This is one of the best threads in this forum, mostly due to DaJo Kesea's constant updates and long responses. I'm really excited about this map, it should be great.

Thank you very much. You guys are making it great for me, too. I'm feeding off of your positive energy.

Hanch, I believe Rich placed trigger throws above the water in his map so that players who love the force grip- and push-off-a-ledge combo can't always win a battle that way. That's not what I meant exactly. I think I might make part of the stone wall in the VIP area (Count Dooku's platform) breakable, so that a player can slip through and hit the arena floor with maybe 20 points of damage. Sort of a cross between the balcony scene in Spiderman, and what really happened to Mace Windu in Episode II.

Winner_rex..to answer your question... I chose thickened bevels because in some cases I need to move the point where the two arches meet so that the arch has a more natural, rocky look. I also want more of a point than a nice, smooth, rounded off arc. These types of arches are called "blade arches" and can be found in churches from the Romanesque and Gothic era.

Hmm, I need to locate a nice, smooth sandstone texture for the arena walls near to the floor. Any help on finding/creating textures from this point forward will be recognized and fully appreciated!

I promise to make the arena as interesting as I can, though I think many people will be happy with just having the battleground to pit themselves against battle droids and other Jedi. Anyone know if a Droideka is being built? Hmm...Droideka with a lightsaber might not look quite right, but it would certainly be sweet for a SP version of this map!

Stay tuned. Once I overcome the texture hurdle, up the walls will go!

Ah! ok...now I follow...

Sounds good nonetheless :)

But I ain't seen Spiderman...yet :p

why make arches w/ bevels instead of endcaps?

It's a pity force push can't slow a fall. It would make players much more mobile in tall levels like this. As far as adding destructability to this level, the more the better. As a co-op level, keeping this map interesting shouldn't be a problem since everyone will be too busy raking down battle droids. But for regular MP with only a few people, it could get a little boring being in an empty arena. If there will be back corridors to hide in, you want to give people an incentive to stay out in the open where they're exposed and fight. Any kind of traps, etc. would add a lot to make the actual arena the most interesting part of the level.

This new server that they moved to seems a lot slower than the old one. I hope it will eventually be a change for the better.

My posts are being placed out of order for some reason. Winner_rex and inbredyokel, you'll have to scroll up to get my reply to you, unless this post is placed somewhere in the middle as well. I hope you all find it!

<<EDIT: Lucasforums clock must have been messed up yesterday. My post is where it belongs.>>

I managed to fix my arch. Still not sure what was going on with the inner arch pulling away from the rest of it, even using a thickened endcap, but I read that bending a square cylinder is actually the best way to go for this shape. So that's what I did, and it looks fine! The shadows are even better around it.

The only problem I see with this map is that sometimes if you are backed into a corner and you jump to get out of the way, the camera sometimes swings behind the patches, revealing the caulking, and thus creating the hall of mirror effect. It goes away, of course, once the camera angle resolves, so I'm not too concerned about it. But if you have any workarounds, I'll listen.

The next update will be soon, so keep checking in. Need to keep yourself occupied until then? Lift up your right arm and try to lick your elbow. (That'll keep ya busy!)

I just reviewed your site.

Great job.

I really like what you did with the sand texture, I hope jk2's engine
will act as halo's, even though the ground isn't three-d it will seem
that way by adding shadows in a paint program and allowing
light to move over it if you know what I mean.

I really like that sand, and nice bryce image.. hehe the jedi's
fought in a big pond did they? :D

keep up the good work.

Yeah...the sand tex. is really looking good!! I like that part..

But one thing that I am really exited is to see the surrounding "skybox" or what it was you decided to call it...

I'm thinking of the big cliff formations and the surroundings of the arena....can't wait to see what you end up with that :)

Great work so far :)

This is likely the BEST map that is in progress for JK2.
Those sand textures look ****ing amazing.

the sand textures are good. the only thing i say you might want to do is cut down on the orange-ness of it. the screenshot you have of the arena without seats is about the right color, i think, but that might just me. might also be the lighting color. either way, seems a bit orange and fake to me. that's all.

hey, NICE LEVEL! Keep up the good work!:cool:
I better start looking at this thread more :rolleyes:
:mob: *gets attacked by everyone reading this becasue he hasn't been following it*:hit::axe1:




:xp: <== me



ok :lol: nm

:::In his best Yoda voice:::
Mmmm! Attracting new visitors, I am! Hmm?

Welcome, all. Thanks for your input. However, the lighting is what is casting the orange glow throughout the screenshots already posted. I'll tackle this soon, but I don't think I can get the JKII map as realistically hazy and golden as I could in Bryce. We'll just have to see. Remember, though, that in the movie, the late afternoon sun over Geonosia did make the rocks appear reddish in color, and the sand a moderate peach. You can see this best in the scene where Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan are all on the back of the Reek, surrounded by Droidekas. I think that the Geonosian rocks are colored the same as some of the sandstone in Utah. (I've been doing a lot of color matching recently in photoshop, using actual movie photos as my reference points. I think you'll be happy with the accuracy.)

I have moved out onto the arena floor now. The entry point room has been duplicated nine times (slows down the editor a bit, but not too much), and I have placed these rooms in an oval, exits facing inward. I'll connect these rooms with concave bevels to form the ground walls. It will be a challenge, but one that will not be too hard to overcome. My only question is, what do I do if the frame rate in game is really choppy?

Please stay tuned.

remember, the editor gets slow 10x more easily than the game does. If it does get choppy, put doors on the entry points with areaportals and cheat a little here and there...

2 new ideas:
A cushion brush placed on the floor of the arena will block fall damage...you could use that if you want.

Also, what about an animated shader of faraway geonosian crowds?

BTW, it's Geonosis:D

probably just missed the s, but the name does look funny. kind of like canadia. . .anyway. i thought the light might be making the funny coloring, but that's no prob and is something to be fixed after the level is betaed and such ans seen what other people think of it in action. as for the FPS. . .in editor, rex is right and that's never a good way to tell. in game, that's a different story. from what i've read, caulking will help if you haven't already, and patches will KILL any FPS that you thought you wanted. i'm not sure if you've been using those, but if ingame is dead and those are present heavily, that is probably your problem right there. like there is a new MP level out now called icecave, and it's interesting enough, but the tunnels are curvey patches, and if you stare down one of the tunnels and try to look around, the thing skips like no other. kind of sucks. that's about all i can tell you, because i don't know that much about it. just this and that. anyway, other than that, keep up the good work. i look forward to seeing the arena floor in action.

Just out of curiosity, did you include any kind of back doors to the rooms surrounding the arena? I don't know if they were actually shown anywhere in the movie, but I'd presume that there was another back entrance to bring people into each room. It would kind be anti-climatic if people sentenced to be executed were led into the main arena in front of everyone, brought to their respective rooms, and then brought out again to actually be executed :)

i believe he said that he was working on a connecting hallway in the back. i could be wrong, but i think i remember something to that effect.

Hi again.

Thanks for all of your input. Area Portal might be a good idea if this stupid thing keeps deleting my textures and duplicating my brushes when I move rooms around after free rotate. Grr... I have to replace all the rooms except the master because of walls falling apart. What a mess, and a setback. But I'll fix it.

Is it possible to line up all the different rooms on the grid, and use area portal to jump back and forth between these rooms and the arena floor, WHILE still having the arena floor visible through the portal in the correct orientation?

There will be a back hallway on the ground level. I haven't showed you my latest work as of yet, but I created another door, much smaller, on the opposite side of the entry point room. I'll have the "execution" hallway connect to those.

The majority of this map is made of patches. I'm being cautious of how many I'm actually placing in full view, though, and also how long my tunnels are. Can't talk too much about framerate right now, though. I have to get to a point where I can seal everything up for testing.

I'll be in touch.

sounds good. again, watch the patches. they have the ability to kill a good map. which is really sad, because they look the best.

also, as far as when you release this, i would be willing to beta test for you. my system can handle quite a bit. it's not high end, but i've got the "setup" to where i can do anything at good FPS (except 3dstudiomax rendering. that will make any computer look old, dumb, and impotent, though. . .). so if you want someone that will look at the details of it and give you tips and compliments on anything and everything objectively, i am your man. buddy me and PM me when you get to that point. i know it will take time, so no rush. just. . .when you get there, look me up. i'll help you on that front.

i had an idea about "pillars" (those huge odd-shaped supports), etc... maybe you could model the "pillars" and other things. it could be less of a stress on fps, and easier to give it an organic look.

Actually, I'm on a 500mHz machine (oldie by today's standards), and I still experience about 24fps in a room with 4 pillars consisting of 5 dense cylinders, and large wall patch meshes. Oh, that reminds me...I'm only going by sight and gameplay experience here when I mention FPS. How do I actually turn on the FPS indicator in game?

Looks like once I free-rotate the rooms, I have to leave them completely alone for them to keep their brushes in tact. Actually, I left most of the rooms alone, but when I moved one or two, all of them were suddenly destroyed. Not sure what happened! I will delete those rooms and reacreate them off the master. Just for purposes of sanity, I might keep the rooms as aligned to the grid as possible and just angle the doorways. Also, I might edit down the patches in the master room a bit as well. Lots of work to do yet! I'll keep you posted.

i think it's cg_drawFPS 1
dont hold me to that...
I think the curves are not as bad as they are made out to be... Again, in a lot of cases they can be advantagious.

This post belongs several posts down. What the heck is going on???

Thanks for all your responses. Hmm... I can't remember how the Geonosian guards opened the doors for the arena beasts to come out...whether they were swung open or if they rose. I also can't remember what the gate texture looked like, so I'll give it my best guess. Maybe I'll just leave two large gates resting in their open position. It would realistically take a long time to open such large doors anyway, and that would slow down gameplay.

The only unfortunate thing I think I'm going to run into here is that due to the lack of doors and area portals (you can see through gate doors, remember), the game engine will have nothing to stop it from drawing every triangle in the map from the moment you set foot on the arena floor to the moment you exit the program, which may be very quickly if the frame rate is as affected as I think it just might be! Well, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm cutting back on patch density where density is not needed, so I'm hoping that will be enough. I'm not as optimistic as I once was, but I'm still trucking along.

Hi!

Wow! This room has lost its activity. I'm just posting to let you know that I have indeed been working on the map. I have been a little hesitant to promote the progress of the arena lately because of Radiant's inability to keep my rooms intact after I rotate them. I have now placed three master rooms off to the side, each completely aligned with the grid, and stable. Once I like how they look, I'll duplicate them and rotate the new ones into place, and leave them alone! I have learned from Rich that once you free-rotate a room, you can no longer touch that room (except to modify textures, hopefully?).

The tricky part will be connecting these rooms without accidentally dragging them around. Boy, I sure hope this works!

3 questions:

1. How do I cut holes in a curve/patch, much like the clipper tool cuts away parts of brushes?

2. How do I make a gate texture, transparent in some spots, and seemingly 3D?

3. How do I make a door swing out, as if it is on a hinge, as opposed to sliding up/down/left/right?

As always, thanks.

1. I'm not so sure you can
2. Don't know
3. Can't

on the doors, i have a suggestion: make a group of boxes spiked on the bottom that are a rising gate when put together instead of a swinging one. i think that would be the best way to do it, and you could get one of those neat sounds that they us in movies with castles where those kind of gates rise. there is actually a sound of just that in RtCW and it was the same effect, except not as large. just an idea. would probably actually come across better than swining anyway.

but on swinging. . .RtCW and Medal of Honor both have swining doors, and they're both Quake 3 games, so i would think that there should be some way to do it, whether it's in a different editor or not, i don't know. all i know is that the effects exists and exists quite prominently in other games.

I think the lack of activity is due to the stuff going on on this board...the forums were quite messed up...

But now that everythins seems normal, I will return commenting, and cheering :D

YAY = )

Swinging doors would require coding.
HOWEVER,
You can make a door with an origin texture on the side you want it to hinge on and make it a func_rotating, possibly...but it would be very goofy

No, actually it doesn't--I have tried it--spent my entire Saturday on it to get it to look right though--and in my opinion--it would be quicker to learn the ICARUS manual...

hmm. that's too bad. since it's star wars and supposed to be all space doors rising and spreading, i guess it makes sense they wouldn't include it, but it would have been nice to have the same option as other quake games. oh well. then i guess you will HAVE to do rising doors. but like i said, i think they'd be cooler anyway.

The gates rose, I'm positive about that. They looked rather crude too.

Not sure what is going on with the posts. My last post that belonged between Matt's and lo5t_h0pe's is actually a few above. I wish the people running the forum would figure out how to set the clock!

Still working. Thanks for all your info.

Hello all.

I often frequent the boards, though I haven't registered until recently.

DaJo, I didn't know you were a texture artsist for AOTCTC!

About ypur questions: You could enquire at Rich Diesal's web site. I'm not sure. But for clipping patches, press the X key! :D

Anyway, from what I've seen of the Arena thus far, it looks brilliant. Well done.

Pressing x wont work on patches.
However with bobtoolz you can split the patch in two.

Ah. Sorry, didn't know.

this speak of patches is making me a bit nervous. . .they're wonderful things if you need a curve here and there, but. . .

maybe i'm alone in this, but patches and smooth curves are FPS killers. they look beautiful, but there is a very good reason that Raven didn't use them very much in their levels. many of the places that should have been a curve were just a many sided -gon shape. maybe i'm completely wrong in this, but when you say patch, my thoughts stray to a couple maps i've seen that have patch tunnels, and the FPS suck REALLY bad if you look right down one of the tunnels.

that's just me, though, i guess.

honestly I've never had that many problems with curves...
in some cases they can speed things up and they always look better generally...

They're fine on higher end machines, but what about the little guys, huh?

that's what i'm thinking. i can run most of them fine. like rich's kamino duel runs fine, and that has many, but the new icecave one that was released a bit back isn't very friendly at all. the tunnels are all patches with beautiful curves and look very natural, but the system takes a hit bad. it's playable on mine, but not as pretty. now it is possible that rex has a different video card than i do. i have a geforce 3, and he may have a radeon. radeons handle things like that different. there are many possibilities, but in reality, if this map is going to be widely playable, the patches are going to have to be cut down to only when absolutely necessary, especially on a map of these massive proportions. it will be harder for the map to look right, but it's a sacrafice that will have to be made for the little guys. sorry. patches are pretty, but underneath the pretty skin, they're bitches and are out to destroy a perfectly good game experience. i would hate to see that happen to this map.

I've got a geforce 3 too. That Ice Cave map was the author's first attempt at a map...It could be that he forgot to caulk

I sometimes even get low framerates on the Duel Kamino map.

I'm hopefully going to be trippling my RAM sometime soon, as well as getting a better sound card, so that should, IN THEORY, tripple my game speed *crosses fingers*

Patches look spectacular, but for a lot of what you're doing, you won't need them. It would look cool if you could make the sand groove upwards toward the arena walls, and a few hills here and there would be nice. Just don't overdo it.

Yeah, that would be cool..

If you could make the looks of the sand texture look more random...not only from above and down, but also from a more horizontal view...with bumps and etc.

That would add a great deal !

Just for all of your information, a curve will end up being faster to render than a highly clipped/many surfaced brush designed to create the same look. Plus the lighting looks oh so much smoother. In duel_kamino, those columns were originally sets of 16-sided polygons. When I converted them to all curves, each column increased the tri count by about 500.

If you can avoid curved surfaces altogether, that's best. But if you hafta choose between actual patches and faking it with brushes, go ahead and use patches.

Hi everyone!

Due to having a wonderful birthday and a few computer issues, I have been AWOL for a few days. (I know what AWOL means, but what does it stand for? LOL)

For my bday, I got a copy of Flight Simulator 2002. Talk about a LARGE number of triangles to draw! From up in the plane you can see for miles, and FS2002 generates random 3D structures on the ground as well. But in talking to some tech support people, I have found out some interesting information that might benefit anyone who has an older configuration such as mine:

550 mHz
384 MB of RAM
64 MB GeForce Accelerator card

If you are experiencing slowdown in Jedi Outcast or other 3D games, check this: Make sure your AGP or PCI video card and your sound card have at least one space between them inside your chasis. Next, be sure to get the updated drivers for your video card and DirectX.
Last but not least, right click on the My Computer icon and choose Properties. Go to the Device Manager and click on the View menu. You want to show hidden devices, and you want to be in "Resources by connection" mode. Click the [+] next to Interrupt Request (IRQ).

Look at the number next to the device. That's the IRQ port number. Are two or more of your devices sharing the same IRQ port? For example, your sound card and your video card? This really slows down frame rate! It was described to me as being like a football team all trying to go after the same ball at once, even if it was in another teammate's hands. All my PCI cards are running off of port 9, and that contributes to some of my problems. You need to talk to a support technician for your computer if this is the case. Tinkering with the driver setup for your computer could cause your hard drive to crash or worse, so be careful, but this is something you need to change if you can.

Have no fear. I'm still working on the Geonosian Arena. Talk to you soon!

Absent WithOut Leave :)
army term

thanks dajo, and thanks rich. good help from both sides, even though on different topics somewhat. i didn't know that about patches and brushes. good to know. all i knew was that levels i play with many curves (aka patches) kill things pretty bad, but i did not know that a polygon would run worse. interesting. thanks. i wasn't completely wrong, but i apologize for the wrongness that i did have.

hm, my videocard and the soundcard has the same irc number (11), but i can't seem to change it? or is this possible?

Two words for anyone who wants to reassign IRQ ports:

BACK UP.

Back up your important data before you play around with the settings.

I thought this IRQ stuff was just a DELL thing, but it's actually a Windows thing. In order to change the IRQ assignments, you have to change your system driver from ACPI (?) to Standard PC. This can be done in the device manager, but I'm giving limited info because I have limited knowledge. You REALLY should talk to a support technician, or a computer professional if you aren't one. I will be getting some instruction on Saturday from a friend I know who is a big computer whiz.

If you successfully change your IRQ settings without harming your system, you should notice less choppiness in games, and better performance in other processor intensive work.

The arena is coming along okay. After free rotation of entire rooms, some patches get misaligned, revealing the caulking from behind. This can easily be fixed by altering the troublesome patches in vertex mode. I just have to watch out for the sudden "brush with no normals" error. I have found that the best way to prevent problems is to not let that error go unattended, and use bobToolz every now and then.

There probably won't be any updates for a while because I'm building stuff right now that HAS to be out in the open. But you can count on an update as soon as I get to a point where I can seal something up! Thanks for all your input and help. It says on Rich's tutorial site that "once you start something, finish it!" I plan to do just that.

Sounds good....keep it up..we're still waiting, and reading :)

Looking forward for the next update!