Off Topic Productions

Once New Vision is released in it's full form there will be a small offshoot project aimed at increasing the detail of the textures in the game. We're still looking for mappers to help us with this - so if you are a Deus Ex mapper or know someone who is experienced with UnrealEd, see this topic. The aim of this project is to keep the level layouts of Deus Ex, but add extra detail and fix errors, inconsistencies and texture misalignments. This distances it from the Revision mod which is overhauling the entire layout of Deus Ex's maps.

This topic is for people to suggest changes and additions to maps, keeping to the idea that we're not drastically altering the maps content - just adding detail and fixing bugs. Just post in the topic and if I think it's worth pursuing, I'll add it to the list. Bear in mind that we are able to create extra textures so don't consider your suggestions restrained by existing art assets. Screenshots are welcome.

Bug List
Various - Trees/foliage have bUnlit set to True when they shouldn't. (Fixed in HDTP, but setting it in individual Maps would be good too.)
HK HeliBase - BSP hole in corridor just under main flight deck.
UNATCO - Escaping from MJ12 Cell, the "Planning your visit to Liberty Island" sign near the retinal scanner is missing.
Wan Chai Street - Secret MJ12 Buddha Door doesn't open. (FIXED!)
Wan Chai Canal - BSP Hole in tunnels.
NYC_Street - No Music in return to NYC. (FIXED!)
Catacomb Tunnels - Bunker 2 and 3 have their bunker signs reversed.
Vandenberg Base - BSP Hole on outside wall.
Gas Station - BSP Hole under burned out car.
Missile Silo - MJ12 Trooper's patrol path on a roof causes him to insta-gib a door about 10 seconds into the map.
Outside Area51 - BSP hole behind the destroyed bunker.

Suggestion List
Battery Park/Paris/Various - Re-model light posts, or at least fix poor texture alignments.
NYC_Street - Expand roads. (Might not be feasible given the amount of geometry which would have to be moved to support this)
NYC_Street - NSF_HQ area past the roadblock (when inaccessible) is different than when you are able to access it.
NYC_Hotel - Fix misalignment of Pauls Window?
NYC_Hotel - Expand Elevator Shaft.
Warehouse District - There should be a road leading to the warehouse as described by Jordan Shea.
Airfield (Outside) - Expand and populate non-playable area and skybox.
NYC_Street - The roads to NSF_HQ are a dead end and need an extra road leading to the warehouse district.
NYC_Sewers - Add extra inaccessible exit from the water treatment plant?
NYC_Sewers - Fix position of first infolink message.
Hong Kong Canal - Smooth out ugly tires on large boat.
Hong Kong Versalife - Move skybox area to just outside playable area (avoiding using the skybox camera type so nearby buildings respond to perspective.)
Gas Station - Remove all the octagons!
Gas Station - Expand non-playable area to include background elements, rather than the map immediately cutting off.
Gas Station - Add roads and other side to collapsed bridge to make the gas station's location actually make any sort of sense.
Outside Area51 - Toilet in Walton Simons' bunker has no entrance.
Inside Area51, Various - Replace Doors.

I don't know the bugs. Only one I can think of is sticking to the door to Manderly's office.

For suggestions, there's a million different ways mappers could improve and complex-ify maps, with lots of creativity and fun. I know nothing about mapping, but here's some ideas I had from the visual walkthrough.

Lots of textures imply 3D, but aren't, and could be changed. Baseboards are always 2D. It makes "rich" spaces like Maggie Chow's apartment, DuClaire Chateau, and Everett's home look spare, when one might expect even wainscotting, which could also be made 3D

Similar to the above, the minor indentation on the hallway here adds detail. Hallways like in UNATCO are often very plain.

(edit) Paris Cemetary should have a NYC skyline, which it does.

There's lots of awful BSP sculpture, like the Statue of Liberty, octagonal tires, a few BSP cars I think, which could be tweaked.

Absurdly narrow roads in Battery Park could be slightly widened.

The gas station is a particularly undetailed map with lots of hectagonal octogons.

Otherwise, more irrelevant details could be placed, like more birds, cats in a 'ton room, and objects (trashcans, robot vacuums, shelves).

I'd have to play through for more ideas, but I don't think adding detail should be allowed to delay NV, only add to it.

The map project will be done after NV is released (I need to compile all the textures first, anyway) - so it's not going to delay it. It will only delay the time you can truly appreciate the new textures because right now, there's only so much I can do when the maps tiles a little 512X512 texture about 50 times on a massive skyscraper.

justanotherfan wrote:Paris Cemetary shouldn't have a NYC skyline.

That's in New York, isn't it?
You meet Stanton Dowd there after meeting him in Hells Kitchen.

justanotherfan wrote:The gas station is a particularly undetailed map with lots of hexagons.

Dude. That's an octagon.

Nope, it's an hexagon with eight sides. Some tank trucks apparently do have 7 or 8 sides, but they still don't look like that.

That's true, Dowd was in New York. My mistake. For some reason I thought his cemetery was in Paris.

The cars and statues are not made of BSP, and if someone dares to make them BSP, is going to have a nice time aligning all the surfaces textures.
Unless someone know other method, it seems to be imposible.

miguel wrote:The cars and statues are not made of BSP, and if someone dares to make them BSP, is going to have a nice time aligning all the surfaces textures.
Unless someone know other method, it seems to be imposible.

I thought there were some cars were; I seem to remember some awful burnt-out car shapes, not just the "crashed cars". Sorry. I really know very little about mapping. I thought things like that tank truck were part of the map rather than models.

I think the phones such as the ones in NYC streets (not sure if there are any more anywhere else) these: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20 ... 000en.jpg/ should be replaced by phone decoration, far more realistic than a flat texture.

NYC_Street - No Music in return to NYC. - Revision mod was working on this.

Speaking of tyres needing fixed, wheels on 747 need rounded off.

Morpheus wrote:NYC_Street - No Music in return to NYC. - Revision mod was working on this.

So was Shifter and the Unofficial Patch. This is a separate mod that will hopefully be compatible to both. If they all have similar fixes, it shouldn't cause a problem, just allow the user to pick and choose.

nerdenstein wrote:

Morpheus wrote:NYC_Street - No Music in return to NYC. - Revision mod was working on this.

So was Shifter and the Unofficial Patch. This is a separate mod that will hopefully be compatible to both. If they all have similar fixes, it shouldn't cause a problem, just allow the user to pick and choose.

That is what I meant the unofficial patch that fixes bugs in the game. BTW, why doesn't the music play in GOTY?

Morpheus wrote:

nerdenstein wrote:

Morpheus wrote:NYC_Street - No Music in return to NYC. - Revision mod was working on this.

So was Shifter and the Unofficial Patch. This is a separate mod that will hopefully be compatible to both. If they all have similar fixes, it shouldn't cause a problem, just allow the user to pick and choose.

That is what I meant the unofficial patch that fixes bugs in the game. BTW, why doesn't the music play in GOTY?

I'm not sure actually. It works in the ordinary patched version and there is a little to no difference between them.
I always just install the ordinary patch over my GOTY version anyway; otherwise the No-CD trick doesn't work.

justanotherfan wrote:Nope, it's an hexagon with eight sides.

...can't tell if serious...

Morpheus wrote:I think the phones such as the ones in NYC streets (not sure if there are any more anywhere else) these: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20 ... 000en.jpg/ should be replaced by phone decoration, far more realistic than a flat texture.

That would require someone making a model for a payphone because putting the current Deus Ex phone in there would not look realistic at all. (The phone model is one that is designed to sit horizontally on a desk, it would not magically look like a payphone if it were rotated into a vertical position. It would instead look silly.)

-

The hangar map, the map with the outside of the 747, is crazy undetailed. My understanding of what the engine can handle is far from complete, but I've seen working maps with a number of points somewhere between 7 and 9 times as high.

I never really understood the phone booths in Deus Ex. Their texture says "WWW", indicating that they should provide Internet access?