Posts by jackophant

  • What have you purchased recently?

    Quote from cashed

    I ordered the Nexus 5X! Can't wait for these to ship. My Nexus4 barely gets through a day these days

    noice :D

    I just flashed my Nexus 6 with marshmallow (which the 4 sadly doesn't get :(), and what would comfortably get me through the working day is now forecasting 3 whole days of battery life!

    Quote from Beck

    So since someone wrote off my car I went and bought another one:

    How does this compare to the last one? (other than the red).

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    Hey guys,

    I love speccing PC builds, and I often do it for friends and family as well as a couple of paid systems.

    For a lot of people who want a new PC it can often be quite an intimidating prospect, so I would like to offer my services to all of you should any of you need them!

    For the people who live close to me I've often aided them in building the machine, but for other people further afield I can help spec a build on a website (or sites) of their choice just so they know they've got a good deal and/or the right parts for what they want.

    I'm doing this freely in my spare time, it's just something I enjoy doing.

    You can request a build here in the thread or drop me a message. All I need to work with is:

    • Budget
    • Intended machine use
    • Part preferences

    Any builds I complete (unless requested) will be published to the OP for other people to reference. I can also help with any peripherals you may be interested in.

  • The Walking Dead

    Quote from JAL

    Just watched the Season 6 opener. Didn't blow my mind but wasn't complete bullshit either. I'm hoping the story is going to start progressing faster this season (it seems to be) and they get rid of the filler episodes where they just roam around the countryside encountering random zombies while killing off semi-important cast, oh wait that's the whole show. Anyways, I hope this season won't disappoint.

    Quote

    second half of S5 was a little slow, and there were quite a few filler episodes and pushed the uneasiness of alexandria excessively, but we've got the wolf pack to deal with now. from what we've seen they're nuttier than squirrel shit and have a score to settle now as well with the now totally zen black guy from S1.

  • Source 2 and CS:GO

    Quote from Psyrius

    If it would, what do you think this new engine might improve on how we make our maps? And which features and functions do you hope to be included?

    Looking at Dota2's authoring tools would be a good place to look, but they released most of the improvements via Dota Reborn One, Two and Three and some Updates. You'll have to pick through the Dota specifics though.

    Quote from El_Exodus

    if you look at all the updates on hitboxes and sounds in the game, it's already happening - slowly.

    I don't think this is necessarily indicative of either decision as you could argue they're making these overhauls because it won't be upgraded. Why would they waste time upgrading something the new engine will already do?

    I'm really holding out for the custom game mode support. I was very happy they brought Pudge Wars out officialy for Dota, and it would allow a lot of unofficial counter strike mods, and even some game modes from garry's mod to operate much more cleanly. Prop hunt, surf or kz without plugins anyone? :D

  • [CS:GO] de_sirius

    Changes look good, but just a couple of things...

    1. Angle from A through in to long looks a bit OP.
    2. B short balcony has nasty angle through on to bombsite. Very strong after plant position.
    3. Orange dev fence around tree on A allows people to shoot through it, so the head peek still exists.

    Mid feels much better :D

  • Soma (From the amnesia guys!)

    Quote from holiestcows

    Yeah I just finished this. First horror game ive played in a long time, and not chicken out due to the horror. Not to say it was not tense or scary, I just was so enthused in the environments and story I couldn't stop playing.

    This is what makes a good horror game imo. I hate the cheap scare tactics some games use to replace anything resembling a story line or environment.

    I loved amnesia, but my only gripe was that it felt too "on rails" at times. Is this any better?

  • Devblog for my map de_fortress

    Quote from Atrax

    I totally understand your point, it makes sense that people can't judge an as highly unfinished work as this. I really just wanted ideas on what to change early on, but I also can understand that I can't bother people with that as much.

    As soon as there is a playable reasonable layout, I'm gonna post a new topic to start all over

    You don't need to start a new topic, just add edit your OP, although for history's sake stick everything else you have now in spoiler tags. It's also nice to see how far a project has come for yourself and others looking back. As an example you could look at either of my maps (Strada and Stupa) floating around here somewhere for how I've laid everything out.

    The important thing is that this is your map. We can help you shape it, but you've got to provide us with something to help you work with. More than anything it shows that you are willing and committed to making this map.

    If you're struggling with ideas, just go back to basics. Draw your map out on a piece of paper: try to aim for 2-3 entrances per bombsite, get a balance of long and short sight lines, and try to keep the flow simple. Don't distract yourself with any texturing and you should be sorted.

    Good luck! We'll talk on the other side :)

  • ar_turnstile

    Quote from Rick_D

    i wish valve would add Arms Race maps to operations ro provide a separate avenue to add them into the game!

    I imagine they would look for a way to monetise it, but as there isn't as much interest from the community playing arms race (apart from the "leader wallhack" situation) compared to full size operations, it hasn't seemed worth it?

    That and I can just imagine reddit when "Operation Arms Race" drops...

  • de_jackpot[WIP]

    Quote from Vaya

    do a build with the roof hidden for the radar.

    Also - piss green lights = not a hot look ;)

    To expand on Vaya's points:

    You can add all the roof parts of your map into a custom visgroup. The visgroup can then be hidden very easily.

    I'm not sure what's going on with your black sky and lighting, but if you go to the Valve Developer Community - Sky List - CSGO you'll see a list of the skybox names and what light_environment you can use to produce nicer lighting.

  • Devblog for my map de_fortress

    Quote from Quotingmc

    You run at 250 units per second in CS:GO with your knife out so it would actually take you 100 seconds or 1 minute and 40 seconds to run 25,000 units. I see where you are coming from though ;D

    The round time in competitive CSGO is 1.45, that would almost take a full round to traverse.

  • Devblog for my map de_fortress

    Quote from Atrax
    1. I'm not as new as you might think, I already got some maps (which failed because of layout) on my hardrive.
    2. I meant to add good, not lots of connectors, so gameplay works.
    3. I don't want to straight copypaste out of any maps, just take some basic ideas (a mid, a second connector to a bombsite which can only be accessed by showing yourself at another location, etc)
    4. Edit: Just because I'm interested: Did you write the feedback just based at the post or did you look at the map. Just need to know how to deal with it
    1. The worst thing you can do with anything in life is thinking you know more than you do. You're right, I don't know how new you are, and people progress at different rates, but telling me you have a few maps on your hard drive doesn't prove anything. We're all about feedback and helping here, and it's a level playing field. Even the operation mappers submit their work to be scrutinised.
    2. I can only go by what you say, I'm not a mind reader :P
    3. That's how mapping works, but with that sentence you pretty much described the entire map pool. imo you're approaching it the wrong way. It's more beneficial to work from a general layout, not bit by bit.
    4. Yes, I looked at your map on the workshop and saw one screenshot and stopped there. I then looked at your imgur album and saw I was looking at an incomplete layout and again, stopped there. You had what looked like gun spawns on the floor, and it seemed to be more of an aim map than a de map. Please don't underestimate what is visible in a map from pictures without having to be in the map. If I see a map in screenshots with a mid lane that is 25,000 units long, I don't need to load it up to know it will take me 30 minutes to run down.

  • Devblog for my map de_fortress

    Hey Atrax, as you seem to be new to this you might want to read up on some of this level design business. Maybe you could take some time to read through my introductory thread to get some resources:


    Please don't add "lots of nifty connectors to keep gameplay interesting", it will definitely hurt any gameplay you make. Also definitely do not copy+paste out of existing maps, it doesn't work. They work as a whole based on a balance of ideas.

    We also realise this is a WIP, that's generally what we're dedicated to here :P

  • de_jackpot[WIP]

    Quote from Sirlock

    Okay, something else I am trying to clarify on:

    1) am I making everything varying percentages reflectivity textures i.e. walls, floors, and ceilings depending on what the end game texture will specifically be? At least that's what I seem to be gathering from what you are exampling. There isn't a tutorial or anything I have found on this topic so it is hard for me to understand.

    2) Also as far as tightening up the map, do you mean leave the site sizes the same and just making it so their is less void space, or adjust scale of the bomb sites as well as reduce the void space?

    Sorry for all the questions but thank you for taking the time to answer!!!

    1) Personally I use about 50% for the walls, 30% for the roof/ceiling and "dev/devmeasuregeneric_01b" for any accessible, walkable surface. But this is just my initial preference. However, if I was working with a particular theme in mind and I had large dark granite pillars, I would colour them with a low reflectivity to give an idea. If I know an area will be white plaster, I will use a similarly light tone. It's not the sort of thing that needs a tutorial, just painting by numbers but in shades of white-black rather than full colour, make sense?

    2) Tightening up the map is really dependent on a map test. You need to see what parts are bigger than they need to be. Sometimes it's a particular alleyway which is too wide and could be a bit better being narrower, or the walk across an open area between an entry point and the bombsite is too exposed so you want to bring things a bit closer together. Sometimes there are corners of your map which are "dead space", places which don't offer any tactical advantage and might be counter-productive to the flow of the map so you can just fill them in. It can often be a bit of everything!

    Just get a mapcore play test arranged, and you'll see what I mean :)