Posts by Hourences

  • looking for the creative spark

    A lot of people are mentally tired when they get home from their daytime job, and thus may find it harder to get work done in such state, you might be in a similar condition. Try to pause work on your level until like a saturday or sunday, and then start on it in the morning when youre still fresh and normally it should go a lot better and the ideas should flow out easily.

    The longer you do level design the easier it will go. Long ago I too had issues working on something if I already worked on it for like 8 hours and I often lost my concentration and imagination after a few hours of work but the longer Im doing this the easier it gets. These days I never get mentally tired anymore, I never loose imagination and I can easily work on a number of completely different levels for hours non stop.

    Im currently working for 3 commercial projects at the same time plus a personal level and other smaller personal projects. I often design levels for 14 hours or more a day, 7 days a week and I dont notice any sort of fatigue or slowdown anymore. It comes by time.

    My inspiritation comes from what I want. I almost never start with an idea but rather with a need. I make a pineforest level because for example it might be easy to do or fit the theme. I dont start a pineforest because I want to make a pineforest, no I start it because I only have 2 weeks time or because I want a scary level. Big difference in working order.

    The actual thing is kind of irrelevant to me, anything can be cool if you execute it well but the problem is, will you be able to? That potential is most important for me, what can I do best with the given things?

    A good first design will prevent you from getting stuck on an empty bsp layout or even just a paper sketch. Design in function of. Design something that you know you can do, you know you have experience with, you have a clear idea of how it will look, you have plenty of references of you can look back at and so on. Dont start on anything if you dont have those things or you might get stuck even more and getting stuck can be incredibly demotivating. Avalanche effect.

  • The Hows And Whys of Level Design - Released!

    Quote from channie

    Ordered on Dec 11, sent on Dec 14, and still nothing...I suspect the postman in this case.I should have bought the pdf :/

    That sucks but I cant help you directly since lulu handles the delivery. Contact them and ask whats up.

    In most western countries the delivery is done through a package delivery firm like dhl/feddex/ups/etc. It could be that they just couldnt find your house and returned the sending.

    If the delivery address was in the USA and possibly Canada too you should have gotten a tracking code so you can check where the hell it is.

  • The Hows And Whys of Level Design - Released!

    zeOx, if it comforts you, the print would be sent from spain and thus it would be an inter european delivery which is normally not subject to any extra taxes.

    Although Im unsure about the situation with norway since its not a EU country.

    Glad to hear IO got one

    Very happy to hear that it is also received well by experienced people Cirian!

  • Source Art 02 - Silent Graveyard

    They are both nice but they are also very similar, Id make something different non house-with-road like for the next one.

    Im not very impressed by the cloud like overlay patern though, looks kind of cheap and blurry. Sharper is nicer than blurry imo, could add things like noise to it, like its a grainy photo. Usually works quite well with old and decayed environments.

  • mapping for ut2004

    http://www.planetunreal.com/architectonic

    There are 3d buzz editor videos at their site

    wiki.beyondunreal.com

    -No need for modelling skills to make basic levels but you wont be able to stand out of the crowd without. UT relies more on meshes than for example source. All rocks and canyons are always made of meshes as are a lot of walls, pillars and so on.

    -There is a very extensive library of existing meshes you can use if you cant make your own

    -The bsp is different since its substractive and since you dont need 6 brushes just to make a room, one brush will do. Lots of other things are very similar including lightmapping on brushes, vertex light on meshes and so on.

    The tools itself are quite different to source, but the actual levels and the way they are build share similarities.

  • German minister wants to imprison gamers??

    You should all move west to the netherlands, anythings possible there

    Some politicans are retarded, why do people always try to fix complex issues with simple solutions...Im just waiting for the first politican who will argument that hitler started ww2 because he had a computer game in his office and thus computer games are bad!!!!111

  • The Hows And Whys of Level Design - Released!

    I've released my book on level design "The Hows and Whys of Level Design" !

    The newspost can be found on http://phalanx.planetunreal.gamespy.com/

    Ordering can be done at http://www.lulu.com/hourences

    More info can be found on my site http://book.hourences.com/

    About the book:

    The book covers both the visual and artistic side as well as the gameplay aspect of level design. Don’t expect any technical how-to tutorials in this book, this book is about the "why". Rather than writing yet another tutorial/book about how to create a virtual room this book is about how to make that room look cool and play well. Expect tips and techniques as well as explanations of the logic and reasoning behind art and design decisions. How does the gameplay in a level work? What’s the reason this kind of architecture gives this kind of feeling or looks better in situation A or B? Why does this color combination work so well? What kind of floorplan can I best use to improve gameplay and why? What type of sound setup should I use?

    The book is well illustrated and offers many examples with pictures, nearly 120 to be exact. The book is intended to be universal. Most of the information can be applied to a wide range of games and different genres, gametypes, themes etc.

    [Blocked Image: http://phalanx.planetunreal.gamespy.com/tempnewspics/bookprint3.jpg]

    I've spend a year of my life writing this thing, I hope it was worth it

  • DOM Horean

    Yes it matches my site, was intented

    It has 3 main halls and several smaller ones and other kind of corridors in between. Regular level layout, difference is, this one simply has very high ceilings.

    Two of the controlpoints float in the air and can only be reached by a jumppad, making you vunerable in the air if you take the jump. Third CP has a giant crusher above it, if you dont move over the point quick enough youll be squished.

    Besides that the gameplay isnt too special. Standard stuff but it works.