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Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:55 am
by johnnyenglish
Hello

When I heard that FS were planning to move development of UrtHD to the unreal engine I started thinking about how this would affect CMM and current mappers.

I'm guessing that a few mappers will never want to move away from the radiant pipeline and will continue to make maps for urt4.1/4.2.

I'm also hoping that some will want to use the unreal editor and create amazing looking maps using the more modern engine and development tools.

With this in mind I'm going to create a couple of new groups (on irc initially) for 2 new projects. If you're interested in joining and contributing to these, drop me a line.

PROJECT 1 -- CONVERTING EXISTING MAP

This project will last for a year, the aim is to convert and document that conversion from a q3 style urt map to unreal 4 level.

Each stage of the conversion will be worked through and documented in the wiki.

I was considering using one of my smaller maps for this project (eyas arcade or casablanca), both recent maps with all self-created assets.

The project will cover the process of :

*Converting models and clipping meshes
*Converting shaders to materials
*Convert brushes into meshes
*Convert and improve sounds effect assets
*Add matinee animations
*Lighting and enviroment
*Packing and deploying final map

Each stage will need to be documented and screen shots made for the wiki. At the end of the project it will be possible for a mapper to follow our steps to create a map for the new engine.

I'd also like to include information for jump mappers in this document.

PROJECT 2 -- 3rd PARTY MAP FROM SCRATCH

This project will also span a year and will result in a complete map compatible with UrtHD and will fully document the stages required to create all assets required to build a map for the new engine including packing and distribution of the final level.

For this project I intend to use the serengeti project, I've already started creating assets for this map and have already imported some into an UE3 project. I'm at the stage where I can run around in the test engine but obviously this will need to be done for UE4

Soooo, looking for help. If you're interested in learning to map with UE4 and want to do that as part of a team, drop me a line and we'll get started.

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:26 am
by thelionroars
This is great to see John - I hope to be able to make use of your efforts in the future 8)

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 9:27 am
by HappyDay
Basically I'm doing the same thing minus the documentation. So I'm around to help out with knowledge :).

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:48 pm
by RedSnappa
I am interested in moving on to the new engine but have no idea what to do, so this sounds good.

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2014 5:07 am
by johnnyenglish
Personally, I'm working my way through UDK3 initially, learning by doing and making notes. There's a lot of documentation and tutorials for this and once you get started, it's fun and quite easy. The biggest difference is terminology, shaders->materials, models->mesh, etc.

If you've made models for urt and if they're .ase format, you can use these in UE. Same for textures.

When I'm a little more advanced and when I see some more progress from FS I'll sign up for the UE4 development kit and start creating mini tutorials as I work through that system. There's no hurry and we've seen FS change their minds several times regarding the choice of UrtHD engines.

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2014 6:43 am
by Marvin
I'm in, because I don't know how much sense it makes for me to learn mapping in the 'old' system now that it's gonna be scrapped.

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:15 am
by johnnyenglish
Marvin wrote:I'm in, because I don't know how much sense it makes for me to learn mapping in the 'old' system now that it's gonna be scrapped.


I kind of agree with this Marvin, this is going to make mapping for urt difficult in that there's not much point mapping for 4.1/4.2/wtvr if there's a better platform on it's way but mapping for the new platform is also difficult because we have no idea what urtHD will look like and what can be added/included in 3rd party maps.

I would like to convert skeet2012 using real skeet, I'd like to add vehicle CTF to the serengeti map (using landrovers) but have no idea whether this will be a supported game mode.

So we're kind of stuck in a void, we can make assets but not much else -- apart from learn stuff.

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:18 pm
by eternally_on
Great, more stuff to learn. Honestly, though, i'm excited to get this down. I don't think mapping for UrT 4.1/4.2 is gonna die down, though. As far as I know, people are still mapping for Q3, hell, even the original Quake, for that matter.

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:30 am
by KroniK
Would love to help out.

If you guys want a TS3 Space, I have a TS3 server where I can create a dedicated UrT mapping area. I just recently acquired this server, and would love to put it to good use.

I also suggest using a voice chat server over IRC because honestly, its a lot easier to work out problems etc via voice rather than text. Anyway, Johnny, pm me if you want me to set up the space.

Re: Mapping for UrtHD -- the future of CMM

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 9:16 am
by johnnyenglish
Well anyway, I'm still tinkering with the unreal engine, UDK3 in this case.

The skeet project continues to interest me, you might recognise some of the skeet 2012 map here, I've used the arena for the background.

Am currently working on building the skeet object, this is a new class based on the actor object and doesn't really do much atm, it recognises its been hit and moves up or down but eventually it will do some other stuff, fly -- have trails, explode, increment your score, etc.

Here's a video if you're interested.