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More WIP screenshots!

More HD stills

With UE5, the boundaries between real and CG are becoming pretty slim

I've release the project on the ue4's Marketplace. LINK There's also a playable demo that you can check out here: DEMO This was my most time consuming project that I've started back in 2018, but then scrapped and returned to it in 2021. It took about 8 months to complete and was a great learning experience for me.

I am hoping this social/metaverse won't gain traction. The fact that the barrier to entry is so high is comforting. It's just scary imagining all these people plugged in like in the Matrix, pursuing virtual shit that don't matter. Seems a way to just rob people of everything. The repercussions of socials are already well known, force feeding dopamine boosts to people seems like sending lemmings over the cliff. In a sense it was cool the gaming we've experienced growing up, it was an equalizer, it didn't matter who you were, if you could afford to wear Nike at school or not, in game we were all the same and just the skill mattered... now with NFTs and all this personalisation content we are just recreating the clique aspect of the school playground. If I'm immersing myself in a virtual world is to get a break from the real one... are we gonna get people hustling to sell you shit, like those on the side of the street? @Castle where do you find all that time to spend in VR, I've got a child to feed and educate, I can hardly message family when I'm looking after them. And when I see friends I want to hug them and share food with them... even if I could afford a VR kit, I just wouldn't have time.

Yeah I was talking to one of the level designers at work about this today. I'm finding it harder and harder to find a game I can really stick with and put a lot of hours into. Whereas 10+ years ago there were quite a few games that I would really enjoy and put many hours into. Now some of this is probably down to me getting older, having less time to play, my friends not playing as much and my tastes changing. But then I think about Battlefield 2042 and how bad that's been received. Before it came out and all we had were trailers I was pretty hyped for it. I wanted a modern day Battlefield like BF2, BC2 or BF3 but with modern graphics and that's exactly what the trailers looked like. Obviously, that never came to pass and I cancelled my pre-order after playing the beta. But if DICE/EA did release a modern day BF2 I reckon I could really dedicate some time to it. Now, I guess we're in the minority since the games industry is pulling in some serious cash. The masses must be loving it but I guess most of the money is going into a small number of franchises (COD, LOL, Pokemon, Mobile games etc). I dunno, maybe when we can't progress with graphics any more without a significant jump in graphics power the games will get better and we'll focus on the gameplay instead? Old man shouts at cloud!

Unreal Engine 5.5 patch notes: -added photorealism, based on feedback and request from fmpone But joking aside, I fully agree and that's why I wrote the boundaries are getting slim but not gone completely; a trained eye can still see it's computer generated but it's becoming more difficult to discern with each engine update I remembered your post last time about pre-2010 gaming era nostalgia and I'm noticing this awful trend now for most games, where the graphics nowadays are getting photorealistic but the games themselves are getting dumber and too mainstream/simplistic. Couple of days ago I watched a video comparing Far Cry 2 from 2007 to Far Cry 5 from 2018, and my goodness, FC2 blows FC5 straight out of the water. FC5 is a bit prettier in the graphics department but that's about it; FC2 is leaps and bound ahead in all other fields. You can easily feel the cringe seeing the parts where FC5 treats the player like an idiot who needs constant handholding and dumbing things down.

Does look great. Basically caught up with all those movies where I used to say "Imagine if games looked like this!"

I have returned with some updated San Juan

Yeah, lighting is an art form, more important than ever! Lumens is amazing, but you still need to know how to squeeze it's juice.

~ Nice to see an Italian working on the core tech of the engine

With rocks, buildings and other lifeless objects they may get away with the photorealism, but with the vegetation, animals and humans i am more pesimistic that they will get out of the uncanny valley any time soon, especially if they are animated. The human brain is hardwired to detect every subtle detail that exist in the makeup of every living being. So good luck cheating that.

Noooo? Really? Nobody could have predicted this.

Come on, people, give me your likes!

Name: Miguel Nogueira Timezone: GMT+1 (UK/London/Lisbon) What I can do: I can concept design through artwork, including ideas, iterations, brainstorming, story research, level design and game design sketches, mood, aesthetics, and art direction in general. I also have experience working in graphic design, digital and traditional clay sculpting, and have knowledge of cinematography and multimedia tools. I have worked with a few indies and big studios alike, such as Frictional Games with Amnesia Rebirth, collaborated with Blink 182, Volta Studio, NetEase Games, acted as consultant and Art contest jury to AMD, to name a few. My work has been featured from news sites such as Kotaku to art communities such as Behance (character design category feature), CGSociety Hall of Fame, and Artstation Editor's picks. I'm currently working with a few studios under NDA material. If you have a project you'd like to start, I'd love to hear from you, reach out by email, as I'm currently booking the following available weeks in my schedule. I'll invite you to visit my website: www.menogcreative.com And drop me a line through [email protected]

Got promoted to Assistant Lead Level Designer a couple of months ago at Rebellion!

This in my opinion is a proper abstraction of reality that is Counter-Strike. Overall there is a lot of expression from the base design, it does not rely on props or textures. I think this is a step in the right direction for the game; rather than try and mimic reality there is an artistic abstraction of it instead. Overall I would say the art design is great, and deceptively simple. I suspect people will struggle to emulate this style of mapping for a time to come.

When you work on games for a living, most of the smoke and mirrors that works for the average gamer won't work on you. So I find getting immersed is harder now than before

Honestly I'm not sold, this has been tried a dozen times and sometimes with a hardware user bases larger than fakebooks current Rift base. Remember Playstation Home, had a user base of what, 40 million people, dead. Second life, dead. Those weren't VR, but is an even steeper barrier to entry. Plus VR chat currently exists for the actual innovators/first adopters of this tech (which is critical for something to grow) and that even though its available on Index/Vive/Rift and windows mixed reality has a tiny user base. I guess time will tell but right now, this is in the fad column for me. To be clear, i am sure VR gaming will continue to grow as the technology becomes more accessible, but I don't believe social VR will catch on and become mainstream.

Give me them likes...

I wonder if we’d have the same reaction from a blind test. I’m looking at this on my phone, I’m sure a random person on the street would think why I’m looking at desertic caves photos. What’s this weirdo into? One thing that hasn’t been mentioned, but it’s a big component to achieve photo realism, would be the general simulation/rendition of air dust. Those city shots look very detailed but clearly CG because of that reason, IMO. It’s something I never noticed until I went for a hike in Canada at 1200+ meters: the air was so clean, the pictures I took up there look so detailed, almost as if I used a different camera or lenses. ~ All of this looks great, and it’s very exciting in a way… but from a gaming standpoint I dunno how much I care: I always felt the real “next gen” would be when the AI would actually make the world feel more immersive, when systems are more interconnected and allow for long term consequences and make the player feel they really had an impact.

It all depends on the artist and what asset quality/megascans they use. One artist could use medium quality meshes/materials or wrongly set up parameters, and the scene automatically looks artificial/phony. As with any engine/tools, Nanite/Lumen tech is there in UE5, it's how you use them. Here's another batch of shots from another artist:

I think the little light scattering across the incredibly detailed geometry is what seems really promising from a photorealism standpoint. The fucking scary thing is, to be photorealistic, it still seems about half as detailed as it would need to be. Photorealism feels *close* in 2022, like. We're almost there... Looking at this shot for example, parts feel photoreal and other parts feel like a phony mess asset quality almost seems to differ in the shots, I find this whole rock set pretty unconvincing

This game's level design and environmental art is absolutely top notch.

They've only had one engine swap that we know of, 2023 is to be expected.

It's been a really fun project to watch you iterate on. Spotlighted x2~

I feel like we are one Unreal Engine away from photorealism, based on these screenshots. They’re close but you can still tell it’s computer generated

Picked up Hades thus far it reminds me a *LOT* of Dead Cells. I eventually got bored of that one, but I can see myself returning to this when I'm feeling like chilling and killing stuff

More details

Here's a thread for the project I'm working on with CoreyLaddo (animator) and a suite of talented voice actors, it's a modification for Half-Life: Alyx named LEVITATION. We're planning on releasing the mod in 2022. You can expect a several hour-long, story-driven single-player experience in the Half-Life: Alyx universe (about 7.5 levels).

You do you boo! Just do what you think it's right.

Hi all, I am new to Mapcore and relatively new to mapping. However I have always been fascinated with architecture (my first word was roof, which still sounds strange to me today) and I have found a hobby in using the SDK editor. I by no means expect an amazing final product to this map I am starting to work on, especially given I have no knowledge of making custom assets so I will be relying on what is available. However for now I will give you the idea behind my map as well as a gallery of pictures I am using for inspiration. For now all you need to know is the idea is to have a fun, fast paced competitively viable cs-go map made in however long it takes to get there (probably will still be here updating in a decade knowing me.) Why Sillar? In 2020 I was watching a series called "Race Across the World". In this series pairs have to try and make it from one location to another in the least possible time with limited resources such as money. The second series was a race through Latin America and in one particular episode one of the pairs went to a city in Peru named Arequipa. The architecture and in particular the white materials used to build much of the historical center caught my eye immediately, and upon further research I found that this material used in much of Arequipa is called Sillar, a type of rhyolite that was formed over centuries from volcanic activity in the region's nearby volcanoes. At some point I intend to make custom textures based on Sillar but that is a long way off considering I haven't yet even come up for a map design. What notable features do I want my map to have? One feature I would like is fast rotates, I am not a huge fan of Nuke but I liked how the incredibly fast rotates made the map harder to learn but more rewarding for those who mastered it like Astralis. Another feature I want is a unique middle, I do not want a middle of the form seen for example on Dust 2 or Mirage. I want a system in which the counter terrorists maybe dedicate 1 player to each site but there are opportunities to push forward and take map control like on Overpass, and the middle section would somehow be split into multiple connectors. The idea is that it would be quite easy for counter terrorists to hold the bombsites at first however if they loose control over middle it becomes incredibly hard to go for a fast retake and CTs will either be forced to take longer rotates through spawn areas or take loads of risks going through open courtyards and streets. I also want to utilise sound as much as possible - quicker routes to sites or certain regions of the map might come with the trade-off that you make sound-queues. I also want a good mix of one way drops, wall bang spots, fair boost spots and water elements. I think having a sky box with the volcanoes that surround Arequipa in the background would also add something to the map. In general, I also want to utilise elevation and geometry to the greatest extent possible - I don't want to fill the map with generic crates, I want the angles to come naturally from the map's design and in doing this I will probably save myself a lot of work later on. I also want to experiment with lighting a lot, since it always seems to be left unused in many maps to its full potential. Image Gallery Since I haven't yet got a map design, I will share some inspirational photos I found of Arequipa, I would like in some way to include the Plaza de Armas and the nearby Cathedral but I will try to avoid copying things from real life, and merely take inspiration from the architecture: This is probably ambitious for a first map, however I intend to get as much fun out of the process as possible and share it with others along the way!

@FMPONEWould Levitation features new weapons?

we? please tell me you made a small indie studio or at least thinking about it! I'm bummed it's only VR and I won't be able to experience this release or Alyx in general But as others said, in advance is always best as long as the trailer has no accidental spoilers; 2 weeks would be a sweet spot - not too close to release but at the same time not too distant where hype fades away. In any case, best of luck my friend and you deserve the best out of this. You're one of the people who really bust their asses working on their projects, and I'm sure if you have devoted the same energy in this project as you used to do with csgo ones (I can personally vouch for those lol), this will turn out to be tremendous and probably officially endorsed. Cheers

I think it depends how many influencers and reporters you can get involved. I think if you have that type of support you do in advance, otherwise if you’re counting on the trailer alone, it’s better to have a shorter delay if not contextual release. Mods are not like full games. Goes without saying if you release after the trailer you probably need a release trailer to confirm it’s out.

2-3 weeks in advance with some consistent media leading up to release would probably be best. It gives people time to prepare for it if they want to dedicate the time and you can build up a bit of hype. One thing I hate about most ad campaigns for games is they announce too early, usually 6-8 months before release and by the time it comes out I'm over it. My hype that they built is gone.

I think if you do do it in advance, do it within enough time that youtubers, gaming social media accounts and even gaming press can talk about it and maybe even hype it up before release. Maybe finish the trailer with a release date at the end and that's that, gives you a window of some extra time for last minute touch ups. I think personally, looking up to a release is sort of a good feeling. I like that feeling of knowing in a few weeks I'll be playing something I'm really looking forward to.

I have not watched it yet, but the general consensus so far seems like this:

Ah, the good old Quake mapping days where you could start the map on January 9, 1996 and finish it on January 17, 1996.

Happy New Years guys ! My goals : - work on my photography business which means means working on my e-shop page, updating my websites, working on the SEO to grab more clients, ... - dev. & release old sleeping pictures - dev. some photography projects to train my eyes - let my smartphone more alone, I don't need you everywhere I go little damned boy And about mapping ? Well, it's my main job and it's not what I want to do anymore at home. I doubt one day it will come back, I have to be honest with myself.

Some UE features are built around the console gen 9 minspec (nanite) so they probably wanted to show they could actually hit the minspec and put all their effort there.

Boy... I remenber those fucking black bars and the insanely low fov. I still played it back in the day, found it to be rather innovative in many aspects. If you like survival horror where every bullet matter, this is for you. The latter stages of the game are downright psychedelic, amazing environmental art. The sequel fixes a lot of the problems that the first one had, but funny enough I didn't find the presentation as good as the first. But I also really enjoyed playing through it.

Been working on a deathmatch/arms race map for CSGO for the last 4 days, will hopefully have a release by Christmas. Since its a nightclub, I thought of chucking in some music, so for now it plays Vortal Combat.

Collected all my reference screenshots together for a timelapse

thank you m8. I think given the length we are going for, a lot of people would. But I could also prank everyone by having faked all these screenshots and playtests and release meatspin.gif. we need to have a solid workshop release first, I think that's only fair personally and I expect nothing else.