KungFuSquirrel

Fan-freakin-tastic. Looks very stylized. That shot of the guys on the bridge or whatever (this one: http://www.sinepisodes.de/screenshots/screen_0007.jpg ) doesn't even look 3D, but in the best way possible. Also caught some tidbits describing that car chase sequence, sounds really cool. I'm also really excited to see how this episodic thing turns out. If this does well, it might be a huge catalyst for change within the industry - could become the new shareware and loosen the stranglehold the major publishers have on titles.

Only because people let themselves believe it has to be the EA model. Props to Insomniac, I really respect those guys and what they've done over the years... eager to see how I-8 turns out and hope to see them branch into some other genres.

Well, perhaps from a gameplay or fun standard, but certainly not technologically. Hacky workarounds tacked over a dated engine can't really compare to properly implemented stuff within newer engines. But yeah. Well played, Valve and Ritual. This is certainly a good direction to be taking things, and it kicks ass to see Valve starting to bring other developers into the mix. And to see a company (Ritual) able to do what they want to do without interference or denial from whoever would be controlling the funds otherwise.

-8000 points from the start for officially endorsing the foolish "MOD" notation. Very cool, though.

Bahaha, ferris-wheel man is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Love the creativity you've got going here!

Everything at E3 was prerendered except Epic's stuff and some of EA's stuff. Killzone was all CG. Hey now, we ran real-time.

Oh sweet lord.

What? He doesnt suit the role at all >< Mazy use your powers, for good! I can't in good conscience recommend that. can you imagine an angry Vin Diesel chasing after Mazy? He'd tear him in half and snap him in two over his own knee!

Suuuure... That picture was actually the first thing I expected from a bunch of game devs playing a sport I'm sure we have some excitingly painful shots from the company picnic football game from last year. I almost died! true story.* *no.

Looks like you're doing well, then! I wasn't quite sure what I thought when I first saw it (though I immediately approved of the grid-based layout ) but seeing on geometry really sold me on it. Eager to see where you take this.

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/ Seriously, click on it. Work/School safe and everything. One of the top artists I 'know' and a pretty cool guy (for having talked to him only a couple times). No one's fault here he chose an... interesting... handle.

Nothing that hasn't been mentioned/shown publically; don't think I'm getting friendly with the inside information now. I just thought it was great that people flipped out about MS running their demos at e3 from g5 machines... And people were surprised why?

And anyone working on a Xenon* title. Dev kits are G5s. *I still refuse to refer to it as the xbox 360. Boo marketing focus group!

Yeah, the color (or semi-lack of) does really nice things here. Excellent use of the distance fog, too. Subtle but very pleasant. Well done!

I was, too, until it tanked and I asked around a bit... one connection led to another which led to free Speakeasy! Woo! *happy dance*

Did you miss the part of being skewered on a giant spike?

Wouldn't hurt, but I think he could do just fine with what he has, too. With that foundation and an environment as rich in talent as a decent studio, you can pick things up incredibly quickly. The hammer experience is still hugely applicable to use in CSG editors or model-based design. I've seen MrBen's progress within a tightly-knit group before (I think it's safe to call the older NW staff such, at least in reference to that time) and the jumps made in a short time were absolutely astounding. He'd have no problem picking up anything with the right people guiding him, I feel. Though I would recommend taking the time to finish some stuff.

No texture in any game looks ultra-spiffy that close, nor should it be expected to in anything for the next generation or two of graphics - and even then it's a waste of time and resources to bother with that small a scale. How much time are people even going to spend that close? I can spot the number of repeating tiles at that range in your detail texture shots. If I can see that from poking my face at the ground at that range, just think how blatantly obvious that'll be over an entire scene. Your time is better spent on other features.

In this case, though, Prey is actually 3DR's franchise, just given to another developer. Not the American McGee syndrome of "Oh, what's this? I'll buy distributing rights and tack my name on the front!*" Very similar to RTCW with Gray Matter/id and our work on Quake4. I wouldn't be surprised if some other major developers start following this model at some point. It's a pretty solid way to ensure franchise longevity while still being able to do your own thing internally. Always sucks for the dev team doing it, though, since most people assume the franchise owner developed it. *Scrapland

Blarg, don't mind me. I'm sure the perspective is terrible (though it's probably tough to make out). Just trying to come up with a simple concept for a starfighter type thing. And practice with the rarely-used wacom a bit. Just a rough shape for now, but tried to get a feel for where the cockpie and wings would be. Considering adding small canards to the front, and perhaps vertical stabilizers on the ends of the wings. *shrug* Any tips (technical in particular) are welcome, btw.

Yeah, it'll get varied up. Plan is to make a pretty standard dusty mars setting, then mix in the greenery for some more vibrant colors (again, pending on finding someone who feels like helping out with that aspect ). I also haven't decaled up the structure or added any accent lighting (save the smokestacks up top); some of that may help as well. We'll see how it turns out. All depends how much time I can spare for it. But it'll be a smaller scene, so who knows. EDIT: By the way, I forgot to specify... that's a D3 editor shot from the rendered view. heh... Just realized I didn't ever specify what it was or how it was built.

Wife was gone for a week, spent some of my spare time that wasn't spent playing ridiculous amounts of games to fiddle with this thing I started long long ago: Plan is to find some decent artist type somewhere to help create some foliage textures/models and make a sort of mars terraforming scene. Probably will build a space elevator for good measure for a little extra Mars trilogy reference. Won't be a playable level, just a 3d scene in-engine. Will be saving the playable q4 projects for sometime after the game ships.

I always left the grid at 8 unless for some reason I needed anything smaller - i.e. bending an 8 unit trim around a 45, or lining something up on a 'curve.' Regardless of grid size, I still always build major architecture in divisions of 64 (if not 128) and try to avoid ever offsetting things by more than 32 units. There's nothing I hate more than major geometry going smaller than 16 units (16 at least lines up pretty well against the major grid sizes, but 8 always feelds awkward). Of course, I'll do things like split a 32 unit support into 8, 16, and 8 unit pieces or something and for fine details (and splitting things up on patch meshes in d3) I've gone all the way down to the .125 grid. But I'm quite the grid nazi otherwise.

Here's a quick run-down of what's available and how some of it can be used. Probably a little more than you need to know, but hopefully this will be a handy reference for anyone curious how the workflow is set up You have 4 possible means of getting geometry into the editor: 1) Brush Geometry Basic construction is done with standard additive geometry. Drag in the grid, make a brush. This will be what you use for most walls, floors, ceilings, or any other large objects or pieces of objects that don't require anything more fancy than a slight bevel. The compiler does handle floating point geometry, though, so if you're detailing a room and start pulling up floor panels or something, you can get away with placing a brush and just rotating it to the desired position. 2) Patch Meshes Patch meshes are an extension of brush geometry where you take a one-sided face and (usually) bend it to your hearts content. These are used for anything from pipes, curved walls, and bent/broken panels to decals, hanging wires, and any odd shape where you want control over texture alignment. Patch meshes are extremely useful in that they are automatically smoothed (a la smoothing groups), retain texture alignment as you manipulate them (it uses UV coords relative to the vertices rather than the world as you see on brushes), and, in an improvement from q3, can now be manually subdivided into however many divisions you need. This lets you save tris on faraway detail that won't need 8 division, specify the strength of curves, and break up sections of curved geometry with ease. Most level geometry is constructed from a combination of brush geometry and patch meshes. 3) Models Models come in as .lwo and .ase files and are generally dropped into the editor by means of a func_static or func_mover, but a number of other entities (doors, for example) support them as well. Most small detailed objects are models, as well as all terrain. Models support vertex-painted texture blending (textures to blend are set in the material files), which is useful for terrain texture blending among other things. How heavily you use them is entirely up to you. In some scenes, you may be able to get away with just brush/patch geometry. In others, you may want specialized details or structures where hand-built geometry just won't do. You can also, if needed, dump level geometry out of the editor. This is useful for getting fine per-poly optimization that can't be done in the editor, converting geometry to models for ease of scripted movement or use as a physics object, or just busting the hell out of stuff to make it more broken than it ever could have been in the editor. 4) MD5s Any animated model that comes into the game is converted to an MD5, consisting of a mesh (.md5mesh) and animations (.md5anim). Each MD5 is specified in a .def file to be its own specific entity (monster_*, env_*, etc. etc.). These aren't things you'll be making yourself, most likely, but some more general environmental md5s may be useful depending on what you're making. You can call specific animations on these in script or even modify the .def file to add/change frame commands for effects, sounds, script functions, etc. Oh, and @ mike-o... if you have D3 installed, you have the editor installed.

xbox.com and FileShack have high res feeds (1280x720, I believe) of the trailer in .wmv format. It adds an extra Xbox360 logo at the back end, but other than that it's identical.