Planet Descent
Development => Descent Development => Topic started by: Shroudeye on August 12, 2011, 12:07:25 PM
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Hello all! Its been a long time.
So, I've been offline for some days (say, a month?), and been in a long vacation (Which still continues!), I've decided to put my 3ds skills to a test, and started working on a Descent 3 Single-Player&Co-op map.
Abstract:
The PTMC Secret force is assembled by Samuel Dravis, hand-picked from his most loyal Mercenaries. They are known to no-one except Dravis. You are one of them.
The Assasins.
You are being sent to a Top Secret Mining & Weapons Research Colony on Titan. Contact has been lost for a few hours, and Dravis suspects it has been compromised-or worse. Your primary mission is to assess the situation, secure research data, and if situation calls for it, purge the colony.
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Currently I'm midway thru basic massing. Here is the general layout so far:
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/d3sp_120811.jpg)
Here you can see the mining shafts (Red/Orange & White), A small installation near surface (greenish) And a complex far lower (Yellow). A giant cavern (Transparent mass covering a portion of the lower level complex) is hosting a landing pad, and will also provide access to the reactor core, and a sewer system. The secret laboratory will be accessed thru the core area.
Any comments, so far?
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Is it just me or is that map upside down? I flipped it 180 degrees, and it looks nicer.
If I can get my Descent 3 going, I'd love to try it out.
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No, the orientation is correct... Maybe different angles would help?
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/shot01.jpg)
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Interesting texture choices, but I'm presuming that's not final. :P
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Yea, I was trying to imitate Portal's grid-like look... Just kidding! :D
Joking aside, those textures are there to help scaling the masses and adjusting the UVW Maps. So when I convert them to *.ORF, I'll have less headache... I think.
Anyways, back to mining!
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Here is the latest progress:
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/d3sp_180811.jpg)
The preliminary terrain, which is also an experiment: The terrain is raised with a rough heightmap, and got applied a black to white gradient texture (I've applied a %50 transparency to the terrain map, for construction purposes.), which applies the correct gray tone as I raise and lower the terrain. Plus, the terrain is scaled 1/1 to the Descent 3's terrain...
In theory, I'll be able to create a terrain&buildings in 3D, fine-tune all of them as much as I like, and transfer it correctly into D3Edit (via rendering the final heightmap from 3DsMax and formatting it to PCX). The preliminary tests I did were all successful!
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You want a soundtrack?
I have an idea...
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I'd be honored, Fox!
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Daily update: I've redone the terrain today, got it a little more simplified. Plus I've started texturing it, experimenting with colors and terrain light.
Can't tell much for now, because I've forgot to take pictures. I'll be able to upload them tomorrow, though (I got no connection in my summer house...).
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Oookay, little late, but better late than NEVER!
A bridge, with two alternate lighting variants.
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/bridge.jpg)
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/bridgealt1.jpg)
The landing platform, Landmarking the player start location. Again, with two lighting variants.
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/landingpad.jpg)
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/landingpadalt.jpg)
Some horizon view I've shot...
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/scene.jpg)
So, this is my progress so far.
You probably noticed the flatness of the second alternatives. I'm planning to add a good "Saturn" sattelite, so there will be a second lightsource. Currently there is only one sat, the sun.
Regarding to satelittes, I'll need to make a custom texture for it, as there is no "Saturn" texture found in stock textures. I've found a good picture of Saturn. But I'd like to ask, is there any special thing that I must do for satellite textures? Or I simply put it in and, its "voila"?
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maybe it's just me; but I sort of like the darker texture more with lights added to them.
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Me too :D
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I liked both of the darker, alternate, lighting pics, so I suggest lighting wise you work with those. The brighter versions are...well...too bright. ::)
Other than that, looking good. :)
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Thank you all!
By the way, I've also created a page for it at DescentiaPedia (http://www.prepare4descent.net/descentiapedia/StudioShroud).
And, for working purposes, I'm calling the mission "Titan Mining Colony" for now.
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Uuuh... I'm having a small problem here:
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/bug01.png)
There should be a big close up of Saturn there, NOT this white square! >:(
Any ideas?
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Ah! Movie time... its a drive in! ;)
I've always had some problems with objects in the sky. Sometimes they work and sometimes not.
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Umm... yea. It is a drive-thru that I constructed for my miners to entertain themselves... :P
Joking aside, what could be wrong?
EDIT:
My best guess is that the problem is in the texture-I've modified the tablefile countless times, to no avail. It has something to do with Alpha value.
I'm uploading the texture, with step-by-step things I've done, so you can analyze it:
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/saturnrings.jpg)
The Picture was surrounded with a black area.
The format I've saved was: 32-bit Targa, uncompressed, 256x256 px. Then I've converted it to *.ogf, 1555 ARGB, 256x256 pixels.
The *.gam values:
Red/Green/Blue lights: 0.3/0.3/0.2
Alpha value: 1.0 (Played with it)
Reflectivity 0.6
Enabled Flags:
+Alpha
+Light
+Terrain
+Texture 256
+TMap 2
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It's too bad none of us are able to get in touch with Ron Lester (maker of several great SP levels for Descent 3) because he often had other planets or objects (including space stations) in the sky for his levels. If anybody, he knows/knew how to do it.
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Ron Lester..? The True Light Guild, famously known for his WindMine Saga. He also had a set of missions on Saturn's moons... I know him, and played his levels a lot in co-op.
Humm... That gave an idea, maybe I can extract the textures from his missions, and analyze them? (I'm not going to copy&paste his material, no worries!!)
Edit: Anyways, I think I got the problem. It is in the texture itself. I've left the black zones as black zones, and expected it to be "masked" when I applied the Alpha flag... And the "saturate" flag... just saturated everything to white. Hehe...
Looks like I'll need to mask it myself... Will post the results in a few minutes. (Edit: umm, lets make it tomorrow :D)
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Okay, my progress so far:
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/progress.jpg)
So, I got things fixed. Now what is left is to add a bit atmospheric fading to the picture.
Then it is time that I moved on, spent too much time on this 'tupid texture already.
Also, the latest terrain lighting compared to the old ones:
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/ProgressComp2.jpg)
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/ProgressComp.jpg)
Now I'm moving to the modelling of the surface colony. I got two alternatives so far, and counting...
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The bridge reminds me of a team map I played once, I think it was part of an Entropy level set.
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You may want to consider blurring your Saturn texture just a little to take a little bit of the harshness off those edges, but other than that, a little fading should fix things there.
Looking good, nonetheless. You've made better progress than I ever did in the field of D3 level editing. :P
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@Scyphi: Yup, working on it. As the planet will have a far more closer appearance...
@IHateHackers: The map you are referring is "Geodomes". ;)
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@Scyphi: Yup, working on it. As the planet will have a far more closer appearance...
@IHateHackers: The map you are referring is "Geodomes". ;)
Yep that's the one. Cheers!
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Well, not much of an advance so far, as I was packing for the return trip to home... But I've tried something new (At least to me):
Instead of using a satellite, I've "baked in" the saturn texture into the terrain texture. My aim was to create an atmospheric effect that made the planet look like it is being seen thru the atmosphere. It blends in more convincingly than the satellites, IMO-but with a loss of quality.
Anyways, here are the shots:
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/progress_2.jpg)
You can see the loss of sharpness here, but...
(http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Shroudeye/Descent%203/Mapping/WIP/saturnbakedin.png)
IMO it looks more dramatical? 8)
Well, what do you think? Should I fall back to satellite option, and try adjusting that; or keep this option?
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I like the movie theater.
Saturn with the black background looks cool.
is it just me, or is that Planet awfully close to us?
I think the fade look is probably best, and not to show it all. but the one has to wonder, what is causing it to fade.
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Likeylikeylikeylikeylikeylikeylikeylikey...etc
I lurve it.
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the 'after pictures' look a little nicer than the 'before pictures'.
looking good.
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Hmm...if only you could get it a little sharper...right now the blurriness bugs my eyes.
But other than that, it does look really cool. 8)
So my advice is that to go ahead and try and see if you can get it to work like this the other way, but if not, then just stick with this, and accept the fact that this is as good as it can get (which is sometimes the only viable option level makers get).
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sad but true. do the best you can do.
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Well, thanks guys! I'll experiment with it tomorrow the first thingy.
Gotta sleep now, I've been driving for hours to get home :D