Hi everyone !

And since this is the first post of the year, let me wish you all a happy new year !

In order to start it , here are some news about the UT3 map (see last post).

Actually we have :

- a theme idea : some old school like in old Sonic games

- a few concept-arts

- some ingame tests and our first custom static meshes !

As we said, we started from nothing, so it needed some experiments before we can define our production “pipeline” :)

Even if there were some issues, it’s a real pleasure to see how easy it is to use such engine. Can’t wait to go further !

Hi everyone !

While working on the map (see last post), we encountered some issues, so I start to list solutions here in hope it’ll be helpful

Kismet AI

How to tell a bot : “shoot the trigger to open the door” ?

Here’s a simple explanation : a bot hits a trigger -> the kismet send the “shoot a target” order. Sebastien Nova find the way with this basic solution :

Actually I use two Trigger Volumes, this allow to easily define a shooting area around the target, and I linked these on the kismet :

Note that if you place the trigger where the bot CANNOT reach its target, it will aim for it without shooting…

To avoid this, the delay on the kismet deactivate the order after 1 second, so even if the bot can’t shoot, it’ll return to its normal behaviour.

Without the use of the delay, the order to stop shooting is sent to every bot as soon as the target have been shot :

Be careful : if the pivot point of the target is inside a wall, the bot will NOT be able to shoot it, but it will look at the target until the end of the game ! xD

To avoid this, I used an “invisible target” (the “AI SHOOT TARGET”) which allow to adjust that pivot point easily. You could use this trick for a lot of things !

However, ingame actions are given priority over AI actions defined in the kismet.

As an example, if you’re fighting with a bot while the “shoot the trigger button” order is sent, the bot will most likely be thinking about blowing up your head first.

It can be very useful in this case, but to tell every bot to rush to the pickup after the door sequence have been launched, we needed something else… “The doors are too far away”, they said !

Hi everyone !

Firstly a little introduction : about three weeks ago I started to work on a map for Unreal Tournament 3, “from scratch“, and now we are two working on the project.

Yes because we decided to do everything, from the beginning to the end =]

Let’s start with level-design

First steps working with the editor is really great : the engine is cool, some reflexes from the early engines are still here, even if some annoying bugs are still around (the disappearing cursot aaargh !!).

Overal, the Unreal Engine is great !

Two weeks later we have an already approved layout v.3 !

Now for the feedback stage on forums, we already had some rather encouraging responses :-)

So we moved forward to modifications and improvments. The first update was to setup a door system locking access to a pickup :

Doors are initialy closed, and as soon as the pickup appears, the trigger starts blinking at the other side of the level. Anyone shooting at it will trigger the opening sequence.

The “Kismet” editor of UT3 looks quite complicated, but it’s probably one of the most accessible scripting system I ever seen.

You can even make animation with it, that’s amazing.

Then we keeped working on updates, taking account of feedback on forums (at this stage the map is at version 7).

We really tried everything, the map started to look like gruyere cheese. And since more corridors and rooms means more work, we finally did some kind of “mixmapping” : we took parts of different versions to make a clean new one. The reassembled version is v9.

Almost there, we worked a few more to improve the result, after that we will leave level design as it is, even if it’s not perfect ! Four days later, here we are : version 12 - Alpha Final - ready for graphical part.

However there are a few Kismet bugs to solve : bots don’t know how to shoot at a trigger, and the trigger don’t glow on network.

If you know how to solve this, please help us !

FYI, you can also follow the progress on one of the following forums :

Unreal-Design

Unreal.fr

BeyondUnreal

Epic Games

Until I setup a comment system here :)

Download version 12 : Alpha Final (download was deleted, you’ll have to wait the new version…)

Making grey cubes looks nice

That’s the next part, after our layout is really great, we choose a theme to make everything looks better !