PhilipK

Sucks read about it over at TCE. These just keeps on piling up every year around this time

Heya, thanks! glad you like it It's a really simple scene, but it's been pretty fun to work on even if I feel like I'd like to do something interior next time probably. Or a non-scifi setting. BitSquid is a really nice engine to work with, it comes with quite a few shader options and such. But I think the best part about it is the simplicity to get stuff ingame and how fast load times are. Setting up stuff is quick and it has some sweet editor tools for quick placement/snapping and moving. I was always a bit confused and annoyed with UDK for those things, at the time I always found it to have quite a lot of ancient garbage that hadn't been cleaned out and/or documented, and their whole lighting pipe was pretty strange to me, but that was a while ago so all these things may be way better now.

oh quake 1 should try this out

Just some random small scene in BitSquid I've been doing some work on and off for a couple of weeks. Lots of stuff I would want to do with it, will see if I'm too lazy or not

cool start Minos

Wouldn't pay for that. This stuff should be free IMO

seriously good texture work there! That clean floor is awesome, perfect thicknesses and subtle imperfections.

looks smashin' guys! hope you'll get around finishing it up looks like it could be a cool map for sure.

It's amazing to play an FPS where you are not interrupted by a 5min cutscene every other step!

I'm only in the very beginning but jeez, this is so awesome. So far the quality of things overall beat a lot of new big titles. It's just very well put together! Enjoying it very much and brings back a ton of memories (probably played through hl1 8 times or so )

Ah it's interesting to read this feels like I could have a tOtally different point of view if I would have worked remotely for a longer period of time.

I don't have any longer experience with this (around 3 months only). But it is very difficult for a number of reasons, and even for a short time like that it got progressively harder. - First off it can be pretty hard to find jobs, especially for a longer period. - You should make up a schedule and really try hard to follow it. It gets really easy to postpone stuff and start working really irregularly (but this is also one of the biggest advantages if used with moderation: you get to decide when and where you do your work). - I'd set up a dedicated work space as closed off from the rest of your spare time areas as possible. I worked from my living room and it was horrible :S I still don't have any type of office space home. I really wish I do sometimes. - Make sure to leave your home for breaks, eat lunch outside as much as possible. I remember I started to hate my apartment more and more just because I spent ALL of my time there. I'm not cut out for the freelancing type of life, I definitely found that out. Maybe some day that will change, but at the moment I really like having a workplace to go to and I can switch to "work mode" and really be focused for 8 hours and then totally relax and cut off any work related stuff (well not entirely but at least try to ). I'd try to apply that mindset even if I worked from home, as much as I could anyhow.

Damn, it's close now HP!

http://migugi.net/mel/normalTools/ This one is awesome! I use it all the time. Not only for just straightening out beveled surfaces but sometimes create different type of illusions from geometry by just altering the shading (this plugin has a very useful type in dialogue and copy paste normal info settings)

Well, since you have the bevel and shading correct already in the lowpoly any normal information to actually get smooth edges is not necessary when you do that Or did you want me to show how to actually edit your normals to do that? (basically you bevel your object just like you would with the example on the right and keep everything smooth, but now select all the surfaces you want to be flat and simply point those face normals straight out in the face normal's direction)

I disagree with that. It's perfectly possible to do this without bevels on such a simple cube. Would be different if the hp was way more rounded around the edges. Yep. I agree with you Steppen. Pogo: IMO the the shape is just ONE of the things the lowpoly should reflect, what is even more important is the shading of your lowpoly. But it seems like most people don't care about that at all. I made a quick pic of showing what I mean: The two boxes on the left will allow you to bake out/paint/nDo out a quick flat AND reusable normal map that could be used for tons of different parts on the same model. The last one is something that seems to be common practice in 3D schools and such. There are many things about this one I find very strange: - This is the one where the lowpoly reflects the highpoly the LEAST. - An object that is supposed to be flat is instead round.. - Your normal map has to be concave to counteract this convex shading in your lowpoly, and you'll end up with a lot of unique concave shades of various kinds that can only work with this particular object, with this particular shading. - Your object may look somewhat correct until you want to light it really harshly with strong angular lights and the convex shading of your lowpoly will get too prominent for the normalmap to hide. - It will get close to impossible to LOD your object properly (why do we see so much LOD popping in games ) With all that said, I think this totally works better for more organic stuff: plants, rocks etc. But I've never understood it for hard surfaced objects. And yes I know keeping things hard edged and splitting UVs will create more vertex data, but I find a mix of that and tweaked beveled normals allows me to reuse my textures a TON more, and texture memory is still where you're most likely to hit the wall first anyway.

No, it was beyond repair oh you used to be so proud of that!

sweet! So are you guys creating a lot of new textures/models for this one too? Looks like there's a lot of new stuff going on there anyhow?

Definitely don't agree with that

Finally saw it as well. Really enjoyed it too. Hadn't watched any trailers and didn't read anything about it, and it feels like that was a good starting point. Feels like you either hate or really enjoy this one. No in-between. But then again, seems like more people who didn't get absolutely obsessed with it before it was out are the people who can enjoy it A lot of people talk about how shallow and non-existent the character build up is in this movie and then reference Alien as it would have had the opposite.. Has that really ever been something strong in any of the Alien movies tbh? Has a lot of other qualities but that is definitely not one of them IMO

I don't really agree with that an environment piece has to have a totally rad focus/selling point or so. If you look at big games today I feel like that is one of the problems where every room has to have this huge epic shit going on. There's two problems with this IMO: - You won't be able to finish up what you started and you end up with some half assed crappy thing that is neither epic and especially doesn't even have an even quality. - You succeed to do this and the epicness take out each other and you end up with no more "WOW" effect than if it would have been a generic corridor shooter. To me it's all about contrast and gradients between awesome super awesome stuff and "regular" stuff. I wouldn't want to use regular or generic really, but without those (that I think should build up the bulk of any game really) the epic stuff doesn't mean anything TBH. So to actually get to the point of what you can do a scene that is considered "generic" from that perspective and instead execute it awesomely in a fairly short amount of time and even preferably be able to record a video and walk around in your scene and show that it has a consistent quality, that is to me way more interesting than being able to make a one or two screenshot environment that looks good, but as soon as you rotate your camera 10 degrees it's crap. I think it's moved way too much in that direction where people are getting told they should only build up their environment for 1 or two camera angles... While that is not what you would have in a good game (with the exception of a very few). I'd extend on that concept and try to build a whole interesting world out of that (doesn't mean it has to be a square mile of content). The better your "generic" stuff is, the better 90%+ of your game will play and look Make the generic stuff not feel generic and you're there. Anyway.. rant mode off

At least it doesn't give you a headache after 5 min like any noisy, contrasty, over post-effected unreal shooter nowadays Actually... perhaps it's time to dust off this diamond again and give it a match.

haha, that's awesome! stuff is really looking sweet art wise on this!

Sweet! I'm getting a nice old school vibe from this level (in a good way)!

On version C I'd remove a few edges on the leaves and simplify those tiny cylindrical objects between the bottom and middle row of leaves and instead add a couple of edges to each side of the top of the column. Right now you have some unnecessary edge loops on the top part and behind the top leaves (where you can hardly see the base of the pillar anyhow). I think if you just look at where the most prominent silhouette edges, those should always be your areas of focus IMO and where you spend most of your budget. Here's an obvious pic I did just to demonstrate: (I do see the example on the left so very often in games and it always makes me a little ) With that said, it's a very nice column