Oh yeah. It changes with the sky change, so when the stars are out, it is night time.

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In the latest shot, the brick on the far building is far too frickin' huge. Scale that down dearly. Additionally, posters generally are at eye-level, not down by the feet.

On all your brick buildings, it seems, the windows just cut off the brick. Real buildings don't do that; put a wooden frame or something around the windows.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
Jack Chick preaches it
NMGOH

Wow. I can't believe that's JK.

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Whew, great textures. Now that I've composed myself, on to the comments.

First comment is about the road signs. They're a very nice touch, but look at the second pic that you posted, the one with the 'No Left-Hand Turn' sign in it -- the sign is wayyy to thick. Real road signs are just a piece of sheet metal bolted to one side of a square aluminum post, so they're very thin.

Same thing with the pic of the Speed Limit sign, it's as thick as the pole. Also, speed limit signs are usually placed a little bit after an intersection, not right before it. It would make more sense to see a Stop Sign there instead of a Speed Limit Sign. I'd say put a stop sign there and move the speed limit sign onto that long straight stretch of road a little ways past the intersection.

Next, windows. Like Wolfy said, your windows need window frames. Some of your exellent photorealistic textures have them, and it would be good to have some sort of frame for all of your windows, whether it's a separate windowframe texture you can use around all your windows, or something you add to your existing textures. I'd add curtains to your hotel window also, if I was in there I wouldn't want people looking in on me while I slept.

The size of your windows needs some tweaking, I would think. You've got some really huge planes of glass with nothing to support them, especially at your laundromat. Real windows have supports in them every so often so the individual planes of glass aren't so massive, or the buildings have a lot of smaller windows. More modern buildings tend to have the one big supported window in each room, while older buildings tend to have multiple smaller windows separated by brick. It looks like you're using the older style, so map accordingly. Your photorealistic windows tend to be tall and narrow rather than the short and wide windows you've carved into your walls, and almost none of the windows you've carved are the same size. Keeping uniformity throughout the whole map will make it look and feel better, and eliminate the 'dead space' caused by differently sized windows.

This talk of window size somewhat brings me to my last suggestion: proportion. Let's use the picture of the speed limit sign as an example. Look at the blue building. It's only got 2 floors, but it's as tall as the tan 3 story building next to it! This causes the windows and ceilings to be way taller than they need to be. Those blue bricks are huge too, it would make more sense to me to have them half that size, more like the bricks in that grey building next to it. I'd suggest using some of your other photorealistic textures as a template as how big things should be on your blue building.

Also, that's the most spacious laundromat I've ever seen. You could probably fit another row of washing machines in that isle and still have room to spare, and the cieling is almost high enough for it to be a 2 story building.

Now lets look at a good example of proportion that you've done, your hotel room. The window, the TV, the beds, the picture, they are just about the right size, and there's still room to move around. If there's not enough room, you can always play with the walkplayer template and make him take up less room. I'd also move that picture down a bit to just above eye level.

Now I hope I havn't discouraged you with all these comments, when I first looked at your pics I was totally blown away by how awesome it looked--and I really was in awe. You've put good textures in JK and everyone thinks it's JO or JA, and they're 8-bit to boot! I've just given you so many suggestions because I can see you already have a great level, but a few improvments could make it really really good. I'll definately beta test for you, give me a line at samcoulson@hotmail.com.

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Check out updates for my editing work at the Shadow Jedi Academy.

Thank you, Kievan Mereel! Those suggestions are great! I can't believe I missed some of those obvious points. I'm printing em' out right now. I know that the big windows look funny, but I'm trying to get the most window out of each building.

I'm doing this because the adjoin limit has been reached, and it shows HOM in certain areas, like when viewing the whole city block. This is discouraging, because now I'm having to sacrifice stuff like many windows, detailed buildings, etc. Oh well, these pointers rock, as do all the other ones who posted. Thanks you guys!

Wolfy: The bricks at the farback look big, but that's just the mipmap. Although I'm definitely going to do that frame thing.

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[This message has been edited by Whelly (edited November 04, 2003).]

Is this not against the rules?


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Member of the Minneassian Council

[This message has been edited by -Monoxide- (edited November 04, 2003).]

If you're getting HOM, look for some architectural details it might be possible to convert to 3dos... I made a level before I knew any better, about making some of my archi in 3dos so I wouldn't have 1000000 sectors and HOM... and I got hom... hehe... well I came back to it later and spent some good time converting some of the archi to 3dos. I didn't even have to convert all of it... just a few pieces. And then it ran tons better...

But of course you know of 3dos. ^_^ There still might be something you can change from geometry to qa 3do... maybe a building the player can never enter? (remember the entire 3do has to stay in one sector )

Good luck!

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The Mega-ZZTer's Gaming Haven!

[This message has been edited by Gebohq (edited December 28, 2003).]

Thats why I came up with the OOC control room



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O_o
o_O

great level. it turns me on. jk. but i gotta ask, is there a berlin wall thing going on?

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Listen whelly, Don't get discouraged. Make the windows a 3do! you get your window frame and everything, thats what I did to get my glass doors. The only problem is you get a HOM through them, Not to worry, assign the 3do a thingflag without the architexture flag I belive. and whammo, the HOM is gone. this is also a good solutions for doors. it annoys me when I'm building, I delete a door and it makes a HOM. >_<

Also, want shattering windows? make a cog that makes a 3do "shatter" like glass. This also might be cool for doors, annoying doors. I'll just blast them out of my way


Anyways, Can't wait to beta test!

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"In the memory you'll find me. Eyes burning up.
The darkness holding me tightly.
Untill the sun rises up."

OH! One more thing! Lamps and lightswitches are a neccecity for such a realistic RP level.


Seriously though, Put streetlamps. A streetlamp 3do with a small dynamic light that turns on when its nighttime.

And it can be done, I've seen it. One level I remmber had street lights that would break if you shot them, they broke and went out! ^_^

Don't forget some sprites on them streetlights. make it look cool!

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"In the memory you'll find me. Eyes burning up.
The darkness holding me tightly.
Untill the sun rises up."

Whoa !!!

I really ought to pop by the Showcase forum more often - this looks like it's shaping up to be a "well-above-average" level (especially considering it how it has to have involving rpg elements!!)

Geez - it seems like a while since I last saw you post a question, over in the old cog forum, about the weather-day/night cog possibilities but it looks like you've got things well in hand - if you'd like more beta testers.... (please don't make me beg... )

However .... (there's always something ) - I'm not too sure about having a control room facility, with which the host has total control over.



Just a thought, but (more to do with bandwidth than anything else) if you're intending on using music, why not have a selection of songs and "soundbank switches", that change the music, locally on the system, rather than synched and global. That way, players could listen to music they want to - say if you just want to chill then maybe some classical relaxing music; if you're feeling aggressive when committing a burglary/murder, then maybe you'd want heart-pumping rock . Just a thought...

About the "sun rays/blinding effect" ... being a cogger, (naturally I have too much time to ponder about the intricacies of a higher meaning of life ) I have a suggestion and it is entirely up to you, if you want to use it but... I was thinking what about having a ghost thing (a "sun" object) move from one frame to another in an arc motion (highest point being midday obviously) over the top of your level and if the player looks directly at the object then you could "slowly" tint the colour of their screen to illustrate a blinding effect. The advantage of it being in an arc shape would be that you could start the sun object off "outside" of your level's walls and have it arc over... Admittedly I need to think a bit more about implementation, but moving the object from frame to frame isn't difficult, and neither is the blinding effect, but maybe the angle that the player looks up into the sky as well as the line of sight to the "ghost sun"...

Well ok, I'm waffling now, but I just thought I'd try and provide some positive feedback . Other than that, everything looks great (begs once more to be on the beta list...)

Hope to have helped (in some small, miniscule way)

-Jackpot

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Are you feeling lucky, cuz if you are, get your hands off me...

"Life is mostly froth and bubble,
But two things stand in stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own"
("Ye Wearie Wayfarer" - by Adam Lindsay Gordon)

I can hook you up with the SMHQ music cog with permission, I know SM_Sith_Lord and hes always willing to let people use his stuff.

Its rather ingenius. you make clips that play at X2 the speed. so they're smaller in size, the cog slows it down ingame, plus it has a selection, and its rather easy to install into the level.


email me, Oberfeldwebel@gtcom.net

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"In the memory you'll find me. Eyes burning up.
The darkness holding me tightly.
Untill the sun rises up."

Reminds me of max payne.

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Mystic0 Editing Resources
Mystic0 Forum
The Massassi Post Count Summary

Hey lucky_jackpot Thanks for the comments. Yeah, the weather cogs are working great, although I never did solve the problem I had. It doesn't bother me that much anyway, it's not a big deal.

About the sun thing, I had it working! I had a sun in the sky that moved in the sky and disappeared when it turned night. In fact, I synchronized it so that the level was brightest when the sun was highest in the air. Very cool.

I decided that it kinda was a eye soar, this big yellow sprite in the sky. It was probably because the sprite I had was pretty ugly, but it was working. If anyone has a nice sun sprite, I might put it back in there. But anyway, I had it so it blinded you a little bit when you looked at it. It was pretty cool, but just like I said, it was an eye soar, and the sprite was ugly.

This music idea sounds clever (I loved the music tracks in SMHQ!), but I already have a looping wav in the level, a city ambience. I think it's better to have city sounds rather than music. If people want music, they can always pull up Winamp, or something like that. It would also take a bunch of space for the wavs, and I'm trying to save as much space as possible, because all of these mats are taking up a lot of space.

Oberfeldwebell: I already put street lamps in! I definitely want to add sprites to the street lamps, but I can't find a good light corona picture. I though I saw a sprite like that in a SP level...man, if anyone has a cool light picture/sprite, let me use it.

The whole 3DO building thing...It's a very good idea, but I think it would like really weird next to buildings which are part of the world geometry. I would be fine if the level was just daytime, but with ambience lighting, it would painfully stick out. It only HOMs at the corner of the level, no worries yet...maybe.

I just added a sewer system, and I have manholes on the streets. I attached some doors cogs to them, and tah-dah! A working sewer system.

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I still think the control room for time and weather would be a good idea unless you are too far ahead to start on it..


Oooo sewer system eh? make it connect to all of the buildings like in Barons hed ^_^

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O_o
o_O

I was wondering about that Whelly. I wasn't about to stay in your town over night when I knew that feces was just piling up everywhere. For added realism, you're gonna want your sewers DIRTY and DARK. In a lot of the levels I've seen that have sewers, the creators put dim or low lights in the sewers. This is understandable to put dim lights underneath a manhole, but not through-out the entire sewer system. Lookin' good my man, keep up the work. And don't forget a police station and hospital.

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The Editor of bad levels such as:

Battle Ground Oasis The Forgotten Tomb
Office Building Arena
SpacePort Oasis
Wookie Camp
Fade to Black
Thriving Desert

Grab the viewsave.cog from drazen, it'll help with HOMing...

...unfortunately, it couldn't help what was EASILY the coolest level I'd ever made...*sniff* poor post-apocalyptic city...

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Dark, Darker, Darko

You don't understand, its speed up to double speed, an 8 second clip is only 100KB - 200KB or so, You can pack a full load of clips into a level with only taking up a MB, or if you want allot, two MB. And I have some unrelleased customs clips if you want them, all ready for the cog.

And players will love it, Give it a chance.

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"In the memory you'll find me. Eyes burning up.
The darkness holding me tightly.
Untill the sun rises up."

No music please, lol. Hate that... Interferes with the higher quality music I like to listen to constantly, lol. Besides, ingame music gets repetitive and boring... Don't mind it if it's just ambience music (Disco rooms, whatever...) but for a whole level, it's annoying as hell.

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_ _________________ _
Wolf Moon
Cast Your Spell On Me
Beware
The Woods At Night
The Wolf Has Come

Everyones misunderstanding, The SMHQ one can be turned off, uses multiple tracks, and its only for a set room, Say you want music in your hotel room, it'll just be in YOUR hotel room. etc.

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"In the memory you'll find me. Eyes burning up.
The darkness holding me tightly.
Untill the sun rises up."

Just one room would put it into that category of ambience, as I mentioned. (Unique rooms...) From what you've been talking about, made it sound like the whole level. And I really don't remember a damn thing about SMHQ, was deleted quite quickly, after perhaps one time playing.

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_ _________________ _
Wolf Moon
Cast Your Spell On Me
Beware
The Woods At Night
The Wolf Has Come