Posts by Tron

  • DM-NewDamage [WiP] UE4 Whitebox Challenge

    I really like all the bars and features blocking movement but allowing you to shoot through. Agree with people saying to increase some of the scale though, there are lots of positions where you seem to have put lots of thought into the views the player gets and how vulnerable they are in those positions, but only a couple of steps of movement between them. In a frantic firefight lots of the strategizing will just go out the window and at that point cramped spaces will just frustrate players.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Quote from holiestcows

    im not particularly looking for feedback, only posted because someone said keep posting maps. NMRiH generally has pretty dark environments, so having a tiny pic + white background makes it hard to see. In game, with the Post processing and Flashlight, its lit fine. Besides im just grey boxing a little test map to learn how the game plays out.

    Take a look at screenshots from commercially released games, you can always seem what's going on with them. There's nothing wrong with posting your shot with slightly boosted brightness so that the screenshot more accurately depicts what you'll see ingame.

    As for myself, bit of progress on my project:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/YMBBRB9.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/849MreC.jpg]

    Getting the broad shapes and feel in, will come back through later for a detail pass.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    If you want to keep all the planets I would firstly tone down the contrast on the planet with rings a bit more. As a general rule no part of anything you can see in the sky like that should be darker than the sky itself. Think about how the moon looks when you see it during the day.

    Then I would shrink those two planets (or moons as you have decided they will be) by a factor of ten at least. Making them quite small in the sky would actually increase the feeling of scale to the whole thing.

  • [GoW] Embry Station - Beta now available

    I don't have Gears of War installed at the moment so can't playtest this, but watched through the video. Gameplay wise things are pretty basic so I won't talk too much at that, it seems like what you are mainly going for here is the atmosphere. I will therefore comment more on that sort of thing.

    At the moment events are way too obviously triggered. The light happens to randomly flicker off just as you pass underneath, that guy happens to run into your field of view and get attacked just as you pass the conveniently located grate. Obviously those things need to be triggered to happen at the right time, but they have a very staged feel.

    To work out how those moments could emerge more naturally, lets look at the setting for the level. The subway has obviously been recently attacked, as demonstrated by the fact there are still survivors running around (well at least one until you see him get killed) and that fires are still burning in barrels. That being the case, the start of the level should be tense. You aren't exploring an abandoned tomb, you are stepping into a battle zone where an enemy could be behind any one of those pillars waiting for you.

    Since that is the case, emphasize it. Add sounds of distant fighting in. Earth tremors as explosions rock the tunnels. At the moment the light going out gives nothing to the player other than showing you know how to use a trigger. Why has it gone out? If it is because the lighting is all faulty, then have other lights flickering on and off. If you want it to be a clear consequence of the players entrance to that area then work out a reason why. Is that area badly damaged and unstable? If so make that obvious in the architecture and when the player steps into that first doorway make it clear the light has gone out because the entire area is unstable and dangerous and you shouldn't really be moving through it if you value your life.

    Alternatively alter the architecture so there is an inaccessible space above. An enemy spots your presence and in rushing out of that area to come and find you they knock the light out.

    The same principle applies to seeing the human attacked from behind the grate. Why do you happen to be there at precisely the right moment to witness it? The two main options are that your presence causes it to happen, or that there is lots of that type of thing going on right now and you are witnessing just one incident of many.

    Your presence causing it to happen is a harder one. Could be is the enemy who saw you earlier moving through that area to come to get you and chancing across the human hiding there? Or maybe you turn on some lights and that has the side effect of exposing him. Alternatively you could go the passive route, where you are just witnessing a random incident, which would stick out less if you already had the sounds of other distant fights going on in the background from the start of the level.

    The boss fight area is boring. The one area of cover is in the middle of the room, but that is where you want to draw the beserker anyway. I would make the area slightly larger, have pillars around the perimeter, and the region under the skylight completely open. That way when fighting the beserker conventionally you have lots of cover, but to get the upper hand requires you to take a risk and lure him out into the central open area where you yourself are more exposed.

    Just a few random thoughts.

  • University final year project Level - crit needed.

    If you are going for suspense then you don't want the player to be able to see everything. That doesn't mean you have to make everything dark as in your first screenshot, rather get some contrast in the lighting. Get some structures in there that obstruct the players view slightly. Even just something basic like a few pillars here and there will help immensely if you want the player questioning what is lurking in the room with them. Large open environments like you have work best when they are contrasted with the type I just described. When the player enters one of these large open well lit rooms they should pause because they are so used to thinking something is lurking around that any apparently safe area looks like a trap.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    [Blocked Image: http://mapsbytron.com/images/random-temp-stuff/stroggos3.jpg]

    Just a little something I have been playing with for the last week or so.

    It's an Enemy Territory: Quake Wars map set on Stroggos. I'm trying to go for a bit of a desolate atmosphere, want the landscape to look kind of artificial as the Strogg have dug every last resource out of their own planet.

    Dunno how far I am going with this, just got an itch to play around with ETQW.

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Those sections you have highlighted don't go against anything Narby said, he was emphasizing how the forces on a collapsing wall will depend on how it was taken down. Almost all the sections you have highlighted are where the wall has sheered away as a result of the weight from the other structural failures.

    While you could made a technical case for exacting scenarios that would result in the arrangements you have used, they would be extremely unlikely and to many people it will make what you have there look un-natural. In such a beautiful scene that has some extremely realistic shapes it is a shame to shock the player out of the illusion by presenting them with an artificial looking form.