Posts by KungFuSquirrel

  • OnLive

    I'm skeptical of them having the coverage and server density to support a large customer base. Even a single game release or update can drop Steam, a high-volume platform that's been going for years, and there's no continuous download by the time the game is launched and game servers for MP tend to be third-party.

    ISPs are doing all sorts of bandwidth quota-ing and usage charges, I suspect not because they can't handle the loads but because they see the future in digital distribution and want their own cut. They must love this.

    I suspect publishers like it because it removes piracy and re-sale from the equation, and also leaves them in control of the game, not the consumer. Developers would get a boost from only having to develop for a single platform and hardware spec, however.

    This becoming the standard delivery platform would likely kill all user customization as we know it.

    It's a cool piece of technology, and if something like this works this soon on the current infrastructure I'll be very impressed... But I'm not sure I like this direction overall.

    edit: Wow, I'm really bumbling around on this one, haha. I'm really back-and-forth on it though. For all the questions and concerns, the system is working impressively well, but just doesn't sound ready to be the new face of the game industry... yet.

  • TF2 cp_rockdown

    I'll third that, this looks great.

    I have two nitpicks, the light shafts coming off the wide lights, and the double spotlights against the walls. In the case of the light shafts, the color isn't a great match and seeing two overlapping right next to each other is kinda weird when the light spans the entire space.

    The same applies with the spotlights over the walls on the computer; it sticks out (to me, at least) as a mis-match from the light fixture. Something you might try (if you haven't already) is using a single wider-angle light, then rotating it to point more towards the wall. And if you have done that, I think I'd take it a little further, maybe move the light away from the wall a bit too. That would help flatten out and raise the point where the light starts, but with the wider cone it shouldn't noticeably affect the lighting on the computers or the floor underneath.

  • Unreal Engine 3 updates

    Yeah, stuff like that is just for basic shells or converted to static mesh as a placeholder for a final modeled version. If the BSP walls stay, all the seams get covered with meshes. If you stick with power of two subdivisions on the cylinders, you'll get subdivisions that perfectly line up with the rotational snaps in the editor... awesome for radial sexytime.

    Which reminds me, two more amazing bonus points for unreal - manual (temporary) pivot placement, plus the local grid. So easy to build cleanly at any angle.

  • Unreal Engine 3 updates

    I do; I find it easier to drop a precisely measured cylinder from a builder than to create one by extrusion or vertex/edge manipulation, and for radial stuff it's cleaner to leave the off-grid verts so other cylindrical pieces or rotated meshes can line up properly.

  • Wolfenstein

    Endrant, as I understand it. Which I believe was founded by ex-SD guys.

    Previously Nerve was announced as helming the MP, but they got pulled for ETQW console ports. Threewave came after that, but went I don't know where.

  • Unreal Engine 3 updates

    Quote from Minotauro

    Dice had to modify the lighting engine heavily to achieve that look though...

    Anyone with an Unreal license can license the middleware they used. And I would assume that the new Lightmass tool mentioned in your original post is a first-party equivalent.

    Quote from Minotauro

    Source is a dated engine indeed but it holds up pretty well imo. My biggest problem with it are the tools. Goddamnit we are in 2009 and people still have to use DOS programs to compile their models and stuff :S

    I can't believe some of the tools in Source even still exist. Another big nod for Unreal here with in-editor importing and the package system.

  • Unreal Engine 3 updates

    Quote from Hourences

    Unreal BSP system is like 5 times faster than Source BSP system.

    I'll agree with everything you said except for this.

    Unreal is by far the superior editor out of the batch when looking at the "traditional" Radiant/Hammer/Unreal trifecta (and I'm saying this as a life-long Hammer/Radiant user), but its BSP construction is archaic by comparison (which, considering the age of Hammer and Radiant's interfaces, is depressing).

    The ironic thing is Unreal's BSP tools are by far the most powerful - extrusion, concave shapes, clean intersection/de-intersection, additive/subtractive... No other editors have that strong a geometry creation tool. But factor in still having to rebuild geometry to even preview what you're doing, switching of tools and modes in a clunky interface (the geometry mode windows are just awful), poor/slow texturing, the decreased emphasis on BSP in the engine, and its awful in-game performance, and it's all wasted.

    I've done some crazy things in Unreal BSP I'd never be able to do in Hammer or Radiant (even with patches), like mocking up radially-snapping circular static mesh templates, but it was such a chore I'd have been better off doing it in another program. Now, if someone ever takes Radiant's speed of construction - you can't get much faster measured brush creation than a single drag on the grid - and merges that with the power of Unreal's BSP tools, we'll have a glorious tool indeed.

  • Scene from a Movie - Minotaur0

    Quote from Minotauro

    I decided to take a dramatic decision and go with unique textures for the main building. I also added my own twist to it. I still need to do normals and speculars but I´ll leave that for later.

    Looks like the right call! Looking forward to seeing this version lit up in the engine.

  • SFAM - Arhurt

    Quote from arhurt

    lol thanks that umm... fixed it Yeah I'm that new to things.. .and sleep deprived

    It's a surprisingly common error with all of the filter types in unreal. I've done it way more times than I care to admit, whether models, volumes, terrain, etc. At least the bigger and farther along your map gets, the more obvious it'll be at a glance

  • [UT3] - DM Fort (working name)

    I'll second what the other guys have said. The lighting is just way too flat right now and the geometry is way too blocky.

    Much like with Waterfall, I think one of the shots has a little glimmer of what the finished product should look like - and that's shot #6 with the light globes in the trees. I think you're on to something with that, and those are worth continuing (sparingly, of course ) in the final light pass. I was just playing around with some of the asian themed props myself recently; try out some of the torches, or maybe the more of that urn mesh with a couple flame emitters for pockets of light (which I see you've done once already) around the area. I think this would be a good candidate for a sort of sunset/dusk theme with the light globes and other little accent lights filling in the level.

    The big arched walkway looks out of place with a flat piece of ground underneath. Think about some sort of sunken geometry to go under that, with the walkway connecting at both ends. If you don't want to interrupt player movement in the space around it, maybe try something that's shallow enough on the sides to jump in and out of or that you can connect with some stairs, and then you can have it ramp down under the walkway.

    I think the lights on the stairs are way overdone... If you can, strip some of those out. If they're attached to the mesh, see if you can find a better one without the lights connected.

    Even if it's only temporary, don't wall yourself in (ha!) with the outer wall. A 360 degree wall is just going to make the map feel years older, and if you build with it from the start it'll be that much easier to leave it there. Start thinking about where gaps and/or elevation changes can break up the view in the distance and complement the silhouettes of your own level. In the shot with the trees and light globes, the back wall just muddles up the whole silhouette. Imagine that looking out over some water, or a valley, or whatever else you can think of, and maybe adding a more identifiable mesh to that platform... the gong or something kinda like that to draw attention out there

    If you haven't already, check out CTF-Reflection for some really cool ideas on how to use the theme. They do some things in there that I'd have never thought of just by looking at the props individually (mainly the stone walkway pieces intersected with the wood slats you're using in a few places already), and there's a great vista surrounding the level that I think could apply to what you're doing here as well.

    Hope that's helpful!

  • SFAM - Arhurt

    You only need to worry about separate lightmap UVs if you're tiling anything on the texture, or if you're not getting the desired results from the normal texture UV (lighting seams, density issues, etc).

    Also, don't forget you can set a default lightmap resolution scale in the static mesh properties - it's helpful to do this rather than manually setting via the overridden resolution property on each mesh, though you'll still have to uncheck the override lightmap resolution flag.

  • Killzone 2

    Oh, I see, the "aim" part threw me off (apparently same for HP). So you're saying you don't like right stick click zooming, and prefer left trigger/button held zoom? I can agree with that, though that's sort of 50/50 as to what games end up doing. Hell, some use both - left trigger to aim, right stick to zoom within that aiming.

    The Sixaxis/Dualshock 3 is an even weirder shooter controller for me than the PS2 controller with those odd little half-triggers on the bottom... I'm not actually sure whether I'd rather have games use the top bumpers or the bottom "triggers" for things like shooting, aiming.