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TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 7:49 am
by ZeroPresence
Hey guys,

It has been a while since I messed with packages, rebuilding, everything involved with modifying Unreal legacy, really. I thought we released the SDK for all the aspects of the mod on ModDB but turns out everything within was stuff related to things beyond my pay grade and the .u files in folder form.

Quick question for any of the old guys as well as people that managed to mod TNM, how do you get editing the maps to be user friendly? I'm pretty sure the files that our maps pull from are a lot more complex than simply just moving the .u files to the base System folder for UnrealEd 1 and 2 to call from.

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 5:57 pm
by Jonas
Ah sorry ZP, I'd love to help but I don't remember a damn thing. I can't believe it's only been 7 years since release because it feels like TNM was released before I was fucking born, for all I can remember of it. All TNM info has been purged from my brain and replaced by facts about spies and vikings <_<

I hope you find somebody to help you out!

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 7:43 pm
by ZeroPresence
No problem, like the meme says "every time someone mentions Deus Ex you have to do a playthrough..." same applies to TNM, and I just wanted to go a step further and check out our maps in editor. :-k

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 10:59 pm
by Jonas
Man, I ought to replay that mod.

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:42 am
by ZeroPresence
Be careful, you are going to look at some kind of work you did and think "what was I thinking, how was that passable!?"

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 11:19 am
by Jonas
I can't even make it through the intro on account of the shitty writing :P

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 6:28 am
by ZeroPresence
My example is the llama temple, I know that map was a pretty big hit with you and a few of our other guys but man, I was running around in there cringing my face into the atmosphere. There are so many surfaces that are pitch black and shouldn't be, a few outright ugly design choices, too.

Like it got to a point where I was seriously considering remaking my levels, leaving the other maps the same out of respect for our other mappers, and pushing it on the forum here to see if anyone would be interested... last playthrough I did was in about April of this year so that is when i was considering that. I ran into this same problem but didn't think about coming back here to ask during that time.

Today, I'm just wondering what my brush work looks like. I remember specifically I did some VERY strange things with brushes in some of the WorldCorp maps.

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 5:32 am
by DevAnj
Jonas wrote:I can't even make it through the intro on account of the shitty writing :P
Would you care to elaborate on this? I thought the writing was fine, although most of the jokes didn't really work for me.

@ZeroPresence: My biggest problem with the Llama temple was that the temple part of it was too short, most of the level was a bunch of underground caves that kind of looked similar to each other and were somewhat dull visually.

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2016 11:23 am
by Jonas
DevAnj wrote:Would you care to elaborate on this? I thought the writing was fine, although most of the jokes didn't really work for me.
I dunno, it's hard to explain. The characterisation in the game overall is kinda weak and often salvaged purely by the personality of the voice-over. There's also a lot of self-indulgent cruft - most of the conversations in TNM would be vastly improved if you cut them down to about half-size. The pacing of both the plot and the dialogue is too loose. There's a clear difference in quality between the stuff I wrote last and the stuff I wrote years earlier; that's to be expected of course, but it's a bit worse here than in most other works because it stretched over such a long time, plus I was 15 when we started and 22 when we finished. There's also a general incongruity in the tone because the whole thing is such a chaotic amalgam of ideas, and the editing process pretty much went: if it's in the game, it's staying in the game.

I'm not a ashamed of it. Considering the circumstances, we did a hell of a job. But it's hard to sit through now.

Re: TNM and UnrealEd > Current Year

Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2016 12:41 pm
by ZeroPresence
DevAnj wrote:@ZeroPresence: My biggest problem with the Llama temple was that the temple part of it was too short, most of the level was a bunch of underground caves that kind of looked similar to each other and were somewhat dull visually.
Same, that map kind of got stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The rock: The interior was actually designed long after the exterior. I built that temple in the downtown sector very early on, before we ran into the problem of visibility crashing the game, even. Once the interior started getting designed we were kind of forced into keeping it somewhat believable size wise. If we are going to do a direct comparison of the exterior to the interior, the only part that actually fits is the lobby area so I even stretched that a bit.

The hard place: at some point I was basically the only mapper and doing it with all of my free time. I loved mapping, and I REALLY loved mapping for TNM but you just kinda get burned out on something if you are spending so much time on it even if it is something you enjoy. That "cave" which is more comparable to a standard hallway setup with a rock texture on the walls instead of wallpaper, fell victim to that. Finally, I can't remember if it was this map in particular, but there are a few instances of Jonas and I talking over MSN about how we aren't particularly satisfied with the look of something, but we gotta push it so I could move on to the next map. That is always disheartening to do, but it was a necessary evil.