why did they do it BF2.

[Chrispy]

Awesome isn't it? Really sets the scenes...

BTW Grenademan, you hear the guy say over and out? Lol.

Chris

[Grenademan]

Of course i friggin did i put the damn sounds in myself didnt I???? And there isnt much i can really do about it either! (To all others, the "Over and Out" misconseption was discussed heatedly by me and Chris on msn a few days back...)

Onto modding....i guess ive pretty much finished everything there needs to be done. I still find a rotten apple (not literally) here and there and are easily fixed. One being that PBRs were spontaneously exploding upon someone entering it...fixed that. So yeah...

[Chrispy]

I just need some good music in my mod for the menu and that's all. I know someone who can, but I gotta ask him next time he's active on MSN.

Chris

[Grenademan]

Fixed an AI bug where, if someone made a custom map with UAZs, MUTTs, M113s, BTR60s or PT76s, and then used a program to put bots into the map, the bots would not drive the listed vehicles around. All other vehicles they would use fine. So i fixed that and it works great...with no obvious side effects....

[Chrispy]

^ Yellowish sheds.



^ Higher contrasted sheds.



^ Blueish cargo containers.



^ Higher contrasted Med packs.

I know how to skin now!

Mauser, here's the download mate:
http://files.filefront.com/4_of_my_f.../fileinfo.html

Just put them in your DFBHD directory and add /d at the end of your DFBHD shortcut target line.

Now they're only .dds files, so they will overwrite the textures on the stock items. What I'm doing now is making it so that I'll have my own cargo containers with my own textures on them I did, making them seperate rather than overwriting the stock containers.

If you want, I can teach you how to skin Mauser. Just leave me a PM.

Chris

[Grenademan]

Hmmm...it appears we are moving on from our original projects. Me and Chrispy at least are working on a combined effort to bring fourth a collection of all the Unreal Tournament maps I've made to the public. Thats where all my resources are concentrated anyway.

Next to that, looks like i just got accepted by a bunch of German modders into a BFV mod. Oh man! Ah well...they need my AI skills...

[Chrispy]

Yeah.

Grenademan is working on the maps and all, and I'm working on the reviews, install, text files, blah blah etc.

It's expected to come out in about one or two months, and, will have about 70+ UT maps!

Chris

[Grenademan]

100 maps....

[Mauser 98K]

woot, i got a M4SD-A1 i made for BF2 and i also fixed it to where ya can blow the bridges with the missiles in the chopper and planes and also the tows, like it is supposed to, a dang missile thatll blow a tank but wont dint a wooden bridge is dumb.

still tryingto get the bullets to penetrate a dang piece of 1\2in plywood, the dang tank wont even do that.

[Chrispy]

I know how to skin now (very confident too!) so I might give the weapons a nice black camo lol. Seems cool.

Chris

[Grenademan]

Originally posted by Chrispy

...It's expected to come out in about one or two months...

Well this is something i overlooked...

Dude, not to be harsh or anything but, you have no idea how long it takes to produce a quality map in UT. Mapping in UT requires more skill, and you have to carve out everything in the map from scratch, instead of having pre-built worlds and objects ready for you to use. Unlike Delta Force or Battlefield....
You just cant expect me to pump out a map each day! There maybe 83 maps to my name so far, but a damn near majority of them are maps that have been made in 2001 onwards. So thats 6 years worth of maps. Not all of them are beauties i admit, but they are fun regardless. The more "advanced" (recent) maps are good looking ones, architecturally mainly.

First thing in map production, is the idea generation. You cant just fire up UED and just start making a map (well you can, but it'd be random since you have no idea of what it'd be like). You have to have something spark an idea. Once it has been sparked, you keep building onto that idea. Then, you start to visually imagine what areas in this map you would make, like lava pits, hallways etc etc. This process can take days. It took 2 weeks for the idea for my map DM-Burn to become a map itself.

Once the idea has been thought out, the actual map construction begins. This is the hardest part of the whole process because you are highly vulnerable to abandoning the map in its early stages. But in this process, you focus on building the foundation of the map. The general area, rooms, buildings, support structures (pylons), stairs, levels etc etc. This process can take two hours or so.

Once that ordeal has been dealt with, its time to move onto the texturing. You start in the bigger areas of the map and start assigning textures to certain faces, then work your way across the map. This can take an hour or more, since you have to align the textures and such.

Next is adding lighting. I dont mean the actual light itself, i mean the brush tahts going to put a light-looking object into a wall. When you've spread them out evenly, you select them all and asign a light texture and set some options that'll make the brush look like it'll give off light. Depending on the map size, this can take an hour or so.

Next is my faviroute part of the process. The actual lighting. You add lights at the ligh tbrushes, then add lights in other areas that may need it. Make some lights green, make some red. Make some pulse, others flicker, others like a siren. So much fun. By this point, you build brushes and lighting to see the full effect (shadowing and such). This can take around half an hour.

Next is my least faveiroute. Item and actor placement. Place down player starts, pathnodes for the bots, put down weapons, ammo, health etc etc. Its the most arduous part of it all, since you have to rotate playerstarts, camping points and items to make them look good. Playerstarts especially, otherwise you'll have players spawning in facing a wall and having their back against a redeemer missile. This process takes a long time, over an hour or so. UED likes to crash on me at this stage, but luckily i have excessive compulsive disorder, so i save the map every minute.

Then you build everything and continue onto the final stage. Finsihing up.

Here, you add in decorations. Trees and bushes and such for one type of decoration, the other being air vents, locked doors, special texturing etc etc, to give the map some life. Then, if necassary, you add in the sounds. This process can take a fair bit, depending on how much of a perfectionist you are .

next you open up the levelinfo option and add the name of the map's author, recommended number of players, map enter text, set the music andgive it its name.

Then, you rebuild everything, save and fire up the game.

You open the map and wait for it to load. You look around the map to see if there are any BSP holes or other oddities, then find the perfect spot to take a preview screenshot. Take it (or a few more if you want) and then start the game. I usually play through a whole rounds to see how the map plays and how well the bots work. This is where i can find pathing errors and various other glitches. I'll wait until the match is over before i return to UED.

Back into UED, you identify any bugs and fix them. Next, you open up a paint program, open the screenshot you took, change its size to 512x512 pixels and rename it to "something.PCX" and save it into your textures folder. Back into UED, you import the texture screenshot and set it as the overview pic.
That can take a while, depending on how many bugs you find.

After that, the map is usually set and is no longer needed to be worked on. But sometimes, you might want to add onto it, or remove things. This can be an on and off process. DM-Talon's Mine initially started with just a small mine section. Three months later, it became my most expansive map in my collection. It was absolutely huge. I didnt mean for it to be so big, i just kept adding to it every so often until there was no more i could think of adding. Only when i stopped did i realise how massive the map was. I havent even found any maps on the net that are larger than Talon's.

You also have to take into account what sort of map your map is going to be. To me, there are categories.

Real world maps
These maps are based off of real world locales. Like power stations, houses, streets, shopping centres etc etc. IMO, these are the hardest maps to make since you have to be precise with everything you do and nothing cant be unrealistic.

Arena maps
Small, usually symetrical style maps meant for just a handful of players to fight for bragging rights. These are the easiest maps to make, since all you have to concentrate on is the architecture and lighting.

Expansion maps
Maps that are usually not symetrical, or do not reconnect with itself at some points. These maps are hybrids with real world maps. A good example of this is my map DM-Ricochet, which has a single large bridge spanning a deep canyon. Each tunnel entrance of the bridge leads off into some corridors/tunnels and do not connect with the other side. Fighting is pretty scattered.

Hazard maps
Maps that are 50% hazardous. An example is DM/CTF-Burn. Nearly every room has some kind of lava pit in it. Maps like these offer little room for error, so watch where you're going.

Unique maps
Maps that have something that makes them stand out from other maps. Like a healing chamber, a death chamber, monsters or has low gravity. Good examples of this are my maps DM-Plethora, DM-Burn, DM-Station9 and DM/DOM-Cropton.

Base maps
By base, i dont mean "red base" and "blue base" i mean "based off". Maps that are made similiar to maps in other games. Good examples are DM-Train Station (based off of Killzone's train station type map), DOM-Harbour (based off of Star Wars: Battlefront's Rhen Var Harbour, DOM-Core, which was heavily influenced by the UT2004 double domination map "DOM-Conduit". And DM/DOM-Cropton was even based off of a Red Faction 2 map. Although it is nowhere near the same, it is where i got the idea from.

Full scale assault maps
Ah, the most chaotic of them all. These maps are hybrids with real worlds, and usually come in the form of warzones. Such as bombed out cities, fortress and other locations. They can have automatic defences, respawning explosives/explosions that give the map continuous insanity. A prime example of this is my map DOM-Normandy. Yes, the name does imply what the map is. Two bunkers overlooking a beach littered with craters, tank jacks and landing craft on the shore (and in the waters behind). In the middle of the two bunkers are two machinegun nests, each with two autocannons each, with spray the beach with bullets. To increase the chaos, a fifth, independant team is added in. They are really just unskinned player entities, but for some reason have AI behaviours. They dont taunt or say anything, but they can hold a gun and they can play the current gametype. This becomes a slaughterhouse in DOM-Normandy, and whoever team controls the bunkers is sure to dominate the beach......so long as nobody runs in with high explosives and blows up the bunker......

After making a map, you start to really get sick of UED. So does the computer. You both have to take a break from it. (UED starts to crash more frequnetly if its been running for a long time). And you cant make two maps in one day...well you can but you'd get bored of it after a while. (i did that once with DM-Doom and DOM-Harbour...)

So you see, you have to take into consideration the things that have to be looked over to make a succesful map. Sometimes the map might not cut it and you delete it. So many of my maps found themselves meals to the recycling bin because they didnt turn out the way i thought they would.

In conclusion, this is going to take a bit longer than two months my friend.

[Chrispy]

Umm...

Damn that was long!

Chris

[Grenademan]

And thats only half the story.

[Mauser 98K]

grrrrr, still trying to figure out where the spawn timer is in SP mode.