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View Full Version : HCE Project Lumoria... Complete.



Higuy
October 4th, 2012, 03:52 PM
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8851/logonewz.png




Where to start.

In August of 2008, a new mapping team was formed. That team was TM Mapping Team. It was designed for a single purpose: to create good, Halo styled, maps with good gameplay. While over the years the team has drastically changed, members have come and gone, we survived the ages. Our goals, overtime, changed, and we started focusing on one project.

That project, Lumoria, led to some of the best single-player content ever making its way into the H:CE Community. Our goal was simple: create a single player level with good gameplay and some simple story-telling. In my opinion, the team has achieved just that, and then some. We created a story around all of this, smothered it in classic, professional gameplay, and created some stylistic enviroments. But I think the most important thing that we accomplished on this entire project was actually finishing it. It's taken about 2 1/2 years I estimate as I write this to complete the entire campaign. While that seems like a pretty long time for two episodes (and four map files), our lives in those past years have been consumed by school, work, friends, and plenty of other things. I think we made pretty good time...

So, who wants to play some Lumoria?

Embark on a journey that brings you to the Forerunner world of Lumoria. When a scientific research crew sends out a beacon of distress, the UNSC frigate "The Endless Horizon", a frigate class ship, is sent in to execute a low-profile search and rescue operation. On board is May, a female SPARTAN II super soldier. Bred for combat, built for war.

Along her side are a hardy group of higly trained ODSTs, lead by Gunnery Sergeant Brandon Keiffer.

Drop in behind enemy lines and extract any remaining survivors as you race to uncover the secrets of Lumoria.

~~~~~~~*

Project Lumoria: Episode One (Final Version!)

This is the final version of Episode One. If you have not played it yet, play this one. And if you have played it before, play it again. LOTS of things have been updated - cinematics, terminals, music, encounters, DOCs, shaders, and other things. We've made it play alot better and have fixed all reported bugs.

http://imageshack.us/a/img836/3521/ep11h.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img440/935/ep13d.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img651/1153/ep15b.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img203/7991/ep17o.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5725/ep18.jpg

~~

Project Lumoria: Episode Two

The time has come to drive the Covenant from these lands and save the knowledge you rightfully inherited.

Experience the final installment of Lumoria, with a vast new crew of characters, exciting new gameplay, and much more.

http://imageshack.us/a/img253/271/ep21.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img805/3254/ep23.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img832/5034/ep25x.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img577/5558/ep26n.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img580/7015/ep28.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img210/9786/ep29.jpg

~~

Project Lumoria: UI

Also included is the Lumoria UI, which includes custom loading screen, logo, credits, music, etc. You can also start Lumoria through the UI by pressing on "Lumoria" when the UI loads up. This is a great addition for users who do not want to waste time getting into the fight and also want a nice looking UI.

http://imageshack.us/a/img201/9796/haloce2012100416320909.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img209/6187/haloce2012100416321765.jpg
~~~~~~~*

Credits:



--TM MAPPING TEAM --

PROJECT LEADS:
Higuy
L0d3x

SCRIPT PRODUCTION:
Isaac "Postmortem" Frankel
Dennis Powers

CINEMATICS:
Matthew Dratt

ANIMATION:
Jackal Stomper

GAMEPLAY DESIGN:
L0d3x
Higuy

ENVIROMENT ARTISTS:
Higuy
Massacre
Conscars (Skybox, Multiplayer and other content)
Sheer (Multiplayer BSP creation)

TAG EDITORS:
L0d3x
Spartan094
Wafflez

VOICE ACTING:
Elle - May, Spartan 073
David Edwards - Sergeant Brandon Keiffer
L0d3x - Scarecrow, pilot of Delta 137
Skilit - Marines
Higuy - Fighter Pilots
Dennis Powers - The Scientist
Brad Philippe - Captain of "The Endless Horizon"
KID - Major Kallis
Teekup - 734 Antecedent Sage

SPECIAL THANKS GOES TO:
Bungie
Gearbox
John Powell for one of his tracks from "The Bourne Supremacy"
Linkin Park
Il Duce Primo
Joshflighter
Da Pimp Pope
Bobblehob
Advancebo
Jesse
Deelekgolo
Dsalimander
Teh Lag
Arteen
Scooby Doo
LoneWarrior
Koo
Halo CE3 Live
Disaster
Shade117
Yoko
SXC (Scott)

Special thanks also goes to all the people at Halomaps.org, Modacity.net, and Moddb.com.

Lumoria was created under Microsofts Game Content Usage Rules using assets from Halo: Combat Evolved, (C) Microsoft Corporation.



~~~~~~~*

Concluding words from the developers:

Higuy says:

Lumoria is one of the best things to happen to me during my time on Halomaps and in the Halo Custom Edition community. It has taught me many things, not just about game development, but about leadership and what it takes to keep others working as a team.

It's been 2 1/2 years since we've started. While TM has changed drastically since then, we still accompilished our goals as a team. We created the largest custom mapping project. We made a custom story, maps, and gameplay. We did what no one else had dared to do or did not finish.

We made Lumoria.

I congratulate every single one of my team members and I wish I could shake every single one of their hands in person. I want also congratulate all of our fans, critics, and enemys for helping us every step of the way. Without all of them, the motivation to continue and strive would not be there.

May this map bring happiness and inspiration to all in the kingdom that is the Halo Custom Edition Community.

I shall end this little speech with some wise words from Jack Kerouac:

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

Lodeman says:

Lumoria is not a planet.
It most definitely is not. No, Lumoria is something much more. Lumoria to me represents vision, devotion, motivation and dedication. An example of what can be achieved with an inspired, hard-working team of equal-minded people.

I would like to thank every person that embarked with us along this journey, the members of TM, our fans. Our critics.
For without them none of this would have ever seen the light of day. The variety in community members was the necesarry symbiosis required to sprout forth the bud of inspiration. For without warmth and care the bud would have weared off, for without harsh conditions the bud would not have become strong enough to survive the winter...to ultimately blossom to its full glory.

Most of all though I am curious to see where this experience will lead the people I have worked with, and how it will inspire others. I know some of us have some very cool new projects planned, and I think it's safe to say that we all look forward to sharing these with you when the time is right, if not per sé on this forum!

I shall conclude with some simple advice for anyone who wants to pursue their dreams in life, since creating Lumoria has been a very important first step towards reaching (one of) my own dreams. You should speak in actions, not words! If you really want to achieve something it will be up to you to take the first steps. The future is shaped by you, so just go for it and never regret any decision you make.


~~~~~~~*

As of right now, this currently ends any future new maps for TM. Most of the team is moving onto other things, be it exciting new fresh projects, or new carreer choices. That does not mean there will not be future updates to maps like Episode Two should the need and demand arise, but we are ceasing any future new maps.

We thank you all for your support and dedication, and without an awesome community, we would have never accomplished much of anything.


With <3,
TM.

~~~~~~~*

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT NOTE:
Throughout many beta tests, there was much notice of an exception that occured with the non-defualt sound related dll files. While we have done our best to get rid of these, the DEFUALT dll files are included in this package in a seperate folder called "Sound DLL's" just incase. While you may not need them, you may want to install them to be safe. If you do not install them and you find yourself to have an exception, please install these to complete your playthrough as they will most likely fix it. (if not please post in our release thread or email us at mail@lumoriace.com). The DLL's are simply installed by placing them directly into your main Halo Custom Edition folder. Make sure you backup your previous ones before hand!

HOW TO PLAY:
1. Extract the contents from the .zip or .rar file.
2. Locate your Halo Custom Edition/maps directory.
3. Please place ui.map, lumoria_a.map, lumoria_b.map, lumoria_c.map, and lumoria_d.map into the maps directory of Halo Custom Edition folder.
4. Press Lumoria in the new main menu, select "New Game", and enjoy!

You can always play different difficulties by using the "game_difficulty_set" command. Heroic is "hard" and Legendary is "impossible. (if you want to play legendary, hit console and type "game_difficulty_set impossible")

DOWNLOADS:

Thread was posted beforehand to ensure release thread before map was up on Halomaps and other mirrors.

Halomaps Mirror
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?pg=1&sid=41

LumoriaCE Mirror
http://lumoriace.com/media/complete.html

Moddb Mirror
-not up yet-

TeeKup
October 4th, 2012, 04:37 PM
Got the next 2 days off, reinstalling CE to recap and play through this/

DarkHalo003
October 4th, 2012, 05:34 PM
This mod is worth reinstalling CE (though it doesn't really take up much space anymore considering how much Hard Drives hold now) and it's straight out probably the best you'll play in CE for another while. I highly recommend it. It's worth the several hours of gameplay.

TeeKup
October 4th, 2012, 07:29 PM
Download get D:

Higuy
October 4th, 2012, 07:32 PM
Files wont be up until midnight EST on Halomaps and Lumoriace.com

Cagerrin
October 4th, 2012, 07:48 PM
Is the voice-acting still horrendously laughable and immersion-breaking?

TeeKup
October 4th, 2012, 08:04 PM
I'm hoping my VA was decent. XD

Bobblehob
October 4th, 2012, 09:06 PM
It's definitely better in Episode 2, but still not professional quality :P

Pooky
October 4th, 2012, 10:02 PM
Is the voice-acting still horrendously laughable and immersion-breaking?

A lot of professionally voiced games I've played make Lumoria's voiceovers look goddamn amazing by comparison.

OMTizJemHO8

LISmPmdUhYA

-h2NnPbbEYQ

H8qG4AlK1qk

KjR4pZ9FvD8

SirBobbington
October 4th, 2012, 11:10 PM
inb4 servers crash from multiple terabytes of traffic in a 6-hour timeframe.

Currently 50% done at 1.6 mb/s. Can't wait to play! And I thought it would never be done...

Congrats to everyone who worked to get this released!

Higuy
October 5th, 2012, 12:41 AM
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?pg=1&sid=41

http://lumoriace.com/media/complete.html

get em while there hot

CcmwKn0Bkv8

PopeAK49
October 5th, 2012, 01:32 AM
I'ts been fun working with you guys on the project. I hope people enjoy the final forerunner art work that I designed for this fantastic team towards the end of the campaign.'

However, I do want to mention that you put dapimppope as part of the credits. Which is fine, because I think the majority of the people know me as Da pimp pope.

But it's nothing to complain about because all I care about is playing this campaign right now. :woop:

Amit
October 5th, 2012, 02:23 AM
Well that's a pretty badass UI. Oh yeah, game looks good too. Downloading tomorrow.

TeeKup
October 5th, 2012, 12:05 PM
I'm getting some sound issues. I don't know if its my shitty speakers or what. But everything seems to die in the very beginning as may gets out of the pod.

BobtheGreatII
October 5th, 2012, 12:11 PM
Must be you. I didn't have a problem.

Also, lol the pelicans have like nos or something.

Ki11a_FTW
October 5th, 2012, 12:40 PM
I was playing and at one area of the new Episode 1 map, my walking controls got all scrambled? It was after I got some checkpoint. Was weird. But it wasnt like that in the other episode.

TeeKup
October 5th, 2012, 01:20 PM
Yeah its my speakers.

Higuy
October 5th, 2012, 01:49 PM
Must be you. I didn't have a problem.

Also, lol the pelicans have like nos or something.

nos?


I was playing and at one area of the new Episode 1 map, my walking controls got all scrambled? It was after I got some checkpoint. Was weird. But it wasnt like that in the other episode.

No idea, that has happened to me but it also happens on plenty of other maps. Possibly it could be a keyboard glitch.

Higuy
October 5th, 2012, 07:35 PM
Nitros?

Oh.

Well, you'd have to ask Jackal Stomper about that.

Pooky
October 8th, 2012, 02:05 PM
Played it, beat it. Was pretty cool. It took me a while, but eventually I did manage to get immersed in the experience. I'll say that the intended goal of making something that feels like a level from the original game was accomplished, but a few presentation issues marred the overal experience.

Higuy
October 8th, 2012, 02:09 PM
Could you explain what you thought could be improved? Please use spoiler tags, if there are, well, spoilers.

Warsaw
October 8th, 2012, 02:23 PM
The biggest presentation issues:


Using first names for characters in a military hierarchy.
Lack of interior lighting at all times.
Text events, like the intro and the terminals, took much too long to scroll through.



It was fun, though, and I'll be damned if the Elite Majors weren't a major pain in the ass to kill even on Heroic.

PopeAK49
October 8th, 2012, 02:46 PM
The biggest presentation issues:


Using first names for characters in a military hierarchy.
Lack of interior lighting at all times.
Text events, like the intro and the terminals, took much too long to scroll through.


It was fun, though, and I'll be damned if the Elite Majors weren't a major pain in the ass to kill even on Heroic.

I can agree, but it isn't a "huge" issue when you look at the audience that this project was targeting.

Everything else I agree with, some scripted events were taking loads of time.

Also, I saw that you ran into the portal clipping issue on the final boss fight higuy. It wasn't a big deal though, because I was more focus on surviving. :downs:

Higuy
October 8th, 2012, 02:59 PM
Yeah I had multiple people try to fix the issues with your BSP pope. It was fixed a little bit, but obviously not entirely. Would have been nice if it were, but I dont think it was the biggest issue.

PopeAK49
October 8th, 2012, 03:05 PM
Yeah I had multiple people try to fix the issues with your BSP pope. It was fixed a little bit, but obviously not entirely. Would have been nice if it were, but I dont think it was the biggest issue.

I was awe strucked to see how nice the final battle interior bsp came out. You guys did a superb job with the shaders and lighting. I'm really happy to have finished it for you guys. It was a honor to work with you guys.

:mech2:

Warsaw
October 8th, 2012, 05:41 PM
I could have gotten over the voice acting had they used designations like Sarge or LT. That's why I bring that up, because it would sound more classic Halo.

Pooky
October 8th, 2012, 05:53 PM
Could you explain what you thought could be improved? Please use spoiler tags, if there are, well, spoilers.

In some places the BSP was a little rough around the edges. Terminals took way too long to scroll through and I spotted a few spelling and grammar errors here and there. Halo's fog system thing kind of ruined the look of certain scenes by making everything appear washed out, and the giant robot thing wasn't animated... like, at all. Also, using Blow Me Away instrumental 2 times in a row was a bit immersion breaking. It's a nice song and all, but there's such a thing as too much.

Overall though I had a great time. With Lumoria we finally have something other than p0lar_bear's BioHalo to fill the Campaign section at Halomaps.

Warsaw
October 8th, 2012, 07:35 PM
I didn't think there was any lighting outside of the dynamic stuff on the indoor sections...places that should have been dark except for artificial sources were bright as day, and looked like they had come out of the editor's viewing pane...

Ki11a_FTW
October 8th, 2012, 09:49 PM
Yeah I'd really like to know why the lighting was held back, even play A30 then play this. This map could've looked 2x better had there been more focus on lighting and how it affected the feel of the level, it felt pretty incomplete in that aspect. EX: Cave's should've been dark with a hint of that dark blue lighting, there is no way in hell they would be that bright with such small amount of lights inside. I also mentioned this earlier when you posted screenshots months back, at the time you made it very apparent that it was temporary, now with final release I'm confused at the fact it looks exactly the same.

E:



And lastly, yeah. Lighting plays a HUGE part in determining what something actually looks like or not, I actually wasn't sure if I should have posted the top picture or not just becuase of what the lighting was like (ran at 0 0.9), but I thought it would be a nice teaser picture. However, the bottom picture's lighting is final and that BSP is complete.

Zeph
October 8th, 2012, 10:44 PM
Yeah I'd really like to know why the lighting was held back, even play A30 then play this. This map could've looked 2x better had there been more focus on lighting and how it affected the feel of the level, it felt pretty incomplete in that aspect. EX: Cave's should've been dark with a hint of that dark blue lighting, there is no way in hell they would be that bright with such small amount of lights inside. I also mentioned this earlier when you posted screenshots months back, at the time you made it very apparent that it was temporary, now with final release I'm confused at the fact it looks exactly the same.

E:

Keep in mind that target resolution for a30 was 480i in a living room environment. Console levels are typically brighter than necessary to ensure everything is easily visible in a bright room. We were also still in the CRT age back then with many tubes naturally being darker than they should.

Ki11a_FTW
October 8th, 2012, 11:22 PM
Keep in mind that target resolution for a30 was 480i in a living room environment. Console levels are typically brighter than necessary to ensure everything is easily visible in a bright room. We were also still in the CRT age back then with many tubes naturally being darker than they should.

I know, that is why I said "even a30". Maybe I'm nitpicking then, I'm always forgetting that they want that same classic feel as when Halo first came out. The campaign is great, don't get me wrong, I just think some more focus on light maps would've finished it off, It just seems rather bland in some places.

Warsaw
October 8th, 2012, 11:44 PM
A better comparison would be b30 or b40, and they both have better lighting.

JackalStomper
October 9th, 2012, 02:45 AM
not that song

it better not be that so-

ugh.


boss elite dude fell off cliff when I was fighting him
managed to hold two rocket launchers at once
flew a banshee out of the level
drove a tank off a cliff and skipped the entire map structure battle
killed the un-killable ODST
THAT. DAMN. SONG

other than that it was fun

except for the buggers, nobody likes buggers.

BobtheGreatII
October 9th, 2012, 03:06 AM
Honestly my favorite part about the whole thing was the final battle. Unfortunately I was getting terrible culling in most parts while in the banshee. Oh well. Great work all the same, it was fun. Good to see something finished.

Ki11a_FTW
October 9th, 2012, 10:15 AM
A better comparison would be b30 or b40, and they both have better lighting.

A30 is the closest thing that resembles lumoria, but b30 i could see a bit too, I loved the lighting inside that map at the time.

Warsaw
October 9th, 2012, 02:44 PM
I dunno, only the outdoors resembled a30. Apart from some nods to a30's light bridge and b30's service shaft, I felt like the interior of Lumoria more closely resembles b40 and the Ark's Cartographer.

Ki11a_FTW
October 10th, 2012, 01:03 PM
I played through the new episode 1 for the first time, looking at the trees and what-not I can see that you did run a full lightmaps. My apologies if I'm sounding a little harsh. I will play ep2 again later on to double check, I remember feeling some dull parts.

Higuy
October 10th, 2012, 02:24 PM
There are parts of EP2 that were run longer than others for lightmaps. Some of the interiors are darker then others, etc... This was mainly due to lots of fixing up on some BSP's near release, and then not having enough time to fully run them as some of them took literally days to complete.

I did basically all of the outdoor environments and a little bit of the forerunner, I can gladly say my source of inspiration when creating the environments mainly stemmed from Halo 2 and 3. Halo 1's a30 was great, and as you can see in EP1 I based alot of it off the idea of being up very high on these mountain ridges. With EP2 I looked back on alot of Halo 2's outdoor environments, such as Delta Halo and the Great Journey. It's kind of a mash up of all of them + my own personal style.

As for the Forerunner, I can't say much, but I asked KingFisher to say within a style that stuck with what we had done in EP1, what Massacre had done in EP2 thus far, and the Halo 1 constraints. I think he did a pretty awesome job, adding his own style with the last BSP + exterior of the control room but still staying within the style that was already implemented.

Ki11a_FTW
October 10th, 2012, 09:25 PM
The style of forerunner fit into the Halo 1 architecture perfectly. No complaints with that. I do think the bridge area could've used more in EP1 however. If you are referring to geometry, it was done well for the most part. A few things here and there but overall it came out really nice.

Stormwing
November 23rd, 2012, 05:59 PM
I WROTE THIS WHOLE REVIEW THING TWICE BUT MODACITY ATE MY POST BOTH TIMES

SO ALL I'M GONNA SAY IS

8.7/10 WOULD PLAY AGAIN, FANTASTIC EXPERIENCE, BUNGIE LEVEL STUFF, CONGRATS AND THANKS


..okay i'll throw in some bits anyway

+all encounters were sweet
+level/architecture design win
+cool scripted events yay
+MARINES DRIVING PROPERLY OMG
+final battles were AWESOME, even if the music was questionable
+turn off lightbridge under enemies, lol
+story was pretty good

-FRGs annoying
-Shadows useless
-Why two frigs?
-Hog randomly dies @ end of ep1, boo
-Frigate interior is wayy bare
-Atmospheric fog sucks
-Few of the anims were noticeably lacking
-Final boss not very cool; scientist as air support possible? just for kicks?
-Brandon shottied me a lot
-Still saw the helmet-under-helmet thing w/o OS or FOV
-Some of the voice acting needs work...and the final monologue was laaame

also sorry for the bump :v: and hi everybody :iamafag:

STLRamsFan
November 23rd, 2012, 10:09 PM
Storm you're still alive?! Was wondering where the heck you went off to the other day! How've you been all these years dude?

TeeKup
November 23rd, 2012, 11:52 PM
Holy god Storm isn't dead.

Scooby Doo
December 3rd, 2013, 09:12 PM
This is really good. Bravo.

Higuy
December 3rd, 2013, 09:15 PM
SCOOBY

damn its been a year already since this was released...