Posts by leplubodeslapin

That is a pretty cool trailer ! And the map looks cool, nice lighting and colors, I will check it out. GG !

Congratulations, that's a lot really really solid entries !! Good luck on the polish phase !

Just to be sure, did you compile your 3D Skybox map separately (declared as a 3D Skybox in the map properties, right?)

Also, are the materials used there custom ? If so, what shaders are they using ?

There should be no lighting influence whatsoever between the 3D Skybox and the actual map, this looks more like a shader bug than actual lighting being propagated in the 3D Skybox.

Also all the lighting is looking quite weird in your screenshot, are you compiling with a Ray-Tracing capable GPU ? Can you share a screenshot in Lighting only mode ? (I find the shading on the brick wall on the left very weird, also the water fountain is pitch black, how ??)

I recently released fy_pool_day for CS2.

For it, I made a few custom props of inflatable toys that the players can move around and deflate :

I've been asked a lot how I did this, so I made an in depth tutorial for it.

It's not just about the Ragdoll part, it covers everything from the cloth simulation used to create the high poly mesh to the end result.

It's a long video so don't hesitate to use the chapters if you're already familiar with the concepts shown in the video.

Quote from bruja

On 10/1/2023 at 12:10 PM, bruja said: Please, tell me what those commands are

I haven't tried any of these and I recommend to get the minimum specs required for CS2 tools, which include a RT-capable GPU.

Hosomi made this video that should be helpful, if you want to give it a try :

Quote from Serialmapper

5 hours ago, Serialmapper said: I have some questions about ray tracing and CS2.

CS2 will use ray tracing in game directly? or the ray tracing lightning Information will be precalculated in Hammer during compile, and "embedded" in the final map so that a ray tracing capable graphics card will not be needed to benefit from those lightning enhancements? What role will play ray tracing in CS2?

As of today, Ray tracing tech is only used for Hammer (to preview your lighting in the 3D view rather quickly, and to simply build the lighting with VRAD, similar to how it's been done for Source 1 but better)

I don't think there is anything yet regarding ray tracing in game (AO/GI is baked on lightmap and probes, shadows use Cascaded Shadows like in CSGO but with more sources, reflections are cubemaps/ScreenSpaceReflection ...)

Quote from Vaya

1 hour ago, Vaya said: valve have said 'will be' so assume its happening

ok I wasn't sure so thanks for the confirmation

(correct me if i'm wrong !!)

Technically there are commands to compile using your CPU instead of GPU, at the cost of extra compilation times. But this can become deprecated and removed/not supported in the future.

There are also some updates on the light entities (light and light_spot are obsolete, replaced by light_omni2 and light_barn with the addition of an area light called light_rect). I've heard that these are fine and can be built with CPU as of today. However, materials that are selfilum can now be emissive and actually emit light over the environment, and i've heard that this is not something doable with a CPU compile.

The RayTrace preview also requires a GPU that supports RT, and it's one of the best thing that came with CS2 tools, so you'd miss that too!

In my opinion, it's worth getting a new GPU if yours doesn't fit this requirement, it's a good time. As you said, it needs to be a GPU that supports raytracing, so it doesn't have to be a RTX (from Nvidia), it can also be an AMD card. Depending on where you are, the used market can have some good cards at decent prices (~ 200-300 €).

I have a RTX 2070 (which was the first gen of RTX cards) and all the features are working very well (including the low compilation times), it doesn't have to be the latest GPU on the market. The tools are very well optimized, it really just is a tech requirement and it's worth it (in my opinion).

Why would you use a forum thread for your changelogs ? 😅

Screenshots are cool but blockouts don't really speak for themselves in screenshots, they need to be played or recorded in videos at least. People would also be interested in your progress if it shows some visual improvements for instance, but i don't think that it's the right place to write a message for every change on your map, especially at this early stage.

(In any case, have fun working on your map !)

[Blocked Image: https://media.tenor.com/KjJTBQ9lftsAAAAC/why-huh.gif]

Hey,

I'm now Senior Level Designer, still at Arkane-Studios Lyon (i'm the only one left 🥲 )

It's stunning ! You must port it on Source 2 dude it will look even more awesome, the lighting is already very impressive for S1 ! Very colorful

Quote from Vaya

1 hour ago, Vaya said: its interesting the terminal areas feel a little like counterstrike bombsites ever thought about?

Hehe I suppose it's mostly due to the single point of interest for both players, and also yes I needed the spaces to suit with 1V1 fight. But there were other factors such as the hacking range, I wanted to make it not too easy to start the hack unnoticed. Also I had to deal with existing geometry, and the location of that terminal in the global map matters too, you don't want it to be too close from the tunnels otherwise Colt could just hack it and run away without letting the opportunity for Julianna to chase him. You don't want it either to be too far away from the "main path" between tunnels and the map target, otherwise it feels like you're wasting even more time reaching the terminal. It was a matter of finding the best spot for each map and tweak stuff around it, to prevent frustrating encounters. I'm glad you noticed it ❤️

Quote from will2k

49 minutes ago, will2k said: Félicitations

Do you still do engineering work on the side or is it now a long distant memory?

Thank you :))

I still do a little bit, as a hobby this time around, i've put a couple of projects in the "Product Design" tab of the website. I also designed and built my kitchen in the past year which was quite a challenge.

But yes, to be honest working as an engineer feels like a distant memory now, i'm more engaged and passionnate about my work now as a Level Designer.

I did not expect the job to be like that though, making layouts and placing NPC / patrols was maybe only a third of the work I did on Deathloop. I've been able to bring more ideas to the game than I anticipated, it's a collective effort. I think this part is much more appealing to me, compared to when I was designing stuff as a mechanical engineer.

In case someone's interested in it, i wrote a page on my portfolio about my work on Deathloop :

https://sylvainmenguy.com/en/project/deathloop

Yes Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy are getting a PC release, no precise date yet except early 2022. But as Zarsky said I don't think Uncharted 1, 2 and 3 are planned on PC at all.

@Vilham yep it's still there ?

Quote from blackdog

8 hours ago, blackdog said: I’m very fascinated/interested in this aspect of game development, as I see it the most important conjunction of game and UI design.

It’s must be incredibly tricky to strike balance, considering every player is different. I am for example one that -I believe- is very resilient to frustration, I actually make games frustrating for myself (like I spent at least 8hrs on the shipwreck encounter alone in Uncharted 4 because I was convinced I could resolve it the way I wanted, but needed to be perfect at aiming and timing).

In regard of information overload I’ve felt like this recently when I started playing God of War, when you upgrade a weapon there’s so much information… and god help you when you get to the merchant is a non-stop barrage of pop ups!

I wonder what type of R&D there is for a dynamic system (self or user adjusted) dedicated to this aspect; but I can imagine the realities of business and budgets… and how ad-hoc game solutions are. I can only think the pitch for this is that once you get a system like that up and running, you can keep reusing it, so it would be a bit like upgrading your game engine, if you can come up with a generic solution.

It is indeed very tricky to find the right balance and pace, there is soooo much stuff the player has to learn, such as :

• Who are you, what is your purpose here, who is Colt ?
• Who is Julianna, why is she doing this, wtf is going on ?
• Oh shit, it's a time loop thing, how does it work ? How can it be an issue to me ? How can it be an asset ?
• What are my tools, what are my weapons, what are the slabs, what are trinkets, what are my player mobility options ... ?
• Who are those targets I need to eliminate, to what purpose ?
• How do you convey to the player that they can play however they want, they don't have to fit 1 play style, and they can benefit from the timeloop to experiment things ?
• How can the player progress through space and time within the timeloop ?
• ...

I wasn't actually part of the tutorialization work, but it's quite hard to make it all fit.

Time constraints are what they are, and even if popups are not the most appreciated tools they can be efficient. And at least, if a player skips them because it's getting boring, he can find everything back in the menu, or experience by himself.

I feel you with your experience with Uncharted 4, it is actually a very big deal with TLOU2 too. There's always a part where you can only expect the players to follow the story and go on with it.

@Radu, this is what we call the "Guided Tour", it guides the player for 2-3 hours after the tutorial map. It's a necessity, before we built up the guided tour, players just felt completely lost, lacking a lot of knowledges from very basic concepts of the game. We decided to host this through the real maps, so the player can already spend time on them and learn informations that will be useful once this phase is lifted, but for a few hours we have to force the player to go through some key steps.

Once you get through this, you become free to explore the maps and campaign. But still, we can't just let the players completely in the unknown to solve the big puzzle, there are "leads" that guide the player through the process. You can do these in any order you want, and as for previous games you can disable markers and other options if you want.

The puzzle itself isn't the only important part from the game, it's also how you want to build up an arsenal, there are optionnal missions and vignettes we created to get some extra equipement/lore/rewards (which are usually harder to solve), learning the maps can also become very valuable (finding out new paths, new locations, shortcuts ...), especially in PvP... How you want to play with the loop!

I'm sorry that it feels like too much information is thrown at the player, I actually have to agree on that. It's not necessarily a very complex game, but it's quite unorthodox. It takes a bit of time for the player to feel comfortable with it.

Thank you guys :))

@Vilham and @El Moroes also worked on Deathloop, aswell as @ElectroSheep in the beginnings.