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# Zxanphorian/Developer Journal

## Zxanphorian's Developer Journals

### Current Project

#### CTF-Afterlife

Screenshots: Zxanphorian/CTF-Afterlife Screenshots

##### Summary and Inspiration

##### Journal Entries

###### December 21, 2002

Well, when I was almost done with the basic layout of heaven for the original Unreal Tournament, i realized that it would be a real waste for me to do it in an obsolete game. I also decided that I would start over from scratch, when i learned about Static Meshes. The geometry is redundant and low-poly obsolite. You can find the geometry here ([15]) and you can do ANYTHING with it, I don't care ! Also, Ii will have to learn how to create the terrain for the Earth part of my level.

Im thinking of not having a skybox in heaven! I could use distance fog to not have skyboxes, but i will use a particle emitter for the clouds below, like the clouds blowing across the plane in the Airborne missions in Americas Army: Operations. The sun, in the east (sunrise) would be one of two Ion Cannons for the Ion Painter, hidden in a "cloud" in heaven. The second Ion Cannon, the moon, will be between the noon position and the west. It would be like 6:30 in a summer morning.

On Earth, there would be a cross between a hilly, canyonous, and rugged lanscapes. It would be like a modified mini Grand Canyon. There would be the moon in the east in the sky, so that heaven wouldn't be visible. There would be a fine mist fog that the moon could barely poke though the shoud. It would be like 2:00 in a summer night. Oh, i forgot, the moon would be the Ion Cannon!

Hell would be a big cave with lots of magma (not lava, which is above the Earth's surface) and magma eruptions, that would incinerate the doomed player. It would be miles below a giant volcano.

###### December 22, 2002

My brother had a lan party with his friends and I was invited, so we played UT2003 for hours and gave me good ideas. I think Epic butchered up Phobos 2. It is nowhere NEAR the look as the first one. In my opinion, I like the first Phobos better. Also, I like Curse 3.

###### December 23, 2002

Created Heaven box, nothing much

###### December 24, 2002

Created distance fog. What is a good summer 6:00ish fog color? (in Red, Green, Blue)

I really need a 6:00ish fog color!!! I need it to look realistic!

###### December 25, 2002

I need a good mapper to tell me what a good summer 6:00ish fog color is

###### December 26, 2002

Im starting on creating the Static Mesh for the platforms in Heaven. It would look like a semi-sphere with a big spike on the bottom with spikes coming out of it. Also, it will have a disc platform underneath with adreniline pills on it.

###### December 27, 2002

Completed the clouds flying by via an Emitter.

Started on the "Hall of Pillars" (not to be confused with UT1's DOM-Sesmar's control point area)

###### December 28, 2002

Perfected the distance fog color and distance.

Added the teleporter platform that goes into the Hall of Pillars

Halfly Completed Hall of Pillars, looks good!!

Created rough Hall of Pillars!!!

###### December 29, 2002

Put in sunlight.

###### December 30, 2002

Discovered that if you create distance fog with a skybox, you can see the skybox through the fog. I didn't want that to happen (cause i didn't want a skybox) so i put really dense fog in teh skybox so that you couldnt see the stuff in it (i put the skybox from Face3 into it and deleted the tower thingys). HOOAH, i now have a "non skyboxed" sky!

Here is a snapshot of my level in progress: ZxanDocs/Aftelfe_Heaven?

(i will get it tomorrow!

###### December 31, 2002

I will make the picture a secret.

Put in the middle platforms.

###### January 1, 2003!!

Put in jump pads that jump people between the platforms.

###### January 2, 2003

Tested the jump pads for two things:

- Will they hurt the player when landed because of height problems?
- Will the player fall to doom because it jumps too low?

They are "Picture-perfect".

Starting on the master platform.

###### January 3, 2003

Feels like it is easier to map in 2003, not 2002 . Also, school was closed because of a winter storm problem !!! (so i mapped more!). I finished the architecture of the Master Flag Platform. I put in the weapons and ammunition. I am 1/6 completed with the map.

###### January 4, 2003

Added powerups.

###### January 5, 2003

Little things

###### January 6-13, 2003

lots o' homework + projects

###### January 14, 2003

Created subclasses of the weapon pickups to make them placeable (for respawn time reasons), and eventaully create a wildcard pickup with a cool sm for it.

I need comments and suggestions for this really bad (1337 in help!) should i add more places in heaven? (such as [a] cloud(s) with respawn points in them?

###### January 15-16, 2003

Miscy stuff

###### January 17, 2003

Changed the fire caldrons static meshes

Added notes.

Deleted Notes

###### January 18, 2003

started on the earth's terrain

###### January 19, 2003

Finished earth... Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! This is fun, 2/3 done!

###### January 20, 2003

didn't quite finish earth, little tweaks

Started on hell's "The Five Bridges"

###### January 21-24, 2003

other stuff in hell

###### January 24-28, 2003

touch-up stuff to entire level.

###### January 29, February 2, 2003

working on the Magma Lake

###### February 2-7, 2003

still working on the magma lake

###### February 7-9, 2003

I got rid of the moon in heaven, becuause you only need one ion cannon. I also got rid of the volcano in hell because of HOM problems

###### February 10-13, 2003

misc stuff

###### February 14, 2003

- Added fire flickers (seriously)
- Made the fire go with the wind.
- Made the magma surface double sided
- Added distance fog in the magma, for more realistic magma

###### February 15, 2003

SCREENSHOTS!

(Zxanphorian/CTF-Afterlife Screenshots)

###### February 16, 2003

- Made the grand stlactite pulse with green-cyan light
- Made the pool of magma explode with chunks of magma

###### February 17, 2003

School off! Snow snow snow!!!

- Got rid of green-cyan light: added emmiter

###### February 18-May 04, 2003

Nothing much, put in translocator beakon teleporters in!

###### May 05-May 31, 2003

I got banned from the game and my dad forcefully made me uninstall the game. If I didn't he would block the Wiki and any other Unreal Tounament type sites, including the Forums. He made up a deal that i could get the game back: If i get consecutive good grades on Algebra quizzes and tests. I successfully accomplished that and he let me reinstall the game. I got a tear in my eye by seeing my level again!

###### June 01-June 09, 2003

My dad, reluctantly suggested to add a little more greenery and plants on earth, and I told him "thanks". Now, thanks to my dad, i have a better-looking earth area. Also, I made earth a little darker.

###### June 10, 2003

I did many things to my level:

- Got rid of gaudy stairs in heaven and put in aerodynamic "wings" and "nose cone" on it.
- Added lifts to get to the top stories of the Hall of Pillars.
- Added more vegetation to earth.
- Added wall sconces to hell.

All of those made it better looking and more fun; z-axis is more availiable

###### June 11- June 13, 2003

- Added an extra story to the Hall of Pillars.
- Added HoP-like tower on the master flag platform.
- Rotated middle heaven platforms so that you can move around better.

###### June 14- August 21, 2003

NOTHING! Computer had startup problems, fixed now

#### Summary and Verdict

#### Comments and Suggestions for CTF-Afterlife

MythOpus: Hey Man, Long Time No See Eh ? Just wondering how the map is doing...

Foxpaw: I noticed while I was reading above about the static meshes.. I can't say for sure from what was written above but it sounds like you were going to make the entire platform in heaven one big mesh.. it looks like the spikes are very similar so if they are indeed the same you could improve the performance by making a "spike" static mesh and sticking a bunch of them to the sides of the platform static mesh. Because of the way static meshes are drawn you can draw the same static mesh numerous times with essentially the same performance price as drawing the same mesh only once. (A bit more costly, but hardly at all.) Also if the platforms are simple enough you might consider doing them in BSP instead.. it's more expensive performance wise but BSP uses a different lighting system than static meshes which looks much better. At this point you probrably aren't looking for performance optimizations but I thought I'd mention a few things that came to mind.

MythOpus: Myth is thinking about finding Zxan on his mIRC channel and threatning to kick his butt if he doesn't show his face on the wiki...

Zxanphorian: /me is still here

MythOpus: I sure hope so...

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