Game Design Geek

Thats right, you heard it. Twentyseven has really been working on some really cool features for the new Q3map3 Compiler for Urban Terror. First of which is the total repair of smoothing groups for .ase meshes in the compiler. Now all the smoothing that was not working before is now working flawlessly even for Maya exported meshes, not just the Max exported meshes.

The really exciting thing though is the Vertex Blending for .ase meshes. Now we can Vertex paint our blending for terrain shading right in the 3D Editor. Before with the old system from Ydnar we had to use GTKRaidant to make these kinds of terrain blends. Ydnar’s system called .dotproduct was a cumbersome brush in editor placement with 25%-50%-75%-100% textured brushes being used to define the vertex blending. Now its so much easier as we can paint each vert in the 3D package (Maya7). I cannot tell you how much faster this is then the old system. One of the big holdups for Crenshaw being completed was all the terrain blending that needed to be done. Crenshaw has no less then 28 areas that need this type of custom terrain blending from Mud, to Concrete, to broken concrete. Doing just one area with the old system took me the better part of 2 days. The news system is great because I can do the same area in 30 minutes and see the results immediately. This will greatly increase my productivity and will help me in creating even better blends that will give the level a more realistic look.

There is even some rumor that he is adding support for Vertex Alpha blending as well, and I have to admit that is really exciting as well. I think that has the most potential for some really awesome stuff to be made.

Anyone that knows me that I am pretty much like a nomad. I have had a hard time staying in one place longer then one year. I did some quick calculations and I have spent somewhere in the nieghborhood of $12,000 in moving expenses in the last year. Moving from Newport Beach, to Salt Lake City, to Marina Del Rey, to who knows where for the next move. For those that haven’t read the posts below this one, I have since left EA, and therefore It was time to move on. Im not sure how long of a down time this is going to be, but rest assured Ill try to make the next move and its transition as quick and painless as possible.

As for the development of Docks and Crenshaw, I will try and sneak in work on these as I can, and get the latest versions out to the Devteam. Keep checking back and I will keep you informed on the happenings of both.