Update & custom maps

2LT-M.Carter[3rdID]

How will the new update effect custom built maps? Will they have to be rebuilt from 0? Is a simple rebuild be enough?

Keebler750

I think a lot of map makers, including me, are worried that all the hard work will go up in smoke.

I think there will be some issues with ambient sounds and WWise, and also new/old/discontinued map assets. No one is sure at this point.

[ENG]Uni-Sol

Safe bet would be to stop making your maps until release, to see whats what.. Lets hope it will be a smooth transition

Goodvibe

Isn't possible to cook the assets with the map, regardless of them being discontinued?

[ENG]Uni-Sol

Not entirely sure as I never cook my maps, but that’s a good point.. I'm pretty sure even with cooked maps you have to re-build them for a new game version, or they may end up crashing any downloaders client when launching.

I could swear we already got an answer to this question quite a long time ago, but I'm struggling (again) to find it, I don't know what keywords to best use for a search, maybe it was even on the old forum, you can't see it but I'm pretty much scratching my head at this point

I can just about remember asking about sounds and how they will work in the full release since the new sound engine would probably cause compatibility issues and the dev who responded said they were keeping both methods of sounds.. but to get the most from your UMM its best to use new sounds. Something along those lines anyway

I should imagine as long as they don't rename or replace a whole bunch of assets, then for the most part the maps will/should be OK and not require a 'start from scratch', you should just be able to open up your map in the updated editor, make any changes you want to then re-build it and re-publish.

in any case.. the editor upon map load.. will tell you what's not found and inform you of any map eroors, so you can replace the offending assets or fix whats gone wrong. Hopefully it will be that easy.

-=}WoLvErInE{=-

Anything that's custom would be fine. IE: your textured, meshed, sounds...etc, that you import.

But if it's stock and they've moved things around then regardless cooked or no cooked you will get errors. Missing actors, sounds, meshes.., etc.

Hopefully it's not big damage.

IO_i_OI

[ENG]Uni-Sol wrote: »

Safe bet would be to stop making your maps until release, to see whats what.. Lets hope it will be a smooth transition

Unfortunately, this sounds like good advice for now. But please don't give up entirely on all those awesome maps.

I'ts like telling an Artist not to paint until the new acrylics arrive

-vortex

IO_i_OI wrote: »

[ENG]Uni-Sol wrote: »

Safe bet would be to stop making your maps until release, to see whats what.. Lets hope it will be a smooth transition

Unfortunately, this sounds like good advice for now. But please don't give up entirely on all those awesome maps.

I'ts like telling an Artist not to paint until the new acrylics arrive

From what wolverine said you can do some designing still, just avoid the stock stuff for now if you can. I don't design maps so I'm not sure how hard this is, but it sounds like a plausible theory.

-=}WoLvErInE{=-

You can still do a lot till then. Just create a shell and get layout down. A map with good/great layout take time to make. You can always mesh , detail and add eyecandy later.

DeltaKilo

You can use the optin builds to prepare your maps for the release. All maps will have to be re-published or updated because several things have changed. We have updated the engine to the latest unreal 3 version and changed the way maps are cooked. We still use part of the cooking process (compression), but not all of it to prevent maps from having to be updated with every game update. IF you used any of our audio in your map you will have to set it to use the new location of the sound because all audio packages have changed to the new wwise system.

This doesn't mean you will have to start over or shouldn't keep working on a map. You may want to wait on any audio work until the next optin starts, but we tried not to move assets around. The publish to steam button will be disabled in the optin, but the editor will otherwise be fully functional and has been in past optins.

[ENG]Uni-Sol

Thanks Delta, hopefully I can get my map finished before release armed with this knowledge

One thing though and its why I advised people to wait.. I could never get my UMMs to load in the past opt-ins (I was after getting some of the assets from Overload, train cars and some other cool stuff) and I'm not sure why but the editor crashed whenever I tried to load the map, even after trying all the normal fixes for editor related crashes. I actually never tried to start a new one in either of the opt-in editors (basic or advanced), maybe I should have done that first to get everything pointing in the right directions.. Not sure?

Hopefully this won't be the case for me in the upcoming opt-in.