Posts by DD

Hello everyone,

Dorian aka DD here. Back when I was still trying to get into the game industry, about 10-12 years ago, I was active in the mapcore community for anyone who remembers me.

I know there's a lot of talent here so I wanted to forward a link to the id software/Zenimax hiring page. We're currently looking for level designers & gameplay designers. Click the following link then select id Software & design:

http://jobs.zenimax.com/

We don't require 2 years experience if you have great personal work to show, in fact I'm going to harass HR just after this to remove that note. Just a few tips:

• Don't send in a resume without a portfolio, otherwise its straight to the trash.
• Your portfolio should have relevant recent professional & personal work in 3D first person or third person shooters.
• Be specific about your work/contributions. It's frustrating looking at vague portfolios.
• Again, be specific about your work!
• We're looking for unique & creative gameplay work for gameplay designers. What interesting combats or sequences have you created? Videos are best for this! Be specific about what you did!
• For level designers we want to see actual level geometry, lighting, examples of your level composition, level layouts, prop placement, examples of how you worked with a team. Screenshots & videos are great for this.

If you have any questions or comments, please post here and I'll check in here later.

Good luck

Understanding art and good architecture is great, but it is becoming less and less important.

Understanding great single player levels is an extreme plus. Most LDs are purely multiplayer.

Here's what I know to be true based on my own experience:

1. We are and will be even more hungry for LDs. Most of our projects are in prototype or semi-prototype which means smaller teams. When we move into full production we are going to need LDs. After reviewing our submissions I was extremely disapointed, I had to go looking myself. So yes, at least at GBX, right now is a great time to pursue LD although expect delays.

2. Most of the mod LD portfolios we get are better ART portfolios then ART game-school portfolios. I'd say about 80%~90% of the time this is true.

3. People that get hired for doing just one good map are extremely rare, usually they are really talented and have experience in traditional art or some related field. If they do get hired it's the studios fault if the person is not talented. Hiring a LD with just one map in their portfolio and no other experience is an extreme NO GO. Even if it is great. One decent level and a dozen okay or bad ones usually gets more interest.

Wow Hessi, good job. What other maps have you made?

Very nice attention to detail, good model work, I like the details in the sidewalks and paths!

The ambient sound is a bit loud and annoying, but visuals are great.

Looks great!

Quote from Bluestrike

Now that the site is up I can start a thread http://awakening.hl2files.com

[Blocked Image: http://awakening.hl2files.com/images/media/awakening1.jpg]

Some suggestions:

-There are techniques in HL2 you can use to hide the texture seams here. For the main road you can create a new material that blends to the rocky road texture between the road and snow.

-You should be able to fix the seam between the vertical rock->snow texture and the snow floor. You can align them perfectly using 90 degree angles then distort the displacement map.

-The road texture looks too scaled up, maybe for performance reasons? If not scale that sucka down

Quote from Zaphod

thats pretty impressive, it's too bad that only like 10% (if that) of the current phone market has modern enough phones to run something like this. It will be a few years probably untill the majority of phone gamers have powerful enough phones to do a mainstream 3d phone game. Which sucks becuase I would love to be working on more 3d stuff.

What about Japan? Korea?

I agree, I'd like to see this title on DS with more developed graphics.

http://%7boption%7d

Gameloft made this game, and I was totally shocked by how good of a job they did. Very cool controls, auto-cover mounting, very cool grenade controls, vehicles, destructible enviroments, etc, etc. Anyways, check it out.

I love this game.

Love the SP. Some missions are a bit hard, which I usually like, but the parts which were hard to me were because bad training or no training (helicopter sequence plzzz). However I'm really excited about their game design decisions.

Auto-cover mounting, context sensitve button, squad control from situational awarness, squad behavior switch, completely open levels with linear control, a persistent world... I mean, great! I don't like how they cover up mediocre AI with superhuman mexicans that have 360 fov, bat like hearing, and night vision.

MP is awesome, specially coop. I love how difficult coop is too. I also wish the cover system was in mp/coop as well as sp. I can understand some technical reasons and gameplay reasons for mp but not sp.

I plan on buying a 360 after I move just for this game (and burnout), and media center, and geometry wars. The end.

You should hand the domain over to Mikey or Mojo so they can have it forward here.

Well here's something you all should know:

-Most creationist/self-proclaimed scientist who believe in Intelligent Design support the big bang theory. It supports the idea that the universe starts from a single point and revolves around it. This idea of singularity supports the notion of a god.

-The big bang theory has major holes starting from the base. It assumes the explosion was not symmetrical/even for some unknown reasons and assumes there is selveral different forms of dark matter, and all sorts of unproved notions to support why the movement of stars/planets don't add up.

-I believe NASA needs lots of work done to it to improve cost, productivity, and keeping up to date with technology. This appointee may just be the move that starts the dominos, hopefully the reform or removal of NASA.

Basically what this all means to me: The 24 year old douche or whatever his name is believes that support big bang is against intelligent design. He is a dumbass. He is arguing against his own belief in dumbass confusion.

http://%7boption%7d

I didn't vote for him.

Quote from Holeman

the photographs become yellow if they arnt processed correctly, or if the technology wasnt quite up to par (like 70s color photos) but the actual film stays around in great condition for a long long time, and you can reprint with them, where as digital is just a file, just 1's and 0's that isnt anything actually tangible

Modern film and prints can be processed incorrectly, a few minutes off in a certain chemical (fixer?) can mean destroyed work. 1's and 0's are equally tangible as a roll of film IMO. I'm guessing you're the kind of person who would prefer a piece of cake rather than enough money for an entire cake? You can argue up and down for both sides, just I'm willing to bet most people with experience in both prefer the digital route. Enough to validate the decision to stop making 35mm cameras

I'm excited to play it, looks great! The scale seems a little broken but meh.

Looks great!

Trimed most if not all your doors, most windows, something I always look at. Did you clip your corners so players can move smoothly?

Nice colors, details, and I like the light shine coming through the windows.

One suggestion is finding a new tree, that tree looks awful. Is it a default HL2 prop? Maybe find a custom one, a lot of valve trees are really ugly. Try adding some grass decos, it will help make the warehouse area look more abandoned.

That's hilarious!

I have the default lens on my canon digital rebel, and I really can't stand how it behaves indoors with medium lighting, the kind of lighting where a lower grade auto digitial camera will work fine without flash.

Does the lens you have help with that?

Usually to get a decent shot indoors I have to go full manual, max ISO (1600), max aperture (f/4.0 or 3.5 not sure), set an easier shutter speed (1/20 or so), and hope the underexposure can be fixed on my PC.

Otherwise I go into AV mode, set the max aperture and pray I don't move.

Maybe I should just buy a unipod or tripod. Also I hate to use flash cause the shots always look horrible.

My guess is that it's related to time. I've noticed if I let mapcore sit for a while I have to re-sign-in sometimes, but yeah I've had this same error.

I'm just curious what some of you have in mind. Mapcore is full of interesting cool people. I bet some bold resolutions will be made, and probably kept.

I was thinking of dedicating at least 30 mins everyday to some piece of art. Like mapping, drawing, painting, writing, photography even. I don't think I do enough of it, which is really I think all I got at this point in my life. Hope that doesn't sound too lame

http://%7boption%7d

The EU sucks for unjustly demanding the money and secrets of MS. I can't stand it when poor people think wealthy people owe the world something. The idea that the strong and powerful should drop to their knees in service and slavery to the pathetic and weak. That philosophy seems to plague Europe and is spreading to America. Yeah I think MS is shitty sometimes, but they still have the right to do whatever they want with their products.

I think Microsoft should withhold all products/support in EU countries until they stop behaving like baby-tards. MS can easily stay afloat with its gathered wealth and fuel from other countries, and the economic turmoil it would cause would be devastating.

Here's an interesting follow-up:

http://%7boption%7d

The quotes by the FSF official are hilarious. They do not want to allow the think-tanks to talk becuse they are afraid they will present smart and valid points which will persuade the commision not to be retards. I also like how they call them "mere" think-tanks. Like it's a bad thing to be smart.

Quote

He urged the Commission to stay true to its course in the case and not to let "U.S. company interests rule over those of European consumers and the economy."

This is funny. The European consumers are buying up the OS so much that it is causing the FSF issues. Microsofts interests are the same as the consumers. The only conflicting interests are by that of small companies who cannot get consumers to buy their shitty products.

Anyways, any chance you get Europeans, you should fight this. Hopefully you guys see the bigger issue here. Hopefully you guys see how important Free market, Intellectual Property, and Trade Secrets are.

Quote from Kosmo

And no, English is not my native language, sometimes I write words wrong out of habit even if I know how they are really written.

Congrats, you write english very well. I wish I knew more foriegn languages.

Quote from Kosmo

Correction, in Europe we don't necessarily work towards wealth and success by the expense of others, but we all have equal chance for it. Our common good means that we all have equal right for education, the social security backs us up, most parts of Europe works through this rules, every man is created equal, unlike USA that has severe problems in that area.

Well the government here has the same idealogy but doesn't support it very well, as I am sure isn't exactly perfect in EU countries either. The problems however are not severe. Personally I do not believe everyone is equal, and never will.

Quote from Kosmo

You are just an elitist

Thanks!

Quote from Kosmo

What if your momma and poppa didn't have money to get you proper education?

I paid for most of my schooling before leaving for work. I am and can pay for the rest of it. It's difficult to work and go to school but people do it. I don't believe anyone is stuck in a hole, they're just not self-motivated enough to fix their problems. Unless of course they're stricken with down syndrome or some life illness. But yes my parents could pay for my education, I just refused most of it.

Quote from Kosmo

In Europe that wouldn't have been anykind of problem, and in Scandinavia you'd still get the highest education, regardless of your wealth. What if you didn't get a job with your education because the job market sucks? Well, in Europe you'd be still able to live, and have a good healthcare. Sick? Again, not a problem.

Well I'm glad to be an American. We don't force hard working talented people to support waste bags, at least not as bad. We still have temporary unemployment support and medical, I wish not.

If there were no jobs, which I doubt, I would create my own. If even still there was no need then I would move to America.

No I am not destroying America, its the rare self motivated hard working people that create and pump money into the economy. Societies that allow people to live off the government are doomed to failure, taxing and put too much burden on the few who work, and rewarding the scum. I think it's sad that you believe otherwise.