Well heres the thing concerning the lighting. Afew people out there have attempted tree maps, and most end up looking like crap. Not because the designer did something wrong per say, but because the skybox "glows" and thus can be seen regardless of lighting. It gives the feel that even though the design might look great, you still see the edges of the box kind of killing the feel of the map. SJC (one of the better mappers for JKA) did a wookie battle map and had to make mountains/rocks to block this effect. I have no interest in a ground aspect so that wouldn't help me. I could.. write a new shader for a custom skybox.. but then I'd have to still add more things to it to complete the effect, and since my main goal is playability (fps) I don't think that will be the best route.
What I did do for this area is is the following:
1) After trying several of the stock skyboxes, as well as creating a new yavin one, I decided to through out the need for a skybox entirely. I am using a pure black texture for the box (which I will have to write a shader for so no-hit/impact) which fit in well with the night feel.
2) Trees... oh the damn trees.. gave me alot of problems. I tried to use misc_model settings which turned out all black regardless of lights. I then tried misc_model_static.. which looked great.. except for the leaves that blinked like chrsitmas tree lights (due to a stock shader that was borked when the game was shipped). So how did I fix it? lol... I rigged it. I used cylinder patch meshes shaping them to look like tree trunks, covered them in a custom tree bark texture.. and reduced the scale of a stock tree placing it inside near the top (so the leaves etc could be seen above). The overall effect worked well for a dark map, and there was little hit on fps doing it this way.
3) Design: I am designing the map.. all sections with the idea of optimal fps, even over design. There seems to be alot of KR people who have either older tech, and whats the point in designing a map for them.. if they cant even enjoy it? No worries though, the map will look good regardless.
4) Im using png's instead of jpg format. JPG's loose to much integrity where as PNg loos nothing... this makes for more crisp textures in game. I'll switch back to jpg only if in the end the need arises for performance.
Areas of the map:
1) Tree area:
I've already gone into detail above on this area. As it stands, there will be three main areas where a bot can be spawned byt he push of a button. The three bots are alora, desann, and.. umm.. the other one I cant remember right now. This area is complete accept for two things.. the shader for the black box (mentioned above) and the addition to the bots limiting spawns till the first is dead. Eveything else works perfectly.
2) Main area
OK.. lets talk about this for a bit. I've shown some pics of the main area, and I must say I most likely am going to toss it out. It seems to be a bottomless pit of detail work thats going to kill fps sooner or later.. and it's functionality is to limited for it. I have though, created a new main area which is done except for the tele spots. The new area is smaller, though has more room to duel, and looks better imo. Ill post some pics of it soon.
3) Swoop track
This area is fairly straight forward.. its a indoor swoop track. It will have the feel of being underground, and will consist of nothing but a swoop track. There will be a button (or 4) for spawning swoops for races etc. More on this later since this is the area with the least amount of work done.
4) Rancor room
This will be the easiest area to complete, which is why I've focused on the other parts first. Do we want a dungeon? do we want something else as the setting? Let me know.. and soon.
5) Playground
This area, as stated has a trampoline, a skating rink, a pool with functioning diving boards, and maybe a half pipe... if I can get it to work right (big if). I'm also considering have a "training area" of sorts where dummies or destructible items can be used... we will see, dont want this project taking longer than it has to.
OK.. lots of words.. lots of typing.. hope that gives more light onto things.
~LK~
looks great 
