KungFuSquirrel

Portal nicely references into the Half-Life universe without actually overlapping into it, which I think is awesome. The nod to Aperture with the mention of the Borealis (cut, of course, from HL2) is nice. But if the two actually cross-pollinate... I'd be really irritated. Portal's a far better spin-off than it would be a mainline HL2 universe title, and HL2 should be able to stand on its own and come to completion (as in Ep3) without needing to pull in Portal.

Twitter I went ahead and created a MapCore twitter account: http://twitter.com/mapcore I was inspired by polycount's new twitter feed and the work they've been highlighting, and figured even though our community is smaller that it might help bring some more exposure to some stellar work here. So, if you're on twitter, follow up... shamelessly retweet and promote stuff... and we'll see if it goes anywhere. First up is a shout-out for insta's Mission Improbable pack... I'll try to keep highlighting excellent wip and finished work threads as they pop up. Enjoy! ================================================= MapCore members on Twitter, current to April 8th, 2012: 3Dnj: @3Dnj AlexM: @InfStateMachine Campaignjunkie: @radiatoryang channie: @channie csyver: @csyver deceiver: @jobyek FrieChamp: @friedrichbode Froyok: @Froyok Furyo: @froughol generalvivi: @generalvivi Hourences: @hourences HP: @HelderHP Jake Gilla: @JakeGilla KungFuSquirrel: @kungfusquirrel Minos: @leveldesign Minos: @thiagoklafke Nysuatro: @Nysuatro Psy: @aarongarcha sarge mat: @matseffect seir: @leveldesign_org Skjalg: @skjalgsm Taylor: @tayl1r Thrik: @thrik Warby: @soenke_c_seidel Zacker: @Michael_Zacker zaphod: @NimbleDave Zyndrome: @Evstrand LinkedIn The MapCore LinkedIn group is now over 3 years old and growing strong every day with new MapCore members, industry recruiters and students. By joining the group, you get first hand contact with hundreds of experienced professionals looking to expand their network, share their insight on the games industry, or for their next challenge. To join the group, simply click on this link : http://www.linkedin....ular=&gid=74499

Hey guys, LightBox is currently looking to add an additional Game Designer to our team. Here's the rundown: ----- Game Designer: Are you fascinated by the art and science of game design? Are you driven to build games that advance the state-of-the-art? Do you believe that strong games are built on strong communities? If you answered yes to any of these questions, we want to hear from you! As a Game Designer with LightBox Interactive, you’ll be working with a small, tight-knit team of experienced professionals to design, prototype, and balance single- and multi-player levels and core game systems. You’ll participate in vigorous peer review, iterate and refine your designs, and always look for ways to push the envelope. Responsibilities: As a game designer with LightBox Interactive, you’ll be responsible for: -Designing and implementing compelling single- and multi-player levels that support a variety of gameplay approaches. -Designing and balancing weapons, vehicles, player abilities, and other game systems. -Using Lua to implement game rules and mission logic. -Thoroughly documenting and communicating your designs to programmers, artists, and production staff. -Tightly integrating your designs into the established game fiction and setting. Requirements: We’re looking for game designers who: -Are proficient and comfortable with Lua: you will be using it every day. -Have previous gameplay scripting experience on commercial or independent games and/or finished mods. -Have previous game design experience (game systems and mechanics, balancing, etc.) and/or level design experience (concept, layout, and implementation) on commercial or independent games and/or finished mods. -Have a strong understanding of fundamental game design concepts: meaningful play, systems, emergence, etc. -Are very analytical, detail- and quality-oriented, and comfortable both giving and receiving detailed, constructive criticism. -Have very strong written and verbal communication skills, especially the ability to effectively communicate complex game design concepts to non-designers. -Are avid gamers across multiple genres and platforms. -Are proficient users of Microsoft Office, particularly Word and Visio. It’s an extra bonus if you have any of the following, but these are not necessarily required: -A background in mods and/or indie game development. -Familiarity with formal design approaches, such as MDA. -Close interaction with established game development communities like IGDA, GameDev.net, or TIGSource. -Experience in creative areas beyond game design, either as past work experience or as a hobby. -Proficiency with Photoshop and/or Maya. Submission Info: If we’ve piqued your interest, please email your resume to jobs@lightboxinteractive.com. If you have a portfolio of past design work, that’s even better. You can include a link to your online portfolio with your resume, or mail us a Windows-compatible CD/DVD at: LightBox Interactive
 211 E. 7th St. Suite 500
 Austin, TX 78701 We have a soft spot for indies and modders, too, so even if all your work has been noncommercial, don’t be afraid to contact us! ----- Also, if you have any questions about the studio or Austin, please feel free to PM me for more information. Thanks!

Oh, they did fix that? Awesome. That was terrible while I was working on NS2 - I was using everything at .125 and had to constantly re-apply textures on every goddamn face in the whole level. Unbelievable time sink.

This is just a first pass of the basic shapes (the underside of the turntable is still just the dev grid texture) but that's really great feedback. I'd love to see any photos you have - what I've found to work from is ok, but some higher-res stuff would be fantastic. I'm going to have to take some license with the central platform to make it a viable control point (who knows, it may not be) but some of what you're showing there may also help my concerns about how to make that a reasonable playable space, mainly the sloped outer edge. Thanks much!

Welcome! This is a great start you've got going here. I like the simplicity you have going here; these shots are definitely going to speak for themselves. Obviously you need to fill out the information section; I also think it'd be good to see even just a little information about each project, but I think you'll have a great setup when you're done.

Welcome, Matt! This is a great looking site... very elegant, easy to navigate, and all the right information. Nice to see some video links included as well. And, on top of that, you've got some pretty solid looking work to show. I would encourage you to try and get higher quality video captures if you can, but I don't think that needs to be a critical "do it now" update.

Huge improvement! The front page feels a little weird right now (a little off-balance with the smaller images on the left), but I'm sure you can sort that easily. The in-progress stuff and layout images are really great - it's not something I think anyone has to have on a portfolio, but in your case it definitely adds a lot.

Quick tidbit about the new quick-hide feature: Any geometry hidden in this manor is treated as a visgroup, and will NOT be compiled if hidden. Useful, but keep track of what you are and aren't hiding

Got the basic structure of my Roundhouse level for TF2 sealed up and compiled after cleaning the hell out of my original blockout instances: [attachment=0]arena_roundhouse_05-03.jpg[/attachment]

Well, uh, let's not get out of hand here, I made that comment more as light-hearted self-deprecating blame than anything else Hopefully that Ep2 issue gets sorted quickly. I'll pass along anything else I hear. Oh, btw, regarding instances - there does appear to be a bug with tool brushes inside your instance (hint, areaportal, etc.) not behaving properly. They know about it, but it's a much lower priority fix than the Ep2 issues. Plan accordingly!

It's so weird that UE3 has what may be the most powerful BSP editing tool, but it's lost behind by far the worst BSP interface. I recall it getting some upgrades between UT3 and UDK, but haven't messed with it much lately. Anyway, let's not degrade this into the engine debate again since there's some useful information here pertaining to people wanting to get things done in Hammer.

Word is they've identified the black grid/model rendering issue - It only occurred in Ep2, not TF2 or DoD, which is probably why not everyone saw it. Not sure when a fix is coming, but should be soon.

Dude what. Hold down space and move with your mouse, much more accurate and faster Z key to toggle freelook+mouse scroll movement! this also helps reduce the number of embarrassing cloned object farms if you happen to jump over to Radiant

sirocco: I wouldn't look at it that way. They didn't have to make new updated features publicly available for an old version of their toolset. Unfortunately, some things broke in the transition from internal dev to external release. They'll track them down and fix them, and you'll have a stronger Hammer than you did before out of the deal. Bic: Instanced geometry is combined into the map at compile time, and leaks behave accordingly. If the instance covers the hole, the map will seal and compile. The point entity represents the world origin of the instanced .vmf file. If you rotate it, it can be tricky to line up correctly, but you'd also want to plan for that as you build it. Think of it like the pivot of a model. You want it at a point where it will line up with geometry. For a full stand-alone building or structure, you can just center it and call it good. For something that lines up with a wall, line it up flat against the appropriate axis. For the case of my circular structure, I built them so every instance is placed on the world origin and rotated in place, which allows all the edges to line up - I cut the edges off by creating a wedge of two brushes and carving the sides to create precise rotational seams. Fun trick I learned in UE3 from a friend at GBX that also works nicely here with the new update.

So some of the issues supposedly should have been addressed already (such as the missing grid issue), but if you're still having issues, list them in as much detail as you can give, with steps to repro (if applicable, some stuff is more readily apparent). I'm passing this link to the guy I've been talking to so he can help get the info collected. Rick Johnson has been doing a good job from what I've seen of scouring the issues posted to the Steam forums, and if you talk to anyone else with issues, make sure they get passed along to the appropriate place. You've got an internal tool set on a specific range of hardware and software being merged into a huge install base, so unfortunately some stuff is going to slip through Hopefully can be addressed quickly. It really is a nice update when it's working!

Pogo, in the shot everything highlighted in yellow is part of an instance. Each instance is a single point entity (func_instance) that references a separate .vmf file. That file is then combined with your map at compile time. Any change you make to that .vmf file will automatically update every single use of it in your level. This is super useful for anything you want to repeat often ( you can instance a blockout version of a piece of geometry, for example, then detail it or change it without having to copy/paste every use of it ), or any complex geometry you want to throw into your level at crazy angles (you're rotating a point entity, not brushwork, so all precision from the original file is maintained).

Most of mine have been in the 4 hour range. I've had two full 8-hour day interviews as well, each involving talking to 8-10 people. And I've had shorter interviews with almost 15 people in on them. I guess technically I had about an 8 hour interview to come here, too, but it was split between two different on-site interviews... the studio was in the process of moving from Salt Lake City to Austin, so I had one interview in SLC with half the team and another in Austin with the other half of the team.

Pretty sure you can blame me for this one. Don't think they were planning on releasing this stuff publicly until a friend of mine let slip they had this stuff in the Orange Box branch and I pestered him to get it included in the release build But, when it's working, it's a tremendous update. The new show/hide almost entirely eliminates the hassle of visgroups (which, good lord, are such a terrible setup). I'm curious to learn more how the manifest stuff works, too. And good lord, the instancing is glorious. The biggest win isn't just that you have a "prefab" referencing an actual file that propagates the changes throughout, but that you can build an axial structure but place it however you want within the level with none of the usual geometry precision errors. COD has used this extensively to build large non-axial arrangements, and they also added it for L4D2 and used it similarly. I'm currently using it to get a rotationally precise modular set of walls and roof pieces in this kind of arrangement: [attachment=0]arena_roundhouse_editor_003.jpg[/attachment]

Yeah, they don't seem to like updating the news. But, open up Hammer for the Orange Box and the new stuff is there. I just saw UDK there but it doesn't work for me But, that's fantastic news.

Hey guys, For those of you still poking in Hammer, there's a new Source SDK/Hammer update that adds some neat stuff. .vmf instancing a la L4D2, manifest/layer support, some show/hide stuff, and some updates to the displacement tool (a new "sculpt" tool). May be some other stuff, since I can't find a proper changelist anywhere... just trying to get what I can from a former Raven colleague out at Valve. If I find a proper changelist, I'll post it here - I encourage you guys to do the same

Bungie wouldn't buy back their independence from MS to go work on someone else's property. It's also in Activision's best interests to continue to develop COD internally. They'll use Treyarch and Sledgehammer for that. Maybe someone else now. Who knows. Bungie won't be doing COD either way. As far as them making a deal with Activision, they'd have been working on this for months, long before the IW issues came to light (though there may still be some Bungie employees having the same reaction many of us are). In addition, they probably get a far better deal comparatively by a) not being an internally owned studio and b) being far more established than IW was at the time that they joined. I still think this is a terrible idea - there's a reason id split from Activision as they began developing Rage. Activision's interests will always be with their internally developed products first and foremost, at the expense of third-party projects.

Well, I don't get a dishonest or misleading sense out of it, but I'd just be wary of it possibly causing confusion. Sounds like your own instincts are probably spot-on. As for your sig, we use BBCode here instead of HTML. Try this:* [url=http://www.linkedin.com/in/skysilcox] [img=http://www.linkedin.com/img/webpromo/btn_profile_bluetxt_80x15.png] [/url] *I take no responsibility if this doesn't work properly

I've been meaning to ask about this with a few portfolios posted here. Is this actual coaching/direction from the Guild Hall curriculum to do this? Having gone through a lot of GH portfolios over the years, as well as having taken part a couple interviews with candidates, this has been a consistent negative point that stands out. What ends up happening is undue importance gets placed on things that aren't always that notable. Your work appears pretty good, but your resume has some of this same "bloated" look of other GH resumes I've seen. The resume serves the purpose of a quick-glance reference of your entire experience. You'll be asked more detailed questions in your phone and on-site interviews. It is extremely rare that a single level is notable enough to deserve multiple bullet points in this context; your portfolio and your descriptions there handle this. A good rule of thumb has always been your resume should be a single page; I don't follow this exactly (my own is a little over a page), nor do I think you need to, but that might be a good comparison to keep in mind as you look things over. What I would recommend is keeping your team projects separate as these do involve wider responsibilities. Then, I'd merge your single projects into at most single-sentence bullet points under a "Levels" entry, with the first bullet point being a one-to-two sentence overview of the category (for example - "Created a series of short-deadline levels in multiple engines as part of the Guild Hall design curriculum"). As you gain professional experience and more involved experience on larger commercial projects, you'll probably condense these much further. That's a lot of rambling; I don't think your resume as it stands will actually hurt you, but I think a cleaner and simpler presentation can boost you a bit further as people are sorting through piles of resumes.

I completely disagree, actually; I think the lighting needs work but the second shot has great subtle tones and blending. The best colored lighting is rarely the most saturated. I think a bigger problem is the non-descript darkness that comes out of a few of these shots. There's a really cool top-to-bottom gradient to the second and fourth shots (to the point it could even become a vertical navigation aid/reference), but only the second shot really has a totally smooth natural feel - I think that should be the benchmark of the lighting to go with. That said, I think you would benefit from some enhanced intensity and contrast, but more at the light sources than over the entire scene. It's hard to know for sure just eyeballing it, but I think picking up some more accents near the light sources and letting those blend in to the base lighting could look really good - but depending how you've set up your lighting so far, it might totally hose everything. Do you have another angle of your third shot? That one seems the least flattering, but I'm wondering if that's just the angle. Anyway, looking good so far!