Nothing major has changed in this version. Just a lot of small tweaking and fiddling, most of which are barely noticeable. However I did finally add some animated flames to my torches. It was my main goal for this version to get them in and working properly and after some annoyances they finally behaved like they should.

Now I'll just have get through the final crunch and I'll finally be able to call this map finished.
For now you can check out how far I've come from v 0.1 by clicking the download link below.

I did get some work done however, most of which can be seen in the screenshots above. Added some more torches and did some minor tweaking, mainly to the trim texture which now has a more prominent blue tone adding some much needed color. The knocked-over obelisk got a brand new texture aswell. It now resembles the trim texture more making it fit in much better.

That's essentially it. As I said it's hardly worthy of release so it's hardly worth downloading either. But don't let that stop you if you're interested in seeing where things are going for v 0.9 and eventually v 1.0!

The most radical change in this version is probably the replacing of those temporary torches I introduced in v0.5. I haven't decided if I want to keep some of them yet so I've gradually been replacing them. Even though some of the new light sources might be a little obtrusive I think they do alot to the sense of detail in the level.

The main ramp leading up to the third level has been made more detailed. I'm a little concerned with it being too detailed and that some older systems will struggle with this area, but hopefully it won't be a problem because it looks awesome right now. I've also added some atmosphere inducing spider webs all over the map. Plus alot of small tweaking that would be insane to list.

I have also fixed a shader issue that had been bugging me for a while with the help of some helpful individuals in the Warsow forums.
Today is an important day because I've finally started a new project. Well, techically the project started a month ago and I have other projects on the burner, but this is my second official project being published here on Ladelulaku.com. Be sure to check it out: lade-wswrace1

The majority of what I've accomplished doesn't show in the end result. I was struck with a nightmarish build time when I was making my final build for v 0.5 and realised I had neglected to caulk and detail most of my map. It's all fine and dandy now however even though it could still use some more optimization.

As mentioned before I'm mainly focusing on making things pretty looking now. I improved my half-assed wood texture and incorporated some wood elements in the level to break up the endless stone madness. I've also experimented with lighting a bit. I'm now running 5 radiosity bounces and I'm liking the result. It's maybe a bit on the dark side right now so I will have to do some more tweaking. I also created a neat little skybox with stars and a moon so my blue lighting can have some point of origin instead of just appearing out of nowhere.

However I did do some slight structural tweaking aswell. While caulking and detailing I toyed arround with some ideas and they felt like improvements. I opened up a new passage through the second floor in the big room and closed the old one. Then I filled in the area above because it felt like too much of a lame camping spot. I also made it a little more challenging to navigate the third floor by adding some pillars in the cross-hallway area. The bots can't move arround as freely now but they rarely managed to stay up there for more than 5 seconds anyway so they are barely worth concidering.

That's not to say I haven't done anything at all though. I refined two of my trim textures and added a new wooden one. It barely resembles wood at the moment but I quickly needed it for my new fancy torch. I'm not sure what I want to use as light sources yet so this is just an experiment, but I think it looks quite nice. I also stretched out most of the stone textures a tad to see if it would improve the sense of detail.

The only gameplay oriented change I did was fill in a gaping hole that was bugging me. In the process of trying to make the hole seem more realistic I toyed with the idea of just filling it in and I think it turned out for the better. Some overall tweaking and cutting was done aswell, but nothing specifically worth mentioning.

What is worth mentioning however is my recent discovery of the Google Calendar. I realise I must be late to the party and some people might go; "Well, duh!" but this is exactly what I've been looking for to keep my work on track. It's such an amazingly simple and elegant tool. I used it to set a deadline for release (today between 16:00-23:00) and scheduled 1 hours worth of level design every day. It's doing wonders to my work ethic. So this is hopefully the beginning of a more frequent release of new versions.

But enough yapping, here is the latest version ready for download:

The progress of this level seems to be connected to my interest in Warsow itself. Each time a new version is released my interest peaks and I do some work on the level. Though it never felt like enough work to be worthy of a new release, until a few days ago when I compared the current version to v 0.3 and realised how much had actually changed. I decided to throw together a few last minute tweaks and made it ready for release.
So here it is:

As you can see from the screenshots the level is much darker now. I hope it's not too dark, but I'm looking for an underground feel to the place so the previous lighting was a bit over the top.

There are too many small tweaks and changes to bring them all up, but one of the things I'm most proud of is the awesome running sand I've got going in one of the screenshots. I'm hoping to incorporate more of this in the future along with appropriate ambient running-sand-noises.
I also added some easier ways to access the "secret" third level. The ramp seen in the second screenshots is one of them. Even the bots can get up there now!

Speaking of bots, I made a little YouTube clip of me playing a few rounds of Clan Arena by myself.

My skill may not be much to cheer about, but at least you can get a peek of what gameplay looks like while downloading the level itself. As I've mentioned before I would love to get a few demos from people trying out my level. Constructive criticism is always welcome but seeing the problem first hand in a demo file is even more helpful.

As you can plainly see from the new screenshots I've replaced the not-so-pretty placeholder wall texture with a nice rock-ish texture and a trim. I also added some light sources to make things less flat and dull. This is only the first of several visual passes I'll be making so nothing is concidered "final" yet (Especially the lighting).

The layout is pretty much locked now and it's mainly going to be about adding visuals and some geometry tweaking from now on, however I did make a quite significant modification to the largest room in this version.

As always I'm eager to hear what people think of my work, so please don't hesitate to send your comments to feedback@ladelulaku.com
Worth noting is that this version has navigation files for bots. So if you don't feel like just jumping arround by yourself you can type "callvote numbots [number of bots]" in the console to play against computer controlled opponents.

The textures are still boring placeholders, but I have created a neat skybox out of a solid blue color. I was going to create a water shader aswell but I failed to get an acceptable visual result out of my cubemap so that project is on hold.
I'm still looking for testing and feedback so please send your comments and recorded demos to:feedback@ladelulaku.com

If you haven't figured it out yet this level is for the open-source game called Warsow. Which is especially great because it can be downloaded for free from the games official website.

I did the basic layout in the free version of SketchUp, because doing quick adjustments on a large scale feels so much more intuitive and easy compared to GtkRadiant. At first I concidered exporting my work as a model and using that as a base for the level in GtkRadiant, but I abandoned that idea and decided that I'd just use easily converted measurements (1mm in SketchUp = 1unit in GtkRadiant) and make everything out of simple boxes.