a message to eveyone making sp levels

[patchx]

...if ur map runs at 3fps dont release it

 

i downloaded 3 sp missions today and they all ran like crap

two of them were just boxy simple levels but the author had not used area portals, hint brushes or delayed spawning npc's with trigger brushes

 

so the game was drawing every npc and brush and everything in the entire level constantly from the very beginning

 

the biggest shame was the imperial station mission which looked (in the twenty seconds i took to look at it) like a really cool map with some effort and thought put into it but it ran at 3fps from the very second i burst out of the box at the beggining due to no area portals or hint brushes, which was really disapointing

 

then i got the temple of count dooku mission which is really simple boxy level that would have run alright without area portals except for the fact that there was roughly nine hundred and sixty five million reborn all getting drawn at the same time from the very beggining of the level

 

someone needs to make a sticky explaining the

"r_showtris 1 "

command and how to make your level run properly for sp level makers

 

i would except im not the most expert in these matters plus im crap at explaining things

 

-patch

[RichDiesal]

I agree... the framerates on some of the SP levels getting released are just awful.

 

Areaportals! VITAL TO GOOD LEVELS! VITAL!!!

[Drakewl]

jep also noticed this, i don't want to attack all of the community mappers, but many (!!! NOT ALL!!!) of the released maps are of such a low quality, you've to ask yourself what the hell drove the mapmakers to release this stuff

 

sites like jedioutcastmaps.com or jediknightii.net should have features like user comments and some quality controll, cuz the rating system is easily being tricked by people

 

there are sometimes so many maps released that you can't play/test them all at once and there is a big chance that you mis an awesome map in the overall mass

 

the most popular lists are efficient but even there you can't properly say that the most popular map is the best one

 

i guess, putting thousands of good tutorials (greets to Rich ) on jko-sites won't help to avoid that low quality maps are being released into the community, i think only time will split the good from the bad, since this has happened in every older editing community

[Eagle_e7]

I agree also:)

 

In my opinion a healthy framerate adds greatly to the atmosphere of the level, after all you dont walk down the street each day and find your body jerking along when you walk into a crowded area:D

It adds to the realism.

And it just makes your level seem... better

[D.L.]

That Temple of Count Dooku ran fine for me. No slowdown at all.

 

The Infinite, Lobby and some other levels were crappy though. Frame wise and level design wise.

[patchx]

all badly performance designed levels will run alright on some computers but the point is trying to get it as low end friendly as possible

 

all the count dooku level needed was trigger brushes spawning the reborn in each room where the doors (which wouldve taken twenty minutes max) were and it woulda been fine

 

people with top end machines who are making levels should use the r_showtris 1 command to see what the engine is drawing so they can best determine what the fps would be on a lower end computer or otherwise write in there readme;

"for top end machines only"

 

im not knocking the architectural design or style of these peoples levels but things like area portals and hint brushes are integral to making a level playable at all

 

if u go through the raven levels with r_showtris on youll see that the most that get drawn in any level is the immediately visible area the player is in, thats what should be aimed at

 

-patch

[fabrikashon]

Understand that the game is a 'fanboy' game. Meaning it drew a lot of new people to the FPS scene and a lot of ambitious designers wanting to build their favourite scene from the movie, into the game. The number of mappers who know what they are doing compared to the number who don't, isn't something I'd like to know the actual result of. If you are expecting a well done SP Level in terms of gameplay and actual building process then you are fooling yourself by thinking some would be out now. Decent sized/scripted/built SP levels take a lot of time, a lot more than any dual map/ffa map/ctf map so have some patients.

 

The amount of people drawn by the movie into this game is probably the games biggest downfall, as like I said - we get ambitious people and from there we will start seeing a lot of duplication as all people seem to want are movie maps. Some will be good, some will be **** - But I think the majority of decent maps (padpack/station as example) that come out will be those that are built simply off the authors originality and not something already prefabricated. They are the ones that go unnoticed & unappreciated.

 

In the process of people learning the mapping program, they make maps that they enjoy and release it - if you don't, so be it; but its not worth complaining over it. They release it because they think others will enjoy it, they know no better as they haven't been through how things work, they've just experimented. So give them a break, produce a more keen eye for when you're looking at your screenshots, and just don't download them. I don't think we'll start seeing Quality over running Poor Quality for a LONG time.

 

The resources are out there for people to learn about hinting, proper map building etc.. they just need to open their eyes. Hinting is a very complex thing and with maps like the ones you mentioned, it's likely the authors won't understand how they work effectively in the first place. It all takes time & practice.

[patchx]

im not hassling these guys for making bad maps im just posting a thread that i hope some future sp map makers will read and know then to put area portals and triggered spawns into their maps

 

the map that really made me post this was the imperial station map because its obvious that the author put some effort into it and wanted to make it good, all it needed was twenty minutes worth of area portalling and it woulda been more than good

 

basically i was just thinking that vital performance enhancing technniques like area portals werent widely known of (based on the maps ive been downloading) and was trying to get them some attention

[fabrikashon]

Ah I gotcha now

[Catscratch]

Would someone try my pit2 map and criticize it ?

 

I'll make a little scenario with some maps if you guys like the idea.

 

http://www.geocities.com/fayebo80/pit2.zip

[Darth Knight]

i got that temple of dokku misson and it had a lot of mistakes like z-fighting thingys and the sparkiles and stuff

[Karshaddii]

Yup.

 

I Downloaded all the new SP lvls today--and it was a shame that so much work was for not due to not using portals, hinting, and CAULKING. Imperial_Station looked like a lot of effort was put into it. And I hope that the author will release a new version that uses portals and hinting.

[Anakin]

Indeed I have to agree- I think people are either being to adventurous or they just havent caulked enough of the kevek to decrease the frame rate. Or you guys have god bad graphics cards

 

Anakin

[Drakewl]

we need something like a good map reviewsite (i don't think the flood of user made maps will decrease the next months, jko is still in the tops) hosted by "community professionals" who know alot about mapping, own writing skills and have the time to do it

 

 

i think people would read the reviews and learn out of it more than out of tutorials.

Many tutorials are written by techies like most of us and their language isnt understood by people with below average mapping knowledge. Not to forget that a bunch of ambitious designers dont have the time or patience, they want to map now and not later.

At the moment we have forums for map criticism, user opinions and small reviews but most jko forums are only read by a minor part of the whole jko-player community.

 

so the best solution for better future maps could be a mix of "education" and "entertainment" = eduatainment (interesting and somewhat entertaining reviews with learning potential)

[RichDiesal]

Many tutorials are written by techies

I resent that. My tuts were written as dumbed down as they can get. If you can't understand them (not necessarily in terms of getting "the finer points" to work but in purely "I don't understand the words" terms), then you have more problems than just not being mapping-savvy.

[jipe]

My tuts were written as dumbed down as they can get. If you can't understand them (not necessarily in terms of getting "the finer points" to work but in purely "I don't understand the words" terms), then you have more problems than just not being mapping-savvy.

 

One of the first things I noticed about your tutorials was that they were clear and concise, and written so that everyone could understand. This is something that I've also been striving for in my cog warehouse tutorials, especially since scripting can get a bit complicated at times. I suppose in a little while we'll see how well I did..

[RichDiesal]

One of the first things I noticed about your tutorials was that they were clear and concise

Eh, I made a 5 on the English Lit AP before I graduated high school, and that was years ago. Go figure.