SephFF

2 hours ago, NumberWan said:

 

There is no big secret, but it was probably the hardest thing to pull off in Radiant. In this regards NetRadiant works far better than the original level editor, as I used meshes and Brush triangles. The brushes were used for pillars, several triangle ones were placed together to form a wall under certain angle. The method you show either an ase or md3 model is actually a nice method! This was used for the mountains of Tatooine in JA, but we use it too for a more complex architecture, when using meshes and brushes aren't enough.

We also thought of making the city 1:1 like in Dark Forces, but it was difficult back when we started. Besides our map shows the city almost 10+ years after the events of the original game. We assumed, that the Empire is gone and the city is slowly restoring it, so the general layout is probably the same, but the materials and details look differently this time. We didn't recreate the Canal area, which you've recreated most remarkably.

yeah the canal was stupid hard....

For mine I have the original model from DF2 as an obj. I scaled it till It was the same size from either kyles POV in DF2/JKA. When i first started this I tried to do it from image reference.(it was waaaay off) Then I tried importing the entire obj into NRC and rebuild the brush work that way. (also not a great idea but kinda worked) Now I do one of 3 things... using blender plugin to export brushwork I invert the normals, export into NRC and extrude flat side of the face, use the faces as a reference and use CSG merg tricks to get things right or for normal rooms i build like I normally do for any other map.

The canal was stupid hard to build and that bridge was also not easy. I actually hade to build the bridge in blender with basic shapes and export as brushwork, not faces to get it right. took me like 4 tries to get it right. that model is a placed holder so when I build the sky box you can see the tower in the right spot.

@NumberWan

FYI.... when i do make this....ill release the source files.... feel free to use whatever ya want....or if want something now i can give it to ya. I also plan an making Max into an NPC.... gatta model him and all still.

On 11/29/2023 at 4:46 PM, NumberWan said:

We've updated the city – its streets, markets and of course – the cantina  

 

 

I'm happy to see this looks like I got some competition. I also been working on Barons hed.... Tho i'm making 2 versions... one mostly original everything... the other updated... Also a WIP.

So far I really like what ya did.

 

The question i got for ya.... is how did you build this part?...... the angles for the pillars in the market place?
 

Mine is a bit different than yours as its close to 1 to 1 in how it was in OG game. But i'm struggling to get it built clean with brushwork. Was wondering how you tackled it. It looks built in the image but its not clean brushwork so I have to rebuild it completely.

hit me up on discord can VC about it if ya want.

TTT = Trouble in Terrorist Town 

I want to build this map for JAWA to run this event for others to enjoy. I figured asking community for ideas could be useful. I am not super knowledgeable about TTT, only played rough version of it on JKA. I think a map designed specifically for it would be fun. This wont be a clan map just a map others can enjoy. Also would like to make the map useful for other event ideas not just TTT.

The idea:
Most of this should be similar to what they did in Half-Life 2 mods, trying to make it work for JKA. The event is run by a host who picks who the terrorist are in secret.

Win conditions:

1. Innocents win if kill all terrorist or unlock escape room and enter it.
2. Terrorist win if Kill all innocents.

Concept idea: Innocents need to figure out who are terrorist and kill them, or open locks that let everyone escape. Lock buttons are placed around the map in different rooms, traps can be placed leading to the rooms or also in the rooms as well. "vents" are only used by terrorist so they can quickly get around the map. The vents will shoot the player to different parts of the map. The locks are on a three min or so timer where no one can hit that button after it’s been unlocked. Once timer runs out, a terrorist can in turn relock the escape route. This also acts as a check to see who a terrorist is, if caught relocking buttons. The idea is to incentivize entering dangerous rooms and player movement/interaction around the environment. Most rooms will have two or three ways to enter or exit, with a few dead ends. The map flows equivalent to three figure eights overlapping each other. Visual hierarchy, points of interest, and landmarks are key so players can easily navigate to their intended destination without feeling lost. Lastly some spots on the map will randomly become dangerous, for example a tie-fighter flying through a tunnel players need to jump across to get to the other side of lava/abyss. Maps designed for terrorist but balanced to feel fair.

Map theme/ layout:
Lobby starting room leading to three separate play areas. (May reduce to one or two due to entity limits)

1. No traps / no escape room, small play area. (Not sure yet)
2. Traps / no escape room, medium play area. (Not sure yet)
3. Traps / escape room, large play area. (Abandoned Imperial underground facility.)

Debating on using mainly JKA assets over custom assets to save on file size. Any thoughts about this concept would be greatly appreciated.

Might post some concept drawings in future.... currently have artist block thinking of a good map layout.

Been working on the Mario map still.

Thanks to college classes im taking my work has slowed down on it but ATM the map is mostly down. I want to get some JApro features working for it and have to where you can race for times on the slide and a race for times on the outside part. The outside part has proven to be a challenge since it is so open and easy bypass a lot of places on the map I am not sure how to set it up where it will feel fun to race on. So I think I will make 2 bsp files, one for the race and one for FFA... FFA being open and free to roam around and the race more restrictive. Not sure how long this will take me to complete so a lot of testing from other users and myself would be needed.

I might go ahead and upload it to here sometime this week so I can get more people to test it. Then update it with fixes as needed.

added skybox

Testing some things.

15 hours ago, Szico VII said:

Ball would be nice as an NPC but I don't know how to do this myself as never used any character modelling stuff and not really keen to worry about that side of things unless it's very straightforward  and has a clear easy tutorial.

@mjt And I were gonna have a barrel NPC similar to your Moon base Labs Map. Where people could throw it or make it explode like a tie-fighter killing everyone near by lol. Unfortunately we ran out of time before the contest and could not get it working right in time. I really like the idea of making the ball an NPC! where you could use force push and play volleyball with it on the beach! Or slap it with a hockey stick that uses "saberdmgvelocityscale". I could see some fun events we could run on JAWA server with that. One flaw in it would be making it float in water lol. I have no idea how to pull that off.

You really are making me want to update my Costa Del Sol map with all these amazing details. ( I got 2 maps to finish before I can start tho ;_; ) Some things I wanted to do but just didn't have the time was build interiors for all the building, true to Final Fantasy 7 reference images of Costa Del Sol. The hardest part is the maps size where so much is being rendered it is hard to optimize and really make it look amazing, not killing everyone's FPS. (we tried adding grass to it.. it killed most ppl's computers to include my own lol).

I'm also one of those mappers where I loth invisible walls... Only clip things that absolutely need it. I love the idea that if its looks like you can reach it... you can! Though with the way jump 3 works and some of the movement glitches I can normally find like 50 ways to break a mappers intentions lol. it makes designing maps a million times harder.

That water tho.... *Chefs Kiss*

I gatta say this is looking pretty darn good.

Since you’re asking for thoughts, I tend to tread softly on just how much constructive critique I give since it can sometimes be taken in a negative manner. For example, level design logic where the doors are too small for boxes, yet the added boxes improve the play, so the designer just does not care. Each case/designer is different or accepts things differently. I’m assuming your goal is to push the limits of JKA and make an esthetically pleasing looking map while looking for real constructive critique. What you currently have is outstanding and forms a cohesive look to a nice sunny day on the beach. The darkened sand looks a lot more natural to the eye I think you did a great job on that. The only item that stands out to me is the grass sprite/grass texture. One thing my level design professor use to preach is that “your design is successful if nothing is noticeable unless you intend it to be noticed.” So out of all of it so far, it’s the only item that stands out to me.

As for ways to correct it, would be avoid stand-alone straight lines of grass sprites with the high contrasting color planted in the sand. Also play with different lengths/density of grass with complementing grass texture/color.

If not looking for this kind of critique, I can just go back to…. “looks good!! XD” *keep walking*

TLDR: Grass stands out a bit, looks good tho.

top 2 looks better to me... The bottom 2 I tho would be better if made for at a farther distance away from the island.

"Do people think its better more isolated or I can pop more islands in the skybox to make it seem more of an archipelago chain"

I would say archipelago as long as it does not kill performance. Adds more life to the environment. Also recommend adding fishes/coral... i would be curious to see how you would tackle it lol

@Szico VII Ah thanks for letting me know. I ended up sorta making mine by hand... using 2k textures. Got it close to how it should look then compiled the map and made minor edits in photoshop using vid_restart over and over lol. I tried to find a program that could automatically do the appropiate distortion but all the ones I found were out of my price range. Also tried using blender and texturing the inside of a cube but that didn't translate well into JKA. Its just a painful slow process to make it look right. Or if ya know any good plugins for photoshop I'm all ears. Making the animated skyboxes is nice but sometimes not worth the performance cost. I want to eventually learn how to use rend2. I just have to make sure it works for both base JKA and Rend2 users since its hard to get people to download anything for multiplayer.

That grass also looks really good. I tried using a grass shader but FPS DROPPED fast with the size of the map.

Like the progress so far!! feel free to use any assets I used in my Costa Del Sol map... your tutorials and .map files ya shared are half the reason I was able to make it. for example alpha shaders and decals are some things I learned from ya. The other half was due to @mjtbeing a mapping senpai lol. regardless can't thank ya enough.

On 10/7/2021 at 6:41 AM, Annubis1991 said:

Maybe silly question but will you release the first map someday?

Yes lol....(Sorry for super late reply)  IRL can get in the way as well as skill with this type of stuff... IRL I'm retired jarhead now college student who does graphic design. Also got a wife and three kids + 2 dogs so its hard to manage all that sometimes. 3 main reasons i didnt release the first map YET... was -vis was bad causing major FPS drops and I want this to run smooth for most people. The second reasons is I suck at scripting and i'll need to find help with that for the elevator in main building. Three... This map is the first map I tried to make so its been a lot of learning involved. I'm slowly getting confidence I need to finish it tho.

In the mean time... before I work on that I wanna make a fun simple not too pretty Co-op map... and probly update it over time. ATM I 2 rooms made for it and wanna make a third before uploading it. 

The big main room is just a playground of sorts... mainly to teach movement mechanics in game like what can walk on what angle of slope... Glitch tricks...strafe jumps... rolling/crouching and a room to test max saber range. The Co-op part will have 3 difficulties... Hardest can be done solo... just requires to know expert jump mechanics. Next is kinda hard with 2 people but fastest way though the challenges. and last an easy route for people not good with strafing. Its just hard designing rooms with 3 difficulty levels but its nice to have options imo for solving something.

That's a nice skybox. I made one so far and learned it's not easy. Is that a 4k texture 0_o.

But please continue making more dope maps. Excellent learning material and fun to play on with others.

I mainly use Net-radiant custom for all my mapping needs. I feel like I understand it enough to make half way decent maps, but at the same time it feels extremely limited. I also searched through the forums looking for tutorials or guides but there is so much scattered, its hard to figure out what workflow I would need to do. With mapping its fairly easy to spend 20 hours on a minor detail only to realize you can't make it work and have to try a new approach. So what I am looking for are any guides or tutorials for a workflow that mainly uses blender for the level creation aspect. I guess I can try to explain a few things I don't know, I should know...but also there is the aspect of what I just don't know that I should be asking. So I hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

• Can full levels be made in blender?
• How to make JKA shaders work in blender to include system shaders?
• Advanced Alpha blending in blender
• Terrain optimization
• Importing from blender to Net-Radiant Custom, import small parts little by little or full blown levels
• Baking light maps from blender into the game
• Known limitations such as polycount or conflicts.
• how to ensure -vis works (I'm assuming block out with caulk but not sure if that works inside of models.)
• There might be a million other questions I don't know to ask lol

What I do know mainly amounts to RichDiesal's JK2Radiant Mapping University, Szico VII's tutorials, and what @mjt has taught me under his wing lol. I can use Blender, photoshop, illustrator. I use to have access to substance painter but I cant afford to subscribe to it lol. I am a IRL graphic designer so that helps with making my own textures. I also have a minor degree in game design I just do this as a hobby though. I guess the goal for me is to figure out a workflow that mainly uses blender. ATM I feel fully comfortable using only Net Radiant Custom but would like the maps I make to be higher quality. Another aspect is speed, where I can make something in a few weeks, not a few months. (Wife, three kids, 2 dogs, working keeps ya busy)

Personally I would love to make guide about all this stuff someday... Just with so much information scattered its hard to really nail down a solid tutorial with all the new tools we can use today vs back in 2003. Also I do have ADHD so I'm already a scatter brain lol.

 

6 minutes ago, Mandalorian said:

Beautiful. Not sure about the static clouds that are brighter. I'd make them not as bright maybe? This map is looking amazing.

felly agree will have to adjust them....main reason i have them is so if flying a ship...you can kinda tell if ur about to hit the skybox lol

testing skybox

small update:

poor quality stream but it was my first time trying youtube streaming.

the main thing i like how tauntauns can go where a player cant.

On 8/21/2021 at 9:50 AM, Asgarath83 said:

So Tauntauns can climbs an high inclinated slope? pretty cool!

Yes, can be cool if someone do some wall climber vehicle and there is some map set like "climb the mountain for reach the base"

this actually gave me a cool idea for a ctf/tffa map lol

On 8/8/2021 at 9:07 PM, SebTheAlchemist said:

I'm itching to ask. Is this Costa del Sol?? Because it is looking super cool.

......UUUH lol here is a video showing some updates...may answer your question lol


Video:
 

caustics are great

 

4 hours ago, Futuza said:

Just to be clear, I totally think it's fine to use clip brushes when you have some sort of object/thing that physically appears to block the way.  For example, in the poorly drawn map below, you have some spikey rocks that are covered by a clip brush preventing the player from actually moving past them. 

 

hmmm I like this....also in love with the drawing....here is mine based off your feed back.

overhead few of map in editor.

I'm hesitant to add more to purple area since current map size is 17,184 X 17184 units.... gatta make it big for believable horizon blending.

also some more images if it now...

8 hours ago, Futuza said:

 One of my map pet peeves is invisible walls.

fully agree.... I like the fish killing ppl idea....mainly because I live near an ocean and oceans can be damn scary sometimes lol. 

With how jump works in this game and the RDFA cancels/water glitch/inverted poly glitch sorta forces map boundaries to be annoyingly tall.....I highly appreciate your input. Think ill do buoys that show where fish can murder you.

On 7/29/2021 at 8:39 PM, Futuza said:

Excellent start to this map, the layout looks great and I'm excited to see what the finished textures and lighting will look like when you're through.  Also, guess you got started for the Summer contest early with that horizon blend map eh?

Yeah....For the summer contest map, so far progress is looking good on it, no custom textures yet. working on trying to get the buildings done right then ill do terrain/water and blend stuff with appropiate textures. I think i'll make this map its own thing for the contest then add it to the main map. For the contest, I do not plan on doing the inside parts of the buildings, I think that would take too long to detail correctly. ill probly save that for the main map.

Honestly might not be a bad map for duel/FFA/TFFA... that is if I can keep the FPS okay of course.

WIP images: bout 8 hours of work to get to this point... started map fresh so I can blend the water in right.

Edit: question.... im torn on the idea of limiting players with clip brush....I personally prefer I am free to go where I want in a map, leave clipping to stairs or weird edges to stop players from getting stuck.

Would people prefer they are limited to a small section of the map? or have the whole thing open to them? I can understand reason for it, to keep game play to certain areas only. Just would like opinions on this.

Testing fish for secret area... I used Szico VII's horizon blend tutorial to make the water and blend the terrain to looks like its going from dry to wet sand....I am using his skybox in this so ill still need to make my own for this area. still in its infant stages of testing... will be using what i learn in this to make a new secret area in main map for ppl to enjoy.

Video: