As we get closer to the release of Urban Terror 4.0 I have been ramping up my commitment time for getting my part of the game ready for release. I have really been spending my time trying to get the lighting perfect for Crenshaw. Crenshaw is a very large level in both footprint and complexity. The level has somewhere near 85,ooo polys right now and it is possible that by the time its finished it could be near 100,000 polys. Now that sounds like a lot, but when decompiled, the old version of Crenshaw was about 80,000.
Here is what I have done since the last update. I have created 7 spawn rooms for the level. There are 3 spawn rooms for red, and 4 for blue. On the red side there are 2 spawn rooms on the East and West routes for the flag. There is one large spawn room with 2 exits, one lower and one upper. For the blue side there are rooms East and West of the flag as well, plus there is one on the ground floor and another above it.
I have also blocked a lot of the areas off where you could see outside of the apartment complex. So now the detail is spent in the playable spaces. Speaking of detail, there is a lot of it, I have made sure that each area has a unique feel to it. The way I have done that is by making lots of changes like placing blue and red graffiti marking the territory of each flag side. This is much like Quake III Arena defines its sides. I have been able to get away with this because of the Bloods vs Crips theme of the level.
There are still some bugs to work out with how the compiler handles its .ase files as far as normals and smoothing. But I’m assured that they will be figured out soon and that I will be able to get the level looking like it needs to look. Lighting still isn’t final yet, but its getting closer. And when the final look is nailed down I can start building in some really nice shadows.
