Posts by Serenius

  • WIP in WIP, post your level screenshots!

    Rebuilt the HL2 level I'm working on with Google Sketchup. Going to be a bit of a survival horror style zombie map using Boston, MA for visual references.

    Much happier with the layout now. Now to export to Hammer.

    [Blocked Image: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4783596/Escape/Escape-Part1-3DHighLevel.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4783596/Escape/Escape-Part1-3DStorageOverview.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4783596/Escape/Escape-Part13DCondoOverview.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4783596/Escape/Escape-Part13DGasStationOverview.jpg]

  • Journey

    Quote from Sentura

    please don't take me for an idiot just because everyone else around here does.

    It would help if you don't cite school papers when talking about the real world.

  • What have you watched recently?

    I normally don't like dramas, but I'm really hooked on this. Everything is so well done, and does a great job of capturing what society was like back at the turn of the 60s. I was aghast when I saw the family having a picnic and throwing all their trash out into the park's grass instead of picking it up. Then I remembered the tree huggers hadn't taken over yet.

  • Journey

    Ok, I'll bite the troll bait to kill a few minutes.

    Quote from Sentura

    i am very aware of this and i'm also at peace with it. there's a lot of games that have improved good concepts, and this is nothing if not good progress. i have also seen indie games do good with improvement of concepts, and i commend them for it. what i'm against is the people marketing/selling/showcasing it as unique and original.

    Obviously you've never had to sell a product. Sadly, we don't live in a world where your work speaks for itself and will bring in mad bank on its own through word of mouth. Not on the level necessary to make financial budgets and stay in business. This isn't limited to the games industry either. The next great hairspray has to be the latest and greatest thing to convince someone to part with their money for it.

    Think about it from a customer perspective (not someone who's into games, just your average idiot). You're shopping for games, you don't tirelessly research everything you buy, you're just looking for something to play. At a store you're faced with a deluge of titles, all with fancy box art and copy designed to grab your attention.

    To purchase this, you're asked to part with not $5, not $10, but $40-$60 for this shiny new game that catches your eye. This is a lot of money that could be potentially wasted if you've been burned in the past (and most likely you have). It's obviously a new product, so you have no experience with the original title(s) in the series, so there's no security in your purchase going in blind. Might as well pass on the new game that could be a waste of your hard-earned money (almost a full days' of work if you're paid $10/hr) and pick up another Call of Duty game instead.

    On the other hand, if the company making the product had a good marketing team, you think you know what you're getting. This new IP is different from the rest, but their marketing team has convinced you that this is THE game to spend your money on this release period. It's getting mad praise from everyone on the internet, so you obviously can't live without it, and must go out on day 1 and buy a copy and experience this masterpiece for yourself!

    Unfortunately, the Sentura Marketing Co. was responsible for this game's campaign, and they told you it was just like Snake that you played on the Atari 2 decades ago but has a slight twist to it that makes it really fun! You're already discounting it because as the customer, in your mind, you've already seen what this game has to offer and the new twist on an old favorite probably isn't worth buying over the new CODBLOPs map pack.

    So you can live without it and go on with your life without buying it.

    So do 499,999 other people. The lack of meeting sales goals means the studio shuts down, everyone loses their job, the head guy has a massive black mark on his reputation and potentially his personal credit rating, all because they didn't try to build enough hype on their iterative version of Snake.

    Their game was fun! It did everything right! It really was the next latest and greatest thing on the gaming scene. Unfortunately, no one believed them because their marketing team tried to manage expectations.

    Over the top claims = hype. Hype = sales. Sales = staying in business. Meeting the hype = become a legend in your industry. I can't help but wonder how much time you've spent in the real world if you don't understand this. No, college (university, or whatever you call it) isn't the real world.

  • Classic S-F space corridor

    That's looking pretty sweet! Definitely has a nice predatory/hostile alien feel to it with an oppressive/unsettling atmosphere.

    There is one thing I would recommend looking at here:

    [Blocked Image: http://shadowsdomain.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/udk_corridor_02_04.jpg]

    The curved supports really clash with the flat wall and ceiling and the sharp angular way they intersect. It would look more natural if the ceiling followed a similar curve to meet the wall that then flattens out to the angle it is currently at.

    The reddish-brown fog doesn't fit since that color draws to feelings of pollution or rust in an industrial environment (in my mind anyways), but there are no noxious gases being vented, and there's no oxidation on any of the metallic surfaces.

  • Black Mesa Source

    Quote from Minotauro

    Last time I tried to complete HL1 I stopped at Xen

    Same here. Got to Xen, finished the level with the first tentacle encounter in that area, and proceeded to turn on the noclip, god mode, and weapon cheats just to finally finish it (and not deal with the low-gravity irritation after dying on the opening platforming segment way too many times).

  • Learning Hammer

    Quote from SamCom

    That's the thing that gets me, brushwork in Unreal is a terrible pain in the ass compared to Hammer. Maybe I just don't know the shortcuts, but even resizing brushes seems to take so much longer. The center points of my brushes keep moving, they're harder to select, I just feel like I'm missing something. Is there a good way to prototype in Unreal?

    Brushwork in Unreal is great! The only real down-side is that you have to rebuild brushes to see any changes you make. Subtraction brushes alone are a godsend. Trying to switch from additive + subtractive to only additive has been a nightmare.

  • RAGE

    Quote from dux

    In what ways?

    One thing that comes to mind is if every area is uniquely modeled and textured, imagine what a PITA it is if you set up a crumbled wall full of broken rebar, only to have to change it all later based on play tests.

    Now multiply that one minor exercise by 1,000, and the workflow for a non-modular approach becomes pretty painful. You pretty much have to get it right the first time before an art pass hits.

  • Learning Hammer

    Perfect. Thanks, Insta!

    So after trying to figure out how to release a map last night, I realized I was building in Source 2009, but have to release in Source 2007 to actually do this. Is there a way to convert 2009 maps to be 2007 compatible, or do I have to start from scratch?

    Google wasn't too helpful on this one.

  • Crysis 2

    Tried out the DX11 patch and the hi-res texture pack. Made all the difference in the world. Playing through the intro, it literally looked like a movie in action. Bravo, guys! Bravo!