Baby's First Steps: The Ice Cave

[DannyJAllTheWay]

I liked the first screens that you released on this post the best of all. I would just keep it like that except make it larger. Just my opinion.

[RelFexive]

So how do you do that, RichDiesal? I'm not much cop with shaders yet.

[andychip]

yo dude your map looks sweet so far!!!

 

this is just a crazy suggestion, but you should place luke skywalker upside down on the ceiling like at the begining of ESB

 

that would be cool

[DannyJAllTheWay]

Yeah, if you could, do the Luke hanging upside-down and your other idea of Desann frozen in ice. Those would be sweet.

[RichDiesal]

It's really not too difficult... but more difficult than I can explain in a few secs.

 

Basically, you need to make a second jpg the same size as the JPG you want lit... make the entire jpg black... then make the areas equivalent to the ones that you want lit in the first image white.

 

THEN find a light-emitting shader script in imperial.shader or bespin.shader and copy the script into your own shader file... adding the name of your shader file to your shaderlist.txt.

 

It's really difficult for me to explain because I just screwed around until I figured it all out, but there are several shader tutorials out there that you could use.

[Ten Tigers]

It looks good, but you should have the light sources coming from multicolored icecicles...

 

You are losing the "natural look". Unless of course that's what you wanted...

[Machine_IX]

Lights = very very unpleasant. When I first saw those things I thought they were flashy, temporary, lights (I just slap light entities down) Needed:

 

1. Shader lights

 

Defiantly, no ifs buts or maybes

 

 

2. ICE

 

Not completely necessary and probably a head ache. You'll need to work out how to make translucent shaders, and get a texture that works... Have you got Counter-Strike? Theres a level called DE_Survivor in there with ice that only has a few problems. As I said ice will be a headache, or at least it would for me if I was gonna try it. Ten Tigers mentioned putting lights in ice, could be very VERY sweet.

 

Good Luck

[Hubris]

Looks good, one recommendation I'd make is thus:

 

Your floor looks great and natural, the walls and the ceiling though look like they're patch meshes coming off of a square wall. Which also takes away from the natural look of the floor as well.

 

Try this, this is long, but it will give you a much more naturally looking room, there's examples at the bottom if it gets confusing:

 

(And I'm not talking down to you if you know the hotkey for the clip tool and what not, just pointing it out for completenesses sake. )

 

I'd recommend you do this with all walls and possibly the ceiling if you're not gonna do a patch mesh off of the entirety of it but I'm gonna use the example of just one wall with your patch meshed floor. Take a wall and clone it then put it flush with the true wall (Or you could just make them the wall either or, but it's easier to just do this and shrink in the edges to insure you don't have leaks, you can just caulk the back walls afterwards)

 

Now, extend this cloned wall a good distance into the room. Now, change your x/y view to a side view, and select the wall and the floor patch mesh so you can see how high your patch mesh floor comes on the walls. Now, use your clip tool (x default) and draw a line where the highest point on your patch mesh rises to vertically (Remember you're in side view). Now, clip it, this will remove the lower part of your cloned wall, and insure that your patch mesh which extends to the true wall isn't interfered with. If you kept the edge vertices of your patch mesh all on the same z plane then you can clip right down to it and it'll look much more natural, if not, no biggie.

 

Ok, now you have the cloned wall that is up above your floor patch mesh. Take that and cut it up into as many as you want. Use shift + enter as you clip and you'll split them into multiple brushes, more than a few is overkill, but get as detailed as you want, this looks like a pretty small room so it shouldn't be a big issue.

 

Now, take one of those, and clip them up from different views (control+ tab) scale your clips inward to give a smooth look, if you keep doing that on all edges you'll eventually get something that resembles a somewhat smooth face (not as nice as a patch mesh but isn't as poly intensive either.)

 

From there you can leave those there, or... you can clip them inward rounded and leave a flat plane at the end, and you can extend a patch mesh off of that for flavor.

 

Here take a look at these two examples:

http://www.tribalpharmacy.com//Hubstuff/meshclip1.jpg

http://www.tribalpharmacy.com//Hubstuff/meshclip2.jpg

 

When you clip into that flat area keep your grid high so it's easy to stretch a patch mesh to cover the entirety of it and you'll have a very smooth transition from a semi rounded brush to a gorgeous mesh. (Note I didn't stretch the mesh to the flat area in that example, but it's very easy to do if you keep your grid high. I also made a few other mistakes like some duplicate planes, but you get the idea. )

 

You could also just clip the edges of those off into random points heading out and have some nice rocky crags extending out from the walls.

[Hubris]

I should also mention, when/if you apply that to all four walls, remember you can select multiple brushes when you clip, so it's ok if the crags coming off of the walls overlap initially (it will actually look more natural if they do) because you can just select the ones bordering each other, and then swap to the overhead view, select both, and then clip down the line where you want your centerpoint to be, hit shift + enter and then deselect the brushes you want to keep, then hit backspace. That will leave the brushes appear to be overlapping, while removing the excess that was there. The end result to that would be a great room with natural walls forming together in the center.

 

You could also try thin at the bottom getting wider as you head up if you opt not to extend a mesh off of them.

 

And PS, your map looks great as I said, I wouldn't have typed out all of that above if I didn't think it would help ya along. My first project was a natural looking map too, and it's by far one of the hardest to do, if you wanna keep performance it then becomes even harder.

[RelFexive]

Okay. All good points and helpful thingies.

 

A: The lights are currently being altered to be illuminating shader surfaces instead of light entities. They look a bit rough at the mo but I'm learning.... I may put up some shots when I get the opportunity.

 

B: The 'natural look' is only really intended to extend to the structure of the cave itself. The lights are supposed to have been added by the people who go there to duel.

 

C: Yes, Hubris, the ceiling and walls are patch meshes, as is the floor I'll review your technique later and see if I can get the hang of it. Clip tool? It's just a button I've not used to me, so don't be afraid to instruct me on it's use

 

Thanks all.

[Hubris]

The clip tool is the most useful tool in Radiant in my opinion. Once you get the hang of it you'll be making stuff that takes your breath away, more importantly you'll be doing it in ten minutes instead of hours. Those four brushes I used in my example took me about three minutes to do, if I were to use an edging tool on a 20 faced brush or another technique to elicit that effect, even a patch mesh, it would take for friggin' ever.

 

Try here for a good tutorial on clip basics.

 

http://fps.brainerd.net/clipping.htm

[RelFexive]

It all sounds very complex at the moment, but then I don't have JKradient open infront of me; I'm at work.

 

When I get home I'll give it a go and let you know how I get on.

 

Ditto on the shader lights front.

[RelFexive]

Okay, here's some more:

 

Test Shot 6.01

 

Test Shot 6.02

 

Test Shot 6.03

 

Test Shot 6.04

 

The lights are shaders, and you can see those skiffs I mentioned (complete with sound).

 

I'm currently reworking the 'terrain' of the first room and I'll put more up once I get further with it....

[DannyJAllTheWay]

Your latest shots are a little dark. I can't tell what I'm looking at. The first one was good and the map looked sweet in that shot.

[RelFexive]

Shot #2 is basically the other side of the arch leading out to the cliff Kyle is standing in in #1; there is another light below the one seen on the far wall. In shot #3 Kyle is standing on that other light looking up and right to the upper skiff, which has it's own light. Shot #4 looks down and left at the second skiff.

 

As for shot #1, I'm reworking the 'terrain', as I said, so we'll see how it goes....

[RichDiesal]

I might suggest that if you want to enhance the whole "duelist came in and set up lights" thing that most of your lights be like those you would find at an archeological dig... simply copper colored metal stands with a spotlight on top aiming down at the ground nearby.

 

If you don't know what I'm talking about, there are quite a few in the "dig" levels in Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

[RelFexive]

Hmmm, good idea. I know just the ones you mean.

 

I'm trying to do Hubris' clipping thing at the mo and not getting very far with it....

[RelFexive]

Here's the latest developments....

 

Test Shot 7.01 : UPDATED

 

Test Shot 7.02

 

Test Shot 7.03 : UPDATED

 

Test Shot 7.04 : UPDATED

 

The 'terrain' is a bit rough, I know; I'm thinking of lowering the light level to hide it as best I can

 

I still need to slick the tunnel and add ceiling lights to it, then make small room #2, two more tunnels, a big room and the final temple/shrine room.

 

I think I'm going to toy with Milkshape at some point to see if I can make the Desann-icle a static md3.... We'll see.

 

[[ADDED NEW VERSIONS OF SOME OF ABOVE TEST SHOTS]]

[Klorel]

lookin' good. wondering how you got the slick texture to work? cant wait to duel in your cave.

[Grets Sirob]

You know, this looks like it'll be a good level. I'll add it to my list of good-levels-in-developement(in my thread, Mimban Temple). Keep up the good work!

 

 

 

 

Duba-duba-duba!

[RelFexive]

You know, all this pre-release praise worries me. Can I live up to everyone's expectations?

 

SLICK TEXTURE: Cloned the tunnel, reduced it's size in all dimensions by one point and made it 'slick' instead of 'ice' A bit of fiddling and it works a treat.

 

As you can see from the updated shots above, I've got the first tunnel slicked and lit and the next room down done, though it still needs to be 'terrained'. The two tunnels at the end will go to the last room with the temple/shrine at the far end.

 

How about the lamps? They've got control panels on them and everything; though they don't do anything....

[Grets Sirob]

Lookin good!

 

Yes, you can live up to everyone's expectations, you can do it!

 

 

 

 

Duba-duba-duba!

[RelFexive]

Some more shots:

 

Test Shot 8.01 - Looking up the first tunnel

 

Test Shot 8.02 - The room below the tunnel #1

 

Test Shot 8.03 - The room below the tunnel #2

 

Test Shot 8.04 - One of the two end tunnels

 

The Big Room is next, beyond the two tunnels. Bigger, taller, lumpier, more spiny, with the temple/shrine at the end.

 

Once the basic 'architecture' is done I'll add 'ice rocks', stalagtites/mites and the like.

[Grets Sirob]

Nice! Looks very good.

 

 

 

 

Duba-duba-duba!

[RichDiesal]

Not bad... although I'd advise that any doorframes inside the tunnel be completely inside the tunnel... as in real life, it'd be unlikely that they would hollow out a section of the tunnel to put in a frame... much more likely they would just make a frame flush with the wall.

 

Unless that curve thing on the inside of your tunnel isn't a round doorframe at all? Hard to tell from those shots.