What Darren is working on Part 3
I've decided to write about what I've been working on lately - this turned out to be more than I originally envisioned so I have a series of posts about the things that I'm working on, broken down into these:
Here's Part 3.
Unreal Tournament 3 Mod Projects
Rifles Mod
For a long, long time I've been very slowly working on a proper mod for UT3 (it was a mutator and now it's a game type, perhaps it'll be a TC one day). Essentially I was seeking to create Medal of Honor: Allied Assault's multiplayer which is class-based and set in World War II.
This required modifications to the player pawn, specifically regarding player movement, aswell as a lot of weapon work. Double-jumping and dodging had to be removed, jump height and movement speed were reduced and shots to the head and chest do more damage than shots to other areas of the body to result in more realistic human players. The player's movement speed is slightly altered depending on which weapon they are holding at that point in time, for example a pisol or grenade has no effect on movement speed but equipping a Bazooka brings your running speed down by a quarter. The weapons get less accurate the longer you continuously fire them and all weapons are reloadable. The class system isn't code in yet but all of the above is along with a few other minor tweaks. I have models pretty much done for the Enfield rifle and PPSh-41 but the BAR, M1911A1, Grenade, Bazooka, Shotgun and Binoculars models are all incomplete and nothing is unwrapped and textured.
It's quite nice to have all this setup as it's all of the elements for a "real world" mod, I can use the player movement stuff for completely different projects or I can fairly easily change the setting of this project. I'm thinking of moving away from the WWII aspect of the mod (WWII is very out of fashion) once I've got classes coded, or rather I'm going to keep the WWII version incase I wish to continue it and then start a project with a new setting from what I've already got.
I also have a map - a remake of MOHDM4/MOHOBJ4, titled Crossroads - that is BSP complete and has the basic static meshes (roofs, windows, doors) done. The map is based on the end of Saving Private Ryan in which a battle occurs with both sides seeking to control a bridge over the Merderet River in the fictional French village of Ramelle during the post D-Day Allied advance.
The central feature of the map is a small road bridge, on one side are a few inaccessible houses and one open building with destroyable windows upstairs that have a decent view of both the other side of the bridge and the river. The river is shallow and can be reached by a set of stairs in the back of the open building or by jumping over the walls either side of the bridge.
The other side of the river has a more complicated building structure including a hotel with two sets of stairs and destroyable windows on the third floor, a church with an accessible tower, a string of buildings you can enter to progress along the street and a sewer system. There's a big building at the far end which has destroyable windows and gives a good view along the street to the bridge. This side of the river also has a set of stairs leading from the river itself up to the street next to the hotel and direct access to the sewers from the river. You can get from the sewer back up into the street via three sets of stairs in side corridors spread along the sewer's length. I put a bit of fog into this level so a sniper doesn't have absolutely perfect visibility from one end of the map to the other.
Paintball Arena Mod
While working on the Bowgun weapon it struck me that having to hit someone accurately with a projectile weapon (ie having to lead your aim) to cause any damage at all wasn't something in UT3 and I wondered how well it would work, I realised it was a little bit like paintball and did a quick implementation.
I'd previously made a very paintball map to test my Rifles Mod weapons in a more open setting than Crossroads (and ended up finding it was actually quite fun, so I developed it a bit towards a map concept I already had) which suited this perfectly.
You probably won't see it immediately but this is laid out to represent a church with a graveyard around it and a damaged perimeter wall. It's actually quite similar to Bloc from Call of Duty 4, a main open area with cover to move between and areas around the outside in which you are safe from the players concentrating the middle area - it even has the sniper-fest areas on either side of the main open area. Though the obvious difference is a big tower in centre.
A modified version of my Bowgun, Rifles Mod player movement and this very simple map came together to be a mod in their own right which I have christened Paintball Arena. Whether it goes anywhere or sits on my hard drive for all eternity is another matter.
