DM-HMStormWitch
Map Info
	File Name dm-hmstormwitch.zip Author Angelheart Gametype UT2k4 Deathmatch Date Added 05-19-2004 File Version 1.00 File Size 18.56 mb Player Count Unknown Map Description None Review Rating 4 User Rating 6.5 Overall Rating 5.0	No level screenshot available.
Review
Reviewer Ironblayde Awe Score:  2.0/3 Date 06-14-2004 Build Score:  1.5/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  0.5/3 User Point:  +1 Overall Score:  5.0/10 AWE: 2.0 Prolific mapper Angelheart's latest release is an exercise in atmospherics, and it succeeds to a certain extent. The setting is an old ship and a nearby craggy island with a lighthouse perched atop it, caught in a raging storm. At first glance, everything looks wonderful, as the major components of the map are well constructed, and the stormy atmosphere well executed. However, a more detailed look at the map reveals one flaw after another, until there are so many little things nagging at you that it's difficult to enjoy the overall feel of it. Let's start with the ship, the Storm Witch herself. Everything looks great from outside. The ship's detailed framework is believably rendered, as is the complicated system of masts, sails, and rigging. The only thing that really bothers me about this aspect of the ship is the texture used for the nets. It's little more than a solid brown, with darkened edges that makes it look like a bad cut-out job. There are plenty of other details to be found as well: small boats supported on wooden planks, cargo crates held in place by tarps pulled tight over them and secured to the deck, and mobile cannons facing outward from both sides. Inside the ship is another matter, however. The rooms belowdecks are boxy and plain, sometimes entirely bereft of ornamentation, except perhaps for a lantern on the ceiling. Those lanterns, by the way, use coronas that have a pretty significant minimum size, which spoils the effect a little. When you get close, the corona looks more like a completely static texture than one that's supposed to simulate a lighting effect. Finally, there's a small boat being tugged along behind the ship (with a Big Keg O' Health on it), and it's actually floating in the air, a noticeable distance above the surface of the water. The sea itself is unusual. It sweeps along at a brisk pace from bow to stern. This, along with the facts that the anchor is raised, two of the sails are down and whipping about in the wind, and the rope towing the small boat is perfectly taut, led me to believe that the ship was in motion. But if it is, why is the lighthouse island not moving with respect to the ship? It occurred to me that armies of Devilfish might be pushing the islands along, keeping pace with the Storm Witch, but alas, it seems the islands are quite firmly attached to the ocean floor. It's a striking inconsistency, then, unless any other unusual theories have escaped my attention. I don't like the texture used either; you can see creases in it as it pans by, and it looks like large parts of it were mirrored about one axis in an attempt to make it tile seamlessly. The other natural elements of the map – the gusting wind and pouring rain – make up for it somewhat, as they are done very well. The island itself looks very nice, aside from a few rough edges where static meshes and terrain intersect, but the lighthouse suffers from much the same faults as the ship. It looks good on the outside, but the inside is filled with sparse, unattractive BSP work with conspicuous texture alignment mistakes everywhere. The beam of light the tower emits is, again, the same. From outside it looks good, but head inside the lighthouse and climb to its uppermost level, and from that vantage point the light actually appears to get brighter as it disperses instead of the other way around. BUILD: 1.5 Although it's rather dull in appearance, the BSP work in this map does demonstrate technical competence on the part of the author. The geometry is all correctly sized and aligned, and Angelheart seems to have taken especial care to keep everything on the grid even in the case of curved surfaces. However, problems do appear when we throw static meshes into the mix. There are several places inside the ship where meshes used on higher levels come through the walls and ceilings of rooms below. In the two most forward rooms belowdecks, large parts of the meshes used to form the prow of the ship outside come right through the walls, and look extremely out of place from inside. In one of the spawn rooms, three different meshes can be seen protruding through the walls where they shouldn't be: a wooden ceiling beam and a section of ribbing from the next room over, and the foot of a ceiling support from the room above. Most of the indoor sections of the map are zoned, but the lighthouse's zone portals don’t fully seal off its interior, and the interior itself isn't broken into multiple zones as it could have (and probably should have) been, so the whole of the lighthouse interior, aside from its basement levels, is in the same zone as the outdoor region of the map. The zoning setup inside the ship is also not as good as it could have been; a better placement of portals could have reduced overdraw while looking at the ship from outside. The use of antiportals has also been neglected. None of this matters as much as it would in another map though, because the distance fog needed to make the storm believable is so thick that it does a fine job of occlusion all by itself. In some cases, the presence of the fog drops the poly count by as much as eighty percent. Overdraw still occurs more often than it should, but the presence of the fog should minimize the final impact on performance. The only problem with the fog is that the world geometry doesn't always fade into it smoothly. If you look up at the ship's masts or the lighthouse tower while approaching or backing away at a distance, parts of them appear or disappear suddenly as you pass the fog's culling distance. There are a bunch of movers in this map, but contrary to their name, most of them don't move. All of the lighthouse's many doors are movers, so perhaps they were meant to open and close as players passed through the doorways, but they remain stationary at all times. It's not really an issue since the doors are fixed in the open position, so their lack of movement doesn't impede gameplay, but I have to wonder why the author used movers for objects that never move. Movers are also used for three wine bottles – two on the ship, and one in the lighthouse – that can be broken when shot at. It's a nice little touch, but the triggers that absorb and act upon the damage taken when you shoot the bottles are too tall and too wide, and they remain in place even after the bottles are destroyed. I found this out when I tried to lob a flak grenade at an enemy over a dinner table containing the remnants of two wine bottles. The flak grenade struck the invisible collision region for the trigger and exploded in my face, killing me instead of the bot on the other side of the table. The author should have reduced these triggers' collision regions to better fit the bottles, or better still, set the triggers up to be disabled once struck. Another oddity I noticed in this map is that the WaterVolume that defines the sea actually comes above the fluid surface by almost 64 UUs. As a result, if you're ever swimming through the water, your visibility will often fall suddenly and sharply as if you've gone under, when in fact you still appear to be above the surface. It's very irritating when you're trying to find your way around. One good thing about the build is the audio. The author has elected to leave out background music, opting to rely entirely on ambient sound to set the atmosphere of the map on this front, and it works well. There are a bunch of custom sounds included: sounds of the storm, of sails flapping in the wind, of the dank cave that leads into the basement of the lighthouse... and of whale songs. Now I've never had a whale sing to me, but this last struck me as sounding a little odd. I have to wonder if I'm really hearing Angelheart making noises into his microphone and playing with the pitch and reverb settings. CAST: 0.5 In his readme.txt, the author stated that he had no intention of making DM-HMStormWitch a map that would appeal on the basis of gameplay, and that's a good thing, because this map flows like ice-cold syrup. On the ship, you'll either be up on deck, where all the elements that give the map its visual appeal seem to conspire against you once it's time to play. The various objects on deck are always getting in the way, and the fog significantly reduces visibility. Belowdecks is the same story, but with low ceilings thrown in for good measure. One thing I thought was especially annoying was the use of those steep staircases between levels. The steepness by itself isn't what bothers me; it's that the staircases are bound on either side by angled beams too steep to walk up, but low enough to walk onto from the stairs. Thus if you're ascending the steps in a hurry (e.g. while fighting someone) and walk too far to either side, you'll step onto the beam and slide back down to the foot of the staircase. The other half of the map is, of course, the island and its lighthouse. The island exterior is all right, though there's at least one spot where you can get snagged with steep surfaces on all sides, so you need a shield jump to escape. The lighthouse, on the other hand, is far more cramped than the ship, with low, narrow hallways where it's virtually impossible to dodge weapons fire, especially flak. There's a open platform at the top that would be great for sniping, except the fog is so thick that you can't see anything from that height. The whole of the island is more or less dead during play; all the action takes place on the ship. You can move between the island and the ship with jump pads that appear as coils of rope. There's no emitters or anything to draw attention to them as jump pads, so I didn't realize they were there for some time. You can also swim from one to the other, and climb one of two cargo nets up onto the ship. The net nearest the island is poorly placed though, as ascending it will land you right on top of the jump pad that sends you back to the island. You have to get the very edge of the net in order to sneak past it. Item placement is average, some odd weapon choices aside. The Bio-Rifle and the Shock Rifle are absent, but there is a Redeemer on a separate island, which is reachable by teleporter (or a long swim) and a pain to navigate because it's so tiny and cramped, as is the room with the teleporter that takes you there. There's a Mine Layer and a Grenade Launcher as well, which I don't particularly care for in deathmatch games. The map has two Big Kegs O' Health too, one on the incredible flying boat that I mentioned earlier, and one high above the ship with the Grenade Launcher, reachable by climbing one of the mainstays, or with a very careful translocator shot if you play with it enabled. FINAL SCORE: 4.0 As has been said by many people commenting on it, this is a map to be ogled, not a map to be played. Too many technical errors, and especially flow problems, become evident when you try to frag in here. Even the visual appeal, the map's main draw, isn't pulled off as well as it could have been, as the interior regions of the map clearly demonstrate. It's worth a download just to explore outside for a bit, but it's not the gem some have made it out to be.
Map Comments
Manticore 05-19-2004 06:09 PM MDT Rating: 8   Another visual treat and an opportunity to spend a lot of time swimming in the briny deep. The ocean swells are particularly well done and add to the atmosphere. The sniping points on the lighthouse are next to useless as the fogging is really heavy, but then, gameplay was never really the strong point in this mapper's work. Thanks again Mr. Heart. Splice the mainbrace and batten down the hatches............. Obi-Wan 05-19-2004 06:38 PM MDT Rating: 7   yet an other astonishing looking map from angelheart horned demon 05-19-2004 06:46 PM MDT Rating: 9   the theme is a old pirate ship docked at a light house with a rageing storm passing by. the water looks a tad funky but nothing to hurt the map's overall looks.the most original and yet down to earth theme iv ever seen. rsplitter 05-19-2004 10:52 PM MDT Rating: 9   Like FromHell, this has a lot detail and well thought out design. Well done Angel :) I look foward to your next masterpiece ;) kupoartist 05-20-2004 05:15 AM MDT Rating: 5   Hmm... Sorry, I'm going to have to lower the average here :D. Graphics wise, as many have identified, this map is very atmospheric and really rather pretty. Most of the time - Some rooms are just really bland, and the frothy sea is good only in theory, because it causes abnormalities in practice (like Water appearing through rocks as if they weren't there, or the megahealth boat which hovers statically above the water, 75% of the time.) Build Quality is mostly good, but I was still snagged by an invisible wall down by the shore. Gameplay is the real problem. As far as I can tell - and if I can't tell, you're not making it clear to the players so its not JUST my inability to work things out - there is no way to get back onto the ship once you jump of it onto the island, except for swimming half way round and climbing on the megahealth boat. This has the effect of spliting the level in two, with fights on the boat seperated from fights on the island. That is VERY bad for gameplay flow. Neither half is particuarlly out of the ordinarily fun to play on, but the Island half is marred by tiny rooms, narrow staircases and narrow corridors which serve the art style, but don't make for a very fun game. NulEnvoid 05-20-2004 08:35 AM MDT Rating: 6   Probably my least favourite AngelHeart map, BUT as the author say's it's a test in atmospherics. Something it does do quite nicely. Some areas are a lot blander & more barren then I'd expect from AngelHeart. The maps 20 points better then anything I could do but I do think AngelHeart is capable of a lot better. andolf 05-20-2004 07:34 PM MDT Rating: 7   This map is alright. Some good textures, some bad...Water is UMMMMMMMMMM interesting... [MFG]aldrenean gives it a 6... the fog is thick...too thick. It makes it impossible to use the sniping tower for anything other than it's immediate surroundings. The light from the lighthouse is also pretty bad- it looks like it was sourced from the end of the cross-mast. The water is pretty crappy, as it sometimes has clipping issues with the land. The inside of the island is fun, but in the ship some of the ceilings are too low to allow for good movement. Otherwise the map is pretty fun, but you need quite a few players. Dermion 05-21-2004 04:45 AM MDT Rating: 6   Amazing work! The atmosphere and the visuals are stunning. Very nice details. But for me there is no gameplay in this map! Most places are too narrow and as mentioned before its too foggy. The first time i played i had difficulties in finding the ship again after changing to the isle. sandorski 05-21-2004 05:44 PM MDT Rating: 7   This map is very good, but it would likely be better as an Assault Map or a Single Player against AI Map. It looks fantastic, but gameplay in DM is somewhat lacklustre. nightshadow 05-22-2004 05:30 PM MDT Rating: 9   excellent 2 on 2! hunter 05-22-2004 09:36 PM MDT Rating: 6   this is a map to look at...not to play. the author has beautifully enhanced koos galleon with a couple of craggy islands, a lighthouse, and a rainstorm thrown in to the mix. it looks excellent, if a bit dark, and the heavy fog from the storm doubles as a huge fps boost. most everything is pleasing to the eyes. the only problem i have with the aesthetics is the rather goofy fluidsurfaceoscillator. this water simply does not look real. waves go up and down 20 or so feet about three times per second. it really leaves me scratching my head; everything else in the map looks so pretty. gameplay is sadly lacking, as is to be expected with any map based on looks more than layout. realism is what is strived for here, not the usual warehouse of platforms and ramps with heavy interconnectivity that deathmatchers are used to fragging in (as an example, there is a completely unlit room in the ship with absolutely nothing in it). confrontation is usually very close range, so flak is the dominant weapon by far. is it worth the download? if you are a mapper like me, or enjoy looking at pretty maps, then yes, by all means nab it and enjoy the ambience and theme. if you prefer gameplay, you can pass this by. looks 8 + gameplay 4 = 6 Bot40 05-23-2004 03:50 AM MDT Rating: 4   Not good, below average even. Theme is a good idea, but gameplay is obviously terrible as people already commented and the map fails visually for the most part also imo. So many errors everywhere Particles and water clipping through just about everything they shouldn't. Main structure is plain cubic bsp and not even interesting bsp at that. A lot of it looks bland even for UT1 So many empty cube rooms and corridors with no attempt at decoration. Sea moves super unrealistically fast. Meshes clipping though walls where they shouldn't. Stuff like the small boat floating about 10 meters above the water and not moving at all. Really bad optimisation (if there was any at all). rmode 1 shows that when you are standing inside the lighthouse staring at a blank wall the engine is still rendering the entire of the ship and all it's contents, the sea, the terrain and all the particles. Prolly around 100,000+ triangles worth when a simple zone setup would have cut it down to 2 (I'm not even exaggerating) I could list stuff for about half an hour, but basically, round every corner there is something that ruins the thematic execution. It's a shame, a really good theme, but it fails badly. I expected so much more from the screens. (though never expected a good layout from angelheart! ;) ) Only real redeeming qualities are the new static meshes and textures. crdpolaris 05-29-2004 06:04 PM MDT Rating: 8   I thought the map was original and looked really good. I also thought it was neat how the bottles in the main room exploded when shot. I'm still pretty new with mapping so bear with me, but maybe you could put a water volume over the panning texture to make it look more realistic? Can that be done? My only complain was the map felt a bit cramped. slaskan 05-30-2004 11:24 AM MDT Rating: 6   mm overrated i give it 6 bcuz its cramped that telport was stupid (the one that leads to the strange island) . to the guy above i wanna say yes that can be done!!! Cerulean 05-30-2004 02:55 PM MDT   Very fun map visually Hourences 05-30-2004 06:55 PM MDT   oh yay, waterpuddles with sounds included even :P thematic groovy done, nice custom stuff but like his other maps id wish if he finalised everything better being able to see the edge of the skybox or the like really breaks the atmopshere, youre getting all emerged by the cool place and really sucked in to atmopshere and then suddenly you get a big fat ITS FAKE CAUSE THIS IS THE EDGE OF THE SKY pushed in your face Claw 06-15-2004 12:34 PM MDT Rating: 5   I hate to agree with the review, but there is no helping it. This is easily one of AH's worst maps, maybe THE worst. Notoriously bad gameplay is coupled with grave visual and technical flaws. :( paranoid 06-15-2004 09:20 PM MDT Rating: 5   I like the little details of the map. . .the tarp holding down crates flapping about. . .sunken boats and things, would have been nice if it was maintained throughout the whole map (like those plain dull tunnels would really benifit from ambush makeover :P) I feel the whole map would be infinately better though, if one of the areas weren't accessable (either the island or the ship) that way the gameplay would be more focused and you have one really big piece of eyecandy watching you! I still think achina was his best. . . SilverHairDevil 06-15-2004 10:26 PM MDT Rating: 9   One of my favorite DM maps ever. The custom whale sounds are awesome. Gameplay is fine with a lot of players. Only flaw is the camp spots: there's too much fog. Another minor flaw is that the bots can't go to the top of the lighthouse. Awesome map anyway. ]|M|[_-sigma7-_] 06-19-2004 01:19 AM MDT Rating: 7   Interesting map. I like the lighthouse/old ship theme. The water is crazy and pretty cool. The gameplay is a bit tight and it reminds me of DM-Peak in some areas. Overall pretty cool. The main area is a bit small though. Still well one. Nacelle 06-20-2004 09:59 PM MDT Rating: 4   Not very playable. Deleted- hawkwind 06-22-2004 09:43 AM MDT Rating: 8   yes, angelheart's maps tend to not PLAY as well as others, but this one actually does quite well, his best IMO, lots of side -to -side movement possible onboard ship. you do not have to jump in the water to get back onto the ship, but maybe that has some strategic value (sneaking back on by way of the dingy, hadn't thought of that). watch the bots, and they use the "rope coils" to bounce back on. angelheart took a chance making the water so active, very different, very risky, very nice; comes off well if you ignore the non-moving dingy. this sets the standard for what is possible in ut2004 Draco 07-08-2004 05:40 PM MDT Rating: 6   Interesting map with great visuals.