Posts by merkaba

  • Level designer vs Environment designer

    OK, thanks for the great feedback all! I guess that 'environment artist' is more what I'm looking for, as I tend to come up with large-scale concepts & vivid visual depictions of a scene in my mind and then attempt to cater that to interesting gameplay, rather than the other way around. It all sounds like a very left brain/right brain thing. I think, so long as I'm in a company where I could work closely with level designers to come up with the most interesting mix of environment and gameplay, then I'm set.

  • Level designer vs Environment designer

    Hi,

    Can anyone help me with the difference between these two jobs? I have been told by a recruitment agent that I would be better off applying to an environment design position rather than level design, but I am still somewhat unsure as to the differences between the two positions.

    I guess that at a basic level, the env designer designs the look/concept of an area whilst the level designer makes it playable from a gameplay perspective? If that is the case, how much work is involved for each member in this process, and how much creative freedom does each designer get before they are 'treading in another's territory'?

    The games industry sure seems confusing (in the eyes of someone who hasn't yet joined the fray properly). What happened to the days when level designer and environment designer were the same thing?

  • System Shock 2 - Full visual walkthough

    Bioshock is my current most-wanted game. From what I've seen, it's going to have all the depth of story and gameplay as System Shock 2, coupled with stunning graphics and art direction. It may possibly follow the same format of SS2, where the game is divided up into themed sections (like the various decks of the Von Braun)

  • ns_machina

    Hi Ben ^^ I don't think anyone has even attempted to play a competetive game on this map, but in its current state the marines might walk over the aliens anyway due to an abundance of res nodes in their quarter.

    I've been working on a folio website the past few days and I have the machina section done (and hera). I'm only posting this here to make this reply somewhat related to the topic.

    What's new:

    Most of the images have the ambient sound in that area playing, to give a better sense of the atmosphere.

    Some of the images are 360 degree panoramics (these pictures are indicated in their thumbnail).

    http://www.archwolf.net/merkaba/html/machina.php

    It's my first serious website and I'm very happy with it so far Except for the spelling, which is in need of some spellchecks.

  • ns_machina

    Hi Belgarion :] It could easily have been two years...I checked the creation date of the first RMF I had saved of this map, and it was something like 750 days ago. I was working on the map for a long period of time, BUT I also was not working on the map for a long period of time also. Basically I was at university and so only worked on it when I happened to have HL installed and was bored enough to give it another bit of attention.

    So the map is kinda pieced together from bits made over 2 years ago, and also bits made at intermittent times inbetween. It also had a LOT of stuff thrown away in that time; I probably have enough cut material to start a whole new map.

    This is what the 'chasm' (and the laser) looked like at first:

    [Blocked Image: http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/1452/nsmachinaabyss02ll5.th.jpg]

    But at some point I decided it just wasn't cool enough, so I deleted that and made the huge big chasm that is in Machina today. Of course it wasn't -quite- like that; at first I built the chasm and then tried to link it to that above area somehow. Then I decided that just wasn't going to work for gameplay reasons and pulled the above out completely, replacing it with a simple roof-mounted laser that pointed straight downward. That laser stayed in the map for a long time, but ultimately I felt it looked way too Half-Lifey and also somewhat phallic, so right near the end of development I switched it over with the blue laser seen at the start of this thread, that has tons more style and also looks like it can be rotated back and forth, which was something I was scratching my head about when trying to figure out how to make the previous laser look like it can do that.

    [i hate it when what seems like a short thing to edit in turns into a bloody essay. Anyway, back to the thread...]

    The creation of the chasm was actually kinda a rebellious move against the claustrophobic nature of NS maps; one of my driving forces in making machina was that most NS maps don't really offer much that is new, perhaps through mapper's fear of being adventurous and risking it not being an official map as a result. So, being an NS developer I was free to pretty much do whatever I wanted and have it an official map regardless, so long as the gameplay wasn't terrible. And thankfully it seems the gameplay isn't actually bad at all! It's struck a chord with the playerbase who are after more interesting immserive NS experiences than the gameplay-solid (ie, predictable and easy) competetive style maps.

  • Unreal mapping community

    Quote from hessi

    WTF! i gave you some information on where to get learning resources in my first post. so why do you blame me?

    Sorry, perhaps it's my fault for coming from some forums where dragging threads off-topic is frowned upon. I thank you for your help!

    I actually have the bonus DVDs already, as my good friend in the US sent it over to me to learn from when he thought the game he was going to be working on would be in the Unreal engine. I've gone through all the geometry lessons, but it doesn't really teach very much that is technical; just simple 'how to build a quick level' sorta thing.

    The only thing that really puts me off of working in the Unreal engine is.....Unreal. I'm not a fan of that game unfortunately

  • Unreal mapping community

    Quote from hessi

    the bonus DVDs of unreal 2003 (or 2004???) hat a couple of video tutorials too.anyway: why should source not be a next generation engine? you think unreal3 is so uber 1337 because it is more hyped in the media and people tend to use the expression "next gen" frequently in the same sentence with "unreal".

    well do what you want, but if you are just looking for a new adventure, it is okay. if you think unreal is so much better, well then i think you might get disappointed, because you might miss a lot of features you had in the quake engines/pipelines.

    Like I said I already do work in Source. The reason for me wanting to learn Unreal is nearly purely a academic one - if every game out there used Source then I wouldn't bother, but the reality is, the Unreal engine is quite popular for 3rd party developers.

    Besides, there's a uniquness of style that the Unreal engine offers and that intruiges me. I believe that when you choose a game engine you are not only choosing its features and strengths but you are also commiting to a certain visual style, and like I said, Unreal's intruiges me.

    Hessi, If you want to turn this thread in to an Unreal vs Source debate, then I suggest you go elsewhere because I think you missed the entire point of the thread.

  • Unreal mapping community

    Hey,

    I'm interested in learning how to map for the Unreal engine, as my experience so far is pretty much limited to Quake-born engines. I feel I need to learn a next-gen engine if I am to get a job doing what I love, and since Source is not much of a challenge after Half-Life mapping for so long (and I do Source work for NS2 besides), the Unreal engine seems to me a good bet.

    And besides, it's an engine that has long eluded me, and I would like to be able to say that I am proficient in it.

    So anyway, get to the point...

    What is a good active Unreal editing community? I'm sure there must be goldmines of information on forums somewhere, but I can't find any good leads as to where that would be. Nearly all the tutorials I find for the Unreal engine are about how to do simple things, and I know there is a lot of complexity to the engine and much more to learn than, say, how to make a lift.

    Can anyone make any recommendations to someone who is looking to expand their skills into the Unreal engine?

  • TS_antrodome – The Ghost from 2004!~

    Nice stuff. I particuarly like the softness of the lighting, good for gameplay and easy on the eye. I have never played TS so I don't know how this compares to its other maps, but its definately not shabby work!

    My initial nitpick though would be....I have never seen ceiling-panels such as them used at a 45 degree angle before; only on completely horizontal ceilings. Still, I may just not have come across them yet and besides, it looks nice.

  • gta4 soon

    Ho ho frag Sweet! I'm looking forward to this, except I don't own a console. *sigh*

    Need a freakin job damn it! Anyone want coffee?

    Oh, on a more serious note; does anyone know if Rockstar have sold their rendering engine to anyone? Or offered to? San Andreas is so unbelieveably cool due to its non-loading-time nature, and I have a game in my head that demands the same capability to make it truely worthwhile.

    Not that I have enough money to buy it if it were for sale...but still.

  • Supermario Doom

    Aw, do you really feel that way? I like the sound effects and the characters used for the monsters. It really looks like a Mario FPS game, and I think that's cool (Well, the Doom weapons and level obviously isn't very Mario-like)

  • ns_machina

    I thought I'd throw some more fuel on the fire...

    I did a forum search for 'stereoscopic' and nothing came up, so let me introduce you to the wonderful world of eye strain!

    Basically, by relaxing and slightly crossing your eyes so that the two images below appear on top of each other, you should be able to see a 3D image of the picture. This is best done from a distance of about 2ft, and then you can move your head nearer once it is in focus to get a better view.

    I do not take any responsibility for eye damage, do this at your own risk! Your eyes may feel a little sore if you move in too close, but it's nothing worse than all those stupid faces you made as a kid...

    [Blocked Image: http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4624/02sp2.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/8611/03sa4.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/7299/07xo4.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/6204/08an9.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/5263/09cm8.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/4544/06av9.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/589/11wa7.jpg]

    Do you see the sailboat? (if you don't understand that, then don't worry.)

    These screenshots were taken using a simple Half-Life script:

    chase_active 1, chase_back -30

    and then bind a key to: "chase_right 10; wait;snapshot;wait;chase_right -10;wait;snapshot;wait;chase_right 0"

    Then, the image taken from the right-hand eye view goes on the left, and the image taken from the left goes on the right. Then: eyestrain!

  • ns_machina

    I think I had strayed away from the concing community just before tayconc3 came out. Have you tried concing recently? The level of skill required is just stupid now, with the first jumps requiring 5 or more concs to complete it...it's not fun

    Anyway, back to machina. Obviously there is a lot more to the map than what is posted above, due to the stupidily large size of NS maps. I thought I would post a picture of the entire map as seen from above, where you may see the central chasm and the sprawling mess of corridors and rooms around it. It's possibly got more curves than the michelin man's fat momma...

    [Blocked Image: http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/334/14vh1.jpg]

  • ns_machina

    Quote from Taylor

    Obligatory wave to merkaba and acknowledgement that the posted map is stupendous.You know, I never did beat concquest_r...

    That's a shame, the endroom in concquest_r is my favourite bit! (Image, as you will likely never see it otherwise! )

    And Taylor....am I right in thinking that yourself made some concmaps? I am 99% certain it was the one with many huuuge long jumps, concrete walls, a teleporter at the end and swinging sign at the beginning...