CEONSS

Shots fired!

Thanks Peg, that was a very insightful post! I think implementing your ideas would improve this map a lot.

Would you agree that this is an accurate summary of your ideas?:

- place two more nodes on ships (make mesh larger) on the left flank, roughly same distance as nodes on right flank from the cores, make primaries
- turn middle nodes (beach) into secondaries
- place 1 manta each at new primaries, ~4 player starts
- jumppads from decks to ships and from ships to beach (halfway to beach nodes)
- 1 cicada each at core
- new radar image
- rocky ledges with jumppads on both sides of center node
- a goodie on the rocks
- move static mesh cover at right flank (cliff) primaries back so there is more dueling space
- replace Scorps with EONSS Scorps
- badgers instead of benders at cliff primaries?
- SPMA and raptor at center node instead of 2 scorps
- +1 cicada at the cores, potentially in front of the chapel or on top of wooden deck suspended over cliff side (like at center node)
- add health pickups (esp near the center node)
- LG at all nodes
- Sniper Rifles near sneaky paths
- custom, full weapon lockers
- implement Onslaught Specials 2
- remove the blocking volumes in front of chapel windows at cores
- add jumppads at cores onto lower part of chapel roof
- remove crosses from top of chapels at cores
- jumppads from shoreline to mid-point of path from core to primaries
- enlarge fires and their emitters for greater cover
- delete PhysicsVolume0 and 1
- replace BlockingVolumes at edge of map with ForcesDirVolumes (in OnslaughtSpecials package)
- possibly remove blocking volume pillars between cliff primaries and center node
- make center node look more interesting/iconic (while providing cover to the node)
- break cliff face up into several meshes
- add location volumes
- move light sources on top of their corresponding lamps
- make TeamBanners immobile
- replace burning books with wooden logs and delete random books
- do something about metallic look of cliff side mesh
- add lighthouse if possible/fitting

I have two more ideas would like to hear what you think:

- make terrain at the beach more uneven (dunes) to aid pedestrians against vehicles
- add (more) rocks between the two new ship nodes and a network of jumppads/wooden planks so that players can rock-hop between the two nodes without going back to the beach (and add some rocks near the ship nodes to indicate why the ships sank)

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]Would you agree that this is an accurate summary of your ideas?[...]

With the following clarifications included, yes, that's pretty much the TODO laundry list from my points.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- jumppads from decks to ships and from ships to beach (halfway to beach nodes)[...]

Single jump from wooden piers to new primaries' ships would probably be a stretch, liable to send people flying the wrong way at the slightest input mid-flight, so multiple hops/jumpads along the way using a few more rocky reefs seems the better way to implement it. The ship primaries' JP that would send people halfway back to beach primary could possibly be atop the aft section, dependent on playtesting.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- new radar image[...]

...That would be slightly "zoomed in" compared to older so that node graph can correspond to bigger area within radar window.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- move static mesh cover at right flank (cliff) primaries back so there is more dueling space[...]

Move the wooden barricades towards the beach, maybe also rotated/moved slightly to face center node's proximal platforms. Playtest to ensure sniping the nodes' discs from there is blocked. Also, sink in (about half-way down?) those nodes' rocky/brick platforms into the ground to facilitate moving/dodging around them. Playtest to confirm it's better. Bender-blocking BVs nearby (Dinora-32p) could also be re-examined.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- badgers instead of benders at cliff primaries?[...]

Correct.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- SPMA and raptor at center node instead of 2 scorps[...]

SPMA, raptor and maybe one EONS Scorp. Weigh value of alternatives & playtest to judge.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]+1 cicada at the cores, potentially in front of the chapel or on top of wooden deck suspended over cliff side (like at center node)[...]

Suspended over the midsection's opposite side to avoid spawned vecs receiving shots from various directions below.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- add health pickups (esp near the center node)[...]

Yup. Two per node would make sense.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- LG at all nodes
- Sniper Rifles near sneaky paths[...]

LGs at elevated objectives (cores and center node), CSRs at all other lockers.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- remove the blocking volumes in front of chapel windows at cores[...]

And the tilted ones embedded in the bases' roofs, too.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- remove crosses from top of chapels at cores[...]

Now leaning towards the less thematically vandalizing method of just making 'em collision-less.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- jumppads from shoreline to mid-point of path from core to primaries[...]

Just one jumppad per inter-objective rocky path (so four across the map), placed on terrain right under/below that rocky path's midsection and leading up to it.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- enlarge fires and their emitters for greater cover[...]

Don't recall if these fires have a dark smoke emitter component, but it's the one that'd be delivering the gameplay value here as a rising plume. Risk here is impacting performance with the bigger emitters, but no need to reinvent the wheel as I'd done some research on that long ago (to fix my 2nd-Raceway-DW-SP1 first, shitty attempt) and I can provide a more frugal one to you, see if that works.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- break cliff face up into several meshes[...]

Specialty requirement here: would need GLoups or someone else skilled at Blender/zModeler/etc. to do this though (Omnis' Binger?). The problem is that the two StaticMesh'HourDinora.terrein' instances are massive and almost always rendered because they include cores' and central node's cliffs & land too (had forgotten that). Performance gains could be achieved if this asset could be turned into 6-7 different vertical strips placed side by side, but it would be hard work to iterate so no seams or lighting disparities would result when placed in the map.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- move light sources on top of their corresponding lamps[...]

Moving lights would require light rebuilds and rechecking for any visual glitches. Easier mode: open original Dinora, select all placed st.meshes that match the lamp post asset, copy n' paste into text editor. Open 32p edit, spot the misplaced ones, F4 and input its correct location value from text one by one. Probably won't even need a geometry rebuild since they're collision-less and light-unaffecting.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- replace burning books with wooden logs and delete random books[...]

Just keep a book st.mesh in the map somewhere to preserve the asset.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- do something about metallic look of cliff side mesh[...]

Tried removing the specularity layer/mask of the st.mesh's Material[0] final shader, didn't seem to make much difference (was a pretty quick test though). Totally skippable list item, just a pet peeve, if I'm honest.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]I have two more ideas would like to hear what you think:

- make terrain at the beach more uneven (dunes) to aid pedestrians against vehicles[...]

Could work, but tanks spawn and drive nearby, so it could also impede their usability if there's jaggies or too steep inclines. Only way to be sure is to make changes and playtest along the way; you can also use Battlefront's central area as a guide. Would leave this for near the end of the edit, personally, once you're sure n' confident about the batch of other changes.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- add (more) rocks between the two new ship nodes and a network of jumppads/wooden planks so that players can rock-hop between the two nodes without going back to the beach (and add some rocks near the ship nodes to indicate why the ships sank)

Ideally, you'd like to preserve the "sea with some rocky reefs" - as opposed to "rocky reefs with some sea" - concept, but, as ever, playability/gameplay is king. If you think there's some gain for most applicable playstyles around that area to do so, edit accordingly and playtest to see if your theory holds. Only way to know.
Btw, new primaries' ships could also have run into some rocky reefs themselves in terms of visual design, rather than just be completely immobile, floating on water, otherwise you'd expect 'em to be rocking about (and we still can't implement movable ONS objectives' assets, so it'd look half-baked and weird to make 'em movers).

So is this map going to be added with these edits?

lichReen wrote:So is this map going to be added with these edits?

If someone edits it.

I'm working on it a little, but probably won't finish everything on that list before heading to my parents' house for Christmas (so no desktop PC). Some of these suggestions are also beyond my limited skills with the editor.

What do you think about adding a turret on the chapel's side (one per base), Peg?

For the center node, I was thinking that some statues could look cool. There are some that are submerged in the sand below the cliff with the center node. I could grab some and arrange them around that node (either facing outwards or inwards). Not sure if that would still work with the stone cross, but it could be worth a try.

Also...what about adding snow? That would make the entire scenario of being stranded somewhere even worse, wouldn't it?

Edit: Saw in the notes on that map that everyone who wants to make changes needs written permission, only that I don't know if Hourences or Piglet wrote that. I will try to contact both.

EmanReleipS wrote:If someone edits it. ... heading to my parents' house for Christmas (so no desktop PC).

Similar things here

EmanReleipS wrote:
Edit: Saw in the notes on that map that everyone who wants to make changes needs written permission, only that I don't know if Hourences or Piglet wrote that. I will try to contact both.

Hourences is still active : https://twitter.com/Hourences, in the meanwhile given the size of the work to be done i do not really see any difference from doing it from the original map.

Pegasus wrote:

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]- break cliff face up into several meshes[...]

[...]-Performance gains could be achieved if this asset could be turned into 6-7 different vertical strips placed side by side, but it would be hard work to iterate so no seams or lighting disparities would result when placed in the map.

While it's relatively easy to break the meshes and re-import the pieces to the nearest pixel where they should be in a normal case, there is a major difficulty here which could turn into a big challenge: recreate and repainting by hand the texture blending for the models before re-exporting them as Umodel does not seem to be able to export the vertex colors with the mesh, having never done this before, the process will consist in learning Hourence's technique on his website, then to spice things up, blending three textures as the model already have two material (see "Blending three or more textures" at the end of tutorial).

EmanReleipS wrote:What do you think about adding a turret on the chapel's side (one per base), Peg?[...]

Can't really offer an opinion in terms of balancing before knowing specifically where you'd place it and what angles it would(n't) cover.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]Also...what about adding snow? That would make the entire scenario of being stranded somewhere even worse, wouldn't it?[...]

Competently "reskinning" a map with a well executed theme and hoping to achieve something equally good with the new one is a complex, involved and time-consuming feat with few practical gains beyond getting some good exercise in terrain and st.mesh retexturing (the minimum bar to clear before considering other appropriate assets for your new skin that might also need adding). Only way to get some experience there, of course, would be through trying, but it's not something I'd recommend take place within the scope and during the process of a Dinora gameplay overhaul edit; maybe after all the other changes have been put into place and playtesting is underway parallel to the reskin.

EmanReleipS wrote:[...]Edit: Saw in the notes on that map that everyone who wants to make changes needs written permission, only that I don't know if Hourences or Piglet wrote that. I will try to contact both.

GLoups! wrote:[...]Hourences is still active : https://twitter.com/Hourences, in the meanwhile given the size of the work to be done i do not really see any difference from doing it from the original map.[...]

Hourences wrote that message, but given that we're talking about a prospective non-profit remix and use of another remix of a work that (both) has/have been circulated across servers over the past 12-13 years without explicit consent, what Hourences stipulates "need" to happen within that scope nowadays might be a stretch, as well as a slippery slope policy-wise; try doing that for all maps on the server's roster, see how many become effectively locked.
Personally, I've never made a habit out of chasing after digital ghosts or shadows of creator-members long gone in user-generated content communities to get their blessing, and always felt like maintaining proper attribution in relevant assets or code I remixed was a sufficient way of honouring a creator's natural (and reasonable) rights while keeping the needs of the many above the whims of any one person who might've grown indifferent or crotchety after years away from it all; I've repeatedly communicated I'm okay with my own output being treated that way too, btw. When for-profit or for-political-purposes usage of another's work without permission or attribution becomes the issue, of course, that's when things change substantially, but that's extraneous to our circumstances.

Sorry for the rant there, just trying to save you all some time, effort and possibly even worse troubles in the future.

GLoups! wrote:[...]While it's relatively easy to break the meshes and re-import the pieces to the nearest pixel where they should be in a normal case, there is a major difficulty here which could turn into a big challenge: recreate and repainting by hand the texture blending for the models before re-exporting them as Umodel does not seem to be able to export the vertex colors with the mesh, having never done this before, the process will consist in learning Hourence's technique on his website, then to spice things up, blending three textures as the model already have two material (see "Blending three or more textures" at the end of tutorial).

Huh, another complication there; and you're right about that, of course. To get back to the core of this idea though, the goal of such a hypothetical vertical strips segmentation of the cliff edge st.mesh would be to get some meaningful performance improvement out of it. That's something we could test the st.mesh strips for, even if the tex-blended Materials would look like shit, just to make sure the theory holds water (and lights behave reasonably along the seams, too), because if not, there'd be no point wasting time trying to make the strips' materials look as good as the whole thing's. Either way, I've never been in the habit of prescribing others devote their free time to do things I couldn't do myself, so since I believe you're the only one here with enough acquired experience to consider attempting this, it's completely your call if you wanna try your hand at it or not.


If a new Dinora edit does officially get launched, it might also be a good idea to move this thread to the Creative Corner.

Pegasus wrote:[...]Huh, another complication there; and you're right about that, of course. To get back to the core of this idea though, the goal of such a hypothetical vertical strips segmentation of the cliff edge st.mesh would be to get some meaningful performance improvement out of it. That's something we could test the st.mesh strips for, even if the tex-blended Materials would look like shit, just to make sure the theory holds water (and lights behave reasonably along the seams, too), because if not, there'd be no point wasting time trying to make the strips' materials look as good as the whole thing's. Either way, I've never been in the habit of prescribing others devote their free time to do things I couldn't do myself, so since I believe you're the only one here with enough acquired experience to consider attempting this, it's completely your call if you wanna try your hand at it or not.[...]

Painting successfully completed, in fact i was afraid but it was a lot easier than i thought at the first place, it was necessary to repaint the model before cutting it in 6 parts, i took the opportunity to leave a little more grass next to the bases and adding this great tool that is the CullDistance volume, there's a little clipping right now in the fog, it can be adjust directly in the volume because i set the distance just after the fog without considering the size of the models but you can already tell me if you feel a difference, it seems that there are fews fps more, it works well in rmode1 and the seams are very discrete.

File to test :ONS-Dinora-32p-a5

Last night Dinora was played.

The main thing is that players need to be able to move around quicker, so there needs to be quite a few jump or launch pads for those without vehicles. The map also has a lot of normal vehicles which slows down the gameplay and effectiveness of vehicles.

Raptors and mantas get owned easily from Avrils since there are open spaces. Either limit the amount of avrils in weapons lockers or make the Avril a pickup weapon.

The Node layout is too linear and like Pegasus alluded to, the switching up and addition of nodes would make the map much more tactical. There should also be a chance for more cqb, so perhaps have a node in a building?