[u1] Resurrection

[WhirlWindWabbit]

@ Darkon: As much as I'm led to believe, or at least as much as I understood and saw at least, 227g is more or less finished, some minor details excluded. But I don't want to put words in Smirftsch's mouth, so don't take my words to heart. But from what I've seen it looks and works phenomenally.

@Shivaxi: A map entirely from static meshes would in fact be possible. However, I am not skilled enough to pull off something like this, not yet at least. So expect a solid BSP shell, filled with meshes, and replace sheets of fire with emitters. I have no intention on re-inventing Unreal I wish to try some things I think would fit in the world of Na Pali, but nothing major. It's mostly a learning process for myself. I am thinking about mesh'd terrain though. Would be nice, since I could have more detail and no BSP problems Will see.

To talk directly about the map, I made little progress in the last 4 days. I used this time to talk to Smirftsch about the new features, learn about them since I had no idea how to do some things (e.g. I couldn't set up emitters etc.) as I never had any experience with these things before. But I must say I was overall surprised how easily it was, for me at least, to wrap my head around the concept of emitter setup I've also taken about 95% of all solid additive geometry and converted it to meshes, and I've been further cleaning up these meshes in 3dsMax, to reduce the amount of polygons per mesh and number of textures used, fix triangulation and tessellation etc. I improved the overall frame rate for about 20 frames with this. As for today, I've been messing with emitters. I must say they're an extremely powerful tool, but the problem is that there are no appropriate textures, so I've got to work with what I've got. Made a nice 256x256 fire texture that works great in game, except that it maybe looks a tad cartoon-ish. I don't know, will need more opinions on this matter. But yeah, I'm really happy I have the opportunity to learn about new technology (to me at least) on the old engine, which I know intimately. I'm thankful for this opportunity.

Also, the level will be non-linear. You can end the level in two separate ways. I'll see how much time I'll have, but for now I'm planning on two levels, and if you play the first level correctly you can also play out the second level that may be missed completely otherwise Keep your fingers crossed it works out.

Will keep you guys posted.

[Doublez-Down]

Okay, dumb question, and not a stab at all. But if you really want to work with meshes and emitters, why not just use UT2K4 or UT3?

[ividyon]

Maybe because they have no single-player framework with monsters, weapons, triggers etc.?

Completely disregarding "the" UT2k4 SP Framework project, since the monsters are still from U1 and look absolutely out of place.

[WhirlWindWabbit]

Maybe because they have no single-player framework with monsters, weapons, triggers etc.?

That. Also, Unreal 1 is made from ground up for single player, from the last code to player movement and weapon balance. Like I said on BU:

Even though the UE3 still has more features (HDR lighting, bloom, support for high-poly models), it lacks in one particular thing: support for single player. Even though the Unreal monsters are a bit outdated, for people that want to create a single player mod, this platform holds the most promise because it reduces the time needed to code for new game types, new enemy A.I. and the need to create new enemy pawns, or create high-polygon models that are expected in today's games. In the end, you can just replace the old monster models, and the rest will look as good as UT2004, or, with some effort, even better, with substantially less coding changes that would be needed for UT2004.

[WhirlWindWabbit]

Is there anyone that would be willing to draw a 256x256 texture for me?

[Shivaxi]

I can do it. Am I good at it though? That's another question lol.

But I convert textures all the time if you need anything like that. I'm just not a great artist. Depends what you need.

I can always ask Hybrid for you. He's a great artist =)

[WhirlWindWabbit]

I would just like a simple water texture to be used with an emitter, for a fountain.

[ividyon]

You could try sifting through UT2004/UT3 particle texture packages, since those are very likely to have good stuff. Unreal series assets can be used between the games without copyright issues.

[WhirlWindWabbit]

Thank you sana, I know that. But the problem is that most emitter textures in UT2004 are, how to put this... For instance, I went through the packages looking for good flame textures, but in UT2004 you have a e.g. 512x512 flame texture, which is compromised of several smaller 64x64 textures. So basically you have 10 textures combined into one, and the emitter chooses randomly between them. At least as much as I saw. I'll make sure to look through the packages in UT2004, although I'm quite positive that there aren't any good textures for what I have in mind. Unless there is a fountain somewhere in the game and I forgot about it?

[ividyon]

What I use in such situations is this nifty command-line program:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php
It can automate a giant bunch of stuff including converting the image to 256 colors and splitting it into multiple parts.
For instance, if you have a 512x512 grid of 64x64 textures, you could browse to the directory containing the image after installing ImageMagick and then type

convert image.bmp -colors 256 -crop 64x64 parts-%02d.pcx

in your command prompt. That will result in the image being converted to 256 colors, .pcx format and split into 64x64 bits named parts-01.pcx, parts-02.pcx etc. w3h t00t!

See also:
http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-se ... =1&t=15771
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/comma ... ptions.php

[WhirlWindWabbit]

Wow, than you! I tried cutting the image by hand but got pissed off after a while

[WhirlWindWabbit]

Yay for my first ever model Only took me about an hour Can't texture for shit though, so I just normalized the UVs and applied textures in UnrealEd. Too bad =/ At least I was saved the trouble of unwrapping the model That would probably take a few... weeks...

[Raven]

If you need cool fire I can send you one which should be hidden somewhere in my Unreal directory .

[Doublez-Down]

I would just like a simple water texture to be used with an emitter, for a fountain.

Isn't there a sphynx type fountain in 2k4's DM-Osiris? Near the SB?

[WhirlWindWabbit]

If you need cool fire I can send you one which should be hidden somewhere in my Unreal directory .

I would sincirely appreciate that!

I would just like a simple water texture to be used with an emitter, for a fountain.

Isn't there a sphynx type fountain in 2k4's DM-Osiris? Near the SB?

Thanks for the tip, I'll make sure to check it out!