My latest level, Aquapark, is now available for beta testing. It would be very helpful to get it running on some different computers to see if I should tone down the waterfall effects I've added. I used Zagibu's rain cog with ghost objects only along the top of the waterfall to create drops of water and splashes at the bottom. Testing would be much appreceated.



JK Editing Hub Project Page

I like the splashes at the bottom of the waterfalls, but the little effects in-between look a bit bare. Maybe try adding more of them?

wow very sexy

I think the drops of water look alot better in motion. Also if anyone dowloads the beta ignore the music. I actually forgot I still had it in there.

Edit: Heh, maybe i should have mentioned the beta is at the JK Editing Hub.

Looks like something special, I'll check it out sometime (soon hopefully)!

Ok, here are my thoughts:
- The lighting and background sound are nice. The waterfall sounds fade out very nicely so as to not get overly annoying. I actually like the music as it's not overwhelming.
- The vine way up on the wall is set to sphere collision. A normal person probably wouldn't notice this, but if users use mods in your level, it'll make grappling hooks and other similar things act funny near it.
- The item cubbies are really nice. I'm glad you kept ammo away from the repeater. The bowcaster is a pain to get to considering no one likes it, so no one will ever go down in that pool unless they desperately need ammo.
- The dead end with the armor vest is great.
- The water drops are a wonderful effect. They sometimes hit the wall the waterfall is pouring down which is just magnificent. The problem with them, is you can't jump through the waterfalls; you get pushed off at very weird angles by the drops, like you've jumped into a falling brick.
- Gameplay-wise, it's a lot like classic Canyon Oasis. You can't run circuits around the level as easily, and thank goodness there's no Concussion Rifle (or if there is I never found it).
- When I jump down into the little streams I still get hurt. Realistically, this makes sense, as I jumped 20 feet down into 6 inches of water, but letting people land in them without damage would be a decent gameplay element; falling damage was a problem for me in this level.
- Consider adding the don't-show-on-map flag to the sectors at the very top of the level that players aren't supposed to get to. The map looks weird with a big box going around the playable area.

QM

Beautiful level, the waterfalls are a refreshing change from the normal DM.

Here's my scoop:

• I agree with Quib, the music is appropriate. But perhaps increase its volume just a tad.
• The vine looked kind of odd when it was just sitting up there all by itself - you really need more of them, creeping down the walls. This level could really look very, VERY pretty with some more vegetation. Just remember - where there is water, there is life.
• Again, I agree with Quib, the waterfalls are beautiful, but you need to set the rain template to no collide so that they don't impede a player Force Jumping up the falls.
• I don't know if you noticed this, but a player can Force Jump to the very top of the arena, and then walk around on the top. Did you intend for this?
• I'm not sure if this is a problem you can fix, but when underwater, the waterfalls disappear (this is because JK doesn't like to render a translucent surface through another, but I know it can be done). Perhaps ask for some help with this.
• Finally, great level, hectic gameplay. But the lighting could perhaps be a bit more distinguishable - the texture set you use can be a little bit hard on the eyes (but I still like them, don't change them.)

Thanks Quib. That was a very helpful reply. I've fixed the collision on the vine, the fall damage and hid the big sectors on top. There actually is a concussion rifle on the map but it is well hidden and takes a while to get even if you know where it is. I also tried to keep the powercells as far away from it as I could.

Ok, on a second run through:
- I love where you hid the Concussion Rifle. It really alleviates my fears of that weapon.
- Consider replacing the Repeater that's in an ammo cubby (not the one in the stream) with a bowcaster, or another less used weapon. I was getting my butt whooped consistently by a certain Repeater wielding maniac who shall remain nameless because the gun was way too available with a lot of ammo.
- Add flags to the adjoins so that a player can't get up to the upper most skybox sectors. Make sure not to block projectiles.
- It's pretty easy to survive the fall into the huge pit. This is ok, as it means you're kinda hosed. I just thought I'd point this out in case you meant for the player to always die down there.
- Health and shield placement seemed fine. I didn't encounter too much health camping availability. The three shield recharges seperated by pillars aren't a problem, they take a while to collect leaving the collector open to attack.

I'm not sure if making the water drops not collide is the best solution. Having them able to hit you is a nice effect; I wonder if a mass setting is what's causing them to be falling bricks.

I totally didn't notice the lighting (or lack thereof) before, as all I was seeing was flashbacks to really old pics in the forums of this level in it's infancy after you used the lighter plugin. Is there some reason this public version didn't have the lighter plugin used on it? It looked really good in those old screenshots. As the level is now, there's just sort of moderate light everywhere. It's not bad, I liked the visibility, but those old screenshots just looked so nice...

QM

Yeah I havent run the lighter plugin over the level yet because I fear that I might accidentally save and close JED. However, it will be applied in the final version.

Does anyone know if there is a surface damage cog included with Jedi Knight? I would be helpful it to make the big pit kill you instantly.

Hehe, YES!!! I too just found the conc, and love its location. Very cool, great way of hiding it.

00_deathfloor.cog

QM

Ahh, I see. I thought it would be called 00_surfdamage.cog or something.

The splashes are cool, but the drops are in my opinion too big.

Other that that, it's pretty neat.

thats for those player-damaging forcefields you find in JK.

Wow, the hidden conc area is great, excellent idea.

The waterfall design is fantastic, but some water thrust would be more realistic for a waterfall that size. In other words, if you go in it the waterfall carries you down. It would also be nice if it was a little wider.

The area where the waterwall drops is still being worked on, I assume?

Oh and more hidden areas like that would be great. Maybe an underground area with pipes or something, the lead up to the waterfall.

All the other ideas I've seen people post are great.

Keep up the good work.

ReT

Needs better textures.

Meh, the texturing rocks.

His texturing job is good, but some of the textures are a bit bland. Namely the large, monotonmous walls.

Also, I'm rather tired and using my dad's PC so this page is side scrolling like crazy, so I'll just say what's already probably been said...make the splash effect at the bottom more dense and add lightweight mist in the same spot. Similar effect, lighter color, slower expand. Might look like crap in JK though. Those drip things on the falls themselves are rather sparse, and kind of ugly. I'd suggest another texture infront of the regular water to illustrate those "streams". Have it be a transparent MAT and then make the surface translucent. Then move it at a slightly larger speed to make it look like there are multiple players of water. Also, you may just try adding multiple layers of different, similar or the same water texture. Also, you have a nasty 45 degree angle thing going on every time the water goes over an edge, I'd round those out quite a bit. Make them at least 8 surfaces, not just 1.

The textures are beautiful. If there was a vote, I'd vote for them to stay as is. Your attention to detail at the weapon cubbies is wonderful; I like how you keep the blocks textured consistently.

The waterfalls could curve more gently, but I think 8 surfaces would be over doing it. Even 3 on the bend would be a huge improvement over 1. However, the level is VERY right-angled, and the smoother the waterfall curve, the more out of place it'd be.

I think the water drops could use a custom made 3do rather than an upturned and shrunken concussion bullet, but the basic style looks pretty neat in action as it is.

QM

For the underwater bit, maybe have a load of airbubble sprites the move to the surface?

I should clarify. The textures themselves are fine. They're just used poorly together.

Zuljin, what exactly do you think is wrong with the way the textures are used? I have always liked the texture setup on this level.

Here's some screenshots with the lighter plugin applied.

The level is very well made, and everything looks really awesome, but I have two comments.

1. The little conc bullet water drop things don't look that good IMO. I think the waterfalls would look better if they weren't there or maybe something else.

2. Even after falling off the large waterfall to the giant pit below I still somehow survived and had no choice but to kill myself.

Great work otherwise. It's really awesome.

Listen to me laddie, I know something about making good water. And yes, 3 or 4 curves would perhaps fit better.

It also wouldn't hurt to break up the monotomy by adding broken bricks. Have some bricks crumbling, some falling out or already fallen out. Do it in 3D, make it look older.

Although it would definately improve the look of the level, if I were to rebuild the waterfalls with 3 surfaces on each curve I would have 10 surfaces to geo, flag, texture and cog for each waterfall (6 on the curve 2 on the horizontal and 2 on the vertical). Multiply that by 5 total waterfalls and factor in all of the adjoining to old sectors I would have to do and you get quite alot of work that I am currently too lazy to do.

Adding some damaged bricks and walls sounds like a good idea though. I am also going to try to create a better 3do for the falling droplets.

+ the level realy looks nice
+ I like the game play

- music

I'm not realy good in making levels my self but i think this rocks

We need to get together in IRC and arrange a play time for this.

hmmm remind me of the rain.cog very cool

I really like it. Could be quite fun with proper item placement.
Some things you could improve:
- new drop 3dos
- side areas need more lighting diversity
- waterfalls could need some scrollong side surfaces
You also got to work something out with the great pit. Maybe remove the deathfloor and add some way to get up. A conc down there could be fun (or maybe deplace the raildet to there). Or enlarge the area at the edge of the pit to create a nice duel place.

This is kind of what I was thinking. Don't put a conc down there, but do something. It's too plain right now, and it seems like that area has a lot of potential.

I have added some more space above the room with the single vertical waterfall and started trying to improve the area around the pit.

Just played it. Only thing that I want to add that noone else mentioned is that, if you fix the level so noone can force jump out of it, make the sky the alternate sky type... it looks alot better (you might have to adjust the sky height in the header dialog in Jed or something like that).

Or use a skybox... your existing level design would make it fairly easy to make the actual box.

After playtesting it with my brother... I have a few serious concerns
- THING LIMIT. There are too many rain drops! Sometimes when I fire a weapon it DOESN'T FIRE. This is unacceptable. Also sometimes backpacks don't appear when you die. I would apply the no thing limit patch, but you see, JK crashes when I start a level with the patch on, so that just doesn't work. See if you can put a limit on the number of rain drops on screen at once (or per waterfall).
- Rain drops should not collide. I expect when I force jump under a waterfall NOT to take damage and go flying off to the side to land and take more damage.
- Hanging vine has suspicious hitbox. When you get up to the top (which imo you shouldn't be able to do in the first place) and get directly behind it, any attempt to fire toward the arena below will blow up in your face. Literally.

But overall a very nice level. My bro hates it for some reason tho. He mentioned hating the waterfalls pushing you off to the side. He thought it was too small too... I didn't think so. It was perfect for our 1 on 1 fighting.

The thing limit and vine hitbox problems have been fixed. The rain collide problems and the fact that you can get out of the level will be fixed shortly aswell.

Okay, upon further inspection it seems I havent totally fixed the thing limit problem. I'm thinking about trying to use particles instead of the 3dos because a single template could have more than one drop.

But particles look fugly....

Or you could just make groups of drops a 3do. You can do different groups, and I will change the cog so that one is always randomly selected.

That looks so incredibly awesome.

Alright I got it working with the 3dos again. It is a bit thinner but it still looks pretty good. I think I am going to keep it this way because having particles or groups of 3dos would screw up the splashes at the bottom.