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Topic Starter Topic: AEblocks - Modular Mapping

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PostPosted: 12-31-2014 09:03 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Strange how things work out and how timing in life seems to be crucial at times. A few days ago I converted my map AEtime to Reflex. I wanted to see how good a brush-based approximation for patches works, when done manually.

    Attachment:
    radiant164 2014-12-26 11-27-45-39.jpg
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These were the patches I had to approximate. Thanks to the in-GTKradiant 2D view approximation, using a 1u grid it was possible to quickly get relatively good "fake patches" done in brushes. And that made me think how to efficiently work with so many "tiny" brushes... well the obvious path was to put each "block" into a func_group. This will be obvious to most folks here, and it is... to me slightly less so, since I only remembered ever using func_group to avoid "level of detail" popping on a set of patches. But it works wonderfully for such "building blocks" as well. Not quite sure what q3map2 will say to it, but IIRC ungrouping those brush collections would be best, to avoid strange lighting artefacts.

    Attachment:
    radiant164 2014-12-26 15-36-26-90.jpg
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Anyway I ended up with these "modules" for AEtime... interestingly, quite a few less that I thought the map was actually made up of. I loved placing the brush modules where the patches used to be, and even kept the t-junction cut up brushwork with caulk that was initially created to avoid sparklies. BTW, this also avoids brush-brush-related sparklies in Reflex, presently. Well it was fun, and I really wanted to expand on the modular design, alas could think of nothing.

Then Castle posted his Engine Wars Video on YT last night (be sure to check it out). And there he already did what I would love to do for Q3A. He created a set of blocks, pretty much like in Minecraft, as he mentions, but for UT4. I love the "simple" design, that lets you relatively easily create Lego-like building blocks at any level of detail you want to then build a "blocky map".

    Attachment:
    radiant164 2014-12-31 16-49-49-98.jpg
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Looking at Sock's Industrial texture set (here my recoloured base textures) I started to experiment with creating the basic block, size of that module is 64³u³. And a perfect cube would be very boring, so I experimented with a 4u grid diagonal edge cut-off (front blocks), but that to me is too course. So I presently prefer to use a 2u grid diagonal cut-off (3x3 blocks in background). The clever idea Castle introduced is to put patches (rounded surfaces) into the block modules, to create all sorts of standardized geometry on a "64u grid".

Well, anyway, this is exactly my kind of thing. Suitably abstract geometry that lets me create new modules quickly, to then be able to use them all over the place. And more importantly, these modules would for the most part look "good" (hopefully).

Obviously, this would be an awesome test case for instancing. I.e. I start off with some blocks that look OK, then update their design, but only need to change the one central instance, to have the map updated. Alas Q3A does not support that. The closest thing to instancing is, to create the blocks in separate map files, compile them into ASE files, and then import the models into the map. That would be relatively nice, but would limit texturing massively. E.g. I would not use blocks covered with textures on all sides, but would obviously "tactically" caulk to keep overdraw and polygon counts down. Something Castle apparently has problems with under UT4. So my blocks will be in func_groups, letting you texture them as you like on the fly.

Interestingly... since the 64u grid is actually a base path width, 2x normal path, 3x generous path, 3x heigh walls for generously heigh ceilings, and ramps/stairs that tend to be multiples of 64u high in total... a lot could be done. E.g. create a stair module for a previous ramp module.

Initially I was thinking of creating one map out of all this, but it could actually be used by anyone who wants to quickly block out a map to try it out for gameplay, to then replace the blocks with their own detailed designs, but having large-scale layout grid-compliance already in place. Pretty much like the idea of my orange template texture set... only in 3D.

I hope Castle can forgive my application off his idea... though after some more thought, it reminds me that the Portal 2 level editor pretty much did this way back.

Presently imaging Sock's Industrial map in a Lego-like look...

Anyway... this might be a fun thing to try... we'll see how it goes.




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PostPosted: 12-31-2014 02:55 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


It seems I need to learn 3D clipping to create the modules... presently did it the hard 2D way plus vertex editing... and its more difficult than I thought to get those 45° edge cuts into place. Easy on anything co-planar. A 45° rotatable grid might be nice to have just about now. Though I think staying on grid is the biggest issue, already down to 1u grid, in a few cases.

The one curved patch was actually a lot easier than I thought on the other hand. Especially the 45° angled edge that also follows the curve. Pretty nifty what you can do with the patches.

    Attachment:
    radiant164 2014-12-31 23-41-41-28.jpg
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But I love building the blocks... will be adding a slew of patch-based ones soon, after I have all the "block" sizes done. E.g. columns up to 3x64u heigh, and also tiny16³u³ ones too, for "deco".

Next step will be to look into an existing map, e.g. AEdm7 or AEtime, and check if these blocks are enough to "mostly" block out those maps, or if more modules are needed.




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PostPosted: 12-31-2014 04:34 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


So at the end of day one... a small test to see how the blocks look... in GTKradiant... still need to do a real compile and check if that improves the look:

    Attachment:
    radiant164 2015-01-01 01-27-33-64.jpg
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Alas, bit disappointing, hopefully my "module layouting" will improve, to make something more interesting. And the full power of texturing should also help.

The "real" edges on all the blocks at least are a form of "bumpmapping".




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PostPosted: 12-31-2014 04:53 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Building like this can be pretty neat, I worked in several proprietary editors that worked like this, since they used premade models instead of brushes.

However, don't you think there will be tons unnecessary triangles like this? Q3 isn't really made for an excess of triangles =)



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PostPosted: 12-31-2014 05:23 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


The excess of triangles...

Probably... the number of visible triangles in a block in the middle of the wall would be (1+4+4)x2 = 18 triangles, a flat brush face would only be 2. The blocks are all "auto-mittered" where they touch, so that should help slightly, plus most of the faces would be caulked and thus removed from the engine.

So it does waste triangles... then again, the GTKradiant 1.6.4 image shown on launch, shows a map that had 200K tris, IIRC... and it still ran well on my system... soo... don't care about wasting tris. ;)

It's an experiment anyway, to see what can be done. I always wanted to recreate something like Lego in 3D... and this is my chance to try it out finally.




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PostPosted: 01-01-2015 02:17 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Slowly getting there. Looks like a building site presently. Had to rebuild the ramps, started to add the curved paths/walls.

    Attachment:
    radiant164 2015-01-01 23-07-08-22.jpg
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The blocks will all be "detail", and any map created with them will need a manually created caulk hull for vis. And you will want to go in and remove unseen patches, i.e. on some unseen underside. Once you have a layout, you will also need to do a select all and then cover everything in the map with caulk, to then re-texture only the seen faces.

Using rounded corridors might be a fun thing to build with... still thinking of more modules to create. As they are presently, changing the width or height of the modules is fairly easy and quick to do. I would imagine when building you then create more modules as you need them. E.g. some large wall element, avoiding having to use many (64u)³ blocks that needlessly "waste" tris.




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PostPosted: 01-01-2015 03:20 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


It's gonna be interesting to see what sorts of level you will get out of this. Even if you have premade blocks, you still need to think out a good design =)



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PostPosted: 01-01-2015 03:46 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Yeah... especially those curved corridor or wall blocks... should add an interesting, quickly to implement, playfulness.

I always wondered why I did not use more rounded passages... because as soon as you add some detail they are a pain to add, so if you do not add them right from the start, they don't get added later. Might be just my laziness though. Anyway I am still thinking of creating more non-trivial patch blocks that add a fun element, that would otherwise not be added to a map, for fear of extra work. But once I have the blocks painstakingly created (har)... you just drop and forget :-P




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PostPosted: 01-01-2015 09:39 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


AEon wrote:
I hope Castle can forgive my application off his idea... though after some more thought, it reminds me that the Portal 2 level editor pretty much did this way back.


HA! This is awesome! And I too have to say that there really is something neat about this. I like how it changes the design process and I really find it interesting in how it shows that voxels can be seen as unknown cousin of the brush.

I even considered the idea of making some blocks destroyable after taking enough damage XD



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PostPosted: 01-02-2015 01:54 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Glad you are not screaming up the walls... ;)

Your map really really helped me visualize that the block mapping can work and can look cool. I would not have been able to imagine it working. Your map is a proof of concept so to speak. I noted many interesting designs in your map as well, e.g. the way you turned around the cube with the angled off side, to then use it as your bridge, and to have flatter blocks as outdents to make the bridge look more interesting. Strangely the design seems familiar, either it is from your 1st UT4 design, or from somewhere else.

I am only beginning to understand that a ramp is not only a ramp, it can be the underside of a ramp to give is a smooth look, or the ramp can be an angled off corner or part of a "rounded off" platform...

I also "dreamed" a few more blocks... like those curved paths to angle up... so the 90° corridors become 90° stair ramps, spanning probably 128u in height... will need some testing, but thanks to the patches this is actually really easy to implement.

Finally need to get a compile sorted out, to see how all this looks under skybox lighting.




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PostPosted: 01-02-2015 08:21 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


So finally sorted out the .pk3 files for AEblocks and AEindus, with all textures and shaders as they are. Did a full light compile (AEdm7 settings, using Hipshot's Miramar skybox). Sun's orientation in sky is still wrong. And it seems to be a bit dark too.

    Attachment:
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It really looks so much better with proper lighting... Castle's map still looks better, probably due to his nice cream texture, but the lighting definitely is a step up.

    Attachment:
    quake3 2015-01-02 17-04-20-41.jpg
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The test walls and floors look relatively nice now. The skybox light colour is blue'ish, might want to go to yellow'ish instead though. The one block missing in the wall was actually a duplicate brush placement there... seems the compiler then kills such a brush. I seem to recall such issues from way back. Shift+LMB-drag select quickly reveals such duplicity in placed geometry though (old trick).

I am really happy that all the brushwork seems to be "valid".

I am seeing many
Code:
Entity 0, Brush 164: duplicate plane

in the compile, though... hmmm... will need to check what exactly is up with that.

Another few blocks to create, and then I can start to block out a new map...




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PostPosted: 01-02-2015 02:41 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I did not think I'd actually create something completely new, but using the blocks really helps plan out a layout, using 3x blocks as path widths mostly. And I noted that glass actually is a really neat building block too.

    Attachment:
    quake3 2015-01-02 23-08-12-59.jpg
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The map style seems to be a combination of industrial (the crete), neo-gothic and some form of post-modern de-constructivism... started to add the red lines to the edges to highlight features. The JP is still a work in progress... already I have ideas for new blocks, that I "need" in some places.

    Attachment:
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Even from the outside it looks interesting, IMO. Because normally all the outside would be caulked.

Well, with zero optimization, no caulked faces, the whole scene comes in at 21K tris... which is pretty hefty... I created larger blocks to "cover" more area with less brushes, these would at some point be used. Block mitering ;). And the unseen faces can all be caulked. The gaps between the cubes I will plug with a small brush... and with a caulk hull... it should be possible to bring down the tris count to, well hopefully around 5K for this scene... but that is just a guess.

I have no idea if this layout makes much sense, but one thing is for sure, once I know where to go with the paths, tweaking and changing them will not be a huge issue... I love the drag selecting of a wall, delete, and then add a window there. Scale-wise the blocks work really well.

About texturing... hmm... brushwork can be used as decoration, much like in Reflex, because I have all those sub-unit modules, so colouring them would not be much of a issue. I did a bit of the sub-block editing around the central pool. And all the other neat details, like decals, plant models etc. can still be added. Maybe, I could "mono-colour" e.g. the textures for Sock's POM tree, to keep the abstract look.

The layout is about two hours work... so you really do get something done with those blocks.

BTW, recently bought Minimun on Steam... I really love their style... this might be the way this map will go, well in a blocky way.




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PostPosted: 01-03-2015 03:34 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


A lot of my experiences reflect yours so far when it comes to this style of design. The fact that the level is viewable from outside on my UT4 map is amusing to say the least. Though I will say that Unreal 4 has a couple advantages.

For one I have access to triplanar materials which allows me to not have a repeating texture look.

It also allows me to apply vertical material projection so the tops and bottom polygons do not look the same as the sides and I am still free to rotate the blocks however I want.

Unreal 4 is also a bit better at occlusion culling methods when it comes to using lots of smaller objects with small bounding volumes.

I will do a video to talk about some of these things tonight or tomorrow. I will also show off Tesseract which is the latest version of the cube engine.



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PostPosted: 01-03-2015 05:59 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Yeah... noted that your modules look more interesting... though I had the feeling those had to do with "indentations" of the surface geometry. I did think about it... but that might up the poly counts even more.

The other really huge plus of UT4 should be that your modules are mesh instances? I.e. you can plaster everything with them and they will not impact performance that much. Plus you can change your master instance, update it, and the map will automatically look the better for it... whereas I would have to manually place them again.

Took a day off... thinking of what to do with the layout.

One thing is for certain with all the caulking, creation of a caulk hull, and also a player clip/bot clip hull, plus manually removing unseen patches... once the basic layout is done the map will require a lot of extra attention to optimize is somewhat.

Hmm... might be good to explain triplanar materials... manual offsets and texturing would allow some diversity in Q3A... i.e. I was already thinking about adding decals all over the place. Will be interesting to see how they look.

vertical material projection... how that works would also be interesting to see in detail as well. I could not figure out how your cubes are not just plane cubes... I interpreted them as 45° cut angled edges, like I built them... but your modules seems to be different. My 45° angles introduce gaps, and all sorts of other strange things... like "black" lighting on the edges... will need to see what that is all about. Reflex had that sort of lighting "bug" on select steps too...

Might be interesting to see if phong shading helps or not.

I am already thinking of decorating the map with more modules, and plants... but for now the layout must be done.




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PostPosted: 01-03-2015 08:20 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


AEon wrote:
Yeah... noted that your modules look more interesting... though I had the feeling those had to do with "indentations" of the surface geometry. I did think about it... but that might up the poly counts even more.

The other really huge plus of UT4 should be that your modules are mesh instances? I.e. you can plaster everything with them and they will not impact performance that much. Plus you can change your master instance, update it, and the map will automatically look the better for it... whereas I would have to manually place them again.

Took a day off... thinking of what to do with the layout.

One thing is for certain with all the caulking, creation of a caulk hull, and also a player clip/bot clip hull, plus manually removing unseen patches... once the basic layout is done the map will require a lot of extra attention to optimize is somewhat.

Hmm... might be good to explain triplanar materials... manual offsets and texturing would allow some diversity in Q3A... i.e. I was already thinking about adding decals all over the place. Will be interesting to see how they look.

vertical material projection... how that works would also be interesting to see in detail as well. I could not figure out how your cubes are not just plane cubes... I interpreted them as 45° cut angled edges, like I built them... but your modules seems to be different. My 45° angles introduce gaps, and all sorts of other strange things... like "black" lighting on the edges... will need to see what that is all about. Reflex had that sort of lighting "bug" on select steps too...

Might be interesting to see if phong shading helps or not.

I am already thinking of decorating the map with more modules, and plants... but for now the layout must be done.


Its possible that Quake 3 Shaders can support Triplanar. All Triplanar does is equally project itself based on world space on all axis with a blend depending on the angle of the polys.

I would also say that UE4 has a disadvantage when it comes to using static meshes due to the inability to disable poly faces based on visibility. The BSP compile process is great for sorting things like that out. When I am working in UE4 with this style of design I am constantly reminded that every single block I place is literally adding a preset amount of light map data to the scene.



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PostPosted: 01-03-2015 08:44 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Castle wrote:
All Triplanar does is equally project itself based on world space on all axis with a blend depending on the angle of the polys.


Doesn't alphaMod dotproduct do just that?



You can also use decal entities for texture projection:



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Last edited by AEon on 01-04-2015 11:12 AM, edited 1 time in total.Reason: lvlshot'ed the images

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PostPosted: 01-04-2015 10:57 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


That looks pretty damn close even if its not exactly the same. I kind of wish I knew about that sooner.



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PostPosted: 01-04-2015 04:08 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Continued to expand the number of modules. Mostly the angled curved ramps that go up by two blocks... not quite sure about those yet... but going up by 1 block is simply not enough of a height gain.

    Attachment:
    quake3 2015-01-05 00-31-59-43.jpg
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Also started to add 8u high steps, something Hipshot pointed out, and the angled parts to be able to place such steps into corners and around them:

    Attachment:
    quake3 2015-01-05 00-32-08-33.jpg
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Presently using the sub-blocks I already created to make the steps... but this seems a huge waste of brushes. I might use 16u x 8u sub-block steps that "float" instead. And not fill out the space underneath with blocks. Or I might go wild and graft the floating steps into an existing ramp, via clip cut... should bring down the number of polygons.

I noted that due to the angling off of the steps, walking up those is very uneven. So will need to add player clip to them. Question is though should the player clip be a nice simple ramp, or actual steps? Maybe both, steps in player clip and then cover it with a ramp as bot clip.

    Attachment:
    quake3 2015-01-05 00-34-49-68.jpg
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Near the bridge, using ramps, steps and the angled rounded ramps... probably again does not make that much sense... a test to see if it works... I'd say its OK, but not great. Though it does look very SF and surreal...

    Attachment:
    quake3 2015-01-05 00-36-24-63.jpg
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Created another interesting angled block, the one on the lower two columns, that then extrudes on the med "bridge". Some of these blocks really create neat geometry.

    Attachment:
    quake3 2015-01-05 00-39-49-51.jpg
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Another arena shot... I think the map might be made up of three arenas, about this size. Now I only need to find a good way of connecting them. Played around with Sock's Industrial textures a bit... used the reddish texture I created from Sock's crete one on the pool as a test.




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PostPosted: 01-04-2015 09:11 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Try 3 point clipping the corners on them cubes AEon




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PostPosted: 01-05-2015 01:19 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Theftbot wrote:
Try 3 point clipping the corners on them cubes AEon


Yeah, did it yesterday after a lot of fiddling, I think I made the cut I meant to :).




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PostPosted: 01-05-2015 07:04 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


As far as player clip. Since Quake 3 doesnt have IK on the feet then the default answer will be always ramp it when you can.



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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 12:36 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


What would IK be?

Side note: In Reflex you can double-jump on steps but not on "flatter" ramps presently. Though it works on 45° angled brushes mostly.




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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 12:55 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I would not playerclip ramp the stairs, that feels bad when you play regular q3. I might however botclip ramp them, doesn't affect the player so.



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Boink!
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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 02:06 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Spent the afternoon yesterday learning MicroBrush 3... after finding a few problems, I seem to have the gift of "rebinding keys" in exactly the way so things stop working quite as intended. But now RMB goes into Camera Mode, Esc deselects all brushes, Shift-LMB-drag selects brushes... so it almost feels like Radiant ;). And I did rotate the grid by 45° to cut "bevel" along an diagonal edge... the result was not quite there though. I barely was able to get the main axis vectors to point in the directions I wanted, they still seem to have needed some form of "normalizing"... did not know how though.

I then created a "45° wedge" and did a CSG Subtract in Radiant... that, IMO actually got the perfect cut done. Will anyone see the difference?... I'd say almost certainly not... but I really wanted to get it done as good as I could, at least once. Even though I did try to calculate the exact bevel, that pretty much fell flat, but with some manual tweaking the bevel on the diagonal did "look like" the bevel on the orthogonal edge, so I did get there in a way.

Shrinker, author of Mircobrush 3 is looking into creating a bevel tool... that could really be neat. Especially because import of a Q3A .map file (i.e. a brush) and the export of them works in MB3. So I'd use MB3 as a external "modelling tool", well a brush manipulator actually, for Radiant.

Castle,
recently looked up gmax on Wikipedia and other 3D modelling tools and it really seems, other than 3ds Max (costly) only Blender (free) is worth learning. It might be cool if you could do a segment on creating a few "simple" meshes, e.g. bevelled brushes that then get exported to Q3A... ideally (not sure this works that way) as .map geometry, not as models. To show us modelling challenged how using a modelling tools might help create things that are not easily creating in Radiant itself. Just a thought, since I saw you "play around" with Blender.

Made me smile to see Episode 125, Unreal Tournament Part 15... just when I thought I had caught up, you hammered out really nicely detailed stairs and all sorts of other interesting modules... trailblazing the path of inspiration :toothy: And I had totally forgotten I wanted to create a few "tube" modules as well... they really look nice where you added them to your walls. BTW, you are adding very flat shiny metal plates on walls and those hexagonal ones on the floors, do these have clipping? If they do you'd tend to get snagged on walls and "bumped up" ever so slightly on the floors. Hmm...




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Cool #9
Cool #9
Joined: 01 Dec 2000
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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 02:24 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


AEon wrote:
What would IK be?


Inverse Kinematics




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Cool #9
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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 02:46 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Short anecdote (of yesterday actually):

I'm in the process of learning game development in Unity for myself. I'm currently building a simple 2D platformer game which I intent to release for mobile platforms (Android and maybe iOS and Windows Phone).

I'm kind of up to the point where I've got a relatively firm idea of how the game is going to play and what various interactive gameplay elements there will be. So I'm carefully making my first steps into designing a first test level for it. I started off drawing a bunch of shapes with some detail to form a level which would kind of give an impression of how I wanted the thing to look. I want the game to take place on an alien planet so I drew pieces of ground in purple shades and tried fitting everything together in the Unity editor. While technically it worked, it was an awful lot of work putting even that basic level of detail in and pretty much meant that everything I had built could not easily be changed anymore.

Then I saw this thread again and thought to myself: what in hecks name am I doing? Have I ever built a Q3 level this way? Did I ever start putting in all the detail before having a good grasp of the shape of the level? Nope, it just doesn't work that way. So I though, I need to make a rought in-game sketch of the map first, something I can quickly slap together and easily modify without losing hours of work.

This thread inspired me further, because I came up with the solution of pretty much how I worked in Q3 as well: build a rough outline of the map using brushes, or modules if you want. So I drew this set of orange tiles (after this thread, it had to be orange ;) ) in various sizes and used that to start building my level.

So in the screenshot below, at the bottom you see the current set of shapes. This will probably expand further but so far it's been sufficient to play around with. In the center view you see the level in the editor. I drag these shapes into the view and position and align them properly. It allows me to build a level really quickly and run around through it to see how it plays. Once the design for the level is set in stone, I can then start drawing detailed images to use instead of these orange blocks and the final look and feel of the level can come to life.

In the end, it's nothing special to work this way I guess, but for some reason it was kind of an epiphany to me when I thought of doing it this way, and this thread sorta helped me get there :)

Attachment:
Untitled.jpg
Untitled.jpg [ 183.6 KB | Viewed 577 times ]




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Will map for food.
Will map for food.
Joined: 29 Dec 2000
Posts: 1747
PostPosted: 01-06-2015 03:54 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Hipshot wrote:
I would not playerclip ramp the stairs, that feels bad when you play regular q3. I might however botclip ramp them, doesn't affect the player so.


Actually this is true and I stand corrected. Quake 3 and especially Quake 3 CPMA treat steps and ramps very differently game play wise. My knowledge on this is actually kind of rusty but this does seem to be the case for Reflex as well.

Bot clip might not work the way you are describing though as my experience in the past is that bot clip doesn't actually act like a clip brush for bots. All it does is create voids of space that the bot does not have to think about and thus will avoid traveling.

edit: Its also worth noting that Ik on the feet should never calculate from clip brushes anyway. Its a common mistake in some 3d engines however that they do it this way. The ideal way for IK to work is to ignore clipping and have the feet rest on the visible geometry.



_________________
- Russell Meakim AKA The Castle
Portfolio: http://castledoes.carbonmade.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/zZCastleZz
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Last edited by Castle on 01-06-2015 04:33 AM, edited 1 time in total.

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Will map for food.
Will map for food.
Joined: 29 Dec 2000
Posts: 1747
PostPosted: 01-06-2015 04:13 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


AEon wrote:
Castle,
recently looked up gmax on Wikipedia and other 3D modelling tools and it really seems, other than 3ds Max (costly) only Blender (free) is worth learning. It might be cool if you could do a segment on creating a few "simple" meshes, e.g. bevelled brushes that then get exported to Q3A... ideally (not sure this works that way) as .map geometry, not as models. To show us modelling challenged how using a modelling tools might help create things that are not easily creating in Radiant itself. Just a thought, since I saw you "play around" with Blender.

Made me smile to see Episode 125, Unreal Tournament Part 15... just when I thought I had caught up, you hammered out really nicely detailed stairs and all sorts of other interesting modules... trailblazing the path of inspiration :toothy: And I had totally forgotten I wanted to create a few "tube" modules as well... they really look nice where you added them to your walls. BTW, you are adding very flat shiny metal plates on walls and those hexagonal ones on the floors, do these have clipping? If they do you'd tend to get snagged on walls and "bumped up" ever so slightly on the floors. Hmm...


Hmm I am not familiar with that pipeline at the moment. Its been years since I have considered important an ASE with UVs into quake 3. I am familiar mostly with 3ds max right now and, while I have Blender installed I have not really worked with it very much. The fundamentals of modeling are always the same no matter what tool you use but from my initial experiences with Blender it feels like the people who designed it decided to make a beast of its own while cooking up a few wheels they wanted to reinvent.

In other words its an atrocity of standards. Alas I am just being a baby lol... But why must engineers do these kinds of things!!? *HOLDS FIST IN AIR*

With that said, I can definitely do a short video that just shows the process of creating a module in 3DS Max making it work in UT4.

I'm glad to see inspiration! Those flat shiny metal things have collision on them right now but from my experience when working with UE3 is a common practice is to make the base model as multipurpose as possible then afterwords during optimization and clean up to manually turn off collision and tweak each individual object depending on what is best for each situation. Its a good thing you mentioned this as I think that should actually be a point in a future episode where I go into more detail. Its kind of a topic by itself.

Eraser wrote:
Short anecdote (of yesterday actually):

I'm in the process of learning game development in Unity for myself. I'm currently building a simple 2D platformer game which I intent to release for mobile platforms (Android and maybe iOS and Windows Phone).

I'm kind of up to the point where I've got a relatively firm idea of how the game is going to play and what various interactive gameplay elements there will be. So I'm carefully making my first steps into designing a first test level for it. I started off drawing a bunch of shapes with some detail to form a level which would kind of give an impression of how I wanted the thing to look. I want the game to take place on an alien planet so I drew pieces of ground in purple shades and tried fitting everything together in the Unity editor. While technically it worked, it was an awful lot of work putting even that basic level of detail in and pretty much meant that everything I had built could not easily be changed anymore.

Then I saw this thread again and thought to myself: what in hecks name am I doing? Have I ever built a Q3 level this way? Did I ever start putting in all the detail before having a good grasp of the shape of the level? Nope, it just doesn't work that way. So I though, I need to make a rought in-game sketch of the map first, something I can quickly slap together and easily modify without losing hours of work.

This thread inspired me further, because I came up with the solution of pretty much how I worked in Q3 as well: build a rough outline of the map using brushes, or modules if you want. So I drew this set of orange tiles (after this thread, it had to be orange ;) ) in various sizes and used that to start building my level.

So in the screenshot below, at the bottom you see the current set of shapes. This will probably expand further but so far it's been sufficient to play around with. In the center view you see the level in the editor. I drag these shapes into the view and position and align them properly. It allows me to build a level really quickly and run around through it to see how it plays. Once the design for the level is set in stone, I can then start drawing detailed images to use instead of these orange blocks and the final look and feel of the level can come to life.

In the end, it's nothing special to work this way I guess, but for some reason it was kind of an epiphany to me when I thought of doing it this way, and this thread sorta helped me get there :)

Attachment:
Untitled.jpg


I love block meshing things out first. Though I have run into something while working in the indie game development scene. Block meshes are super awesome in house for development on larger games where everyone there has a keen eye for how it will all work in the end.

However, this mindset is more dangerous while working on smaller solo projects as a block mesh will never generate excitement from external sources. I kid you not, a piece of concept art will likely generate more buzz the actual functional game play footage of placeholder art lol.

This ends up being a situation that I have experienced while managing some degree of self promotion on the mapping scene. Right now on my YouTube channel one of the levels that has generated the most buzz was a map called Chamber. Even though the level was built before UT4 was even playable. The reason the level was popular was because I began building the art along side of the game play. In my later UT4 levels the only variation of my level called TheBalist I did the same thing but later decided to exclude the meshes so I can focus on game play. The game play improved greatly but once I took the meshes out interested in the level took a dive.

The indie development scene is a different beast indeed!

With that said I have been experimenting with a different method that is a hybrid of both ideas to see how that works. So far Minecraft blocks dont actually seem like a bad idea if you can ignore the technical skeletons in the closet.



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This is not Æon!
This is not Æon!
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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 05:37 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I admit this is very off topic now, still =)

We talked a little about this in the screenshot thread, but it's really not a thing restricted to indie development or any other development, but people in general will be much more interested in seeing something that looks good and not "just" the layout. They will probably not care or comment on something they don't "like".

When you work on your own things from home, whether it's a level or a smaller indie project, 99% of the people that will see your things are people using the internet and showing just a layout will attract only those that care to elaborate and help you out, if you show the layout in 3d, more people might care to comment and if you show it with full graphics, everyone will comment (if it looks good enough).

It's actually kinda similar when you develop something at a larger developer, the difference is that 100% of those that will see your work are gonna be inhouse. But then instead, the external factor is outside of the level design or design pod. I worked with a lot of people that just doesn't care about things that don't look good - and to be honest, why should they, they will never play the game. I think, to this date, the only games I've played outside work that I worked on was Ghost Recon AW (PC) and Payday (PC).



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Cool #9
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Joined: 01 Dec 2000
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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 06:02 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Right now I'm not yet looking for external input at all. Still very much in the early stages of everything. Also, I don't think I'll be blocking out all levels of the entire game before moving on. I'll probably block out a single level and then start filling in the details for that level up to some point before moving on to the next level.

I'm planning on designing a number of worlds each with their own visual theme and have a number of levels within each world. So one task to tackle is to establish that visual theme for each world. I think I really need to create at least one level for each world up to a nearly finished state before I can design all the other levels for that world.

Last but not least, I'm basically building this game for fun and as a learning project as well. There's no monetization involved. There's no real need for creating buzz amongst a community or something. Sure, it'd be nice if eventually 100s of thousands of people would download and play it, but even if only 3 people did so, I'd still be happy if I just got the game finished :)




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Boink!
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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 07:20 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Castle, has inspired two tiers of mappers... :)

While Castle is upgrading his map with more detail, I will probably stay with the blocky look as a style though.

Castle,
the block building process in Max would be fine too. To understand what to look out for etc.

BTW... in Blender when you hit numerical keypad 0 (zero) you activate the camera and you can more easily preview the scene you are trying to render. And e.g. Shift-C gets you out of the camera view...




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Theftbot
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PostPosted: 01-06-2015 11:23 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote





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PostPosted: 01-07-2015 02:53 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Good news... Shrinker created a plugin for Mircobrush 3 to allow bevelling. I started to update my "clip tool modules"... and they definitely look better. You only need to figure out the size of the grid in MB3 in relation to Radiant (it is 1 to 1, but since there is no size measurement yet, creating the "raw" brush in Radiant is easier)... and a bit of trial an error. Import and Export of .map brushes in both directions works without any problems. Will add some screenshots soon.

What I did was to create the proper base brush you would like for a 64³ cube bevelled result, create a 62³u cube in Radiant, save selection, import Q3 .map in MB3, then select the brush, point the mouse at the face to bevel, hit "space" (in this case), do that for all faces by pointing at them, save Q3 .map, and then use Radiant's import to see it in your map. A CSG Merge can be done in Radiant, or in most cases directly in MB3 (ctrl+e there).

My cut off corner of a cube ramp, ended up not being on the 1u grid completely... a 0.5u grid maybe... still need to check on that... and what q3map2 has to say to such brushes also needs testing. Bobtoolz/Brush Cleanup did not have any issues though.

The way of bevelling in MB3 is different from Blender's method. Only the current face is used, and an angled off brush is then placed on that face. So you will need to make your "raw" brushes slightly smaller to achieve a then bevelled brush that fits e.g. 64³u³. The latter part is a bit tricky for angled "raw" brushes. But after import of the bevelled 1st version into Radiant, check how many u you are missing usually only 1u or 2u... enlarge the "raw" brush, and try again in MB3.

Anyway... pretty neat to have such a plugin relatively easily available.




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PostPosted: 01-09-2015 04:41 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Expanded the map somewhat... still is pretty small... but hit a BSP compile limit:
Code:
--- FixTJunctions ---
************ ERROR ************
MAX_ORIGINAL_EDGES

Give it to me straight... this is pretty bad, right?

Oh, boy. Hitting 3040 total brushes should not be the issue, more like that all brushes have "angled edges"...

    Attachment:
    Radiant 2015-01-10 01'34'56.png
    Radiant 2015-01-10 01'34'56.png [ 1.82 MB | Viewed 538 times ]

Well this is how it looks in Radiant... of course I could create large wall brushes based on the 64u cubes... that could turn a wall of 5x12 blocks into one block or three or four... to make them slightly more interesting. But I really had hoped not having to do this so early in the game.

Now would it not be ironic if turning the modules into ASE models would solve the problem?




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This is not Æon!
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PostPosted: 01-09-2015 05:05 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Well, it's pretty simple, you have too many brush edges. Convert some of the geometry to models and you're cool.



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