KungFuSquirrel

Welcome, Leon! We actually tally each displacement (or patch, in id tech) as a single brush. This is in large part because it'd be very easy to take a complicated brush and convert 6 (or more!) faces to displacements or patches and go to town with it. If you look back at campaignjunkie's example map with the awesome disco ball, he used 6 of his "brushes" to create it out of a single solid. I would consider this a valid use. Our big concern is someone sculpting a big level out of terrain and saying "look how few brushes I used!" A biomechanical type theme (Prey immediately comes to mind) sounds like a great theme to try out, as long as it is not created with any sort of heightfield terrain editor (a la UnrealEd's terrain tool). And welcome to you, too! I think you may have the best name of anyone on this board.

Warby: We specifically addressed the intersect and de-intersect operations with the rule only allowing convex brushes. No intersecting, no extruding in UE3/UDK, etc. It would absolutely be against the spirit of the challenge to build an entire level, convert it to a single brush, and say "oh look, I have 19 left." As for additive/subtractive, I don't consider this against the spirit of the competition or an unfair advantage. This is intended to challenge you with a limited number of resources and encourage creative use of geometry in any technology you choose. If someone decides to build in UT99 or UT2K3/4, subtractive is the only option they even have. The combination of additive and subtractive is just a different way for people to build, and it doesn't inherently mean a better result. If you look at the results of the leveldesign.nl contest, I think the most remarkable entries are still the Quake 3 submissions, even though you can see one from Unreal where overlapping subtractive brushes have been used to create a significantly higher level of detail. I also think of Erratic's two, his stronger was the first that used only additive brushes, vs the number of his brushes that had to be used to create the trims (though the creation of 4 pillars with 1 additive and 2 subtractive brushes is, I think, exactly the kind of creativity this challenge is about). And personally, I don't think a single one of the leveldesign.nl submissions in Unreal had the strength of Campaignjunkie's Source level on page 1 - and he even wasted 6 brushes on a disco ball Depending how many Unreal submissions we get vs. quake/source, we can look at splitting the results. But I don't expect the Unreal users to automatically beat out the others, and with the strength of the MapCore talent pool, I don't expect technology to be a limiting option or an unfair advantage.

The brushes he used for subtraction are convex. Just one of the differences between the engines. You can see some similar subtractions in the Unreal entries in the leveldesign.nl contest. It's kosher. Edit: here's a rough paintover of the convex brushes likely used to create the trims subtractively (I think I could have picked a better color ). I also assume that the U-shape platform and the 4 pillars were also created subtractively instead of additively (allowing 4 pillars to be created in 3 brushes instead of 4 and the upper U-platform to be created in 2 instead of 3 or more) [attachment=0]subtractive.jpg[/attachment]

We're not really being strict with the schedule, so what the hell? Submission thread is up! viewtopic.php?f=57&t=15843 Remember, this is for finished work only; keep your wip threads here or in the usual wip thread. Have fun!

Update 01/24/2011: VOTING IS NOW LIVE Best Use of Brushwork: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=15878 Best Layout/Gameplay: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=15879 Best Visuals: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=15880 Best Overall: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=15881 Polls will close automatically 01/26/2011 at 12:15 PST. ------------------------------------------------------- It's that time! This thread is where we want to see your entires to the 20 Brush Challenge. This thread is ONLY FOR COMPLETED SUBMISSIONS. Please keep your wip entries in this thread instead. You have until the end of the day SUNDAY, JANUARY 23rd, giving you the next three weekends to come up with something. And, of course, OUR RULES: Good luck!

This. This is the best.

That is an excellent question. I think the ability to have moving pieces is a great addition and could give people some really creative options. Since Quake/HL levels will be able to do this with brushwork, I'd personally be ok with letting Unreal entries use dynamic meshes that have been directly converted from a convex brush that fits our rules. Each use of the same dynamic mesh also would count as one of your 20 brushes. Is that fair? I think for this contest, we'll probably have to say it's probably a no-go. What did you have in mind?

Go for it. Your origin brush would be free, as well, as it's a non-solid invisible brush.

Re: Rules - -I think the "max entries" question was per person, not total, but you've listed that as one in the rules draft and I agree with that. By all means, make as many as you want, but pick the best one and enter that. Will be easier for us to manage here -This should be the ongoing thread for "hay guys look what i'm doing!" and any progress shots. When we've agreed upon the rules here, we can put up the submission thread with the rules in the first post, then all your final entries should be posted as replies there. - I would amend the rules to require a download link. With multiple games and possibly a lot of entries plus community voting, I don't think we can formally require that everyone play every level, but I think we should encourage it. I would encourage bot compatibility where possible. In any future contests, I think it'd be nice to get judging panels and require full play of all levels. - I would say let's put our poll threads together at the earliest convenience on Monday, then close the voting on Friday with results posted over the weekend? Or should we include Saturday for voting, too? I want to make sure people have enough time to vote but I don't want it to drag on for too long, either. - I'd submit voting categories for: Best Overall, Best Visuals, Best Layout, and maybe Most Creative Geometry? Then spotlight the top 3 in each as our winners? There may still be some overlap or a winner that sweeps multiple categories, but it seems like a good enough breakup. - I like your solution for patches/displacements/terrain. No heightfields is easy enough, and if we just require that patches and displacements be structural, that should cover it? - re: prizes, I'd prefer if we treated this as a challenge more than an outright contest, like polycount does for a lot of theirs. Prizes are hard to arrange, and at least for this one I like the "for the fun of it" nature. We can create spotlight forum posts with the winners of all the categories to showcase them, but I think that should be enough for this one.

A basic skybox is free, as is a sky mesh for games that work this way (I'm looking at you, UE3). Tough call. Terrain in UE3 isn't much different functionally than patches or displacements in id tech/Source, but can cover a much larger space at much higher detail levels. There's some clever patch and displacement work in the ld.nl entries as well as in CJ's sample, so I'd hate to exclude those. Is it too nitpicky to allow displacements/patches and not terrain? I don't think we want to get into a situation where we start having to customize rules per toolset. I think our options are: 1) Patches and displacements are allowed, but heightfield terrains of any kind are not. 2) Patches, displacements, and heightfield terrain are allowed, but must adhere to a maximum poly/subdivision face count 3) No patches, displacements, or heightfields are allowed. These contests were way easier back in the day when no one had any fancy toys to play with Rule-wise, I say let's try to get a revised draft up tomorrow or so so we have time to review it and finalize it before the "official" start on Saturday. There's been a lot of variations on this contest over the years across different sites and communities (same with the 1024 challenge we had ages ago). The recent leveldesign.nl take on the contest is absolutely an inspiration and should be credited for getting people excited about trying the idea over here. I've been making sure to credit them as I've posted about it, and plan to continue doing so as I'm updating things on Twitter and in any official threads here.

Personally, my vote for this one would be to go au naturale with the brushwork.

Unreal supports some crazy boolean operations and allows solids with coplanar and concave faces. You can perform an intersect operation on as many brushes as you want and they'll be merged into a single solid. It'd be way more awesome if the tool weren't so clunky, but it's definitely a way to cheat the contest

No need to rush it, there's plenty of time. But, no harm starting now if you want; this isn't really a time-critical challenge. Should also give us a little time to iron out any kinks in the rules before the "official" start this weekend.

Generally, as long as we stipulate "convex" I think it'll be fine. UE3 allows for some pretty crazy structures, though, which I would argue might violate the "spirit of the competition" if abused. Converting an entire level to a single additive brush probably should be frowned upon.

Moved it for you! I think it sounds like fun, and it's a short time commitment which always helps participation. I'm definitely interested. I'll put the call out on the MapCore Twitter, too. I'd submit, if we do this, a starting date of Jan 8th with a final submission on Sunday the 23rd? That's 3 full weekends and the two weeks in between... hopefully way more time than people need, but not so long that it fizzles out?

Singularity turned out really weird. At points it's brilliant. At other points you're fighting a giant terrible kitchen-sinked boss monster that's the worst thing ever in the history of games. The timeline stuff during the time shift events (where you jump backward/forward in time and the world reacts) are fantastic, but on the per-TMDable-object level, you're going to get really tired of collapsing and uncollapsing crates. But it's absolutely worth buying, if only for rebuking Activision for leaving it dead on arrival with no support. Also, we should probably make a new thread, no?

I just keep a desktop shortcut to the SDK Also, I dunno how many versions of Windows support this, but on Win7 right clicking the Steam icon in the taskbar lists your 5 most recently run items - I imagine the SDK fits in the top 5 for many people here

My tally so far is The Witcher, Wings of Prey, and Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. I may nab the Ghost Recon set, too... otherwise I didn't find today's quite as interesting

Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) and GRAW2 were the Grin games

Which he says clearly on his site: "In-engine shot (only terrain textures are my work, the rest is copyright Valve)" Which is probably why it's on a personal art portfolio and not the official BMS site

I've been playing through the first one again recently (well, by "again," I mean "getting back into it after sinking 15 hours into it a few months ago) and enjoying myself. Actually was inspired by some of the new stuff they've shown of 2, and figured I'd never get back to the first if I didn't finish it before this one comes out, haha Nice combat overview here, showing the two modes available: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/66871

I peed.

Oh come on, I said mostly the same thing a page ago. Mostly. Chrjs, that looks pretty nice so far, but might I recommend a different image host? You can feel free to attach screenshots directly to the forum, too!

Hey, Sam, usually a lot of the feedback in this forum hinges on the actual portfolio structure - I have a few comments on that, then I'll hit the content. I think your base portfolio is actually in pretty good shape for what you've got. I think a key factor to keep up with is the reasoning behind decisions made in each area. You'll need to be able to articulate the "why" in your designs in job interviews - you don't have to get too fancy or overthink it, but it's good to see. The inconsistency between your two projects bothers me a little bit; personally I prefer the gallery display from the L4D2 map over the HL2 one. A real nitpicky thing but something that did stick out is the gap between your projects and the bottom of your page on the index - but, like I said, nitpicky. ChopperDave is right about listing your personal projects on your resume - they're all you've got at this point. The one piece of advice I'll give you there is be careful about the trap of overdoing them. When you only have a couple projects, it's easy to bullet point the crap out of them and get some redundant points in there. We've had some resumes come through at LightBox where well-meaning people have overdone things to the point of appearing to claim far more than they actually did. I think yours is ok and you probably don't need to change it, but Iyou might be able to merge or trim down a few bullets and still get the point across. Just something to keep an eye out for. As for your content! Speaking honestly, at first glance, it is a bit unremarkable. There's not a lot in the screens that jumps out and grabs you, and some really simple layout and brushwork. That said, two key things did jump out at me - your attention to detail and thought process behind the scenes. Stuff like the pair of sleeping bags next to the deck of cards, or the use of the slow gate to softly hinder progression against the Hunters are great touches that a lot of amateur (and even some professional) developers might miss. Keep building more stuff, keep showing those two strengths, and work on bringing the rest of the level's layout and visuals to that kind of bar, and I think you may get some good opportunities. Hope that helps!

Moved to Work Release, as requested.