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Urban Terror
The 27 Days of Terror: Day 22 - TwentySeven
A mod is just an idea and a development team is just a group with an idea, in order to bring that idea to life you need a competent and skilled coder. Over the 6 years that Urban Terror has been around the development team has been fortunate to have success with a string of quality coders from dokta8 (1.0) to Apoxol (2.0) and most recently HighSea and TwentySeven.
Like his predecessors before him TwentySeven brings a unique insight to the mod and the development team that has continued a string of successful releases. Many of the new features, such as power sliding were conceived by TwentySeven and acted upon without discussion. It is this sort of thinking and action that makes coders like TwentySeven very valuable to software development.
Like his predecessors before him TwentySeven brings a unique insight to the mod and the development team that has continued a string of successful releases. Many of the new features, such as power sliding were conceived by TwentySeven and acted upon without discussion. It is this sort of thinking and action that makes coders like TwentySeven very valuable to software development.
The 27 Days of Terror: Day 21 - RabidCow
Today we continue to look at Urban Terror through the eyes of a level designer, as we profile RabidCow. His contributions to the mod might go sight unseen to the naked as he has spent a considerable amount of time behind the scenes on applications related to level development. His talent never ceases to amaze when it comes to creating skyboxes, as evidenced by some of the more recent ones he has created using real world photographs and incorporating them into some levels.
RabidCow also has his hands involved in creating new Urban Terror levels, as well as helping to update and improve current levels that will take game play to the next level.Currently he is finishing up Prague, which has been undergoing testing, courtesy of the QA Team, as well as a new level called Oia, set in Greece.
RabidCow also has his hands involved in creating new Urban Terror levels, as well as helping to update and improve current levels that will take game play to the next level.Currently he is finishing up Prague, which has been undergoing testing, courtesy of the QA Team, as well as a new level called Oia, set in Greece.
The 27 Days of Terror: Day 20 - |NV|S
We, the development team, I guess I should I apoligize for the lack of news and attention to he web site and the community since early September. I had some computer issues that caused me to temporarily loose all access to my data stored in my RAID array. Fortunately, with some help from community members and a spare hard drive, I was able to gain access and retrieve all my data. So on with the days of terror.
Today is the first time we mention a team member who came to us from the outside. Now that is not unique in itself because this is originally how the team was started back in late 1999 and early 2000. But as development cycles roll on and the years go by, its a rare commodity to find such a "diamond in the rough" as we did when |NV|S took an interest in Urban Terror.
As a community member and level designer, he ran his own website, some might remember Section 8 Studios and his previous offerings to the Urban Terror community that were met with...mixed results. His "amateur" status led him into the world of professional development where he now resides work professional for EA Los Angeles a a "game designer" (previously was just a level designer).
Today is the first time we mention a team member who came to us from the outside. Now that is not unique in itself because this is originally how the team was started back in late 1999 and early 2000. But as development cycles roll on and the years go by, its a rare commodity to find such a "diamond in the rough" as we did when |NV|S took an interest in Urban Terror.
As a community member and level designer, he ran his own website, some might remember Section 8 Studios and his previous offerings to the Urban Terror community that were met with...mixed results. His "amateur" status led him into the world of professional development where he now resides work professional for EA Los Angeles a a "game designer" (previously was just a level designer).
The 27 Days of Terror: Day 19 - The 3 Levels of Tub
Tristian Tub??? Barrett has been one of the most active level designers for the development team since Urban Terror began. His original offering, ut_village became highly popular for clan matches thanks in part to a simple and effective layout. And what level is not complete without a working catapult?
Since that time he has gone on to create other popular levels that have stood the test of time in the Urban Terror Community. Originally my maps were focused mainly on supporting Team Survivor, as were most early Urban Terror maps. As the community has changed and requested more CTF maps, the development team has responded with alterations and new maps,??? says Tub.
Since that time he has gone on to create other popular levels that have stood the test of time in the Urban Terror Community. Originally my maps were focused mainly on supporting Team Survivor, as were most early Urban Terror maps. As the community has changed and requested more CTF maps, the development team has responded with alterations and new maps,??? says Tub.
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The 27 Days of Terror: Day 18 - BladeKiller
Each team member plays an important role in the development of Urban Terror. Maureen "BladeKiller" Yost was not an "official" team member when she began working on the mod. Former Silicon Ice Development modeler, Earthquake created our weapon models and used BladeKiller to skin the UMP-45 as a "test" in order to join SID. She official joined the the development team in July 2000 prior to the 1.0 release at Quakecon.
Over the years BladeKiller has spent countless hours perfecting her skills and learning new ones. You have seen her skins on player models and weapon models, while continuing to spend many hours updating and optimizing current Urban Terror levels and acts as the Quality Assurance Manager. She currently spent time work on the rigging and animating of the new models for the upcoming release. We caught up with her for a quick Q&A session about Urban Terror.
Over the years BladeKiller has spent countless hours perfecting her skills and learning new ones. You have seen her skins on player models and weapon models, while continuing to spend many hours updating and optimizing current Urban Terror levels and acts as the Quality Assurance Manager. She currently spent time work on the rigging and animating of the new models for the upcoming release. We caught up with her for a quick Q&A session about Urban Terror.
The 27 Days of Terror: Day 17 - Level Overview Suburbs
As we said in a previous update, there will be some levels included in the release that were developed by the community. When Suburbs was started by ShminkyBoy, he was not yet a working member of the development team. After he was brought onboard he began working and updating the initial version of Suburbs.
The 27 Days of Terror: Day 16 - Standalone Version
With id Software releasing the open source code for Quake III Arena during 2005, this opened the door for many exciting changes in future versions of Urban Terror. One of those changes was the possibility to bring Urban Terror to new gamers who never experienced the mod "back in the day." Every passing day it becomes just a bit more difficult to find a retail copy of Quake III Arena.
One reason behind the port of Urban Terror to RtCW: Enemy Territory was to take advantage of the fact that Splash Damage built it as a full, stand alone game. PunkBuster even provided anti-cheat support the game, which generated it's own, unique key that could be used in conjunction with PB. This option had not been available to the development team prior to this open source release.
We have successfully created a stand alone client for Urban Terror, using the urbanterror.exe and not requiring gamers to install Quake III Arena. This version has recently been released to the Quality Assurance Team and is undergoing testing. Urban Terror is still a mod and will be fully compatible with both Quake III Arena and our stand alone, urbanterror.exe.
One area we are continue to develop is that of the anti-cheat for the stand alone client. Since this version does not require Quake III Arena, there is no PunkBuster support for it. That could potentially open the door to all sorts of nasties we dealt with prior to their support coming online for Quake III Arena. This will mean that urbanterror.exe clients will not be able to play on PB supported servers, while the Q3 mod clients can play anywhere.
We are still working on possible solutions for some type of anti-cheat when used with the urbanterror.exe, as well as taking suggestions from the community and QA Team. But rest assured we will have two versions of Urban Terror available for download on release day and gamers will all be able to play on servers not running PB.
One reason behind the port of Urban Terror to RtCW: Enemy Territory was to take advantage of the fact that Splash Damage built it as a full, stand alone game. PunkBuster even provided anti-cheat support the game, which generated it's own, unique key that could be used in conjunction with PB. This option had not been available to the development team prior to this open source release.
We have successfully created a stand alone client for Urban Terror, using the urbanterror.exe and not requiring gamers to install Quake III Arena. This version has recently been released to the Quality Assurance Team and is undergoing testing. Urban Terror is still a mod and will be fully compatible with both Quake III Arena and our stand alone, urbanterror.exe.
One area we are continue to develop is that of the anti-cheat for the stand alone client. Since this version does not require Quake III Arena, there is no PunkBuster support for it. That could potentially open the door to all sorts of nasties we dealt with prior to their support coming online for Quake III Arena. This will mean that urbanterror.exe clients will not be able to play on PB supported servers, while the Q3 mod clients can play anywhere.
We are still working on possible solutions for some type of anti-cheat when used with the urbanterror.exe, as well as taking suggestions from the community and QA Team. But rest assured we will have two versions of Urban Terror available for download on release day and gamers will all be able to play on servers not running PB.
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The 27 Days of Terror: Day 15 - Community Q A
After taking a minor break from all the new Urban Terror news during The 27 Days of Terror, we are back, loud and proud bringing you the most up to date information from the new Urban Terror release. The Urban Radio just conclulded and I must admit it was a big success, not only in my opinion, but that of all the props handed out by the community in #urbanterror on ETG and Quakenet, as well as in PMs at the conclusion of the show .
Over the course of nearly three hours, all the questions that were asked in the Urban Terror Forums were answered, even if it were in triplicate or more! Rolling back into the show from much needed breaks on air, the gmaers participating in IRC had a chance to get their questions answered, live on air, with some questions spawning further discussion.
The topics touched a wide array of subjects, from current development, to a potential stand alone release. Along the way we touched numerous times on the updated hit detection and changes to the weapon damage values. We reintroduced powersliding, which debuted on Day 14 of The 27 Days of Terror. We talked about the levels that will potentially be released, that list currently stands at 18 levels. In conjunction with the level discussion there was some concern about community development not being supported very well and the idea of map pack was brought up.
Due to the overall length of the Word document (47 pages), you can read the entire transcript by downloading from FileCloud and reading the information for youself or you can listen the record Urban Radio show by downloading the cast [70Mbs]. Regardless of which way you decide you will get many questions answered about what it come with the new version of Urban Terror.
Over the course of nearly three hours, all the questions that were asked in the Urban Terror Forums were answered, even if it were in triplicate or more! Rolling back into the show from much needed breaks on air, the gmaers participating in IRC had a chance to get their questions answered, live on air, with some questions spawning further discussion.
The topics touched a wide array of subjects, from current development, to a potential stand alone release. Along the way we touched numerous times on the updated hit detection and changes to the weapon damage values. We reintroduced powersliding, which debuted on Day 14 of The 27 Days of Terror. We talked about the levels that will potentially be released, that list currently stands at 18 levels. In conjunction with the level discussion there was some concern about community development not being supported very well and the idea of map pack was brought up.
Due to the overall length of the Word document (47 pages), you can read the entire transcript by downloading from FileCloud and reading the information for youself or you can listen the record Urban Radio show by downloading the cast [70Mbs]. Regardless of which way you decide you will get many questions answered about what it come with the new version of Urban Terror.
The 27 Days of Terror: Day 14 - Power Sliding
The development team likes to think they have been on the leading edge of development when it comes to game play. Game play features such as ARIES and ledge grabbing were fairly revolutionary when introduced to the game. ARIES (Anatomical Ray Intersection Extrapolation Simulation) brought about 21 separate areas per model that could suffer damage, including internal organs! ARIES was introduced for Beta 2.0, but it was not without its share of problems.
The code for ARIES went relatively unchanged for quite a few years, before it was updated, removing some of the 21 separate areas, including internal organs. We began to see more problems with hit detection and a call for change from the community. There were hits that would miss and misses that would hit, baffling gamers and frustrating them. This would cause some to give up the game.
The upcoming version rewrites the hit detection code that has been drawing praises from the development team and the QA testers. The code known as ARIES is effective gone; updated to a more simpler form of hitmesh that surrounds the models. Couple the new hit detection and code with changes in weapon damage values and QA gamers have been praising the current development.
Ledge grabbing was big hit among all gamers. It allowed a gamer to effectively grab a ledge and pull them up. This became a very effective tactic and opened up levels to a new vertical dimension. To this day, ledge grabbing is still very popular and used quite often. Instead of playing on a single plane, gamers had other possibility of escape, which included jumping and pulling themselves up to a higher level. At the time, this feature was quite revolutionary in any mod and only increased the value of Urban Terrors game play. The new version of Urban Terror will introduce another new feature when released. This new feature is called power sliding and really adds yet another dimension to where Quake meets reality.??
To execute a power slide, you must increase your speed by sprinting or strafe jumping and while airborne, prior to hitting the ground pressure your crouch key. This will result in your player model landing on the ground in a crouch and sliding across the surface.
QA members have loved this new feature, "one of the best things that are going to be added since walljumping was introduced," says EDK-Facility. mOkaZ says, "Powersliding will bring a whole new meaning to the word "rush" espeacially on narrow spaces." Some comment on the lifespan of snipers, "Powersliding is a lot of fun, it's a nice feature that should make Urban Terror more conducive to movement instead of sitting behind sniper rifles," says Hybridesque.
Some gamers have commented on seeing 'XY' and 'XYZ' in the corner on screenshots we have displayed. These reflect the speed of your player in the game when your player is moving. The higher your numbers, the better the powerslide. The minimum speed, is about 300, but the higher the number, the more effective powerslide you will get.. This display will be controlled by the cg_speedo cvar.
Not only does powersliding looking great, it makes for a classic signature move for gamers trying to avoid an attack or taking the offensive. Click for a videostration, check out TwentySeven and Mutters, as Mutters powerslides into the fountain courtyard in Casa. Demo and video created by woekele.
The code for ARIES went relatively unchanged for quite a few years, before it was updated, removing some of the 21 separate areas, including internal organs. We began to see more problems with hit detection and a call for change from the community. There were hits that would miss and misses that would hit, baffling gamers and frustrating them. This would cause some to give up the game.
The upcoming version rewrites the hit detection code that has been drawing praises from the development team and the QA testers. The code known as ARIES is effective gone; updated to a more simpler form of hitmesh that surrounds the models. Couple the new hit detection and code with changes in weapon damage values and QA gamers have been praising the current development.
Ledge grabbing was big hit among all gamers. It allowed a gamer to effectively grab a ledge and pull them up. This became a very effective tactic and opened up levels to a new vertical dimension. To this day, ledge grabbing is still very popular and used quite often. Instead of playing on a single plane, gamers had other possibility of escape, which included jumping and pulling themselves up to a higher level. At the time, this feature was quite revolutionary in any mod and only increased the value of Urban Terrors game play. The new version of Urban Terror will introduce another new feature when released. This new feature is called power sliding and really adds yet another dimension to where Quake meets reality.??
To execute a power slide, you must increase your speed by sprinting or strafe jumping and while airborne, prior to hitting the ground pressure your crouch key. This will result in your player model landing on the ground in a crouch and sliding across the surface.
QA members have loved this new feature, "one of the best things that are going to be added since walljumping was introduced," says EDK-Facility. mOkaZ says, "Powersliding will bring a whole new meaning to the word "rush" espeacially on narrow spaces." Some comment on the lifespan of snipers, "Powersliding is a lot of fun, it's a nice feature that should make Urban Terror more conducive to movement instead of sitting behind sniper rifles," says Hybridesque.
Some gamers have commented on seeing 'XY' and 'XYZ' in the corner on screenshots we have displayed. These reflect the speed of your player in the game when your player is moving. The higher your numbers, the better the powerslide. The minimum speed, is about 300, but the higher the number, the more effective powerslide you will get.. This display will be controlled by the cg_speedo cvar.
Not only does powersliding looking great, it makes for a classic signature move for gamers trying to avoid an attack or taking the offensive. Click for a videostration, check out TwentySeven and Mutters, as Mutters powerslides into the fountain courtyard in Casa. Demo and video created by woekele.
The 27 Days of Terror: Day 13 - Level Overview Thingley
One of the all new levels planned to be included in the upcoming release is titled, Thingley. The level was created by Riche, based loosely around The Parish of Village Thingley Wiltshire, West Wiltshire England. The level was originally debuted earlier this year, but since that time the development team with testing and suggestions from the Quality Assurance gamers have been constantly working on it to improve the overlook, look, feel and playability of Thingley.
The changes initiated by the QA Team were in response to level features as they relate to the gamer. Walls located throughout the level that impacted game play were changed or removed, for example. Another feature of Thingley is the slight elevation change see in the level. This helps to break up the monotony of the level being created on the same plane as you travel through Thingley. Streets slope up and down, as well as having raise walkways, alleyways and patios.
The changes initiated by the QA Team were in response to level features as they relate to the gamer. Walls located throughout the level that impacted game play were changed or removed, for example. Another feature of Thingley is the slight elevation change see in the level. This helps to break up the monotony of the level being created on the same plane as you travel through Thingley. Streets slope up and down, as well as having raise walkways, alleyways and patios.
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