[PROTOTYPE] DM-MetroLevel

[MNeutigem]

Hi everyone,
Atm I'm studying digital arts and entertainment and for one of my courses I have to create a level,
I'm not much of a gamer myself and not that familiar with unreal tournament so feedback would be very appreciated
some of my wip so far is attached.

pak version 4.15: https://studenthowest-my.sharepoint.com/personal/marieke_van_neutigem_student_howest_be/_layouts/15/guestaccess.aspx?docid=12f948ff9bfc346798821c3b79967674f&authkey=Ac9NkeF2RmWcy8ioehTBXbM
pak version 4.14: https://studenthowest-my.sharepoint.com/personal/marieke_van_neutigem_student_howest_be/_layouts/15/guestaccess.aspx?docid=0a109328c8f53400db5d23373ae04400d&authkey=AQN-NtHXgHBIu6A1VEd7l5g
level video:

level gameplay:

[Hyper2Armor]

Great work MNeutigem! I can see you are well-versed in modeling and texturing. I like the metal material you got going, especially the rust and scuffs. Overall this is a great start and I'm just going over a couple things I think can help you improve the scene. These are things that I'm still working on improving myself, and I try to always keep them in mind while building environments.

1) Shape distribution
Here is a helpful article by Neil Blevins: http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_educat...ary_shapes.htm
I especially love how he constructs the pipe. Taking a look at your room, there are several elements with evenly-sized secondary shapes, repetitive tertiary shapes, and no rest area. This is most noticeable on the orange pillars, ramp, door, and top-left cylinder. This also explains how some elements look better, such as the rounded thing on the bottom-left and the rectangular wall boxes that the pipes are connected to.

2) Lighting
The room is too evenly lite with no focal point, and most of the lights are not casting shadows. The ceiling should be darker than the floor because the ceilings lights should be spot lights.

3) Functionality
The pipes look off because they have no connections going into the wall and wall boxes. The only connection I see is on the pipe coming from the top-left cylinder. Also reconsider the paneling and bolts on the silver pipes, because that's not how pipes are constructed and connected to each other. Since I assume this is a place where people come and go, two things stood out to me. First, there is no ramp or stairs going to the door, and looks like people will need to climb that big ledge. Second, there wouldn't be such big and bright lights on the walls because they would blind people, that's why in offices, factories, and places where people work, the main lights are all on the ceiling. Wall lights are often small and used as alarms, emergency exits, or indications of important things on walls.

4) Focal point / hero piece
This is something missing from environment shots of most students, but very important to professionals looking at your scene. If you're going to have this room in your portfolio, it should have a hero piece as the focal point of the shot. Some great examples include the laser, furnace, and center tower in Outpost 23. Perhaps you can make a badass-looking door to replace the default one.

Again, great work starting out and I can't wait to see the end result. Keep at it!

[ÐutchSmºke]

Pretty neat looking map so far MNeutigem! I look forward to being able to give it a good bash with others and don't worry about it needing to be all meshed out, at this stage in the games development a shell pak will suffice inorder to check its playability. This also keeps the damage to a minimum incase any new engine build updates end up breaking the map. Keep it Up!

[MNeutigem]

Thanks so much for the feedback Hanway Lin! I only just saw it so I haven't applied it yet but I will for sure use it in the future.
I was thinking of making the metro wagon my hero piece, but doing the door is a good idea as well.
Alright so I haven't really had much time to work on it, my exams are coming up right now and level editing happens to be one of the last ones.
I filled it up some more, made some changes to the flow as well.
I packed what I've got so far and was wondering if you guys would be willing to give it a go and get back to me with some feedback?
Download link for the pak file: https://studenthowest-my.sharepoint....87fc10c6&rev=1
Anyways, thanks u guys!

[ÐutchSmºke]

Will do, thanks for the update! Loaded onto the LoPing for your enjoyment.
After having bashed on it with others I'm pleased to report it was well recieved! There are some pointers though;

This area up top needs either blocking off or opening up some.

The doors experience a blocking issue that allow for passage along this line only when open. (Also noticed in an offline match that the lower door was completely blocked off.)

Don't forget to cap the roof off.

• Nice concept on the bezerker tower! Like'n the airtime possible because of it.
• Overall nice flow of the map.
• The jump pad could all do with a soundoff when activated (unless you ment it to be sneaky silent).
• Considering the size of the map, having three sniper rifles on it is (although fine by me) somewhat overpowering.
• Weapon placement could be a little more spread out along with some more life vials dotted around the map.

These are just some preliminary thoughts and hope it helps. Keep Up the GoodWorks!

[MNeutigem]

Thanks so much [MENTION=213318]DutchSmoke[/MENTION]! (is this how you tag people?)
I added sounds to the jumppads, added some more health + weapons and removed one of the snipers
I fixed the doors just by disabling the frame collisions (will be fixed more later as I will be adding custom door meshes)
Also changed some of the lighting and added some more meshes
New pak file download: https://studenthowest-my.sharepoint....zW5D3Rl0GvFHV4



Once again any feedback/suggestions are very much appreciated!
My exam is next week so i'll be working on it all weekend

[ÐutchSmºke]

That's how you tag a person indeed. BiGUp for the update MNeutigem!

[MNeutigem]

Another update, probably almost my last one
Filled everything up a bit more, added meshes for the doors, lifts, changed the lighting as well, also finally updated the pipes the way Hanway Lin suggested, thanks again :P
Another part of the assignment was to create a more advanced material , I experimented a bit, started on some clouds but ended up making some sort of hologram.
There's a few instances of them, I made them so that when you approach one of the posters a hologram of the movie pops up (made with a very simple blueprint but it seems to work so far)
The posters themselves aren't mine I downloaded them from: https://www.behance.net/gallery/1829...malist-Posters they were made by Marko Manev.
New pak: https://studenthowest-my.sharepoint....mk4ZQT_GuotAO8
as always all feedback/suggestions are appreciated!

[ÐutchSmºke]

Highly Appreciate the update MNeutigem! It does keep looking better!

[MNeutigem]

Thanks DutchSmoke!
I've tried to improve it some more, mainly just added more meshes.
I made a video of the level (part of the assignment) that you can watch here:
https://vimeo.com/200657429

I might want to make a gameplay video as well but I would need some footage for that quite quickly (like in the next few hours), If anyone is interested in helping me you can send me some gameplay footage?
Not sure if i'll have time though because I do have other exams :P
New pak file: https://studenthowest-my.sharepoint....cbol3VNhqQdJNg
screenshots:


breakdown:

[ÐutchSmºke]

Holy smokes! I was just about to play v03 but now I can skip ahead to 04! You know how to keep a fellah busy! Good Luck on your exams and thanks again for yet another update!
I'll try to get a game in so you can check the replay, I'll pm you the details.

[MNeutigem]

Thanks a lot! [MENTION=213318]DutchSmoke[/MENTION]

[ÐutchSmºke]

Your welcome! Overall improvement to be seen on v04! Nice fix'n of the doors and jump pads and Cool posters added!
There are still some blocking issues on some of the corners and alongside the keg of life trolly (I've run through them on the replay). My first impression of the texture's added is abit overwhelming, to the point that being able to see your opponents from the surroundings becomes somewhat of a challenge. More game time could prove to be all that's needed to get over this.
Thanks again and keep it Up!

[Metalfist]

Can you repak it again, because new update is just out and previous versions don't work.

[MNeutigem]

the timing of this update...

Omg yeah I just noticed that i forgot to turn on the collisions for those pillars, thanks for noticing [MENTION=213318]DutchSmoke[/MENTION]!
I do agree, i may have gone a bit wild with the textures, I tried to tone it down with the simpler pillars... but it's probably because I'm not a gamer so I don't notice these things :/
thanks for pointing it out I might work on it more after the exams, it's too late to change it now
I made a small gameplay video with the footage you send me thanks again!

The timing of that update really sucks, I tried opening my map on an updated version of unreal but I get a bunch of errors in my blend materials so no repak yet sorry [MENTION=6197]Metalfist[/MENTION]
I did do a repak for the old version though (it's only a small fix for the pillars), my teacher told us not to update yet as well so for anyone that would be interested in the new pak for the pre-updated version:
pak: https://studenthowest-my.sharepoint....HBIu6A1VEd7l5g
I will ask my teacher how to fix the material errors in the new version tomorrow (if I don't forget) so new pak should be up then.