Posts by Chimeray

Wow, quite disturbing stuff there. Who comes up with this

The 2nd one has a lot of potential, love the composition!

There's a bright light shining in the cave though so there should be more contrast. A thin beam would be nice as well but don't overdo it.

Not that it's that bad or anything (au contraire!), it's just missing that final little touch... Well, imo...

About the 3rd, I think you should go in between what you did before, and now. As far as lightness/darkness is concerned. The grass is pretty much black now.

Those symptoms usually occur when overheating a card. So perhaps dust?

Have you checked with a tool that measures temperature?

You could also try downclocking your card, if it's possible on your video card... Well, only if the problem is temperature related.

Or is it like... permanently broken?

You could check out http://eat3d.com

It has a lot of video tutorials on the UDK, the pricetag per DVD is quite hefty though... something around the $60 mark.

And you probably can learn it the hard way by trial and error, and written tutorials here and there (and offcourse... youtube and the likes).

But just like you learn stuff way faster with a tutor, a video helps tremendously as well, it could potentially save you a lot of time.

Hourences got a video up there as well btw

http://www.ut3modding.com/index.php?page=31

I learned most of the UDK from this page. I hope the links are still online! Best of all, those video tutorials are free!

Quote from SpicyTanuki

Also I feel like naming the game DOTA2 was a low thing to do. I won't be buying it on principal. Plus the DOTA creators have made LoL and fans have made HoN already.

Exactly... This is not the time to be making another DOTA spin-off, or worse... just the same game (if they really are just gonna copy the original!!).

I don't understand why they're going through with it, it's like saying... Guys, I know there's HoN and LoL out there, but we're gonna do it better, cos we're Valve...

The concept art looks pretty sweet though!

And now we're talking:

Quite a popular topic this week...

I read about EA Louse and the Bioware lay-offs today and be it a rant or not, he/she stirred up some dirt about how the high-ups couldn't manage their game as well...

This reply to the blog struck me the most:

Quote

No, naming names is a good thing, and F*@K their lively hood. This industry is littered with parasites that need to be purged. I’m sicking of working with “designers” and producers that couldn’t manage a charity car wash.

I guess things like that only happen in the biggest of big studios? I wonder how much money hungry people there are in management positions, what happened to: let's make a great game

I loved Singularity. Hope you guys can still manage to make awsomesauce games after this...

And to those that got hit, good luck finding a new position.

Only bought the game a couple of weeks ago and wow... fun ride! I'm glad I bought it after all.

We need more narrative action games and less mindless FPS'es...

I liked how sometimes the story got cliché like and then suddenly got you confused and stirred things up. In the end though, I'm kinda dissapointed what the *real* story is, but the ride was interesting enough!

Quote from kab

First model that's going into a map. It's supposed to be some computery equipment kind of thing for my NS2 level. I think the basic geometry is done(that is if my assumption that small lights and a screen thing can be done fairly well with texture and bumpmaps etc. ?). It has 308 tris and 146 polys:[Blocked Image: http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w234/Ka…pthingwip01.jpg]

Is it too simple? Is it not? Also remember I spent all day working on this(since I'm a noob and all things take time) and trying to get a decent UVW Map done too(which I actually managed to pull off so now I'm practicing texturing as that's what I really suck at!!) so don't be too hard on me

You can further optimize it like this:

[Blocked Image: http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/1018/computerthingfix.png]

If you count the triangles on the side, you save one less by doing this. Try to connect your vertices to corners instead of ending it in the middle of an edge. It's not gonna hurt your performance for this model, but if you don't focus doing stuff like this it might add up real quickly for a whole scene (or at least that's what my teachers say). You might be able to connect some vertices at the top as well, but this will screw with your 'curvature' of your display so I don't recommend that suggestion in this scenario as you probably won't be normal mapping over it? You probably also don't wanna be doing this cos you need an edge in your UV's or something.

Not big issues though, just some pointers And it's pretty much nitpicking but if no one tells you... well, yeah... There's always more to learn.

I don't think it's too simplistic, if you added a normapmap (or bump) you could create some panels, screws and make it look assembled together. A lot is gonna depend on the texture. You could add a lever perhaps and a small grate at the bottom for some ventilation, every computer needs ventilation! But you can just texture the grate.

Oh BTW, why do you keep the side panels? From the looks of your scene, they won't be visible right? As your model fits right into the wall. So why not just delete them?

Trailer is awsome Too bad I haven't played any game in the series, and I really can't remember why I hadn't picked it up back then

Maybe it still isn't too late

Looking forward to it, looks like something fresh between all these... same-ish games nowadays

You know what's fun? Being able to explode yourself 10 million times a second when there's like 2 cannons facing eachother. AWSOME!

It took a while before I figured everything out though, there's not a lot room for error when you start off... What does this button do? Ah, I keep falling to my death. Hey that red cannon fires me off instantaneously, and I fall to my death. Etc etc A small tutorial level would be nice. But fun game nonetheless!

Overall I think it lacks contrast. The brightness is in my opinion too high but that's probably because there just aren't enough darkish areas. If you add some dark it probably will balance out and look nice.

I like the concept, at least the little I've heard from it

Pictures say more than words so: More contrast, add in a tiny bit of color, did a bit too much blue though. I think your mist is screwing with your contrast and hue, it makes everything look dull and the same.

I exaggerated a bit, but I hope you get my point.

Tweak those numbers!

[Blocked Image: http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/1804/firefliescontrasttweak.png]

Don't have the game installed either but watched the video and loved the atmosphere, good job on that one!

However, there was one thing I didn't like looking at... The cinematic in the 'boss room'. It is just too much imo... Zooming in, zooming out, panning/tilting around like crazy

I'd go for a subtler approach:

2:38 - 2:45 => Nice introduction of the room

2:45 - 2:50 => You rotate all the way back to the player and then back 180° to the berserker, that's too much...

You could've blended both a bit better, like at 2:45 instead of rotating to the player, let the player walk into the screen and hug the statue. It's not the main action of the scene and has too much emphasis.

That way you don't have to rotate all the way to the right again and you could just go for the berserker. Fixed!

2:50 - 2:55 => I see what you did there, the old western trick. But zooming in and doing that is weird. Normally this stuff goes after a cut, not the flying around stuff. If you must however, I suggest only going from the middle to upper body (after a 'flythrough').

2:55 - 2:58 => Awsome! Just... frigging awsome!

Then Aaaah what are you doing tilting too far back and back forth!

3:00 - 3:05 => Extra emphasis on the glass, satellite <> glass, get it? Get it? Nice to give away what the player has to do but a slightly slower and less further zoom could've worked as well!

Then tilting and zooming to the weapon, yeah it's needed... But try to blend both, it's robitic like now. If you hadn't zoomed in that far to the glass this also coul've been avoided to an extend.

So... While I'm no cinematic expert I think you pushed it a bit too far, you don't want players to get seasick! Extreme switching to focus points might work for short cinematics but this one is pretty long and there are a lot of focus points!

Did I say the atmosphere is awsome? It is!

Do I misunderstand now or is Miller actually doing it without Broussard now? If so, then we might get actually lucky someday.

Omg because of this topic I dreamt about Duke Nukem Forever last night. It was awsome... best game ever, so much diversity, so much powah... And weird purple colors !?

But oh well... Never gonna happen now

Does anyone know how the 'normal multiplayer' plays? Cos I really hated that one from Double Agent, Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory had the best multiplayer experience imo. Not counting co-op or anything, just the versus mode.

Quote from 2d-chris

Why would anyone buy level design books anyway Basics can and should be learned yourself, the advanced stuff is project/tool dependant Design is all about practically learning frome experiences, not reading. I'm not suggesting books are useless, for some specific skills it's very useful but don't assume reading your way to being a good designer is the best path.

Drawing can be self-taught, level design as well. However... you can get schooled in both subjects and that will probably bring you up to speed much more quickly (at least for drawing it is).

Also... What I'm trying to find in those books is things not to do, I can probably learn it the hard way. But I guess seeing examples and stuff will help me not to make such beginner mistakes.

Offcourse a book alone will not make you a great level designer But I guess it will avert me from makeing some mistakes and will aid me in adding that something extra to a level.

So... I don't expect to read my way to being a good designer, I just wanna 'fill in the holes' that I might have missed from own experiences

Can it really be that bad to read some advice from an experienced level designer? Don't tell me there's nothing in those books that's gonna help me along the way?

If I'm really wrong about this, feel free to say so But I'm eager to find out what I've been missing out and could better me in general (or most common tackled problems) about level design.

And that's why I'd want to read a book about level design

Quote from Corwin

the only one I've seen so far is the one Hourences made a while back (the hows and whys of level design).

To avoid confusion: I meant I 'noticed' that book and am interested in buying it, not that I've read it so far

So recommendations will surely help.

Thanks for the suggestions so far!

Hi folks (I'm new btw),

my birthday is coming up and I'd like a book about Level Design in general, not those in depth tutorial style books about certain editors.

Something I can read on the train or whenever I feel like it, that's both entertaining to read and educational. A tutorial book doesn't fit that picture really

However, I can't seem to find much of those... the only one I've seen so far is the one Hourences made a while back (the hows and whys of level design).

And as timeless as a subject like that is, I'm afraid the examples used in there won't be?? Is this true or is it still a good read after all these years?

So I'm asking you here: Can anyone suggest some of the best Level Design books out there that talk about level design as a concept, thus in general... and not as a guidbook to an editor? (I hope you understand what I'm after )

Thanks!