Crap. I got a filesystem corruption so I had to reinstall my computer. I'm currently trying to recover my files, but if that's not going to work, I will have lost about a month of work. I've still got backups from v0.26 I believe, and perhaps I can retrieve a later version I sent to a friend (which means I'll have to decompile it), but yeah...

Basically all that's lost is plankify work, the 3D skybox and the waterfall textures. But it means I can't spend this holiday on mudanchee as effective as I hoped... :S

I've used -bounce 150 to add some more light ray bounces (default is 100) but I couldn't find a parameter that ups the brightness such as ZHLT's tools had. Perhaps some more bounces will be sufficient, otherwise I'll have to up all the lights a bit. :S

Heh, funny, that illusion. I really like the sound the big waterfall makes, makes it feel much more waterfall-esque. I don't feel a breeze though...

Beautiful. And a bit brighter, too? I think, you can't make the place "too" bright yet.

I don't remember if I posted it already but from the first time I walked by this waterfall I could feel a cool, humid breeze. I thought it was my heater not working correctly but then I turned to the left and the right and felt the breeze at the respective side! A 3D, thermal illusion. Quite powerful, atmosphere-wise. :biggrin:

A small update: I've been working on the waterfall cave and besides a few things (some support beams standing in the way, the waterfall needing some blinking material effects and no 3D skybox yet) that cave is done.


Yay! Planks!


The waterfall. When moving it looks ok, but still quite plain materials.

Hmm, I see. I can't remember any negative feedback on that part from the playtests, and I think removing it would make the level too small and leave too few focal area's and route choices out.

Well, I'll see. I got a comment on the Steam forums about the RPG being too accessible so I added a brush in front of it, grav grabbing is impossible now so players have to risk getting spiked to get it. The spike button is now also more obvious.

Anyone interested?

me!

PS: The brighness is something I've been working on for my current map within the last few days. And it's still too dark, I bet :smile: . It can be a real pain. I'll probably upload a tutorial sometime, explaining a method I used to track down too dark parts of my map (that look fine with my standard monitor settings).

[edit:]

Here's the screen.

Basically, the back part, consisting mainly out of corridors, distracts from the three main parts. I think you could get rid of all the area with the red stripes. If you like some details there I'm sure you could place them in some other parts.

The new rock texture looks good. I'll reserve further comments till after I've had a chance to look over it. I would definitely like to participate in a mundachee playtest.

I'm game.
Let us know when.

Yes, mudanchee_v.. is just the working name. The final version will be named dm_mudanchee.

I'm looking forward to those screenshots. The Steam servers seem to be taken down due to a storm in Seattle, were they're located, so I can't map at the moment either. I'll up the brightness once they're up again. :smile:

I'm thinking about organizing a playtest soon. Anyone interested?

One more thing: I found it a bit irritating to have a filename that doesn't start with "dm_". I had to think a while when typing "dm_mudanchee" (well, "dm_mu") and it said it cannot find the file. Just for conformity. :smile:

The water always had this issue when I used it myself. I don't know if we did something wrong or if it's always that way. I'd keep the full reflections for the top part. The performance loss is OK for most cards that can actually render it. And it fits very well.

I think there'll be at least 2 or 3 angry moments for newer players where they accidentally fall off those cliffs or mistaking them with ledges they can actually jump on. This could be avoided. You can leave the death falls but make sure it's always other people or stupidity and not unknowingness that causes players to die.

I'd like to show you a screen regarding the layout idea but Steam decided to not let me play my games today so I'll have to wait.

Don't forget about the brightness, also. Besides finishing touches this is the only thing that seriously hurts the map right now. I could imagine this map to be unbearably dark when played on a brighter day or with bad mointor settings.