TresCom Forums

The_Idiot wrote:Some more nice additions, although I can't help but feel the "summit" is a bit too close to the start of the level to be the end, unless of course we create some need to solve a series of puzzles elsewhere to get up to the mountaintop. Which would probably be a good move.

Well, the idea in my head was to have the end of the level in the very middle of the map, just for a change in the traditional level design. My plan right now is to have the player go around the mountain, going through several obstacles (gorges, passcodes, gates, crate-stacking, etc.), until they come to the base of it, which will then by road lead up to the summit, where the climax can begin. Of course, this is all up to change as several people have been contributing to this level so far, but this is just my own input for now.

TrespasserGuy wrote:

The_Idiot wrote:Some more nice additions, although I can't help but feel the "summit" is a bit too close to the start of the level to be the end, unless of course we create some need to solve a series of puzzles elsewhere to get up to the mountaintop. Which would probably be a good move.

Well, the idea in my head was to have the end of the level in the very middle of the map, just for a change in the traditional level design. My plan right now is to have the player go around the mountain, going through several obstacles (gorges, passcodes, gates, crate-stacking, etc.), until they come to the base of it, which will then by road lead up to the summit, where the climax can begin. Of course, this is all up to change as several people have been contributing to this level so far, but this is just my own input for now.

I definitely like the sound of that, but I think we should try and spread the obstacles around the level so you have to explore most, if not all, of the map. Having to return to the summit in the middle of the map once you've done X, Y and Z sounds like an excellent plan.

This is sounding pretty good.. so what's the first puzzle

Draconisaurus wrote:This is sounding pretty good.. so what's the first puzzle

I dunno, I think they will come to us dynamically as we go. We have plenty of paths and chokepoints, the question is why do we need to follow them, and where must we halt our progress until we solve a puzzle? Could even have some minor puzzles along the way.

I was thinking, as I said earlier, to have a facility of some sort at the end of that canal I made. Perhaps you could need to go to that facility and solve a puzzle in order to, say, work the radio on top of the mountain for rescue? Of course it can't just be that easy...maybe a power station elsewhere in the level needs to be started in order to get into the facility, but you need to find a key or something by the lagoon or in the camp to get in there, etc. We should try to ensure that the player has to explore every corner of the level while not forcing them to take one specific path at a time: give the player a goal and let them figure out how to get to it.

Just had a look at the latest update, looking good to me. So what should go in the valley the spillway empties into?

Version 11 - https://app.box.com/s/aaptoezkyggtc0ge571pvvb5myv9ywf0

Added some PVishness around the mouth of the waterway. Not a huge addition but something to push that element forward.

PS: TI, what was the value "CacheDist" meant to be? Tres doesn't recognize it.

Nice little addition, good building choice, as well. Looks sort of like a pump station or something...would be interesting to have some sort of water element running away from it, but I can't quite think of what would look good there. I might go ahead and fence off that area, actually, to create the beginnings of an objective there.

PS: TI, what was the value "CacheDist" meant to be? Tres doesn't recognize it.

Crap, I always mess that one up. It's meant to be "CacheMul", so that the object (I assume it's the mountains?) doesn't cache from anywhere. You can probably just delete that value since they're large enough that they never do anyhow.

Huh okay. Was hoping that correcting it would remove the lag it creates. Perhaps a different value would, dunno

Draconisaurus wrote:Huh okay. Was hoping that correcting it would remove the lag it creates. Perhaps a different value would, dunno

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about with the lag, as I don't get any, and the mesh is very low-poly. Does anyone else get this?

However, on that note, I should say that I recently created a tree mesh which was pretty low poly but for some reason does create a lot of lag when looking at it. It's lower poly than most of my trees yet slows the game more than them...I'm wondering if there's some sort of error like overlapping vertices or faces and that's what's causing the slowdown.

Huh. Well the lag is real. I can only guess something about large distance smoothing.

Had some time to make another update - nothing major, just finished off the plateau with the camp, really.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/cc1qylhs0 ... 1-2_TI.zip

These latest updates spurred my creativity for this level

http://www.mediafire.com/file/9d77otlfq ... resGuy.rar

I did a little more editing with Drac's cooling tower, now adding a concrete barrier around it. I've added the opportunity for including two puzzles, both centered around getting into the complex that houses the PV building.

Draconisaurus wrote:Huh. Well the lag is real. I can only guess something about large distance smoothing.

I took a look at the level using the debug skills I have and I can't find anything that would cause lags in the level due to errors. It must be your settings/laptop that causes it. Have you tried running it in software mode (without DirectX9 enabled in CE)?

TrespasserGuy wrote:These latest updates spurred my creativity for this level

http://www.mediafire.com/file/9d77otlfq ... resGuy.rar

I did a little more editing with Drac's cooling tower, now adding a concrete barrier around it. I've added the opportunity for including two puzzles, both centered around getting into the complex that houses the PV building.

Nice. I would however like to suggest removing a couple of those ridges you added since they are sort of railroading us into a dead end at the facility.

Hmm...those little gorges you made sort of make me think of lava chutes...wondering if we might make the mountain volcanic?

Huh nice update!

Want to report that I didn't notice lag in the camp area this time around. Not sure why. For now it seems to work!

I think the ridges as they stand now are great. All we need is to create a puzzle for getting through the wall crack. Going to take a spin in TresEd now, edit shortly...

EDIT: New version -
https://app.box.com/s/yykcedkru8a456ddva1s72yo1mko8a7z