Posts by Corwin

  • Skype group

    If I'm not mistaken, you need a server host to connect to when using Ventrilo or TeamSpeak. They usually come with a gaming server rental.

    If somebody owns such a server and doesn't use it, it could be used like a IRC channel, where people can simply connect to check who's online and chat.

  • Chrome Engine 4 Level Editor - ChromED

    Quote from Steppenwolf

    Maybe because its more fun to be creative in an oldschool editor as a hobbyist. These new type of editors are fantastic for professional work when a constant flow of new assets is coming in daily and when you work under time pressure. But they take away from the creative freedom if you are not a good 3d artist also. And doing assets yourself is very time consuming and you have to be damn good already to create some nice looking stuff.

    My opinion exactly!

    Working on a Crysis level that needs quite a lot of custom content, I can't be expected to create anything as good as the original game or what recent games are up to. To create a unique and detailed map in these engines, you'd need to be part of a team, with level designers and env artists working together.

  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Teaser

    Quote from Rick_D

    On Steam it is now 34.99 - that is a pretty decent price considering all the crying about the $60 tag.

    34.99 United Kingdom Pounds = 57.5057 United States Dollars

    That's pretty close I'll say.

    Quote from Rick_D

    Which meant when I bought CoD4 on Steam it cost £59.99 - no game should be worth that much :S

    Agreed!

    It's 60 euros in France, that's way more than what I consider a reasonable price, but I just love CoD singleplayer so I might get it anyway.

  • Development Blogs - What when and where?

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    For some reason when I put in an image of 1680x1050 it looks like it's doing the auto image generation but what actually happens is it posts the full res image in the blog. So far the only way I've been able to rectify this is to reduce the image enough that it manages to correctly create a thumbnail.

    Maybe your server doesn't support the thumbnail generating tools (I don't remember the name, it's some kind of PHP extension if I remember well) ? There must be scripts online that help you test that, but that's only worth it if it's a real pain in the back.

  • Development Blogs - What when and where?

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    If you want people to follow your blog you need to post often (at least once a week) and it must be interesting.

    I think very few people have something new and valuable to say every week

    Anyway, I think if you want to get fame, you have to use Wordpress or another content management system. Thanks to its formatting and features, your articles can directly be used on community websites and other blogs. A friend wrote a post for his blog recently and realized it ended up on the front page of Gamasutra, and he was proposed a job thanks to it. That wouldn't have happened if he had had a custom layout and no standard formating.

    It's a bit hypocritical for me to say that as I didn't go for Wordpress, but that's just because I don't pretend what I have to say is gold, I don't strive for fame, and I like to have complete control over the layout. But it sure is a handy tool that came a long way.

    I think you won't be able to write something good often enough if you don't post "devblog" entries, like Robert Briscoe does. You can't come up with new techniques and concepts that make up for interesting articles every week, so writing about your work and progress is a good way to fill your blog.

    However, my personal opinion on the matter is that you shouldn't post just for posting. I'd rather read a blog that gets updated only every month but with awesome articles than read one every week and get bored. Less is more I say, keep to the best you can come up with.

  • The best approach to building a Level Designer portfolio

    Thanks for the insightful replies guys, there's some very good and clear advices in there! Keep them coming

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    As far as documentation is concerned, I'd say just about none. As long as you can produce some when you actually get the job that'll be fine. What's important is your ability to EXPLAIN your designs YOURSELF. Most companies are not going to read through every single document you submit. A simple glance over the actual maps will tell them all they need to know.

    I was asking because a friend of mine got hired at a big (200+) company thanks to the documentation he wrote for every one of his projects, and he was actually asked to rewrite most of the internal documentation once he got hired. From what I got from books and interviews, I believe it depends on the size of the company really, a smaller one doesn't need so much written material to keep everybody in the loop, while a massive amount of colleagues probably means a greater chance of not being on the same track if you don't carefully explain everything on paper.

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    Pictures say 1000 words an till the time comes where you have to speak!

    Well that's actually one of my concerns: my pictures can't compete with the environment artists around here, and I'd like to put forward the design and thoughts behind my levels, but that's hard to do with a website without having lots of text, and I agree it's not what would be of most interest visitors trying to evaluate my potential. I might do a video when my current project's done, to show a bit of gameplay and comment my design decisions at the same time. One of you did something like that for his portfolio (can't remember who though) and I thought it was clever.

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    I don't typically approve of spending years on a single project, as you'll just end up with an unfinished project as a result of burning out on it. For the first few weeks of a project you'll be motivated and excited. Try not to let something run too far beyond that or it'll sap away and it gets harder and harder to finish. Don't try and make a 3 hour mod that is entertaining and is punctuated with some really cool moments. Make a 10 minute section of gameplay that IS a cool moment. And if it didn't quite have the level of polish you'd like, don't spend months adding it in. Use those months to make more of these things! It sounds like that is your plan going forward and to me it sounds like a good one.

    Thanks for that advice. In the past I got way too busy with long-term projects, and yes they tend to burn you out, even though I've always seen them to the end. I'll do that, as soon as my current project is done I'll get cracking onto smaller designs, restricted in length but more intense and showing my skills better than a big project, where the great ideas and decisions can tend to get lost in the size of the thing.

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    play those game and think about what they are doing. Why is that part fun, why was I nervous about running around that corner...etc. Design covers a lot of different skills but the biggest comes down to knowing, or figuring out, what is fun. If you are a geo guy or a scripter, it pays huge dividends to know how to get something to play well. Analyze the hell out of other games.

    Yeah, I kind of do that instinctively, but lately I've started thinking more actively about the reasons that led designers to create this or that the way they did, and I try to learn lessons from that aswell. Hopefully that'll show later on.

  • The best approach to building a Level Designer portfolio

    I'm not posting this in the Getting into the Industry topic because I don't want to distract it from its course with what could become too personal.

    As I am trying to get my portfolio ready to start looking for a full-time position at a game dev company, I can't help but ask myself what would be the most important quality for a level designer to showcase.

    As a wannabe level designer, I find it hard to really grasp what it is a level designer does, because it all depends on companies and experience, so I find it even harder to get what I should be striving for. It's not like Environment Artists, who can create small but great looking, original levels, or turn concept art into a 3D environment, or model assets to quickly enhance their portfolio (not trying to diminish your work, I have very much respect for you artistic guys). I feel that everytime I'm beginning a new project as a level designer, I can't put the finger on what exactly I should be showing through my work, so instead I create something I want to (which usually gets a bit out of hand, since I'm more passionate with single playing games). It's fine, it all started that way, but I think my portfolio could use some final, small additions like Env Artists would create a few scenes to show more original work than their usual style.

    I guess what I'd like to know is from people who've been hired based on their modding work and the levels they designed, the ones who ended up in a level designer position or were actually looking for one from the start, is there a specific part of your work that actually got you hired? Something like thinking out-of-the-box, creating experimental designs; or showing that you can work on long-terms projects, being part of modding projects that take years to complete, that you can take an idea and flesh it out and take it to the end; or rather that you can take existing assets of a game and create something completely new and different with them? If any, what aspect of your levels made you stick out of the crowd?

    Lately, I've had fun creating a level under a month for a competition, so I realized maybe rather than getting in deep with massive, epic projects, I should lower my goals to be able to create more. My idea right now is that after I completed my current project, I'll give myself assignments the way companies sometimes give you assignments to see how you develop a theme or solve a problem. Like, giving myself a couple of weeks to create a level that takes place in the dark and see what puzzles, challenges and cinematic experience I could come up with, without spending much time on the modelling but more on the design. Is that a good idea, or am I trying too hard to cut out what really is evaluated as a whole and I should just keep doing what I do as best as I can and people will understand I have the passion and mind for it?

    Or am I completely wrong about it, and I should rather try to develop my artistic skills such as modelling and texturing rather than focus on design, because most puzzles and encounters to happen in a specific level would be specified by the game designers anyway, so I should rather enlarge my horizons rather than focus on what I really want to do so I do it best?

    Finally, how important is it to show that you can write documentation and keep it up to date. I tried to do so for my current project, but I slowly stopped updating it since I'm the only one aboard, there's no much use for it, and I fear it would be a bit hypocritical to show it off like it's some kind of trying-to-do-it-like-a-pro thing while I don't really know how it would really work within a company. Is a Post Mortem more important than full development updates with design docs and all that?

  • Peter Asberg - Environment artist

    Sounds good about putting your articles in the blog. Nothing prevents you from adding a list of the most interesting posts at the bottom of your portfolio with their titles linking to the blog entries. Somebody looking to know more about you or your way of thinking would then be able to follow up to the blog naturally.

    I checked your blog quickly - didn't have time to read much though, so I can only comment on the aspect.

    - I think you should keep your labels to a reasonable minimum amount. Have maybe 10 labels top instead of lots with only one post related. For instance, labels such as "2142", "Bram Eulers" (sorry Peris), "Overlord", "editor", etc. won't serve much purpose but get the other ones lost in the crowd. You should try to gather your posts under generic labels in the vein of "Gaming", "Personal Work", "3D Art", "2D Art", "Concept", "WIP", "GamesIndustry", "Tutorials", and forget the too specific ones that you won't be using again. I understand that going back and editing all your posts' label is going to suck, but I believe if you are going to add more and more articles you should stick to that rule of having few categories. It makes for better browsing and your page will look cleaner.

    - If that is possible, put your labels before the "Useful links" section. It's safe to admit people visiting your blog aren't there to look for links and are more interested in your posts than your webring.

    - I would just suggest you try to add more to space to your longest text-only posts. You could also divide the longest articles by inserting some bold/bigger sub-titles every 2 or 3 paragraphs, but only if that makes sense. Some entries are quite long and look overwhelming without or titles images to interrupt the flow. I realize there's not always a good reason to add pictures, then maybe try to highlight the critical words by making them to bold, so it's easier to scan through the articles and see what might be of interest. I'm just speaking about the most hardcore text-only posts here of course, most of them are alright, either short enough or showing pictures. Just consider each new post you make and if it looks too much like a fat pile of text, add spaces/sub-titles/pictures to give it some air.

    - One last thing that's completely up to your visual tastes: I believe the page could use another color to contrast with the blue/purple aspect. Maybe set the titles of the articles a warmer color, so it serves the purpose of contrast and helps seeing where a post starts. I dunno how much freedom blogger gives you so I don't know if you're able to change that without affecting all the links, but I honestly think some color in there would be nice, especially since some articles don't have images to give some contrast. Maybe if you redesign your portfolio, you should duplicate your choice of colors onto your blog so it fits? Just thinking out loud.

    My two cents. I have to agree it's mostly nitpicking, but you asked for my opinion I'll get to read some of that later, sounded interesting!

    EDIT: Hehe, was reading a bit and ended up on that sentence: "Last of all, I want to apologize for the lack of images. This is supposed to be an art related blog and no images? Shame on me." Looks like you're aware of the things I mentioned

  • Peter Asberg - Environment artist

    I like the selection of pictures right at the top of the page, but I missed the Next/Previous arrows at the bottom the first time around. I kind of identified that black bar as a title of the following. Don't know if I'm the only one to miss it, but in case I believe adding the name of the next/previous pages ("Personal Work", name of games) next to the arrows would make it more obvious.

    There's a typo in the title of your article: surfacse -> surfaces. It's not a big deal in the middle of a paragraph, but in a title it kind of gives the idea that you didn't even read it after writing it.

    I also think that article should be somehow seperated from the rest. Your website could use some more visible category titles: the Documentation one is the same size as the title of the article. It should be bigger and clearly seperate the following form the list of games you worked on. Maybe also duplicate the style of it to a new category above the games:

    Games

    - Shellshock 2

    - Overlord

    Documentation

    - Creating metal surfaces

    If you categorize the entries with more visible titles, you could also keep the bold text to make the name of companies or job titles stand out from the regular text.

    Finally, but that's not major and up to your liking, but I find the font type to be a bit small. It's not like you're limited in space, so I don't see why you should make it so small. It doesn't make me want to read and makes it harder to scan through the page.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    A few recent additions to my China-based WIP Crysis level.

    [Blocked Image: http://www.clement-melendez.com/portfolio/pictures/mandate/mapcore01.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.clement-melendez.com/portfolio/pictures/mandate/mapcore02.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.clement-melendez.com/portfolio/pictures/mandate/mapcore03.jpg]

    It's coming together, I need to finish the two main buildings and I'll be somewhat done with the modeling. There's still a good amount of vegetation and terrain textures to tweak though. There's also lots of props/obstacles that need adding, especially around enemy positions.

  • KoKos sketches thread

    Quote from KoKo5oVaR

    It's a fishHe kinda look sinister but actually he is kinda sad, because he feels alone in the ocean ... he'd like to have friends like those cool dolphins to play with, but he swim too deep for the dolphins....... and his sister the sea turtle has just been eaten by a shark

    Poor fish

    Best background story evaaa!

    Seriously though, I love your last two drawings