Is this in game yet?

ofc not

I was going to post an update today. Here it is:

I've gotten past the initial errors through tool. It boiled down to overlapping faces (which didn't exist). But that got me thinking about editing the geometry a bit, which led to me realizing the map is still too dang big. That said, I am scaling it down. This is a fairly major overhaul, one which I hope will reduce map size by as much as 50%. In the end, this will still leave a map that is about the size of Extinction. By that I mean the entire map, not just the commonly played regions.

In this new scale down spree, the secondary wall has shrunk by 40%, as has the Sentinel Wall. Its old height was so big that it was getting clipped by the engine at its halfway point. So, everything is getting scaled down. EVERYTHING (except bases and whatnot). The cliffs are shorter and smaller, so it feels a bit more natural to use them, there will be much more to blue side (I'm adding in several lakes and natural formations to spice things up), the minimap bridge will be shortened (as will the chasm), and so on, so forth.

Pictures will come soon, when I have more concrete changes to show. As it stands now, I am nearly halfway through the planned changes to blue side. Red side won't be receiving too many changes other than size reduction to make things less ominous, open, and boring. Hopefully this translates to a more enjoyable ground experience, since, with smaller cliffs and paths, players will be less exposed. This will also save polys (my how I love saving polys), space, reduce the negative impact of clipping, and hopefully get rid of some of the bogus overlapping face errors.

Do comment if you have any suggested changes for me. Keep in mind that the intent of this scale down is to detract from the sheer size of the map and shift a bit more emphasis on ground scheming. Picture driving through my map in all areas, and figure out what YOU would like to see.

Pretty lights and explosions.

Hehe oh I'll see to it that there are plenty of pretty explosions. I kinda already have pretty lights. Bungie did an excellent job in making their light bitmaps. But what I meant was what would you like to see in terms of geometry. I'm working with the BSP for right now. All else is of secondary importance.

One idea I had in mind is one neutral or two separate sniper towers that are built into the side of a hill, mountain or cliff, with ladders and stairways to reach them from the bottom. I partially got the idea from the map Soli Deo Gloria, which has a good example of this.
Also... I'd still like to see a waterfall/stream in there somewhere, oh, and maybe a secret room as well ;)

I'd be willing to place a waterfall and stream. The new developments to blue side could greatly benefit from one, but I simply do not know where to place it. I cannot think of a logical place to position a waterfall or other water source. If you have an idea, do tell.

This map will of course have a secret room. It will host the usual tributes and credits, but also hold a tribute to a real-life event, to remain undisclosed.

If you still have the tunnels and paths along the cliff face of the creves than you can easily route water around the "POA" to create the waterfall effect over said paths. (you can also use this water to idk... flood a room or two?) Have fun ^_^

As of right now, I can't see where it would fit anywhere on blue's side. The only place I can really see it working is where it originally was... flowing out of the mountain and into the crash site. I know you said earlier you didn't want to re-create the stream here, but since you're making one anyway maybe you could reconsider. I'm still really latched on to this idea, I think it would really spice up the mountain area visually and add a cool effect to the crash site.

Having water flowing over the Blue entrances would add a very nice effect...maybe cover Red entrances with foliage to add the same effect? As in, having the entrances hidden.

that would be pretty cool.

I would like to see... bright colored towers? Like have something like the beam emitters on extinction except that have running light's and are bigger. With a good texture job you could make it so that it only takes up under 100 poly's easy. Gonna sketch up and idea so you can see what I am talking about.

so we going to see a in game Pic any time soon?

Nope.

... Why?

It's quite a way's form being in-game.

Just a suggestion, but seeing as this looks like it's at least the same size as the original extinction if not bigger, I would think about placing little teleport stations across the playing area. Just enough so that if someone happens to fall out of their plane or something, they don't have to kill themselves to get back to spawn. They could just walk a little ways and teleport back in. I don't know how this idea would work in game, since you might get people teleporting into the enemy's base or something. Maybe just put a few mini bases in the center area with a few vehicles or something.

iirc Rdes that try to use the vehicle teleporter can't, I have tried several times. It just doesn't work. Maybe this could be implemented there, signaling if it's Red or Blue with a light on top or something.

He's got all that planned out already.

I will reconsider adding the stream back in.

Pictures!!1eleven!!one!!

Album:

http://imageshack.us/g/828/requiemfamily.png/

Picture 1:



Here's a nice snapshot of the history of the map. Circled in red is the current build, at 67K polys (with a few hundred more to add, but possibly a few hundred more to delete). Circled in blue is the old proposal build, at its larger size, standing at 71K. Black is the original flavor, with 78K. The other gray square lump you see is the first build, at a measly 19K (it had no bases or structures of any kind). And lastly, the green centerpiece is Extinction.

Obviously, I've gone through great strides to scale down the map. While fans of large-scale, open arenas may frown upon this, I want to shed light on what may become an overlooked fact: Requiem is still HUGE. Its main playing field is roughly the size of the entire Extinction map, and the ceiling is still generously high. See a following picture for a view with a Pelican in midair.

Picture 2:



A closer still of the comparison of my work and Ender's. Please enjoy.

Picture 3:



Please pardon our dust. Clearly I still have holes to fill, but those only require the addition of a few faces. I've omitted them due to work on other areas taking focus, and because I may still shift components around. Notice how everything is, for the most part, the same as it was before I scaled it down further.

The major changes here, however, are simply in the shorter, more detailed cliffs, the smaller, less tedious-to-navigate pathways, and the inclusion of a bit more detail. All I really did was gradually scale/otherwise compress areas down to more manageable and less ominous sizes. Because I didn't delete much during the process, I used the same amount of polys in the spaces, thus providing for better, more detailed areas.

Picture 4:



Same idea as Picture 3, but from the other side of the map. Same deal was applied to blue side.

Picture 5:



Closeup of blue side. The inlet close to blue base is home to a shallow lake (I redid the lake terrain map-wide to ensure the lake was deep enough to be plausible and different, but shallow enough so it would not cover the player, thus hiding him from view, to the advantage of campers).

The small indent in the upper left corner in the cliffs is the entrance to a mini tunnel that leads to blue's addendum (buried underneath the mountain/hill). The tunnel hooks up to a cavern, deep on one end, with the addendum attached to the other. A pathway winds through the whole thing, eventually meeting up with the minimap's pathway. I thought this was an awesome construction, and am quite pleased with it.

To the upper left, you can see a Battle Creek arch (see below).

Picture 6:



Its scaled up by ~30% and optimized. It is also a part of the local area, which includes a lake and nicely detailed cliffs (but is obviously unfinished at the moment). It's a nice inclusion that breaks up blue's astonishing lack of fun, new areas, of which I noticed red has quite a few. It will hook up with the larger, wider cliff ahead.

Picture 7:



Red's side. No major changes here. The crash site still cuts through the lake, the cliffs still wind and turn, but oh, what's this? Red base is now tucked into a safe (but not too safe) nook, instead of being placed behind the larger cave, safe from the majority of attacks. This setup provides a closer, more expedient commute to key components of the side, and also allows a little bit of distanced attack on the part of the blues. A tiny hanger is included in the cliffs, seen in the lower left. It is divided in half, with each containing a teleporter, and large enough to hold a Warthog or Ghost.

Notice the purple object in the roughly in the center of the picture: that's a Hog. It may look huge, but I really don't think this picture gives credit to the true scale of the map. Local areas like these are at much more ground-friendly sizes, methinks.

Also of note but not visible in the picture: the outer portions of the lake (i.e. further from the shore and cliffs) are much deeper. They will be marked with custom-made stationary 'buoys' inspired 100% from those seen marking the underwater dropoff on Uplift (from Halo 2). Some will also populate the lake by the Battle Creek arch. The buoy color will reflect the color of the nearby bases.

Picture 8:



Here's the picture with the Pelican. Visible in the center, and positioned roughly above blue's side of the minimap, roughly halfway up. That said, the scale is still quite large and yet still small, hopefully small and compact enough to place a much needed emphasis on ground combat, what with the shorter commutes and 'friendly' pathways and teleporters, while at the same time still providing a viable legitimacy to aircraft.

Looking good Gonzo.

It's funny just how big the map actually is. Never really realized until you showed it with extinction.

I really like the bridges.

AN idea for you just random but what would be interesting is a sizeable cave that is just pretty much empty but is really big (like that one H2 map) with maybe a small base inside. Just a random idea.

Wow, the pictures are absolutely stunning. Keep up the awesome work, Gonzo!

Couple questions: Are there going to be any features/juicy gameplay in the hills behind the POA?

Am I correct to assume that the big open area where red base is located (the remaining half of the lake) is filled/partially filled with water? If so, is the pathway connecting red base with the minimap also going to contain a stream leading to the trench?

Each update causes a renewed sense of anticipation!

Good work, Gonzo!

Looks good, this is going to be epic when its littered with bodies and other random effects. XD Are you going to do something like a "blackhawk Down" them with the remaining area oposite to the "POA" with an Albatross model and huge smoke plumes? (makes a great easter egg and an easy excuse for a giant trail of debris[bodies, weapons, vehicles] as well as an interesting twist on koth provided said albatross has viable and functional guns[see adds for Halo Wars for good referrence if you are interrested])

Looking great... but how are you going to texture this? O_O

With lots of hard work and dedication. LOTS of the stuff XD

No Black Hawk down additions, sorry. There will be crashed Pelicans and Spirits, possibly other craft, scattered about, each site hosting a few weapons, health, and maybe a vehicle.

Textures will be handled by mapping the cliffs to a generic cliff texture, applied over a large scale over the cliff faces (i.e. closeup shots of the texture on the cliffs will be pixelated). The cliff texture will have a detail map or two to add closer, clearer detail. The ground will be mapped with one or two custom-made bitmaps that have details such as grass patches, dirt patches and smears, and other colorations. This bitmap(s) will be made in a similar manner as Blood Gulch's: grass will not be alpha'd out while all other colors will, thus allowing grass sections to use a grass detail map, and dirt sections to use a dirt detail map. This also provides an easy way to get the burnt crash site in nicely.

Everything else (all the bases and structures) gets textured a few faces at a time, and for the most part is already mapped.

Textures sound sexy. Try to aim, if you're not already, for a lush, green look especially around the lakes and other water features. Except for the crash site area, obviously. Also, at the lake(s) near blue base, a small waterfall (possibly multi-step/staircase type) from the overhanging cliff(s) would look really pretty and add a nice effect. (Yes, I am obsessed with waterfalls :P)

Anything past around 40 -50k is a bad idea imo... Lots, and lots, and lots, of rendering issues.

as long as you have a super great pc anything is possible.

Oops, forgot to answer those questions. If, by hills behind the POA, you are referring to the mountains and terrain to the POA's right/3 o'clock (where the POA's bow is taken as the front/12 o'clock), then yes, there are some 'juicy' areas around. You have the large cavern, which I'll probably scale down, and red's addendum. Admittedly, it is out of the way, compared to blue's addendum, and I may fix that, but it is what it is for now.

I also realized I need a good place to spawn Longswords. Pelicans and other vehicles are a bit easier to place (logically), as they are smaller, and more common. Longswords are not common, and are quite large. I was thinking of adding a crude runway to the area, but let's face it: the back story here is of a human cruiser crash landing, forcing its survivors to desperately set up camp and defend their site from the approaching Covie then Flood (oops, spoiler?) onslaught. They wouldn't have had time to construct a pristine little runway. Anyways, I may place them over in that area, to give more of a reason to go over there. Maybe I'll put one in its own crash site.

The lake by red base is filled with water. The cliffs are, for the most part, accompanied by shoreline, and the further out areas are deeper. The other side of the lake, by the 'juicy' realm and cave system, does not have water (as of now. If I add a stream over there again, that will change). On that note, of streams, your idea of leading water through the pathway to the minimap, where it flows into the trench, is certainly intriguing. I like the idea of getting some water into the minimap quite a lot, actually, and have begun visualizing such a scenario. Thanks for the idea!

Also, your texture suggestions will be taken into account accordingly. To those interested, I can post a beta of the bitmap I made for Requiem when the canyon was still horizontal. It was a dry test to see what I could make, and how it would look. I was quite pleased with the results, though it certainly stands for much improvement for when I design the bitmap(s) for this final configuration.
Edited by CAG Gonzo on Jul 7, 2011 at 12:55 AM

Thanks Gonzo, sounds great!

And you're welcome for the 'juicy' idea. I originally thought that pathway WAS a stream... the way it meandered away from the lake to the trench, lol.

My machine can handle 50k polies. If my machine can do it ANY machine that has come out since windows 2000 did can run it. My machine is OLD.

Blame the effects artist in me... ok... as far as placing longswords goes; its the same as placing downed pelicans, scatter them for the most part but if you want them more accessable to players group them in 3 in a v type formation (even when pilots make emergency landings, they group with their commrads). Also a few custom crashes would be epic (ie- a burning rear section of a longsword and or sereph or two jutting from the "sentinel wall" would make for quite a few lols as well as more of a(n) "epic fight happened here."
On a side note, will we be seeing any custom vehicles deployed here? (for some reason i'm stuck on the viability of an Albatross as either a crashed gun battery with assorted equipment or a flyable vehicle close to the effect that the Elephant has in sandtrap.) Just a thought but it would be epic. ^_^

I didn't say PC's couldn't handle it, I said there would be rendering issues, especially for anything at 71k polygons. Not performance wise, basically...