Hey, I've sent my mail.

You might want to upload the file somewhere if it's possible. And then just mail the links to the people concerned. That might be better than email.

I agree, but I don't really have that option and I really don't want to set up some site just for a few downloads. I'll send it to you now.

WhiteShdw, Aru-Wen,

I haven't heard from either of you, did you get the file ok?

Unfortunately, class ran long tonight and then a few hours of work wiped me out... I'm sure it got thru fine, I'll be beta testing it tomorrow. :)

You'll hear from me if it doesn't... and i'll be sure to inform you of any problems I run across.

I got the file. I'll have a look at it now. I'll give you some initial impressions in a couple of hours.

Ok, I had a real quick look so far, but I ran across some things that should probably be fixed:

Performance.
It's really lagging right now. I got an average of 10 fps in the first map. It's a little better in the other 2 maps. I suggest taking out all those func_efx and any instance of dynamic lighting. I tried the map in SP where these things didn't work and I got a boost of at least 20 fps. Also replacing the Jedi Starfighter prefab with the model done by Zymotico(should be out soon), should give you a little performance boost.

Lighting.
The first and second map has some really dark areas. So dark that i can't see my own character or were i'm walking. The levelshots look a lot brighter than the actual map.
example (http://homepage.bysky.nl/~ka1e1/ASH_Shot000.jpg)

Textures.
Some of the rock textures look very stretched. I could usually see it in the brighter area's on the sides of the rocks. Stretching a texture is not that bad, but if you stretch it vertically also do it horizontally. example (http://homepage.bysky.nl/~ka1e1/ASH_Shot001.jpg)

Lava damage.
Whenever i fell into the lava I could usually stand there for about 5/10 seconds. That's not very realistic. This isn't slightly warm water. Make it an instant kill or at least up the damage somewhat.

I'll be doing the rest of my testing in SP, because the performance is a lot better there. I'll have another look later to see if there are any other bugs.

Ok, I had a real quick look so far, but I ran across some things that should probably be fixed:

Performance.
It's really lagging right now. I got an average of 10 fps in the first map. It's a little better in the other 2 maps. I suggest taking out all those func_efx and any instance of dynamic lighting. I tried the map in SP where these things didn't work and I got a boost of at least 20 fps. Also replacing the Jedi Starfighter prefab with the model done by Zymotico(should be out soon), should give you a little performance boost.

Ok, out of curiosity what speed machine do you have? I'm testing it on a:

AMD 2000xp (1.6GHz)
512MB DDR Ram
Gforce 3 TI 200 128mb DDR Video card

and I get mid 20's - 40's FPS depending on where I am in Map 1(3rd person view) and better in 1rst person view.
For Map 2, 30's to 40's FPS depending on where I am (3rd person view) and better in 1rst person view.
For Map 3, pretty much the same.

Now this is all without bots, when I add bots (at least 4 -5), the FPS go down a bit.



Lighting.
The first and second map has some really dark areas. So dark that i can't see my own character or were i'm walking. The levelshots look a lot brighter than the actual map.

Well, you can adjust your brightness a bit and the map looks just fine and this is what I've done. But if you give me screenshots of specific areas that you think are "too dark" then I will lighten those areas up a bit.


Textures.
Some of the rock textures look very stretched. I could usually see it in the brighter area's on the sides of the rocks. Stretching a texture is not that bad, but if you stretch it vertically also do it horizontally.

Again, give send me ss of the areas that don't look right to you, and I'll try and make them look a little more natural.

Lava damage.
Whenever i fell into the lava I could usually stand there for about 5/10 seconds. That's not very realistic. This isn't slightly warm water. Make it an instant kill or at least up the damage somewhat.

That's easily done. However, in going with the theme that Anakin escapes the lava pit that scars, injures him and leads him to becoming Vader, I want the player to be able to escape. But I will increase the damage rate.

I'll be doing the rest of my testing in SP, because the performance is a lot better there. I'll have another look later to see if there are any other bugs.

Ok, thanks for your input, I really appreciate it and I'll work on the things you mentioned.

SunburN

SunBurN, here's the thing with me - the email is sitting in my usual inbox, but because of a problem right now with my ISP, I can't get to it. Any chance you could send it to me at my alternate email address here? (firstborn1981@aol.com)

I'm using a PIII 850
383 MB RAM
and a Gforce 3 64mb

With your system you should really shoot for a performance equal to or highter than 60 FPS.

About the brightness, basically every area that wasn't directly next to a lava flow was too dark. I could probably increase the brightness of my game, but that would make other maps too bright. I don't want to change the brightness of my game every time there is a map change. You could probably increase the brightness a bit by putting some ambient lighting in the worldspawn entity.

About the textures, there were a lot of area's were i saw this, but it was mostly noticable in the brighter area's. So mostly in the third map(that's the brightest one, right?). Mostly in the rock formations on the floor. The walls looked ok.

SunBurN, here's the thing with me - the email is sitting in my usual inbox, but because of a problem right now with my ISP, I can't get to it. Any chance you could send it to me at my alternate email address

Ok, I sent it, but will AOL support a 10mb attachment?

I'm using a PIII 850
383 MB RAM
and a Gforce 3 64mb

With your system you should really shoot for a performance equal to or highter than 60 FPS.

Well in order to get higher FPS, I'd have to take out the lightemitting lava shader. The efx or func's aren't the problem. As a test, I took out both then ran the game and it was basically the same. But when I took out the lava and compiled and ran the map in game, the FPS went up dramaitcally. Since the Lava is essential to the game, I'm not taking it out or using a non emittiing shader since I tried that and put lights above the lava and it dropped the FPS even worse not to mention it didn't look natural.

About the brightness, basically every area that wasn't directly next to a lava flow was too dark. I could probably increase the brightness of my game, but that would make other maps too bright. I don't want to change the brightness of my game every time there is a map change. You could probably increase the brightness a bit by putting some ambient lighting in the worldspawn entity.

What would you suggest as a value I would use for ambient lighting for these maps to make them brigher, but still keep the "mood" of the theme? One more thing, do you think maybe you have your brightness turned down lower than what's reccomended? I have the brightness turned down so "I can barely see the 6" and in game I although it is dark near the lava and other places in Map 1, it's not so dark that it's unplayabe and I can still clearly see what around me and where I'm going.

About the textures, there were a lot of area's were i saw this, but it was mostly noticable in the brighter area's. So mostly in the third map(that's the brightest one, right?). Mostly in the rock formations on the floor. The walls looked ok.

Ok, well I don't like the look of the textures that keep repeating themselves (it looks unnatural) so I've purposefully stretched the textures. But I'll look at them all and see if I can make them look a little less stretched. Thanks again for your input and feel free to post any other feedback you have. Btw, was there anything good about the maps?

Originally posted by SunBurN
Ok, I sent it, but will AOL support a 10mb attachment?


Apparently, because I just finished downloading it. I'll try it out now and get back to you. :D

EDIT : Ok, here's my impressions.

The stage is visually astounding. Everything looks quite good, except perhaps for those few instances of stretching White mentioned. The meteors, the rising and falling lava/rocks, the collapsing bridges... it's all quite complete and well thought out.

For me, it runs into problems in 2 areas :

a) the lighting, for the most part, looks great. The light emitting lava really works wonders for the mood. Unfortunately, it's a little too dark in some places and you can't see where you're going. As White suggested, try some ambient light (either neutral or red would work great) with a fairly low value, like 15 or 20... that will take care of the places in the map where you can't see where you're walking and you fall straight into some lava (great sounds here as well, by the way... the crisping sound is a nice touch)

b) the more serious issue for me is the framerate. The highest it got for me for all three maps hovered right around 50... it usually ran in the 30's when I was by myself. After I added 2 bots, it became unplayable. I think most of it is due to the large open areas in the maps. Although it looks amazing, it's just too much for most comps to handle. So you know, I'm running a 1.53 GHz with 512 MB of RAM and a 64 MB video card with the highest graphics settings.

It's still incredible work... I think you've thought of everything in this map, but unless you can solve the framerate issue, it's going to be hard to play it (for me, at least). I don't know if you've used detail brushes or hint brushes, but if you haven't, use them.

The stage is visually astounding. Everything looks quite good, except perhaps for those few instances of stretching White mentioned. The meteors, the rising and falling lava/rocks, the collapsing bridges... it's all quite complete and well thought out.

For me, it runs into problems in 2 areas :

a) the lighting, for the most part, looks great. The light emitting lava really works wonders for the mood. Unfortunately, it's a little too dark in some places and you can't see where you're going. As White suggested, try some ambient light (either neutral or red would work great) with a fairly low value, like 15 or 20... that will take care of the places in the map where you can't see where you're walking and you fall straight into some lava (great sounds here as well, by the way... the crisping sound is a nice touch)

I've never actually used ambient lighting...what key and value do I use (ie do I use key: Ambient Value: 15) or something like that?
Ok well I'll work on the lighting...is that in all three maps that the lighting is bad?

b) the more serious issue for me is the framerate. The highest it got for me for all three maps hovered right around 50... it usually ran in the 30's when I was by myself. After I added 2 bots, it became unplayable. I think most of it is due to the large open areas in the maps. Although it looks amazing, it's just too much for most comps to handle. So you know, I'm running a 1.53 GHz with 512 MB of RAM and a 64 MB video card with the highest graphics settings.

Out of curiosity, is your RAM pcc or DDR? Because my specs are very close to yours and I can add up to 5 bots with a mimima drop in fps.

Ok, well I'm not sure what I can do about the framerates (that's been my biggest issue and the reason it's taken me so long to get to this point) since I've used hinting, detail and overall good mapping techniques and the FPS is still rather low even on my machine. I was working with Ravensoft on these issues and they did help me with some things, but the fact that it's so much open space it has a lot to draw all the time and slows down the fps unfortunately. It's possible that if the ambient lighting works, I can take out some to the light entities and that might help the fps abit. I'll give that a try.

It's still incredible work... I think you've thought of everything in this map, but unless you can solve the framerate issue, it's going to be hard to play it (for me, at least). I don't know if you've used detail brushes or hint brushes, but if you haven't, use them.

Well thanks for your imput, I really appreciate it and you've basically confirmed what I already suspected which is that the maps wouldn't be very playable (unless you had a very high end machine) if I released them as is. So, I'll have to work on them a bit more.

I've never actually used ambient lighting...what key and value do I use (ie do I use key: Ambient Value: 15) or something like that?
Ok well I'll work on the lighting...is that in all three maps that the lighting is bad?

Ambient lighting is really rather simple... first, you add the key 'ambient' to the worldspawn and assign a value of say, 15. Then, add the key '_color' (yes, with the '_') and an RGB value of '1 1 1' if you wanted neutral light. If you're looking for a specific color for ambient light, the easiest way is to hit K to bring up the color selector for the light entities and look at the RGB sliders down at the bottom. Pick whichever color you like, and then get the number values to the right of the slider... so you might have a key '_color' with the value of '.01 1 .9' or something... just separate each number with a space and you're set.

Out of curiosity, is your RAM pcc or DDR? Because my specs are very close to yours and I can add up to 5 bots with a mimima drop in fps.

Ok, well I'm not sure what I can do about the framerates (that's been my biggest issue and the reason it's taken me so long to get to this point) since I've used hinting, detail and overall good mapping techniques and the FPS is still rather low even on my machine. I was working with Ravensoft on these issues and they did help me with some things, but the fact that it's so much open space it has a lot to draw all the time and slows down the fps unfortunately. It's possible that if the ambient lighting works, I can take out some to the light entities and that might help the fps abit. I'll give that a try.

DDR. Yeah, my suggestion would be to try the ambient lighting and see how many of the light entities you can remove (I wouldn't remove too many... ambient lighting should be used as a supplement to other forms of lighting, as on higher values it tends to flatten the difference between light and shadow). Removing some light entities might help speed up compile time as well. Unfortunately, the large open areas do kill fps, and there doesn't seem to be any way around this particular issue.

Well thanks for your imput, I really appreciate it and you've basically confirmed what I already suspected which is that the maps wouldn't be very playable (unless you had a very high end machine) if I released them as is. So, I'll have to work on them a bit more.

No problem. If you need any more feedback or help, let me know - I'll do what I can. :)

Hmm...

On what resolution do you guys play? That affects the framerate too.

Btw, was there anything good about the maps?

Sure there was, I wouldn't be beta testing it if I didn't like it. :) I really like the concept and the design and the choice of color. Haven't really tested the gameplay yet.

On what resolution do you guys play? That affects the framerate too.

You're right, but I don't like the idea of changing my graphic settings for one map. Personally I think a map should perform about the same as any other map for the game without me having to change my graphic settings.

Sure there was, I wouldn't be beta testing it if I didn't like it. I really like the concept and the design and the choice of color. Haven't really tested the gameplay yet.

Ok, well like I said before, thanks for the input because I really value your opinion and I'm going to try a few things to get these maps to run better on lower end comps.

But, since I don't want to change the map's layout (ie the wide open space) since that would ruin the vision I have of the maps, I'm left to make a decision (if I fail that is) as to releasing them as is, shelving them until such a time that everyone's comps are up to a level that it won't matter if there are large open spaces, or shelving them indefinitely and moving on to a new project.

I've been working on them for about 7 months now and I just want them to be playable and for everyone to enjoy them. But if they are not playable, and I can't fix them, then there is no point in ever releasing them.

So I'll give them a last try at fixing them and all I can do is hope for the best.

SunBurN

The project I mentioned in the last post that I said "I'd move on to" is a really cool idea that I and other ppl have had for awhile (in varying degrees) but no one has quite tried it the way I'm going to. I guarentee it will be fun and no one has anything out quite like it now.

So, my work comp is compiling map 1 (of the Korriban maps) with some changes I made as we speak and I'm going to get to work on my new idea tonight on my home comp. If all goes well, I should be able to bust it out pretty quickly. Look for a WIP thread with ss coming soon!

SunBurN

You're right, but I don't like the idea of changing my graphic settings for one map. Personally I think a map should perform about the same as any other map for the game without me having to change my graphic settings.

I'm in agreement with White on this point. You shouldn't have to do anything to play a map other than load it up. I don't mean this to sound harsh, but it's true.

Originally posted by SunBurN
The project I mentioned in the last post that I said "I'd move on to" is a really cool idea that I and other ppl have had for awhile (in varying degrees) but no one has quite tried it the way I'm going to. I guarentee it will be fun and no one has anything out quite like it now.


Ooh, sounds intriguing. Will you be describing part of the idea in the new thread you'll likely be creating?

I don't know yet, I'll have to see how it goes...I'm working on it now. I don't want to do a WIP on it until I'm sure its going to work. As for the other maps, when I left work today my Map 1 of the Korriban maps was still compiling, so I won't know how it turned out until monday.

Well, back to mappin... l8r! :)

As far as lava emitting light - are you sure that lowers your framerate? What about radiosity (bounce the light?)

One the rocks - What I was going to suggest earlier was using a TcGen stage on your texture - that way you can tell it exactly how often you want the texture repeated, and you can use multiple textures to show different things across the x y and z. It's determined at compile time, unlike TcMod.

Wudan,

It's a big part of it. Like I said before, I took out the lava as a test (changed it to a regular texture) and the FPS went up quite a bit. But if you think that TCgen will be helpful, I'm willing to give it a try. It would be a shame after all of the work and time I've spent on these maps not to release them because I can't get the FPS to a playable level. Are you still going to create that shader you were talking about before for the rocky surface/mountain walls? Maybe that would help my problem with FPS?

SunBurN

I downloaded the beta and played it a while ago, and all I can say is: wow. Very nice textures, great eerie atmosphere, and I especially like the asteroids / falling rocks. :D

Can you actually die and get hit by one?

I'm glad you liked it! As far as the meteors hurting you, not in multiplayer..I think they do in Single player though!