I now have some more of the layout roughly down, and tweaked some textures/colors, added new bits and structural parts. I won’t add the more “micro” details until the entire layout is complete to see where I can keep it under reasonable limits. Of course during this process, found some more bugs, fixed them, and ran into more problems, coded around those. Of significant note, I really improved the bot AI, and also fixed my issue with particles finally. I have a minor issue with alpha entity sorting to figure out, one way or the other. I know what the issue is(very large alpha ents need to be accounted for).
So far, as I mentioned, the lighting of the level is much more like the 2007 version of the map, with a good amount of ambient light, and a lot of light sources to keep it pretty brightly lit overall. I wrestled with the idea of making it dark and moody like the 2009 and 2003 versions, but I really like the visibility factor of the brighter versions, and it’s going to have quite a bit of blood, gore, and shiny stuff to set the mood. I am particularly excited to get started on putting in the gore…shiny blood puddles, blood spatters, and bits of flesh and bone everywhere. These aliens are sadistic and ruthless, and their lair will be representative of that fact.
Meanwhile, here’s some progress shots…
Lower floor in “lab” area. Note the texture change of floor and ceiling panels to light blue/orange(lit), with circles instead of (too) busy tiles and dividers. Note the trash pile to the left. When the level begins to get closer to completion, there will be more “destruction/grit” like this added, along with the gore.Also from lower “lab” floor, view of the staircase and passages out. There are 3 passages out on the lower level, and 3 out on the top level. Needless to say, much like previous iterations of the level(the 2007 and 2009 versions) the “lab” will be the area players gravitate to for battle. It is the center of the map, and all paths lead to it. The light blue floor needs to have a weaker normal map though, will fix that, it’s a bit too rough.Bottom of “power core” room. This room will probably get some different/more objects in it, just threw some electrodes in for now. This is a good example of the shadowing effects too.On the stairs in the “power core” room. This is divergent from the original designs which had the halls under/over one another and going in the same direction, with only the top going back to the lab, and the bottom was going to the “giant robot” room, and being very, very long. Having the lab in two tiers really changes everything about the map, and how circular/connective it all is now. There will be a lot of piping and weird alien power devices added soon to this room.
I have the “helm” room laid out in Blender, and will add those sections next. It’s the smallest of the rooms, and more irregular in shape. This will house the pilot controls, navigation, and of course the alien that controls it all. It also will reveal the “secrets” of the story – guaranteed to shock the long-time Alien Arena fans! I also fabbed the “giant robot” room, which completes the layout. This will require several new art pieces – the robots, and another ceiling piece, and stairs.
Layout mostly complete – few missing pieces here, but I do have the parts made. The only “dead end” is the “helm” area – which will have something valuable to pick up, but risky to do so. The robot will set in the circle at bottom left. Not sure yet how the stairs in that room will be configured.
The main layout change that should be obvious to long-time fans of the map, is that the lab room is much larger than before, and the robot room is more snug to it. In fact, all of the rooms are much larger, and the hallways shorter and compact.
Just for reference/nostalgia again, here are more pics I dug up of the older version of the map:
Super old-school, looking down on the “lab” area in 2003. This level was so dark, but it really did have a mysterious atmosphere.I had to search long and hard for this image, but this is The Saucer in 2007. Most players considered this their favorite iteration, despite the 2009 version being basically the identical layout.The “giant robot” room in the 2009 version. While the layout was identical to the 2007 map, players didn’t seem to like this one as much, to my chagrin.
