Starting a Ranger's post, trails lead into the nearby chasms and ravines. Some have scenic views while others lead through the mountains or into caves.
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This is my first area so constructive criticisms is expected. This is only one area, so the caves lead nowhere for now anyway. No haks required. There are no encounters either.
I got the idea after the server I played on removed a forest area, and kind of inspired me to make one.
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I updated it (Forest Chasms v2) cleaning the walkmeshes and making a lot of changes in general. Feedback and votes are always welcome of course.
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Posted by nicethugbert at 2008-02-18 05:40:24 Voted 8.25 on 02/18/08
Picture #3 shows a sandy beach which is too steep to be made of sand. I would expect erosion to knock that down in less than a year, especially with no rock or foliage to hold it together. _________________________ NTB's Hills and Valleys Vol. 00
Thanks. Was not even aware of the tree deal... and that water is a bit funky. Will have to download those plug ins.
Posted by Anduraga at 2008-02-17 11:39:58 Voted 8.25 on 02/17/08
Hello there cepapoe. You know for a first area this ain't too bad. I can remember my first area from awhile back. It was terrible, but for a first area this is pretty outstanding work.
Of course, you wanted constructive criticism, so I'll give it my critiques as well. I'll start with the obvious:
1) The Walkmesh. If you turn on the walkmesh you'll notice triangles darting practically everywhere. The neon green parts are where you can walk, and the grey ones are where its off limits. Its good practice to get into the habit of cleaning up the walkmesh before sending stuff off.
Another note to be had is the Baked Walkmesh. If you turn that on, you'll immediately notice that cut out white square next to the ranger's building. Fixing these are kind of tricky and require some Walkmesh Cutters to fix it. Try using one trigger to cut the area out around the tents (should end up with a u-shaped trigger).
Also your trees need Walkmesh Cutters as well, otherwise you can just walk right through them.
2) The Water. I assume you were going for the tropical look there (without the palm trees). Personally, I think it looks kind of outlandish, so it might be best to use blue water. You can use the Color Tool to change the color of the water floor (and thus the way the water looks).
3) Lighting and Shadows. For all of your lights, its best to set the shadow intensity from anywhere between 0.4 and 0.7. Otherwise you can get some real dark shadows that are kind of annoying to look at.
There is also a limit on the number of intersecting lights before it starts causing lag. The limit is 3. I realize that its hard to tell since Obsidian borked the spheres, but I can see at least 5 in one spot near the ranger's station. My advice would be to delete two of the torches. I usually go for a zig-zag like effect instead of all of the torches on one side.
4) Trees. Most seem unaware of this, but there is definantly a limit to trees and their random seeds before lag is generated. And well... you went far outside of the limits :) Obsidian advises only 5 Tree Types and 4 random seeds, for a grand total of 20 different trees. It can be difficult to narrow them down sometimes, but its manageable. I would probably keep the Holly Bush and leave the other 4 trees to something taller.
There is also a plugin that can do this all for you without going over the limit. Can't recall the name of it. Just look for a tree randomizer plugin. It should allow for restrictions like that.
5) Terrain. This is something that takes alot of practice to get right or just alot of talent. To be honest, shaping the terrain is the worst part of the whole exterior process. General rule of thumb are smooth edges. You can obtain these through the Smooth tool. There are few jagged edges on your beach that could probably use some smoothing.
Roads usually are lower than the grass level due to constant wear down. It doesnt need to be substantial, but flat roads with the grass is kind of unrealistic. But that's just me nitpicking.
At the point where you have the flooded road, I would suggest a bridge of some sort. If you want to be creative, you could use boulders and then apply a Walkmesh Helper on top of it. This will make the players appear to be walking on the rocks.
6) Coloring. Dont be afraid to use the color tool! YOu might want to work with lower pressures but the Color Tool can work wonders.
With rural areas, this is simply a must, otherwise your area looks really redundant in texturing. Use shading (White to Black coloring) on the grass to make the area appear more luscious in color and thus more grass would be present.
7) Texturing. I'm not gunna harp too much on this, but a few recommendations. Never use Grass01 as the main grass. One of my personal peeves that just annoys me. :) When texturing, you want to try and blend things together. Use a (common) grass texture like Grass19 and make the area appear more grassy with some patches of rocks (Grass01).
Also make the road appear more solid by using just the road texture rather than blending Grass01 into it.
And this is not really a critique, but it can be a good habit. Behind the mountains in the no man's land (non-walkable area), you can use a black texture. Improves performance slightly and on the minimap it'll look a little better unless you want to texture that piece too which I dont recommend.
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Seems like alot, but hey this is your first time. In all honesty, it's not all that bad. _________________________ BouncyRock Entertainment
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