Posts by Wesley Tack

Quote from Hourences

Yeah the admin of game-artist.net started at Dice as an intern. So you got two Belgians there again Sad to see a fellow country man return home, and how can the Belgian summer be better than the Swedish one ?

Many people seem to be leaving Dice?

Thinking about leaving the games industry or just need some time off? Determined to stay in Belgium now?

I'm undecided right now, I'm sure I'll always do something game related, right now I just wanna relax and finish Off Limits

If I can do work online from Belgium, I would probably stay here sure, but I think I'll most likely move to another country at

some point as Belgium is pretty weak when it comes to gaming

Quote from robert.briscoe

Lol I dont know whether to laugh or cry at being mixed up with Wes!

How about being proud?

Quote from FrieChamp

Good luck Wesley, not only with Off Limits but also your other projects (Dear Esther)! I hope you won't spend the entire Belgian summer in front of the PC though!

I'm not working on Dear Esther, I think you got me mixed up with someone else

And I wont spend it entirely in front of my PC, in fact we already started our summer early

[Blocked Image: http://www.wesleytack.com/upload/2009-03-22.jpg]

Quote from Pericolos0

I guess i'm the only belgian gamedevelopper left in stockholm now !Mod i looking really good, can't wait to try it out!

Thanks, and no, you're not the only Belgian left, someone started an internship one week after I left DICE

I'm already back in Belgium, there is not one reason why I left, there are multiple aspects that all together added up in me feeling I needed to go and do something else. Right now all I want to do is finish Off Limits, enjoy the Belgian summer, and then see what's next. It's crisis now anyway, time to sit back and watch it go by

[Blocked Image: http://www.wesleytack.com/upload/OffLimits_HL2net.jpg]

http://%7boption%7d

Yes, again news, and not a released mod yet...

But as I quit my job, I now have a lot of time to spend on it, and it's going very fast now

We made a new website and I did some research to get good quality HD movies on YouTube and

get them embedded in the new site layout, which means, there is now some game play footage

on the website as well. The site is much easier to update and maintain now as well, so we'll be

posting more updates frequently. And before anyone asks, yes we use the Quake3 hit sound

Hope you like it so far, we still have some work to do on certain aspects of the game, but the

game play is working out really good so far. Also, if you wanna help playtest it, read the news

post on the site, and contact us, we need more people playing it.

I think a level designer can definitely make a showreel. It's good to pack the best stuff you made into one video and present it.

I made one right after I got hired, so no you don't need a showreel to get a job, but it makes things easier I'm sure, people can just

look at something without having to click through dozens of screenshots and I think it captures your work better when it's in motion.

Quote from dux

Is it going to be team deathmatch with capture points, like Terrible Fortress 2?

I don't think so, haven't played TF2

Since on moddb our summary was still with the alien a lot of people still thought we had it. So I quickly updated it trying to explain how Off Limits works.

It has a lot of aspects and I tried explaining them as much as possible (it may sound a bit complicated the way I wrote it down, but it's easier to understand when you play it and after 1 round usually people get the just of it ).

So here's the quote from moddb:

Quote

Off Limits is a multiplayer modification that is focused on two teams hunting down and killing the enemy main guy, the Juggernaut. Both teams have the ability to capture spawn points within key areas of the level. The more spawn points a team has the more map control. Only regular players can enter spawns and capture them, the Juggernaut can't enter it. Once captured by a team the health of the Juggernaut goes up by 200HP, so capturing spawn points is vital for winning a match, it not only gives you more control over the level and match, it also gives more strength to your teams Juggernaut.Once your Juggernaut is killed you lose a spawn point and also lose advantage over a section of the level. So you are being pushed back. So good team work is definitely advisable. By the loss of that spawn point your Juggernaut also lost the extra 200HP he had. Once your team has taken all spawn points except the enemy base spawn your Juggernaut will have 800HP vs. their Juggernauts 200HP (as there are a total of 5 spawn points per level). So the center spawn point is crutial throughout the entire match, but if lost it's still very possible to take it back as playtesting has proven.

When your team is pushed back and only has the base spawn left you need to change your strategy and go on defense, because if your Juggernaut gets killed this time he won't respawn anymore as there are no spawns left. If you do lose your Juggernaut and with it the base spawn the regular players can still try to survive and defend the spawn point as it recaptures or capture it themselves. When they succeed the players that were dead can respawn again and the Juggernaut will also respawn. If they don't, they lose.

We made the Juggernaut vision special, so people playing him can immediately see they are their teams Juggernaut. The vision is an X-ray type of vision that allows you to see through walls (limited distance) and it shows all characters as skeletons. The skeletons are lit up with the team color they are in. The Juggernaut has a minigun with unlimited ammo. Also unlike the regular players the Juggernaut does not have a minimap and also doesn't know where people are. One of the advantages the Juggernaut has to offer to his team is that within a set radius on the minimap it shows the enemy players (good for the team to know). He also has within a set radius health regeneration for his team, so staying close in heavy combat to the Juggernaut might be a good idea!

Some feature we have is the spawn points have a force field around them that can not be entered by the enemy or shot through, this to prevent base camping and killing people upon spawning. As mentioned above the Juggernaut can't enter spawn points so it can not be abused either.

We also made a shield grenade with the same force field as the spawn point, one you can carry with you and deploy where ever you want and use it as a protection shield (since the enemy can't shoot through it). This stays open for 20 seconds, very good to help protect your teams Juggernaut when he's in trouble and also for rushing to center to get the spawn point at the beginning of the match or to block off corridors for the enemy!

On top of that we also have drivable vehicles which makes going from spawn point to spawn point faster on our larger levels and adds a lot of fun in chases or drive by shootings (or trying to run over the enemy Juggernaut if you are skilled enough).

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The game play works very well and every new playtest we have things get better and more fun.

I might try and slap together a game play video in the coming weeks to show it.

Quote from Erratic

So, is Off Limits now Nuclear Dawn?

No, the level has been modified by me to work with the Off Limits game play, I did some design changes, Robert was kind enough to allow me to do this.

So this level is different than what it was in Nuclear Dawn, although still very similar

hey!

It's been a long time since we've release some info publicly. The main reason we do it now is to get some extra people to help us playtest.

Thanks in advance!

-wez

Here is a quote of our media post:

Quote

A lot has happened with Off Limits since our last public media release dated September 2007, too much to go into a lot of detail, so I'll summarize as short as possible:- We ditched the alien game play about a year ago and took the fun stuff

we had and built a new game play out of it.

- Now the game is about two teams, who both have a Juggernaut as their main guy, he is linked to the spawn points that are located in the levels. When he gets killed during a match that team loses a spawn point giving the chance of the opposite team to capture that point. By doing this we created a moving battlefield that goes across an entire level. When there are no spawn left you lose. A more detailed description of the game play and all it's features will be announced at a later date.

- Tim Appleby was kind enough to donate one of his character models for our Juggernaut (he's the big guy with the minigun and the skeleton vision). So, big thanks to Tim!

- We also have a new level that doesn't feature vehicles, a nice change from the other Off Limits levels. It's been the main level we have used to playtest the past 3 months, and it's a really fun close combat level. So I'd

like to thank Robert Briscoe for donating his level to us!

- As I said above, we are playtesting the shit out of this at the moment, and the development has been going forward by huge amounts and we are getting to the point where things are getting more and more balanced and it's become very immersive and fun to play. We are finally seeing the light at the end of the long dark tunnel!

- We will have four levels upon release: ol_styx, ol_russia, ol_downfall, ol_undersiege

The main reason we are doing a public media release is because we need some more dedicated playtesters who can play mostly on Sunday evenings 8pm GMT+1 (western europe), so if you want to help us out with feedback and getting things ready for release please contact us by registering on our forums and sending a personal message to Keats, who will sort you out.

Here are some screenshots of how the game looks at the moment (the Juggernaut vision is work in progress, I added a .psd screencap of how it will look once done as well at the bottom).

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As always, stay tuned for more...

- Wesley Tack

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If you come up with a completely new refreshing idea people will still be afraid to play it or want to accept it as the next big thing. This happens in retail games as well.

People stick with what they know, zombies,CTF,DM,CS,TF,etc etc... And if you as a mod build something with those game play mechanics you are labeled as a copycat or not being original enough. So it's very hard to find a balance that works imHo. I think a lot of people have cool idea's and crazy things in their minds as to innovate the way a game works, or can come up with original game play designs, but at the end of the day usually that's what they end up being, idea's. The reason for that is that it takes a lot of time, energy and dedication to undertake something like this, and this is where a lot of mods die. It's good that Valve finally has Steamworks up and running, this will boost mods finally, and looks like they timed it pretty close with the amount of mods releasing the last year (and the coming year). And if you want original mods, there are still mods like that out there, they are just few (sourceforts and insect infestation comes to mind).

Quote from m8nkey

Shit yeah, besides, the only professional Aussie level designer I know works at Dice

True that, was great to work with him on Mirror's Edge, and hopefully future projects

The solution isn't removing the light_env (it didn't work for me)

The solution for this problem can be found in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=11874&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Quote

!!!SOLUTION FOUND !!! (Credit to Robert Briscoe)http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Vrad

-LargeDispSampleRadius This can be used if there are splotches of bounced light on terrain. The compile will take longer, but it will gather light across a wider area.

!!!SOLUTION FOUND !!! (Credit to Robert Briscoe)

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

Quote

-LargeDispSampleRadius This can be used if there are splotches of bounced light on terrain. The compile will take longer, but it will gather light across a wider area.

Just tried it and it works

Rob!

Quote from Warfle

I think this is caused by a bug with bounced lighting on brightly lit displacements. I get this a lot when working with snow environments (bright sun + bright texture + displacements usually = this problem).Try -bounce 0 in vrad.

Thanks! Will try tionight, I'll let you know (sounds like a very reasonable solution)

Quote from dux

Have you tried deleting the displacements and remaking them? Compiling without them, too?

hey,

yea I did, I also tried destroying the displacement and making each side separate

also tried with block light behind them (instead of the current skybox texture)

I also made the whole level layout a solid concrete material (instead of the current skybox texture), except for the top (skybox)

nothing seems to work.

when I turn off the displacement cliffs and keep the streets/desert then they are gone (because there is no shadow casting on it anymore

of a displacement). So bottom line I think is that there is a bug in source when a displacement casts a shadow on another displacement?

I dunno... I'm going to try and contact Valve about this and see what they have to say. I'm lost.

Quote from Erratic

Just an off hand thought, is it possible the shader type in the VMT is something other than LightmappedGeneric or any other acceptable type for displacement like vertexlitgeneric etc.?

Sorry, forgot to answer this: I tried it with HL2 blend materials as well and it's the same effect, and my .vmt is lightmappedgeneric yes

Here is an image showing what I said above:

[Blocked Image: http://www.wesleytack.com/upload/dots_shadows_displacements.jpg]

In this image I turned off everything except what I needed to run the map and the displacements.

hey, thanks for all the replies!

I've been checking this thread ever since I posted it (I've been finishing off the level first)

Now the whole level is done, except for this error

I checked the lightmap size on the surfaces and it is default (16, as the rest of the level), and the rest of the level doesn't have these dots.

I removed all the light_env entities and added a new one (it still happened)

I removed the 3Dskybox with the other light_env (so I only have the one in my main level), with no luck

I also removed all my entities and baked the level with a new light_env (it still happens)

What I found out though, that is probably part of the problem is that it only seems to happen in areas that are in shadows of my displacements.

So every displacement in shade of another displacement seems to have these. I doesn't make me wiser on what might exactly be causing it?

On the other hand when I compile that area with the dots in cordon, then those dots don't appear? (but when I compile the whole level in cordon (putting the whole level in cordon) they are back)

If anyone has any bright ideas, please let me know!

thanks!

-wez

Anyone had this before? Or someone how knows what's causing this?

[Blocked Image: http://www.wesleytack.com/upload/ol_undersiege0011.jpg]

Also some of my physical props are completely black in some corners (maybe they are related?). But when I move them out of the corner (out of the shadow) they light up.

Static props do this as well, but these I can fake with an info_lighting (unlike the physical props). Is there something wrong with my lighting overall? What's going on?

Faking it on the entire map is something I'd rather avoid

Thanks in advance!

-wez