Posts by Campaignjunkie

Ethan showering is the one of best parts of the game -- or at least this is how I think the game is working with the typical hardcore gamer heterosexual 18-30 male who would own a PS3 and think to purchase this game:

Are you feeling so uneasy at watching another dude shower? Are you afraid it makes you gay, that someone will walk in on you playing and think of you "in the worst way possible?" Just keep chanting "no homo" while playing it. Then everything will be okay.

But wouldn't you expect a guy to shower at the start of the day? A lot of men shower every day -- does that fact make you uncomfortable? It's completely logical and reasonable in the sense of the narrative, that it is just another normal day.

It's the male gaze vs. the female gaze. It's mandatory because you wouldn't have made him shower otherwise.

We accept gameplay of any type. Of course, I encourage people to try something newer than the average Combine soldier slaughter, but whatever you want to do is fine. The mix of experimental and conventional stuff will offer a nice cross-section of the current HL2 mod community.

Yeah, pretty much anything you want. Like here's what mine looks like --

Yes yes yes, we need HL1 members too! Check your PMs in a bit, Squad.

Hospital hub map for PQL4 mod ( viewtopic.php?f=22&t=15034 )

[Blocked Image: http://www.radiator.debacle.us/temp/pql4_intro0005.jpg]

Hurray. That's exactly the idea -- finish that thing you otherwise wouldn't have finished!

Hey. So if you used to follow the HL1 mod scene you might recall "Project Quantum Leap" that took levels from 20 different authors to make a crazy unpredictable single player experience -- it's where Adam Foster's Someplace Else was originally released, among other awesome levels. I signed on for PQL2, "Issues," which added a plot about going through dimensions to find a missing scientist. For PQL3, "Reissues," we added a hub level component and some really cool HL1 set pieces, but Spirit of Half-Life bugs really marred our release... Anyway, my point is, this has been a really great community thing and I have experience in participating in it, which is why I'm reviving the concept for a possible PQL4 as a mod for Half-Life 2: Episode 2.

The mod: every designer makes a short HL2 level. We combine all these levels into a crazy brilliant haphazard mod. (We also have an HL1 fork going that has some really amazing talent on-board, so if you're in the mood you should PM me for that too.)

Have an old portfolio piece map that you never finished? A "style test" that you've neglected for the past year? Well dust it off, make it playable and RELEASE IT WITH US.

This is really good in case you want to do something short and single player but don't have the time for a "full" single player release: by combining all our short levels, we emerge with something substantial and interesting.

If you're looking for a job, this will look great because make no mistake: We will release SOMETHING and people will PLAY IT. That is the only promise I will make to you but it is the most important promise a mod can make. I am currently projecting an August / September release date, though hopefully it'll be earlier. I will be ecstatic if we have 4-5 contributors total, though ideally we'll have 12-16.

>>> If you're interested, PM me and I'll send you a link / password to the Chatbear board we're using to coordinate. We will share ideas and playtest each others maps, offering feedback and critiques. It's a beautiful process.

Specs for maps:

- No beginner level designers, sorry. There's basic quality control in-place; your maps have to look technically competent. (Anyone remembers the awful THERBCO maps in PQL1? Well, call this the Therbco Rule.)

- HL2: Episode 2 single player.

- Aim for 5-10 minutes of play. Nothing super epic; keep it doable for yourself. Polish those 10 minutes. No, seriously, KEEP IT SHORT. For your sanity and the player's.

- It can be as experimental or conventional as you want.

- Only 1 BSP per author.

- No weapon / health carry-over from map to map. Every map starts with no weapons and no suit. All env_global variables are reset. Spawn them at the map start if you want the player to have them.

- Custom text / strings / in-game text allowed and encouraged, will be integrated properly for final release

- Custom textures, models and sounds allowed if they're packaged properly to be easily integrated into the mod.

- Custom per-map weapons are NOT possible.

- Custom per-map NPC model replacements ARE possible. Overriding the "model" keyvalue on the NPC will usually do the trick.

- No custom code. We are using the HL2 Ep2 code base.

===

General concept / plan for the intro map:

You wake up in a hospital bed with all these people looking at you. "Wait, come over here! Her eyes are open!" You can only turn about 2-3 degrees in any direction; you're firmly bed-ridden and you can barely move.

"Say something, honey! Please!" But of course you can't. "She probably can't even hear us."

"But it makes you wonder -- I mean, I know she's looking at us, but what does she see?"

Everyone walks out of the room. Then a tool tip -- "E: Get up." You get up and leave the room. In the empty hospital corridor, there's 16 doors. They're all marked "Exit." When you enter one, you go to a randomly selected level. In this sense, it's a kind of pseudo-hub.

Every time you return from a level, you wake up in the bed in the empty hospital room, get up, and return to the corridor. Now that previous door is blocked off with bricks and the exit sign is off. So you choose another... And so on and so on...

Then you return from the last level.

Everyone is looking at you in the bed and it's a repeat of the intro -- except when whoever ends with, "... but what does she see?" it goes through a super-fast slideshow montage of all the levels you just played, in the order you played them -- and then you flat-line and die. Fade to black. End.

Quote from KungFuSquirrel

God I feel old. CJ, weren't you, like... 11 at the time?

I think I was 14. But still... ha, I had no idea what I was doing. (And maybe to some extent I still don't!) I was just happy to be in this team setting that was really supportive and nurturing. Seeing Ken's RMFs made me scream, they taught me so much about brushwork and how to build stuff, and I feel like I'm forever indebted to you for the opportunity and trust.

(When's that NW post-mortem coming out, by the way? Because here's what I think went wrong -- we should've cut half the game, polished it, and released it. But hindsight's 20/20.)

***

Anyway! Here's a write-up of what happened when I went to Valve's gigantic Steam-plex citadel at GDC -- http://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/201 ... art-2.html

It's basically just me gushing over Robin Walker for a few pages, but I hope it's still somewhat interesting to read for people. I was definitely star-struck. I hope that didn't make for a bad impression.

***

And okay: Crytek is a lovely place with lovely people so don't listen to my slander!

Furyo, I'm curious though -- what do you do then generally, as a senior level designer at Crytek, if you haven't even opened the editor? Do you just write stuff in Word and Excel and hold meetings?

I talked to HR people / non-designers at other booths... but they were polite, at least.

I mean, I understand why the Crytek guy was irritated with me -- he was probably tired after the past few days, probably had better things to do, and I clearly wasn't prepared and didn't know enough -- and yes, he was totally within his right to be kinda hostile because I was wasting his time, and I understand he doesn't represent the whole company, etc...

I'm sure he's a good guy and loves Jesus and everything, but he still made me feel pretty shitty, justified or no. I'm not seeking sympathy or an explanation, I'm just putting out my experience so people can be prepared in case that happens when they talk to some other studio, because I was really caught off-guard by his attitude.

Well, I'm talking about single player contexts. I know and respect multiplayer level design, but single player just seems a lot more compelling to me, so that's what I choose to specialize in.

Err, traditional level design: so basically "normal" stuff involving shooting at NPCs, picking up health, watching stuff explode, etc.

Experimental: Dear Esther, Korsakovia, my stuff, things that deliberately confuse or fuck with the player, mods that don't involve shooting at people, etc. -- from what I can gather, it shows that you're forward thinking enough to make your own style of gameplay rather than replicate / refine someone else's, which is valuable in its own right but also implies limitations to your ability to think and conceive

"So I should make some pretentious artsy indie game stuff?" -- Absolutely. I encourage everyone to do it.

Ha, I'm doing a write-up on what Robin Walker said for my blog, I'll link to it when it's done, it was really humbling though -- it's like he sat down and started playing it and then had all these stunning insights after 5 minutes and I was like I LOVE THIS MAN

I got back from GDC! Here's what happened --

Obsidian: "Looks good, we'll look at it some more"

Insomniac: "Looks interesting, we might look at it some more"

Crytek: "What are you, stupid? Make a Crysis mod. We don't care about this stuff."

Bethesda: "Uhh, where's the video? What are you, stupid?"

Valve: "Looks really cool, but you need some traditional stuff to balance it out" + a lot more advice and feedback, I love Robin Walker

***

So, takeaways for my fellow amateur level designers here, trying to break in:

- Crytek and Bethesda want open world stuff, preferably as mods for their own games. (Duh.)

- Just as screenshots are a no-brainer, videos and flythoughs are really important too. (I guess I should've heeded the advice in this thread, huh?)

- If you go to a career fair like GDC, bring your laptop. My best sessions came from them being able to play my mod right then and there. Bring a mouse and (ideally) headphones as well.

- If you have all traditional, that's boring. If you have all experimental, they won't know how to use you. Have a balance of both.

I think the biggest issue I see is the boxyness: it looks like you started with some basic rectangular rooms, then just retextured the surfaces and put props on top. Modify the BSP structure more, put in some angles, stagger the room height, etc.

The details don't feel integrated. Don't just put pipes and vents everywhere -- where do those pipes and vents go? What purpose do these rooms serve?

http://www.portfolio.debacle.us/

I feel kind of weird about it because I have to target two audiences: game industry AND some art school MFA programs I applied to. In hindsight, I probably should've just made two separate portfolios instead of trying to balance explaining what a "mod" is vs. using design terminology comfortably.

What I want to know is, if pretty screenshots don't demonstrate a real understanding of level design (since level designers don't even touch the art, supposedly?) then what does? Should I draw a bunch of diagrams? Write an analysis? Or what?

Whoa whoa whoa. Ditch the ambient_generics.

Instead, use a dummy NPC in some far-off room talking through an env_microphone that goes directly to the player. You'll have to plug all the audio files into Faceposer to make all the scenes, but it'll be worth it for the benefits: That way, when the player pauses (or saves) during a voice over, the sound will pause instead of continue playing / stop abruptly. Captions will also work better that way -- that's how the GladOS and Breen voice overs work. (Though the GladOS thing didn't use an env_microphone, still the same concept)

With captions, yeah, it refers to the sound script entry. BUT remember to compile the closecaption_english.txt into a closecaption_english.dat file, or else it won't appear properly... I just keep a "captioncompile.cmd" file in \resources\ with the following commands:

"%sourcesdk%\bin\orangebox\bin\captioncompiler.exe" %1


pause

... and then just drag and drop your closecaption_english.txt onto it to compile.

EDIT: oh, and I had to strain to hear the voice over too... I suggest normalizing all of the dialog in Audacity or something, and make sure it's in the \vo\ folder so the soundmixer will adjust the volume properly (see soundmixer.txt file in \resources\, which modifies the volume of a sound based on its filename / folder, used with specific soundscapes so that Valve could emphasize the dialog above everything else at certain points)

Am I mistaken, or didn't Q3 go open-source? Could you do some standalone version in the future? You'll certainly get a lot more interest that way... though I'm sure you're aware or you probably would've done it already.

Oh... whoa. That's crazy.

It's an ill-timed publicity stunt -- ill-timed because the thing going on with Portal is a whole magnitude more interesting.

Use Propper to convert your brushes into props... haven't used it personally, but it seems pretty straightforward to me.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Propper

Quote from Skjalg

It would take you about a days work with any programmer tool to make that job take you 5 minutes.

I should've been more clear -- it's a non-digital game design class in the theater department. We play outside.

But anyway, how would you automate stuff like grading a paper? Keeping track of the topics they bring up in discussion? It's really not as easy or intuitive as you'd think. Classroom administration should be the least of any instructor's worries -- though if you're just using canned lesson plans from a textbook, I guess there's no harm. It's like getting a gold star sticker in kindergarten or preschool.

I taught a game design class and tried using an achievement-style system for grading / attendance... it failed because that meant I had to keep track of said achievements and it was a total pain the ass. I mean, it sounds great in theory, but without a computer (or an underpaid aide) to track and log everything for you in the real world, then it's really not worth the relatively meager gains.