Posts by KungFuSquirrel

It should be noted, as great as this is (it is absolutely fantastic for that team as well as the Austin development community, which has had its ass kicked the last few years), that this only helps about 30 of Vigil's employees (possibly about 200 total? I don't remember the full tally). Definitely keep an eye out for more ex-Vigil talent to snap up if you can

Quote from Vilham

Wat?! Please tell me you at least played the following even if you didn't own them.

Uncharted 1-3

Valykiria Chronicles

Ratchet and clank 4-6

Killzone 2

LBP 1-2

Resistance 2

Infamous 1-2

etc

Display More

(Starhawk )

Quote from Habboi

hey dudes, I don't post here often but I do sometimes check out the WIP thread to see the hot talent. I'm nearing the end of my partnership with Smokerscough aka Rock 24 creator. It's a DE map called de_cistern for CSGO and it's set in a water facility. I've spent I think 5 months on it or more though it wasn't 24/7 so I'm really just guessing. Either way it's been a long project and I'm glad to see the end of it. I implemented caustics, moving foliage, flow maps and I attempted an experiment to make cloud shadows cast across the map however it proved negative though I've written up my findings and will post them along with the release of the map. I have to wait till my partner comes back from his Christmas away from the PC.

Hey, that looks great! It looks like you're pretty far along already, but be sure to check out the thread for the MapCore CSGO server if you need a hand with testing:

Also, be sure to drop the finished version in the Finished Work section when you're done and I can add it to the list of threads getting Twitter promotion.

That's pretty great! How do you go about laying that out/editing it?

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/soldier/sq…tats/343771355/

I picked up the Premium PC edition on sale the other day to jump into the MP, since I never got far in the campaign on my 360 copy (it's kind of a letdown after Bad Company's campaigns, or what I played of them at least). Add me if you feel like throwing down sometime!

I'm raving about this to everyone tonight, so you guys get to hear about it, too!

Clairvoyance is a fun little asynchronous turn-based strategy game with robots, lasers, and explosions. $5 for PC/Mac/Linux with mobile versions in the future.

Adam Saltsman (Canabalt guy) made a great video demonstrating it, which led me to buy it almost instantly:

I'll definitely second the "take a break" sentiment, especially with the holidays coming up. A little space can always be good for ideas to breathe.

For me personally, a lot of the frankenmap situations come about when I've been making a lot of revisions to a level over time and there starts to be a big mix of new vs. old - the style and idea is going to evolve over time and leave some of the older sections behind, but if you identify with those sections, it's hard to step back and really objectively look at if they're helping or hurting you.

Roundhouse may not look like much but I've been staring at that instance setup off and on for a couple years. One of the most important changes I made before the first playable version was taking a chunk of the roundhouse endcap that had been there for months, and just straight up deleting it. Once I got rid of that, I figured out exactly what I needed to do with that space and was able to get the map sealed up again for the first playtest. It had been there so long that I just assumed it was one of the untouchable sections of the layout, when in actuality it was holding me back. Maybe it's worth taking that sort of evaluation of the level? I'm not going to suggest gutting the whole thing and rebuilding it, but maybe find something that you're not happy with, or even something you've been really latched onto for a while, and just see what it looks like when it's not there. It might spark something, and if not - ctrl+z!

There's a lot of really great work in here that'd be a shame to see go to waste, but at the same time I'd hate to see you suffer through finishing up something you're not entirely happy with. Hope you can figure something out to get things rolling again!

Love it. I like to think this (and parts of FMPONE's Veil remake) are what I'd want to do with Eclipse if I built it today. I'm interested to see what you do with the layout; Hera is a weird map in that I remember so many distinct changes to the layout that I remember its visuals and landmarks more than the actual flow, but that should give you some good leeway to make the changes you need for NS2.

Can't wait to see more!

Gray Matter's game Trinity was one of my most highly anticipated at the time (keep in mind this is from about 2000):

JP: Thanks! Glad to see your love of curves outweighs your distaste of flat levels I tried the train halfway in the garage a while back and deleted it for some reason... I think it's the right call; it'd help the ground cover without having to slap in more of those angled metal plates from Hydro, and might also help engineers on the roof place more valuable turrets to defend the point (I'm also considering popping open one of the upper windows to allow direct roof --> sniper ledge access and vice versa)

Mazy: Thanks for joining the game! I need to adjust that open container and the pole; that'll be in the next version. I'm also already working on some reductions to the roundhouse interiors, like the big giant 180 staircase near the back entrance. Hopefully some more action will fill in there on the next playtest.

I'll keep cranking on updates this week; hopefully I can have an update next weekend!

Come play now-ish! 173.234.253.21:28015

Edit: done for now, next sessions will probably be next weekend with a new update

3Dnj: Those rails have annoyed the hell out of me; I had meant to func_illusionary them but those don't work when rotated in instances (they maintain their original rotation). I forgot about the ol' func_brush, though, and I'm going to try that to make them nonsolid. Will check that next compile.

Ravage, that's an idea I've considered before to get some more elevation. I wasn't sure if I was going to try it or not, but given that I randomly woke up at 4:30 this morning and had some spare time, I decided to take a crack at it. I think it might work! I'll run around it a bit next compile and see if it makes the cut for the next update.

I'm planning on running another playtest today at 1pm CST (-6 GMT) on the same server before I get too far on the next version. I'll post here as well as Twitter/FBfor those of you who have me there when that gets rolling.

Got my friends in the Studio Rumble to hook it up, tf2.studiorumble.com / 173.234.253.21:28015 - I'm jumping on now, if anyone wants to join.

Edit: Done for now, thanks to the guys who joined. I'll do a less impromptu session later.

Hey guys,

Some of you have seen me working on this off and on for a while, and I've finally gotten off my ass and put together the first playable alpha: http://www.button-masher.net/download/level…undhouse_a1.zip

I'm hoping to get some games together this weekend, but feel free to also play it on your own - just send me any notes you have! Also, if anyone wants to host a game, let me know - I know we have a CS:GO server, but I can't remember if anyone runs a TF2 one as well.

Here's what the current build looks like:

Roundhouse is a bit of an interesting beast, and admittedly more of a technical geometry experiment than anything else (though I certainly intend for it to play well). The entire level is created out of axially-constructed instances that have been chopped (yes, the dreaded carve tool, put to good use!) along the edges. This allows me to build a nice, clean, on-the-grid level while still having a clean "curve" with no floating point errors. Here's how it works:

Admittedly, the level is more detailed than it should be for being only just playable now, but part of the trial-and-error process of getting these instanced wedges to work properly required taking things a bit further to get a sense of how

It is also a very flat layout, mostly by nature of it being a roundhouse (sorry, JeanPaul! you'll like my next one if I get around to it), but I've been working on getting some elevation into the interiors and spawn areas so it's not too flat.

Some known issues right now:

• The back door clips up through the roof. I'm an idiot and forgot I copied a non-animated door for that one. Oops.
• The area behind the short side of the roundhouse is too empty, and that dump truck won't cut it. I'm playing around with a few options for more structure, but I'll have to be careful around the secondary spawn exit.
• For some strange reason, you can build on part of the low roof, but not all of it. Some segments work, and some don't. Probably some weirdness with the rotated slope vs. the collision check in the engineer placement code. One possible option is adding some little flat ledges a la the little planks that roofers put out, and limiting roof-building to those locations. Another is not letting engineers jump up there.
• There's some ugly displacement blends on the ground. The gravel/concrete blend is incredible valuable for hiding the texture seams and repetition rotated around the center of the layout, but I've taken it as far as the proof of concept and no further.
• I'm not happy with the big stairwell extending out behind the back entrance. Feels like it takes up too much X/Y space and makes an awkward extension from the building. If you have any ideas how to streamline this, let me know!

Enjoy! I'm looking forward to finishing this one off.

Edit: I should also add that I picked up this technique during my time at Gearbox from the illustrious Joe Swinbank - after making some neat circular stuff in UE3, I decided it'd be fun to see if the same concept worked in Source. It does!

Hey kikette, killer stuff! since you've posted so many textures here, I'll ask the same thing I asked the guys in the WIP level thread - would you be up to starting a dedicated thread for your texture work? I'd love to highlight it on the Twitter feed, but it's a little easier to point to a specific thread than random posts in a big WIP thread.

Totally up to you, though. Love the textures!

You should have seen when I built a version of that tram bridge room and the circular doorway in Hammer. Hoo boy. Floating point precision absolutely murdered me.

I love seeing some of these areas from the early concept art, especially the lava falls. Fantastic work, sir, and congrats on release!

Welcome, sir! Still love those trees.

I almost forgot about the Comm base, too - that was a fun one.

Ah, an Acid Sea fan, I see. That was a fun environment. I love how Narrows and Origin turned out, myself.

Thanks, guys!

Thanks guys. Checking out some local leads now, and we'll see if I can find something quick.

Here's a few portfolios of some other guys affected, really great talent:

http://randyforsyth.blogspot.com/ - 3D Character Artist, did almost every character in Starhawk.

http://chrismsmith1975.blogspot.com/ - 3D Hard Surface/Vehicle Artist - modeled and textured all the vehicles in Starhawk

http://ryangitter.carbonmade.com/ - Concept/Production artist

Hey guys, finally have a chance to show a bit of my work for Starhawk!

I worked on a few campaign missions, but most of my work was on the multiplayer component - I designed all seventeen competitive multiplayer levels for Starhawk. That's ten we shipped at retail and seven in free map packs we released this summer. Since there's so many things to show, I'll just give you one shot per level.

Starhawk Retail

All ten of these maps shipped with the game at launch and supported 4 modes - CTF, Zones (a territory control mode), TDM, and Dogfight.

Conduit:

Orbital:

Basin:

Narrows:

Cove:

Outlands:

Apogee:

Lost Canyon:

Hollow:

Fracture:

Starhawk Map Packs

These maps were released in the 1.03 and 1.04 patch updates this summer. Origin and Collider introduced a new theme, the swamps of the planet Cypress. Relay, Glade, and Junction were small maps for smaller games and made with the new Deathmatch mode in 1.04 (though they also support CTF, Zones, and TDM). Flotilla and Breaker are flight-only and exclusive to Dogfight and Gatekeeper modes.

Origin:

Collider:

Relay:

Glade:

Junction:

Flotilla:

Breaker:

For more information about these maps, you can check my portfolio:

Retail Maps: http://www.button-masher.net/content.php?c=90

DLC Maps: http://www.button-masher.net/content.php?c=91