Work in progress: New Republic Prison Ship from The Mandalorian

[Plague-Angel]

Hey,

I haven't got my reading brain on properly at the moment so I don't know if you've sorted it or it has been answered so sorry if this is redundant.

About your players getting through doors... those player bounding boxes are annoying eh?! I've hit this problem a lot, even when it looks like two players side by side could fit through/under an open door! One thing you could try perhaps is to make the frame non solid through shaders or making them models and then just clip brush around them leaving the adequate room for your guy to get in.

Hope that helps

[OCD2]

1 hour ago, Plague-Angel said:

Hey,

I haven't got my reading brain on properly at the moment so I don't know if you've sorted it or it has been answered so sorry if this is redundant.

About your players getting through doors... those player bounding boxes are annoying eh?! I've hit this problem a lot, even when it looks like two players side by side could fit through/under an open door! One thing you could try perhaps is to make the frame non solid through shaders or making them models and then just clip brush around them leaving the adequate room for your guy to get in.

Hope that helps

I still have yet to try any fixes, your reading brain is working right lol.

Thank you for the suggestions, those are things I did not think about as solutions.

[Plague-Angel]

You're welcome. Also if you're looking for someone to test your map out I'd be more than willing to help with that

[OCD2]

Mostly some optimizing today.   

Removed a huge swath of over 600 brushes,  replacing some with textures and rebuilding some with more efficient brushwork. 

Made a panel texture variant and placed some textures in conventions shown in the episode.

(cell door numbers became integrated into the bevel as a new texture combo and columns brush count were reduced respectively)   

Photos below.

More optimization and build out still to come.

 

 

 

I'm having a bit of a time reconciling the map layout.    Looking at the shows depictions of a schematic, and then how the show actually depicts the interior of the ship, it seems like there is some discrepancy in execution.

Ill include some photos later, showing the differences in the shows "map"  vs how it was actually portrayed with the physical set.   

The short of it is, they seemed to have made ~ 2 different small hallway practical sets,and then reused them in different camera angles to make it look more expansive.    As well as they made use of some cgi "sets" that added another layer of how its not necessarily a cohesive design on the show.

[ZanderNao]

Oh dear, that sounds familiar. Sort of like how the Death Star plans shown in ANH don't have the same design as the actual Deathstar... It's a treasure to see your rendition of the ship. Most people that play will be more familiar with the setpieces than the actual layout, let alone the onscreen map. You've got the entry point, the bridge, the cells... I think it'll work out as long as you are happy with it.

[OCD2]

On 12/5/2020 at 4:06 PM, ZanderNao said:

Oh dear, that sounds familiar. Sort of like how the Death Star plans shown in ANH don't have the same design as the actual Deathstar... It's a treasure to see your rendition of the ship. Most people that play will be more familiar with the setpieces than the actual layout, let alone the onscreen map. You've got the entry point, the bridge, the cells... I think it'll work out as long as you are happy with it.

Agreed.   I came to the realization that it will be more about recognizable setpieces, than a full replica of what's currently available as a schematic.       

I'll take a little bit of license on the layout to hopefully make for interesting gameplay.    I have one in mind already.

Current focus is on completing more optimization in the main hallway prefabs, and to make the columns with the drop down security doors that are currently missing from the hallways.

 

 

 

To include one example of the discrepancies in the shows ship schematic - the attached photo shows what looks like a pattern of 4 side by side cells drawn in blue..... and a half cell with a half size doorway?     

On the same photo, the diamond shape area, which represents the control room,  seems to show two cell doors at the entrance - that lead to nothing.   In the episode it's shown as  2 column pairs worth of blank walls.

It seems like they did not know if they wanted 4 or 5 cells shown, or the graphic artist just copy pasted and never bothered to make sure the cells fit in a cohesive way in the schematic.   

I mean who would look that closely at this briefly flashed graphic? lol

 

 

 

 

I also realized that I did not have dynamic glow enabled in my photos.

[OCD2]

Added some of the security doors and doorframes, per the conventions shown on the episode, and completed some more optimizing.

[OCD2]

Lockdown simulation 1.0.

Needs a lot of texture work!     Some of the column lights need to be strobed, some need to be changed colors and need their respective shaders.   

 

[Plague-Angel]

Coming along very well! 

This isn't a dig at all, the design/architecture of that ship is quite simple But it seems that is one of the hardest forms to pull off and you're doing a great job so far

 

I don't know if you resolved your issue with the player being lit properly so I'm just wondering how you're compiling this map? I'm far from an expert in q3map but have found that some of the settings when it comes to rendering/compiling can have an effect on your dude... 

[OCD2]

6 hours ago, Plague-Angel said:

Coming along very well! 

This isn't a dig at all, the design/architecture of that ship is quite simple But it seems that is one of the hardest forms to pull off and you're doing a great job so far

 

I don't know if you resolved your issue with the player being lit properly so I'm just wondering how you're compiling this map? I'm far from an expert in q3map but have found that some of the settings when it comes to rendering/compiling can have an effect on your dude... 

Lol, yes the architecture is relatively simple in design - that's why I chose it. 

I was hoping that building a map with a simple structure would allow me to spend more time adding a bit of extra polish to the mod.    Textures, shaders, audio,  scripting, an intro movie, fun easter eggs...   I'm hoping to learn as much as I can with this project.

I went quiet for a few days and have been busy working with the map.  I have 3 different builds going right now with different layouts.   I have a working lock down security system in a few different arrays.  And I've done some shader and script editing as well as did a bit of work towards adding a full size and mini map.

To answer your question, player lighting has improved.  

I found a few leaks made from rapid construction errors,  and I made some optimizations around the map that helped.

I'll have to check the parameters that I'm using to compile - it's one of the "stock" options that is labelled (final).

[BlindDaThief]

Looking good!

[OCD2]

16 minutes ago, BlindDaThief said:

Looking good!

Thank you!

These are all still place holder textures and shaders.   

I'm saving the final textures until close to when the mod is finished.  They should make a dramatic improvement in before and after pictures  

[BlindDaThief]

I'm so stoked for this contest. I didn't think anybody cared about maps anymore!

[OCD2]

18 hours ago, Plague-Angel said:

Coming along very well! 

This isn't a dig at all, the design/architecture of that ship is quite simple But it seems that is one of the hardest forms to pull off and you're doing a great job so far

 

I don't know if you resolved your issue with the player being lit properly so I'm just wondering how you're compiling this map? I'm far from an expert in q3map but have found that some of the settings when it comes to rendering/compiling can have an effect on your dude... 

The compiling parameters I'm currently using are : -meta, -vis, -light -fast - filter - super 2 -bounce 8     

I have not got into all the functionality of the BSP options yet, is there a better set of parameters to use?

[AshuraDX]

@fullkevlar You might want to use '-bouncegrid' in your light compile, your map looks like it relies heavily on bounced lighting to light up the corridors and by default this does not affect the lightgrid afaik. '-bouncegrid' should take care of that.

I also think I remember reading that using -fast can screw with the lightgrid, and there was a workaround to that, or rather a way to compile without using fast without sacrificing a lot of speed. Didn't you dig that up @mjt

[OCD2]

4 hours ago, AshuraDX said:

@fullkevlar You might want to use '-bouncegrid' in your light compile, your map looks like it relies heavily on bounced lighting to light up the corridors and by default this does not affect the lightgrid afaik. '-bouncegrid' should take care of that.

I also think I remember reading that using -fast can screw with the lightgrid, and there was a workaround to that, or rather a way to compile without using fast without sacrificing a lot of speed. Didn't you dig that up @mjt

Thank you for the information.

I have not delved into BSP options yet, so that's good to know.

@AshuraDX   What do you need to do to add  -bouncegrid to the compile parameters?       

[AshuraDX]

@fullkevlar iirc there is a menu to do that in somewhere in the gtk Radiant Preferences, alternately you could edit the file you edited to fix your q3map2 problem.

Or you write a bat file to compile your map with. Which is what I do from my (still unreleased) Q3ME.

[mjt]

@fullkevlar

How many levels does this ship have? You can utilize the lightgrid brush to set mins and maxs for that and set densitiy of the lightgrid probes in the worldspawn prior to light compilation.

If you want good visuals with q3map2, tweaking the map requires knowledge on how the lightmapper works and what surfaces should have high resolution lightmaps, which ones should be vertex lit and how to set lightmap resolution per shader or brush. I can give you a lesson on that. PM me incase you're interested. Also utilizing @SomaZ Blender Plugin would be an option depending on the complexity of the map and will give much quicker bounced results than with bounce 8 on q3map2. Great map you have there. Just scrolling back through the thread right now.

[OCD2]

5 hours ago, mjt said:

@fullkevlar

How many levels does this ship have? You can utilize the lightgrid brush to set mins and maxs for that and set densitiy of the lightgrid probes in the worldspawn prior to light compilation.

If you want good visuals with q3map2, tweaking the map requires knowledge on how the lightmapper works and what surfaces should have high resolution lightmaps, which ones should be vertex lit and how to set lightmap resolution per shader or brush. I can give you a lesson on that. PM me incase you're interested. Also utilizing @SomaZ Blender Plugin would be an option depending on the complexity of the map and will give much quicker bounced results than with bounce 8 on q3map2. Great map you have there. Just scrolling back through the thread right now.

It will be a single level, with some amount branching.   Not too complex,  much like the source material.    There will be triggerable security doors that change the flow of the level temporarily to give some depth to the gameplay.

I've not had much time to work on it since having issues with the compiler.   I tried today, though it seems like the compiler commands are still broken, or at least the one I tried today is not working properly.

I do not have knowledge of how the light mapper works,  nor do I know any of those aspects of lighting for mapping you mentioned.  I would definitely be interested in those topics,  anything I could learn to would be appreciated.    

 

[OCD2]

On 12/12/2020 at 11:49 AM, AshuraDX said:

@fullkevlar You might want to use '-bouncegrid' in your light compile, your map looks like it relies heavily on bounced lighting to light up the corridors and by default this does not affect the lightgrid afaik. '-bouncegrid' should take care of that.

I also think I remember reading that using -fast can screw with the lightgrid, and there was a workaround to that, or rather a way to compile without using fast without sacrificing a lot of speed. Didn't you dig that up @mjt

Bouncegrid did seem to help some with player model lighting, and gave some of the brush edges a bit more smoothing through shadow.

[OCD2]

After much wrestling with the editor, here are a few shots of the entry point layout matched closely to the episodes depiction, and a slighting modified compile for better lighting.(thank you AshuraDX and MJT)

After reviewing the episode for more reference, I noticed the entryway was in a different format than I initially thought.     

The main corridor of the entryway consists of 4 parallel cells, one connecting intersection corridor and four security doors.  The corridor was shrunk down to match, 2 cells were removed, and security doorframes were placed accordingly.

Hopefully GTK cooperates for awhile, ive got a lot to complete before the deadline!.

[ZanderNao]

Oh wow, the lighting took a huge step up in these last shots. It's a work of art! You're so close! Have you done anything with the bridge yet?

As an aside, I'm sure you'll wan a rest after this project, but I feel like you'd have really good skills at making the sort of Imperial set they've been using in Mandalorian season 2 for the Research Facility/Gozanti/Light cruiser. They've repurposed those halls a lot of different ways and that architecture seems right up your alley!

[OCD2]

57 minutes ago, ZanderNao said:

Oh wow, the lighting took a huge step up in these last shots. It's a work of art! You're so close! Have you done anything with the bridge yet?

As an aside, I'm sure you'll wan a rest after this project, but I feel like you'd have really good skills at making the sort of Imperial set they've been using in Mandalorian season 2 for the Research Facility/Gozanti/Light cruiser. They've repurposed those halls a lot of different ways and that architecture seems right up your alley!

Hey thanks for the kind words!

I've not remade the control room yet, I'll be resizing it to scale to match the rest of the ship.    I was inspired and had the time to work on it for multiple days - though each day gtkradiant had different bugs occur that I had to try and fix before continuing.

Funny you should say that, actually my thought for the next project was to keep up with a ship theme and make the Gozanti freighter as a map.   

I actually thought I would be able to sneak in both ships as a surprise bonus entry for the contest, but I'm thinking that's wishful thinking with the issues I've had with the map editor lol.

 

 

 

[ZanderNao]

Contest or no contest, your work is astounding and I can't wait to see what you're capable of doing! And maybe best not to rush the Gozanti, lol. I think you've got some great potential going on!

[OCD2]

Little bit of something to look at today since its been quiet -   The entry way layout, matched to the source material.

Added the resized and repositioned cross pillars to the ends of large corridors.    Resizing and realigning of various aspects to be more inline with the source material,  and some other small details adjusted.   

Its looking a lot more uniform and already "feels" good to explore the area -  with the right textures/shaders and models it would definitely evoke scenes from the show.    Still need to work on the final textures:   the walls need some minor wear marks around the edges, the hall doors need new textures, and all the various panels need retexturing etc. 

Will be putting in more work today after lunch,  likely focusing next on the cell doors which need a bit of enlarging and optimizing.

And then ill need to re-read the shader manual, and some tutorials.      I have read it multiple times (over a few months),  and each time I feel like I understand the order syntax and keywords/values - but then I try to implement my custom shaders and most often they fail or simply do nothing lol.    Any tips or links to "grasp" and "master" shaders would be much appreciated.