Get Well Soon level

[mr luc]

This is a leedle bit strange as far as a mapping request goes, and I might move it to the off-topic/General forums instead. But it does relate to mapping . . .

Basically, here's what happened. Yesterday, I was involved in a rollover accident in a Ford Explorer. Let me tell you, rollovers you see on TV, even at their most vicious, hardly come close to depicting the kind of impacts you take when you flip a vehicle 3 times on loose gravel. I had my seatbelt on, and I sustained a mild concussion and five or six gouges in the head, where the crumpled metal of the car roof jabbed me during the rolls, along with multiple bone bruises on my forearms and lots of minor lacerations from grall and metal. We ended upside-down in the ditch, approximately sixty yards from where we first started rolling.

There were three of us in the car; I was driving. My two friends were Levi and Eric. Neither of them had their seatbelts on. Eric was in the passenger's seat, Levi was in the back seat. Incredibly, Levi did not even suffer a visible bruise or cut anywhere on his body, which is more remarkeable because, like me, he is tall and slender, so you'd think there would be some bruising.

Unfortunately, Eric was not quite as lucky. He was evidently flung through the closed passenger window at some point, and he ended up about twenty to thirty feet beyond the SUV on his back. See, Eric is NOT tall and slender. He is around 5'7" and weighs a little over 300 lbs, and frankly I can't see how he could have come out that window without either him or the door frame giving considerably.

Of course, I was frantic (once I regained consciousness). Levi was the first one out of the car, and I remember hearing his voice first. I had a heck of a time getting out of the SUV because I couldn't see or hear much at first; it was all that rushing noise. Also, I was seat-belted into what was now the ceiling of the Explorer.

At first, I thought I had killed Eric, but he was alive, and after an incredibly stressful and sleep-deprived 22 hours, I found out that he is also doing much better. Being a somewhat burly boy, they thought he might have compressed a disc in his back, and also thought he had ruptured his spleen, but after they transferred him to a larger hospital it turns out that he's doing quite well -- his ankle is swollen like several softballs, he's bruised EVERYWHERE (even in places like under his arms and beneath his chin and other places as well), and basically it's as though somebody beat him up with an aluminum softball bat, but the doctors say that if he didn't have all of that padding he would have broken bones just by exiting the car, to say nothing of the impacts caused by the car rolling.

Rolling is such a deceptive term. Ford Explorers do NOT 'roll', mmmmkay? The 'roll' part applied for the first 3/4 of the revolution, until the driver's side, including the wheelbase of the car, slams into the road. If you look at the SUV now, not only is it flatter, but on the side of the car I was in the wheelbase is pushed up and inside the undercarriage of the car, and part of the driver's side front wheel well got ripped off.

Anyways, it might seem like I'm making light of the situation -- but I'm not! ERIC IS ALIVE AND WELL! Not a single, solitary broken bone, not a back brace, not an internal injury! Just bruises, scrapes, and a sprained ankle!! Incredible! Ever see the movie 'Unbreakable'? Well, damn it all, but that's us all over! (But especially Levi. What the heck. He even looked cool when the EMTs came, because he was wearing this really nice straight leather jacket at the time, and it didn't even get SCRATCHED. Whereas I got blood all over my shirt and suit). Ok, the Explorer is a total write-off. 100% gone, although amazingly enough, the CD player was still going when we were upside down. It was so weird, because it was blasting this really mellow music -- Nirvana's 'Unplugged' album, specifically the song 'Plateau'. "Well there's nothing on top but a bucket and a mop and an illustrated book about birds . . . "

So, since Eric is really into videogames, I was wondering if you guys would like to contribute to his get well level. He's pretty amazed at the idea that you can even make your own levels, and if I showed him a huge level just devoted to him he'd probably freak out. I'm going to do my best to make it 100% violence free, because his family is very conservative and I want them to see it, too -- I'm only going to use bigheads, and if there's a way to make it impossible to damage enemies, that would be nice to know.

Another thing -- how do I make Sam have NO weapons; is that possible?

If you have something to contribute, send it to me, or post me a link on the forum. A *.wld file would be good, just remember that I'll have to link your stuff to everyone elses, and mine. But it can be anything -- a 'get well Eric' texture with your name on it, a model (yeah right), etc.

[pompey]

u ru some lucky people! :)

[IanjPartridge]

hloy **** im not sad any more now that ive heard this tradgity but amazingly no one was seriously injured it makes me think life is worth living thx guys

[LSD]

Incredible! Thank goodness you survived that one. Try using SS ++, i think that it has settings for weapons, and things like that.

[mr luc]

Hehe ok thanks.

I'm going to find out if I can get booger to send me a customized Serious Sam message. ;) That would freak him out, but what are friends for?

[Smithboy]

If sam is not equipped with a weapon, the game will crash... :(

[Earthling]

It will?
o_O

[Iirion Claus]

Quote: from Earthling on 9:11 am on Oct. 7, 2001
It will?
o_O

Yes. It can be overriden, but it's too much of a headache, as there are tons of references for the player's weapon that simply crash the game if there's no weapon. I have an idea on how to solve it, but it's not very high on my to-do list.....


Anyhow, I hope Eric gets well soon. I'll think of something nice to send him and will either email it to you or post it here :)

(paranoid driving student mode)
And that teaches me to ALWAYS buckle my safety belt.....
(/paranoid driving student)

[PugFish]

You could just hide weapon models and unbind the fire button when you show people the level?
Not exactly the best solution but better than nothing :)

[Jedi Outcast]

You wanna be like Buddy Lee eh???

[mr luc]

Hmmm, I'm wondering . . . I can't believe I never tried this, but can't you just drop your knife and pistol? :o Because I could just have a nice deep pit near the starting area, and Eric can just toss his weapons into it before he continues onto the next area.

However, since I don't want him slaughtering peaceful Bigheads by the hundreds, is there a way (without using a mod like SS++) for me to not let him proceed to the next area unless he has dropped his weapons into a certain place? Can dropped weapons trigger a touchfield or something like that?

[addman]

hey
luc, have you requested compensation?
couldnt ya just change the knife model to something like a hand so it looks less violent

PS plateau is cool :)

[Earthling]

Luc, how can you drop the weapons in the first place?!?

[Iirion Claus]

Quote: from Earthling on 1:46 pm on Oct. 8, 2001
Luc, how can you drop the weapons in the first place?!?

I know you can on UT... Does SS support it?

[mr luc]

Actually, I haven't ever dropped a weapon meself . . . but I know it's possible, because in one of the earlier patches Croteam fixed a bug related to certain errors that occurred when dropping weapons. So I'm pretty sure it can be done; it just doesn't make a ton of sense to do it.

However, I did have a quick fix. I just made the whole knife and arm models for first-person invisible in the modeller.

Btw, as an update on the status of this level, I am almost 80% done with it -- I realized that since Eric is doing even better than I previously thought, it would seem weird if I presented it to him too much later. So I'll probably just add player start stuff and load it on his computer when I go over there tomorrow. I realized also that since he doesn't have internet, it probably wouldn't impress him much if I had contributions by YOU guys. I mean, wtf, you're total strangers to him. WHat the hell was I thinking?

P.S. addman -- Nirvana si l33t.

P.S.S. -- also, LOTR. Very l33t. elen sila lumen omentielvo!

[GaryP]

As usual people, I have a great solution;
Go here: http://www.3dactionplanet.com/serioussam/models.shtml
and replace the knife with RatBoys banana knife!

What do ya think?  It's not a weapon?
Sam just monkeys around with it :) (boooo, hissss)

Hope this helps...

[SuperMang!]

there can be a problem with bigheads. they tend to run up to you on sight and just trap you like a mob of gnaars.

[addman]

yes.
very l33t they are :)

[LeChuck]

Do you have any screens you can post yet of the map Mr. Luc

[mr luc]

Yeah actually.

But see, it's a funny thing . . . :)

I wanted some terrain areas for the sympathy level, right? And I didn't want 'em to look too serious or ordinary; I wanted really bright, really simple, really 'happy'-ish terrain. So I go into Terragen, play around a bit, get it into Sam -- and BAM! It hits me like a ton of bricks that that style of terrain is PERFECT for an SP Sam map.

I've never got started much on a Sam SP map, mostly because I never could make 'Sam-Like' terrain, and I like outdoors areas. Now I can produce Samlike terrain. The only conundrum is: if I release the sympathy level or screens from outdoors, people will see that I'm a jerk, re-using effort I put into my Sympathy map in an attempt to make an SP Sam map.

So instead, I decided to give the map to Eric (done already; he was overjoyed) and NOT show you guys any of it, and just release my SP map when it's finished! This way, nobody knows that I'm a jerk for reusing my terrain and style of terrain.

Oh . . . wait a second . . .

[LSD]

you're such a jerk. But pray, continue....

[addman]

hehe, your secrets out :biggrin: JERK!!

[mr luc]

Hehe, actually, I'm putting a ton of secrets in it, and a couple are apologetic ones for Eric. I haven't seen many FMs that have had a lot of secrets yet, or at least that have inspired me to find them. In the spirit of the original Croteam secrets, a lot of them are going to be very easy to find.

I'm trying to find some novel situations to put the player in as far as gameplay is concerned. For instance, I'm trying to set up situations where Gnaars are deadly foes. :biggrin: That particular situation is more of just a dastardly, unfair trap.

But has anybody else noticed how nasty Harpies are when you have to watch your footing?? I'm not even talking about some kind of tightrope walking or invisible paths; I just mean if you have 2 or three large, visible holes in the ground. Since Harpies turn SO fast, you can't do the same kind of sidestepping you can with werebulls or even Gnaars, so you have to circle kinda frantically (of course this is if you have almost no ammo, but that's how it's going to be :)). If all you have are your colts and a Double shot, you're better off using your knife. It's great.

Btw, I'd put this in the showcase forum, but I am so self-conscious about my work because of the way I build my levels. I use a staggered Stepwise Refinement process, (different from what I always had to use for Thief missions because those were rarely as linear), and that means that HUGE chunks of each leg of the mission are almost completely unpolished. In fact, only about the first five-ten minutes of play are polished.

This is a huge learning experience because I have no prior experience in First Person Shooter single-player maps. In fact, the only multiplayer experience I have is in making maps for Tribes 1, which is obviously a tad different. I'm used to making Thief/Thief 2 levels, and this has been a HUGE (and very refreshing) change for me. For one, the burden of story and atmosphere is almost totally lifted, which I feel is a wonderful thing in some ways from a 'total work' standpoint. For the first time, I can just churn out environments, just settings, with no actual substance whatsoever, and just worry about presenting the player with fun gameplay challenges. Instead of worrying about if the setting is appropriate to the story, worrying if my lighting throws off the seriousness of the storyline, worrying if I am capturing the correct story setting or if I am striking too much of a new and divergent path -- instead, I can just create stuff. it's not quite as fulfilling artistically -- but it's really, really fun for a change. It's like playing Madden 2002 on PS2 -- you know that the screen resolution isn't as great, you know that console games aren't as great as PC games, you know that intellectually -- but it's so damn fun. :)

I'm having a blast. Barring more tumultuous events in my personal life, I'll probably be releasing the mission in a month or so (to allow for testing and polishing).

[Earthling]

I want to test it. :biggrin: