or Forbidden (not counting the obvious Ruin-Stairs which is all about this, and it's not what I'm telling you to try). |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 11:05 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Ok thank you too Demona for taking these screenshots and your time for explaining everything.
Perhaps you are a nice guy after all =)
About the misalignment of textures, and incomplete areas my editor crashed a couple of times.
So I decided to let it be this way untill I have worked on some more important things.
I know that my english "orthography " is not always good, I translate dutch phrases, and sentences too straight. lol
Well as I said before some parts were not completely finished, like decoration material, and realistic lights.
And about the Z-axis, that is something I actually never use.... except for specific brushes.
But now that you gave me these screens, I have some new inspiration......
Fixes so far:
- Teleporter B2 is working now.
- Made new doors.
- BSP cuts in titan cave and research area is fixed.
- Button reversed
- The roof window is now fake backdrop
- Added more monsters.
- Added a railway cave with minewagons( no movers)
- Changed lights / Added optional lights
And I have made something LOL :
This vehicle will also be part of it, I should make a mover of this:
This vehicle will also be part of it, I should make a mover of this.
----
I still have a question though.
Was it for everyone clear to see everything (lighting) ? Or are some parts just too dark in cm3? |
Last edited by Terraniux on Mon May 02, 2011 4:47 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 3:55 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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update:
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HellFire
UT Name: }ElitE{HellFire` UT Since: 1999 Gender: Joined: Jul 20, 2010 Age: 30 Posts: 546 Location: The Netherlands Reputation: 282.4 votes: 6 Status: Offline
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Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 8:22 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Lighting was fine to me, tbh I don't like it if everything has lighting I personally like some dark spots in caves which is more realistic. (The end I agreed, with the sun lighting etc).
Like Demona mentioned I forgot to say Sounds indeed, in the caves you can have some ''mine'' sounds which would be interesting maybe and on the end at the outside/cave part maybe some nice bats sound or wind or something like that.
One last thing just a suggestion for lay-outs/decorations of some rooms/caves, in the caves some more mining stuff instead those huge boxes (think about some more light sources and some environment like humans actually worked there, that mining machine you made etc stuff like that),
and on the end cave maybe a big waterfall or something? I'm a big fan of waterfalls in caves, would look sick imo. |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 9:10 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Added miner stuff =) :
2 Extra caves with mine wagons and a shovel.
Hm... yes a waterfall excellent idea! |
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Cyberia-Mix
dU.Mapper
UT Name: Demona UT Since: 2000 Joined: Dec 12, 2010 Posts: 588 Location: irc://irc.epiknet.org/2LO Reputation: 337.5 votes: 10 Status: Offline
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 12:50 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Nice stuff here.
Agree with Hellfire about the ambient sounds.
And the map isn't too dark for me either, except for the part I mentionned. It's cool for the atmosphere to have some dark parts. It works fine here because the few black parts now (near the pupaes for example) don't hinder the gameplay.
I forgot to mention something.
Why did you change the collision size of the titan at the end? Because of this he's floating above the ground and you need to shoot above his head to get actual head shots.
When you change the DrawScale of a monster, collision size adjusts itself automatically. It's only if you make a custom subclass of a monster then change its DrawScale in the Default Properties that you need to manually change the collision size accordingly (in the Default Properties as well). |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 10:50 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Ok, will put that also on my fix list |
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rork
dU.Staff
UT Name: Rork UT Since: 2003 Joined: Feb 13, 2011 Posts: 218
Reputation: 115.7 votes: 2 Status: Offline
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 11:12 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Please call name beta releases beta or something. I don't like Fix, or V2 or 3a or whatever in a mapname that has it's first (or whatever) release, it's the goal of a beta to prevent that. Yes, it's pretty easy to remove it from my disk/cache but I'm lazy.
Not a bad map, might need some finishing as the others said before. Most profound for me was the lack of monsters in some spots and then the megahealth titan in the end. I do enjoy dodging the stones (so the lack of a safe hiding space is a good point IMHO) but I do get bored after 5 minutes. Of course this will go faster if you're with more players but then the rest of the map severely lacked monsters...
Let's go over the list, most of this could be personal, some have been said and fixed allready (- bad, + good, fixed)
Start
- Long intro
- Not enough pupae or flies at the start, these should attack in packs IMHO, also some spam weapon to fight them would be nice
- Floating rad button
+ The boat ride + Warning of the boat to go.
Part A1
+ Number of behemoths at the crates
- One behemoth standing on the crate uses a biorifle and is very easy to kill from a distance without danger
Part B2
+ Looks of the water pool
+ The tentacles surprise attacked my and I had to draw back a room and do some tower defence (not sure how this works out with more people, maybe add some ground creatures here)
+ Titan room lay-out: simple but effective
- Titan floating
- Too much health for the titan
- Teleport B2 didn't work
- The gate opens but invisible block in end scene
- What's with the protection of the God's? I didn't see any gods or traps or whatever...
Some other idea's:
Although I liked the boatride (and it's a good idea to warn for/delay the departure) it could be a bit more thrilling, some bends in the river and stuff to shoot at would be nice. Also the glass in the gate seemed out of place here.
Portals seem to be really popular nowadays as shortcut when you respawn. I alway's expected mines to be a shaft with some side tunnels. It could be possible to use this in the shortcuts (Find something realistic to block the lift a couple of times). A good shaft with a nice lift and floating gasbags might also work out well for looks and z-axis. Think BIG, be creative. (This idea might be too crazy to work out for this map though).
Some of the rooms still look like they came from a box, maybe start with another shape or make them L or H form or something. Also many roofs look to flat.
I like the map, it looks pretty good and has some good action but needs some polishing in it's current state. The updates here look good already, looking forward to a second beta. |
The best way to kill skaarj is to flak it while it leaps towards you. |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 11:40 pm Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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Ok you want big, you get BIG. You want more action, come get some!
I am making a last  HUGE cave that puts any other to SHAME.
Im tearing the map apart in parts to make sure everthing is good aligned and well decorated.
When it all said and done, you will say wow. Â |
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Terraniux
UT Name: Terraniux UT Since: 1999 Joined: Jul 25, 2010 Posts: 1159
Reputation: 401.6 votes: 14 Status: Offline
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Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 12:48 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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There will also be waterfalls, fireflies, trees and plants and not to forget fishies! |
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Cyberia-Mix
dU.Mapper
UT Name: Demona UT Since: 2000 Joined: Dec 12, 2010 Posts: 588 Location: irc://irc.epiknet.org/2LO Reputation: 337.5 votes: 10 Status: Offline
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Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 12:58 am Post subject: Re: ] The CrystalMine 3 [ - completed - |
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rork wrote (View Post): | - One behemoth standing on the crate uses a biorifle and is very easy to kill from a distance without danger |
It's the projectile randomizer from the dU Heavy Monsters mutator causing this when you let the monster with its default projectile.
In the middle of a game I don't think it's much of an issue anyway. |
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