(moved unrealed thread)

Okay, the post-searching thingummy has been disabled for this forum, so just post away until some tutorials turn up :smile:

Weeee!!

I hate Unreal editing though, especially these days. Just seems like throwing static-mesh crap everywhere you can, with very minimal CSG involved. Very prefab-y in my eyes. Level design is rapidly reaching the level of an art form, at it's apex currently with the Quake 3 community, and things are being done that I don't think are possible in Unreal or UnrealED. Anyway, my point is that the mapping process seems rather cold and mechanical, devoid of craftsmanship and energy in Unreal.

Where's the heart, where's the soul?

UT2k3 editing is the art of finding a static mesh bitch, then throwing his work together in a vaguely coherent pattern. No better than prefabs.

Hang on I though this was a Half life editing site?

You're mistaken, UnrealEd is simply trying to bridge the gap between editor and modeling program. Soon, in-house editors will be completely gone and dev houses will use Maya or Max Plugins or some equivalent to develop maps and release to the game community.

While I do like Radiant's Curve system, many games are going the way Unreal already has, and other games have gone there before Unreal(Dungeon Siege to name one).

We've gone from hand coding levels (which is a pain), to small editors, to more complex editors, and now we're heading towards using modeling programs for it. And there's s**t you can do with that that only in-house editors could really even dream of.

This is unacceptable, I will have no more s**tting on prefabs. It's not their fault newbie mappers gave them a bad name :razz:

ive had a hard time staying interested in UnreadEd, simply because of my background, as it totally defies logic of positive structure....ya dont build a house by carving it out of a tree, literally....its a cumbersome program, imho....and not real intuitive..../my 2 cents

Doc B... :dodgy:

Campaignjunkie said:
Just seems like throwing static-mesh crap everywhere you can, with very minimal CSG involved. Very prefab-y in my eyes.

This is how HL2 will probably be, too, though :/

I was mostly being sarcastic, Lep, about adding an UnrealEd forum. But strangely, having it here makes me more motivated to get some more work done in UnrealEd since I'll be able to share it with you guys (crappy though it will be at first).

Edge Damodred said:
While I do like Radiant's Curve system, many games are going the way Unreal already has, and other games have gone there before Unreal(Dungeon Siege to name one).

We've gone from hand coding levels (which is a pain), to small editors, to more complex editors, and now we're heading towards using modeling programs for it. And there's s**t you can do with that that only in-house editors could really even dream of.

Dungeon Siege is a top-down RPG game. Of course it's better suited to that kind of structure. The only "s**t I can only dream of" I've seen in the Unreal levels that are "bridging the gap" are just lifeless rooms filled with static meshes. There's more to level design than cramming things with detail and polygons. I don't think there's a single Unreal level out there that comes close to the beauty in some of the GeoComp Quake 3 maps. They don't need all that unneccesary 3d-modeled static mesh prefab stuff. It's level design in it's purest form, and it looks a hell of a lot better than the messes I've seen in Unreal.

Sorry if you take offense, Yak_Fighter. But that's just the simplest analogy one can make to static meshes. To me it's the static meshes giving prefabs a bad name.

Jinx: Yeah, for little details. The foundation (and much of the map still, if you look at the HL2 screenshots) is still very much brush-based. Detail is still possible with brushes, and large architectural detail is still best suited for brushes. But Unreal... Can't see anything in there. :smile:

EDIT: Hmm? What happened to the UnrealED Forum? I sincerely hope this argument wasn't the reason for it's deletion or something.

no clue, it disappeared. but whatever works, I can still show some of my UT2k3 work in the General forums if people don't mind.

I agree, it's difficult doing brush-based detail in UnrealEd, although tbh I'm still learning so I may be missing a lot. The advantage with models, as I understand it, is that they are simply more efficient to use performance-wise than brushwork. And you can do certain kinds of detail with them that you can't with brushwork. I think the 'art' with UnrealEd is probably being able to marry the two smoothly- and that would probably take knowing modeling, and a good bit of planning as well.

now i don't know what to think.

Campaignjunkie said:
EDIT: Hmm? What happened to the UnrealED Forum? I sincerely hope this argument wasn't the reason for it's deletion or something.

I just thought it was a bit pointless right now really... we'll see how the interest goes with the other forum and unreal editing in general :razz:

I don't think there's a single Unreal level out there that comes close to the beauty in some of the GeoComp Quake 3 maps. They don't need all that unneccesary 3d-modeled static mesh prefab stuff. It's level design in it's purest form, and it looks a hell of a lot better than the messes I've seen in Unreal.

I really, really, REALLLY beg to differ :smile: Though I do agree that static meshes just don't feel right.

I'm afraid we have different concepts of beauty, Kage. :razz:

It's okay to use static meshes for things like wires or cars, things that are too small to build with brushes properly. But there are static meshes for giant pieces of architecture... That just doesn't feel right to me.

the problem with static meshes, imho, is the fact that they are limited in thier ability to smooth correctly...i use meshes in autocad all the time, but you can smooth a curve to the umpteen thousandth of an inch....or centimeter, as the case may be, in multiple planes at once........kinda reminds me of the 1 to 1 ratio limitaion on Hammer... :biggrin:

Doc B... :dodgy:

The problem with BSP geometry is that it does not generate the correct normals for lighting. Lighting is vertex-based. BSP geometry can only do flat-shading, meaning no matter how many polys you add to it, the surface still looks facetted unless you're really far away.

If you're familiar with Radiant's curve system, you'll notice that lighting on a curve created cylinder is different than one created by a BSP brush, even though the triangle count is the same. This is because it generates the correct normals, using smooth or Gouraud shading by using the vertex normals instead of the face normals, which are standardly applied to each vertex per face. This causes the light to have a smoother transition between each face.

Now, how does this relate to static meshes? Simple. The reason such huge architecture, especially something that has smooth surfaces, uses static mesh, is because they can use either face or surface normals for light computations, depending on how it's needed. For a lot of civilization, industrial stuff, flat-shading is fine. But when you need natural stuff(caves), organic looking things, smooth shading will allow it to be lit correctly.

Kinda jumping back to the topic of the thread itself, would it really be wrong to include things like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament 2003, and such in the map category listings? Even if there's not a distinct editing forum for these games, there are people here who use them or are using them, and having those categories there may encourage others to post their maps here, thereby later creating more demand for the expanded forum sets.

CJ: Just remember, there's a difference between using only stock static meshes (which really isn't as limiting as a lot of people thing) and making your own for your own level - those large pieces are built in place of bsp geometry specifically for one place in one map. You can build an entire map from static meshes if you want, and it's pretty easy to do so. The contract job I'll be working on soon will do a similar method with a licensed copy of the Serious Engine - using BSP geometry for invisible collision and geometry constructed in Maya for the actual visible geometry.

The awesome thing about Unreal's version is the antiportal system. Model all the detail you want, and slap antiportals down within the models themselves... imagine making a VISblocking model for HL. :wink:

that would be quite the boon....any skuttlebutt on such an animal in the HL2 engine?

Doc B... :dodgy:

KungFuSquirrel said:
Kinda jumping back to the topic of the thread itself, would it really be wrong to include things like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament 2003, and such in the map category listings?

You let me know what mods I should list for them and I'll add them :razz:

Just start with the standard gameplay - DM, CTF, etc. and then people can request others as necessary. :smile: