Posts by mjens

I've been doing some modular pieces for Hellraid. I had some time to work with that I'm 100% happy with the result. The task now is to add some modularity breakers and I'm not talking about props to hide corners but shapes that don't fit modular pieces "by design", like rooms that have curvy walls or stuff like that. Here's a shot of what has been done (a bit old):

[Blocked Image: http://hellraid.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/cat_new1.jpg]

I'm also using different decorations for each piece:

[Blocked Image: http://hellraid.com/wp-content/upl…Catacombs_3.jpg]

Here's how it works:

[Blocked Image: http://hellraid.com/wp-content/upl…atacombs_2a.jpg]

CA:

[Blocked Image: http://hellraid.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2.jpg]

BTW I wrote some articles about that but it was done on the hurry and for gamers, not developers so there are mostly basic pieces

Yep, nice job, keep going!

I'm somehow the same but about cars so sorry, my bad

I don't understand that hype on HL3, I know Valve makes awesome games, I'm curious about new tech and game, I'm waiting but... I'd never post so much childish bullshit about it. That's only a game...

Quote from Hipshot

It's not long before EA and Ubi stops making AAA-tiles and starts doing Candy Crush-ish. We'll probably all end up in that swamp.

I hope not. I guess that there's a nice chance in small indie games like Super Meat Boy etc. but with AAA quality. I really hope THIS is the future of gaming but usual AAA will never die obviously (I really hope so), market works like a wave, today mobile is awesome it's good to have our people there but it doesn't mean that it's the beginning of end for AAA or mobile is one and only proper. Sad to say but decision makers are only counting $$$ so when it takes small amount of $ to get ~$2 mln income per day it's not a rocket science to choose what's better for the company...

Adrian Chmielarz (Bulletstorm guy) said that mobile is dead and somehow he's right. Mobile is dead for small punks, big players are in the business, there's more than 50 new games per day. Mobile is not a green island now but indie games are. To get attention on Steam Greenlight you need to make a really nice game, know how to do it. There's talent, idea and effort needed, just like on mobiles but the there's not so much active devs and the audience is bigger so the cash is better.

That's my opinion, I dunno, maybe I'm wrong. I just hope that masterminds from giant corporations won't abandon AAA or will stay on PC/consoles...

Well done!

What a news:

https://www.ubisoftgroup.com/en-US/press/de…tcm:95-27313-32

The best part is " the expansion of mobile platforms" - looks like most of the publishers are likely to hold the mobile market. Maybe it's a few bucks game but all that micropayments can make nice $...

Nice thread we got there in 3D forums, that one about our workflows. Cool stuff but I remember one thing that bugs me all the time - organic levels. I really liked them few years ago, it was simple, a bit of hill here, a bi there, some rocks, done! Experience shown that it's not so simple. Imagine that you have to prototype the level with terrain tool, dummy box and that's it. Actually it sounds nice but my problem is the iterations at the end of the project. When everything is done but someone says "Dude, it looks wrong, change it". Now remove whole decoration, all terrain details and paintings, start something new and hear "Oh, sorry, it was cool actually, revert changes". Fuuuu******* Now. What's your workflow with organic levels based on terrain, trees, rocks etc. Any cool stories from production?

I guess my problem is the tools I'm using. UDK looks like pain in the ass with iterations and massive changes. CryENGINE look nice here, lots of terrain materials to use, easy sculpting but I don't remember having option to copy/paste selected parts of the terrain.

Quote from FrieChamp

Writing down forces you to think things through and to be more specific, but there's a risk: the danger of spending too much time designing and planning things on paper that turn out to be not-fun or not feasible in practice. The longer you spend time with your idea in your head or on paper the more likely you will fall in love with it and lose objectivity. The lean, iterative approach, where you test ideas and involve others early on in the process seems like the healthiest method to me. So yeah, writing down ideas = good but if you've got 76 pages in your GDD and zero action on your screen - you've gone too far

Yep, I call it "overplanning"

You can add benchmark or vertical slice to this description. If you have a team of artists they can make a benchmark when you're working with mechanics. Benchmark is one place made perfectly like from concept, with light and stuff. With such test you'll be able to say if the mood from concept art will do in the game. It's a very good idea to make a benchmark because poor art pass can make your mechanics feeling not as you planned. Even if you're one man army and you're the one and only artist and designer it's good to make such benchmark. Verical Slice is good when you have multiple levels with different mechanics - VS is a level that contains every single mechanic.

I see gigantic differences between programmers and artists. They have completely different workflows, ideas, plans etc. You're asking about game design, right? Not level design but GAME design? Here's my "workflow":

Writing, writing and writing. All the ideas should land in game design document. This is the first phase where stupid ideas will go out. Writing about stuff you haven't planned forces you to thing about whole game, not the one feature you started with. It's a good idea to find >REAL< unique selling points. With that list you'll see that few ideas are not enough to make the game interesting. You need to write more - each mechanic, puzzle or plot stuff, do lots of sketches, test it "in brain" and when your GDD is ready you can try to make some prototypes in editor. As FrieChamp said, you don't need graphics to make sure the mechanics are working perfectly. Seriously, don't waste your time with pimping the visuals when your game sucks because of lack of mechanics...

Shortcuts can get you into pit and you can loose your enthusiasm, good ideas can be wasted becouse of one bad.

Good luck!

Quote from 2d-chris

mods have art direction?

It's rare like dialogue in a porn movie.

No, I guess it will be game sharing system. The "O" symbol was the OS, the "[O]" symbol is a box for the OS so "O+O" is like OS+OS, something like multiplayer or LAN. I guess it's game sharing, there was some talking about this lately.

I think that HL3, Source 2 etc. are clearly Valve stuff, and it won't be announced on Steam party.

I've updated my site a bit. Mostly the descriptions plus added the new projects:

http://seir.level-design.org

3DSMax's Multires :>

<runs away>

Looks great! Add more geo

Quote from TarrySruman

sucks there are no ikeas in the city of los angeles

Adventure time!

http://goo.gl/maps/fkLUk

Pro Boolean is also cool but there's a lot of mess in the wires after carving:

Looks like physically based lighting is on hype! Nice article

Damn, it depends what lighting you'll plan to make. As you mentioned already that specular can burn people's eyes Try this one: