LarvaExotech Showcase

[LarvaExotech]

A little showcase from a Serious Sam: Revolution mappack I am creating in free time

The general plot is like that Sam must destroy 9 nuclear rockets located in 9 planets of our Solar System. I know that there are now officially only 8 planets in our solar system, but idea for this mappack was created in my mind around 2004-2005 where Pluto was still considered a planet. After 12 years, I decided to start this mappack and I decided to stick with original 9 planets idea

My aim is to create a decent looking map (I am not an artist honestly) having nice gameplay and balanced fights.

Here are some screens from Mercury episode:
























images upload

[Maska322]

> "Decent looking map"
> Looks better than 75% of all maps

[Solais]

Wow, really feels something like Quake 2 or some of industrial parts of Unreal, interesting!

[LarvaExotech]

Thank you!

I am not really an artist and I am just trying my best to make this map looks good, it probably does, but I am never 100% satisfied with my work

Some shot on skybox with lens flaers on:

[Discy]

Nice futuristic looking architecture with plenty of detail? Keep it up!

[Valerie Valens]

You could always swap Pluto with Ceres (In the asteroid Belt.) or Sedna (Outer Solar System, beyond Neptune's orbit.), considering that those bodies are considerably larger than Pluto.

[LarvaExotech]

Originally Posted by Valerie Valens

You could always swap Pluto with Ceres (In the asteroid Belt.) or Sedna (Outer Solar System, beyond Neptune's orbit.), considering that those bodies are considerably larger than Pluto.

KIND OF.

I have considered dropping Pluto, but it makes my idea more complete if Pluto is on place. Thats because I want to create various environments and Pluto fits the "icy level" theme well.

Of course, Neptune or Uranus could take a role of "icy episode", but I have other ideas for them already.

For Neptune, I would want to guide a plot in a way that planet was unsuccessfully terraformed using greenhouse effect with gases from planets core. The idea was to create a planet suitable for life, but experiment did not work correctly and ALL of Neptune ice was melted into water. The idea is to have a totally water planet with instalations and bases floating on water surface. There was one old movie called Waterworld which used this idea. Also the name of planet fits really into my fantasy of 100% water planet.

https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/mid...3/14_Atoll.jpg

For the Uranus I would want to fit an medieval theme there. Like a people who colonized Uranus, they decided that futuristic technology is doing more bad things than good things and they decided to scrap all modern things and instead to live in a "medieval way". This is probably more cheap story than Neptune one, but I wanted to introduce more variable environments and styles in my mappack.

This is because making all of episodes with a template of "generic futuristic base level with different skybox and terrain color" will become boring so I am trying to mix some other ideas here.

For now, Mercury is taking place in abandoned bases and factories on planet surface and this is what you see on screens from first post.

For Venus I'd like to take action in a base that is floating in very dense atmosphere using zeppelins (this is actually possible idea and have been discused by scientists).

For Earth I want to make a modern/futurstic city, however I am scared that I wont manage

For Mars I'd want to make a city under big terraformed dome, with occasional exits to raw Martian terrain.

At the moment I do not have ideas for Jupiter and Saturn planets. The one idea that is most probable to go in is that on one of those planets, Sam will have to enter special machine that will transfer him into his dreams and whole episode will be in a nightmare like floating islands, mixed up areas and styles without really any sense - just a simple nightmare For Saturn I have no idea however I'd love to make a skybox with a Saturn planet visible through atmosphere, it would be immense

The ideas for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto was stated above.

Thats the primary idea however it is subject to change because it is still WIP

[ZynX]

All i see here is good stuff man. Clean and good looking maps, great use of textures. These reminds me alot to HL1's maps. Keep up and you'll go big.

[Valerie Valens]

If you want an Icy Planet, the perfect candidate would be to use Europa. A surface made out of ice kilometres deep, with liquid water underneath the crust melted due to pressure and tidal friction from Jupiter's gravitational influence, and possible signs of alien life living underneath the ice, surviving by using the methane in the water to breathe.

[Maska322]

You guys talk about plot in Serious Sam or what?

[LarvaExotech]

[QUOTE=Valerie Valens;1119471]

Originally Posted by Valerie Valens

If you want an Icy Planet, the perfect candidate would be to use Europa. A surface made out of ice kilometres deep, with liquid water underneath the crust melted due to pressure and tidal friction from Jupiter's gravitational influence, and possible signs of alien life living underneath the ice, surviving by using the methane in the water to breathe.

I see your point though I want icy level to be the last one because its quite ready in my mind in terms of final mappack great battle and slugfest.

Well this is not really an scientific experiment, only a game so it doesnt really need to reflect reality in 100% correct way. For example you can look at huge sun in Mercury levels (look screens in first post). Well actually I have checked in SpaceEngine how would sun disc look from Mercury surface and while it was certainly bigger than from earth POV..... it was nothing spectacular to be honest. So I decided to exaggerate sun disc a lot when I was creating skybox for this level. Its like 3 or 4 times bigger than it should be and while it does not reflect reality in any serious way, it gives nice feeling of "hey I am on planet closest to sun"

Edit:
Check this screen with sun disk: https://postimg.org/image/gh05n1207/
It cover like a third of skybox front face and I am using 4 lens flares simulatoneusly to cover this big ball of heat. Realistic? Not at all. Cool? Hell yes

Thanks for your points however, I'll consider them for sure

[Valerie Valens]

That looks cool, I agree. Good luck with your project. I hope I gave you some ideas to work with.

[LarvaExotech]

Originally Posted by Valerie Valens

That looks cool, I agree. Good luck with your project. I hope I gave you some ideas to work with.

Thank you! I am open to ideas. Especially for Jupiter or Saturn because those are empty holes in my plan

Edit:

A new room with shiny rocket launcher. I have played around light colors and decided for green ones here. I've played few maps in Unreal Tournament 99 just to get some inspiration and I saw that abusing light colors they manage to create nice detailed maps with only few textures

So this is effect, with and without lighting.

[Solais]

But Uranus and Neptune are gas giants, there's nothing to terraform because there's no solid "ground" inside of them. Same about Jupiter and Saturn. Only their moons are solid planetoids. It's akin to trying to terraform the Sun. In fact, gas giants could technically turn into stars in the right conditions, if ignited.

[LarvaExotech]

Originally Posted by Solais

But Uranus and Neptune are gas giants, there's nothing to terraform because there's no solid "ground" inside of them. Same about Jupiter and Saturn. Only their moons are solid planetoids. It's akin to trying to terraform the Sun. In fact, gas giants could technically turn into stars in the right conditions, if ignited.

I think it is the time when I should feel ashamed

Yeah indeed they are gas giants, I am not sure why I considered them solid planets. This makes things more and more complicated however.

[Solais]

You can move their respective levels to one of their many solid moons however.

[LarvaExotech]

Yes I will probably either move plot to their moons or "solidify" planets using another cheap plot story

[Discy]

You could also move their respective levels to research stations orbiting the planets. Or one level on a moon, one on a research station.

[LarvaExotech]

Originally Posted by Discy

You could also move their respective levels to research stations orbiting the planets. Or one level on a moon, one on a research station.

This is good idea indeed. Especially that I already imagine how would a skybox with giant gas planet look like and I am loving it. Something like:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...14d3e506a2.jpg

[Valerie Valens]

Originally Posted by LarvaExotech

Yes I will probably either move plot to their moons or "solidify" planets using another cheap plot story

In Warframe, the Uranus sectors take place in submerged biotics labs, and the Neptune sectors takes place in frozen over tech facilities. It is possible to freeze methane on the surface using reverse refrigeration tech to shunt heat away from the surface and into human-inhabited spaces.

[Mkbewe]

Nice pics! But for real you can terraform only Mars. On Mercury and Venus it's high temperature (because they are too close to Sun). Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uran are, as Solais said, gas planets so you can't sit on these planets.
But people could colonise moons like:
-Moon
-Phobos or Deimos (Mars' moons)
-Europe, Kalisto, or Ganimedes (Jupiter's moons)
-Titan or Enceladus (Saturn's moons)
-Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Tytania or Oberon (Uran's moons)
-Tryton (Neptune's moon).

[LarvaExotech]

Originally Posted by Mkbewe

Nice pics! But for real you can terraform only Mars. On Mercury and Venus it's high temperature (because they are too close to Sun). Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uran are, as Solais said, gas planets so you can't sit on these planets.
But people could colonise moons like:
-Moon
-Phobos or Deimos (Mars' moons)
-Europe, Kalisto, or Ganimedes (Jupiter's moons)
-Titan or Enceladus (Saturn's moons)
-Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Tytania or Oberon (Uran's moons)
-Tryton (Neptune's moon).

Hey! Thanks for tips As I have stated before, I dont want really to create anything realistic. The most important point in this is to make sure that player has fun. Anyway thanks for moons guide, I'll probably move plot in gas planets to some stations orbitting planets and/or moons

Mercury in this mappack is an industry planet with artificial atmosphere. Humanity build up those complexes because of cheap solar energy.

Also, I am posting small update because I've finished few halls and one room. The elevator on screen is finally guiding player out of underground factory complex. FINALLY because I cant wait to challenge open space again.





Also these screens are from second episode taking place on mercury, so there is slightly different skybox, taking place at daytime:





Thanks for all comments and discussion btw!

[Discy]

Looking cool. I can't really judge from a few screenshots, but I hope you don't make the areas too small to properly fight in.

Why are there so many directional lights in your last screenshot? And why is your editor void still bloody red?

[LarvaExotech]

Originally Posted by Discy

Looking cool. I can't really judge from a few screenshots, but I hope you don't make the areas too small to properly fight in.

Why are there so many directional lights in your last screenshot? And why is your editor void still bloody red?

Thanks for comments!

Hmm its quite hard to tell however I am increasing "average room size" as game progresses, like Croteam did in original saga. Also some tight rooms are "junction sectors" without battles or with low amount of enemies, to give a player some breat, replenish hitpoints, ammo etc.

I am attaching few screens ingame in order to create a better degree of view:

https://scr.hu/4LBX7d

https://scr.hu/jr1dA2

https://scr.hu/ql16dp

https://scr.hu/KOALyq

https://scr.hu/dzqgVX

https://scr.hu/WJ5yDl

(excuse me for Serious Sam 2 weapon models, I just love them too much to unsubscribe )

And about skybox, there are 3 directional lights, but two of them are "lens flare only". This is because I've found out that overlapping few lens flares creates nice glow effect for this large sun. Single lens flare did not look too good because of its size, it covered only a part of sun dist and doesnt look too good.

This how it looks without lens flares. As you can see, disc is pretty big and having two lens flares simultaneously creates glow effect so sun disc is not even visible unless you look partially on it.



For the red background thing, I am not sure what do you mean This is a view number 9, the one that does not render background and does render entities, because I wanted to show skybox room

Thanks for suggestions

[Discy]

That's looking pretty awesome, I can't wait to be able to play it.

As for the directional light, you only "need" one for the shadow casting. If you set 'lens flare only' then setting directional isn't required. And I mean the color you see when you don't render the background. By default it's burning red for some reason, and it hurts the eyes. If you click the globe icon the property box pops up where you also set the name of the level. If you click 'Background color' you can change it to any RGB color, some people prefer black but I find that entities outside of the world become harder to see, so I use a light-blue color like a sunny sky.

[LarvaExotech]

I see now. Thanks for the tip I didnt know it is possible to change background.

And about lens flares, yeah its true I just ctrl+c and ctrl+v light twice and didnt bother changing it, just ticked "lens flare only" Does this affect performance?

[Discy]

It doesn't, but it might get confusing if you're trying to find the 'real' sun. You can put the directional light anywhere, by the way. You don't have to put it where the sun flare is.

[Valerie Valens]

Well wouldn't the "real" sun be where the flare is?

[LarvaExotech]

Originally Posted by Valerie Valens

Well wouldn't the "real" sun be where the flare is?

Discy is right actually. The position of directional light does not matter at all, only its orientation does.

However I always place directional light on skybox, because it is in line with sun position on skybox texture and all shadows look correctly. While it is possible to place it everywhere, even in dark room underground, it would introduce need for unnecessary fine tuning of lights rotation.

Also, when I am creating skyboxes, I always put sun disc in the front wall because it allows me to use same template for skybox. However I am making walls up to grid, so sun ends always to be parallel or perpendicular to base walls, which mess up shadows, so I am putting lights in skybox as parent to background room and then rotate whole room until I feel satisfied with sun position.

[Discy]

I always have one particular area that needs the perfect shadow angle, so that's where I place my directional light and I can see exactly where the shadows will be. You can even use Y to "see" where the sun aims.

It's interesting how we all have a different workflow.