Posts by Sentura

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    It's not really a conspiracy when you have soldiers standing on three borders to Ukraine just waiting for the order to take Kiev. I get that there's two sides to everything, but by now the intention of Putin should be visible.


    Quote from Minos

    I don't mean to sound rude, but do you have any proof for this, maybe a blog post, pictures or something


    I'll ask on Monday

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    I got Ukraine work colleagues here, they're telling me that Ukraine is pretty much surrounded from 3 sides by Russia, and that an invasion is imminent. Adding to that, the border to Poland has been rigged with landmines. So much for Putin just declaring it an exercise...

    ...And once Ukraine falls, eastern Europe is next. Watch them try.

  • Mirrors Edge Catalyst

    I think I'm just annoyed at EA's insistence on having their games exclusive to the own platform. It's never bothered me before - I think I figured that I can do without EA games, but it's just a shitty way of neglecting your potential customers by limiting their options. I'll probably still get the game for PS4, at least there's no Origin there... yet. Who knows, by 2016 everything is possible.

  • Seeking Games Industry Interviewee

    • What is your current position or job title?


    A) Look left.


    • How long have you been a professional level designer?


    B) ~2 years.


    • Where did you grow up, and did you have to move locations a lot for career opportunities?


    C) Denmark. I honestly didn't think that my possibilities were great. I think people in e.g. the US have much greater possibilities of getting into the industry because there are a lot more studios over there, and it's much more common to travel between states. In Europe, it seems more rare that people want to move between countries. Still, had I not gotten my current job I would have gone to another country without question. Some would consider it be to lucky, but I honestly don't see relocation as a bad thing.


    • How did you get interested in level design and what got you started?


    D) Very early on when I was a kid I was always inspired by mazes and labyrinths and the mental puzzle in trying to find the exit. Later when I discovered computer games I instantly gained a fascination with the environments and level through which the players went through... and it just stuck. I recently found my first level that I did on paper ever, and the amount of stuff I managed to cram in back then was impressive... I must have been ~7-8 years old.


    • What engines, editors, or tools did you start learning and find most useful for getting into the games industry?


    E) I started out with Red Alert/JETPACK! editors, and I used the latter a LOT since it opted for a simplistic and intuitive interface while still being powerful. Later on, with the advent of Half-Life, I migrated to Goldsource and used Hammer. I still think Hammer is beautiful in how easy it is to use, although its power compared to other editors (e.g. Unreal/UDK) has waned considerably. If I had to start over today, I'd choose UDK, hands down.


    While it is IMO not as easy to use as Hammer ever was, once you learn it, it has a lot of powerful features that you can make use of. I always hated modelling software for general use (be it env art or level design or whatever else), because their interfaces are so horrible and complex that it just doesn't make sense to use them. I've had countless times trying to do stuff in Max resulting in rage because Max has a complexity reaching an almost infinite level, especially as a beginner.


    • What is your typical day on the job like?


    F) I can't really talk about it. But suffice to say that there is a lot of drawing layouts and thinking about the player experience.


    • When working for different projects or companies as a level designer, do you find yourself doing the same kind of work, or are there many differences?


    G) There's always going to be repetition in your work, regardless of what you work as. But I think especially as a level designer, you can levy a lot of the repetition because you have a possibility to think about different player experiences. As for how it is at different companies or projects: It depends on the scope of the project. For companies, I think everyone is pretty much in agreement about what a level designer is. While there might be cases where a company requires you to have a wider profile, the base work stays the same.


    (For the record, wide profiles mean you take on work that is tangential to your current position, e.g. character artists taking on environment art, or level designers taking on game design, or programmers doing technical art etc. These profiles are not set in stone, and different companies may require different things from you.)


    • What is your favorite aspect of being a level designer and what keeps you motivated?


    H) Most of my motivation is internal, so whenever I make something I'd like to play through, I get motivated to get it done to try it out. I don't really have a favorite aspect of level design, but that's because I think the work you do as a level designer is well balanced, meaning you never get bored because you have to switch between the different things you do. Come to think of it, it's a pretty interesting process in that while doing level design, your work is paced almost the same way as any decent game.


    • In level design, is there anything that you do not enjoy doing or something that you dread having to do?


    I) Not really anything I dread, but stuff like late geometric changes in the development cycle are a pain most times. Thankfully most work processes eliminate this entirely, though you're not always lucky.


    • What do you know now, that would have been beneficial knowing before you got into the games industry?


    J) I'm going to be cocky and say "nothing". I already knew before what was necessary, and it's really just hard work. I did some things that in my earlier days I thought wouldn't help me (I got a degree in Software Development/CS), but have actually helped me a LOT in regards to my work as well as getting a general project overview and communication with more technical people. But the general gist of getting into the industry is do good work, talk and network with the right people (don't act like a sycophant/brown noser) and explore avenues of extra skills that are relevant to what you want to do.


    • Are there any stereotypes, misunderstandings, or misconceptions that you have found about level design or the games industry now that you are a part of it?


    K) None really. It's easy to become well informed about the discipline if you read up on it. At the most, the concept of wide profiles is really hard to gauge from the outside.


    • For the future, are there any concepts or projects that you would be excited to work on, or to see progress inside the industry?


    L) Yes, many... I love stealth, so any kind of game that permits stealth, any game that has RPG elements, and any game that offers a large (game) mechanical depth. I have a few things I want to realize as well, but I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.

  • What have you cooked recently

    Quote from FMPONE

    Fructose is awful, so no, there is nothing great about "natural" sugars in fruit. It's just that historically, fructose levels were low. And yes, we have altered fruit, by selectively breeding fruits highest in fructose generation after generation. It's kind of like why all tomatoes you buy from a store nowadays tend to be so bland and flavorless, we've bred only the nice red shiny ones, which tend to be sort of bland and flavorless compared to "uglier" tomatoes. This is one of the reasons apples taste like candy nowadays, once upon a time you would take an apple off a tree and it would have fructose in it and therefore signal to your brain that this plant was most likely safe to eat, but it wasn't the arbitrarily high levels of fructose in modern apple crops. Modern fruit takes advantage of our brains' evolutionary reward system which is designed to respond to foods that are likely to keep us alive, fruits were historically some of the safest and least toxic food stuffs for early humans, but now we've fucked that all up by boosting sugars....But you're forgetting that we've done the same for animal products as well. Animals have since the 70s been fed food that would increase growth for slaughter. We're only now figuring out that maybe feeding them toxic stuff also rubs off on the end consumer (see: cancer). By contrast there was this one lady who only ate fruit and veggie for like 50 years and apparently she outlived everybody. I'm not one to judge whether or not there is something to it, but we definitely have to go out from the perspective that everything we eat and do is bad for us. Even the oxygen in the air we breathe slowly oxidates (i.e. sets on fire) our internal systems and skin - which also one of the main reasons for process of physical ageing.

    Pick your poison - you might as well, you're not getting out of this alive.

  • What have you purchased recently?

    Non ref cards don't have the reference design because it would be more costly to make them. Thus you get cheaper, non-replaceable parts on non refs, and you're locked into whatever configuration the manufacturer has set for you. By contrast you can pretty much do anything to a ref card, including flashing its bios, replacing coolers yourself etc. In other words, if your card goes faulty after the warranty expires, you're pretty much fucked if you don't have a ref card. This combined with the fact that you can't sure the cooling doesn't always cool the card properly on non refs is pretty much the reason I never get them anymore.

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    Quote from Thrik


    The deutsche welle is apparently the same thing france 24 is, and you too don't know about it, that's amazing


    I didn't knew you could have a tv channel broadcasting what your country "thinks" on the international scene (like maybe it's not the opinion of the majority of the citizens in the country), it's paid with your taxes, and you didn't know about it. I'm blown away


    That is weird. I'm aware that there's a global BBC entity (both channel and news site I think), yet we can't even access the website in the UK without proxies and the channel certainly isn't aired here. I remember stumbling upon it one day and it telling me I can't view it because it's not funded by the UK TV license system. It doesn't tend to come up in UK search results either. It feels like these things are set up specifically to speak for us without letting us have any idea what's being said...


    Orwell saw this coming...

  • Dahell is happening in Kiev

    Quote from Minos

    Let's not forget other important state owned outlets: PBS, BBC, Deustche Welle and France 24.


    RT's mission is to provide Russia's perspective on current affairs, this is on their frontpage if I'm not mistaken. To me, that's what makes it special. When something happens you can compare what CNN/FOX are reporting against RT and use a middle ground to paint a picture of reality. The truth usually stands in between two extremes.


    I'll reserve my judgement for Putin's actions for later, but so far not a single person has been hurt as a direct result of his actions in Crimea and that's a fact.


    You're right. BUT, don't take this as a sign that Putin has somehow become the holy spirit in shape and form. I'm sure if the whole world wasn't watching and the Barraco Barner hadn't issued a threat, he'd be on his merry way to another massacre or genocide.