OldUnreal (Engine)

Took me 3 Days but i finally got it done. (HD)

Its always interesting to see how different people have different opinions about how things should look like.
I personally wonder why these spaceships always seem to have rusty and floors, dented doors and switches which look like the first who touches it will get a rusty chip of metal in the hand.
Where is all the shiny polished metal, the smooth switches which look they were made to be pushed or pulled. LOL, no critics involved, really, just wondering.
You gave a lot of things a lot of thought and this is a nice result (why the tubes are not smooth but maybe a bit raunchy I don't understand either).
Your lamps don't seem to have detail textures, was this intended? I think they look much nicer with

Its always interesting to see how different people have different opinions about how things should look like.
I personally wonder why these spaceships always seem to have rusty and floors, dented doors and switches which look like the first who touches it will get a rusty chip of metal in the hand.
Where is all the shiny polished metal, the smooth switches which look they were made to be pushed or pulled. LOL, no critics involved, really, just wondering.
You gave a lot of things a lot of thought and this is a nice result (why the tubes are not smooth but maybe a bit raunchy I don't understand either).
Your lamps don't seem to have detail textures, was this intended? I think they look much nicer with

Lamps? Sorry i don't understand.

Actually i was using those as Emergency Lighting.

I remade Vortex Rikers for a small Unreal to UT3 project about 10-12 months back. But I think since there are others out there working on something similar to it... I just thought it would be convenient to help them. But shamefully I don't exactly like their version of the project and its not as convenient looking. I have played Unreal for quite a while hence the reason why I should be mapping SP for them.

My main intent was to add flashlights for the player to use to find their way around, unfortunately by that point I was starting to get burnt out because of the fact not many people were getting involved. I had asked some old school community members in private if they were interested and they sort of grunted and looked the other way. But its ok, its a very large project and one day with the proper development crew you'll see it grow very fast.

I remade Vortex Rikers for a small Unreal to UT3 project about 10-12 months back.  But I think since there are others out there working on something similar to it... I just thought it would be convenient to help them.  But shamefully I don't exactly like their version of the project and its not as convenient looking.  I have played Unreal for quite a while hence the reason  why I should be mapping SP for them.

That is Pretty Cool.

Thanks, I put together the feel of Doom 3 and Unreal so it would feel more Cyber... and dark. There is a lot of tessellation done in the map and I was still trying to figure out the Kinematics tool.

Where is all the shiny polished metal, the smooth switches which look they were made to be pushed or pulled. LOL, no critics involved, really, just wondering.

They are all in Mass Effect, apparently

Where is all the shiny polished metal, the smooth switches which look they were made to be pushed or pulled. LOL, no critics involved, really, just wondering.

They are all in Mass Effect, apparently

They're in the 60s' science fiction. Afterwards we went to gritty science fiction with wet and rusted ships. watch Aliens, Unreal, etc... Those ships are not nice places.

Why do I feel old now?

They're in the 60s' science fiction. Afterwards we went to gritty science fiction with wet and rusted ships. watch Aliens, Unreal, etc... Those ships are not nice places.

Nah, the '60s sci-fi was less polished and more colourful. And nowadays we do get to see polished ships, too.

Tbh, I like the dirty look of the ships in Unreal, especially the Vortex Riker's style. It's a prison vessel used to transport criminals to the prison moon, why the heck should they care about whether they think it's comfortable or not? Also, that saves much money, you need nobody who is doing the cleaning work.

Tbh, I like the dirty look of the ships in Unreal, especially the Vortex Riker's style. It's a prison vessel used to transport criminals to the prison moon, why the heck should they care about whether they think it's comfortable or not? Also, that saves much money, you need nobody who is doing the cleaning work.

What about the Lighting? Imo i thought it was too bright for a crashed ship you would think Emergency Lighting would kick in after a catastrophic event such as that.

For my personal taste, in your version it is a tad bit too dark, I would make the lights a bit brighter. The blue lights for example are brigher than the light they emit.

The original was somewhat fine but seriously lacked contrasting and more aggressive shadows and considering the Vortex Rikers was the safest prison ship they probably never really thought a lot about safety measures (can be compared to the Titanic which had way too few emergency boats aboard) or the ship just wasn't damaged this much that the power generator would fall out when it crashed.

If I remade Unreal it would be more of a scary game, and it would also be harder. Of course most people don't realize that at first it was meant to be that way. Anyways, going back to the subject of lighting... Vortex Rikers was originally lit pretty well, which is what I am concerned of. Most likely the lights would flicker or be dull... over time a lot of them would burn out. So in my strategy I would burn them out whenever an enemy pops around the corner

If that isn't that strategy then using a flashlight is... and maybe that burning out.

Well, DooM and DooM II were supposed to be dark and scary too, but I'd rather have what it turned out to be than what they intended it to be.

So in my strategy I would burn them out whenever an enemy pops around the corner

If that isn't that strategy then using a flashlight is... and maybe that burning out.

This is a bit too obvious imo. If you want to scare the player, you have to mess with his or her emotional state and feeling of safety, keeping the player under suspense and at times give him breaks but make it unpredictable for the player to prepare for a scary moment/sudden attack. This was done very well in F.E.A.R. if I may say so.

Keep the player under suspense for a long time, make him get used to it, at times, show shadows of a Skaarj in the vents, make him think "oh snap! There will be an attack!" but instead of fullfilling his expectations, you just do...
nothing.

The player will be irritated, will expect the attack to be shelved for later, will start to feel safe - and that's when you can strike, however, you don't have to. You can surprise him in a moment where he feels safe by making a Skaarj crash through the ceiling and destroying the light while doing so, which will make it flicker like mad, add some sparks and make the crash LOUD. Directly after the appearance of the Skaarj (which definitely must not be a cutscene) it should jump straight at the player with an attack in this scenario.

You know, shortly before level end, where the player starts to think "that was one lame level, I thought something would happen but noth-" and THEN you know it is time to surprise the player leaving a good impression and scaring the "nali cow poo" out of him!

The greater the suspense, the fewer the real events and the more unexpected the real thing comes, the bigger the fear/shock of the player! If you would make the lights burn out before every scary encounter/attack, it is too predictable, the player might even predict such an event when the lights suddenly fade out or turn off. At least I would. Apart from that, if you let it fade out and nothing happens, the player will become unsure. I hope you get what I mean.

Well, DooM and DooM II were supposed to be dark and scary too, but I'd rather have what it turned out to be than what they intended it to be.

I notice in alot of the Maps like the Night maps the lighting is to Bright for Nighttime, also alot of the Water doesn't have the Watershimmer Effect Activated which looks Bland, same with Torches and Fireplaces they don't have the Fireweaver or Torchweaver Effect Activated so it looks like the Fire gives off Bland Lighting.

I suppose this had to do with saving frames for a smoother performance, I'm too lazy to dig out that age-old machine of mine and check how the performance would be if I would apply these effects to water, fire and torches, but I'm sure it could make some PCs from that time suffer.

I suppose this had to do with saving frames for a smoother performance, I'm too lazy to dig out that age-old machine of mine and check how the performance would be if I would apply these effects to water, fire and torches, but I'm sure it could make some PCs from that time suffer.

Pardon my French but it seems like they Half-Butted the Lighting like they were in a Rush.

This... is another explanation. Or maybe they just added the effects after they made the places where it's missing and they just forgot to update it. Keep in mind that they were probably still improving the engine while working on the last levels in the planned final version of Unreal.

Having just the right lighting for night time maps is a matter of trial and error. Exterior lighting is even more difficult than interior. Inside, if there's no lights it's pitch black. But then in contrast even the smallest light source will seem brighter than it is. And will seem to light up more area too.

Outside you have the moon(s), stars, etc. Any other lighting may have to be dulled a bit so it blends into the ambient lighting smoothly.

I spent a lot of time working out the moonlight and the streetlights, signs (etc) in the Zahltag map. Plus spending a very large amount of time working at night. I have found that using paler colours (not so blue and red etc) works best.

For example, the moon and star light on earth is a very faint pale blue not white. Starting with the ambient lighting is a must too.

Two night time maps that have pretty good lighting are DmZahltagOps and DmGotliebsRetreat. One that is an example of being too dark is DmCargo. Too bad. It's a pretty good map otherwise.

http://www.oldunreal.com/gatherstone/sb ... tagops.zip

http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads ... etreat.zip

http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads ... MCargo.zip

Two other maps that have pretty good darker lighting are Dm-Factorz+ (exterior) and DmRag'na (interior):

http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads ... ctorz+.zip

http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads ... g%27na.zip

Hey William, imo your work is amazing. Only thing that seems strange is the warning texture on the pipes. Guess noone will hit the pipe . And near the escape the part with the last elevator made an impression of a disco(all those blinking lights) at first but guess that's fine.

So, seriously - wonderful work; personally I agree that light would be more emergency on a crushed spaceship. And I like the idea of darker version of the inner levels.