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Design Process

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:47 pm
by DagF
Frenkie V has offered to show us a design process.

Spoiler: show
http://www.custommapmakers.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=248&start=40#p6599
FrankieV wrote:Hay Rayne sorry about the late late response.


Flajjen is right it can be done and it's only an issue of whats hard to do becomes easy over time which is just the nature of 3d in general.

The problems with putting content into the idtech3 engine is a case of the artist having to work around the limitations of the engine based on a desired result balanced with the need to maintain an optimized result by trading one problem for another.

I think it's safe to say that making a map that others enjoy playing on is hard to do no mater how easy the tools makes building 3d space a snap.

To help you guys along I'm willing to make an offer.

I know you and Johnny are working with 3ds Max so if you two get together and make a small map, say the size of Abbey, and focus 100% on what it takes to make it look good in that application, I'll be willing to take your results and show you what it takes to to get a full renderosity lighting solution, complete with ray traced shadows and light bounce, into the idtech3 engine.

You guys take the time to do this I'll take the time to document the a workable process and solution and give you guys back a working setup and leave it up to CMM to figure out the optimization requirements.


The first step will be to make a map layout in 3ds max.
I have started on that and will upload it here soon.
I will update this post as this project proceeds.

Re: Design Process

Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:00 pm
by FrankieV
A bit of home work to save some time not having to reinvent the wheel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down_a ... -up_design

Making a map for Urban Terror is definitely bottom-up design.

Neither is good or bad but but knowing when to switch your brain from one design path way to another has positive benefits as to choices and decision making.

Re: Design Process

Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 9:04 pm
by DagF
:)

I started out with one of the spawns and have built from there.
It's mirrored but that might change. It's already slightly disorted.

I have just imported it to 3ds max from radiant.

The layout it based on a simple 3 path layout with paths between them again.
The paths are a bit narrow but will allow 2 players to pass eachother at the tightest.

EDIT:
I'm cleaning up the objects and will upload the layout when cleaned up :)

Re: Design Process

Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 10:43 pm
by DagF
First verson of the layout.

If there is anything i need to change tell me.

Link to the layout: http://dagfro.de/q3ut4/comps/layouts/layout%201.max

Re: Design Process

Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 10:59 pm
by FrankieV
Perfect

Re: Design Process

Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 11:46 pm
by FrankieV
Layout was made with student copy and might not load back in on your end.

Might want to try downloading Grand Hall CC.

http://www.urbanterror.info/forums/topi ... e-commons/

It's a creative commons version of our Grand Hall test map.

Re: Design Process

Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 1:47 am
by Rayne
I strongly suggest you don't use the geometry made in radiant and converted to .obj as anything else except reference for position and scale.
The cleanup is a nightmare and the amount of work needed to connect all the edges rarely makes it worth it.

Also when i would build something i used a "beacon" object. Usually it's terrain or a road. It can be very difficult to align to objects in radiant, grid snapping and a lack of snap to object feature make it very challenging even when you hide all the unwanted bits and pieces.
So lets say you got a map like Ryiadh, big terrain with some buildings, there are cuts in the terrain where buildings are placed. In max that building is easy to position cause you can snap to vertices and edges and what not.
In radiant it's hard to see what you're doing cause of too many lines. So in max you'd position the building, export terrain to radiant. Then from max export the terrain+building. So when you import it in radiant it's easy to realign it cause you can just use the corner of the terrain.
Then go back to max, delete terrain and export just the building, now when you refresh the models in radiant the building is perfectly aligned with the terrain.

It's a bit of work but the alignment is perfect and you avoid tiny gaps between objects.

Also when exporting a more complex object like a buidling, you can't vertex lit of lighmap it all in the same time. Water drains, door knobs, flower pots, and similar curvy details with smaller polygons lightmap horribly, so split the object into 2 parts.
building_V (bits you want to vertex lit) and building_L (bits you want lightmapped) and then export them as 2 models.
You might need 2 or more building_L models, depending if some parts require lower _lightmapscale to make the shadows look better.
Basically it's walls=lightmapscale 1-.5, smaller objects like a chimney with a rounded edge=lightmapscale .25

Re: Design Process

Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 3:20 am
by FrankieV
Well Rayne if you can supply a Max file to work on that would be even better. Better still how about make it a team based project and “we” build a KnockOut map as the objective?

By the way if you set your world space pivot for all objects in 3ds Max to 0 0 0 than all objects you export from Max will align 100% in Radiant. For that matter my way of doing it is to use notepad and added the .ase model with a spawnflags 6 and once I'm happy I'll then do the simplified collision.

Re: Design Process

Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 4:15 am
by johnnyenglish
FrankieV wrote:Better still how about make it a team based project and “we” build a KnockOut map as the objective?


wow!! I'd seriously shave all my hair off if this happens... and thats a promise.

Re: Design Process

Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:53 am
by DagF
Rayne wrote:I strongly suggest you don't use the geometry made in radiant and converted to .obj as anything else except reference for position and scale.
The cleanup is a nightmare and the amount of work needed to connect all the edges rarely makes it worth it.

I have to admitt that i did the clean up in blender. By removing duplicated vertics moust of the work was done.
I used caulk when making the layout so i just go the faces i needed. The rest of the job was just to spilt everything into fitting object.
The house needed some work but that was becouse of my brushwork. If i had done it better then it would be ok :)

I have not tought about what you told about the ligthing, thanks that can save me some time :)