_ | # Rime Isle Public Release #1 · June 10, 2001 | _
| ### Title: | Rime Isle v1.00 | ### Cast in the name of God...YE NOT GUILTY |
| ### Filename(s): | CTF-RimeIsle100.unr (.uz) |
| ### Version: | 1.00 |
| ### Author: | Michael Darnell, aka Larathiel the Death Elf |
| ### E-Mail: | Larathiel@ogl.org |
| ### Website: | Avalon: Isle of the Unreal |
| ### Other Work: | Elven Princess FCommando skin, Facing Worlds League Edition, Maelstrom League Edition, November Clan Edition v1.05, Terra League Edition, Last Command League Edition, DM-MoonGoddess |
| ### Installation: |
| #### Everyone Copy CTF-RimeIsle100.unr to your UnrealTournament\Maps directory. Unless you are a server admin you will not need the *.UZ file and can discard it (see following comment). #### Server Admins If you run your own UZ http redirects, copy CTF-RimeIsle100.unr.uz to your UZ download directory. Regular players will not need this file. |
| ### Construction Notes: |
| #### Editors Built using UnrealEd 2.0 (436) and TerrainEd for UnrealEd. #### New Textures To eliminate file clutter, all new textures are included within the map's MyLevel package. Any new textures were created using Adobe Photoshop 5.5. #### Construction Time Two months (spread out over 6 months around RealLife™ and the other UT projects listed above). |
| ### Description: |
| For centuries, the tale of a magical island with healing springs and a demonic guardian was thought to be only an old Norse myth. Yet in the mid 24th century, the discovery of Rime Isle turned the legend into a reality. A powerful Maelstrom capable of crushing a battleship flanks the island's south eastern tip and is responsible for the electrical interference that cloaked the island well into modern times. While NEG historians and pharmaceutical companies quarreled over the future of the island and its healing springs, Liandri Corporation saw a perfect arena for recreating medieval warfare. As dawn breaks over the enchanted island, a restored Viking longship ferries combatants to this, the next round of The Tournament! |
| ### Concept: |
| Since the day I first opened UnrealEd, I was determined to make a medieval-themed, outdoor map. Many of my early attempts were a bit too ambitious for the current version of the Unreal Engine and it took several failed projects before I began to get an understanding of the limitations I had to work within. To complicate matters, UEd saw fit to play havoc with my terrain and I can safely say that I would never have gotten so good at fixing map bugs were it not for the trials I encountered while trying to make outdoor maps for UT. ;-) After successfully repairing Inoxx's Special Edition of Facing Worlds to make Facing Worlds League Edition, I realized that I had advanced far enough to have the skills to successfully create the map I had envisioned. Remembering the fabled "Rime Isle" that was featured in Fritz Leiber's final novel in the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser saga, The Knight and Knave of Swords, I was inspired to make a map in honor of its memory. Thus, was born CTF-RimeIsle. #### Terrain: The single greatest challenge of making a level of this scale was the terrain. All told, I went through 6 "drafts" of the terrain -- initially to experiment with what layout I liked and later to decrease the size of the map (it was 2x as big), improve the frame rates and fix BSP errors. While I did use the TerrainEd utility for UT, this was helpful only for sparking my creativity and ultimately producing a more manageable terrain brush than the one built into UEd. I still had to move every last vertex by hand. #### Forest: Early on, I realized that the towering bases and sprawling terrain were going to create framerate problems and beg less scrupulous players to break out their aimbots. If I could find a way to obscure a large portion of the terrain and remove the bulk of the complex player models and weapons fire from broad view, then the level would actually be playable on a Voodoo3. Although I have played and enjoyed levels where the whole map was comprised of mazelike canyons, I always felt that this approach was a bit too contrived and the learning curve to steep. Since UT is now nearly 2 years old, I wanted something fresh and a forest seemed like the perfect choice. Not only would a canopy conceal the ground from sniper fire and improve frame rates, but battling inside a forest would introduce a combat arena unlike any I had ever seen before. The only problem was that if players teleported or jumpbooted atop the forest canopy then that would pretty much void the purpose of its existence (plus it seemed unnatural). Making the canopy nonsolid not only fixed that problem, but adds an element of surprise since bombardment can fall through it on the unsuspecting player! #### Bases: The idea for a castle was easy. I have studied ancient fortresses since as far back as I can remember and so I applied my knowledge in making this an actual base rather than a death-trap ala Lavagiant. The concept for the blue base was a bit more challenging. Because Rime Isle is located by a magical maelstrom in the North Sea, I figured that a prominent lighthouse was necessary to warn ships. The fact that the aerial view of the lighthouse is shaped like a cross is no accident -- Heaven help those who fall victim to the sea! Flag placement was designed around the purpose of each base. Since the lighthouse was obviously meant to be seen from a ship, I wanted the flag to overlook the sea. This would also make escaping with the blue flag more difficult since blue base was easier to invade and occupy than red. Since a castle is to be approached by land, and since red base is more difficult to assail, I originally wanted the red flag on the front balcony. However, playtesting revealed that this was just too easy. The throne room was ultimately the better decision and I'm quite happy with the result. The spawning rooms or barracks in each base are to help protect players from spawn camping and to ensure that newly spawned players are not totally defenseless. To help ease the learning curve, I decided to place a "painting" of each base's flag room here as well. More than just screenshots, the red base shows the location of the skylight while the blue base shows the presence of a grassy footpath at the base of the rear cliffs -- handy hints for those observant enough to notice them. Lastly, to ensure that spectators and players waiting for game-start can fly around the level, while preventing reentry from the outside, the windows were created using stationary movers since these will block everything but spectators. :-) While I could no doubt elaborate on other features (and Easter Eggs) for quite some time, I've covered all the major points. If any of you have any questions, comments or *cough*job offers*cough*, feel free to email me (Larathiel@ogl.org). I can't wait to remake this map with the Unreal2 engine. Happy rock-climbing! :-)
-- | Larathiel the Death Elf UT CTF 3 vs. 3 Admin, UT CTF 2 vs. 2 Admin & UT Map Consultant, OGL ProUnreal.com Map Consultant Avalon: Isle of the Unreal
| ### Acknowledgements: |
| I would like to thank: First and foremost, I would like to thank my fellow ProUnreal map consultant RedBeard. This guy is a veritable living UnrealEd encyclopedia and he was an invaluable coach as I labored over this map. Thanks a lot ya old pirate! :-) Dave Ewing from Digital Extremes for taking time from his busy schedule to give me some feedback. Plutonic for setting the UEd standards I've tried to live up to and for helping me to learn my Hobbit name. My housemate, Scott for mucho help in the bot AI testing department and for listening to countless hours of me reprimanding my computer. ;-) My friends in the Online Gaming League and at ProUnreal who helped out with playtesting including: Count Brass, Silver Surfer and Clan Unreal Arch Knights, Scuzzbuster and Clan Tsepesh, Caine, Loner Vamp, Warlust, JimmyZ, Band-Aid and Clan Liquid Brain Network, Clan Radium, and my own clanmates in Raging Entities, esp. Sticks, Kaz, Sycorax, Spicey and naturally Troll -- the minigun whore who inspired Troll's Gap. :-) Roger Smith, Dorothy Weinwright, Norman Berg, Angel and Big O for inspiring my sense of humor. We have come to terms... I know there are more people I should be thanking, but I formatted over my address book yesterday. DOH! Anyway, thanks to anyone I haven't already mentioned above including anyone who has read this far. ;-p |
| ### Copyright / Permission: |
| This level is copyright Michael Darnell 2001. Authors may not NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels. You are not allowed to commercially exploit this level, i.e. put it on a CD or any other electronic medium that is sold for money without my explicit permission! This includes putting it on ftp.cdrom.com which have a tendency to do just as such or any other major ftp that bundles cd-roms out of what they carry. You may distribute this level through any electronic network (Internet, local BBS etc.), provided you include this file with the archive. Unreal Tournament (c) 1999 and UNREAL (c)1998 Epic Megagames, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by GT Interactive Software, Inc. under license. UNREAL and the UNREAL logo are registered trademarks of Epic Megagames, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are properties of their respective owners. |
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