E1L8 Background info

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Leo(T.C.K.)
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E1L8 Background info

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

I posted this on ut99.org. I have to launch an external editor and load a file from there to be able to "copy paste", even though I got abuse over at ut99.org who can't imagine that I might have some finer motoric problems and it takes effort writing those posts, so no I can't avoid double posting especially if I'm not using firefox or something.

Here goes:

All of this is bits of E1L8 before yrex worked with it and it should document a bit how it was all put together.

E1L8 had to be practically created from scratch and includes some of the most heavy changes in the history of the rework and I will present you with what was changed the most here.

There might be a couple of missing dependancy files from various beta/alpha conversion maps, if you don't have those files I recommend just creating a dummy file for the purpose.

First:

E1L8A - This was the only true E1L8 map in a sense that it contains that canyon with the landing skaarj craft,
which was the only recovered part of E1L8 that had E1L8 in its name....

So what I did was use the conversion of beta dark arena that I did and connect it with this canyon plus cliffcastle in between, the cliff map from unreal 95, retextured. I chose Dark Arena because I know it oncer used to be a swamp castle level, before this beta look even and it still used one te4xture found originally in the swamp castle set (aka castle1).

Download link here

This is one of the last versions before yrex reworked the area on my suggestion that it still looked a bit too much like the original beta dark, so he created that nice trench and textured the outside differently.

I will end this post here and post the other two major changed maps here later, in their WIP state.

I might have to do double posting due to the way I have to work with this text editor here, so if that happens
please merge the post for me.

I hope you find this retrospective look interesting.


E1L8B:
This one was actually the last map in the series to be finished. However parts of this map has been sitting dormant for years, as it is yet another big amalgamation work with bits of new geometry/map parts.

It combines a ton of stuff, this is just one example, where I retextured TundraX (Tundra from September 1997 of the ECTS levels).

With the swamp castle textures, plus adding some bits from the custom edition of Tundra from Crista Forest like that room with the statues, again retextured completely.

This was to be connected with some bits ala Outpost 3J which you can see in the final release.

This Tundra part was further improved by yrex by adding skaarj techy bits and changing the windows of the tundra tower for example.

Now, back to describe E1L8B, not only TundraX was used, also there was a bit with the castle tower with the flamemercs in it, that came originally from the Creative mappack included with some of the Unreal Special edition CDs... without the mercs and that texturing though as it was a deathmatch level actually.

Further on, hatchet from unreal psx was used, with the real e3l1 part cut off, as hatchet was a wip earlier design of one of e3l1 levels that got very much redesigned so it was worth putting this here.

Further on again, the hatcher part connects the creative demo tower and another part of scorched castle bit from me, plus that implant gun puzzle section which actually comes from unreal alpha map parts that were in the emissary files and were assumed to be from emissary but their origin is unclear and because they were untextured it seemed likely that they might have came from Unreal at some point.

yrex did a great job seemlessly putting it together there.

That connects with, you guessed it, TundraXUPB, which connects with the Outpost 3J like part with new mappage from yrex and the glass_demo bits from upsx combined together, leading into the skaarj complex deeper,
where yet another map by terry greer is used, the laddertest map which was obviously meant to be somewhere in the game. There was just a little too much detail for it to be a throwaway test map and they went into trouble trying to code a custom ladder anyway (recoded from scratch here).

A little bit ala extreme was attached too, to show the dragon hologram, then some more new stuff by yrex and glass demo corridors in the hangar.

The final part comes from the cut beta level called SplashDM.

I will cover E1L8C next.
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Re: E1L8 Background info

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

E1L8C: Oh boy, this is the most tricky part and also the one filled with most frustration.

This was the "flagship" level by Rubie in the project and as such it sank and it took a lot of coordinated effort from yrex to fix this up.

I am not going to go into details of the entire drama here, but I will link to a text file detailing some more background of this map plus details of Rubie's work.

Detailed description

Yes, it was misnamed "EL8C" by Rubie. v13 was the last version Rubie worked on. download

But, just to compare, this was the last version before the big mess started: BLC8 download

Now to finally explain what E1L8C really consisted of. BigLevelCastle was my initial unfinished retexture of the BigLevel conversion from the Unreal 95 levels preview/UnrealEd demo, which contained this level called simply BigLevel or Unreal.unr alternatively.

This was the level which was featured on a screenshot of that pinball game...

Now, this was connected with James map, again retextured, from the levels preview 1995 demo.

Plus with the pupae map from unreal psx which featured what seemed like a queen pupa, never really used
or connected with anything.

Then, the HarborTown map of mysterious origin, the only version ever found was in the early ut3 pre alpha which lacked textures. Then scorched castle and recreated screenshot areas by yrex from swamp castle levels.

Then, the "bathhouse" from the september 1995 monster preview demo. In the released version includes a single Skaarj Marauder, which is a nod to the cancelled project by Master_Unreal.

Do yourself a favor and play the released maps first before trying these different WIP maps.

For the last map, E1L8D there isn't much to say, other than that it is an adaptation and not a straight port, of a custom unreal alpha level made by spasehead and parts of the level made to look like some old unreal screenshots again, with the final showdown part being made acording to the design doc I made for episode 1 boss, although scaled down from the original idea (as the boss was even meant to lift barrels and such and throw them but the full animations weren't made so).

This connects with the surface map for unreal 0.84 and an area connecting with fortressentrance (possibly part of triton) from august 1997 and leading into some new/reused parts area with one particular arch room being made after the umovie trailer.
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Re: E1L8 Background info

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

I will update this particular post later, but for now I will keep it to this set of documents from the rework developement. You will see how some ideas started and what was originally planned for E1P2:

Documents

Contains also a bonus in form of a draft for Legend of Sharighar...

I want to also add that what I said about ghosting in e1l8c out of that door, it no longer will work since the area I talked about was removed by yrex(which I didn't realize before), but it found its way into e1l8b anyway.

Also there are still continuing linker problems which turns out to be mostly due to the new way of removing levelsummary, so those maps will get it reverted for the next patch because most of those new maps are impossible to open in 225/ut without loading certain maps first and that's tiresome.

So expect a "linker patch" for e1l8 and then the full release including all of it plus the unreleased DM maps.

Update: This is the conversin of "OldCastle" the custom map for Unreal 0.84a that inspired E1L8D main part (with the addition of recreated screenshot areas).

Download
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