Your screenshots of the Anoat sewers level look pretty good for being as early as they are. I have a suggestion for the level: make the water transparent and add stuff like mutated fish swimming around or mutated plants on the bottom.
what about the dianogas? it takes out all of the fun if you can see them..maybe your suggestion could be used in the areas that dont have dianogas (if there are any).
I think there is a pool of blue water that is empty. It's in a "refinary plant" or something.
Those are good screens, keep it up.
About the puzzle and some final details:
In regards to raising the water level, are you actually raising the water or the ground and that would in turn raise the water up some. Just wondering if you'll be waist high or can go under water. I think in regards to adding detail, it needs to be at the end. Maybe a dianoga tank in Moff Rebu's room with assorted prototypes laying around on tables.
Good ideas (I'm the mapper for Anoat Sewers, btw). Warning, a bunch of possible spoilers ahead... you've been warned.
The water is a very controversial issue because of a few things... Dark Forces had opaque water. I thought about having translucent water, and may yet have it for a couple of reasons and that is because I'm not sure how or if we can make opaque water (you never see it done anywhere). Plus it would take a little extra work. Not much, I could probably handle it. That brings the biggest issue to mind though; a very sad one at that though heh.
I am still a very new mapper, and in a nutshell, I only know how to make basic elevators, basic doors, and brushes (this includes all such things as vertex editing, edge tooling, etc, though). That's basically all... I HAVE only been mapping for Radiant a total of 1.5 months, (including the time I've been on the team, too...) I have a fair amount of other areas complete not shown in the screenshots, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to show them to outsiders or not as it would be real spoilers...
PS - I can't even get the water to work at all at that... a while back I set two sets of brushes like this:
BRUSH #1 (Water Brush)
Texture = a Water Shader
___________
|         | Texture = Caulk_nonsolid
|         | Texture = Caulk_nonsolid
___________
Texture = a Water Shader
BRUSH #2 (Solid Brush) - Under the first one
Texture = a Ground Texture
___________
|         | Texture = Caulk
|         | Texture = Caulk
___________
Texture = Caulk
This refuses to work... but I know the water shader works because there are a few other water brushes I had where the game made it water (I would fall through them... heh). So to take those screenshots without bsp errors or anything in them I had to edit the textures and make a plain old texture that was not translucent. Otherwise it would look very bad ;)
If it is ok for me to show people some other screenshots, I might think about doing so... since I'm a newbie to this I'm not sure what I can and cannot do. That's enough info for you guys for today ;) Oh lastly if you wish to know I think I had around 1850-1900 brushes at last count. Just so you know that it is coming along quite nicely...
Originally posted by Katarn07
I think there is a pool of blue water that is empty. It's in a "refinary plant" or something.
Those are good screens, keep it up.
About the puzzle and some final details:
In regards to raising the water level, are you actually raising the water or the ground and that would in turn raise the water up some. Just wondering if you'll be waist high or can go under water. I think in regards to adding detail, it needs to be at the end. Maybe a dianoga tank in Moff Rebu's room with assorted prototypes laying around on tables.
Thanks for the compliment on my map.
I haven't thought about that... I think it probably would be highly more accurate if I did raise the actual water. On the other hand, I don't think it would be good if you could ever be submerged in water (well, sewage) because you couldn't in DF. So I think I will just raise the whole brush... I am thinking about a very large secret easter egg, but I am not gonna reveal it, hehe sorry.
the level looks really good, a lot like the old DF. But as i was admiring the pics, a thought came to my head: If you're traveling through sewer pipes, wouldn't most of the passage ways be round instead of blocky? I don't know if its too lat to do anything about this, but just a thought.
Originally posted by xcountryman03
the level looks really good, a lot like the old DF. But as i was admiring the pics, a thought came to my head: If you're traveling through sewer pipes, wouldn't most of the passage ways be round instead of blocky? I don't know if its too lat to do anything about this, but just a thought.
Yes, I have made the majority of the pipes 8 sided. For accuracy and other purposes, certain parts were made 4 sided however. The exterior of the pipes that you see, are still 4 sided (which makes that just like DF). But the majority of the rest has 8 sides.
I know it sounds odd for it to switch between 4-8 sides, but I made the change as unnoticeable as can be. I was gonna include a few inside-pipe shots but they're not very awe-inspiring so I thought against it. I think I did submit one to The_One actually, but he didn't include it.
PS - Are you talking about the pipes you go inside when you take the center-right route from the central room?
What if you made the water really thick (put lots of trash and stuff in it - it IS a sewer)? You could do that, then have little spots where you could look down through the water.
That would conflict with with Kyle's movements a lot! Maybe you can make so you go underwater, but Dianoga's are invisible! (If possible)
They are invisible supposedly after not eating in a while. Once popping outta water, then they can appear. That way they're still hidden until the moment you're attacked.
whos modelin that puppy btw
leave the big rooms square or make them round but any tight horizontal space kyle goes through should be at least 8 sided
Are there pics of this in the gallery? If not, The_One, when you update next time with the screenies, can you add some of this stuff. Like the small tube that you fly outta when you leave the sewage underground areas... (If that part is done...)
Originally posted by Katarn07
Are there pics of this in the gallery? If not, The_One, when you update next time with the screenies, can you add some of this stuff. Like the small tube that you fly outta when you leave the sewage underground areas... (If that part is done...)
Yea I'll try to get a few more screenies to him sometime in a few weeks or so when I have some more interesting stuff to show.
I was speciffically talking about the 4 & 8 sided things xcountryman03 was talking about...
It wouldn't be hard to make the dianogas actually translucent.
Originally posted by Emon
It wouldn't be hard to make the dianogas actually translucent.
but why would you do that?
Originally posted by Katarn07
I was speciffically talking about the 4 & 8 sided things xcountryman03 was talking about...
Yeah that's the part of the map where you enter the underground section and get sent into the pipes to get back to the central area.
As I said we'll see... but since I just got some screenies don't expect new ones immediately. I could possibly private message you a screenshot of it but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that or not... I'll ask Darth about it.
The only spot I recognize are those stairs and the ext. shot! I hated that level. It took me weeks! That is how unfamiliar it looks to me... Maybe if it were lighted properly, I'd see some more recognizable areas.
Question: Do youo know how to light areas? I don't. I got tutorials for both JED and Radiant and lighting always puzzled me... I need a tutorial with ALL of the basics. That way, I could begin mapping.
Originally posted by Emon
It wouldn't be hard to make the dianogas actually translucent.
That would be a pretty good idea Emon, but personally I think that they shouldn't have the water transculcent. I mean, it's garbage after all, and most halfway clean pond and river water isn't really all that clean.
Originally posted by ImmolatedYoda
but why would you do that?
So you can swim under water and not see them before they pop out. Only certains areas should be swimmable (the big dark maze and the main puzzle areas). Others only waist high (like the infamous 4&8 sided pipes!).
And this would easily be explained that Dianogas turn invisible after not having meals in a long time. We wanna swim! We were denied that in DF, that's why I think it should be included.
Originally posted by Katarn07
The only spot I recognize are those stairs and the ext. shot! I hated that level. It took me weeks! That is how unfamiliar it looks to me... Maybe if it were lighted properly, I'd see some more recognizable areas.
Question: Do youo know how to light areas? I don't. I got tutorials for both JED and Radiant and lighting always puzzled me... I need a tutorial with ALL of the basics. That way, I could begin mapping.
It's actually quite simple... When you are in the 2-d view, right click anywhere (but do it roughly where you want your light to be) and hit "Light". This will make you a basic light, which you can move around to your liking. You can also light your map up with light shaders (textures) which sometimes emit light. Usually, it is not very bright though. If you need more help go to
http://richdiesal.jedioutcastmaps.com/tutorials/index.html) (if you didn't already know about that site).
If you're wandering who's the guy in charge to bring life to the dianoga creature ingame, that's me.
I've been doing lots of research about making new skeletons and animations, and they are a fact!.
So you are going to see a fully operational dianoga with new animations.
You can check my thread on new animations/skeletons here:
http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89345)