Posts by Marvin.Star

  • Tim Hynd - Level Designer

    Hey, I've made some significant updates to my portfolio :

    - Removed 'New Prypyat CTF' map project

    - Removed 'Interests' from my resume

    + Added 'Water Side Warm Up - Portal 2' project

    + Added 'Design Documents' page

    + Added 'Level Design Document' to 'Capstone Project: Thrifty Isle' page

    + Put a couple of Notes under the video links on 'Capstone Project: Thrifty Isle' and 'Third Person Shooter: Storage'

    Going to grab some better screen shots for the Portal 2 page but please let me know what you think of my portfolio as a whole. Thanks for your time guys!

  • THE PERPETUAL TESTING CHALLENGE: SUBMISSION THREAD

    Water Side Warm Up:http://%7boption%7d

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    Beach Side Work Out:http://%7boption%7d

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    Canal Side Cool Down:http://%7boption%7d

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  • THE PERPETUAL TESTING CHALLENGE: Rules and Discussion!

    My second one here: http://%7boption%7d

    I think by 'creative'(in my previous posts) I meant more difficult... hehe. This one is probably hard? I can't tell anymore because I spent so long creating iterations; I can't remove myself from it well enough to determine how difficult it will be. As always I'd love feedback, but more importantly I hope you guys can enjoy playing it

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    http://%7boption%7d

  • THE PERPETUAL TESTING CHALLENGE: Rules and Discussion!

    Quote from JamesKing3d

    I'm hoping to get some time in at home this weekend to throw together something, haven't used the mapping tools yet, but look forward to learning them!I'm thinking of something with angled light bridges. don't know if that's possible, but would be cool.

    Unfortunately the tools won't let you create angled light bridges or oddly tilted anything; they are setup to be extremely simple to use for the every-man. But the tools are very nice and quick to work with, within their limits.

  • Tim Hynd - Level Designer

    Thanks a lot Korjax, appreciate the feedback. I did end up switching web hosts from the horrific Netfirms to WebHostingHub. The switch boosted speed by about 20 times... lol.

    As for content, I totally agree! Probably sounds odd, but based on observations I made of my peers 'demo reel' I realized my portfolio is really lacking in proper level design content. These observations were significant; because my peer got an interview with Bioware based on his 'demo reel' alone!

    I've decided to use some level design contests as a platform for my new projects, which are aimed to show more level design rather than what I've realized in my work is more... like modding. I think while at school I was just really obsessed with learning how to make all aspects of games; which I pretty much did. So hopefully these next projects will show simply level design.

    I'm working everything from design docs I've made, mapping them out, blocking them out, and most importantly I am using editing tools from games like Half-Life 2, Portal 2 (when the new tool arrives, today?), and Dungeon Defenders. Using complete games as a platform for my levels forces me to focus on pure level design When I start posting my new work I'd love to ask for your critique again!

    Ah, the resume. Appreciate some feedback on that as well. The job descriptions are admittedly forced I developed that kind of description while working with a teacher at my school, she wanted to hear how working said job was relevant to my ability to design games. So I guess, if I can get some more opinions I'll take a look at changing that. Interests, I totally get where your coming from, I suppose I was convinced by an instructor that I needed to put some personality into my resume and interests were his suggestion. I imagine it may also be smarter not to put there, kind of like giving out unnecessary information, which may prevent me from getting an interview I will probably change that shortly as well.

    Thanks again for your time and thoughts!

  • What are you playing now?

    Quote from generalvivi

    Just played Windosill, then I had my gf play through it. Great experience!Now I'm playing through Botanicula, super funny and charming little game, really enjoying it so far. I also love the fact that everything is very music based.

    Double thumbs up for the https://www.humblebundle.com/

    I also am playing TF2 again, love it!

    MMMmmmm.... I love games like Windosill. It's a funny little game, is it weird that I've played it two or three times? Every now and then I just play it.

    Also, I recommend Brain Pipe to everyone It's not new to me but I love it. You can grab it on Steam.

  • 6x10 Mapping Competition #1 DoorVille

    Very cool! Just curious, I never owned HL2 on Steam (I have it on Xbox 360), but I do have Half-Life 2 Death Match and all the other Half-Life games, should I grab HL2? Am I missing out on props or tools without it on PC?

    If I should get HL2, which one... there is HL2, HL2 Ep 1, HL2 ep2 and various packages... I already have all the other Valve titles on steam.

    EDIT: I got it all worked out

  • Matt McDaniel - Level Design

    I can't say I noticed the video links, I was focused on the visuals I could see. What I would suggest is placing an image of some sort, that represents the video link. So perhaps it's a screenshot of a video player that is edited with text that says to click here to download or stream the video. I suggest streaming the videos from vimeo; people don't necessarily want to download them, but having the option is nice. I also recommend not embedding the videos; I set up my portfolio recently and presumably the reason it's currently slow to access, aside from my bad host, is due to the embedded videos. I am planning on providing external links, similar to how I just suggested.

    It may be worth making up some clean versions of your notepad designs. Post some here so we can get a look at what exactly they look like, and what they contain. I personally am a big fan of the rough notes from the creative process but I have not seen anyone show them in a portfolio yet. So it is probably best to make nice clean versions.

    Promotional videos aren't a bad idea; they can show that you are able to do some good video editing. I do enjoy the videos where people talk about their design choices while showing certain things happening, this is also something I plan on doing in the near future myself.

  • Matt McDaniel - Level Design

    Hey, the project layout looks good.

    Some things to consider:

    -the lighting in the bottom two projects screenshots is very dark, consider brightening the images or tweaking the lighting

    -the bottom two projects screenshots don't give me enough information on how that level might play out, they don't give a great sense of the space the player moves through; what do you do in those maps? why?

    -if you can, show some game play screenshots or even short videos

    -it would help to show some pre-production; flow maps, level design documents. If you have not done these it's not a bad thing, but it is a good idea to show design documents and mapping skills (make maps to scale)

    -if you have done any scripting for these projects you may want to show some of that as well

    Your off to a good start, we just need to see the content in a way that we can understand better how it plays. The top project does the best job of this through the screenshots. Keep at it!

  • Diablo 3

    I played the temporary open beta this past weekend and I have to say... I felt like I was playing some Diablo. It's definitely a game for anyone who enjoyed D2, it has a lot of noticeable improvements and despite the lack of a stat system(I want stats back t.t) it's still very fun. Having played the previous games lots I found the UI to be simple and intuitive.

    I REALLY love the new loot system Everyone has there own loot.. so there's no fighting over drops.

    Can't wait for Diablo 3 to come out

  • FEZ

    Yea lol. I noticed after I said it that I misunderstood what you meant.

  • Tim Hynd - Level Designer

    Thanks Puddy! I have gone in and removed all the blobby title text, removed the contact page and replaced it with my email in the banner and a Linked In button in the menu. I'm working on removing the 'Portfolio' title; I'm having difficulty figuring out where that particular title is in the .php code(I don't like it either). I was also concerned about the speed of the site, I have myself setup with Netfirms, and I'm thinking I got on board the wrong ship with that one. I would appreciate hearing from more people about the performance / loading time. Is it slow? Average? If it is slow does anyone know of a reasonably priced host I can move my WordPress site to?