Roadmap to completion, possible???

[Tempust85]

I won't pretend to understand why OpenJK hasn't increased the limit, but I'm sure there's a reason. @@Xycaleth

[Archangel35757]

@@UniqueOne - up'd the limits for warzone... chat with him.

[Xycaleth]

The entity limit is somewhat difficult to change unless you change the mod you're running as well. It's not just the engine enforcing it.

 

For your mod it would be fine since you guys don't need to keep compatibility

[CansecoDev]

Man, I hadn't considered the falling ship level. That one is going to suck. I wonder if you can rotate an entire level after having it mostly complete. Dealing with those angles the entire time in Radiant wouldn't be fun, but complex geometry might crash the editor. Still, that's a really long way off, so best not to worry about it now.

 

The falling ship level is something I always wondered when I look at this mod, how can that be done on this engine? I can't just imagine.

[Ramikad]

The falling ship level is something I always wondered when I look at this mod, how can that be done on this engine? I can't just imagine.

 

It's all very theoretical, but my idea would be that the level would be made by models for the most part. I'd say that the most problems we'd get would be from clipping and culling, but it should work. It'll also need a func_ moving entity for the terrain down below, and perhaps a lower gravity, to create the illusion of the ship falling down.

[CansecoDev]

I see, it's like the train level illusion for the non playable (outside) area, I wish you the better with the func_moving stuff, on my head that sounds like a nightmare work to do, an entire level with func_moving parts 

[Tempust85]

Gravity might work here. If it can make you float (JK2), then surely it can pull you down as well. But yes, it will be a challenge and will require a skilled mapper.

[minilogoguy18]

Which brings us to this, we need to find some way to draw the attention of mappers. Are there really so few in this community now a days?

[Teancum]

Falling ship could be created at the correct angles (not tipped over), then the .map opened in Blender, rotated, and re-imported. After that you could add all the entities, NPCs, etc. That might help with faceting and other issues that GtkRadiant has. Probably should test that on a smaller scale, though.

 

As far as attention to mapping goes, has anyone reached out to other communities who have mappers familiar with Radiant? The mapping process itself is pretty much universal across several Q3 engine games and even a few other engines alike.

[Tempust85]

If I blockout the map in radiant, rotating should be fine as there won't be any detailed brushwork. I'll just have to model everything and load it in as a misc_model or even a static. I just managed to rotate a simple hollowed blockout of a small test level and there weren't any issues. Also a gravity of 5000 slams you back down if you force jump, or won't allow you at all to jump without the force. I want to start mapping this way anyway, seeing as we're pushing development on GL2 and everything looks better when it's a normal mapped model. Check out games that run on UDK or UE4, they use their editor for a blockout and ents and the details are loaded models. I'll most likely have to jack up the entity limit considerably.

 

 

So the best way to tackle this map:

 

- increase gravity to make it harder to jump.

- use trigger_push to push the player back down, but not an insane value. Just enough to feel a slight "tug" backwards as you move.

- rotate the map within radiant.

- finalise textures on the blockout - rotating will screw them up.

- convert misc_models to misc_model_statics AFTER rotation, if required.

[Ramikad]

If I blockout the map in radiant, rotating should be fine as there won't be any detailed brushwork. I'll just have to model everything and load it in as a misc_model or even a static. I just managed to rotate a simple hollowed blockout of a small test level and there weren't any issues. Also a gravity of 5000 slams you back down if you force jump, or won't allow you at all to jump without the force. I want to start mapping this way anyway, seeing as we're pushing development on GL2 and everything looks better when it's a normal mapped model. Check out games that run on UDK or UE4, they use their editor for a blockout and ents and the details are loaded models. I'll most likely have to jack up the entity limit considerably.

 

 

So the best way to tackle this map:

 

- increase gravity to make it harder to jump.

- use trigger_push to push the player back down, but not an insane value. Just enough to feel a slight "tug" backwards as you move.

- rotate the map within radiant.

- finalise textures on the blockout - rotating will screw them up.

- convert misc_models to misc_model_statics AFTER rotation, if required.

 

Why increase the gravity? Being inside a falling ship would feel like a (slightly) reduced gravity for whoever is on it.

[Tempust85]

True, well then decrease but not to the doomgiver's level though.

[Ramikad]

Will also be a lot of fun to change gravity in-game, because you could activate braking thrusters in the original game that would slow down the fall and give more time, and a higher gravity effect.

[SomaZ]

Has someone ever tried J.A.C.K.?

http://www.moddb.com/groups/jackhammer-my-favorite-level-editor/downloads

 

Maybe you can rotate a level without loosing uvs? Nevertheless, it looks a lot easier than radiant.

[minilogoguy18]

I may try it if I can find some time, I want to learn some mapping but I can't stand Radiant. I'd really would rather make everything in a 3D package and use the level editor for all the scripting.

[Tempust85]

Actually, it looks harder to me. The editor isn't a problem, it's just being able to navigate.

 

 

 

@@minilogoguy18

 

From now on, we are making the details as models and not brushes or patches. You'll still need to use the editor to blockout the level & place entites, like you do with UDK/UE4. The only annoyance we have vs those who create for UDK/UE4 is, we do not have lighting preview.

[UniqueOne]

Why don't you do what I do in warzone and use map glow shader locations for extra map lights? Or add a new "light" keyword to shaders? It won't let you preview them in radiant, but it will let you have as many lights as you want without wasting entities.

 

The code to find locations is here (remove the water bits):

https://github.com/Stoiss/Rend2/blob/rend2/codemp/rd-warzone/tr_bsp.cpp#L3356

 

The code to find the average color of the glow texture is here:

https://github.com/Stoiss/Rend2/blob/rend2/codemp/rd-warzone/tr_image.cpp#L3133

 

The code to select the closet lights each frame is here:

https://github.com/Stoiss/Rend2/blob/rend2/codemp/rd-warzone/tr_shade.cpp#L1689

 

The code to add the best ones as dlights each frame is here (note you will want to increase MAX_DLIGHTS, but thats simple - also you probably don't want this is postprocess code, maybe do it straight after the section above or combine them, warzone does all lights as a post process):

https://github.com/Stoiss/Rend2/blob/rend2/codemp/rd-warzone/tr_postprocess.cpp#L921

 

The glow dlights in warzone have a static range, but you could easy add that as a shader keyword if required.

[Tempust85]

I'll let SomaZ decide what to do with that.

 

 

Anyway, I've ported the loading cubemaps from DDS textures & JSON file loading but it doesn't seem to actually do anything. Can you please merge in my commit and find out what's going on @@SomaZ?

[SomaZ]

@UniqueOne You are a hero. ♥ With these I can possibly add the dlight editor mode, without researching for months. Sure you postprocess them, you use deferred shading right?

 

@@DT85 I'll check that. Better get the conversation back to to right place.

[UniqueOne]

@UniqueOne You are a hero. ♥ With these I can possibly add the dlight editor mode, without researching for months. Sure you postprocess them, you use deferred shading right?

 

 

Yeah. All lighting in wz is done deferred, but the code will work fine with forward rendering. Just need to do the final code snippet earlier.