Probably gonna get this around christmas or something. Loved the first Assasin's Creed. Never got to play the second one though, seemed a bit too much of the same. I'm not really a fan of playing iterations of the same type of game. Anyways, the multiplayer looks sweet!
Anyone that can comment on the multiplayer, gimmick... or actually fun?
the0rthopaedicsurgeon, interesting shapes! Love it.
I'm still in college and thus not in the industry yet, but I hope my advice can be of some use since I've researched a lot of this when I had to make my own.
1) I don't like your frontpage for the fact that it's a "homepage", I'd rather see thumbs pointing to projects, or just put your personal work in my face, as a homepage.
The homepage has 1 screenshot which made me first think that the first page was a showcase page, but... it was not...
Then I was like... ok, so where CAN I find his work? Then looked for some links and there it was, up right.
Basically... It takes too much effort to be able to see your work.
2) Your banner with your name and artwork = awsome.
3) "WILL JOSEPHY | LEVEL DESIGNER The Portfolio of William Josephy, Level Designer at Frontier Developments", seems a bit redundant, you already have the banner for that, right? Not really sure about it...
4) The fact that you can see your contact details on every page is good, but that area is a bit too wide. Your email and the other text don't take that much space so why not make it smaller so you can have larger images of your work?
5) The development shots of Hellingsy are very informative, those clicklinks could've been bigger though since I didn't really see what I was clicking on. And there's too much of it, cut half the frames out so you can make the clicklinks bigger. The steps in between frames is sometimes just too minimal to justify a different screenshot.
6) Inconsistency when clicking on pictures. It took a short while, but then I figured it out, big ones open high res screenshots. Small ones take you to the gallery. I also don't like that those high res versions take me off your website, I like it more when they open up in a different window so I can still browse your portfolio, but perhaps that's just a personal thing.
7) It takes some work, yes... But I'd like to be able to obtain high res versions of all those pictures in the gallery.
8 ) Missing what languages you speak on your resume
Overall, nice work man. I really like the look of Hellingsy and even though I have some remarks on your website, I thinks it's pretty good already. I hope the information proves to be useful, but check with others as well. Alright, cheers.
All fair and to the point crits guys, thanks! Will help a lot in my next projects or when I find time to tweak some of the stuff.
":1ys1ilct]DICE needs to make ME2!
Yeah! 
Is it only me or were you guys awed by the level design in ME as well? Just put aside the shiny graphics everyone talks about for a moment and just think about what you had to do in ME itself... I thought it was amazing and clever! No one ever talks about that, so I'm just wondering...
Hmm, better safe than sorry... I'll update my website and email then.
Thanks!
I am in the midst of sending emails to different studios for my internship but got commented by some fellow students that hotmail adresses aren't really prefered and might even get blocked by some spamfilters...
I thought you guys, since a lot of you are seasoned professionals, could help me with this?
Should I just make a gmail mail adress and use that, or stick with my hotmail one?
Does it matter, or does it not? Bullshit or not...?
Thx!
Awsome! I like what you did with the theme, that balloon room is awsome! 
Totally fking awsome! The things people come up with for minecraft is awsome, I'm glad there's a whole bunch of people that can think out of the box. Would never have come up with this hammer editor tex mod 
Quote from e-freakFirst of all: I like what I see, missed some of the red-overlays on some objects but nothing too big.Technical question: Can you use ME light baking system when you mod yourself? because the lighting and shadows looked different to me when in the game (although I haven't played it in ages).
No, you can only use the default UE3 lighting system. If anyone can get their BEAST lighting engine to work however... that'd be great! But I'm guessing it just isn't included on disc...
You can open the unreal editor if you add -editor in the executable, you need to copy 2 folders (wxRC and wxRes) from another unreal game (like UT3 or something) inside the binaries folder of Mirror's Edge so it doesn't crash.
There's a bunch of tutorials on it on youtube and on the "on mirrors edge forum".
There's some quirks though Modding for Mirror's Edge isn't very mod friendly... If you play in the editor you die after 10 seconds or faster (if you jump you die faster, yeah...weird) , it's because of some copy protection apparantly. From what I've heard the steam version doesn't have this problem. This doesn't happen if you fire it up in the real game however so that's good.
- Brush wireframe doesn't work, but you can press w to hide your objects and go to the wireframe anyways so it isn't much of an issue...
- Lighting only/texture density/light complexity views don't work.
- Your map NEEDS to be named after a real ingame map or it fails to open and it needs to be in the unpublished folder.
- You need to select every object and check "force mip streaming" or otherwise they're all blurry in the game.
- I don't think you can make custom packages, just place everything in your level package.
- Couldn't get checkpoints to work so I added a teleportation system if you fall of a building but if you "really" die, well then it's all from the beginning. Should only happen if you die by cops or happen to fall on an unfortunate ledge
- In the end of my project lighting crashed every other while, so build lighting, save, restart, build again...
- Tutorials for volumes to climb/zipline/whatever can be found "on mirrors edge forum, modding section"
If you can overcome these issues then making a map for Mirror's Edge is a blast, the mechanics are just awsome!
Not so much random errors so that's good, and unfortunately... no Beast lighting
In case you want to look at my map to see how things are done, place the same folder structure in "unpublished" instead of "published" and then you can open it. There's a bunch of examples on "on mirrors edge forum" as well but most of them are either timetrials or "funmaps", not a lot of singleplayer levels.
If you find any bugs post here!
Quote from u.s.marshalHey Lukas, First I'd like to say that you've got some nice stuff on your page !
I like your introduction videos even though they are a bit too long. The Cryengine 2 walkthrough video was okay, but I got a little bit confused because I first saw your great screenshots and the video didn't look like those. I assume that you captured the video in "low details" ? I wouldn't do that ! capture it at high and put anti-aliasing at 4 or something.
I think your portfolio is easy to use and all screenshots are in full screen available, which is great ! my favorite project is your UE 3 Mirror's Edge map, I really like it.
Way to go !
Hmm, guess the length really is an issue then... Because right before you see the ingame footage I tell you that unfortunately I had to set everything to low graphics because screencapturing and my (crappy, well not really but I'm in my last year so it's pretty old... now) school laptop (and I don't have anything else :s) can't run this on high. But I was using Camtasia Studio to record, which is a performance hog... I'll check if I can use fraps to record and stream the voice in another program and bring it together, should be able to bring it to medium-high graphics then cos I used fraps for the walkthrough of "Mirror's Edge Overtime", and the framerate is pretty steady there! For now, I'll place an overlay in youtube to warn people so they aren't confused if they just scroll through it.
Guess you missed that part, and I don't blame you, if it's too long it's too long 
I'll see if I have the time to make the first part shorter so people don't miss that info.
Thanks!
Quote from FuryoI can tell that you already followed a lot of the advice we all generally give on these forums, and even got inspired by many members' websites in your own layout
Good job on the Mirror's Edge level, I didn't even know that game could be modded...
Portfolio wise, I think you're doing just fine even though I'm not a fan of the rollover effect on the buttons (looks too busy) and you could remove the home button since your name already takes us there.
Yes I did, I'm glad you noticed! I'm not gonna lie, I watched a lot of portfolio's to check out the layout and see what worked and what didn't. But I still tried to give it my own vibe and not just blatantly copy.
Thanks for the feedback! I already made it less busy... I think you would've freaked out if you saw the previous version, haha 
Nice to point it out though, I'll check with more people if they see it as a problem and I'll change it then!
First I had the home button, but a friend pointed out that he couldn't go back (guess he didn't see the home icon as a "home" link, perhaps text instead then?) so then I hyperlinked my name as well... But yeah, guess it's a bit redundant now.
If you had to choose which would you keep? A text button "home", next to my "resume" button. Or the hyperlink on my name?
Hi, I'm Lukas Van Daele and I'd like some feedback on my portfolio which I just finished.
I'll be sending this to different studios to get an internship as a Level Designer.
Any things that I need to change or could improve? Thank you!
I made this custom level for Mirror's Edge in the last couple of weeks/months, been working my ass off to get it finished and it's finally done!
It's actually a lot of fun, so download and play it if you'd like! Or just watch the walkthrough video... But it's a walkthrough, so the whole thing's a spoiler
It should take about 10 minutes, but if you know everything then you can do it in 3,5.
Background: In the tutorial level of Mirror's Edge, Merc talks about your fall that took you out of commission for a while. My level is a prologue to Mirror's Edge and explains why she got injured. The level starts off after a long day of work, but it's not over yet because Faith gets a call to do some overtime. You must retrieve a bag inside a building that Celeste hid there because she dropped out, so you need to finish her assignment instead.
Walkthrough Video:
http://www.lukasvandaele.net/Mirrors_Ed ... e_v1_1.zip
Screenshots:
The High-res version of these screenshots can be found on my portfolio if you'd like them.
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So... What do you think, any constructive feedback? I'd very much appreciate it considering the amount of time I've spent on it...
Thanks! And enjoy!
Call me old fashioned but I don't like the whole download craze... Same for DLC.
I just want to go to the store, look at the shelves, see what's new. Pick up a box, read the manual, insert disk and there you have it...
A download is just... well, not physical
Wall of text, sorry... But I don't want any more confusion so I'll just explain myself better this time around.
No, that's not what I meant, you're loosing your fine contrast you had in the 1st version. You had brights, darks and a nice in between area there (a balanced composition!), I was missing that in the 2nd version. The dark areas in your 2nd version were just a bit TOO dark, like when someones uses a light that's too bright and everything's washed out, well you had the reverse, it was just one black spot without definition, the grass was lost in the black (on the left side of the picture). You also didn't really have that strong light anymore.
In any case, I actually prefered the 1st version way more but since you changed it you obviously felt something was wrong with it (Guess you wanted to go for a more subtle effect). So instead of just saying, reverse what you did, I said: get it in between so you get those nice little things back
So no, increasing your brightness just like that won't do the scene any good (the moodyness is gone). Just try to
1) Remove the entirely black areas (sometimes this effect can be good to draw attention to the lit up parts, but I don't think that's your point, you just want to sell your environment, right?). So don't loose definition!
2) Keep the contrast, if everything looks same-ish in terms of lighting it's dull.
So play with more than just brightness, if my memory serves me right TOD's have a ton of things you can do in this respect. If you're fed up with tweaking then just get the brightness to what it was before and leave it at that cos in all honesty, it now looks the worst. I mean, the fog now seems to illuminate the place, looks odd.
I just hope that makes any sense They're still pictures though, so it's hard to judge... the specular on the grass could very well make it stand out just enough. I guess a video will show that. Just keep those basics of lighting composition in the back of your head and you'll be fine! It was just a minor pointer.
About that "final touch", you can try doing it with just... lighting and nothing extra assets or anything.
Kind of cheesy this one, add another hole, beam, shiny edges so the rocks stand out more. Don't really advise this one, but perhaps it gives you another idea. The emphasis is on brighing some shiny rims around different object in the scene, not essentially that beam itself...
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More subtle:
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You don't have to make it as "beam-y" if you don't want to, just notice how the rocky wall in the middle is lit up more cos it receives the lighting directly. It's not forbidden to manually place extra lights in there to fake it... I like this especially because of the eye travel it generates, you're drawn to the most lit part in the scene, the hole. Then you follow its path to the lit up wall, and then you notice the broken stairs in the dark. It's a natural flow and easy for the eye.
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I'd try something like this, see where it leads to?
Nice, now I know what I've been missing
Ran the game on low at first, couldn't even see the fireflies... Now medium and all is swell (to a certain degree), 6-10 FPS FTW!
I seriously need another rig next to my school laptop.
The game kinda reminds me of Myst, yeah weird. What I don't like however is that sometimes the whole puzzly thing only makes sense after you've completed it, which makes it a bit more trial and error. Whereas I like it more that I get a problem presented and can figure it out in my head and then just... do it. The watergate area comes to mind.
Will play a bit more later today!
This is an environment I had been working on last year to get familiar with the unreal engine.
I left it unfinished for a while since I had lots of schoolwork but now I came back to it and finished it.
Sadly, it was right before the UDK was released So that's why it's still in the unreal tournament editor.
All props/textures are made by Epic.
Background:
A sudden collapse revealed a pocket underneath a fluid processing facility, the rocks around the hole were fortified so there wouldn't be any further collapses. They figured they could use the created space to dump some excess materials and refine some of their waste fluids there so they started building concrete walls around excavated areas. Then the facility was abandoned and a rupture caused greenish fluids to leak into the underground facility.
Design:
The map is built around a floorplan designed for 2 players (1vs1). But since I'm not familiar with the game itself, I decided not to implement any further gameplay but just make a nice environment out of it.
My design wouldn't have worked for UT3 because you run very fast in UT3 so the area is way too small and densely filled with objects.
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Flythrough video:
Screenshots:
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Feedback much appreciated! Although I won't be working on it any time soon because I have other portfolio work that's more important (actually has gameplay).
I might update it after that work, or just keep the feedback in the back of my head when creating something new!
Alright thanks for the info!
I made a low res version for now, was already 28mb so I'll retry this weekend (can't upload big files on my dorm).
I finished a level and would like to make a flythrough video. I rendered every frame from within Unreal and dumped it to a bitmap (1280x720, 30FPS).
Now I open this image sequence but I have no idea what the best settings are to compress it :s
Any help?
Settings in question:
-FPS (guess I'll keep it at 30?)
-Complete frames
-Data rate
Thx!
Oooh sweet! I was waiting for this one Love the atmosphere on the various screenshots, I hope it conveys the same mood ingame.
Will post back with findings, unless I can't manage to run it on my craptop
Time to get Crysis from under the dust.
Gratz on the release!
