For real this time! I swear!
-= The Oll Stone =-
Unbelievably Unrealistic Antarctic Adventure Experience
Cool Story Bro: Speed mapping demands speed writing and speed Photoshop, even if it can't be in the map itself.
Latest Screenshot: People love pictures
Progress Index: To be updated occasionally
Intro/Exit/Submarine:
100%
Hub Area:
95%
Area 1:
45%
Area 2:
35%
Area 3:
10%
Week 0 Commentary: On the Topic of Inspiration
I flaked something hardcore for the 8th Anniversary Contest so I want do something cool for this one, and hopefully I might just get it done. Initial inspirations were
Thief - The Dark Project's "Lost City" and, if you could believe it, season two of
A Certain Magical Index. When I came up with the story it seemed kind of
Indiana Jones. The level itself will take place in an underground cavern with three distinct wings and a central hub. There will be lava. They will also be areas that are icy. This contrasting duality is unique and certainly hasn't been done to death by a million other games. The name is a reference to
The Bard's Tale's "
Obligatory
Lava
Level." Sound too ambitious? Don't worry, I've got a cunning plan involving Skaarj, movers, and GenEarth.utx.
Week 1 Commentary: Under The Influence
For some reason once I began mapping I quickly reminded of
Metroid Prime's "Magmoor Caverns." The similarity in atmosphere is clear, I suppose, in that both
Metroid's level and my design take place entirely indoors inside a cavernous areas filled with plenty of lava. Perhaps the similarity continues further though: my plan was to have a central hub area and three separate wings, each with some doohickey that is required in some way to access the next wing from the hub. For those unfamiliar with the
Metroid Prime series that is pretty much how the levels flow. Now all I need is hexagonal blue doors that you shoot to open. That aside, I especially want to ensure my lava looks "hot." I think it is looking pretty good as of time of writing but we will see how it turns out in the end.
Week 2 Commentary: The Master Plan
Ho boy, planning. I'd like to say I had a complex detailed plan but that kind of isn't how it went. After I came up with my original premise (lava! I want lava!) I thought of having some kind of hub with at least two wings, and the third wing grew off that. The idea for the intro area came later. I didn't really have a concrete plan for how the intro/submarine would turn out and it ended up being bigger and fancier then expected. To be honest I really should have came up with some kind of time table and stuck to it because now I am a little behind schedule. I should have loads of time towards the end of the contest though so maybe things will pull together without too much cut content. As for planning specific areas, I don't really have a concrete plan most of the time. I come up with rough layouts in my head and work out the specifics while I am making it.
Week 3 Commentary: Playing By The Rules
Being restricted to stock content only is kind of annoying, but after a while it ends up being kind of freeing. I actually get things done rather then spending 90% of my time in Photoshop. There are some limitations that hurt more then others though: No UT content or custom texture packages hurts and really restricts the possible themes a lot. Maybe it is just as well though since I'm kind of tired of seeing so much Richrig.utx (I hate this texture package) and SGTech1.utx (I am crap at using this package). Choosing a theme that is perhaps a little different from what I would normally do seems to have helped. As for coping with the time period I am doing a terrible job. I really want to make a promise to deliver at the end of six weeks but it is going to be tough. If it were eight weeks it would be no problem. I have the last week of the contest completely off though* so it is going to be hectic, that is for sure.
*statement not guaranteed
Week 4 Commentary: Knowledge is Power
Did I learn anything new? Perhaps "re-learned" is more appropriate for a lot of the stuff, but there are some cool things I picked up along the way. I had never worked with triggered warpzones before. I also learned that a depressing amount of default textures don't have detail textures set.
Week 5 Commentary: Bonus Commentary
As per Hellscrag's commentary bullet points I could talk about how pleased I am with the outcome but it seems a little early for that so I am going to write something else instead. I have yet to place any pawns in my map, since I want most of them to spawn via creature factories but it occurred to me the difficulty is going to be a little weird. I didn't want players to start with the dispersion pistol (or get it ever) so that means there needs to be plenty of ammo for the automag and other weapons. It also occurred to me that I haven't really
played Unreal in a long time and I no longer possess the skills I once had, so as long as I am able to beat it I guess it should be alright. The armament in the map seems to have mostly hitscan weapons but I guess there is nothing wrong with that.
Week 12 Commentary: Keeping it Real
So obviously this was not finished in time for the speedmapping contest. My last minute speedmap crapmap didn't end up as nice as I wanted it to be but it couldn't be helped given the time I gave myself to complete it. Oh yeah, The Oll Stone will be released sometime before next year. Anyway I am debating whether or not I want to use custom content in the map. It was originally designed with stock only content in mind but I guess a few custom assets might spruce it up a little. I can assure you though that no matter what the eightball chandelier is going to stay.
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