Smoothery

[DSalimander 213]

Hello OC. I'd like to show you one of the things I've been working on and get some feedback. The level is based on an Unreal Tournament 2004 1v1 deathmatch map Roughinery. The map's working name is Smoothery. I have a final name picked but am keeping it to myself for now. This is a level that uses a modified Unreal Tournament 2004 tagset that I have stolen from Dredwerkz PB4 [here's the only thread about it I could find]. The map has a variety of fast-paced, high action, competitive gameplay. It's like Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Halo combined. The project is to the point where public feedback is desired.

 

Project credits so far:
Project Lead - DSalimander
Project Testing/Ideas - Hasuku, Hirsute, Derj
Most of the Halo CE Tags - Fubih's Dredwerkz PB4 [featuring m00kz, SBB and their subs, aLTis, Aquilum, Xylodrin]
Halo CE Weapon Pickup Icon Tags - m00kz's UT2K4 Map Pack for Halo CE
Original Level Design - Alexander Lehmann, Epicgames: Unreal Tournament 2004
Original Tagset Design - Epicgames: Unreal Tournament 2004

 

Unusual program credits:
MEK Essentials - Ripped all tags needed, cleanly.
3D Ripper DX - Ripped level geometry straight from Unreal Tournament 2004, well enough.

 

It started with Hasuku's desire for more Dredwerkz gameplay. A level design was needed and the easiest way to get one is to borrow straight from the source material. Hirsute picked Roughinery as a candidate. I got to work.

 

I got a dirty rip of the map geometry straight out of Unreal Tournament 2004. I own the game so it was easy to get. I might have even been able to load the map in the included editor and get the geometry there but I haven't tried that approach.

 

Some testers and ideas guys wanted a quick copy of it in Halo so they could walk around and confirm the layout and scale are good. The layout was better than expected but I ended up shrinking the geometry to 80% of what the raw rip was. The BSP was completely redrawn by hand because Unreal levels are a mixture of simplistic BSP and tons of high poly non-BSP objects called static meshes. The final BSP is very simplistic, almost blockout level simplistic. At this stage I questioned if I wanted to keep the level straightforward and easy to read or add tons of detail like a normal Halo map. I think keeping the level more basic kills two birds with one stone: easier to play and easier to make. If I or somebody else wants to come back and make another map with the same gameplay, it should be easy.

 

I began fixing up the tagset stolen from Dredwerkz PB4. Sometimes the level is called Aerial but I'll stick to the current working name. Somehow that tagset had all the hard stuff done but the easy stuff wasn't. Like there were no item names or pickup icons and everything was scaled weird. This was particularly annoying because nobody had any idea which gun was which. It's amazing how much better those incredibly small fixes make. I worked with what I had so the tagset is still sort of ghetto but it's the best iteration of UT2K4 in Halo I've seen yet. I also began experimenting with which scenery and/or light fixtures would fit the style. I port and tag one of the light fixtures that's spammed everywhere in Unreal Tournament 2004.

 

Thanks to how I redrew every polygon manually over the old geometry, there were very few BSP errors to deal with. Lighting was evolved from just the sky, then added custom light fixtures spammed everywhere, then added old spotlight scenery from Dredwerkz PB4 with invisible light planes in the BSP, then added simple lights to the BSP in remaining dark areas. The bulk of the custom light fixtures that were spammed everywhere mostly coincided with exactly what was done in Unreal Tournament 2004. Any deviation from what they did was to accommodate the other light sources and my opinion on which looks best. I had to reduce the amount of lens flares in one of the Dredwerkz PB4 shaders because it was hitting Halo's limit and made weapon effects not look right. Most of the thinking is done at this point and the only leg work needed is debugging and polishing the level.

 

...

 

Behold the current build. 98% of my TODO list is done and I need to verify I didn't miss anything. Let me show you exactly where the progress stands by also giving you a primer on the gameplay features.

 

A big thing to know about these guns is instead of a normal grenade option, each gun has an alternate firing mode. These alternate firing modes are often complementary of primary fire modes and typically deal more damage at a higher ammo cost. Sniper weapons do not have alt fires. If you shoot at the alternate projectile of the Shock Rifle, it will detonate mid-air. Etc.

[Left: primary trigger. Right: alternate trigger.]

 

If you jump and fire the secondary starting weapon's alternate trigger at your feet, you should be able to jump even higher. This is the Shield Gun. [It's primary fire currently produces a useless shield.]

 

Here are specially designed launch pad ramp things. I really need to settle on a name for them. The basic concept is this: slanted geometry gives you an acceleration boost; if the geometry is slanted AND has a ladder material, you get even more acceleration.

 

While only those special launch pad ramps have the ladder material, everything else doesn't. But you can still get acceleration boosts off upward and downward ramps that are everywhere in the map.

 

These are power ups. They're all self-explanatory except for the purple one. Normally in Unreal Tournament 2004, this would give you a double damage multiplier. For Halo it is simply the active camouflage.

[In order, top left to bottom right: Health Vials for small shield boost, Health Packs for health, Super Shield Pack for a huge shield boost, and what is called Double Damage but is actually just an active camouflage.]

 

These little items everywhere are ammo pickups. The Flak Cannon ammo is using a placeholder model in the PB. I have it fixed in the next build.

 

Up on this ledge is a very handy tool. "The Redeemer is a portable thermonuclear warhead launcher and the most powerful weapon in the Unreal Tournament series." It is only available every four minutes and you must figure out how to get it. Definitely don't try what I'm doing in the picture below.

 

These are what I have named Dummy Boxes. Anywhere you see these, there is probably a parkour-esque trick nearby. If you fail a parkour jump repeatedly, keep your sanity and just jump on the Dummy Boxes instead.

 

The level requires no prerequisite mods. Any Open Sauce extensions present in Dredwerkz PB4 were stripped out.

 

Any feedback on the level geometry or population is very welcome. If there's a jump that needs to be added or removed I need to know. Too much or not enough ammo? Tell me! All gametypes are supported and should be fun. Feedback on the tagset itself isn't as useful since I'm aware of most of the problems but am not in a position to do much about it other than easy fixes. My main goal is to make a good level for the existing tagset, not vice-versa. Anybody who gives me a fully featured, bug-free HUD that accurately mimics Unreal Tournament 2004 will receive 3-10 raffle tickets from me depending on the quality and effort. Offer ends at the end of this month's raffle.

 

Beta download removed. Go get the release!

Edited July 28, 2019 by DSalimander

[Pfhunkie 3,544]

UT2k4 competes in my heart as my favorite FPS with Halo CE so it's interesting to see this. I played around in it for a while and at face value, it seems like all the weapons act exactly as they're intended.

 

My question really is, why do this? It's really neat but UT2k4 is built on a much better engine. You also can't really replicate the dodging mechanics which is a core part of the gameplay so you can't exactly recreate a large part of what makes up the game's identity. Do you plan on replacing it with another movement mechanic?

[DSalimander 213]

The desire to make it came mostly from people who don't have Unreal Tournament 2004. I don't have any plans for dodging at the moment. Halo's strafing should be an acceptable replacement, especially since I increased player speed. Maybe I should have mentioned the player speed change.

[Takka 13,376]

I'm curious to play at some point just because it'll be like UT2k4 from a parallel reality, where all the things that can't quite be replicated the same.

[Pfhunkie 3,544]

Just now, DSalimander said:

The desire to make it came mostly from people who don't have Unreal Tournament 2004. I don't have any plans for dodging at the moment. Halo's strafing should be an acceptable replacement, especially since I increased player speed. Maybe I should have mentioned the player speed change.

Yeah, I noticed that! I played around a while back with making a better instagib experience with Halo and the first thing I did was increase player speed plus increasing friction. I definitely like the idea of sneaking some UT into the palette of more players.

 

It's unfortunate that there's not much of a UT community out there at all anymore. I really miss playing it.

[DSalimander 213]

2 minutes ago, Tucker933 said:

I'm curious to play at some point just because it'll be like UT2k4 from a parallel reality, where all the things that can't quite be replicated the same.

Yeah it needs to be said that this isn't supposed to be 100% Unreal Tournament 2004-like. It's probably more Quake-like than Unreal-like. I took some liberties with the player movement. As you can see by the ramp jump things.

 

Just now, Pfhunkie said:

Yeah, I noticed that! I played around a while back with making a better instagib experience with Halo and the first thing I did was increase player speed plus increasing friction. I definitely like the idea of sneaking some UT into the palette of more players.

 

It's unfortunate that there's not much of a UT community out there at all anymore. I really miss playing it.

Some tryhards in the competitive portion of the Halo community like this kind of stuff. We are going to be playing it tonight on our GMYF OBJ STL server. Look for it in the server list, but it will probably be full.

[Pfhunkie 3,544]

10 minutes ago, DSalimander said:

Some tryhards in the competitive portion of the Halo community like this kind of stuff. We are going to be playing it tonight on our GMYF OBJ STL server. Look for it in the server list, but it will probably be full.

I'd love to but I'm an old man that goes to bed way too early now. I'll have to catch you some other time.

[Derj 10]

Neat.

[DSalimander 213]

A little more air and ground friction might be better, as mentioned.

 

And speaking of insta-gib, some SAPP scripts could be useful for some of the popular mutators. Might have to look into that as well.

 

Updates:

Added the correct Flak Cannon ammo.

Fixed item base scenery bounding radii.

Found this: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/421105781761376257/603401215476498449/Oh_No.mp4

Edited July 24, 2019 by DSalimander
Updates!

[PopeTX28 215]

I might try it but I already have UT2004. 

 

It would be cool to have some of the maps converted over to CE style aesthetics.