| |
There are many
things you have to consider when you are editing in 3D. Like I described in the last
section, you have to position your objects in more than one view to know where it is.
There are other things, like details,
performance, realism, perspective, proportion, and more that you must consider when
editing in 3D.
Details, Realism, and Proportion
These are important things you must think about
when editing in 3D. You cannot forget the details of anything in 3D, as the player
can pretty much go to any place in the level that you create. When you add a bridge
you have to worry about texturing it all over, leaving no surface with a bad
"default" texture. Lighting is important, because the player has to see,
and you might forget to have something lit. And while creativity lets you do
anything you want, making a realistic world is very important. With details and
realistic lighting, it is pretty easy to make a realistic environment in UnrealED.
However, you must keep in mind things like perspective and proportion. You could
create a beautiful scene but its worthless if something obstructs the player's view or
makes an area inaccessible or unviewable. You must always keep proportion in mind,
especially if you are making something like a modern city. One time I created this
awesome looking city level, but everything was HUGE. When you played the level,
especially in a 3rd person view, things were enormous. I had 10 foot tall windows,
100 foot lights, 50 foot chiuauas (dont ask) and more. While something might look
just fine in UnrealED, you must always test it out in the game just to be sure. One
thing I have figured out about UnrealED is that one unit on the grid is equal to an inch
of real life space. So you can be pretty accurate when creating your stuff, I always
measure and plan things out now that I have learned this. That topic will be covered
more thouroughly later in the tutorials when you are actually editing.
Performance
Another thing you must consider is performance.
You should test your level out for performance, because if its not playable, what
good is it? In the words of 3D Realms, frame rate is god. High performing
levels are a lot more fun to play. When you gauge your level's performance you
should keep in mind how you are in relation to the average. Right now I would say
the average is about a PII-350mhz with 64MB of RAM and a Voodoo2 3D card. If you
have a PIII-550 with a Voodoo3 3500 you might want to think twice when you gauge your
level's performance... This topic will be covered later on in the tutorials as well,
with information on making levels that are playable and perform well, as well as tips on
optimizing performance.
Other 3D Concerns
There are many other things you must consider in
3D. The important thing is that you get an understanding for it in your head, and
you should be able to figure out such things yourself. There are many situations
where you might need to know where something exists or something and you will just have to
put two and two together.
And for those of you who are still used to 2D
editing with an editor like BUILD for Duke Nukem 3D, the transition might be kinda weird
like it was for me... |
|
