Illithid Mines Progress Report

[Mammothtruk]

uploading some early WIP screens to show the difference between darkvision and the area lighting. I still have to tweak the area lighting a bit brighter and only some of the lighting is in right now. I also have to get rid of the 'white' fog from the distance view so its black like it should be. Copy/Paste of the mine entrance and some other things have gone without much trouble. Ive added a few things and adjusted others to fit the scale of the area better now that it is roofless. I need to put in the pit, crate chests, two other tunnel exits, and then go around the area making it look more like a cave that the none copied areas dont have yet. No more walkmesh dis-functionality now that I control the entire flooring. Going to be a few hours at least before I can get to cuttering out so you cant walk through it all but its coming along much better now that Im not trying to work with broken floors. Also a big bonus to doing it like this is being able to texture the floor without using the placeable floor textures witch tend to 'shimmer' when looked at from different angles. I am not sure Im happy with the texture filling the entire area just yet so some feedback from the screens would be nice

[HollowLaughter]

Also a big bonus to doing it like this is being able to texture the floor without using the placeable floor textures witch tend to 'shimmer' when looked at from different angles.

Yesplease. This makes me quite happy.

I'm also so jealous of you being able to work on this right now. My semester work has put my project on hold for the time being - only got around to the floorplan and transitions before I got slammed.

*shakes fist idly at Mammothtruk*

It's good to hear that about the walkmesh/wall issues. As is, there's a few maps in the Underdark with walkable areas inside the walls large enough for monsters or PCs to hide in with relative ease.

I'd love to see your progress screenshots so far.

[Mammothtruk]

Ive uploaded them to a flickr account witch is linked in the second post of this thread. start at the 10th screenie is the second map. The layout is slightly different as its really hard to recreate it perfectly doing this, but the major scenes like tunnel exits, some of the border walls, and the mine tracks have been pasted into the area and adjusted to fit the area.

[HollowLaughter]

Well, from what I can see in the screenshots, it looks good. Feels a lot more open. But Meldor's right, a lot of these screenshots are very dark, so it's difficult to see a lot of the work in them at this point.

[Mammothtruk]

yeah when its fullscreen its a little brighter and sort of hard to work in even when I turn the daylight on in the toolset right now because of the texture I settled on for the majority of the background. I havent really fiddled with texturing yet since I want to get all the major scenes copied into the area and all the placeables in so everything looks right. I have the pit in and some of the placeables around it now. I have to work on getting the tiny ledge prettied up before Ill take screenies on that.

I went off and had lunch, rented some movies, watched movies, had dinner, and just got back to the PC to start working on it again. terrible developer I know... Im going to get most of the copied stuff in tonight and diddle with some new ideas for the map if I have time before I go to sleep. I sort of want to put in a stone bridge, a few mushroom transition area stuff to spruce that up, and then work on sloping more.

All in all Im much happier dealing with the area in the terrain tool as it gives a lot more freedom and pathing isnt all screwy. Since most of the tileset maps have a bunch of placeables against the wall to break up the scenes I think using the terrain tool instead of a perfect fit for a lot of thing. Grant it not everything I work on will be using it as some areas are just a better fit for the tilesets. This area in particular is suppose to have a feeling like your heading up toward the upper dark and so is the next one. Then it flats out for a few maps and I think tiles will be a good fit for those.

After that another large chamber area is going to get mapped for an old city now infested with monsters and later in the timeline gets infested with scorpion people from Kara-Tur. Thats like 10 years advanced in the timeline though. How that all turns out depends on the staff and the story lines going on by that time. Who knows maybe PCs will take over the area and a new city will emerge filled with NPCs, who know.

[Mammothtruk]

so Ive placed a few lights around, but its still REALLY dark because well... its the underdark and the creatures roaming the tunnels have darkvision. With darkvision up you can see pretty well thought long distances are still hard to see. I highly suggest all players use some sort of darkvision or light spell in the underdark anyway... after all there isnt a sun and most of the denizens can see in total darkness.

[Mammothtruk]

worked all morning on this bridge I wanted to add to the area and getting it to bake right... after the first 20 attempts I realized the bridge was not going to bake right so I changed my plan of attack and used three bridges in a row and some walkmesh helpers to bridge the gaps between then and then worked on getting something between them so you werent walking through the air above the bridge. I finally got it to work in the toolset so here comes the testing and adjustment on this day long trip into hate. I also smoothed down some stuff last night and all of the map is accessible now.

If the bridge doesnt consume the rest of the day Ill work on filling the walls and floors with placeables to get it a better theme. I did a bit before I passed out last night after sending it to Mar. I even dropped some textures on the floor around the dirt piles and along the tracks to give them a dirty feeling. It will by a vast majority be the most time consuming thing followed closely by the bridge it would seem.

ETA to full submission to the staff is about three days. Ill be sending nightly module updates to Luna and Mar so they can walk around them and see the progress offer ideas on how to improve them. Not sure many more screenies will be posted on flickr since for right now its very very WIP on the theme.

Oh yeah and the lighting every has shown concern about. I was told playability over realism so Ill be bringing the ambient light up a bit and it will be like everyone has low light vision. Still darkvision and the light spell will be very useful in all the areas I do that are suppose to be dark caves.

Remember you to could be a contributing member of the server population if you created anything! Items and monsters are a welcomed addition to all the areas I will be creating so if you have even the slightest wish to help out let me know!

[Mammothtruk]

Got the bridge finished and flawlessish.

Put in another scene copied from the old map for the transition to the mushroom folk area. Added some textures to the floor around that scene to blend it in some.

Put in a bunch of wall placeables to spruce it up. Did some more work ont he walkmesh to cut out all the new placeables.

Starting to work more on texturing the floor and filling up the walls. Still fiddling with the ambient lights to try and get it right. Its a work in progress since I had a lot of trouble figuring out what was being used in the first place. I changed them all, but one so now I have to systematically go down the list and try and find what is being used so I know for future mapping.

[Mammothtruk]

uploading 2.2 on the module. Be about an hour before I can send out links to the staff.

I fixed up the ambient lighting to be low light vision esk. Did some very very basic texturing in some areas, and some more wall work. Id like to see some feedback. general feel of the scenes and the additions Ive made would be the focus this round.

[Mammothtruk]

been extremely busy around my house and the entire family got sick for a week so progress has been very slow.

Im working on placeables along the walls again today for a while and fixing the walkmesh up so you cant walk around on the 'cliffs' above the cave floor. Debating on the use of a false ceiling since the placeable version has issues with the camera and seeing bits and pieces of angles when zoomed out witch are annoying.

Did some texturing of the floor on Mar3s suggestion. Not happy with the result yet, but it is a step in the right direction.

[Luna]

been extremely busy around my house and the entire family got sick for a week so progress has been very slow.

Ick, I had that about 2 weeks ago.
Not a fun week.

[Mammothtruk]

Yeah it sucked pretty bad. Im taking some antibiotics cause I got a broncial thing because of it... so Im still coughing up my lungs.

Added a little reflecting pool with crystals today that is sort of cool. Still messing with it and getting it to a completed scene status, but its coming along.

Added more walls stuff witch I need to just bite the bullet and get it all completed. It sucks cause there is SO much wall in the damn area it takes forever fitting one of the four placeables, resizing, twisting it around, and fitting it into the wall so it all looks different. Its about 2/5ths done around the area witch isnt very much considering the areas size.

One thing people are going to notice right off is the scale of the area increased by like four compared to what they normally walk around in on the server right now.

At least my brother had a stash of music when he came down to live here and Im slowly leeching it off his computer before he moves back to IL. I got like a month before he moves out to get something like 10GB of new tunes. Helps reduce the suck of walls when I have new tunes.

Oh and as of right now there is a debate between me and Mar3 over this bridge I say stick with what I cobbled together because its unique and he thinks go with a one piece bridge because its easier. Once that area is where Im happy with it Im going to screen shot it and let the player base decide what they like.

[mar3usmc]

Hope you get better Mammoth, don't get consumption now. I am also always looking for new inspirational tunes to listen to while building areas. Gives me motivation as well. ALL HAIL YOUTUBE!!!.... and youtube mp3 converters yaaaarghh.

[Mammothtruk]

pissing away a few hours doing walls today.... I really hate doing walls. I foresee doing UD maps taking days just to do the walls.

See when you set up the textures on the area and you pick whatever cliff you think fits the theme of the area it doesnt stop there. Here at the BG server placeables line most of the UD walls even when using the tileset mapping... So on an area this size there are something like 400 placeables already and its only maybe 60% at best on just the walls. And you have to resize, reuse, rotate each of them to keep from all the walls looking the same. I suppose I could have said the hell with it and used less and looked terrible, but this is the first map Im putting towards the server so I want it to look amazing. So here I sit doing walls all day to impress.... myself? when I walk around it? Im not entirely sure why I care so much about these walls I just do.

I have the entire floor textured with a mix of two textures and working on blacking the tops of the walled off areas so the map looks like a map in the minimap window. I havent really played around with dips and curves on the ground... I figured that a tileset map wouldnt have any really so only a few in the right places would be more or less right anyway. But the floor feels plain to me so I might add in a few more dips than it already has to break it up more.

Lighting... I think that has come a long way since I last to screens of the map. 100% more lights around the map, fixed the ambient, and added two scenes with lights. Light spell and darkvision for sure are still a great boon when your walking around, but they are less needed now by far.

The pit on the current map on the server is now completed on the new map save just one area where the crate you can loot is. Im still working walls in that area so it will come in due time. The pit makes you feel small and it feels really deep as it stands. Feels complete to me.

Once I finish the walls and blacking the map tops out Im going to chop on the walkmesh and sent it through to Mar and Luna again. Its getting very very close to 75% and I want to know if Im still close to what Im going for here. the last 15% Im taking the map to will be scene work and touch ups. Then Mar can hack on it as he sees fit to finish that last 10% polish work.

[Mammothtruk]

Alright well wall work is sitting around 80% completed and I started moving over the WPs for spawns and triggers for falling rocks. Coming up quick on a build for review here maybe tomorrow or the next day. Finally back into the grove of working on this project and feeling pretty good about it now.

Thanks needs to be put out there to Mar3 for putting up with me over this project and my mouthy sometimes angry approach to mapping. Dont play well with others In any case a huge thanks to him for letting me run with this. And thanks to Luna for taking the time to walk around the map a few times now and giving me feedback on the progress.