Hi everyone,
old-ish time player here, excited about Frankie V's WIP videos. :-)
First of all, huge kudos for working on the HD conversions! I realize that it took a huge amount of effort to get them done. I deeply appreciate it.
Generally, I really like the conversions, they get it about 90% right. However some details are bugging me; hopefully my ramblings will make sense to you. Of course, some may be well known issues and you devs are already on them. In this case, please disregard my complaints :-)
About the process:
- I don't get why the WIP updates are only posted on youtube. This way, they don't get the visibility that they deserve. Seeing the updates on the front page or in the developers blog (even just a link to the youtube video) would be so much better in terms of exposure to the (now dwindling) URT community.
Another reason for posting the WIPs here, rather than on youtube only, is that people from the forums can more easily comment on them, so you get more feedback, which may hopefully lead to better designs.
I think that posting the WIPs on the main page would make the development process more open to the community. BTW, this is what other game dev teams do (see for instance OpenMW), and it work well.
In general:
- I think that shininess of various surfaces is sometimes overdone.
The fountain in casa is the worst offender IMO, it looks like it's sprinkling quicksilver. :-)
Hopefully it's possible to force the material system to behave better.
- All remakes except Algiers contain wayyy to many details. They feel kind of crowded; in Abbey the texture choices contribute to this effect IMHO.
Details are fine when relatively hidden. I know that you devs know this ;-) Still, I think that the conversions somewhat fail in this respect. Details below.
- On the same line: vegetation is now everywhere.
I realize that the UE4 engine is light-years better than idtech3 on handling vegetation, but please do not abuse it. Casa and Abbey feel like botanical gardens. Having maps without excessive details helps players to focus on the action.
- The overall height of the map changed a lot in Abbey and Casa.
By adding very tall trees/buildings around the playable area, I think that the vertical balance/proportions of the maps kinda got lost. More on this below.
On casa:
- The new version is too lush. Please reconsider the amount/size of the vegetation.
Further, for some reason different tree species are mixed together -- palm trees, trees that look kinda like oaks, etc. I don't think that it makes sense.
My understanding was that casa is located somewhere in Spain, give or take a few hundred km. Please consider sticking to a reasonable selection of vegetation.
(No, I'm not a botanist. I may be wrong on the tree species thing! Still, my sense of style is kinda sensitive to these things.)
- The outskirts of casa do not make sense to me. AFAIC, Spain does not have rainforests. :-p
Jokes aside, I don't like two things about the surrounding forest.
First, the buildings in the playable area are dwarfed by the hugeness of the surrounding trees.
Second, I don't like that trees inside the playable area are reasonably sized (they could be made taller, indeed) while the ones on the outside are super-tall. It feels *very* inconsistent to me.
I beg the developers to reconsider the tree height. It's seriously bugging me; hopefully others will agree.
- As I've mentioned, the fountain is waaay to shiny.
On Abbey:
- Same as above, way too lush.
- Where is Abbey located? I always imagined it in northern europe (like a trappisty abbey of some sort) or in uk/scotland/ireland.
In this case the vegetation would be vastly different. And, same as above, please do not mix naturally incompatible tree types.
- Way too many details.
You really want my puny Intel Skylake GPU to melt, heh? :-)
Again, some places (like the corner to the side of the abbey and the blue spawn) look very crowded.
- The height of the buildings surrounding the playable are does not make sense to me.
As in casa, it feels like the playable are is located inside a funnel: everything outside of it is taller/larger/higher.
- I think that the rockwall texture has been overused. I find it visually overwhelming (especially compared to the flat textures of the original Abbey!)
On Turnpike:
- great remake! I like it a lot!
- the tunnel left of the red spawn, outside of the playable area, does not make sense to me.
Why would anybody build a huge tunnel leading to a tiny side road with a 90 degrees turn? :-D
The idea is cool, but the proportions are off IMHO.
- Why are there tanks in a urban suburb? Is the tank a placeholder?
- The light @ pillars seem a little too strong IMHO.
It's gorgeous otherwise.
On Algiers:
- the conversion looks really great -- I love the new red-ish walls! The architecture was left intact, it did not overgrow like in the other maps; the vertical balance was preserved. And this is great! I realize that this is a very early WIP, but still, I have a couple of very very minor comments:
- the blue-ish haze in update 4 looks great, but it's a bit too think. It's difficult to see the red spawn from the "camper's balcony" (video @ 0:49). Making it a smidge less thick would help IMHO. (Unless this is the intended effect.)
- the crates and the doors look kinda out of place. I suppose they should be dustier/lighter/more decayed?
- some more variety in details (for instance window color/details halo) would help.
Hopefully these comments will have some use. Cheers, and thank you again for your hard work!
Advertisement
Page 1 of 1
Comments on Turnpike/Casa/Algiers/Abbey map updates
#2
Posted 15 August 2017 - 07:09 PM
Hay quit thank you for taking the time to write up an insightful post and as a simple response let me say that each point you make is 100% right and a lot of your assumptions are also correct.
First off the YouTube thing that I do is just a by product of my Nvidia card having video capture built in, Shadowplay in this case, so it's just a matter of pushing a button and I'm on Frankie TV be it YouTube or Twitch so except for that it would be to much work other wish to put the effort into something with a higher degree of production value best used on working on the game.
For that matter we have opened the doors as to development transparency that even QA are free to talk about their experiences and make their own videos including UrTHD.
That out of the way we have in the past tried the different ways that we should be doing things as far as promotion but unless we can find away to add cutie cats or create a level of controversy that sparks the social warriors looking for a micro case the effort seems to be limited to the interests of the community in hand.
The two ways to go seems to be.
1) All efforts focused on pushing content to Steam which we are in the process of doing.
With GreenLight no more there is a need for a different direction as to creating a presence that will put Urban Terror up front of individuals who play games that is not mixed in the a bunch of cats and dogs no matter how funny they are.
2) Better support for micro communities built up around Urban Terror over the years.
The success of this game we all love has always been in the hands of the community at large and I believe that as a portal to the world of Urban Terror FS could best serve the needs by promoting “their†efforts of who they are and where they are located.
Of interest there is already a community of Terrorists on Steam that have been there longer than we have. ;)
As for the maps in progress yes all things should be consider place holders as to fill a volume of for the purpose to fail to succeed based on the ideal that it's easier to take to much and make it less than it is to try to make not enough do more which UE4 is very good at tailoring the output as to what is needed. That and it's better to do something than nothing. ;)
Here is the rub.
Frozen Sands mandate is to ensure that there is a game called Urban Terror a year from now even if Windows 20 decides that it no longer needs some key feature and UrT fails to run. Patching would be required but the better solution is to switch engine platform now as history has proven that it will happen. Technically a large task in hand but the problem is in the maintaining of the fabric of the game that does not need to be new and improved as to worth of those who already play the game.
The flip side to attract new players to the game there is a benchmark of expectations that we have to guess at what changes, if any, that would attract fresh players in the year 2017 but at the same time make the game the same but different.
That out of the way personal opinion wise I'm of the mind that there is room in the world of UrT, continuity be damned,working on Casa has proven that with the right assets a 1-1 conversion is possible so why not have both new Coke and Coke classic? ;)
P.S. The real question in hand though, and to put it back on you guys, just want makes a Urban Terror map an Urban Terror map. Just because it looks like Casa does not mean that it is Casa (think about it)
First off the YouTube thing that I do is just a by product of my Nvidia card having video capture built in, Shadowplay in this case, so it's just a matter of pushing a button and I'm on Frankie TV be it YouTube or Twitch so except for that it would be to much work other wish to put the effort into something with a higher degree of production value best used on working on the game.
For that matter we have opened the doors as to development transparency that even QA are free to talk about their experiences and make their own videos including UrTHD.
That out of the way we have in the past tried the different ways that we should be doing things as far as promotion but unless we can find away to add cutie cats or create a level of controversy that sparks the social warriors looking for a micro case the effort seems to be limited to the interests of the community in hand.
The two ways to go seems to be.
1) All efforts focused on pushing content to Steam which we are in the process of doing.
With GreenLight no more there is a need for a different direction as to creating a presence that will put Urban Terror up front of individuals who play games that is not mixed in the a bunch of cats and dogs no matter how funny they are.
2) Better support for micro communities built up around Urban Terror over the years.
The success of this game we all love has always been in the hands of the community at large and I believe that as a portal to the world of Urban Terror FS could best serve the needs by promoting “their†efforts of who they are and where they are located.
Of interest there is already a community of Terrorists on Steam that have been there longer than we have. ;)
As for the maps in progress yes all things should be consider place holders as to fill a volume of for the purpose to fail to succeed based on the ideal that it's easier to take to much and make it less than it is to try to make not enough do more which UE4 is very good at tailoring the output as to what is needed. That and it's better to do something than nothing. ;)
Here is the rub.
Frozen Sands mandate is to ensure that there is a game called Urban Terror a year from now even if Windows 20 decides that it no longer needs some key feature and UrT fails to run. Patching would be required but the better solution is to switch engine platform now as history has proven that it will happen. Technically a large task in hand but the problem is in the maintaining of the fabric of the game that does not need to be new and improved as to worth of those who already play the game.
The flip side to attract new players to the game there is a benchmark of expectations that we have to guess at what changes, if any, that would attract fresh players in the year 2017 but at the same time make the game the same but different.
That out of the way personal opinion wise I'm of the mind that there is room in the world of UrT, continuity be damned,working on Casa has proven that with the right assets a 1-1 conversion is possible so why not have both new Coke and Coke classic? ;)
P.S. The real question in hand though, and to put it back on you guys, just want makes a Urban Terror map an Urban Terror map. Just because it looks like Casa does not mean that it is Casa (think about it)
doing "stuff" with dead things.
#3
Posted 17 August 2017 - 09:18 PM
Frankie V, on 15 August 2017 - 07:09 PM, said:
That out of the way personal opinion wise I'm of the mind that there is room in the world of UrT, continuity be damned,working on Casa has proven that with the right assets a 1-1 conversion is possible so why not have both new Coke and Coke classic? ;)
P.S. The real question in hand though, and to put it back on you guys, just want makes a Urban Terror map an Urban Terror map. Just because it looks like Casa does not mean that it is Casa (think about it)
P.S. The real question in hand though, and to put it back on you guys, just want makes a Urban Terror map an Urban Terror map. Just because it looks like Casa does not mean that it is Casa (think about it)
This is a really good point and I agree with your way of thinking. I think it would be so great to have a "classic" Casa as well as a "new" Casa.
The classic would be a straight copy (as close as possible) of the original from 4.x, duplicating all the original textures and everything else. It wouldn't look modern or take advantage of any of the new stuff, but that wouldn't be the point.
Then, the new Casa would hold true to the spirit of Casa, but magnify and improve it using all of the new technology and possibilities.
Ideally, I'd love to have classic versions of all the standard maps available, as well as the new and improved versions that show off the potential of what the maps always *wanted* to be.
#4
Posted 22 August 2017 - 10:06 AM
Hi Frankie V,
thank you for the reply. I'm glad that the comments on the maps made sense to you. I'll write more as new WIPs are released, hopefully other members will join :-)
I'm not entirely sure I got your promotion plan, but I trust FS knows what it's doing. I just think that a more lively front page would help regardless, and it wouldn't be a lot of effort to keep it up to date with the content you /already/ have. Updates never hurt.
As for maps that are not quite the same as old maps, go for it. I was a big fan of nevada (too bad it was never released). And for gameplay changes, I'm all for it. Experimentation is a good thing, and if the new things don't work it's always possible revert them.
One last thing: if you need to buy model assets for replacing the current placeholders (or other stuff), why not going for crowdfunding? I'm sure that quite a few people would happily donate a few bucks. I know that I would! Old time players will all have a job by now :-)
Best of luck!
thank you for the reply. I'm glad that the comments on the maps made sense to you. I'll write more as new WIPs are released, hopefully other members will join :-)
I'm not entirely sure I got your promotion plan, but I trust FS knows what it's doing. I just think that a more lively front page would help regardless, and it wouldn't be a lot of effort to keep it up to date with the content you /already/ have. Updates never hurt.
As for maps that are not quite the same as old maps, go for it. I was a big fan of nevada (too bad it was never released). And for gameplay changes, I'm all for it. Experimentation is a good thing, and if the new things don't work it's always possible revert them.
One last thing: if you need to buy model assets for replacing the current placeholders (or other stuff), why not going for crowdfunding? I'm sure that quite a few people would happily donate a few bucks. I know that I would! Old time players will all have a job by now :-)
Best of luck!
Advertisement
#6
Posted 23 August 2017 - 08:49 PM
Tanks in the streets does make sense in our scenario. After all, you are fighting over something so why wouldn't there be some tanks or other military vehicles in the streets. UTRT have more resources than the Red Dragons so they can have tanks or armored vehicles just like modern police forces have.
#7
Posted 23 August 2017 - 10:56 PM
quit, on 22 August 2017 - 10:06 AM, said:
One last thing: if you need to buy model assets for replacing the current placeholders (or other stuff), why not going for crowdfunding? I'm sure that quite a few people would happily donate a few bucks. I know that I would! Old time players will all have a job by now :-)
Best of luck!
Well when we first started with the HD pathway we started out with nothing. We now have enough art assets to make the game two or three times over and the bulk was paid via crowdfunding called Google ads. Every time you visit the site we make a few cents, why it's important to turn ad blocking for this site off, and that money goes for paying for the web hosting as well as kits intended to be used with UrT development.
The hard part is figuring out where to put all of the stuff. ;)
doing "stuff" with dead things.
#8
Posted 27 August 2017 - 12:30 PM
BladeKiller, on 23 August 2017 - 08:49 PM, said:
Tanks in the streets does make sense in our scenario. After all, you are fighting over something so why wouldn't there be some tanks or other military vehicles in the streets. UTRT have more resources than the Red Dragons so they can have tanks or armored vehicles just like modern police forces have.
True! But the tanks feel like they have been calmly parked there -- which is what makes it a bit odd :-)
(Yeah, I'm basically bitching ;-) )
I just watched the newest casa & algiers updates. I have only one comment: YES!
Beautiful! <3
Page 1 of 1
1 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users
Advertisement