DM-TriwindusCity
Map Info
	File Name dm-triwinduscityv3.zip Author Vorix Gametype UT2k4 Deathmatch Date Added 06-09-2004 File Version 3.00 File Size 14.27 mb Player Count 4-8 Map Description A multi level street scene with a scifi/steampunk theme and lots of doorways to hide in. Review Rating 3 User Rating 5 Overall Rating 4.0
Review
Reviewer Ironblayde Awe Score:  1.5/3 Date 07-14-2004 Build Score:  1.0/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  0.5/3 User Point:  +1 Overall Score:  4.0/10 AWE: 1.5 Now here's an unusual piece of work. DM-TriwindusCity sets itself well apart from the usual themes and makes its home among the upper stories of structures that look like they could have been lifted from the set of a science fiction film. The map's geometry is made entirely from static meshes, and every one of them has been custom-made. These aren't standard, rectangular, utilitarian buildings, either. They bend and twist and stretch into such fantastical shapes that it's doubtful that many of them could ever really serve any use, but they do look interesting, and that's all that's needed. It's kind of a shame the author stopped where he did –- there are so many smooth, unadorned surfaces that could have been livened up considerably –- but he has succeeded in providing something that is, aesthetically speaking, well outside the ordinary. Sadly, the originality of the architecture is the only thing this map really has going for it. Even in the visuals department, it starts going downhill from here. For starters, the textures the author has chosen are very plain. Virtually all of them are base textures from one set or another, and so what we end up with is a city that looks like it's a collection of clay sculptures rather than an actual environment. The lack of appropriate materials really takes something away from the otherwise interesting meshes. The lighting in this map also needs quite a bit of work. The biggest problem is that far too much of the map is entirely unlit. Usually it's not so bad as to significantly impede gameplay, but there are a lot of instances of pure black shadows to be found in doorways and recesses, and on the sides of buildings. This is not realistic. The map would have benefited from a Sunlight actor or two. Aside from the sky, the map's only light source is a series of lamp posts that line the upper levels of the streets. The associated lights make very little impact on the overall lighting of the map, so even though the strangely-shaped light bulbs are glowing at full brightness, it doesn't look like they're affecting the world very much. The way this was done is extremely odd. Each lamp has four lights surrounding it. All of them are set to be coronas, but since most don't have a skin specified, they thankfully don't all behave that way. Three of the four have extremely high brightness and radius settings, but they also have the bSpecialLit flag set, so they don't affect anything except the bulbs. The last of the four provides a hint of lighting and a visible corona. A couple of the lamp posts, though, do have multiple coronas visible, which looks absolutely terrible. BUILD: 1.0 On the technical side, this map is characterized by gross inefficiency. There are 237 custom static meshes included with this map, and each of them is used exactly once. The majority of those meshes are not unique; they're exact copies of other meshes, save for differences in position and orientation. For example, there are ten light posts in the map, and each is constructed of three pieces. All the light posts look exactly alike, so only three static meshes should be necessary to build them all. But this map includes thirty. All the meshes use exact, per-polygon collision for everything; there are no simplified collision models, no BlockingVolumes, and no instances of collision being disabled where it isn't necessary. There's also zero occlusion in this map. It's outdoors, and made entirely from static meshes, so obviously it can't be zoned, but there aren't any antiportals either. Plus, even if the author had wanted to try optimizing the rendering a bit, antiportals' usefulness in this map is tremendously reduced due to the way the author has constructed his meshes. The meshes tend to be extremely large, and many are even composed of numerous independent objects. Since a mesh must be entirely concealed by an antiportal in order to be culled, a mesh that spans the entire map will be drawn in virtually every frame. These issues are not as bad as they could have been because there simply isn't a lot of detail in the map as a whole. Even with no occlusion, there are typically fewer than 100,000 static mesh polys in view, which is easily manageable considering there isn't much in the way of other graphical elements taking up rendering time. Still, to the author: These are all points you'll have to keep in mind if you want to reduce a more complicated level. Don't duplicate meshes when you don't have to; you'll save time and memory. Don't combine tons of objects spanning the whole map into a single mesh. And use some means of occluding unnecessary geometry: zoning if it's possible, antiportals if it's not. Don't expect a challenge from the bots in this map. Each of them is more suicidal than a hundred angst-ridden teenagers rolled into one. They'll jump off the side while trying to fight with someone, they'll jump off while trying to reach a pickup, and sometimes they'll jump simply because they're misunderstood and unloved. Ironically, they do a much better job of not killing themselves on lower difficulty settings, since they don't use their dodge moves in those cases. Either way, though, there's no competition to be had for offline gamers. In test games to fifty points, I was able to win by fifteen frags or more –- sometimes considerably more –- against bots even on Godlike. This problem has more to do with the layout than the bot pathing, as we'll see in the next section, but the pathing could use some work as well. A few pickups are not part of the path network, and there hasn't been any attempt made to get the bots jumping and translocating between levels. Finally, the whole map is silent, and that's never a good thing. Certainly there has to be something going on even in a city as strange as this one. Ambient sound is an important part of atmosphere, people. So use it! CAST: 0.5 Here's where the map really falls apart. Triwindus City consists primarily of three very long, narrow, L-shaped walkways suspended between rows of buildings. A small handful of ramps, along with a couple of sets of teleporters, connect the levels to one another. Each of the walkways is littered with short branches that extend to the buildings on either side and end in shadowed doorways. Each of these doorways has a single Health Vial in it, which strikes me as rather useless, and most have an ammo pickup or a weapon as well. Some of these doorways house teleporters, but most of them are dead ends. The vast majority of the map's pickups are in those doorways, which takes already poor flow and makes it even worse. Having to run down a dead-end walkway that's easy to be knocked off of by enemy fire every time you want an ammo pickup and a single Health Vial is not my idea of entertainment. But then, the thoroughfares really aren't any better. There's nothing to do in this map except run down narrow walkways, so there's little room to escape enemy fire, falling to your doom is an ever-present danger, and you can rack up a significant number of kills by knocking people off the sides as opposed to killing them outright. Actually, you can get away from the walkways. There aren't any BlockingVolumes around that stop you from climbing on the buildings and such that make up the map's background. I don't think the author intended this, though, as there are no pickups or bot pathing out there, and the edges of the map (which you normally wouldn't see if you stay on the roads) look rough and unfinished. There aren't too many weapons lying around considering how big the map is. There's a Rocket Launcher, a Bio-Rifle, a Minigun, two Flak Cannons, and two Shock Rifles. There's an eighth weapon base as well, and while I was playing the game, I never saw a weapon hovering over it, so I had no clue what was supposed to be there. Was it, perhaps, a Redeemer, where the bots jumped over the side before ever getting to use it? No. When I looked in the editor, I found that the weapon base is set to have a Ball Launcher. What was the author thinking? Health placement is no good. Aside from one standard Health Pack, and a row of five Health Vials leading up to a strange, hovering... something... the rest of the map's health pickups are vials stored singly in dead ends. The placement of spawn points is better, but there's one that starts you right at the edge of a walkway facing the side, so it's easy to kill yourself when spawning there. Anyway, the Shock Rifle is pretty much the only one of the weapons I ever bothered to use, since most of the fighting is done at great distances, and a single shot is often enough to boost someone off the edge of the map. It's almost like playing InstaGib at times. When I didn't have a Shock Rifle, believe it or not, my weapon of choice was the Assault Rifle. There's not a lot of room for dodging on those walkways, so it's pretty easy to hit someone with a grenade and send him falling to his death. And if not, it's not hard to gun down bots with the Assault Rifle's primary fire either. Aside from the fact that they often don't have a better weapon to oppose you with, they start dodging like mad once you start hitting them, and often jump right off the side of the map in the process, so you get credit for the kill. In one of my test games I tried using nothing but the Assault Rifle, and I still beat seven Masterful bots by fifteen in a game to fifty. Once again, not my idea of entertainment. FINAL SCORE: 3.0 I admire the author's choice to try something so far removed from the same old themes that we've all seen hundreds of times, but unfortunately, the map's appeal on the basis of originality is negated and then some by very poor gameplay. This author definitely has some skill in modeling, so hopefully as he gets better with the editor, we'll see some visually interesting levels from him in the future that play nicely as well.
Map Comments
MichaelM 05-29-2004 11:17 PM MDT Rating: 7   I love the theme and static Meshes but it is just way too dark. I keep on falling. sandorski 07-29-2004 08:02 AM MDT Rating: 5   Very nice Static Meshes, but I think this Map needs some indoor areas. The Walkways are just too restricting to make a whole DM level from. Some Interiors would make a big difference. Very nice theme though. slaskan: No, maybe, don't know. ;) Jun 2: The lighting has been improved a lot, still a couple places on the bottom most level that's quite risky to walk in, but overall I can see where I'm going now. :) I'd still like to see some Indoor areas(a CTF base on each end maybe? ;) ), but the flow has definitely improved. 07/29 Hidra: I have 3 at various stages of developement. Whether any of them get released or not is another question. Vorix 06-14-2004 02:45 AM MDT   6th of JUNE Comments (chronologically, I should've put this at the bottom, but hey!): I'VE FIXED THE BOT PATHS!!! YAY!! (now you can actually play properly against the AI!) UPDATED COMMENTS- NEW IMPROVED TRIWINDUS CITY (pre 3/6 post): Thanks guys, these comments added since the constructive crits so far: I've just uploaded a new improved version taking care of the darkness problem mentioned and also with some teleports in those dead ends to help out the gameplay balance. There is now a definite flow to it, which now I have tried it, it really makes a great difference (feels like a proper DM level should). So thanks Cerulean -if you want to have another try at it and see what you think I'd appreciate any further feedback on it. I'd love to know what anyone thinks of it with the changes. Also if anyone else has any reviews/positive or negative feedback on it would be great? cheers! (following posted 3/6): On the positive comments - you're too kind guys! on the negative - point taken, feeling rather humble right now, not that I felt that high to start with, but you know what I mean - 2 is better than zero though!... Manticore, none of the meshes are all black on my machine, apart from the ones that are actually meant to be in shadow/obscured by the night (pop a light next to any dubious ones in the editor and you'll see). I do appreciate the gameplay comments btw guys (I'm aiming for something less precarious for the next map) slaskan 07-15-2004 06:04 AM MDT Rating: 5.5   just a question SANDORSKI are u in a bad mode the day you you havent gíven anything higher than 5! EDIT: now ive played the map and, mm nice meshec indeed but it wasnt that fun but since it was really original ill give it Cerulean 06-02-2004 02:33 PM MDT   I really like the way this map looks. The increase in teleporters and the lighting adjustment from the previous ver are definite improvements. Manticore 06-02-2004 05:41 AM MDT Rating: 3   I'm sorry Vorix but I don't agree with you. There is not a definite flow now that have updated the map. Also the bots aren't working well. I assume it is supposed to look Dr. Calligari surreal but visually it just lacks; except for the streetlamp smeshes which have an interesting look. Unfortunately improperly skinned smeshes (or whatever) default to matte black so the end result here is that the whole thing looks "wrong". Other than that the whole map can only be described as Gaudi's nightmare of Pompeii... Kaithofis 06-02-2004 09:32 AM MDT Rating: 2   Wow Manticore, you actually discovered a flow? Now, lay-out is kinda dull, but it has it's charm, in a way. Only I should try putting in a large, open field or arena, where you could actually perform a dodge move without falling into oblivion. Obi-Wan 06-02-2004 10:30 AM MDT Rating: 4   sorry dude, but the layout (every gameplay aspect actually) annoyed me.. yet some of the custom content was great though.. i smell potential! General_Disaray 06-02-2004 06:49 PM MDT Rating: 6   I enjoyed this map just because it is sooo cool looking. It was originally too dark, but now that it has been lightened up a bit it is much more playable. )Hidra( 07-29-2004 12:06 AM MDT   Slaskan says : just a question SANDORSKI are u in a bad mode the day you you havent gíven anything higher than 5! indeed .. i Cant whait to see Sandorski make us a map o.0 HUH!