Posts by KungFuSquirrel

  • 20 Brush Challenge Voting: VISUALS

    In this thread, please cast your vote for the level that you feel displays the strongest visual component. Please review all entries and for this vote consider only the visual/artistic quality of the level.

    You may only cast one vote and you cannot change your vote so please, vote wisely. You may vote for the same level in as many categories as you choose, if you feel it deserves it. The poll will run for 48 hours before closing automatically, at which point the top three vote-getters will be selected as our winners.

    Feel free to discuss the entries in this thread, but please try to limit your discussion to the voting category.

    Thanks to all who entered, and to our newly registered users, we hope you'll stick around!

  • 20 Brush Challenge Voting: LAYOUT/GAMEPLAY

    In this thread, please cast your vote for the level that you feel has the strongest gameplay and/or layout component. Please review all entries and for this vote consider only the layout, flow, item placement, and other gameplay qualities of the level. PLEASE MAKE AN EFFORT TO PLAY LEVELS BEFORE CASTING A VOTE

    You may only cast one vote and you cannot change your vote so please, vote wisely. You may vote for the same level in as many categories as you choose, if you feel it deserves it. The poll will run for 48 hours before closing automatically, at which point the top three vote-getters will be selected as our winners.

    Feel free to discuss the entries in this thread, but please try to limit your discussion to the voting category.

    Thanks to all who entered, and to our newly registered users, we hope you'll stick around!

  • 20 Brush Challenge Voting: BRUSHWORK

    In this thread, please cast your vote for the level that you feel demonstrates the most creative use of brushwork within the 20-brush limit. Please review all entries and for this vote consider only the structure of the level and the creativity displayed in working within the challenge's limitations.

    You may only cast one vote and you cannot change your vote so please, vote wisely. You may vote for the same level in as many categories as you choose, if you feel it deserves it. The poll will run for 48 hours before closing automatically, at which point the top three vote-getters will be selected as our winners.

    Feel free to discuss the entries in this thread, but please try to limit your discussion to the voting category.

    Thanks to all who entered, and to our newly registered users, we hope you'll stick around!

  • [GoW] Embry Station (final)

    Quote from Minotauro

    Great usage of stock content! I'd try it if I had GOW for PC

    Agreed!

    I only watched the video, but what impressed me the most was how much mileage you got out of that final room. You didn't do anything over the top or too fancy with it, but that was still a nice chunk of varied gameplay in a relatively small space.

    Without having played it I can't say for sure, but it did look like the final room could have benefited from being just a bit bigger; the two berserkers at the end looked like they got hung up on each other a bit and with the first one it looked like he was always kind of stopping around the edge of the skylight, which might have been a bit cramped for hammer of dawn use.

    Still, very nice work. Better get cracking on part 2!

  • "20 Brush" level compo! WIP / discussion thread

    Quote from Leon_Kilean

    Heya, this seems like a interesting idea, aaaand I have an inspiration for something, but just that I have to nitpick and confirm the rules.(with Source engine btw)

    --The way I read the rules is that if I have one displacement face, it counts as a whole brush.

    If I have a cube brush (6 faces), and I make a displacement out of that, all 6 faces, it counts as a single brush, or..?

    Since the facecount of a brush doesnt matter, I take it a 6-faced displacement cube counts as a single brush.

    Welcome, Leon! We actually tally each displacement (or patch, in id tech) as a single brush. This is in large part because it'd be very easy to take a complicated brush and convert 6 (or more!) faces to displacements or patches and go to town with it. If you look back at campaignjunkie's example map with the awesome disco ball, he used 6 of his "brushes" to create it out of a single solid.

    Quote from Leon_Kilean

    --And that, you´ve ruled out displacement terrain, so only for structural use.

    So does something not wholly organic, but not fully strucural, count? Biomechanical.

    I imagine the terrain rule goes for mountains and hayfields.

    I would consider this a valid use. Our big concern is someone sculpting a big level out of terrain and saying "look how few brushes I used!" A biomechanical type theme (Prey immediately comes to mind) sounds like a great theme to try out, as long as it is not created with any sort of heightfield terrain editor (a la UnrealEd's terrain tool).

    Quote from Slamdance Cosmopolis

    Stumbled onto this - I've spent little time lurking MapCore, but the idea of this intrigues me enough to register and try it out. Good excuse to practice my brushwork, in any event.

    And welcome to you, too! I think you may have the best name of anyone on this board.

  • "20 Brush" level compo! WIP / discussion thread

    Warby: We specifically addressed the intersect and de-intersect operations with the rule only allowing convex brushes. No intersecting, no extruding in UE3/UDK, etc. It would absolutely be against the spirit of the challenge to build an entire level, convert it to a single brush, and say "oh look, I have 19 left."

    As for additive/subtractive, I don't consider this against the spirit of the competition or an unfair advantage. This is intended to challenge you with a limited number of resources and encourage creative use of geometry in any technology you choose. If someone decides to build in UT99 or UT2K3/4, subtractive is the only option they even have. The combination of additive and subtractive is just a different way for people to build, and it doesn't inherently mean a better result. If you look at the results of the leveldesign.nl contest, I think the most remarkable entries are still the Quake 3 submissions, even though you can see one from Unreal where overlapping subtractive brushes have been used to create a significantly higher level of detail. I also think of Erratic's two, his stronger was the first that used only additive brushes, vs the number of his brushes that had to be used to create the trims (though the creation of 4 pillars with 1 additive and 2 subtractive brushes is, I think, exactly the kind of creativity this challenge is about). And personally, I don't think a single one of the leveldesign.nl submissions in Unreal had the strength of Campaignjunkie's Source level on page 1 - and he even wasted 6 brushes on a disco ball

    Depending how many Unreal submissions we get vs. quake/source, we can look at splitting the results. But I don't expect the Unreal users to automatically beat out the others, and with the strength of the MapCore talent pool, I don't expect technology to be a limiting option or an unfair advantage.

  • "20 Brush" level compo! WIP / discussion thread

    The brushes he used for subtraction are convex. Just one of the differences between the engines. You can see some similar subtractions in the Unreal entries in the leveldesign.nl contest. It's kosher.

    Edit: here's a rough paintover of the convex brushes likely used to create the trims subtractively (I think I could have picked a better color ). I also assume that the U-shape platform and the 4 pillars were also created subtractively instead of additively (allowing 4 pillars to be created in 3 brushes instead of 4 and the upper U-platform to be created in 2 instead of 3 or more)

    [attachment=0]subtractive.jpg[/attachment]