So, what are you working on right now?

[grayman]

Superb!

[AluminumHaste]

That's awesome but I just wanted to point out that walking a few inches above molten metal which could be 1538C, you wouldn't be able to breath or walk on that metal grate.

If that's lava, that's not much better, close to 1200C, you would get cooked in a few seconds.

Unless there's some sort of magic stuff in this mission I don't know about, in which case, nevermind.

Sweet map btw.

[HMart]

Totally agree with AluminumHaste, I hope you have some lore on why the thief can walk for ages centimeters above open lava, he must have clothes and shoes made of titanium strings. ;D

But the design looks very good, one thing that you could do to give the impression the metal is getting hot, is make the side looking into the lava glow a little orange, (material trick, vertex colors could help here).

Now a friendly critic on the gameplay, this is only my opinion based on limited information, that being a maze, could feel repetitive after a while, to be walking back and forth, specially if you have no clue where to go and heat doesn't seem to really affect you.  To give more "urgency" to the moment, you could try turn this into a more linear thing, with one or two dead ends to spice things up and make it more urgent to the player to get out of there fast or get killed by the heat and the moving statues. I know this is totally different from the idea you are showing there but imo it could be something to consider, at least in this particular situation, you could use your current idea to another area without lava, but the mission is yours and you do what you like. 

Edited December 4, 2019 by HMart

[ERH+]

I know all this lava filled caves in games and movies should incapacitate you instantaneously just with poisonous gases, not to mention heat shock -and death will come minutes after. But this lava filled catacombs are a leftover from older concepts of the palace above, so it was a bit hard to just get rid of a fully fleshed out environment. This one have some magical components (mages can't close portals and the lava is pouring in), so the magical containment methods are in use, but I guess I will make a lava much more coagulated (mostly dark with molten cracks) and add some frosty draft.

[AluminumHaste]

Well, magical barriers works just fine, no need to change it!

[stgatilov]

18 hours ago, ERH+ said:

The copper maiden golem - indestructible, red-hot block of metal, with equally unbreakable will. Slow, silent, can set a deadly trap in  atight corridor.
https://youtu.be/DPe34ugA6AU

I have noticed that the big fire in the middle of the map severely decreases FPS when you look at it. Is it really so bad? Maybe @duzenko would be interested in this case...

[duzenko]

3 hours ago, stgatilov said:

I have noticed that the big fire in the middle of the map severely decreases FPS when you look at it. Is it really so bad? Maybe @duzenko would be interested in this case...

1:35? Looks like massive fillrate overdraw

Quote

I know all this lava filled caves in games and movies should incapacitate you instantaneously just with poisonous gases, not to mention heat shock -and death will come minutes after. But this lava filled catacombs are a leftover from older concepts of the palace above, so it was a bit hard to just get rid of a fully fleshed out environment. This one have some magical components (mages can't close portals and the lava is pouring in), so the magical containment methods are in use, but I guess I will make a lava much more coagulated (mostly dark with molten cracks) and add some frosty draft.

You might want to rethink the floor grates. They're too narrow and far apart. It would be too dangerous for walking.

And yeah, some more distance to lava would make more sense.

[ERH+]

I guess this drop occur when I walk into flame emitter - as I understand being immersed inside emitters vs standing next to them makes a visible difference in performance.

[duzenko]

3 minutes ago, ERH+ said:

I guess this drop occur when I walk into flame emitter - as I understand being immersed inside emitters vs standing next to them makes a visible difference in performance.

I'd think them taking up more pixels on the screen is what makes the difference

I would need to test this on my system to say more.

[Geep]

Air Pocket is beta-able now here

 

[grayman]

Biker asked that this be posted:

[Dragofer]

Speaking of nautical themed missions, here's some from On Silent Waters:

Edited December 11, 2019 by Dragofer

[Amadeus]

It is amazing what you can do with just wood textures, Dragofer

[JackFarmer]

@Dragofer: Is this a fog light?

 

 

Anyways, great work (as always).

 

[Dragofer]

Is this a fog light?

Anyways, great work (as always).

Thanks, and yes it is - if you mean the general background fog? There are also various fog emitters around the area that you could see if you were there. The torch isn't a foglight.

[JackFarmer]

The bank of Colliford Lake (HH:TLC, Part 1: The Weir)

 

 

Did not make much progress the past weeks due to RL things. Original plan was to start beta next week. Far from it, actually.

 

[Jedi_Wannabe]

Oh my gosh is that a hover boat haha sweet! Love this Jack. As always the little details really shine.

I too was hoping for a Christmas beta, but life happened. Don’t think I’ve opened DR in 4 or 5 days. 

[AluminumHaste]

46 minutes ago, JackFarmer said:

The bank of Colliford Lake (HH:TLC, Part 1: The Weir)

 

 

Did not make much progress the past weeks due to RL things. Original plan was to start beta next week. Far from it, actually.

 

Looks great!

General rule of thumb is take your time estimate and double it lol

[Jedi_Wannabe]

9 minutes ago, AluminumHaste said:

General rule of thumb is take your time estimate and double it lol

Story of my life.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Jedi_Wannabe

[demagogue]

Looks great!

I've been working out a technique for the grass-road or grass-gravel boundary where I'll put a long snake-like n-shaped patch of dirt or rocks (like a sideways half-cylinder) with snaking curves so the top 1/3 of it covers the seam, that is, just the top of the "n" pokes above the ground. Then there's a mound of dirt that credibly hides the seam. It's a relatively quick (compared to modeling or texture blending) and natural looking way to do it, but there is work dealing with curving the patches and where two snake patches run into each other. It's not a big deal, but that hard seam does kind of stick out compared to the lush naturalness of the rest of the scene and something to hide or deal with it would be worth it IMO.

[Dragofer]

@JackFarmer I really like how you've packed those screens full of interesting things to look at - I'd be keen to take a look at that bank in the midst of a lush forest!

And you're definitely a representative of the Inventor's Guild with that hoverboat, and all your other inventions that came before it. Together with ERH+, but he's usually away and busy on the very bottom off the ocean or in the swamps.

Regarding the paths, I'd add that I was quite happy with using a dirt path decal on a path-shaped patch that's simply laid on top of the grass terrain. Its sides gradually faded out to blend with the grass. You can see it in action in Alberic's Curse, for instance.

[JackFarmer]

@Dragofer @Jedi_Wannabe @demagogue @AluminumHaste

Gentlemen,

Thankr you very much for your positive comments and suggestions. I will check the methods as per Dragofer's and dema's suggestions.

I forgot to mention that the scene includes the trees from the skybox of Dragofer's fantastic looking DBSR mission. I just removed all of the lights and the moving clouds. (The latter caused problems with the water reflection, though I had to replace it with fake reflection as it did not work anymore as soon as I had placed the hover boat on the water surface).

Today is my first holiday. I hope that I can push myself to finish the three missing Citadel areas. I wished I could already start with adding AI, puzzles and readables.

[Amadeus]

20 minutes ago, JackFarmer said:

I wished I could already start with adding AI, puzzles and readables.

Take your time, man! There's no rushing quality work. I too am procrastinating a bit, but it doesn't help that the holidays is a crazy time. Es gibt viel Zeit!

[ERH+]

Dragofer asked me for a lighthouse engine, giving 160x 160x 160 units as a maximum dimensions. It is a bit rushed (few hours) and looks more like a clock tower mechanism as I think about it now.

 

[grayman]

Stunning