Posts by onji

  • What have you watched recently?

    Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

    I just finished it. It's slow paced for sure. Not a lot of action but what it does, is giving you insight about how modern warfare is fought. Of course, I've never been in the army but this looked authentic to me. It made the situation in Iraq more clear to me. Perhaps a bit weird, but I finally got answers to question like how do you go to the 'bathroom' in wartime? How do you live? Eat? Etc.

    I'm glad I saw it but it won't be for everyone. It's more a documentary.

    Thanks for the info.... I've got a 12 hour layover in Incheon airport coming up, yay, I may have just figured out how to kill it.

  • Door interaction

    Just a quick question as to which kind of doors you guys prefer.

    I'm currently making a map using CE2/Crysis, and while it's mostly outside there's maybe 30-ish doors in the level. What's your preferred mode of interaction?

    1. Using a button to rotate/translate the door a fixed amount

    2. Have it physics based like in Rage engine games e.g. GTA4 & Max Payne 3

    I'm using option 2 for any door that's on hinges, and not powered by a motor, which matches the criteria of most of the doors in my map.

  • Dishonored

    Quote from Chimeray

    I don't know, there's something weird about how he traverses the environment without actually "climbing", and dropping down from everything in the way that he does... Looks a bit oldskool, only thing that's missing is a double jump !

    It's gotta be better than the climbing mechanic in Thief 3 :derp:

  • Dishonored

    This thing is at the top of my watch list right now.

    Based off of some of the big names on the dev team plus the footage they've released I think this has really great potential. I hope it pulls it all off.

    I remember in the vids one of the devs said it was mission based and in between you got back to your hideout, or something... I'm hoping there's some 'hub' levels we can wander around in to explore the environment, it looks like a fully realised world.

  • Max Payne 3

    I agree with Izumo's thoughts on the cinematic aspects of the game, and it can be seen that a lot of effort has been put into conveying the development of Max's character. The cinematic part of the game, plus the score and the ambiance, is getting me through at the moment. This game felt a lot like a film from the get go, with me only taking over during firefights and exploration.

    Some of the encounter design got to me, throwing the player right into an ambush even though I've left him behind a piece of cover. E.g. when you're on the roof of that building that's slowly falling to pieces I was sitting behind a piece of cover when MP3 ran a cutscene of a heavy walking up to the edge of the roof with an LMG, when control returns to the player you're standing up right in front of this guy's field of fire........ Come on! I guess we call these continuity goofs in the film industry

    It also bummed me a bit that you've always got someone, or Max's narration, telling you to hurry up. Though I also enjoyed it because I believe it helped promote the sense of urgency in some levels. Still, I'd have liked a bit more time to soak up the environment and look around.

  • Spec Ops: The Line

    It doesn't really 'feel' like a Rockstar game

    In my opinion the engine is responsible for a large amount of the feel of a game, and since Spec Ops is running Unreal 3 as opposed to Rage it does feel and handle differently. The mouse control feels even dodgier (makes me think of the Halo port to PC) in Spec Ops than it does in MP3, but the movement feels more reactive. I'm not sure what they've done here but the mouse movement between axes does not feel solid. While the Mass Effect series, to refer to another 3rd person Unreal 3 game, has great mouse controles.

    One of those elements that you can really tell in Rockstar games is that they feel like they've been thoroughly polished, and repolished. Spec Ops feels polished, just not to that level you'd expect from a huge studio like Rockstar or Blizzard.

    I'm enjoying the storyline so far, but the character animation and script doesn't let it down a bit. Then again these guys are soldiers so I'm not sure how much character they should be showing.... It reminds me of Black Hawk Down in that the characters do their job in telling the story, but it's not exactly a performance by Marlon Brando. On the technical side it would've been nice to see a bit more time put into facial animation since the faces look rather stiff.

    I also didn't really care for one encounter where you get strafed by an armed MH-60 (the chopped that drops you off in Modern Warfare 2, Gulag level). You're sitting in a building with plenty of cover to avoid it's guns, but you're health constantly drops unless you run to the next area. I mean if you want to add a sequence where you have to escape minigun fire don't cover in AND drain health from the player.

    I played a bit more yesterday and spotted another goof. They included the HK417, but it's only semi-auto instead of selective fire. The game version only has 10 rounds per clip, but the model looks to be displaying a 20 round clip..... Sorry I'm a military nut, so I notice these small things. Then again one could also spot goofs in a more popular title like Modern Warfare 2, why do the Russian solders in 'Wolverines' sporting the TAR-21 rifles? These aren't exported to Russia.

    I don't really want to speak too poorly of Yager, I think they've done well and produced a very good game, not great but it's a solid product. Hopefully I'll have something really positive about this game when I've played some more. I really want to enjoy this game since they've based it on such a cool book.

  • Spec Ops: The Line

    Quote from Izuno

    If the game is like the demo it seems to have some flaws, the most major being what appear to be respawning enemies? or shit was I just to lazy in this one part to move forward?

    Noticed this respawning too, it just seems to be scripted in some areas of certain maps if you turtle without pushing forward.

    Combat is pretty good, but not great. I'm not big on the whole idea of mapping vault & melee to the same key. Executions are fun the first few times, but kind of leave you open to get shot at. The environmental traps are pretty fun, and watching sand fill a room looks nice. The story does the job so far, and I'm hoping it pulls off the adaptation from Heart of Darkness well.

    And there's a few goofs as well. SCAR-H has 30 rounds, and appears to have as as little stopping power as the M4.

    Overall it's a lot of pretty goods, but nothing really remarkable. But I did love the colour grading in the opening scene against the sand dunes, very nice.

  • map project from concept art

    Quote from JamesKing3d

    anyhow, here's the result of about a week of lunch breaks at work, trying to get the basic map layout down.

    I've been there man. When I've got downtime at work I'm doing pen & paper design phases of my current map.

    Like residentzack said it, if you can indicate what your goal is, or at least a couple of engines you'd consider implementing I think it'd be easier to provide answers. Anyways here's my 2c. I'll make it clear that I'm not a level designer working in the industry, so one of the pro's here may have better advice.

    And like Chimeray said when you're in the preproduction, for me at least. It's good to have some designs down on pen and paper. The designs should be descriptive and have enough information to construct a rather rough draft of the level. It's better not to have a fully comprehensive design as what works on paper may not work so well in a game world, or a specific game engine.

    I'm doing to assume you're going to implement this into a current engine like CryEngine, UDK or Source.

    1. Take your sketch and turn it into a heightfield/heightmap.

    2. Import that heightfield into your specific engine, and cleanup any artefacts that may be present.

    3. Block out some key points of interest, and the larger pieces of architecture.

    4. Export this to the engine, and load up your level at runtime.

    5. Run around and see if everything looks and feels to scale.

    6. Go back to your level editing environment and fix anything that felt wrong in-game.

    7. Once everything looks & feels ok, start working on the medium scale environment, and iterate the process. Then do the same for the small scale.

    It looks like you're off to a good start with your 2d map work. It looks much cleaner than my original prototype for my current project. You can see my awesome lunchtime work below

    [Blocked Image: http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/6879/minidsc0320.jpg]

  • Am I on the right track?

    Puddy

    Thanks for the feedback. From time to time I've been looking at other peoples folios, pro and non pro, to get an idea of the competition. Once I've finished this current level I'll put my folio up. I'm leaning toward Carbonmade because it's free, and there's pretty much no advertising.

    Yep, as soon as I've finished I'll upload to Mapcore and Crydev.net, maybe mapfactory and moddb too. I'm considering uploading when I get to the beta stage if there's some folks that'd like to playtest...... or possibly even alpha if people are up for it.

    Is that really true that I should focus on environments or scripting? I thought level designers did both jobs. Or is it more to do with junior positions being given environment or scripting?

    I'm definitely not trying to churn out levels. I would not feel comfortable putting my name on something in my folio if I wasn't totally confident in it. Luckily in my job I've got about 2 hours free everyday, so I can do my documentation, preproduction, and paper sketches in the office I'm actually really looking forward to releasing this level to Mapcore when it's ready to get feedback on what works, what doesn't work, and how to improve it.

    That's basically what I was thinking with regards to learning a new tool, so I probably won't bother with UDK. I have been considering switching to CE3, however, I like the look of the new irradiance volumes and shaders.

    FrieChamp

    Thanks for that man. I'm reading that thread now

  • Am I on the right track?

    Hey folks,

    This is my first thread to start, and I'd like to say hi to everyone. I'd also like to say sorry, if this one's been asked a million times.

    Presently I'm a teacher, in Japan, and I'm at a point in life where I have to think about making a career. Don't get me wrong I enjoy teaching, but it's not something I'm passionate about. I want to get into level design.

    My question is if I'm on the right track.

    My plan is to have 3 levels finished (environment + gameplay) by next April when my contract finishes. I've already finished one map (http://www.crydev.net/viewtopic.php?f=278&t=38650), and about 40% through the second one. I'm currently using CryEngine 2.

    I'm planning on applying for any job in level design in Europe, US, or Australia (dual AU/Eu national, American wife).

    If I don't get a job in this timeframe, which I assume is a real possibility, I'm going to keep working on my folio and keep applying as often as I can.

    Is there anything else I should be doing that would help improve my prospects of getting a job?

    Should I try and network more with the people from IGDA?

    Should I learn a new tool like UDK?

    I'm up for anything that helps me get toward my goal.

    Onji

  • What are you playing now?

    Getting into Max Payne 3.

    I was a bit skeptical about a game setting in Brazil, but so far it's worked out nicely and I'm enjoying the game. Still gritty and has an amusing script. I'm particularly the dialogue and story telling methods, and of course the animation blends from Endorphin make killing people a lot of fun. That said I'm not enjoying the gunplay as much, and I seem to miss my targets more often than other 3rd person shooters. I also felt the same way about aiming in GTA4, and I think it's more to do with Rage engine and how it runs on PC. Still it's a very enjoyable game and I'm having fun.