zaphod

picked it up today at lunch, should be playing it later tonight . . . stupid werk

I plan on picking it up this weekend

the Vampire: Bloodlines website just went live, I'm actually pretty impressed with it, there are a lot of cool things to discover. http://vampirebloodlines.com/

there is also some other recent press coverage here: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/october03/bloodlines/

he's almost throwing out the shocker

not too bad. but those legs look like poop literally

They even have their own hulls, flat window texture -> 3d indented window

?

anyway, my prediction is just that the majority of maps for the first 6 months after hl2 comes out will be similar in relation to the first maps when hl came out. All the stock hl2 textures and scenery objects will be overused to the max. At least there are a lot more assets to be used in hl2 in relation to hl1.

And you can't model an entire level in max / maya. You have to use worldcraft.

The scale in max and wc are the same in hl2, and I export geometry from wc to dxf to use as a base to model in max a lot. XSI is supposed to have tools to import world geometry complete with textures. But dunno much about that.

I knew zip about max when I started. It was less important to have prior knowledge for me, becuase we were using the hl2 engine, so the worldcraft knowledge was more important. But I had to learn it when I started. But probably only 25% of games use a proprietary level editing tool (worldcraft, lithtech editor, etc) and even then, many times they are just tools to arrange assets made in modeling programs and to script the levels. Max / maya are the industry standards in terms of 3d asset creation for games.

also, I'd like to point out that anyone considering a cereer in level design, (/me eyes mazy) isn't going to be able to get a job without knowing how to model, or without having to learn a modeling app.

It would take years and years to make a program like worldcraft be able to match any major modeling program in terms of useablitity and flexibility. There really isn't any other way to get detailed environments other than using models . . . worldcraft is only built for extremely basic modeling.

It's probably not as extreme as UT2k3, just picture normal half-life mapping, but using models to get the the point of detail you see in the hl2 screenshots and movies.

yea, I'm way more excited about the engine than I am about the game.

lol @ urby

in the most efficient and fine tuned hl2 map, anything that dosent act as a vis blocker would be a model. However, you can imagine that would be hard to accomplish. Pretty much any scenery objects, and many structural details are models. World brush polies are 10 times more expensive than a model poly.

I may do a front/back and the missle if I get bored sometime tonight.

I shamelessly took bic's work and made it the base of my own.

nice shadowing/highlighting

most valuable thing you could learn for hl2 mapping is max/maya

it will definetly be an epic game if all the systems and features described over the last year or so actually make it into shipped game. The lack of anykind of proof of gameplay this far down the road is semi-worrysome, hyped epic-sounding games that show nothing but tech demos are seeming to become more common. But the engine truly does sound impressive, and it seems to deal with a lot of features differently than hl2, which could be a very good thing if it actually performs as described.

A baby seal walk in to a club.

I declare urby the winner.

after playing through the first couple of missions, I'm a bit underwhelmed. Maybe it's that I'm already used to physics and ragdolls with hl2. It just kind of seems like it's nothing more than a slow motion rag-doll simulator, there isn't much else to the game except for that. Well, I guess I shouldn't have expected much else than that. At least the levels are very tight and well done. One random thing keeps bugging me is that when max is unarmed, his hand is still crooked like he's holding a gun, he looks crippled like bob dole. I actually think I would enjoy the game a lot more if you played as bob dole instead of max payne.

I'm a level designer for troika games http://www.troikagames.com

love and hat3? n0 h@t3 pLz!~`

I used to work at a printing press collating papers, using big paper cutting machines, using a drill press, and boxing paper.

my eyeballs feel like they have just been microwaved