Posts by Tyker

Quote from shawnolson

4 hours ago, shawnolson said: But the real gist of what I have to share with the Source LD community is that if you think Hammer is the best tool for A/B/C, there is a very good chance that your experience in Hammer itself has conditioned you to think that (in other words, you have picked up design strategies from the limitations of Hammer and let those limitations turn into "workflows" or "matters of importance").

The problem with Hammer (I'm talking of Source Hammer, not S2 Hammer) is that it spent ~20 years with almost zero innovation and stagnated the design strategies of the would-be level designers. So even if it has a few good things--it's general lack of innovation is a disservice to the design community that becomes "faithful" to it.

Oh absolutely! But I do cover all of that in the talk. After explaining how great the basic geometry editing of Hammer is I then switch to the next chapter and explain how awful the complex geometry editing is in Hammer and how much better it is in Unreal and 3dsMax. I'm not sure if your reply was focused on me and the talk, but if it was: I think I covered those topics and those ways of thinking in the talk, and how while Hammer is great sometimes, it's also awful sometimes, as are all the other editors I discuss. Apparently I did not make that clear enough, or that slipped through the cracks, as I have gotten the argument of "You are much too positive about Hammer/CSG/BSP!" multiple times after the talk, which is why I wrote this Gamasutra article to explain that wasn't my intention: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobinYan…tors__tools.php

Quote from Skybex

3 minutes ago, Skybex said: What he does at timestamp 51.28 (editing the game while its running) looks kind of small and is glossed over, but as a level designer this is such a huge thing that I could write pages and pages about its usefulness. Something that cannot be achieved in an editor like max because of the separation between tools and engine.

Did that part feel like it was glossed over? I hoped with the words I used and the inflection of my voice to really set straight that this 'pause-edit' system was absolutely amazing and that any editor benefits from such a system, regardless of team size or game genre. Please let me know if I did not make that clear enough!

Quote from shawnolson

On 8/4/2016 at 7:11 AM, shawnolson said: I did enjoy the video, but as both an expert and advocate of Max level design, I was keen on those aspects that were erroneous or skipped.

Sorry! I already had to cut so much good stuff when building the talk, and things had to go. Generally I'm still happy what the talk gave out as an idea, but originally I went over all 5 editors on each chapter. I loved doing this, and going into full detail, but sadly the time wasn't there. Even with those cuts, and talking super fast, I barely made it into 50 minutes. Please let me know what was erroneous though! I am not perfect, I do not know everything, and I'm always willing to learn.

Quote from 2d-chris

8 hours ago, 2d-chris said: This is interesting, but I feel a little too simplistic due to the time constraints of the presentation and assumptions on developers workflow, nevertheless it's a good rundown of a few of the many tasks performed in a level editors.

Yep, time constraints and cuts sadly had to happen, but as a general idea to share this knowledge (especially something I rarely hear people talk about) I'm still happy with it.

Quote from 2d-chris

8 hours ago, 2d-chris said: I don't know any designer who crates (pun intended) a new brush (bsp) for everything that they add, instead, you modify existing ones or duplicate them, and work from there, just that one change in workflow produces drastically different results for UX (for example in unreal you hold alt + drag mouse to duplicate anything)

True! I work the same way in hammer. One of the first iterations of the talk actually had me build the exact same house/room in each editor to show different workflows, but this was much too time consuming, and made it difficult to compare the editors as there was a lot of time inbetween the different features. This resulted in the final format, which in this way meant the creating of the brush & the editing/copying/moving of the brush were split up. So I do talk about both placing and copying/edit to create sections (Or if it feels like I didn't, please let me know if that wasn't clear!) the two topics are so separate it doesn't look like normal level design workflow. Thanks for letting me know, I did not realize that until now!

Quote from 2d-chris

8 hours ago, 2d-chris said: Additionally, where as first time UX of where buttons are is important, once you've learned how to do something, you'll know for the future, UX often focuses on actions that needs to be performed for the first time, and to make sure that they are not frustrating, which obviously makes a lot of sense for a game, but something as complicated as a level editor is never going to be easy to pickup

It doesn't have to be easy to pickup, no. There is time to work with it and get used to it, but the section where I talk about the 'ok' button vs the 'x' button in the Skyrim Creation Kit (SCK) is exactly about this. "If you do something, you'll know for the future" is not always true. Many editors & tools have a problem that there are solely tool programmers involved and not designers, creating scenarios where the technical action is possible (pressing 'ok' or 'x') but the physical action of pressing them varies within a huge editor. The SCK is definitely not the only one to do this, of course. UX needs to focus more on what you are continually doing, again and again, and to make that smooth. Sure, level designers also need to deal with problems and bad tools sometimes, but if that goes too far, which it often does, then you reach that point of "Deal with it." and "A good designer/artist/developer doesn't blame their tools, and comes up with cool stuff regardless." which is incredibly detrimental both physically, mentally, and qualitatively, as I discuss in the talk.

I think that reality can change. It will be slow, it will take incredible time and effort, but the end result will be worth it both for game developers and for game players.

Quote from 2d-chris

8 hours ago, 2d-chris said: This is not to say that the UX experience of the tools doesn't matter, this is a great talk and a wish more people cared, it's just to say that every developer has their own preferences for workflow, some of the tricks I picked up at Epic make the hammer BSP method seem slow by comparison, it just requires that knowledge to be shared. The fact is that different developers use DRASTICALLY different workflows for creating levels, none of which are necessarily better or worse than each other, and this point alone makes comparisons complicated and messy, so by that point the best tool is the one that gives the most flexibility not necessarily the best single optimised workflow.

This is something I'm sad about that I did not mention it. This is the answer I would've loved to give to the question at the end concerning finding a tool for a game that has thousands and thousands of props: To find the right tool, and the right tool UX, you need to look at: Your company, the genre you're building, your publisher relations, your developer workflows, your time limit, the studio culture, the country culture, your budget, etc etc. and then make an informed decision with all of those factors in mind.

Quote from 2d-chris

8 hours ago, 2d-chris said: I've been saying this for years, but the tools matter a lot less than the experience of the developers themselves (I've heard some comments in this industry that believe tools are everything and that they can replace experience!!) I've managed to master every editor I've come across pretty fast, because as mentioned they all do similar things, the knowledge of HOW to do something soon becomes trivial and then the tricky question is WHAT to do, which unfortunately is not so easy to answer /emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0px;color:rgb(39,42,52);font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:22.4px;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);" title=":)" width="15" />

I disagree, and this is where I think change needs to happen. Tools affect the end result of developers, both of experienced and inexperienced ones. If a badly placed exit button makes you lose 30 minutes of work, then your production, mood, and creative quality have just gone down. I won't say tools are everything anyone needs to make something awesome, but I also won't say tools matter less than the developer experience. If working with the editor is annoying enough to get a developer out of a good mood, it's not the fault of the developer, it's the fault of the tool. And we can fix tools. Telling developers to deal with bad UXd tools is reasonably okay, up to a point, but that point should not be 'running into the tool programmers room asking what the hell is going on', but should be 'getting annoyed over a consistently repeated action'. Again of course studio culture, time limit, budget, etc come into play, but the argument of how to do something becoming trivial and what to do becoming important is, in my opinion, not entirely accurate. It's missing a critical element. It's not just how to do something, or what to do, but in what way is it being done? If you have an awesome idea (what) and you know how to do it (how) but then you need to wrestle with a bad UXd editor to make it work (in what way) then you might not act on that awesome idea, or your creative energy will stop flowing because you will start to get annoyed, and then you might instead produce a less awesome idea in the end. Now the game is in a worse state purely due to bad editor UX. Experience might help here, but it's not a catch-all for these problems. In the end developers are only human. Bad tools can bring down amazing ideas and awesome games. You can punch through bad tools, and come out with awesome games, if you have enough willpower, force, budget, or time, but many times the sacrifices in final quality are not worth the small time it would take to fix a UI/UX issue.@Skybex's post also brought this same argument to light, and it's exactly how I feel, what I've heard, and what I've experienced in the industry. Amazing projects & ideas have been lost, just due to bad tools that human beings could not healthily deal with. Anything might be technically possible in an engine or editor, but it also has to be humanly possible.

Quote from 2d-chris

8 hours ago, 2d-chris said: Anyway, keep it up, thanks for being brave, tackling the subject and fighting for the user experience!

Thanks! And that's why I wanted to say in the above point: I disagree. I think it's useful to say that publicly, even though I may be talking to someone with more years of experience and a more senior position. I'm going to keep fighting for better tools & editors, not only so that developers enjoy work more, but also so I can play even better games!

Quote from Sentura

On 6/13/2016 at 0:26 PM, Sentura said: I've been saying this for years! Really solid talk about a really important topic that is too neglected in this industry. It's all too frustrating to see developers glance over the pipeline when there is real work to be done.

Thanks for sharing.

Exactly, it's a very neglected topic that many know about, but few talk about! I'm trying to share the talk as much as possible to try and spark a bigger conversation, and hopefully get some development-wide change to occur. If you know fellow developers who would be interested in this topic, or are working with tools that could be improved, please share the talk!

I have the exact same feeling! Every editor seems to have their own ideal and non-ideal parts.

Hey everyone! A few months ago at GDC I gave a talk about the user experience of level editors. I talk about Unity, Unreal, Hammer, The Creation Kit, and 3dsMax from a level designer's perspective.

It just went live on the GDC vault for free: http://gdcvault.com/play/1023235/K…esigners-in-the

edit: Though it's a bit easier to watch on youtube:

I've done a huge update on the site and CV! I'd love to hear opinions on whether this is an improvement.

I was wondering if there were many people going to GDC 2016 this year!

Maybe it would be nice to organise some kind of meetup if there are many of us going?

It worked for me as-is as well. No need to download or extract anything. Weird!

Today I found out, via r/csmapmakers, that Valve also added a de_nuke_zoo.vmf to the update.

It is amazing! It follows in the footsteps of the prop libraries A Boojum Snark made for TF2

So if you want to get an eye for the new content, and see what has been made available, go take a look!
You can find the vmf in your common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\sdk_content\maps directory.

Thanks to the latest update it is now possible to have multiple radar images. This has now been included on de_meat! If you go down to A site you will now have a different radar image that only displays A site.

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This map was a lot of fun to play. The height variations were really nice, and made the angles fun to hold and take!

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Some stuff needs clipping

Tiny displacement cut here

Nodraw visible on this side

That ivy on the right is the exact size of a CT, and about the same dark colour too. It might be nice to place that somewhere else, as in a split second scenario it might be confusing?

I think moving the stairs to the other end of the hallway would make it more fun to play B site. Right now the entrances all feel very flat, especially where angles are held.

Also, the map is flanking central. It was easy for me to knife the mid sniper, twice! Maybe you could remove some routes, such as the T -> A vent?

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Quote from will2k

Sorry for this rant and it is not my intention to hijack this thread; just to let you know that you are not alone :).

Thanks for that info Will! If many people are having this problem then it must have existed for longer.

In all that time has anyone ever tried directly contacting Matt or anyone else from Valve? Has there been any official posts about this problem, or is it currently unknown to them?

It has gotten loads of flags so far, and even a DMCA, and yet it's not been taken down. I guess this is normal for the workshop?

Or is there something else I should be doing?

Obvious, but still worth pointing out: Holes on the fences

It would be nice to have a grate here somewhere, or some place the water comes from or goes to.

On the minimap it looks like I should go right here, but that's actually below. Adding a line in the minimap might help to distinguish that wall

It might be nice to break the brushes up here so the shadows look correct
Also, it would be nice to see some different wall textures at some parts of the map. Right now it is very noisy and the same colours are everywhere, making it a bit hard on the eyes.

Are you compiling with expert compile and -staticproplighting? Some lighting in the maps look weird on the models

For some reason the water changes shaders when walking down this hall. No clue why!

I just thought this looked neat so I took a picture of it. Goodluck with the map!

That's a shame, but it's not the first time something I made got copied! Thank you for notifying me and thanks to those who flagged it!

Quote from Vaya

Tyker will need to the DMCA takedown stuff.

Would I really need to DMCA it? I'm not sure if it's that much of a legal issue. Or do these things not get removed with regular flags?
It's a shame, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of action I can take. Maybe there will be a contraband map in the future? Hah!

Quote from Smileytopin

If you have the reflections done properly, try just creating a info_lighting to a darker spot and use that for the lighting maybe?

Nope, info_lighting does not fix any of the issues

Quote from Vaya

Like that area you kept killing me from.

I do not know what spot you mean. Could you be more specific?

Quote from Squad

How big is that model? If it's one giant model, maybe splitting it into smaller pieces could fix it? Just an idea.

I have already tried exactly that! It is comprised of multiple smaller models, but the baked lighting on it is still bad. I've also tried different light compiles, but it bakes badly every time. I am thinking it may have something to do with the realtime lighting, but I am not sure yet.

Yep, it's light_directional that is causing the issue. The only way I've found so far to make the cage bake well is removing the entity. But then the rest of the map lacks other lighting. Not sure what to do now. The content cannot be displayed because it is no longer available.

Quote from Klems

My main gripe is that the map feels too claustrophobic in some places. The choice of textures and color is almost "creepy" sometimes! Maybe it's the theme, a slaughterhouse isn't the most happy setting after all.

The attention to details is great by the way (skybox, soundscapes, particles, animations), well done!

feedback album http://imgur.com/a/3on2A

Thanks!
Regarding that last one: I have no idea why that prop is lit so badly. I tried all kinds of shaders to improve it, and light_info as well, but no matter what I do it still looks badly lit. Other props in the map look really well lit, and have the same kind of shader. I do not know how to fix this one.