Posts by mabufo

That looks really good!

Once I get an idea for one, I'll make my own map outside of the contest.

I've always had trouble with displacements... Maybe I'll try to get over that with my next little project.

I must have a hurg shirt.

The maps look great everyone. Cheers all around.

I've been sitting on this map for a long ass time, and I've finally released the thing. I had a lot of fun making the thing, and I think it shows through. Let me know what you think of it.

Screens can be found at my snarkpit entry: http://www.snarkpit.net/maps.php?map=2886

Don't hold back with the comments, however: I must remind all of you that this is based off of a single player level... and when I say based I mean that I made the entire thing.

Please, enjoy it.

Man, I should do some of these portfolio scenes...

I've got an idea I'll try... I'll post some screens tomorrow - it's too late for this sort of stuff right now. Also, I don't want to use any more god damned pipe props... so what else can I use to break up the boring walls with?

Hmmm... I've decided that I've been sitting on this map for too damned long, so I'm going to finally finish it. The biggest issue right now is a texturing issue. Here's a picture of what I mean [hammer shot] [Blocked Image: http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1258/textureissueeb6.jpg]

On account of the stairs, I can't very well use my blue green prison wall texture without it looking incredibly goofy - so I went with the temporary white plaster. The problem is that the transition between the green and the plaster is without a buffer zone of any kind. I need to figure out how to either a) ease the transition, or b) find a way for the green to work the whole way through.

You guys are the professionals, any ideas?

fucking brilliant reno

This sounds like it could be fun. I've got a lot on my plate at the moment, but I'd like to contribute a map in the future.

So what's the count up to? 5 school shootings in the past year or something like that?

I want one.

The horse would be called the 'knight'. Chack Matt, would become 'Check Mate'.

As far as pawn strategies go with openings, white usually will move from e2-e4. Which can be countered any number of ways by black. If your interested about improving your opening, check the about.com article here: http://chess.about.com/od/improveyourop ... e50ndx.htm

You can learn common moves, and common counters to those moves. The word on the street is that you want to set yourself up for a comfortable position, and not look for 'opening traps'... IE: something like a three move win.

Yeah, my midgame is pretty weak. As far as I can tell that's on account of my weak opening. I let my pawn structure get ruined and then I leave my other pieces open.

You get better at looking out for that stuff as you play more I think.

Sign up at http://chessmaniac.com .

We could start a mapcore team or something. It's quite fun. You can have multiple games going at once, with different time limits. It's quite amazing. Currently there are over 300 users on, so it seems to be a popular site.

My username is 'MattYoung'. Throw me a challenge!

EDIT: Don't know how to play? Learn! http://www.princeton.edu/~jedwards/cif/intro.html

I just started playing today, it's great fun!

I think the root of the separation of level designer and environment artist is that a 'level designer' is able to get his/her tools for free from an SDK. Where is an environment artist(models, textures) wants to get started he/she needs industry standard software to build a foundation on.

That's just what I think.

I was under the impression that an environment designer was pretty much a prop modeller.

Yeah I'm interested in learning to make props for my maps. I think it's about time I kicked it up a notch, so I decided to try and learn. I've just started with blender this morning, and I'd like to think that I'm doing alright so far.

I do have a question though - scale. How can I be sure my model won't be flippin gigantic when I try to get it into source? Will I need to export some sort of hammer brush to get the scale correct?

EDIT, another question: Where do people learn to texture their models? I've been looking at some lower poly stuff and have been quite taken aback. Do modelers usually have a strong 2d art background? It certainly seems like most of them do with the crazy awesome texturing work I've been looking at.

The last I heard, Blender was not able to work with the source engine. Has this changed? I've not been able to find out.