Posts by merkaba

Hi peoples, I've taken a long hiatus whilst I've been working in the fantastic job of public service (read: pouring pints). I started my first holiday in 8 months recently and what am I spending it doing? That's right, game related stuff.

Skip to the end,

I'd love some feedback on a couple of textures I have made in Photoshop. I am NOT an experienced texture artist I have some experience of texture designing, but it has not been my forté, so I would appreciate any observations on your parts whether they be good or bad! To the textures;

[Blocked Image: http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/4365/somemetal01cz6.jpg]

This was intended as a simple 'big plate' floor for some sci-fi setting. The photoshop layers look like hell, but I guess at this stage I'm more focused on making it look good than making it tidy. Abundance of layer effects crossed with filters, and good old fashioned pressure pen work.

[Blocked Image: http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/6167/stonewall01xm2.jpg]

Again more photoshop blending effects than you can shake a stick at (mostly drop shadowing, though the moss uses a pattern,gradiant, and edge stroking). I got it in my head that photoshop layer effects are a bad idea but they're so very useful.

I started this one by simple drawing all the stones in pure black with no gradation at the edges, and then using that stencil with layer effects to get the base colour & indentation. Then came a global noisy layer for detail, and another layer with fine tuning light/dark areas. Moss is seperate layer, as is the brown colouring on the stones.

I had some fun making a heightmap (and so a normal map) for this texture, and rendering it in Max with some lighting.

[Blocked Image: http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/8164/stonewall01rendermf9.jpg]

I'm not very convinced about the top part of this texture, as the stones look very different (perhaps because they are a larger size and more spaced out)...I'm not sure yet what to do about that.

So, those texture artist gurus out there, anything you can suggest to me? Although I think I know the best suggestion...which is keep practicing practicing practicing!

Wow, those screenshots show a map that looks....stunningly beautiful. Damn, just...damn! I adore the colour, also. When I get back home I'll check this out firsthand.

This is my first proper texture attempt in a long time:

[Blocked Image: http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/5062/ceiling05abeforeandafterl2.th.jpg]

You can ignore the left hand side; that is before some layer tweaks and contrasting which result in the final, right, image.

I feel acomplished by it, but I think I have a lot of practice to do!

Family guy was very funny...then funny, and now, I'm not bothered enough to see if it is still funny or not (I think the proportion of U.S. media jokes got too high for me to follow at some stage).

South Park is the king of cartoon's to me. King with a construction paper crown, mind.

I am looking forward to the return of Futurama!

When I heard Paris Hilton was going to prison I admit to feeling a cry of "hah! yes!" in me (as vindictive as that is)...now she's out after such a short amount of time it was a case of 'what the hell'. And now she's going back in again...

Well, I hope she gets through it OK. But seriously...if you're in prison for driving with a suspended license, there's worse things to be in prison for. She should look on it as a life experience, instead of fighting it...I don't know the details of her release of course (none of us here do), but she got herself in there and doesn't deserve to be let out simply because her being in jail ends up on the news front pages.

Let her learn something good and beneficial to her psyche whilst she is in there.

Do we have any Devin Townsend fans in the house?

If so, check out his latest record, Ziltoid The Omniscient!

It is an awesome album with a very silly concept; Ziltoid, a 4th dimensional alien who fancies himself as a guitar-god, comes to Earth to find the perfect cup of coffee with which he can power his time machine to go back in time and become known to all civilisations as the universes greatest rock star.

It doesn't quite work out that way, though. Instead he finds his plan thwarted by Captain Spectacular!

Anyway, this CD is in many senses a space opera, or musical. The music ranges from thrash to ambient soundscapes and just plain dirty metal, but overall it is a wonderful musical journey with some very funny overtones (and serious undertones).

ALL the music is written, performed and produced by Devin (over a 4 month period), as well as the voices.

So, if you fancy immersing yourself in an epic interstellar story with coffee-loving aliens, a 'planet smasher' named Herman, and the Omnidimensional Creator (who sounds like the stoner you know down the street), told with beautiful soundscapes and crushing heavy beats, then this album is for you!

Check out the songs 'ZTO' and 'By Your Command', the first two songs on the album, on Ziltoid's Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/ziltoidtheomniscient

ZTO is merely an introduction, and by far the sillest sounding track. By Your Command is the first proper song, which charts Ziltoid's coming to space, and his retreival of our 'finest cup of coffee, black'.

Anyway, I am personally currently addicted to this album. It's the best thing I've heard from Devin since Ocean Machine.

So...buy it! (If you like the music ^_^)

And in case you are skeptical because of the concept; the music itself is for the most part completely serious, and does an excellent job of portraying the emotions and scenarios. The album even manages to end on a sad & beautiful note (which I won't go into here; it's all about the conversation with the Omnidimensional Creator, who reveals some truths to Ziltoid that he might not want to hear...).

In conclusion...Devin Townsend is just f$^king creative! And so is Ziltoid The Omniscient! I want to steal Devin's brain.

[Blocked Image: http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lbjfNUo1L._SS500_.jpg]

Well done! Might I ask what position you are filling, Dark? (and whether I should still be crossing my fingers for my application :roll: )

If they make a movie out of The Sims, then in the same vein of thought I demand that they make a video game out of The Passion Of The Christ.

Quote from JamesL

[Blocked Image: http://www.code303.com/files/images/GuessMe.jpg]

Imogen.

Ding!

Awesome game. It's originally for the BBC B but you can play a windows remake here; http://imogen.ovine.net/

It's really fun!

I think it's an idea that warrents its own thread!

I might be wrong but I am fairly certain that the scale of your textures determins how often the faces are split up. So, reducing your map to a 1/4 scale while also scaling the textures down would be a futile act; it would just give you more map space to play with, but not solve any problems with splitting faces.

Not bad, I think the transitions between the different sections on the texture could do with a bit more depth, eg darkening the edges of the windows a bit more, and maybe highlighting the edges around them (even though its painted black, black paint is rarely completely black!). A bit more highlighting all-round wouldn't go amiss, actually (edges of the bodywork around the tires, door, front lights, etc)

Dried blood is a very dark red, not bright.

The front window should probably have some wind-screen wipers painted onto the texture. The bus is also completely missing a bumper, a front grill (although some buses don't have them, but usually there is -some- kind of decal or feature in the front-middle of a bus).

Maybe you coudl also fake some specularity on the windows, ie, brighten them up a bit in the centre. Right now the windows look like they are completely caked with mud from the inside (and even then you'd still get reflections on the glass!).

Okay, I conceed. I'm not changing my contest idea though as it is still valid!

Sorry to have caused this little argument in this thread.

Hmm yeah that makes sense. I personally consider a labyrinth to be as I described, as otherwise it is simply a maze. I didn't realise that the minotaur's labyrinth was actually a maze though.

From wikipedia:

The term labyrinth is often used interchangeably with maze, but modern scholars of the subject use a stricter definition. For them, a maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage with choices of path and direction; while a single-path ("unicursal") labyrinth has only a single Eulerian path to the center. A labyrinth has an unambiguous through-route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.




This unicursal design was wide-spread in artistic depictions of the Minotaur's Labyrinth even though both logic and literary descriptions of it make it clear that the Minotaur was trapped in a multicursal maze.

Quote from Sentura

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/labyrinth

You see how common a misconception it is, then? :roll:

HalfQuake kicked serious arse (only played HQ Amen though).

BTW I didn't realise someone had already suggested a labyrinth idea! Although my suggestion has no real place for puzzles as it is a straight line thing; unless on the path you are given many clues about how to solve a puzzle at the centre!

Or there could be a set of progressive puzzles to complete as you walk the labyrinth; I don't think puzzles should be a requirement though - it's just another idea.

I had an idea for a contest a while ago, but decided it might be a bit too weird.

The idea was to make a labyrinth. That is, the old classic 'on a rail' labyrinth with one path and a destination (it is a common misconception that a labyrinth is basically a maze. This is not true; a proper labyrinth has just one path). The creative freedom would come about through the optional use of custom art assets, and the ambience/setting you wish your labyrinth to reside in. EG you could make it try and heighten the player's sense of fear as they approach the centre, increase a players awareness of an issue or science progressively, make the player enter some lucid 'otherworldly' state of mind...whatever. The basic principle is that you walk a straight path and the act of walking this path results in some mental response or another, be it intelligent, psychological, psychedelic, emotional, etc. It should also peak at the centre as well, or else offer something different and conclusive. Obviously the classic conclusion to a labyrinth is to have a minotaur there!

Told you it was weird.

Apparently the only out-of-the-box map to feature CTF gameplay is 2fort.

Aye, a 2nd thankyou from me! My glitchy water glitches glitchily. But hell, I joined the competition 9 days before the deadline and didn't have time to sort out a solution to that problem!

*I* haven't even played dm_rockhill yet, and I bloody made it.

I can't really say much useful stuff on other peoples maps from a gameplay perspective, and haven't played any at all for a while now. Tobor is probably my visual favourite because I curves, and the lighting is so very very nice. It actually reminds me a lot of Quake2 for some reason; perhaps the warm orange flood lighting is the culprit.

I had one game on rocketsilo and had fun on that, even though I was getting my arse kicked. It felt pretty unique whilst playing and I enjoy things like the hidden doors and such.

Lock is an interesting mix of spaces...I haven't played it but I can't see it working too well as everything is so cramped and with very little oppourtunity to move from 'path to path', so to speak. That is, if you're on a path, you're pretty much going from A to D without getting a chance to stop off at a B or C. The green exposure is also just plain weird! It would really be better if the level were stretched out in the X/Y axis and with more opportunity to move to different paths. The best section I think is the small hallway with the lights on all sides and pipes in the ceiling, which reminds me of Alien quite a bit. It'd be sweet if that design were placed in a map that enforced that style with a bit more consistency rather than just being a pit-stop amongst all the more, may I say, dull areas! (hey, I'm a sci-fi/fantasy nerd!) I also like the crossbow-drop, but the cramped space really hampens the fluidity of it.

Gotta say I love the bathtub in the water too.

Here's an unorthadox contest idea...how about a competition for who can come up with the best single player mission idea? It could be for an existing game or even a whole new game made up on the fly, FPS, puzzle game, whatever; basically so long as it has a start and a finish, and that the level design plays a large part in the idea (e.g. no 'escape the room' sorts of puzzle games), it's acceptable.

Submissions would consist of a written synopsis of the scenario and gameplay goals, and also level layouts and scripted events planned on paper.

The benefit of such a competition is that absolutely anyone could make a submission, as there is no game engine to work to; and also it would be an exercise in SP planning skills for all involved.