Posts by Corwin

  • post your pic extravaganza 2008!!!~

    Heh, the story behind the photo is that I worked all summer in a camp site (we call them campings) in the south of France and my old cousin managed the bar. We decided the last party before closing the bar at the end of the holidays would be themed "Marcel & Moustache" (the marcel is that top we wear btw) so all the team let his moustache grow and had silly haircuts. That was pretty fun Damn, I should have gotten a baguette from the kitchen to complete the picture!

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Quote from VoodooBenshee

    whine whine - hammer is shit. the workflow is shit, everything is shit - point! don´t waste your time learning that, go step ahead and try sb2, ue3 or id-tech - we are in the age of realtime editor lighting, turbo compiling and better and faster uses of custom stuff - or lets call it: "what you see is what you get-editing". not that crap which source uses *maeh*

    Well, I would if I was interested in building the best looking levels, but I'm more into gameplay stuff and not really a level artist, so I'd rather go with games that have more potential in that area (in my opinion).

  • Originality in mods

    Damn, that's outrageous. Reminds me of when players found a way to get an early Hall of Mirrors build out of our FTP and release it by themselves. All you can do is step back and watch assholes ruin your work for their pleasure.

    Quote

    During this period, Zerk consulted with the DICE legal team and learned that, despite having signed a contract, no legal action could be taken against the theft of intellectual property online.

    I find that surprising. I'm not saying they should have, but it's weird that they couldn't. I thought any personal work was more or less copyrighted if you could prove you were the author. Am I leaving in a dream?

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Quote from e-freak

    Hammer is still fine. Whiners. Just keep your eyes open for the L4D SDK update and check if it offers any new possibilities. If you like the displacement tool so much you should consider sandbox 2 though.

    Yep, L4D is the idea.

    It's not that I like it "so much" though, I tried sandbox 2 and it's awesome how easy it is to create landscapes and so on, but I'm not sure I want to create a map for Crysis. I liked the game, but without the awesome graphics, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it. It makes it hard to think of good gameplay ideas when you're not convinced by the original gameplay and don't know how far you could push before getting limited by the engine, or before it gets out of hand.

    I just pointed out that displacement thing is pretty good, I initially thought it would have been way worse than that in Hammer, or that everything was done under XSI.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Heh, good point.

    But I'm so late behind the new technologies that I'm afraid catching it all at once might prove a challenge, so I figured I'd learn Hammer, create a sweet level, and move to something like UnrealED. I tried the latest in the past but didn't enjoy it much, so I guess I'm also delaying the moment I have to get into it, to have fun with the source engine for a while. That'll also force me to learn 3DS or XSI to create props, and texturing basics, which is what I seem to lack the most when I see all the custom stuff the other Mapcorians come up with.

    But for now, I still have 3 Max Payne 2 projects to complete within a couple of months, so I'm only playing with Hammer until I have time to really dwelve into it.

  • [MP2] 7th Serpent: Genesis

    It's been two years and a half since 7th Serpent: Crossfire was released and I took the project in charge. Finally, I announce the second chapter of the saga:

    7th Serpent : Genesis

    Release date: December 10th 2008

    Website: http://%7boption%7d

    Synopsis:

    After the events depicted in 7th Serpent: Crossfire, the Serpent Industries managed to keep their experiments going ; worse, they secretly received funding from the government to pursue their goal. Creating genetically enhanced soldiers has become their main line of work, and they had time to practice and improve their craft.

    You are the 7th Serpent, a killing machine engineered to perform the company’s dirty works and keeping its enemies at bay. One of them is H.A.B.I.T. – Humans Against Biological Intrusive Technologies, actively fighting against the deeds of Serpent Industries, or at least what leaked out to the public throughout the years. Along with a peer, another Serpent prototype, you are sent into the Conference Center, where the heads of the organization are having a meeting, with a simple goal: making sure they can no longer slow down the progress of SI’s researches.

    Geometry:

    [Blocked Image: http://www.7thserpent.net/Screenshots/7S2_promo11.jpg]

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    Gameplay

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  • Left 4 Dead

    Quote

    I refuse to play with more than 80ping on source games!

    Oh, what a sweet delicate little flower...

    I actually played a couple times with huge lag and even though it sure was annoying, it was actually playable.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Thanks for the comments guys!

    I'm still unsure about what to do with that crysis level. I just started toying with it, had some ideas but they might prove not to be achievable. I'm considering putting that aside until I get a better grasp of what I want to do and create a Left 4 Dead level instead, getting back to Hammer after years of Max Payne stuff.

  • Originality in mods

    I think many wannabe modders (i.e. the kids that you guys are mentioning) focus way too much on the communication aspect modding brings (showing off your work, building up hype, winning awards) than actually working on the projects themselves. A friend of mine suggested a few years ago that we don't announce anything we work on until it's well advanced (or pretty much ready to be released): it saves time because you don't have to handle any fanbase, and if it turns out you gotta drop it for any reason, then you haven't wasted everybody's time.

    Of course, even though that's a solution that would clear out the modding community from the shitty and canceled mods, it can't really be applied in every case as it might be hard to get the most talented people to join you if you don't showcase your project, but I do think it's a good rule and I've been sticking to it for a long time, successfully.

    Quote from m8nkey

    Personally, I think originality is overated, ideas are a dime a dozen. For me it's about how well those ideas are executed. A mod that uses simple, tried and true gameplay mechanics that are well imlpemented and fun is a fair accomplishment. Of course unique gameplay elements are great but they greatly complicate things too.

    The cool thing about modding is it's readily accesible to anyone. Of course this also results in a plethora of absolute shit as seen on modDB. 99% of them are dreamt up by kids that never see them to fruition, they are by no means an accurate litmus test for the quality of what's out there.

    Saying there is no originallity is a gross generalisation. The Source engine alone has an impressive range of original mods that impliment unique gamelpay mechanics previously unseen in the engine.

    I agree, a mod like Minerva for HL2 is great and doesn't add much to the gameplay. Refining the original game gameplay is good enough in most cases. That feeling that the modding community is regressing in terms of originality is mainly that good mods tend to get lost in the mass of useless crap.

    Also, I believe the game dev industry keeps specializing, dividing what was once one job into numerous sub parts, so I feel like it's hard to keep on modding the recent engines and create original works without having to recruit dozens of talented people to cover all the grounds, and we all know it's a pain in the ass to manage large teams online, and usually leads to projects being canceled no matter how willingful the funders were. Thats why I think we see much more interesting and quality levels than mods. A single or couple of guys working on a level on their own have much more chances to get it done, at the price of originality and custom assets.

    BTW, I hate these mods that take a game and try to recreate it in another engine. It's even more annoying when they come up with quality work (for a while at least), and I can't help but think they should have come up with a new concept instead.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Just started a Crysis level; I'm still toying with the vegetation tool.

    [Blocked Image: http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7294/corwincrysisattemptnb7.png]

    I'm also finishing up a Max Payne 2 project I started a couple of years ago (most of the geometry was created by a friend, I scripted it). It's currently being tested, will be ready to release it in a couple of weeks.

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  • One night in Paris

    I can't say I've spent any New Year's Eve in Paris, I only went like 4 times for a few days and didn't visit much party places (I was either 11 years old, or there for a funeral ).

    While I can't give you any advices, I might be able to look into it for you (seeing as french people are lazy/uneducated and rarely translate anything to english). I found that website which lists a lot of parties planned for NYE but they vary from free cool pubs to expensive restaurant/dancing to nightclubs. What type of party would you be more interested into? What budget do you have? Would you rather eat well, drink a lot, dance, etc.?

    I also have a friend who lives close to Paris and might know about good places, I'll see if I can catch him online.

  • Favorite bands

    R.E.M.

    Wax Taylor

    Absynthe Minded

    Arctic Monkeys

    Radiohead

    Sigur Ros

    Keren Ann

    Bang Gang

    Fink

    Perry Blake

    Noir Désir

    Les Têtes Raides

    Jurassic 5

    Yann Tiersen

    Le Peuple de l'Herbe

    Hocus Pocus

    UNKLE

    Stereophonics

    Mano Solo

    ...

    a lot more, but these are the ones I've been listening to recently. No real order except that the first 4 ones come high above the others in the second list.

  • Good places in London

    Thanks for the list of locations guys, I didn't have time to visit everything but that's not a problem, since I loved that city so much I'm relocating there for 6 months or more. My friend and I took a day to look for a twin room and found the perfect house-share in Shepherd's Bush. I'm moving back there around this weekend.

  • Silent Hill Origins

    It's awesome, I just bought a PSP about 3 weeks ago and this game was the only one I was really looking forward to play, and it turned out to be amazing.

    It got a really nice introduction, and I'm fond of the combat system (which I believe has things in common with SH4, but I never played it so I can't say) which allows you to pick up stuff like portable TVs to throw them at your enemies. It looks amazingly good for the PSP, everything is well detailed, greatly lit, textures are pretty high-detail for this console... definitely impressive.

    It's a bit short (finished it in 5h30), but most enjoyable if you don't mind a few backtracking sessions, the repetitiveness of checking every door around, and the standard locked-door/key puzzles. I've yet to find a better game on the PSP.