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* VCTF-Harbour *
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Finally, it's done - my first map is complete. Have fun with it!

Making the map was both very enlightening and an immense learning experience, and a great way to realize that there's tons and tons of helpful folks out there who can provide tremendous help to such an undertaking. Thanks to all those who provided valuable feedback!

Map Info
========

Title        : VCTF-Harbour
Filename     : VCTF-Harbour.zip
Author       : Guido Gloor
Release Date : 2008-02-24
Version      : 1.0

Contact Info
============

You can find me under http://www.haslo.ch/, and send mail with feedback and notes to haslo@haslo.ch. On pretty much all major UT3 forums I'm present as "haslo" as well, I should read your PNs there too, but Email is safer.

Installation Notes
==================

* Unzip VCTF-Harbour.zip
* Move all files into "C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Published\CookedPC\CustomMaps" (if the directory does not exist, create it manually)
* Type "open VCTF-Harbour" in the console, or select the level in a multiplayer/instant action game.

PS3 Notice
==========

There's custom sounds, thus I'll have to adapt and cook it for the PS3 later - at the time of this writing, there is on PS3 version yet.

Version History
===============

2008-02-24 1.0 Release
- Scratched bot paths and rebuilt them entirely
- Taught bots to swim!
- Moved the rocket turret a bit towards the field, to give them more purpose and make accessing the jump boots easier
- Added an obstacle between the two rocket turrets, to prevent them from shooting each other
- There's a new grating in the UDamage tunnel, making entry from the ocean side easier
- Tweaked some lightmap settings, yielding overall more detailed shadows
- Changed the lifts to use LightEnvironments for high detail, and ambient glow for low detail
- The ladders out of the water are broader, and there's yet again more of them
- Added custom blocking volumes to the jetties and the AVRiL turrets' sides, and to the dead end entries behind the tanks
- Added a railing at the ramp up to the walkways, to make it clear the tank isn't meant to drive up there
- Placed more decals (including vehicle tracks) and some detail meshes
- Tweaked some culling settings, to show important meshes for looks from further away
- Tweaked occlusion settings on (semi-)transparent meshes, for performance
- The health keg is back! That back end there is just so empty without it.
- Eventually stopped caring if the path build tells me that non-redundant nodes are redundant
- Made a new minimap picture, in the style of the stock maps, but with a Mermaid (old-card-style, the pic is from 1550)
- Added more containers to the piles of containers near the bridge, to provide a bit more cover
- Extended the glass wall looking towards the tanks' spawn position a bit, to aid flag carriers with cover
- Added containers to the path near the wall, to make it more interesting and less suicidal
- Added health vials to the back of the Scorpion "garage", to assist attackers
- Removed the distortion channel from the sea water, since that somehow doubled objects in front of the ocean
- Removed all foliage from the terrain, it was barely visible and might have had a performance impact
- Tiny changes, movements and adaptations all around for final polish

2008-02-10 Beta 6
- Changed the atmosphere by changing fog colour, density and height
- Added a lens flare to the sun
- Adjusted the jump pad added in Beta 5 slightly, it's no longer on the path to the one leading up to the ship
- Added some ledges and a jump pad to the back of the ship, for yet another (sneaky) way up
- Added glass to the underside of the walkway tunnel as well, to prevent shooting from below
- Tweaked dynamic lights a lot yet again, for performance reasons
- Made the generator inside the center building no longer rotate, to improve performance
- Tweaked the terrain to have somewhat aggressive LOD, as well as more culling
- Added AVRiL ammo to the front of the ships and near the towers
- Added reverb volumes to the walkways and the sewer area
- Added a blocking volume near the shield belt, to prevent players from getting stuck in the railing
- Fixed the crates on the big ramp up to the ship, they actually block the Hellbender again
- Added a TankBlockingVolume to prevent the tank from driving up the cables holding the ships
- Added railings to make the JumpPads up to the big ramp to the ships purposeful again (and block a tank exploit)
- Made the blue side a lot more blue, and the red side a lot more red
- Discovered Decals, and placed a few
- Moved a few spawn points away from the flags, to make it easier to clear out the flag area
- Moved the EMP mine, actually, made it two and placed them on the ships (in the respective open containers)
- Added an UDamage at the former EMP mine place, added fog to the sewer area, and added some shiny Kismet Voodoo
- Removed the Health Keg - there's really enough powerups (and health) without it
- Due to popular request, added Jump Boots
- Adjusted the bits of geometry that are visible only with Jump Boots, and added blocking volumes where necessary

2008-02-03 Beta 5
- Lowered both ships by 192 units, to make them actually swim, leading to height being less of an advantage too
- Lowered the ramps into the ships and reworked the crates on them
- Changed lighting and ground fog to be less diffuse, cast clearer shadows and generally be more orange
- Added actual non-boring flag bases inside the ships
- Added jump pads from near the ship's rear up to the walkways
- Added meshes as directional pointers around the jump pads that don't lead into strictly intuitive directions
- Added weapon lockers for the spawn points outside the ships
- Added a "wall" between the two tanks, making it harder to destroy the enemy one
- Added blocking volumes to the cables holding the ships, it's possible to walk up now (they were too steep before)
- Reviewed bot paths yet again
- Added ground fog below the lowest ground level, to cater for older systems in the water (they have fog there now)
- Drastically reduced the number of dynamic lights in general and dynamic shadows in particular for performance
- Added blocking volumes to prevent players from swimming too far out
- Added health to the back of the ships, primarily for enemies who make it that far, to make escaping easier
- Added a tower-ey thingy south of the Redeemer spot, to further break the rocket turret's line of sight
- Added a shield belt to said tower-ey thingy's interior, to make that route more attractive and make offense a bit easier

2008-02-02 Beta 4
- Reviewed bot paths, in action too, and optimized them a huge lot (and added a working lift jump path, too)
- A truck came by and dumped a ton of stairs into the water, getting out should be a breeze now
- Added blocking volumes to the sides of the ramps out of the ships, to prevent characters from getting stuck
- Slightly tweaked some deco item placements for balance and feel (trash dump, ship bridge, rocks and bushes)
- Moved the boxes leading up the big ramp to the ships, allowing for easier passage of characters
- Improved performance by making culling a lot more aggressive
- Added some per-item culling settings to maintain looks from afar
- Added arrow meshes as visual cue for the hoverboard big air into the ship (from the walkways)
- Added a couple of health vials to the walkways, bots actually use them now too
- Added health packs to the jump pad flag carrier route, making escaping easier and leading bots the right way
- Added a helmet to both side's terrain's center
- Reworked the terrain and its materials, with performance in mind
- Did I mention I reviewed bot paths?

2008-01-29 Beta 3
- Added visual detail everywhere, making for a way more lively and (hyper)realistic environment
- Added culling, to increase performance, and tweaked it as to not have popping
- Reduced shader complexity for the glass walkways
- Reduced the total number of dynamic lights
- Removed quite some meshes and replaced them with fewer, longer ones for trims and the long wall towards the city
- Removed one of the AVRiLs, yielding two per side still, and placed a ship bridge there instead
- Further restrained the rocket turret's field of fire
- Added crates that should block Hellbenders from entering the ships
- Added an EMP mine (hint: it's hiding under water :P)
- Tweaked bot paths
- Moved another starting position out of the ship, for easier flag escapes
- Added ramps leading up from inside the ships, and changed the outer ramp's meshes
- Added more exits from the water

2008-01-27 Beta 2
- Increased ambient lighting (sky light and directional indirect light) to make for lighter shadows
- Fixed clipping errors at the freighters (front and back)
- Fixed the "get into the ship from underneath" exploit with a blocking volume
- Added another blocking volume inside the container with archeological stuff, preventing players from getting stuck in there
- Tweaked some collision settings in the upper walkway
- Rebuilt bot paths from scratch
- Tweaked some translucent materials to increase performance
- Added screenshot and description for the map list
- Added a minimap
- Exchanged the regular turret at the back of the ships for a rocket turret, making it way less dominating
- Both sides got a Hellbender to toy with
- Added a third AVRiL spawn per side
- Reduced in-base lockers to two, both giving the same weapons (no Shock rifles, no Rocket Launchers)
- Added two Rocket Launcher plus ammo spawns, one reachable with a lift jump only
- Tweaked jump pad placement, essentially removing redundant ones

2008-01-26 Beta 1
- Initial Release

Acknowledgements
================

The CE tutorials, Hourences' tutorials and guides and the communitites of the following forums have helped me a lot: Just Warfare, the Epic forums, the Unreal Playground, and UT3.at.

http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsindex.htm
http://forum.justwarfare.com/index.php
http://www.unrealplayground.com/forums/index.php
http://utforums.epicgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20
http://www.ut3.at/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=37

I got plenty of my sound loops from this site, only had to convert and cut them a bit to make them fit perfectly:

http://www.soundsnap.com/

Particular thanks to the following folks with whom I had more intense PM/mail contact and who helped me a lot with optimizations:

AnubanUT2, BBurkart and Cobra

Last but not least, special thanks to the following people giving feedback and advice, in chronological order:

Gnomey (the glass walkways were a great idea), bU|p4h (for pushing me towards adding cover), Taboen (jump pads, EMP placement, and way more), Cry0 (detail whore :P), maxdamage (aye, those water exits were necessary), Nebukadnezar (for believing in me and the map, and jump boots), Domi (gee I noticed many things when I watched you play), ekay (lighting, jump pads, underwater fog), oliebol (the tank wall), Cr4zyb4st4rd (spawn weapons are a good thing), Kentarii (jump boots! and a lot more), Taboen (kick in da butt), and everybody I forgot.

Copyright Notice
================

This level is copyright 2008 by Guido Gloor. You may host it on your site, provided you include this readme and the .ini-File. You may distribute it via E-Mail. You may use it for playing and tournament purposes. You may not create levels based on this level, or implement bugfixes and tweaks, without the author's explicit written permission. You may cook the map for alternate platforms for personal use, but you may not distribute such a cook, unless you have explicit written permission by the author. All other trademarks and trade names are properties of their respective owners.