Mapping on XRay engine (stalker series) Thread

Hi, i'm new here on the site. Just opened this thread, maybe someone else is doing maps for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.? We could share our thoughts and help each other or anything.

Currently im working on a city map with my mate. It's a 800x800 sized map, the city is small 500x500 suburban style with many family houses and a few blocks, and 300x300 around the city for some lake and forested areas, and 1-2 small villages. We raised the terrain at the edges to cover the "big nothing". We will add fences there...

I uploaded some screenshots to my profile:

Moddb.com
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The xray engine levels needs to be compiled. This is draft compile now, ca. 13 minutes to wait, but it depends on size and objects count. On high compile it will take up to 4 days to compile it. Currently the map has 680.000 static and 590.000 mu verticles.

hmm didnt know sp levels where possible
last time i checked only the broken mp sdk was released
*goes checking again*

Well, the sdk is still the same but actually its not so broken as it seems. we needed a few months to learn its silly behavior and manners and now its convenient sp creation tool. Actually they used this sdk to make the old stalker too.

We dont have super computers (yet ) so we make normal sized maps, since 4gb system memory is not always enough, if we make 900x900 sized maps and they are too detailed (i mean lots of objects, a factory, a village, and swampy area too on 1 level) like our factory level. We needed 8 month to make it work (that was our first level and since we didnt have documentation we learned with testing), also while we worked on factory, we also started other levels and now they are nearly complete, so we can move on to other areas.

The current sdk contains the alife stuff (ai map creation, ai placing and waypoint placing, restrictors, and base camp settings, covers, etc etc), only the ai compiler was missing, that updated the all.spawn (heart of the game levels) and attached back our new area to the game. Its still a bit tricky, we need to edit a lot of stuff, but in the end, it works fine. Some guys (i hope they dont mind if i name them: Neo][ and Bardak brought back the ai compiler based on the old leaked 2215 beta that contained it too. Of course it needed a lot of work, and finally we can say we have a somewhat sp sdk with tools made by professional stalker fanatics )

Edited by: dezodor

stalker CS or SoC? Looks good. You (guys?) did the whole map? It's impressive, haven't seen any stalker SP maps for obivious reasons. I'll re-install SoC if it's for that.

Yep we did the maps, but we also used GSC's objecs, like trees from the sdk, and from the game, and some flats for the city are from Pripyat level. We also model new things, towers, houses, city flats, ruins, underground basement systems, and street prop things to make the desolated city feeling stronger. The hardest part is to remodel buildings from 1 angle screenshots, but not impossible. We use our own ideas for interiors, and our imagination for the missing/not visible parts of exterior.. its fun to do. Some parts and models are too similar to the old ones )

These maps will be for shoc. We are working on a big project: Lost Alpha (you can find info in my profile about it) and that will contain these maps. mostly we remake the old cutout maps, those we only saw on screenshots, or flyby videos. Its not easy, and we cant remake them 1:1 but at least we use our own ideas too, so they will be somewhat similar to the old ones, but also they are new, since the old originals were completely removed from shadow of chernobyl, and no one saw them, only some lucky newswriter at gamemags

And why we do this?

... because we followed the development of the game since 2002, and we loved the old areas. We wont be happy until we remake that game we always wanted to see.

Edited by: dezodor

Ahhh - you're the Lost Alpha guys
I already thought there was another brilliant mod for Stalker in development.
Only after reading your post I realised how much work it is to mod stalker, especially on the mapping sector. If you compile anything in Unreal, it works pretty fast and you can easily playtest your map directly from the editor. That's quite convenient and makes it less painful to re-compile.

I hope your mod works out. It's really a huge project, but I'm sure there are a lot of fans out there, who look forward to Stalker: Oblivion Lost. Is there an estimate as to when this mod is finished? I read end of 2009, but that seems very optimistic, given the size of the task.

Oblivion Lost is already released... that's Lost Alpha ... similar name but something else... unless these guys are connected somehow? I don't have the overview on Stalker modding to be honest.

SinKing:
yep, we are the lost alpha guys. the only unconvenient thing in xray engine is that long compile sequence. all is because of lightmaps. if you have 1km x 1km terrain, then the terrain lightmap compile is 1 day, plus the other objects have lightmaps too, thats an other 1-2 day, and then the other stuffs an other 1 day, and you just hope that no blackout will be. (we are using ups just in case )

About release. Well we already started it last year (2008 january) and we already finished 1 full map and some maps are at 30-60% stage. We plan to include 8 maps to the original game, mostly the cutout ones and some of our ideas and 1-2 "vanilla" map remakes. The only thing that slows us down, is we only have 2 modellers now, actually 1, the other guy is away now, and im doing the level design part, and other 2 members the scripting. Maybe we will find someone who might join us to speed up the process a bit )

Dragonlord:
oblivion lost mod is the russian amk mod adoptation to english. we worked together with ol team, but when they decided to merge instead of find out something new things, we decided to move. maybe we wouldnt be here with this project if we dont leave them.

So you are going to include some of the stuff the OL includes or do you just include maps and props ( like weapons or suits )?

any chance for a tutorial(link)? :p
cuz last time i used the sdk it wasnt silly, it was broken, even the tutorial wouldnt work :/

Dragonlord:

We dont plan to use anything from amk/ol mods. The "lost alpha" will contain 15 vanilla maps + 3 remakes + 4-5 new with new storyline and some stuff we are working on now. (www.youtube.com/dez0wave -> like the trunk, lamps, projectors etc etc... things that never made into stalker until now)

Dark_Raver9:

I don't know about tutorials for level making Or at least I didnt find them yet. Since GSC won't release any tuts and manuals, we need to find out things. There are still many uncovered feautres in the "beta" sdk. However we have a wiki site, the official mod portal for stalker:
Sdk.stalker-game.com

and some other articles:
Sdk.stalker-game.com
(we added some about sdk too)

yeah i know about the wiki but its near useless :p