Map Information

CTF-Unearthed is a map based on the major set piece from Katsuhiro Otomo’s excellent graphic novel “The Legend of Mother Sarah: Tunnel Town”. In it a weapon is used alter the earth’s axial tilt in order to bury the contaminated remnants of a nuclear holocaust. Subsequent generations - now living in a barren, resource-poor world - tunnel into the buried cities in order to reclaim and recycle the materials trapped there.

With this map I have tried to create something that is visually distinct from the maps that came with UT2003. At the same time, I wanted to make a map that would be playable on most machines that meet the minimum spec for UT2003. For this reason, most of the meshes that I created for this map have a comparatively low polygon count.

This special edition has been created to address a number of issues in the original version of the map. The changes are subtle for the most part, though in my opinion significant and warranted under the circumstances. Here is the 'change log':

Gameplay improvements/changes:
- added a sniper rifle
- moved the flak cannons so that they are more accessible
- added two shield chargers (I'll let you find them)

Level design changes:
- added detail textures to all textures in the PlutonicUnearthedT_MSUC.utx package
- all textures in the PlutonicUnearthedT_MSUC.utx package now have material detail settings
- reworked the textures on the terrain to remove repetition
- updated collision for all SMs in the PlutonicUnearthed_MSUC.usx package
- created and added my own wrecked car SM (lower polygon count than the previous one)
- added blocking volumes to sections where the player can get 'snagged'
- construction cones are now karma objects and will move if you have physics detail set to high
- made lighting a little darker (on my machine)
- set EAX effects for ZoneInfo actors (for those people with EAX compliant sound cards)
- added more ambient sounds and tweaked sound levels in map
- used emitters to give the sky a glare when looking up
- added jumpspots for the bots
- tweaked bot pathing
- light map rendered in DXT1 format

Third place in the Best Level Using Original Content category of phase 1 of the Make Something Unreal Contest. Thanks to nVidia, Epic Games and Atari for organising and sponsoring the contest.

More screenshots: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Special thanks to ...

My wife, Danielle, and our children who are all incredibly tolerant of my work patterns when creativity strikes. Danielle is also becoming a great beta tester.

• The beta testing team: CliffyB, G30, Larathiel the Death Elf, Sober, Mr Bond, The_Blob, Hurricane, The Slayer, Loosecontroll, Jing
• Thanks to the map review authors who offered constructive criticism of the first version of this map. Your comments have helped me to improve this special edition, thank you.
  

The Opinion of Others ...

Reviews of the original CTF-Unearthed:

• 8/10 at insite (16 Mar 2003)
• 9.83 at Combat Maps (23 Feb 2003)
• OWNAGE! Thanks Cliff :D (15 Dec 2002)
• 96/100 and the Fragtastic Award at Blast-Radius
• Review at NaliCity (6.5 by reviewer, 8.0 by users) and Hotlist (15 Jan 2003)
• 9/10 at Ultor Gaming Network (10 Jan 2003)
• 7.4 at FasterFiles (17 June 2003)
• 4/5 stars at InUnreal.de (8th July)

Got a comment? ... please email me.

[Updated April 15, 2004 ]
Site content and original site art copyright© 2002 Chris Blundell.