Posts by JamesL

  • HL2 sdk update tomorrow morning

    Quote from Psycho

    Good lord. If you're trying to defend the Source engine on how pretty it looks then please turn your graphics settings up to full.

    qft

    I'm really looking forwards to having a go a UE3 sometime soon. It will however never stop me mapping in source because the games in the source engine CSS, DoD, TF2, INS! are some of the most fun there are to play. Hell I still map for CS 1.6 in Hammer 3.4 its just too much fun

  • Monthly CS scrim

    Yeah the server is in London Minos, so your ping isn't going to be great. It is on a major backbone however, so as long as there aren't too many hops involved you should still be able to play, though at a slight disadvantage.

    I'll take a look at fy_suicidebomber but this week, and the next month are strictly snowy/winter/xmas maps.

  • Monthly CS scrim

    We are running a winter maps special this Thursday night if anyone fancies some festive fragging. Maps from the following are going to be on vote/rotation:

    as_alpine

    as_snowconvoy

    as_tundra

    aim_snow_tundra

    cs_alpin

    cs_winter_assault_fragnbag

    cs_winternights

    cs_deepfreeze

    cs_snowflake

    cs_tibet

    de_snowbase

    de_survivor

    de_winterdust

    de_winter_austria

    fy_winter_fragnbag

    po_xmas_fragnbag

    po_winter_miniassault_fragnbag

    I'll bump the thread and post IP/pass on the night. Maps will be on fast content download so no hanging about waiting for downloads

  • Hitman movie

    On the subject of games to movies, I watched the Silent Hill movie last night and I was actually quite impressed. The story was trousers, but the translation of the games atmosphere and ambience was very well realised. The regular parallels between the game and the film (trainspotter moments) were enough to make up for the predictably crap plot.

  • HL2 Displacement Mapping

    Quote from killertomato

    i see now what you meant. good luck with the sew tool, as it more then often fails to sew correctly (glad it excists tho!)

    Depends how neat and regular your displacements are. If you keep things tight then sew will nearly always work.

    Quote from clayman

    lets all pray valve creates a new engine and new tools

    Compared to all the in-house tools I have used over the last seven years Hammer is very solid and stable. We have some of the best tools, engine and gameplay programmers in our studio, yet our tools are still unstable and flakey since they are in a state of constant development flux. Hammer is a pleasure to work with in comparison.

  • why I hate physical media

    That sucks Zaphod. However personally I am still a whore for physical media. Hell I still buy hundreds of £/$ worth of Vinyl records every month, and am a sucker for the collectors editions of games with additional little figures, books maps etc.

    I support a world in which there is a choice of both

  • process of creating the level

    That's such a massively open ended question it's almost impossible to answer on a forum. Depending upon whether it is single or multiplayer, must support online play, or split screen co-operative play, whether AI characters must navigate it or if it is solely for human players all have a massive impact on the process of design and construction.

    However to generalise (and this is an over simplification)

    Define high level function.

    Define high level form.

    Create a paper layout.

    Greybox (fast prototype) the layout.

    while !gameplay good

    {

    Playtest, playtest, playtest

    Iterate the greybox layout

    }

    Whitebox the level (define what your greybox shapes actually are, add gameplay related props)

    while !gameplay good

    {

    Playtest, playtest, playtest

    Iterate the whitebox layout

    }

    Lock down layout

    Add textures, all non gameplay props, sound etc.

    Something I also do personally, and I have met a mixed reaction as to the usefulness of this, is to create fy_ map (to borrow a counterstrike term) versions of my primary encounter areas. This is a great way to test the feel and gameplay of an element of your overall design, without having to build the entire environment. If you construct and playtest your primary encounter areas in this way and prove they work, then it's simply a matter of connecting them together believably. Perhaps not a methosd everyone would use, but for me it's invaluable since it means I can build a test area in the morning, stick it on a my servers in the afternoon and playtest it with folks all evening.

  • Good places in London

    I work in central London and its a pretty damn cool (though expensive) place.

    Def check out the Science Museum, also you could take a look at the London Eye, a massive ferris wheel type thing, the Planetarium, Natural History Museum (also huuuuge), The Tower of London (take a camera, loads of awesome photo ref.

    For shopping try Covent Garden, Soho, and the Camden and Borough markets. Borough market in particular is a really great place to just wander about checking out all the funky food and wine/beer stalls. Also close by is the Tate Modern Gallery. If you've never been there I throughly recommend it (its free). It was an old turbine power station and is a wicked building to explore. Its also right next to the Thames which is well worth a wander along the bank of.