DM Krodan - UT3 - Released

[Hourences]

So, Krodan too got released now:

# Absolutely zero BSP.
# 99 percent custom content. Nearly everything was self designed, modeled, and textured except for some statues, spiderwebs, and the car.
# Unlike UT3, It actually has color!
# Two to six players...
# It is not meant as a hardcore level. Focus is on the visuals and on enjoyable but casual play. The target audience are casual players, level designers, and graphic fanatics.
# There are Note actors in the level with additional info for level designers.

Making-of tutorial available: http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialskrodan.htm

Download:
http://download.beyondunreal.com/filewo ... krodan.zip - 44.2 MB - Thanks to beyondunreal.com

[e-freak]

looks damn fine! good job.

Those "node actors" - is this what is called "Developer Commentary" in Source Games?

[Hourences]

It are entities that can only be seen in the editor, and in their properties theres commentary text yes.

[st0lve]

You are a machine! I guess I'll pick up UT3 just for UE3, it looks so sweet

[Sindwiller]

Yay, looks cool *downloads*. The making-of is very, very useful, thanks for that

[kleinluka]

simply beautiful well done!!

[KungFuSquirrel]

Ooh, those new rock textures look really nice - great improvement from the first versions you showed. Makes the paths and general shapes much more defined.

I'm behind on my games this year so no UT3 yet but I'll have to poke at it the first chance I get.

[[HP]]

Spot... light?

[dux]

Totally reminds me of Unreal 1. Great job, lighting makes me

[Sindwiller]

Just finished play testing. Wow, it takes ages to load, seriously I like the art stuff and especially the lighting. Differs from Epic's maps in many ways, although there could have been a bit more color variation. Another spot of blue, perhaps? I kind of feel that the game play is unpolished though. Putting the Stinger in there was, in my opinion, a mistake. And putting the Stinger and the UDamage close together was an even bigger one. You always end up getting killed by the guy nearest to the Stinger, with the Stinger, or even both. It was also pretty hard to keep being alive, as you have to kill someone in front of you, watch out for a guy coming from a passage, and you'll definitely get perforated or pulverized by the guys coming from above. In addition, it was pretty hard to perceive enemies because of all the foliage! I played it with three different bot counts (5, 3, 1 @ Masterful), where I think that Duel might suit this map the best. I'm not an expert and I probably suck ass at gaming, but I just say what I feel Nonetheless a pretty nice map.

EDIT:

# It is not meant as a hardcore level. Focus is on the visuals and on enjoyable but casual play. The target audience are casual players, level designers, and graphic fanatics.

Oh, didn't read that. I hope you won't crucify me for that

[Hourences]

It only takes an age to load the very first time cause it generates stuff as far as I know. After that it is real fast. To me anyway.

The floorplan is rather limited, a regular DM level has far more connectivity, making it even more likely that you get killed from a guy coming from a passage:P It is the game, can't help that.

The ironic thing is that the lighting is exactly like Epic's lighting used to be, it's just that in UT3 they switched to this really boring monotome lighting scheme, and compared to that, I don't think I got all that little variation going on

And it is my trademark of all levels I ever made.

I am working on a hardcore low poly map pack with friends, 8 or so low poly UT3 map for pure gameplay ownage. This map was for the visual people, the stuff next week is for the gameplay people. Everyone happy.

[Sindwiller]

The floorplan is rather limited, a regular DM level has far more connectivity, making it even more likely that you get killed from a guy coming from a passage:P It is the game, can't help that.

Yeah, sure, but the problem is: You simply don't notice it. You get to fire a few shots and then you get killed because your dead angle plays a trick on you. Or it might be my aim. Or the game. Who knows It [the map] simply isn't as enjoyable as it can be, kind of.

Everyone happy.

[Pericolos0]

best looking ut3 map imo! The art asset quality is pretty far from the official maps, but because of the nice colors and setting its really pleasing to the eye .

Some things were really strange to me though, why does the rock texture require 78 different instructions? It doesnt look very good imo, from up close it looks like its wrapped in plastic and from a small distance it looks like just a diffuse texture imo. same with most of the other materials :S. What happened to simply diffuse normal and spec?
But overall it looks great though, and its pretty fun to play!

[Hourences]

Nearly all materials in Unreal are complex. Even the most simple diffuse-spec setup already takes 40 instructions mind you, did you even knew that? The rock for example comes in at 78 because:

-It derives spec from diffuse
-It uses a fresnel fall off effect to accentuate the silhouettes.
-It uses detail normal mapping blended with the real normal for a better upclose feel.
-It blends in an orange cubemap to fake orange ambient reflection from the sky.
-Certain rock materials also blend 2 different diffuse, spec, and normal maps using the vertex colors and UV channel 2 of the mesh.

I don't know how you would intent to do so, but I can't do all of that with less than 70 instructions

I find it rather insane that I manage to make really complex materials that bump up the quality of the environment, and people end up complaining that I didnt just made a 3 expression (normal spec diff) material and left it at that? What the hell ?

[Warby]

+definitly an inspiring map since its the first all out custom map i have seen yet for ut3
+ love the animated birds ^^
+ the house looks great the little window coming out of the rocks on the side is a nice touch
+ tutorial and stuff is a huge bonus =) glad to see you can build entire layouts in a 3d app and dont have to move everything to 000 before exporting



- everything is very high-frequency/high-contrast: textures lighting ...everything makes it very 3d unreadable while navigating it
- that distortion filter on the glas cage adds this ugly screenspace artifact i really wish ut would not do that ... hardly your fault but i would just not use it if i was you
- runs only at 23 fps on my machine despite the small size