Posts by will2k

  • What I'm Working On

    Quote from Vilham

    45 minutes and only 8 likes. I'm afraid I have to call this a failed experiment.


    With 18 likes so far, I guess the theory proved right and we can safely call this poo a "win-nie" situation.


    On a serious note, what's with the ETA:...

  • Do you enjoy your job in the games industry?

    I have read all the posts; this thread is heavy on info.


    As someone who is on the outside and was never part of the gaming industry, I was under the "rosy" impression that the inside, at least most of it, was all fun and games, with "rainbows and butterflies". Reading many of the comments was interesting and revealing.


    If it's any consolation, what everyone stated and experienced at some times is actually shared across all industries: burn-out after prolonged work cycles at the same place, crunching and stressing at important work milestones, motivation dwindeling over time, creativity curbed by strict working rules, having an a$$hole boss who does not understand your work or makes you feel under-appreciated, $hitty co-workers/work attitude, toxic workplace/management, etc...


    In case you're wondering, yes I have gone through all these in different places that I worked at during the past 12 years, whether it be a large multinational manufacturing facility or a small family business.


    Most of the replies I read imply that everyone likes what they do (the concept of designing games and related disciplines) and would not trade it for another job; the problem lies with where you perform the work (the company).


    If you're genuinely not happy at one place, it's high time to take a break and go for another place; change is always necessary to shake things up, break the status quo, open up new horizons and allow you to grow as a human being. There is absolutely no sense in remaining in a place you loathe for the sake of "alleged" social security: the mental and moral "damage" you will incur from staying at that place far outweighs the financial benefits if they are present. It is a bit more difficult to do so when you have a family to support but it is still doable.


    Good luck to everyone searching for greener pasture

  • DOTA 2

    Quote from leplubodeslapin

    I need to know :2. Would such a thing be possible for CS:GO Seriously guys i'm too much excited, this is awesome


    I guess Valve chose dota2 as a testing ground and once every major bug is ironed (hopefully), they will move to the other active titles, mainly CSGO and TF2 to migrate to Source 2. L4D3 will be natively developed on Source 2 and I don't think they are interested in shifting older titles such as CSS, HL2 or DODS


    But the new features are indeed exciting and offer the perspective of a more streamlined workflow as opposed to current Hammer.


    Quote from RaVaGe

    I want to know more about the optimisation system though ...


    Interesting and legit question.


    If the new system adopted (vmap) is a complete departure from the bsp principles, then we will have to learn new optimization techniques and tricks (unless visleaves and "visibility from a region" approach are still the norm)


    Can any mapcorean who tried the new editor/maps chime in?

  • DOTA 2

    Quote from FMPONE

    Please become an expert on this editor also, Will~

    Haha, i will have to wait until they shift other titles to source2 to sink my teeth in this new hammer. I don't play dota2


    but nevertheless this is exciting news and update especially the realtime lighting which is really cumbersome in Hammer currently as you have probably experienced this countless times

  • DOTA 2

    big news today, seems like Valve is testing Source2 with Dota2 first.


    It's a radical change as far as I can see compared to the good old Worldcraft 2.1 I first used in 1999


    Here are some of the changes in the new Hammer:


    The editor compiles to a new map format, vmap_c

    It also uses a new model format, vmdl.
    You can import tgas, FBX files, and here's a list from facepunch of the rest:

    • Brushes are now meshes and act like models. You can edit by face, edge, and vertex.

    • New particle editor / realtime material editor

    • Better prefab support, just drag and drop a prefab from the asset browser to place and double click in the viewport to edit it.

    • You can blend ANY materials together on displacements in hammer, no more specifying $basetexture and $basetexture2

    • Custom Tilesets (Might be Dota specific)

    • Realtime Lighting, WYSIWYG

    • Hammer has its own model editor and asset browser

    • The developer binary of the game as well as hammer run through what's called vconsole, where you can get feedback and run console commands just like the regular ingame console

    • There's a new 3D viewport manipulator that lets you transform as well as change lengths of meshes which is quite useful.

    • Pivot points

    • Compiling doesn't freeze your PC

    • The engine now uses a new type of models, vmdl

    • They also dropped bsp, they now use a custom format named vmap (vmap_c when compiled)


    Source: http://www.valvetime.net/threads/dota-2…er-2014.245390/ (7th post)


    EDIT: Meshes and real time lighting are the most exciting changes in my opinion.

  • Games to get someone into gaming for the first time?

    Quote from Puddy

    Counter Strike Global Offensive Ranked Competitive 5on5



    Haha , even better would be a 1vs1 deathmatch on Quake 3


    Quote from 2d-chris

    Was hilarious to see my mum try and play Crysis when she never played a shooter before, was quite eye opening for me actually because you easily forget your first time

    You got a point there as the gap between gamers and non-gamers is actually huge with regard to reflexes and motor coordination; we simply fail to see it as we benchmark ourselves against fellow gamers


    I recently wrote an article about this issue: Gamers Reflexes and Eye-Hand Coordination


    @ Chimeray: I believe a good start would be a GTA game where he can freely roam the city and learn the controls and fine tune his eye-hand coordination without getting pressured by the game objectives/mechanics/story.


    Eventually, if he wants to improve his motor coordination, then fast action games (shooters especially) are the way forward


    And you sharing some game time with him will help a lot


    Good luck for your dad.

  • ITT: Post maps/scenes that never saw the light of the day.

    Quote from TheOnlyDoubleF

    I've been working on this map where I've tryed to recreate a part of the AMC The Walking Dead's Prison, I've got so much problems which the props that doesn't appear when compile, the lighting, the scavenger gamemode and the source scripting that.....ppfffffff


    I really want to publish this map but I'm demoralized when I simply open it. May be I should start it from scratch again to work on a clean projectn and get some help from someone that knows Source better than me


    It's a shame for this work not to see the light. The Walking Dead would make a perfect setting for a L4D map.


    You could always start a WIP thread and post the problems in details with compile logs and what not, and I'm pretty sure you will get help from the many members around here who know a thing or 2 about Source .


    It would be also aweome if you branch this campaign into 3 maps: the first in the prison, the second sees the survivors escaping through the woods and the third/finale takes place after they reach the terminal (all plot credits go to AMC ).

  • Carve and Make Hollow in 3ds Max

    Quote from shawnolson

    Now I know that there is a raging hate of the Carve and Make Hollow functions in Hammer,

    You dared touch the carve tool...blasphemy


    "Make hollow" is fine but "carve" is an instant cringe


    Not because it's a useless function, it's actually quite a nice tool to make complex shapes in a fast way. The problem is in vbsp (or hlcsg/hlbsp in GoldSrc) doing an extremely poor job in creating/dividing newly created brushes and therefore in the visleaves division, putting an unnecessary overhead on the engine.


    Hope the carve tool in WWMT handles this issue more efficiently.


    Props to you for constantly updating and improving WWMT.

  • Need some help with a radar

    Quote from shawnolson

    Just for info: If you are building your level in 3ds Max with Wall Worm, there is a native function to render your level overview and make the text file all at once. It is under Wall Worm > Wall Worm Materials > Export Overview Texture. It creates overviews and radars, as well as TGA files (and a function to compile the TGA to VTF if not using DDS).


    More info here: Overview Exporter.


    This is for people like me who have always felt like the steps for making an overview have always been overly complicated.

    Every time I read one of your posts, I get tempted more and more to start learning 3DS max to be able to use WWMT


    Wish I had more free time


    Thanks for all your efforts to bring an alternative to Hammer.

  • Need some help with a radar

    Quote from NoahHasAnIDE

    I tried this and the layout was off center. I'm gonna try to get someone with a large monitor to help me out with this. Anyone on here interested in helping out a mate?

    Once you crop your image to 768x768, resize it to 1024x1024 and it will work fine.


    For the sake of it, I made a test map and tried it and it works flawlessly. If you keep the DDS image at 768x768 then it will be off-centered as you mentioned but once you resize it to 1024x1024, it will work pretty fine.


    Hope this helps

  • Assassin's Creed: Unity

    Looks very promising


    One thing that is a bit "disturbing" from the last video is that the main protagonist has a perfect English accent. Imho, this takes away from the character's "charm" and authenticity of being a Frenchman (as denoted in the wiki: The main character of the game is Arno Dorian, a native Frenchman who was born in Versailles.)


    I believe he should be given a slight accent just as they did with Ezio's English/Italian accent


    Looking forward to the game