DM-Rabbit Hutch

[DW_KarmaKat]

Dynadin, at the behest of an influential woman, has caged our lapine urges with his map DM-Rabbit Hutch.

We (being Ant, Acy and myself) tested it this evening. Following are our thoughts...kudos to Ant..he speakes "mapper" much better than I!

KKat

[DW_Ant]

First thing I saw was the Hay. The Hay is too bright!
Went inside the main room, the tree branch is too bright, too. I like Acy's comment when he mentioned that the branch, itself, is the source of light for everything around it.
You should not unlit surfaces and meshes. You really diminish the atmosphere of your map when you exclude lighting from it. Setting lighting similar to the skybox (the skybox has neat lighting), will greatly enhance your map.

Going up the ramp in the hay room is really a pain in the neck to get around. I do like how it looks though. To keep the steps in the ramp without affecting gameplay, you could either convert one copy of the step into a static mesh, and place that mesh on the ramp and disable its collision.
-or-
You could flatten out the steps enough where the players can climb up to the second floor without stubbing their toes.
Let me know if you want me to go into details in how to do this.

I have a strong feeling that everyone will be camping in the water container. Queens did managed to teleport in there, but when they did, they just sink to the bottom without retaliation. Karma phrased it nicely, "just like shooting fish in a barrel." An anticamping volume should fix this. Let me know if you need help finding a map that has this volume, and setting the volume properly in your map.

I've noticed the small adren pills you placed in the map. Your map isn't bad in terms of excessive adrenaline, but it's best to keep the channel counts as small as it can be. For example, the three small adren pills in the hay room should be replaced by one bigger adren pill. You can possess a copy of this adrenaline pill by loading a map that has it and copying it over to yours. This also prevents people from pulling their ears off ::coughs Butcher's name:: when they hear the adren pickup sound 3 times as loud at a fast rate.

I really did enjoy the double layered rooms. Usually in large scaled maps, players only have to worry about watching what's ahead of them, but with that additional floor above. We had monsters attacking us from above!

By the way, where's my carrot?

[Dynadin]

First thing I saw was the Hay. The Hay is too bright!
Went inside the main room, the tree branch is too bright, too. I like Acy's comment when he mentioned that the branch, itself, is the source of light for everything around it.
You should not unlit surfaces and meshes. You really diminish the atmosphere of your map when you exclude lighting from it. Setting lighting similar to the skybox (the skybox has neat lighting), will greatly enhance your map.

Strange, nothing is counted as Unlit as far as I know. I shall have to play around with the lighting and see what I can do. Come to think of it I may have left ambient lighting on 255, it could be that.

Going up the ramp in the hay room is really a pain in the neck to get around. I do like how it looks though. To keep the steps in the ramp without affecting gameplay, you could either convert one copy of the step into a static mesh, and place that mesh on the ramp and disable its collision.
-or-
You could flatten out the steps enough where the players can climb up to the second floor without stubbing their toes.
Let me know if you want me to go into details in how to do this.

The whole idea was players get stuck trying to get up into the 'safe' zone but I can see how it would become annoying (though trans was made for a reason ;) ) I will play about ... though how do you convert things into static meshes? That would be useful for future maps.

I have a strong feeling that everyone will be camping in the water container. Queens did managed to teleport in there, but when they did, they just sink to the bottom without retaliation. Karma phrased it nicely, "just like shooting fish in a barrel." An anticamping volume should fix this. Let me know if you need help finding a map that has this volume, and setting the volume properly in your map.

Being directed to a map with an anti camping volume would be helpful, its a good idea. Does DM-TheEnd have one if I remember rightly? When I tested it I only had 199 health so the drowning was actually a danger XD

I've noticed the small adren pills you placed in the map. Your map isn't bad in terms of excessive adrenaline, but it's best to keep the channel counts as small as it can be. For example, the three small adren pills in the hay room should be replaced by one bigger adren pill. You can possess a copy of this adrenaline pill by loading a map that has it and copying it over to yours. This also prevents people from pulling their ears off ::coughs Butcher's name:: when they hear the adren pickup sound 3 times as loud at a fast rate.

Yup. I have a few on other maps, I will change that

I really did enjoy the double layered rooms. Usually in large scaled maps, players only have to worry about watching what's ahead of them, but with that additional floor above. We had monsters attacking us from above!

By the way, where's my carrot?

I think the large rabbit that escaped ate it!

[DW_Ant]

The whole idea was players get stuck trying to get up into the 'safe' zone but I can see how it would become annoying (though trans was made for a reason ;) ) I will play about ... though how do you convert things into static meshes? That would be useful for future maps.

In wireframe, top, front, or side mode, you can select the geometric added brush. By default they look like blue spuares/rectangular prisms. Right click that brush, hit convert ---> to static mesh.
package = mylevel
group = any
name = your static meshes name
In the static mesh browser, you can locate mylevel in the dropbox above the 'all' button.

You can use this method to convert multiple added brushes to one static mesh to save compile time, make life easier to reposition/duplicate, and to avoid BSP holes.

Note: You cannot convert subtracted brushes to static meshes. If you want to include a subtracted brush, you have to first build your set of brushes. Place the red brush builder over the entire set, hit the intersect button. Reposition your new red brush builder somewhere else, and hit the add button.
Note: When converting static meshes with negative draw scales will cause the static mesh to invert its textureing (you'll see the one sided textures on the inside of the mesh rather than the exterior.
Note: static meshes with new skins properties will not be included when you convert it again. To retexture static meshes as a default skin of your myleveled version, you'll need to go to the browser, and apply the new textures through the material properties.

Being directed to a map with an anti camping volume would be helpful, its a good idea. Does DM-TheEnd have one if I remember rightly? When I tested it I only had 199 health so the drowning was actually a danger XD

By default it would be a danger, but now that there's rpg applied, people will not struggle to camp in there. Regeneration ability will cancel the drowning damage. Adren drip to cast booster, leech vamp hp by damaging nonretaliating queens that are sinking, medics could constantly heal, rejuvenating waters, healing weapons will make everyone invulnerable from drowning.

[Dynadin]

I have sent the changed version to Karma as FileFront seems unwilling to accept it tonight.

Changes:
- The three insta spawn adrens have been replaced with two large ones that give 50 adren every 15 seconds (the small ones in the main fighting area have been left)

- The lighting has been changed. Ambient lighting has been reduced to 50 (I had left it on 255) And there is a sunlight per window of the house giving some depth.

- The ramps have been replaced with static meshes (made thanks to Ant's guidance) and the 'toe-stubbers' non-collisioned so you can just walk through them.

- A 15 second anti-camp volume has been placed in the water bottle so you can no longer camp there.

- The addition of the anti-camp volume created an error in the terrain directly below, causing the texture to vanish from certain angles. I was unable to fix it short of removing the anti-camp volume so I just placed some extra straw in that area.

Hope this meets all the requirements.

Dyna

[Dynadin]

Was finally able to upload it to FileFront ... here it is.

http://www.filefront.com/15550929/DM-Rabbit_HutchV3.zip

Dyna

[DW_Ant]

On a tight schedule right now, so I gotta be quick:
Gameplay

• Path nodes are missing in the upper level
• Collision on leaves are bad. You can set the branch's collision to false, and place blocking volumes where the branch part is (not the leaves). To prevent people from shooting through blocking volumes, be sure to set bBlockZeroExtentTraces to true in the blocking volumes' properties.

Visual

• The lighting isn't right yet. I recommend removing all ambient lighting, and placing light bulbs with larger light radii (this will prevent the cage from being lit the same brightness everywhere, and it will prevent the tree branch from appearing bright on one part of the stick but dark on the other.
• You may have noticed a bright strip of light on the outside of the cage (the wooden part). I believe this is caused by a sunlight actor or by ambient glow by a default zone. Either way, you can still fix this by placing a hollow cube around the cage (just touching the outside of the cage but not intersecting). Let me know if you want more details in how to do this.
• Going to be tougher on you this time, you may be aware that this map isn't visually interesting since it's really just a giant box with a few cylinder things inside. This map could definitely could use more polys. Maybe placing vines on the cage, some rocks, and logs. I may be getting this confused with a lizard's cage, but I'm sure there's something you could place in Rabbit cages that simulate the outdoors somehow.
  Another thing to mention is that since the rabbit is gone, this cage could be abandoned for quite some time. Maybe adding some elements of age could spice this up (rust, decay, chipped pieces (like the food bowl or water), plants growing inside....just an idea you could do to find an excuse to place more details. Maybe you could come up with different ideas. Just needs to be more than a dual layered box though.

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[Dynadin]

Well. Upon looking and testing all path nodes on the upper level are present and working (tested it with bog standard invasion and it worked fine) As I told Karma this was just a quick and fun map where people can jump around and get shot at. The little time I have is making a more visually appeasing map so I am afraid this is an 'as-is.' I will make changes that affect gameplay but adding more visuals defeats the object of this map. If it won't get onto the server like this ... nevermind. Hopefully the one I am investing more time into will.

[DW_Ant]

Maybe this map may help you out. Check it out ;)
DM-HampsterDance

[Dynadin]

I fail to see why you have linked this map.

First of all I am not sure I have ever seen a map as poorly made as this, it is, frankly, appalling. The glass allows you to see through the terrain; the cage mesh does not line up; the skybox is just a black box with a moon, not even a skyball has been used; the lifts clip through the tubing; it is riddled with 'toe stubbers' and sizing is misaligned to the size of a player.

Second it has nothing to do with a rabbit hutch.

Third ... you moaned about my lighting?

Fourth, a hampster wouldn't be able to navigate verticle tubing, so therefore inconsistant with its subject matter.

Sorry to have a go but it is rather insulting to refer me to such a poor map.