The Creation of Deep Blue Astral - Part 1
- Chong Lee
Check Part 2 for nitty-gritty realization in this map.
2012 - The Initial Idea
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After I finished the map DM-SerenityBay in 2012. I didn’t plan to invest much time to making new maps. UT3 had been released for 5 years. And there was no news about a next UT. So I figured I could do some simple maps. Late that year I saw the pictures above somewhere on the internet. And that triggered the idea of a new map which eventually became Deep Blue.
Compare the final look of the map with the initial reference pictures. There is still some resemblance.
From 2012 to 2013 - The Early Prototype in UT3 and UDK
I remember when it was started in late 2012, the plan was to create the map for UT3. But I was also making it in UDK.
The reasons were:
I wanted GI for the map but the lighting system of UT3 didn’t have built-in solution like UDK. So I made it in UDK for GI comparison, and baked GI to textures using VRay in 3ds Max.
The map was built with BSP in UDK, then the brushes were exported to 3ds Max for creating layout meshes which were used in the UT3 map.
The first UDK map was created as early as in January 2013. The UT3 map was created before that but I can’t tell exactly when because I have lost all of the files.
In the pictures above, the main structure in grey, was built with BSP, and it was on the top of a mountain, surrounded by terrain background. These were all meshes.
Very soon, the concept was changed from something very simple to something more mixed. I became a fan of brutalist architecture around that time, and naturally I thought the map could use some concrete structures with interesting shapes. The initial reference had a little bit of that, but I thought my map could go further. And a mountainous background would be perfect for such buildings.
In the UDK map 20130327, two months after the whole thing was started, it already looked like the pictures above, clearly inspired by the brutalist architecture style.
The upper two screenshots from UDK were the two major sections of the layout. The lower shot was how the map looked in 3ds Max.
The two sections were roughly the same size, and connected by the mid ground and a couple of bridges. The design was to give them their own important items while the middle area was hot zone with power-ups. Note the jumppad tunnel (the upper right picture) was added for the vertical gameplay between the two sections.
2013 - Split and Floating Island
I liked the art style, but the layout started to feel too big for gameplay (unless it was for big team size modes) and too heavy for visual. That was not what I wanted. I made a decision to split the layout in half.
The left half was called “Section A“, and the right was “Section B“. They both look fine as standalone maps but Section B was simpler, so I took it as the one for Deep Blue. I thought I would finish Section B first, then come back to make Section A into another map. I never thought just Section B alone, is going to take a decade.
These are screenshots from 3ds Max of Section B in mid 2013. The lighting with blue ambient and nice shadow was GI baked into base color. And I added the bottom to the ground, still rough, but it was becoming a floating island. It was then I decided to make this a space map.
The mid 2013 was also when I stopped the making of the UDK version of the map. I had the whole BSP layout converted to meshes, and the plan was to work on the meshes and ship the map for UT3.
I learned ZBrush around 2012 to 2013, and was using it to create the terrain background and then the bottom.
The above two shots were taken in August 2013. The left was from UT3, and the right one was from 3ds Max.
The above screenshots are taken in 3ds Max and it was a version from March 2014. The layout was considered almost done and I was subdividing the meshes so that vertex color can be used for material blending. Those magenta, blue, cyan colors were painted vertex color, displayed together with the textures for preview. At that point, my plan was to finish the map within 2014 or 2015 at most. Little did I know, things were going to change.
2014 - Pre Alpha (The Porting to UT4)
Finally the community wanted to create our own version of UT! The project Open Tournament was kicked off in April 2014. I was so happy that I decided to work on a Deck remake for it. Also UE4 looked much nicer than UE3 due to the PBR rendering. So finishing Deep Blue for UT3 became much less interesting, and no longer my top priority.
Then in May 2014, just about 1 month later, there came the announcement of the UT4 development. That changed everything. I decided to stop the work of the UT3 version of Deep Blue, and started to export the map to UT4.
The very first UT4 version was like this:
https://chonglee.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CM/pages/1337688372/Deep+Blue+20140622
Later that year, I released the version that could be considered as the “Pre Alpha“: https://chonglee.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CM/pages/1337819372/Deep+Blue+20141228
I still like this version a lot, even today. It used most of the resources like meshes and textures from the UT3 version. Those were of low definition, so I figured sooner or later the assets should be redone.
From 2015 to 2016 - Alpha
Ever since the announcement of UT4, I had been spending much more time on Deck remake than Deep Blue. From 2015 to 2016, Deep Blue had only 3 updates (meanwhile, Deck remake had 9 updates).
Right before the end of 2016, I released this version: https://chonglee.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CM/pages/1334542892/Deep+Blue+20161224
In this version I started to redo the assets from scratch, and there were some major layout changes. I had been trying different ideas of the extra platforms which were reachable by jumppads or teleporters, and the bottom platform in this version started to feel promising.
From 2017 to 2018 - Small Tweaks
I was trying to get Deck remake done, and didn’t have enough time to carry on the making of Deep Blue, so it stayed more or less the same.
That being said, I was still thinking about what could be the next improvements.
I was not super satisfied with the ground shape because it was quite easy to fall off. I came up with some ideas and did a paintover. It looked fun so I did some quick tests in the map. I figured it was not really good for Deep Blue, but it could be interesting for a new map. I went further to do some conception and even prototype maps.
Check this for more info: https://chonglee.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CM/pages/1354858844/Deep+Red+code+name
From 2019 to 2020 - Beta
The map name was changed to Deep Blue Astral upon the release of 20200711
But then with the cancellation of UT4 dev, suddenly there was no point to finish Deck remake soon. So I switched my attention back to Deep Blue.
The 20190830 version was a big update. Layout wise, it was very close to the final version. The assets were placeholders but with good shapes.
Visit this page for more info: https://3245428.wixsite.com/chonglee/deep-blue-astral-20190830
Then there came the 20200711 version, which was a polished Beta: https://3245428.wixsite.com/chonglee/deep-blue-astral-20200711
That was the last released version before the final. And it has been more than 4 years. The 4 years when the whole world changed a lot!
From 2021 to 2024 - Final Release
After Beta, what left was mainly the asset work, which I planned to finish ASAP. But my real life had big turns and it took much longer than I thought. There was COVID 19. And I changed my real life job a few times. It was rough and messy. Life felt like split into before and after by those few years. Nevertheless, I tried to squeeze time to do a bit, mostly during the weekends.
This page shows what I have done, which is actually A LOT, during the years: https://chonglee.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CM/pages/1333460993/The+Changes+in+Deep+Blue+Astral+20240925
2022 was fruit-full, more or less due to the lock-down in my city, for a couple of months I could stay home and worked remotely. That meant more spare time so it was like double speed. I for one didn’t hate the lock-down that much. If that had last a half year, the map could be finished within 2023. In 2024 it’s been for final polish, performance optimization, and bug fixing.
I noticed a lift bug that no one in the community had seemingly noticed. It can happen even in the stock maps. I couldn’t fix for those maps but found a way to tackle it for Deep Blue. Also spent quite some time tracking CPU GPU cost and managed to get back 10-15fps to reach average 95-120fps on my Ryzen 7 1700x + 1070Ti PC (I have recently installed a new PC which is capable of running this map in 4k 144fps).
Now, after a bit more than 10 years, the map is finally done!
Next, Part 2: The Realizations