Posts by Defrag

  • Quake IV MP videos

    Looks very cool to me, though the map on display did look a little orthogonal to me. A lot of people are bashing the look of Quake IV on forums I frequent, saying it looks too much like Q3. I say that some things are worth doing 'traditionally', and it looks pretty bloody good to me. Plus, that's only one snapshot of it, I'm sure there'll be innovations a-plenty in the right areas.

    I'll be buying it anyway

  • cs palmrich

    The architecture is a little chunky and reminds me of HL1 -- it could use a little finesse, as if to say "I AM SOURCE, HEAR ME ROAR". 'Un-orthogonalise' some of it for starters. The actual atmosphere looks good, as I could quite imagine that forecourt being an actual place. One niggly thing I noticed is that you have some lights in the first picture that are on and not illuminating anything

  • Jack Thompson is a douche bag

    I've never seen the guy actually conduct a civil debate via email. He typically just ignores logic and calls people idiots when his arguments are invariably torn apart. I'm of the opinion that debating with him is pointless, just cut to the insults. I pray for the day when he crosses swords with Leonard J. Crabs and is subject to a public humiliation (he's humiliated on the web all the time, but a SA humiliation means more readers knowing he's an idiot).

  • dm_torrent [FINISHED]

    What are you doing with the overlays that causes them to revert to their initial state? I've yet to encounter any problems myself

    I just set the u start / end to 1 and 0 respectively, instead of 0 and 1 (or v start / end, obviously). Perhaps hammer hates you

  • dm_torrent [FINISHED]

    Quote

    Also I've increased the lightmap scale on a few of the corners that looked a little bleh.

    Have you tried using the face smooth panel to get your curves lit a little more evenly

    Oh, and I just noticed this sign is backwards:

    http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y299/e ... nt0076.jpg

    *edit:

    I just had another run around.

    It seems the main framerate problem is primarily caused by detail props (i.e. all the grass you've got assigned to the blend texture). Perhaps you could alleviate this load by setting it to fade out sooner, or use some area portals / occluders or something similar? On my 6800 Ultra, I'm dropping to ~50-70 fps in places, and half of the framerate time is spent on drawing detail props! You can definitely make this run smoother. At worst, you could thin out the density of the detail prop placement. Given the heavy fog, I definitely think you could get away with some optimisation, though.

    The ladders are pretty badly done, but it shouldn't be too hard to fix this I trust (I've not messed around with ladders extensively, so I can't say myself) unless it's a HL2 issue rather than a map issue. Quite a few of the ladders don't work unless I crouch jump onto them -- even the ones that touch the floor.

    There's a lot of stuff to get stuck on currently. I'd work on clipping things off, or making any small pillars/supports into func_illusionaries. This problem is exacerbated by the cramped corridors, so if you don't fix it before release, it will seriously hamper your map's chances of gaining playtime on servers. If there's one thing above all that pisses people off, it's bad clipping. A lot of the CS:S official maps have little edges and tiny pillars that impede movement -- every time I die I swear at the obvious oversights and / or laziness that resulted in many parts being not clipped off properly, and I don't doubt that other people feel the same way.

  • CS Source: de_arcticbase

    I really like the look of the inside, but the yard needs a little work (as you have already acknowledged). In the first picture of the outside, it looks wonderful, but as the player moves, the architecture starts to look a lot less varied, more contrived and a lot less natural. As others have picked up on, it also looks very cluttered. The rest of it looks awesome

  • dm_torrent [FINISHED]

    Aesthetically, I feel this is one of the best custom maps I've seen for source. It's got a very distinct and unique look to it. Like Mazy said, a few areas could use a little distinction in terms of lighting, but I would definitely leave the rest of it as-is.

    The windows outside are way too reflective for a rustic, beaten up place. They would barely reflect any light at all considering they're totally disgusting and filthy I'd swap the window texture for either broken windows or something a lot less shiny. Moreover, I'd actually board up some of your windows or have some broken window models made just to extend the theme somewhat.

    Additionally, it looks as if your fog isn't quite matched up to the skybox colour (nearly, but not quite). This isn't usually an issue unless you can see the total fade going on like in a few of your shots, this shot shows the problem in full effect:

    http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y299/e ... nt0072.jpg

    Finally, I think the env_sun effect you've got is a little too strong considering the rest of the atmosphere. All in all, top job.

  • Looking for weapon artist to work at Ubisoft

    Quote from ReNo

    What was your game dev couse like? Was it mainly tech, or mainly art, or a combo of the two? I'm doing games tech in Dundee, Scotland, and its 90% tech 10% design really, which isn't what I'd have liked but there wasn't much in the way of alternatives when I started.

    ReNo, I'm on the same course going into third year; which year are you in? I've probably seen you in the labs and not even known it's you

  • cs_logistic_assault

    Looks cool, you've got a nice theme going on there. The thing I can spot immediately is that the skybox seems to just 'end' abruptly, especially in this pic: http://www.bluestrike.be/maps/cs_logistic_1.jpg

    It would've looked a bit more natural if you'd added a slight fog and then more building in the distance via the 3d sky box. Also, the lighting is rather flat and very even -- it could've used a bit of variation and some bright, short-ranged lights here and there just to accent the architecture in places.

    That's all I can think of Nice job.