Posts by ^Slick

Now, I've known that Modelling software such as 3DSMax has been used to create levels/maps for games for a while now, but as I have only ever mapped for the Half-Life series I was wondering how this would work.

I don't plan to work on a game soon I'm just wondering to fufill my knowledge.

Anyway, my basic questions are, have do you create all the things that a level needs in a Modelling program not designed for the specific elements the game needs. How do you set triggers and higher game entities such as a timer (logic_timer from HL2) or a trigger. How do you script the game. Also how is collision detection calculated because I can imagine alot of models being higher poly but many of the details wouldn't need collection detection, does this mean its done by hand?

How do you add spawn points and edit it all.

I've really no idea, and would be very appreciative if you could fill me in. The above questions are just sample questions to demonstrate my lack of knowledge of the procedure within a modelling program such as 3DS Max.

Hehe.

Thanks alot.

And here I was, prepared to flame the topic starter thinking they had a silly title.

Dag nabit.

Looks like another generic shooter, I've not heard of this till now though so I've no read anything about it. I do like the design of that weapon though, it's different... slightly anyway.

I must say though, those flying enemies look like balls, I'm sure they are more impressive in motion though.

Quote from Wunderboy

Well as it's for DoD:S you have the benefit of LOD so you could quite quickly start swapping out lower poly versions with less detail.

6000 polys is nothing for a DoD:S map model as long as you start kicking the LOD in nice and early. Heck, the default tiger tanks is like 11,000 polys at LOD 0 and the Pak 40 I made was 8300.

Yeah, exactly. =)

Well it really depends on what's it's being used for and the environment its in, you could shave off some polys without much, if any quality loss but I'd sad keep it as I'm sure any engine would be able to handle it.

Yeah, thats cool capone, I'm sure you know your way around it as your more experienced then I.

By the by, I'm the dude commenting about the book in you comments =P

Thanks for that [HP], I've never played with nurms so never seen what it looked like.

That's very interesting... Thanks.

Quote from KIIIA

far away from being beautyful, but better than the last renders :

I must admit, cars are one of the sexist things you can model, low or high poly, and in renders its just, porno for geeks.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't go that far but, top notch stuff there. Is that a preset scene that you are rendering it in? What program are you using for rendering?

EDIT: Oh dear, I appear to have spammed up the front page

Could you post a render so we can see where the smoothing is buggereing up?

What did you model this in, looks like Modo to me?

And whats with the grainy final picture?

Otherwise, that is extremely sexy, nice one.

Well it seems to be better then it is. Thanks for the lovely words. I think I'm just being paranoid, I'm the type of person who has everything planned and what not so I'd be lost if I couldn't get a job here. =)

Quote from Psycho

Freelance like I will. Sorted.

Why are you never on msn anymore? Bastardface.

I've no idea what all that stuff means but that really sucks hard. I was actually planning on moving to america as I don't think the job market for game development here in the UK is very good, but damnit. That sucks.

There goes my plans

You have very little in your portfolio for the amount of games you've worked on.

Otherwise, great blog.

Never noticed that, the shadowing is very good. Hmmm...

Maybe it is radiosity? Like they rendered the lighting for every "second" of the day and then just had it change? I dunno, I'm making things up now.

I play my bets on it being real time, the cutscenes for the first were realtime, these are probs just cuts from many different cutscenes, I don't know why people think they are CG, the kinda things going on in these are definitely able to be produced in real time. Let me remind you people of Unreal 3:

http://%7boption%7d

If that can be done in real-time, I'm sure the Mafia-2 stuff can.

It's annoying, America seems to be the only place to get jobs, but I don't wanna move there really. Unless I get to work at Valve. =P

Thanks for the link.

The facial animations seemed out of sync in places and over-done, they still don't beat the new stuff in TF2 and HL2 - Episode 2 in my opinion.

Game still looks good anyway, I'll be buying it.

Yeah, I know I've got to move to Unreal Ed at some point, which will most likely be after Unreal3 is out and I've a PC that can handle it. =)

I'm just hoping some of the problems I encountered have been fixed, because they are damn annoying.

Quote from Psycho

I guess the real question is; Who doesn't need to learn UnrealED? If you want a career as a level-designer you have to learn UnrealED at some point.How simple is it to use compared to other editors?

In my opinion, the 2004 editor is horrible. Its buggy and it seems overly complicated. But that's coming from somebody used to the Hammer editor, which is incredible simple. I hate the texture browser in Unreal Ed compared to Hammer, they are all in packages, which half the time have obscure names, it took me two weeks to find a god damn glass texture that worked. Where-as in Hammer, you just search for glass, oh simple!

Also all the entity editing windows seem really complicated and rely to much on maths, but I never played around with that.

Also it seems incredibly hard for the brushes to want to stay on the grid, they seem to make they're own invisible grid which they stick to and you've gotta turn off stick to grid to make it atleast seem they are on the grid.

Also to build brushes and stuff you've gotta move a red "builder" brush around and make that into the shape you want which I find really awkward where-as in Hammer you just click and drag your shape and press enter.

Also, when you load it it changes the gamma/brightness settings of Windows and sometimes when you close it the changes stay, which is incredibly annoying.

My short review of Unreal Ed. I only used it for about a month for college, and still churned out better results then my peers, but its horrible... in my opinion.

Edit: I agree with the post above about the material editor, that thing is sweet, also the terrain tools, although it takes an age to set the bastard up, are much better then Hammer. Also Unreal Ed has a real-time lighting preview

Quote from Thrik

And a total absence of games which've literally provided me with dozens of hours of fun such as Battlefield 2(142) and Company of Heroes.

Once again, it's all about genres. The genres you like most will almost certainly dictate your preference, because even today FPS and RTS games pretty much feel like ass on consoles, and especially in the case of FPS games I just don't enjoy them in the same way because that huge tactile precision element is gone.

Obvious solutions are for keyboards/mice to be used on consoles, but in most cases you don't really want to be using those when you're sat in an area your console is likely to be: your lounge. Plus the current state of actual implementation of them on consoles is so laughable that it's hardly worth considering as a realistic option.

I mean, cost obviously isn't a problem. I could buy every single current generation console on top of the high-end PC I have, and still not feel the sweat. I'm guessing the same goes for anyone who has a job. The point is I just prefer playing the type of games I like to play on the PC. I don't have the spare time to exhaustively play all four platforms, so I go with the one I enjoy most. Simple!

I do find it somewhat amusing and intriguing how at the end of the day, the whole PC/console argument essentially comes down to peripherals and environment. Perhaps controls like what the Wii provide will be the key to closing the divide between consoles and PCs. Heck, if pointing devices became a standard implementation there's no reason all three companies' consoles plus the PC (thanks, Logitech) couldn't enjoy a standardised control method.

After all, even though the PC has already overtaken console graphics with ease as usual, the divide isn't so big that it'd really detriment your fun to play it on the console's hardware rather than a top-end PC. I absolutely believe that the 360 and PS3's reliance on input devices that seem increasingly archaic is the only thing holding them back from being truly dominant in every single genre. We need that tactile pointing precision.

It's just a shame the Wii is indeed as inferior as it is with regards to hardware, meaning it can't really be used as a solid proof of concept of just how much impact the pointing device could have on the types of games we see on the PC/360/PS3. The Wiimote also has sensitivity issues which might piss off mouse lovers. Perhaps the next generation will hold the key.

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I love you, this is the exact mindframe I have, except that you have money and I don't. /me shakes fist at you.