I have many projects (at least 12) simultaneously lately, so things tend to progress slowly, but nonetheless is here yet another slowly progressing tease for you:



(I know that shadows suck on that thing, but nothing can be done about it)


And if you think the editor is hard to use with 8 seconds of lag after clicking something, then you don't even want to know how shitty it's usable when the camera is upside down..

Hmmm, judging by the core's size there I'm guessing that's probably not the entire map, rather just one of several planets; the blue base so to speak. If you're planning to have more worlds in your map, I wonder what the most feasible/impressive manner to travel between those would be and still make the gravity changes (and the following viewport adjustments} seem fluid and natural. Perhaps simply using teleporters, or doing it the harder (but cooler) way through jump pads what would send players flying fast through space Mario Galaxy style (collecting star-shaped HP vials as they move )? Just one of many thoughts on such map design that come to mind...

If, on the other hand, one planet is the whole world, and, therefore, the map, that would also be a cool gameplay idea to try out (basically the inverse of your previous spamball experiment). However, to make enough room for lots of ppl and things to be hap'nin' at once, the world would need to be bigger and the main question, then, becomes: can I haz pole-to-pole tunnels pl0x??? By that, I mean being boosted at high speed from one end of the planet through its center and out the other. Perhaps even allow for minuscule player movements during such a roller-coaster ride to change where they'd come out (or end up burnt to a cinder in the core if they'd take a wrong turn ^^).

Anyway, lotsa guesswork here since I don't know anything about the project other than what this solitary pic provides and as the saying goes, anything's possible if you don't know what you're talking about. So, guess it's time to stop wondering for now and wait for mr. Crocface to start providing more info if any further discussion here is gonna be useful for anything. Gj pushing the envelope though .

Well, this is the outside of my old Spamball.

It's indeed the entire planet, don't worry, since there are no vehicles will it take long enough to travel around it. The reference looks a bit smaller than it's ingame.

The core will be placed on some kind of platform above this hole and the hole will lead to the inside that looks almost like the old Spamball, just with a lot of mud on the walls and a magma ball in the center. Two Nodes will be inside (I think I'll make the magma ball big and dangerous so that you can't really hit the Nodes from the entrance).

On the outside will be two other nodes along the equator.

Well, I wasn't 100% correct: there will be Spacefighters as vehicles, since they are the only vehicles that don't care about physic here. The sky should be big enough to have fun with them without hitting some wall.

The planet is one mesh, 4096 polygons and the inside is another mesh, more than 5000 polygons too. That should be ok, considering that it's almost the whole map. The trees will be expensive too, but I tried to cull them by distance so that you don't see trees on the other side of the planet.

But it's terrible annoying to rotate every single tree by hand to make him fit the surface. :d

I just coded something (got the inspiration from UT3) that helps mappers to improve the performance in maps with just a few clicks: the CullDistanceVolume.

You can place one or more of this in the map and set up an array of Distance-Size pairs. When the game starts, it will let each client do calculations (so server and other clients are not affected if new players join) on every StaticMesh inside the Volume. The Volume will get the diameter of the BoundingSphere of that mesh and match it against the values set up by the LD. If the mesh is smaller than the lowest value that the LD set up, it will get the specified CullDistance set up.

That way can small objects fade already before the Distance Fog reaches them, bigger objects a bit later and the really big ones won't disappear before the fog.

I just did a test on Downtown (two rounds with the fullspeed Manta around the map), benchmarked with Fraps - the result:
Without CullDistanceVolume:
Frames - 871
Time(ms) - 34353
Min FPS - 7
Max FPS - 103
Average - 25354

With CulldistanceVolume:
Frames - 15241
Time(ms) - 240966
Min FPS - 13
Max FPS - 159
Average - 63250


That's a difference and you don't really notice the disappearing meshes unless you want. And the level loading time didn't even increase by a whole second while all meshes in Downtown are inside the Volume.

Here's the result of something I've been toying around for the toolset today:






Saw this in Quake 4 a while ago and somehow liked the idea of being able to shoot stuff through Teleporters to clear out the other side or to hunt enemies through it, as well as the little detail of grenades also being throw by Jumppads. The mapper can choose which projectile types are allowed to pass, so you don't have to worry about abusing it with Spider Mines. Although…

Interesting...

crusha_k_rool wrote:
[...]Although…

Although what?

"Although fun and learning are the primary goals of all Enrichment Center activities, serious injuries may occur."

Although I am a crocodile that has no problem with such cheap tactics if I am the one using it. :>

After all they could immediately send me a rocket back through the portal.

Nice, actually when a person can go trough, i wondered why it didn't work with other stuff, like vehicle teleporters.

And this is the topic work in progress, so i join da club and want to show u one of my latest creations. Its just the building is sticked together.


Link:



full size:
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2981/reightagg.jpg

The tiny pixels in the center are bots, gives u an idea of the size.

Wow, frankly I just heard the phrase "Dem deutschen Volke" today. Lol.

If you build the interior exactly, Interpol will have to arrest you for creating a training ground for future terror attacks.

I will take that risk.




Just outdoor, few rooms indoor.