Posts by KungFuSquirrel

  • [UT3] - Waterfall

    Hey, this might be a little late for this version, but wanted to toss some feedback into the mix...

    Your second shot really stuck out to me; take a look at it a little differently:

    #1:

    Look at this area next to the shot that I linked... It's much weaker by comparison. The mesh underneath has way too little texture resolution, it looks like you scaled it up too far. Try a different mesh or combination of meshes (unfortunately you probably can't use terrain as it's set up right now) or do more to cover that up. Try the "Texture Density" render mode in the editor to get a better visualization of this. The warmer/brighter the color, the higher the resolution. You should try to keep this consistent as much as you can.

    Add some shrubbery like in the shot I posted, some bushes, grass, other smaller rock chunks, etc. You can create something of a "path" with the way you place those which should look a lot more interesting than a big flat open space. The light in this area is kind of a sickly greenish yellow, which is kind of a poor lighting tone. I couldn't tell you off-hand what to replace it with, but I'd play around with it. A good lesson I learned from our design lead back on Q4 was to "lean" on colors rather than oversaturating them - pick the color and tone you want, but keep the slider up near the white range so it's more subtle. The bluish tone off to the right looks far more appropriate for the area.

    #2:

    This shot stopped loading for me, but the good news is it's the one I posted above What works well here is the strong accent lighting that pops out the normals on the rocks and surrounding plants. Texture detail on the ground is good, and the bridge looks great - I would strongly recommend replacing your other bridge pieces in the level with this. There's still some of the sickly light color in the background that I blurred out (is that the same area as in shot 1?). Something you might be able to get away with here is a really faint reddish light over by the walls to make it look like some of the light from the flares is reaching all the way over there... might give some nice normal highlighting and help tie things together... but it'd have to be so subtle to work well that it might not be worth it.

    #3:

    I think the main island in this shot works pretty well, it's much closer to the area in shot #2. I don't know if the sharp rocks are the best fit for it but it's got plants and rocks breaking it up, what looks like good texture resolution, and some nice light highlights. It might benefit from a low brightness fill light covering the whole area a bit, but it's a stronger area of the map.

    I don't like the two pillar things near the center of the image, they seem really out of place compared to the rest of the geometry. I'd recommend replacing them if not deleting them outright. Unless there's more map on the other side of them, I think you should get rid of the little arches near the back of this pic. I think this area will work better if you treat it as a self-contained cavern. The water drop-off on the right side looks weird, too, I'll touch more on this when I mention the waterfall in pic 6.

    The water texture should really be scaled up here, it tiles way too often. this is also really visible in pic 6. 2-4x larger at least, I'd say.

    #4:

    The platform on the right I think is a mismatch for the rest of the map. I'd re-visit this with meshes more consistent with the others. This might also be large enough that you could paint up a terrain base and cover the sides with enough mesh work to hide the texture stretching. The rocks on top here aren't a great fit either.

    Obviously I like the rock platform with the flares, but I also really like the small one near the middle. it's simple, but has a nice look to it.

    On the left side, the rock platform is a little plain but could be easily dressed up to look pretty nice. The biggest thing that sticks out here (and in the last couple shots) is the lighting on the crystals. It's not a perfect color match for the color of the crystals, and it's way too bright. I pointed out a similar issue in AlexG's lighthouse map - a single point light here just wont look good. Try using a bright light with a much smaller radius, then a couple darker lights with larger radii to simulate better falloff and bounce - remember, you don't have HL2's radiosity here

    #5:

    Same point with the crystal light here. It's just too flat.

    Assuming the floor here is terrain, I'd recommend painting in more height variation to create a more "pathy" feel. Paint it up around the sides to blend in better with the rocks, and toss in some smaller rock piles and/or plants to hide the seams where those meshes stick into the ground. At the center of the path, paint down a little to create a less flat floor. I'd put the crystals in tighter clusters and, like the rock seams, mix them with some foliage to blend them in better. The mushroom mesh is cool, but by itself it looks weird. Stick a few of those under some other plants or poking out of some grass and you'll have an interesting accent piece.

    This angle shows the weakness in the platform I mentioned in the previous shot, that flat top is a jarring change that doesn't really match the other stuff.

    #6:

    I'm the biggest grid nazi you'll ever meet, but you need to get way less axial in here. Everything is in really obvious 90 degree angles. Unreal's BSP may be archaic, but it has by far the best angular and off-grid support of any of the major FPS editors (especially with the fact that these rock meshes technically don't have to line up with anything!) A less angular look will really help this feel more organic. This is especially true of the terrain area on the left side.

    The waterfall, as mentioned, isn't quite enough of a landmark. I think part of the problem is how it's placed. I mentioned earlier the idea of creating this area as a self-contained cavern. I think the best way to do this is to remove the sunken area to the upper left, replacing it with either a wall or more playable floor space, and changing how the waterfall enters the area. Right now you have a forced barrier with sharp rocks where it drops off into a big open expanse... why not make the waterfall itself the barrier? I'd get rid of all the little spiky rocks entirely, and instead of having the playable area drop into where the waterfall lands, change the sunken area into a raised area and have the waterfall cascading down a few terraces of rocks into the playable space instead! This will give you a much more natural barrier on this side of the map as well as something more interesting to look at with plenty more opportunity for added fog/splash effects to make it look much more impressive.

    Speaking of fog, I think the area could benefit from a very subtle height fog over the water, but not tall enough to cover the rock platforms. This could tie in great with the waterfall idea I mentioned.

    You've got some bits that show a lot of future potential here, good luck taking it the rest of the way Hope this helps!

  • Dawn of War II beta

    It's PC-exclusive... you don't have to like it (I haven't played it yet myself to comment one way or the other), but there's no justifiable way to blame it on consoles

    To those unsure about Soulstorm: you can get in with a Steam pre-order as well, FYI.

  • Unreal 3: DM-LightHouse_final [PC-PS3]

    The resources are there within UT3 for you to do a lot more, I think with a little time and effort you could really improve on what you have here. It's not bad, but it doesn't stand out as much different than what you could have done with some higher-res textures and models in HL1.

    There's a ton of great tree meshes, some clusters of those will help fill the space. A slightly brighter directional light might help get some light and dark contrast. You may have done this already, but experiment with multiple dim directional lights to mimic the skybox color and add some extra tone (UT3 does this in many levels).

    Try re-working your light fixtures by lowering the radius (and maybe increasing the brightness), and maybe combining them with some spotlights for brighter accents and/or some dim fill lights - without radiosity, you're on your own to get that soft look. Try shrinking some of the textures on the house for a little more detail, maybe even create a duplicate set of terrain layers saved within your map package to get a bit of a higher-resolution terrain texture. Focus on painting more clear walking paths, maybe even using some meshes to line them.

    Getting some deco layers on the terrain will make a huge difference in adding more life to the area and also breaking up some of the harsh edges of the terrain itself. Instead of relying solely on rock painted into the terrain mesh, find some matching rocks and add some 3d definition - they've got some really flexible stuff, some maps they use a single rock mesh at different rotations and scales throughout the whole level and you can't even tell. Single-placed shrubs and bushes on top of a deco layer and clusters of trees like I mentioned before will also help.

    You're on the right track and definitely know the tech... it looks pretty good, I think the challenge for you now is just taking it a step further.

  • [WIP] mp_cc - Chechnyan Crisis [COD4]

    That's a new layout for Radiant? It's been single-grid and z-window as long as I've ever known it, in all versions. I've never known a single person who prefers a 4-window Radiant. Most I know use UnrealEd in similar fashion. Between the ease of ctrl+tabbing, by-default 3D manipulation, and the z-window there's really never been a need to eat up that much screen space showing the same thing at the same time.

    Honestly I wish Hammer was more functional in a single viewport capacity... I had one setup where the left monitor was camera and the right monitor was grid, but I was always having to reposition things and then my second monitor died. :\

  • Mirror's Edge

    Quote from FrieChamp

    I didn't know tunnels could look so amazing!

    That section was absolutely thrilling. Easily the best combat sequence in the entire game, with the underground sewer/sniper stuff they showed at E3 and a later-level parking garage being my runner-up favorites.

    It was sections like that where the combat totally worked and I felt like the biggest badass of badassery ever to be badass.

  • Defining Boundaries: Creating Credible Obstacles In Games

    I agree with you on that last point, Taylor, and I think those are two examples where it's right for the game. Assassin's Creed's (dual possessive!) barriers were totally contrived and game-y, too, but they were consistent. They explained it once, and that's that. Same can sort of be said of a Battlefield/GRAW style "leaving the mission area" setup, which has the perk of not technically stopping anyone, just highly advising that you turn around.

  • Defining Boundaries: Creating Credible Obstacles In Games

    I think the most important thing he touches on is consistency. If you interact with an object a certain way, the expectation is you should always be able to interact with it that way. That goes for barriers as well as any other object. Physics objects shouldn't be static, breakable objects shouldn't be invulnerable, etc.

    If no one expects to go past a barrier they see, and it doesn't look horribly out of place, its job is done

  • Mirror's Edge

    I ended up really enjoying the game, though not without some frustrations. The final combat sequence was infuriating, but only because I was after "Test of Faith" (achievement for not shooting any enemies). Highlights of the game for me are the subway, sewers, and the parking garage battle near the very end. Well done to the Mapcore guys who worked on this one, plus the other guys too

    They have a soundtrack out, but it's just remixed versions of the main Mirror's Edge theme... which is still cool, but anyone know if there'll be a soundtrack released including the actual game's music?

    Edit: also, regarding the sales thing, since it was mentioned earlier - EA apparently is still committed to continuing Mirror's Edge (and Dead Space! my GOTY 2008) despite lower-than-expected sales... Kudos to them for giving both a second chance, I think there's some big-time potential there.

  • Team Fortress 2 and crappy light blobs

    How far off to the side were you building? Doom 3 and Unreal both start to have significant precision errors (texture alignment, grid snapping, and I think sometimes even z-buffering) when you get out to high enough grid numbers, I assume that's probably the same situation here. It's a pretty common issue unfortunately. Stupid math.

    Glad you got it fixed! Now we need some screens of the rest of the map

  • Yet another portfolio redesign thread!

    Very nice looking site, I like.

    And well done on Mirror's Edge! Just finished it over the weekend... had a few nitpicks over the gameplay here and there but still really enjoyed it and I loved the visuals. The stormdrain level was one of my favorite areas in the game visually Tell your co-workers to hurry up and get the editor hooked up for the PC version!

  • activate x-ray engine with stalker:cs???

    http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56582

    Quote

    Some of those that recently bought GSC Game World's S.TA.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and Egosoft's X3: Terran Conflict were temporarily unable to activate and play those games, due to reportedly resolved problems with the TAGES-run authentication servers....

    Upon attempting to run either game, first-time players were told that they needed to activate their copy with a serial number. Some attempts were met with a network timeout error, while others, such as Shacker Stucky_101, report they that had no problems.

    The issues began cropping up en masse between December 26 and 31, going by two separate threads on the Steam forums. The problem also spawned a lengthy thread over at the offical X3: Terran Conflict forums.

    The problem was reportedly resolved as of this morning, as both Shacknews and many posters in the Steam thread were able to successfully activate S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Quote from Skjalg

    Any chance you can share those textures? I think they would work well with PhilipK's textures <3

    Those are stock Quake 4 textures.

    They look like the old (almost 4-5 years now!) Hub textures to me, which poses a fun challenge. The textures are interesting and have nice shapes, but the normals get muddled by the diffuses and speculars and are so flat in color (you can see this in a few sets where the same normals are used for multiple textures - in the older variations they come off as very flat, while in the newer and better texture sets they pop much more cleanly as the artists had a better grasp on the tech). A few of the Hub textures got a second pass, but there was no time to do the full set, so you'll notice a BIG difference between the textures that were heavily leaned on in the game (much crisper diffuse, better specular, and higher contrast) and the rest of the set that was de-emphasized in the levels.

    I think you'd be better off using either those newer textures or the core textures, which use many of the same normals as the Hub set, just to help things pop out a little more.

  • platformer games

    Assuming you have a PS2/PS3, go for Jak and Daxter (made by the original creators of Crash Bandicoot, Naughty Dog) and Ratchet and Clank. There's a trilogy of each on the PS2 plus a sort of "spin-off" game (Jak X: Combat Racing and Ratchet: Deadlocked, which is more closely related to the normal Ratchet games than Jak X to the Jak series). There's also a new Ratchet on the PS3 plus a downloadable expansion/mini-episode.

    Sly Cooper was the third of Sony's "Big 3" platformers on the PS2, it's a little more kid-friendly than Jak and Ratchet, but still a solid series from what I've played.

    Beyond Good and Evil remains one of my favorite games of all time, and is worth it on any platform (though PS2 is the weakest, Xbox looks the best and I'd give GC the nod for best controls) - it's a little more action/adventure than straight platforming, but still has those elements plus a really great art style.