KungFuSquirrel

Moved this into Finished Work

haha, that might be too strong the other way. Seriously, though, love the look you've got going. Looks like a place I'd like to take a stroll through

I know there's a lot of gaming industry in the san antonio/austin/houston area, someday we should do a mapcore texas meet-up!

I support this, if we have enough Texans here to pull it off.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011- ... tform-play

Nice. This'll be my first multi-platform/non-exclusive purchase on the PS3.

Great usage of stock content! I'd try it if I had GOW for PC

Agreed!

I only watched the video, but what impressed me the most was how much mileage you got out of that final room. You didn't do anything over the top or too fancy with it, but that was still a nice chunk of varied gameplay in a relatively small space.

Without having played it I can't say for sure, but it did look like the final room could have benefited from being just a bit bigger; the two berserkers at the end looked like they got hung up on each other a bit and with the first one it looked like he was always kind of stopping around the edge of the skylight, which might have been a bit cramped for hammer of dawn use.

Still, very nice work. Better get cracking on part 2!

I actually had to avoid buying all the upgrades for it, because if you get all the recoil mods it starts recoiling DOWN when you fire.

This. This is the best.

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

New sales up, and they include -75% off all the Ghost Recon games. Which was the one that had a PC version specifically made by GRIN? I might get that.

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.

Okay, so... better or worse? I always seem to find something to adjust, but I can't work on it the entire night.

A few absurdly nitpicky thoughts, as this is a neat scene already... As best as you can depending on the setup, I'd match the haze on both planets so they look like you're viewing them through the same atmosphere. Seeing one planet appear darker and more clear than the other gives the impression that they're within the atmosphere. Might not hurt to shrink the smaller one even further; you don't need to go to realistic scale (where it'd be just a tiny speck in the distance), but it might still help to make the sizes a bit more extreme. Maybe shift it more to the left, too?

I'd also look at the rings. The ring itself is weird; it looks like an additive texture on a ring when it really should be taking light and shadow from the sun and planet, respectively.I'd consider tilting the rings to be non-axial, maybe closely mimicking the rock arch on the right. That also should give you the opportunity to get some light casting on them, then get the rings fading out as they fall in the planet's shadow on the right side.

http://www.spacetoday.org/images/Saturn ... _07_04.jpg is good reference for the way that the rings interact with the planet lighting-wise.

Also, I think you absolutely nailed the terrestrial elements at the bottom. But the birds could maybe be re-framed for better effect. Maybe lower to the rocks on the right, maybe flying toward the sun through the gap at the bottom? It's kind of an awkward clump right now and gets in the way of the planets a bit.

The second is that post apocalyptic environment. Been adding loads more props and generally making it look more lived in. Still got lots left to do!

I think your barn and barn texture is letting you down here. The main chunk of the scene is gorgeous, but you've got some really bumpy and rough normals plus not a lot of breakup to the shape. I think a smoother texture with a little more structure on the front could be a real winner. Still, great work; the scene has come a long way already

Went ahead and moved this to Work Release since you've wrapped it all up.

Great work, too! I remember seeing your wip screenshots; it's cool to see the finished product. Good luck with the upcoming release!

PogoP, that's really coming together. There's not much in the scene, but just the silos, the road, and the meteors are a neat combination.

My one critique on the meteors would be to line them all up on more similar trajectories... Generally speaking, you're going to see a somewhat unified vector. Look at this time lapse shot of the leonid meteors, where they're actually all originating from roughly the same point in space:

If you want to get them on different angles for variety, I'd go with the more radial look like in this shot; it looks a little "off" when those three along the top/right appear to be coming from a different location.

Thanks for reminding me; I try to donate some stuff to the Omaha Children's Hospital in years I can since I spent some time there as a kid (just for surgery, nothing really bad, but still nice to "give back")

Haha, I'd genuinely forgotten there was a Quake 4 and it took me a good minute to remember playing it. What a memorable game.

It's ok, it took me a bit to remember developing it

Also, Zenimax is really building an impressive stable. Who could have seen that coming a year or two ago?

3dnj: I was never a fan of the Egypt set, but I really like what you've done with it here. Nice work!

Falc: What terrain generator, if I may ask?

Awesome work, 3dnj! Congrats on the big co-win

Once the team is hired and integrated into the studio, it becomes a Valve product, even if the idea came from outside the company. TFC, TF2, Portal, and Alien Swarm would not and could not exist as they do now without the resources Valve provided. It's a team effort out there

I enjoyed the round I played last night. It's not as high production value as Valve's other games, but it's also a smaller free effort. They could have easily sold this for $20 if they wanted. Even with the "lower" production values, the targeting is crazy slick, and the minimap with the recorded replay at the end of a match (and the ability to draw your plans on it!) is just fantastic. I'm looking forward to building some stuff in this. I kind of wish there were some more variety in the layouts, more choices in one route vs another, but I haven't played the whole campaign yet and there should be plenty of opportunity to explore that in custom layouts.

Curses! You replied before my second edit