So, what are you working on right now?

[Lux]

Wow. Great mood you set in that scene, Melan. That's without sound or back story too. Sheesh.

[Mr. Tibbs]

Melan, that is drop-dead gorgeous!

[Bikerdude]

Very beautiful work there Melan, I look forward to playing another one of your little Gem's.

[Kvorning]

Though I enjoyed the Thief related off-topic, I figured i should get my eyes back on the ball, and give you guys one last teaser of my map.

 

They may have some 'Mr. fancy-pants-next-gen-tech' for next year, but we already have The Dark Mod, which I already have the pleasure of playing and mapping in right now.

 

Didn't do any editing, just uploaded the video. No spoilers aside from the environment. No locks are picked, no loot is shown, no story or readables revealed. You know, a teaser.

 

http://youtu.be/OMmy3CbyLqI

[Springheel]

Beautiful! I didn't want to watch very closely to avoid spoiers, but looks great!

[Kvorning]

Haha I made sure that everything was unlocked and hidden, even put that music over, to "ruin" the complete experience, but glad to know it's not enough Next time it's the full thing.

[Goldwell]

Wow that looks fantastic Kvorning!

 

Do you have an ETA on it yet?

 

edit: I especially love the foggy clouds in the attic btw! Very nice effect

Edited June 20, 2013 by TylerVocal

[Kvorning]

I've been giving myself ETA for so long, that I honestly got no idea when. But it's close.1/3 of the map is completely done and playable and I don't feel like I have to go back and change more. So I just gotta finish the last two thirds

 

I love thick layers of cog-webs to really signal when a place is desolate, but if it looks like clouds, then I may need to retouch it later on

[Goldwell]

I love thick layers of cog-webs to really signal when a place is desolate, but if it looks like clouds, then I may need to retouch it later on

 

Oh ok, well I thought it was the desired effect as it looks like a foggy cloudy attic and the effect really gave me this feeling of a desolate place. Maybe keep the foggyness and add some cobwebs in the corner of the rooms or something?

 

Either way, looks great and cant wait to play

 

edit: It reminded me a lot of this (Screenshot from the new Thief)

 

Edited June 20, 2013 by TylerVocal

[Kvorning]

Ah now I see it too! Not quite random as I did get some inspiration from the early screenshots. Good eye . I wouldn't be surprised if that attic is near that room with the bird cages.

[demagogue]

Well I really like it. Looks like it'll be fun to explore.

[Sotha]

Kvorning, that looks extremely good!

 

I'm worried about the performance, though. You have high detail & pretty rooms and the windows seemed the be 'open' towards the street in every room. That ruins compartmentalization and kills the performance of the whole street. I even saw the neighbouring houses had windows you could see in! It is likely, you need to close the windows (at least the majority of them) with a non transparent glass in order to optimize. It is not really a problem since the windows have no gameplay purpose: seemed to be so small the player will not fit through. (If the player CAN fit through and that's your idea: make the windows closed but leave few critical entry routes open, for example they could be visibly open to identify an access point to the player.) Closing&sealing the windows may even be good for gameplay: people will possibly be annoyed if a random guard wandering outside could see the player inside through the window and attack...

[Melan]

It is a great video! And I loved the transparent windows - as long as they are feasible performance-wise, they can add a lot to the environment.

[Lux]

The map is looking really good, Kvorning. I also like the transparent windows.

 

Do we have to visportal the windows or how does that work? I think I read something about using a cubemap or that's not currently working or...not sure.

 

Visportals would take care of the performance issues for the most part wouldn't it? Only a very small portion of out/inside would be rendered though a window/couple windows in any case.

[DeTeEff]

If you can see the streets through the windows, the engine renders the whole street outside (at least as much as you have portalled for). Every portal that leads out on the streets opens...You can add a skyportal behind the window but if the window faces a section that you can inspect (you can go there) it won't make much sense as the view from the windows aren't the same as when you move out...

[Lux]

I noticed when making my test map and going through the tutorial that: provided the brushes and geometry are nOt func_static the engine will only render what is visable through the portal which would be fairly small. That is, world spawn brush geometry.

 

If they are func_static though, then the entire brush/group of brushes are rendered which I thought was curious considering how func_static conversion is touted as such a performance saver. I'm sure the other benefits of func_static out-weigh this small issue though.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Lux

[Kvorning]

I completely understand your concerns on performance, because it's exactly the biggest one of mine. When I test the map, as you can see, the frames drop on the street. I tried it on a friends computer with 6GB ram and a better GFX card and CPU, and everything was running smooth.

 

As for compartmentalization, everything has been carefully visportaled, though as you mention, the transparent glass ones would look weird, so they are constantly open. If performance on the final result is too bad, I'm gonna have to make an LOD version with portals on the doors and windows, which close themselves. If possible.

 

Here's two shots of tris 3 and portals, as you probably get more from that

http://i.imgur.com/dtAZPDh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/C4bAebg.jpg

 

How sound and AI react is also a concern. So far the patrolling guard only notice me if I stand in front of a lit window. He doesn't seem to be too concerned with how much noise I make inside. But if the door is open, he's a lot more touchy. Unless there's a local leak, the sound seems to dampen well, and you don't hear the street wind too loud when inside.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Kvorning

[Bikerdude]

Though I enjoyed the Thief related off-topic

Nice video mista, the ambient music was very apt!

http://i.imgur.com/dtAZPDh.jpg http://i.imgur.com/C4bAebg.jpg

Now there is a bit of mapper porn, perfectly aligned and snapped verts...

[Kvorning]

Thanks, it won't be in the map though, as copyright and all that The artist is "Wardruna".

[Obsttorte]

If performance is a problem you may help yourself out with some tricks. Basically I guess there are two things you can do.

 

Add a player-window distance check to the windows which replaces said one with a similar model that uses opague glass. The window would then also trigger a func_portal touching the portal *inside* the window to make it close. If the player gets closer the effect is vice versa.

 

The other possibility is to use cube maps or how it's called, which are also used for fake reflections on water. This method should only be used with non-extinguishible lights in the area.

 

I also worked out a script turning off the shadow-casting of lights if the player is far away enough. This may help, too.

[Kvorning]

The distance check I've considered, but I don't know a thing about cube maps yet

 

Hopefully I know more about the performance ranges, once I get it tested near completion.

[Obsttorte]

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Cube_maps

 

Regarding dist_checks. If you have problems there or the way you'll set it up seems too complicated to you (in terms of lot's of things needed to get it work), just pm me.

[Kvorning]

Ah that's cube maps... Yeah I'm probably gonna try and use that in the slums' water at the very least, but still, not until I've got the finished map.

 

Dist-checks and periods I've had working in the end of the map part, on select func_statics with high polycount patches, to keep performance in check, but I will have to revisit that again later. There's a ton of cool features like that for optimization, I'd love getting more familiar with, when I get the time.

 

I'll make sure to send you a pm if I hit a brick wall, thanks man

[Goldwell]

So here is my first screenshot of my first map The Accountant. I mean it's nothing in comparison to what some of you guys are capable of but I thought I would share it anyway and get some comments if you have the time

 

The shot is of a bedroom which is located a little bit underground (hence why no windows)

 

 

 

 

[Kvorning]

Looks promising! Don't stop until you're satisfied, and it'll look just as good as anything else you've seen:)