New levels by YanGez93

Anything to do with Drakan level editing and modifications, post it here! Also this is the place to tell us about your new levels and get player feedback.
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yangez93
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New levels by YanGez93

Post by yangez93 »

Hi here :)

I decided to make in Drakan Level Editor new Level Series to Drakan. Thanks to latest patches by UCyborg and Mechanist for the editor and BuXXe's plugins to Blender it is definitely easier to do something playable. They'll be quite small levels, rather, I don't want to do something very long and openworld-like maps. I plan to do max 5 levels. I decided on this step for several reasons: such as learning and using my models in other game engines. In opposite to OpenOOTF I'll place ASAP download links with beta version, that I could know your remarks and observations.

I placed assets that are free to use, there aren't any copyright and paid content. Assets are made from free tools such as Blender, GIMP (editing textures). Free assets such as: textures included in page : https://www.texturemate.com/ . In the case of walkthrough on my YouTube channel use only Royalty Free music and free ambience sounds of cave, forest, birds etc. Moreover as you want: my models that I have made are completely free to use.

Download Links and descriptions of levels:
To load level, please unpack .rar file to Drakan\Mountain World and run Drakan:Order of The Flame in Developer mode. While holding LShift - > Run Drakan.exe and in Developer tab->Enable Developer Mode. Some of the models are not fully finished and they are missing bounding boxes, Full version of level will be 1.00 Also, I recommend to set fog distance between 50%-70% Also, if you'll encounter bugs in levels or level broke Drakan etc. Please write to me. I use AiO patch by UCyborg 3/14/2019

ALL-IN-ONE map pack: https://drive.google.com/open?id=13RBk0 ... KXFrkTepaW

Level 1 - Cambodge. Version 0.70

Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XYz_h ... u1z_HZ8Azs -install it in Drakan\Mountain World

Image
Map is of course as you can read in title take places in Cambodia. Temple and structures are inspired by Angkor Wat. As you might guess, I did not want to place an NPC here and level will be focused on traps, puzzles and searching for the transition to the end of the level.
My walkthrough video with this level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ1MjoO97aQ

Level 2 - Monastery, version 0.40(Beta)
Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KugsZ ... nUclarBaD3 -install it in Drakan\Mountain World
Image
Castle-like structures, overcoming NPCs in the forest and looking for relics in Temple.

Level 3 - Town, version 0.2 Beta

Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1B37ZT ... PngrMiCHJq -install it in Drakan\Mountain World
A closed city. Linear level, a kind of town labyrinth surrounded by medieval buildings and houses. I also decided to add a galleon in which Rynn has to find a key artifact.
Image

Level 4 - Big Sky. Version 0.2 Beta

Download link https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GvmnM ... Qga8puOohb -install it in Drakan\Mountain World

Image
Air map with Dragon, where in the clouds and scenery set on rocky mountains and the player is unable to land. (Update, I decided to change and map will be just placed in rocky mountains) and upload download link right away because there are no drastic collision mistakes

Level 5 - The Dark Tower, version 0.4 -
Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Gg3tC ... LpBgiVSxaX install it in Drakan\Volcanic World
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Last level where Rynn will have to get to the top of a very tall tower, Level will be based on the inner part but the end part will be at the top of the tower.

Updates

I decided to make additional 2 levels:

Level 6 - Forum Romanum version 0.4 -install it in Drakan\Mountain World
Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uneSk ... EQu-uYmZ4w
Image
Rynn as a gladiator, must defeat a lot of opponents , look for potions or better weapons and get to the Colosseum.


Level 7 - Red Canyon version 0.2
Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HHdho ... SFQmCL4DFR - install it in Drakan\Islands World
Image
Air and ground map, where Rynn has to get to the secret city where there is an indestructible and powerful sword hidden.Arokh will help her find this city.

Extra- Work in progress: screenshots from Blender, Drakan Level Editor etc.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=16UbwK ... Tzi7TqFcDi

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Arokhs Twin
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Re: New levels by YanGez93

Post by Arokhs Twin »

I've been keeping an eye on this, looks great and reminds me of Drakan:TAG. Do you want me to put the download on this website as well?
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Re: New levels by YanGez93

Post by Mechanist »

Some remarks concerning technicalities:
yangez93 wrote: Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:07 amAlso, I recommend to set fog distance between 50%-70%
If you want to limit the player to a particular range of fog values, do so with the Level Properties object class.
Don't put that in the readme because no one will read it, and besides it would be extremely annoying to have to switch the fog distance for every map you play.

That's why the Level Properties class allows the map designer to impose limits on what fog distance values are allowed, without actually affecting the setting in the options menu.
In other words: the limits in the Level Properties class take precedence over whatever the player sets in the graphics options.

In fact, you can even set the minimum and maximum values to be equal, effectively forcing a particular setting on the player.
Historically, that would have been a very bad idea, especially towards the higher end of the fog distances - but with modern hardware and otherwise well-made maps, it's not unreasonable to expect most players (on Windows, at least) to be capable of >150% fog distance without encountering major performance issues.

yangez93 wrote: Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:07 amMap is of course as you can read in title take places in Cambodia. Temple and structures are inspired by Angkor Wat. As you might guess, I did not want to place an NPC here and level will be focused on traps, puzzles and searching for the transition to the end of the level.
This has nothing to do with the technical aspects of the game or its engine, but it's a general game/level design thing: if your game (or as in this case, series of levels) starts off with the player in a map without any enemies... then it's best to make it obvious to the player by having Rynn start without a weapon and armor, and only pick those items up not long before the part where she can encounter any actual enemies.

For example, think of the Ireland levels in Tomb Raider: Chronicles.
By having the player start off without any weapons, and being unable to acquire any, the game effectively establishes a contract with the player: you don't have any weapons and won't have any, so obviously you are not expected to fight any enemies - you'll need to either avoid them, or use some other means to mitigate the threat they pose.

Of course, if your goal is to fill the player with uncertainty and dread, expecting enemies to jump out from behind every corner - then by all means, place plentiful weapons/armors and healing items in a map otherwise free of any enemies. That is sure to make every player paranoid about encountering enemies, or even a boss, when in reality there are none.

yangez93 wrote: Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:07 amA closed town as linear level, something like a town maze surrounded by medieval buildings and houses
Just be careful to not confuse the meaning of "linear" as it applies to plot progression, with the meaning of "linear" as it applies to, say, rail shooters.

For example, OOTF's plot is very linear - effectively the only choice is whether to do Alwarren or the Goblin Fortress first, and it makes no difference on the end result in any case.
But the gameplay is not quite so linear - there are many optional areas, hidden items, and the one obvious sidequest with the Fire Sword.

yangez93 wrote: Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:07 amAir map with Dragon, where in the clouds and scenery set on rocky mountains and the player is unable to land.
Clouds/fog: I have no idea how you want to do that, since the engine simply does not allow volumetric fog or clouds.
It might be possible to "fake" sprite-based clouds by clever abuse of particle fountains, but it probably wouldn't look at all good.

As for the no-land aspect - again, no idea how you want to implement it so that it does not appear blatantly fake and/or forced.
In practice, it means that every square meter of the map bottom would need to consist of either steep slopes, water and/or lava.

Of course in principle, you can set even perfectly flat ground as "no dragon land material", but at that point you had better provide a VERY good in-game reason for that being the case.

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Re: New levels by YanGez93

Post by xxHyFoxx »

Hello YanGez93,

i just tried to test your level, but there is a problem with the temple-corridor.
The message says, it is invald material. So it does not show up in game and Rynn is only falling to death.
I checked your level in the editor, but there it looks fine. I can see the temple-corridor, where she shall land. But in the game it does not show up.

Any ideas what i'am doing wrong?

Greetings,
xxHyFoxx

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Re: New levels by YanGez93

Post by yangez93 »

Thanks Arokhs Twin , I think it will be reasobable when level will be fully playable and players will test it. I prefer when version of level will be 0.8< you can surely put a download link . Better to wait, I do not want players to get messages with crash, full of bugs and triviality :) I just need an opinion typically from players/testers that have on my maps :errors, bugs, problems with textures or endless fall areas, it will make it easier to fix it, and even things that must be improved because they do not fit, opinions are very important.

Mechanist , thanks for remarks especially with setting fog in Level Properties. Of course, here because of the fact that these are rather maps only for playability, so there will be no plot, the more it would take a lot of time to come up with a story and so I just started to do levels.I have not started the Air map yet, I mean more non-land layer that is in Volcano World just before entrance to Rift World,I thought to make clouds as Sky and invisible layer with non-land material.

xxHyFoxx Hello :) It would be nice if you put a screen from which part of the temple. Which patch do you use, rather, I think that you have everything updated. Because I am doing levels on the latest AiO patch by UCyborg, I do not know that other players who use Community Patch by Mechanist may have problems. from what I remember, I used to work on a larger texture (about 1024x1024) and I did not show up in the game. It may have something to do with it. I rather hope that the Mechanist will help here, rather I would not like to write to you (install the latest AiO patch and that stuff) because it can broke your installed Drakan when you have CP. If you have still problems with this please let me know or write to me PM.

And of course, if it'll be any updates, I'll update first post, as you can see, there will be two additional levels :)

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Re: New levels by YanGez93

Post by Mechanist »

yangez93 wrote: Tue Mar 26, 2019 8:42 amxxHyFoxx Hello :) It would be nice if you put a screen from which part of the temple. Which patch do you use, rather, I think that you have everything updated. Because I am doing levels on the latest AiO patch by UCyborg, I do not know that other players who use Community Patch by Mechanist may have problems. from what I remember, I used to work on a larger texture (about 1024x1024) and I did not show up in the game. It may have something to do with it.
It should not matter in this case, practically speaking - code-wise, the differences between the last released version of the CP and the most recent AiO patch are minimal and should not result in this kind of problems.

What can cause problems - and I suspect that this may be the case here - is that you have used (referenced) assets from other fanmade maps in your map(s), and xxHyFoxx only has the stock Drakan + the AiO patch (as opposed to the Community Patch).
In that case, of course there would be errors due to missing database references, since the AiO patch does not include any of the fanmade maps.

Referencing assets from other people's maps is a perfectly valid thing to do when designing maps - however, the burden is on the map maker to provide the user with a clear description of the required game version and any additional prerequisites.

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Re: New levels by YanGez93

Post by xxHyFoxx »

Hello Arokhstwin and Mechanist,

thanks for the answers.
As you mentioned the communtiypatch, i am not sure anymore, that everything works here like it should.
I had alraedy downloaded it and i also think that it is installed. A problem here(Win7) is, that the admin-rights thing gets a little bit fuzzy between the .exes of drakan.
So i decided to install the CP again and give the map a new try. I will post the result of it.

Greetings,

xxHyFoxx

[edit] It was the CP. With the last installation i didn't installed the whole bunch. Now everything works, a little bit.
I have a lot of problems with ciliping failures and so on...

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Re: New levels by YanGez93

Post by Mechanist »

xxHyFoxx wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:56 pmI have a lot of problems with ciliping failures and so on...
Yes, those levels are very unfinished - also in that they lack proper collision on a lot of objects - so that is to be expected.

I won't get into the technical details here, but the way object collision works in Drakan, it has absolutely nothing to do with the visible part of an object model; the collision geometry is entirely separate and consists of either boxes or spheres (but never both in a single model).
It's also very tedious to set up, so normally that's one of the last steps to be done when making a model; either that or the UV mapping, since neither involves modifying the model mesh.

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Re: New levels by YanGez93

Post by yangez93 »

Ok, I posted download to all my maps in beta version. In case of something bad happended to my HDD there are always download links. Levels still wait to be fully playable, I decided as I mentioned to release playable version when version of map will be 0.8<.

As I heard from other users, there are problems with loading levels. I don't know but it can be caused by version of AiO patch, I use of course latest version of AiO so I recommend also to update, however I don't know if it will broke Drakan when user will install it on Community Patch. So I need volunteers if someone find bugs with installing, loading or find technical issues. To make it easier to download maps, I packed all maps in a .7z file.

As for models, I decided to split them just because they have so many polys and were unplayable, interesting observation is many of faces aren't rendered 50k< polys. I split them so models have <20K polys, in my case they are playable or at least have sufficient FPS to play. It was really helpful that BuXXe updated his Blender plugins so models export much more faster than before. It is hard to make terrain in Editor, so I decided make it in Blender, even when it has to do much more work in terms of bounding boxes.

One of major improvements are implementing and set Level properties. Problems that I encounter first was unable to set dependenices in independent database(problem with Drakan Editor UI or functionality. (I selected System database and drag it into level database and it didn't work) I did it, but by accident, I do not even know how :) .

And of course I set skyboxes. I use skyboxes from: http://www.custommapmakers.org/skyboxes.php but you need to check license, I use skyboxes that are on GNU license. Intersting is skybox generator if someone wants to generate intersting night skybox. Skybox generator by wwwtyro : http://wwwtyro.github.io/space-3d/

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