Posts by blackdog

Saw the trailer couple of hours ago, just went through it again. A friend commented it's "too video game-y"... i'd agree as a general feeling.

I like a lot the world from the design perspective, but as the movie goes i was expecting something less action-oriented from the poster that really intrigued me (guess was) on friday.

Morgan Freeman's character seems somewhat lame, i dunno what precisely but i guess he doesn't sell the badass-y the costume suggest. And with those glasses, he reminded me of the early sketches from HL2 for Captain Vance.

Btw, what the hell are those buildings on the cliffs of the fault line??

When in university, i attended a 3D Graphics Programming course (more of a primer). For the evaluation we would be able to choose between various projects, one the teacher encouraged us to take was to join the community of an open-source 3D engine and develop something on their to-do list.

How does it sounds?

If you are more of gameplay programmer you can join a mod or indie project (that is employing the same tech as the company you would like to join).

I mean, I'm no programmer, but if you are trying to be creative and come up with an original concept you are doomed, you have to waste a lot of time minding things that aren't really a concern for a programmer when hired.

Joining a project will free you of this kind of problems and will also display your ability to work in an established team (which is what you'll be end up doing anyway).

It's a win-win... win to me, if your added value will, say, help get to a release in a few months from now.

I like your contents.

On the website side, I don't know your limitations (I see you are using Carbonmade) but for the homepage i wouldn't split the picture up and have a menu coming to the side from undeneath it.

I wouldn't have a section up if it is "wip", put that up when it's ready (and here would come in handy the chance to have a menu like i explained above).

Lastly, pictures seems a bit compressed, it's important for the page to load fast, but i think you could split the screens in 2-3 pieces and have less compression, balancing quality and responsiveness of the contents.

NS2 map or set design?

Quote from holiestcows

So after all the ideas, suggestions, cc, and stuff this is my newest revision.

I haven't comment before but looking better at it the scene feels too flat.

I don't like very much the bridges, didn't know why until i made the consideration that they remind me of those quickly deployable bridges they used in war.

I don't like the double trim on the sides, it makes the structure visually very heavy while the "windows" that break up the floor suggest it should be a light structure. Impression strengthened by the absence of supports where they join the walls.

I would try to:

• delete the external yellowish trims
• placing handrails on the sides
• have some steel cables hang from the ceiling to hold the structure up (how cannot the broken one don't completely crumble down?)
• have the bridges to overlap at the two ends with a slight metal ramp

Also, the lava seems too close to the bridges, lowering its level will make the scene less flat and also wouldn't give me the impression that burning lapilli could come through the bridge floor "windows" and burn me while walking on it.

I also think you need some kind of machinery or pipe/tunnel ending on the sides of the pool to justify the presence of lava... or at least a cliff, so we would assume we are into a facility built around a volcano/fault line.

Also speaking about purpose, if you go with the "lava pool used to dump stuff into it", you should have a crane that pulls stuff from the cargo area and dumps it

Quote from Squad

I've already placed light_spots in transitions from interior to exterior, but that's not really the problem. It's mostly bottom sides of rooftrims, some small trims here and there.

what i meant is to use the trick on this pitch black areas... but if the 2nd pic is an instance of it i dunno if it really needs to be brigthened, i mean in a cost-benefit evaluation i don't think a player is going to care or notice enough to justify the added time you'll spend to make it appeal... to you basically.

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I'm not sure what you mean about the floor texturing. It's all stone textures at the moment. Or do you mean using a 'stone tile' texture instead of a 'stone brick' one?

Yes, i mean a grey stone in place of bricks here and there. Unless I misunderstood the problem of "breaking the floor up", that should do the trick more than anything else.

Quote from Erratic

I already told you I'm completely out of ideas.

You can replace some crates with vehicles: a truck, a van and a forklift would make the same job, for cover purposes while they'd make sense because they'd be there to move the crates.

Quote from Squad

I'm also experiencing some (near) pitchblack faces (mostly the bottom of overhanging roofs etc ..., in the second picture below is a good example in the upper left corner).

Before amping those parameteres, why not put a generic light in the problematic places? I remember a tutorial by 3D-Mike explaining he used this technique to make smoother light transitions from open to confined spaces (eg: outside to sewer) with a generic light positioned a few units in the pipe, just to brighten a little bit... you can even use lamp props because you have street lamps turned on. Unfortunately can't find the tutorial online, think he abandoned his old domain.

One thing i noticed in the second pic is the far too clean white plaster wall compared to the other texture used.

For the floor texturing you could use a stone one on the staircases; in the 2nd pic you can have the whole floor in foreground made of stone, we have this kind of pavements made of different materials all around in the historic towns of Italy.

Btw I really like the general feeling of the map.

Quote from holiestcows

The map is called Cold Steel

As from Max Payne's?

Quote from LexxoR

dm_depot? http://www.littlelostpoly.co.uk/dm_depot/

Nope!

There's a dm map around built exactly in the same Wasteland area of yours but that features also the building I was speaking about.

Btw not saying you should implement changes like the human building foundation, since the Depot was first thought to be what ended up to be Nova Prospekt, the location is up for the community to be elaborated.

Edit: clicked a few links through the "pimpage" page on Lanmaniax and found it.

Quote from D3ads

That's by far the best version of that concept I've seen so far, excellent work!

As I remember the concept, the scale seems a bit off to me (smaller model), also some of the concepts show the structure built upon a human building, Combine do that a lot in City 17, so I take those were the "final" concept arts for the Depot.

I don't want to take anything off to this creation, but as of now I visually like more a DM map of the Depot I remember seeing (but can't find right now). Probably it is because lightning is not yet refined.

I'm curious to see more, especially because it'll be intersting how you will make the player navigate in an open area like the Wasteland.

Quote from Psy

Not a big fan of those wall lights near the floor. Perhaps try toning the brightness down?

Agree; my first impression was that there are too many, but really they are "too many, too bright", usually pathway lights are smaller, dim.

Having those like this makes me notice "Oh, not a single one is broken"

Yeah, i did notice some fogging in the distance, but I interpreted your post as a question of having more consistent fog spots.

I've seen this last shot on Steam, looking at the material on there I noticed you have a varied environment (I think it's a plus on a game of this type) that is why I was asking if you were using placeholders or something

Quote from seir

This is the press info that they leave PCF. I actually know lots of backstage things because I know few guys from PCF.

Stuff important for the people to know, i mean, it's something worth considering when applying for a job...

Quote from seir

Weird that there's no such "marketing face" in Treyarch/Infinity Ward or I'm missing someone?

Mark Lamia is doing the job for Treyarch. I'd say not as charismatic as Cliffy... Bowling seemed perfect on the MW titles, but I cannot shake off the feeling he's just talking to high-school kids. That by the feedback I read on COD is totally nailing it right.

Quote from Lacabra

Lighting/fog, y/n?

I think the first shot would really benefit from some fog/haze, that looks like a humid environment to me, so a low-on-the-ground fogging could add that something. A yellowish fog could give the idea of dust (but in that case I would put were you have less trees - around the hut etc).

One thing popped to my attention thinking about your question: most elements suggest this to be a tropical location at first sight (to me at least) but the trees seems to be conifers so... misplaced? Since the other shots you published look more of a continental environment I wonder if the hut is a placeholder, because I would swap that with one made of trunk/planks, or vice-versa choose a different tree model.

But that is just because I'm paying attention, I think that as a player I wouldn't care

Quote from generalvivi

I hope he starts his own studio... and they make the best games ever possible...

Only if he can kickstart those

Quote from Serenius

If I had a smokin' hot wife like that and a ridiculous amount of money, I'd leave my job and bang her in every place and location I could before hitting middle age.

If i had that kind of money i wouldn't settle on one wife

Quote from seir

Guys from PCF were kicked out the company.

I didn't follow the news around gaming that much lately, i'm pretty sure that what i've read reported them to be leaving, but anyways. They worked together so they can communicate well enough, i guess they could find the solution, if it was the case (see what Arkane is doing)

I'm astonished.

But hey, Molyneaux left to make a new company, if Cliff is not interested in other businesses I'm expecting him to make a new company of his own, maybe with the guys that left People Can Fly, in a couple of years... but i'd bet he's not going to follow the path of the designer behind Katamari

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":1nu4weah]And say what you want, but he deserves a lot of merit for Gears of War.

I remember reading an interview on "the most promising game designers" so many years ago, he was there and hinting about GoW even before Unreal 2 was out and the first techdemo of UE3 was shown.

Quote from Evert

If a layout is rotated...is it not the same layout? :chap:

Indeed! I guess that what I meant is that as a designer when you look an overview at first sight it feels "right" to you when orientated in one direction... at least that's for me or the best I can explain it

Quote from Psy

Having not worked on anything in ageeeees, I decided to block out a DE map for CSGO over the weekend. My main aim was to work in as much height variation as possible without things being silly.

It will sound pretentious, but the layout and theme reminds me a lot a map I remember doodling for CS 1.6 especially bombsite "B"... but i wasn't pushing so much on height variation and layout was rotated by 180°.

To all the owners of iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, behold! Smashing Planets is free:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smashing ... 03392?mt=8

Now, since the publisher didn't tell us about the move, I don't know if this is just temporary or permanent so... hurry up to the App Store to download it, get your game on and let us know what you think about it.

Nothing new at this point, but motivational!

I can really identify myself in his talk since what i would really like to do is mapping, but because how things went the only Windows machine I have is an old, not very reliable, laptop with Radeon 9700m that can just run HL2 as it came out in 2004.