Deep Sea Research - MP

(Zombie13) #21


Basicly complete, prolly come back to this area for touchups if I find them :slight_smile:

Z

(heXum) #22

That room looks pretty sexy

(Zombie13) #23


Still working on the top one

Z

(JMW) #24

just a quick question concerning the monsters.

Do they show up in multiplayer? And if so, then are they just standard monsters or some type of MP monster that wont try to attack?

-JMW
www.jmwrightdesigns.com

(Davros) #25

if you really need to add monsters then use a non animated one, it would be a waste otherwise when it adds nothing to the gameplay. However, the incubation room is looking cool. in the later two pictures; where are the blue lights coming from? the majority of light fixtures are yellow. otherwise nice work Zombie :slight_smile: edit ok the celing lights seem to be blue but arent very noticible from the shots :smiley:

(Zombie13) #26

Thanks Torchy :slight_smile:

Yeah I am thinking about using non-animated ones except for the hell knight only cause his idle animations do look really cool, Iā€™ve changed the lighting somewhat since those shots, Iā€™ll update it when it goes beta which is a few days now :slight_smile:

And yes monsters do show up in MP.

Z

(wviperw) #27

Looking pretty good overall. My only beef is that the lighting is looking sort of tacky in those last few shots, as a result of you trying to jam in 3-4 color schemes in one area. Try to watch out for all the abrupt changes in color of lighting, as well as keeping consistency in lighting theme.

(Zombie13) #28

Thanks for the advice, Iā€™ve done that, made more of a subtle blend between then colours so iā€™ts not AS drastic anymore :slight_smile:

Z

(Zombie13) #29

http://zombie.bhdnet.com/mapfiles/doom3/z13d3dm2_beta_1.rar ok here she is, be gentle though, sheā€™s only beta and sorry for the large map file at 7.6mb for modem people.

Enjoy :slight_smile:

Z

(Wils) #30

Few bits of feedback:

Consider clipping the stairs, where they arenā€™t too steep. Clipped stairs can be annoying in some circumstances because itā€™ll bounce you up quite high and you lose forward momentum (Doom 3 suffers from this more than, say, QW) but in the majority of cases it smooths movement out enormously - try bouncing up a set of stairs that havenā€™t been clpped properly and compare it to a set that has. Youā€™ll get caught on the stair edges all the time on the unclipped set (again, this is more of a problem with Doom 3 than other id games - Quake 3 is really forgiving of stair edge collisions, for example).

Some of the doorways and corridors have quite low ceilings - itā€™s easy to get caught on them as you go bouncing round.

The glass flooring in some of the atriums looks cool, but it needs clipping for the same reason as the stairs - you can catch on the edges and come to a grinding halt.

Try not to rely on doors too much - they can be somewhat helpful for performance if you expect them to be shut most of the time, but theyā€™re no fix for lazy portal arrangement. They also have a tendency to split up the map into distinct areas, and if you have too many youā€™ll lose all pace from a map because players are always stopping to move carefully from one area into another. Used sparingly they add a lot of tension, which can be good.

Make doorways and entrances obvious to players by using lights to highlight them, or other obvious markers such as floor texturing or decals. Some of the door models youā€™ve used look particularly wall-like, and are hard to make out until youā€™re right on top of them and they open.

There are a couple of places where you can improve the portalling. I was able to position myself along certain paths such that I could see three or four portals behind each other, all open - that usually means you have a leak into that area that isnā€™t covered by a portal, or the portals all overlap with each other and the game considers them all visible from most positions. Try to spread them out and move them around in the world so they overlap less.

Thereā€™s some incidental detail around the edges of rooms and around floor panelling that sticks out and obstructs player movement - it looks cool, but itā€™s overkill for a multiplayer map. If thereā€™s no gameplay reason for something to be there, and itā€™s in the way, you should probably nuke it if you canā€™t smoothly clip around it without it being too obvious.

Same thing with the platforms as with the doors - pick them out with lighting or other markings so players can see where they are.

Your stairs look a little big - are they 16 units each? Doom 3 uses 8 unit high stairs for the most part. There are also a couple of runs which have no supports, but I guess youā€™ve just not gotten around to those yet :slight_smile:

Overall, the underwater theme hangs together well. It would be nice if it was a more obvious feature - make the windows a little more transparent so the detail behind them isnā€™t lost, and try using some grime decals on any ā€˜exteriorā€™ geometry to represent mould/lichen growth, etc.

The vertical element is cool - all the walkways should lead to some nice combat. When you work on weapon and item placement, see what ways you can induce players to move up and down the levels to get to the items they want. Putting all the health on the most exposed lower layer is an obvious trick (and overused as a result - Iā€™m a little fed up of running round corners and seeing health orbs stacked against the wall, inviting you to go over there and get a rocket up the arse from the guy on the ledge above you :)).

(Zombie13) #31

heheheh excellent, great feedback, thanks heaps wils for the time :smiley:

I did upload another beta fixing various things like the steps, I am thinking I might replace the steps in the beserk room and Iā€™ll work on these portals some more.

Cheers
Z

(Zombie13) #32

thought itā€™d be a good idea to link the new beta http://zombie.bhdnet.com/mapfiles/doom3/z13d3dm2-beta2.zip no fixes from Wils advice yet, but runs along the steps have been added a minor details and flaws fixed.

Z

(swelt) #33

What Wils said.

Also,

[ul][li] Iā€™d raise your entities 16 units above the floor.
[/li][li] I found the framerate quite poor in a number of locations, obviously a key factor in MP.
[/li][li] I couldnā€™t find a way into the little red room on the top level - I would have liked to have found a secret button to open that door with a powerup inside.
[/li][li] A number of your GUIs are interactive, but donā€™t appear to do anything. Can they be told not to be interactive, or a different GUI used. Not a big issue.[/ul]
[/li]
Overall, a very nice looking map that might make for some fun FFA, but perhaps needs to focus more on gameplay and performance factors?

(Zombie13) #34

Taken care of.

[li] I found the framerate quite poor in a number of locations, obviously a key factor in MP.[/li]

Hrmm yeah, I tried to make it so I got atleast 20fps on the ultra setting, which it drops to 18 which isnā€™t to bad on a FX5600, I will take another look at the lighting, which is better then it used to be, and the vis is a bit better now.

[li] I couldnā€™t find a way into the little red room on the top level - I would have liked to have found a secret button to open that door with a powerup inside.
[/li]

That holds a dead cherub insideā€¦ didnā€™t really have any plans to use it for a secret item or anythingā€¦ but I will see what happens.

[li] A number of your GUIs are interactive, but donā€™t appear to do anything. Can they be told not to be interactive, or a different GUI used. Not a big issue.[/ul]
[/li]

One GUI does something, but I guess you never had your speakers on to hear it :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

Z

(Zombie13) #35

ok new beta http://zombie.bhdnet.com/mapfiles/doom3/z13d3dm2-beta3.zip with fixes.

Z

(Zombie13) #36

Not sure if any has tested the 3rd beta, if you have can you please let me know, so I can release the final version this week thanks :smiley:

Z

(swelt) #37

I did. Changes seemed good, though I still have performance issues (especially on the top level and in the RL atrium) and not all the stairs seemed to have been clipped.

(Wils) #38

I had a quick run round yesterday - I think you need to work on the layout a bit and remove some of the doorways which connect two big rooms directly - when those doors are open you end up drawing both rooms, which ends up being over 100k tris at times (with no players). Performance across the rest of the map is better, but still about 10k higher than I would feel comfortable with.

Regarding the layout, you have some dead space which it isnā€™t worth the player getting too - Iā€™d lose these areas, along with any non-significant corridors (ie ones which only contain a small ammo pickup or similar, rather than a weapon/armour/powerup). You may need to rejig the arrangement of the rooms to accomodate this.

If youā€™re planning to release a version this week, it doesnā€™t leave much time for item placement and tweaking. GL :slight_smile:

(Zombie13) #39

yeah I think I might just bump it back into next week or when ever itā€™s done, itā€™s just really hard to make a MP map when 1) no one to play it with, and 2) a crappy net connection to even attempt to play with someone.

Z

(Zombie13) #40

Okay I changed some areas quite a bit and where I was getting about 20fps I get 30 almost hitting 40 and thats on high detail just figuring out a nice way to connect the main pit area with the other large atrium.

Z