DM FNB Ring Of Stones

DM FNB Ring Of Stones

UT Deathmatch / Team DM, Large, 10 - 20 players. Alien world Ancient Temple. Released January 2003

When earth exploration teams discovered the ancient civilizations of planet Sigma Epsilon 4, colonization soon followed - and with it Liandri Corporation. Wherever humans settle in the cosmos, there is the tournament. In the valley of DRAK'D'GKOR stand several ancient temples built by alien warrior races. Four of the temples have been converted into arenas by Liandri, where you must do battle. Be wary gladiators, the humans have committed a sacrilidge, and the ancients will have your blood for it...

This map was my first Official map release, and to my surprise it attracted a fair bit of attention for a first map (actually, a bit more attention than I expected, or even wanted for that matter). The idea of RoS started a year earlier in January 2002 when I build a small instaGib map called DM-RingOfStones. That one looked like crap but was fun to play.

DM-TempleGib was a slightly larger higher detail development that followed about six months later, it had caves, ponds, trees, rock, normal scaled texturing, and nice color blended lighting, with collapsed ruins strewn about. Yes this was the one I would have released then, in summer 2002, if it weren't for some nagging 400 poly scenes. The FrameRate was lower than most other UT maps of the time, so I felt I had to kill it. A short while later I built yet another one, which evolved into the giant alien temple that was finally released.

In the end Ring-Of-Stonesis just a big atmospheric map with a very unique theme. Good for a look. The story I wrote and included in the readme file was actually a high point. In hindsight, perhaps I should have released the little instaGib map, because it's fun bouncy game play did not translate at all to the final behemoth. To be honest, I wasn't too worried about that, because I was now committed to mapping :) Special thanks to Christian "COBRA" Trepanier for reworking the bots. Music track is Neve's Crossing from the game Unreal: Return to NaPali.

DM Temple Gib

UT DM - Medium Ancient Temple Ruin - Developed March - August 2002

This was a slightly larger and higher detail development of the little DM-RingOfStones InstaGib map. It followed a few months later and after a bit of hard work was a rather nice looking map (well, I thought so :) However, the higher details did cause FrameRate issues in a few spots. For example, polys jumped over 400 from the sniper spots up high in the Temple face..

Seems rather funny now (where 500-1000 poly scenes are more common) but back in 2002, 400 polys would LAG your computer - especially with BOTs or other players running around. So, sadly for me, I shelved the map and never released it.

Later in the year I came back to the RoS concept and started a huge version which became the monsterous DM-FNB-RingOfStones - that was to be the first official FraGnBraG map to be released

DM Ring Of Stones

UT DM - Small Stonehenge style instagib map - Developed January - February 2002

After having spent a year or so mapping (but not actually releasing anything for various reasons), I thought I'd try to go the small map route - I'd been playing online InstaGib for a few months and had a few map ideas for that game type. I quickly made two small arena maps: This one, DM-RingOfStones, and a second map called DM-ShockPit. RoS is a rather simple, almost symmetrical layout that had a circle of pillar-like forms arranged around a two-tiered obelisk center piece.

The obelisk was triggered to rise up on a spinning pole to reveal pickup in a recession underneath. There was also a temple face of sorts at one end, overlooking this "ring" to allow for sniping. The map took about 4 hours to make, but was not really finished with any detail deco or proper lighting and sounds.

It was fun to play for a few rounds, given that there were jump boots around that allowed the player to reach the flat tops of the tall stones, but beyond that, not a lot going on gameplay-wise. I did like the concept, and figured I'd revisit the Ring-Of-Stones idea at some point in the future.