KungFuSquirrel

Hey guys,

Some of you have seen me working on this off and on for a while, and I've finally gotten off my ass and put together the first playable alpha: http://www.button-ma...undhouse_a1.zip

I'm hoping to get some games together this weekend, but feel free to also play it on your own - just send me any notes you have! Also, if anyone wants to host a game, let me know - I know we have a CS:GO server, but I can't remember if anyone runs a TF2 one as well.

Here's what the current build looks like:




Roundhouse is a bit of an interesting beast, and admittedly more of a technical geometry experiment than anything else (though I certainly intend for it to play well). The entire level is created out of axially-constructed instances that have been chopped (yes, the dreaded carve tool, put to good use!) along the edges. This allows me to build a nice, clean, on-the-grid level while still having a clean "curve" with no floating point errors. Here's how it works:






Admittedly, the level is more detailed than it should be for being only just playable now, but part of the trial-and-error process of getting these instanced wedges to work properly required taking things a bit further to get a sense of how

It is also a very flat layout, mostly by nature of it being a roundhouse (sorry, JeanPaul! you'll like my next one if I get around to it), but I've been working on getting some elevation into the interiors and spawn areas so it's not too flat.

Some known issues right now:
The back door clips up through the roof. I'm an idiot and forgot I copied a non-animated door for that one. Oops.
The area behind the short side of the roundhouse is too empty, and that dump truck won't cut it. I'm playing around with a few options for more structure, but I'll have to be careful around the secondary spawn exit.
For some strange reason, you can build on part of the low roof, but not all of it. Some segments work, and some don't. Probably some weirdness with the rotated slope vs. the collision check in the engineer placement code. One possible option is adding some little flat ledges a la the little planks that roofers put out, and limiting roof-building to those locations. Another is not letting engineers jump up there.
There's some ugly displacement blends on the ground. The gravel/concrete blend is incredible valuable for hiding the texture seams and repetition rotated around the center of the layout, but I've taken it as far as the proof of concept and no further.
I'm not happy with the big stairwell extending out behind the back entrance. Feels like it takes up too much X/Y space and makes an awkward extension from the building. If you have any ideas how to streamline this, let me know!

Enjoy! I'm looking forward to finishing this one off.

Edit: I should also add that I picked up this technique during my time at Gearbox from the illustrious Joe Swinbank - after making some neat circular stuff in UE3, I decided it'd be fun to see if the same concept worked in Source. It does!

If anyone wants to try the PS4 alpha, I've got a big ol' pile of North American codes + a handful of european codes. Drop me a PM! Servers are live through Sunday.

Also:

My shirt should be arriving soon!
 
Thrik, you really should call the mug the "Murg" on the site. Do it!

My shirt should be arriving soon!
 
Thrik, you really should call the mug the "Murg" on the site. Do it!

My shirt should be arriving soon!
 
Thrik, you really should call the mug the "Murg" on the site. Do it!

I recommend Tomb Raider. I did two playthroughs on 360 and think it's fantastic. It's clear they put a lot of time and effort into making it and it's a blast. That being said I didn't touch the MP, and rumor has it that didn't go so well. But you'd be getting it for the campaign anyway.

Congrats, everyone!
 
Do we have a list of the MapCore skins that have made it in? Looks like Pulse is back in this set?

Congrats, everyone!
 
Do we have a list of the MapCore skins that have made it in? Looks like Pulse is back in this set?

Much much more than I did, and don't forget generalvivi! What little remains of my work in that game was from 2006! The stuff done later in the game's final form got pretty awesome - the farm level with the super secret nazi lair underneath and stuff like that was sorely missing from the game in the era I worked on it.

instead of "de_import" you should just call it "export" har har har.
 
(eager to see where you take this!)

Mapcore really is the new Facebook

That looks MUCH better, nicely done!
 
You should get a clean thread up with fresh shots in the Work Release forum so I can tweet the hell out of it

Hi, it's been a while since our latest post.
 
We took in count your feedbacks from the latest playtest.
We now have a similar layout with :
- more covers on the path of the bomb site A
- more covers on the path of the bomb site B
- the bomb site B has been moved a bit (in the subway)
- there is a new access to join the subway in the middle part
- there is a new access to access to the bomb site A (via a ladder)
- the map is brighter
 
The purpose of this post is to organize new playtests. A new version of the map will be available soon. As usual your feedbacks in any domains would be really appreciated. So if you have time, feel free to test our map and thank you in advance.
 
Here a visual update with new screenshots. A lot of props are still placeholder (still grey or in flat color), however I think that our actual version is close to a final result :
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I don't want to be spammy so keeping it short- just so excited to have this finally out there, can't hold it back!)
ProBuilder v2.2 has been a MAJOR project, but we are super, SUPER excited to finally announce it is now LIVE and ready for all! Perfect timing, as the Unity Asset Store is featuring it at 50% off in today’s 24 Hour Sale! (http://bit.ly/10TBjYR)   ProBuilder v2.2 includes Full Source, the Extrude function, Edges, Bridging, Collapse Verts, and so much more, it’s become an incredibly more powerful tool. Check out the (sorry, rather lengthy) “Intro Video” at the link below- I’m off to real sleep for the first time in 3 days!  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpQelCVPPZg

I dabbled with a bunch of Quake 1 maps - before I knew how to adjust the Worldcraft grid from 64, I made this map of "Hell" that was a big blocky metal mess with a 1-unit thick lava plane (since, you know, if you sized lower than the grid size it'd snap to 1). You'd fall through the lava into a huge open floor full of Zombies with no cover. It was amazing.

My first playable map was a Half-Life DM map called "The Maze" in 1999. I made it for a LAN party; it's a silly map where you run around the bottom but then go up ramps on the side to try and jump the gluon gun at the ceiling. In hindsight I actually kind of almost started to know what I was doing, which is neat.



My first released map was "Planet Half-Life HQ," a map I made for the PHL HL1 DM map challenge back in 2000/01. I didn't finish in time for the competition deadline, but that contest gave me the motivation I needed to finally FINISH a map instead of just messing around for months. The momentum from that led me to release a whole bunch of other HL1 DM maps that summer, leading to discovering a mod called Natural Selection that fall, and the rest is history.

I dabbled with a bunch of Quake 1 maps - before I knew how to adjust the Worldcraft grid from 64, I made this map of "Hell" that was a big blocky metal mess with a 1-unit thick lava plane (since, you know, if you sized lower than the grid size it'd snap to 1). You'd fall through the lava into a huge open floor full of Zombies with no cover. It was amazing.

My first playable map was a Half-Life DM map called "The Maze" in 1999. I made it for a LAN party; it's a silly map where you run around the bottom but then go up ramps on the side to try and jump the gluon gun at the ceiling. In hindsight I actually kind of almost started to know what I was doing, which is neat.



My first released map was "Planet Half-Life HQ," a map I made for the PHL HL1 DM map challenge back in 2000/01. I didn't finish in time for the competition deadline, but that contest gave me the motivation I needed to finally FINISH a map instead of just messing around for months. The momentum from that led me to release a whole bunch of other HL1 DM maps that summer, leading to discovering a mod called Natural Selection that fall, and the rest is history.

I dabbled with a bunch of Quake 1 maps - before I knew how to adjust the Worldcraft grid from 64, I made this map of "Hell" that was a big blocky metal mess with a 1-unit thick lava plane (since, you know, if you sized lower than the grid size it'd snap to 1). You'd fall through the lava into a huge open floor full of Zombies with no cover. It was amazing.

My first playable map was a Half-Life DM map called "The Maze" in 1999. I made it for a LAN party; it's a silly map where you run around the bottom but then go up ramps on the side to try and jump the gluon gun at the ceiling. In hindsight I actually kind of almost started to know what I was doing, which is neat.



My first released map was "Planet Half-Life HQ," a map I made for the PHL HL1 DM map challenge back in 2000/01. I didn't finish in time for the competition deadline, but that contest gave me the motivation I needed to finally FINISH a map instead of just messing around for months. The momentum from that led me to release a whole bunch of other HL1 DM maps that summer, leading to discovering a mod called Natural Selection that fall, and the rest is history.

I dabbled with a bunch of Quake 1 maps - before I knew how to adjust the Worldcraft grid from 64, I made this map of "Hell" that was a big blocky metal mess with a 1-unit thick lava plane (since, you know, if you sized lower than the grid size it'd snap to 1). You'd fall through the lava into a huge open floor full of Zombies with no cover. It was amazing.

My first playable map was a Half-Life DM map called "The Maze" in 1999. I made it for a LAN party; it's a silly map where you run around the bottom but then go up ramps on the side to try and jump the gluon gun at the ceiling. In hindsight I actually kind of almost started to know what I was doing, which is neat.



My first released map was "Planet Half-Life HQ," a map I made for the PHL HL1 DM map challenge back in 2000/01. I didn't finish in time for the competition deadline, but that contest gave me the motivation I needed to finally FINISH a map instead of just messing around for months. The momentum from that led me to release a whole bunch of other HL1 DM maps that summer, leading to discovering a mod called Natural Selection that fall, and the rest is history.

I dabbled with a bunch of Quake 1 maps - before I knew how to adjust the Worldcraft grid from 64, I made this map of "Hell" that was a big blocky metal mess with a 1-unit thick lava plane (since, you know, if you sized lower than the grid size it'd snap to 1). You'd fall through the lava into a huge open floor full of Zombies with no cover. It was amazing.

My first playable map was a Half-Life DM map called "The Maze" in 1999. I made it for a LAN party; it's a silly map where you run around the bottom but then go up ramps on the side to try and jump the gluon gun at the ceiling. In hindsight I actually kind of almost started to know what I was doing, which is neat.



My first released map was "Planet Half-Life HQ," a map I made for the PHL HL1 DM map challenge back in 2000/01. I didn't finish in time for the competition deadline, but that contest gave me the motivation I needed to finally FINISH a map instead of just messing around for months. The momentum from that led me to release a whole bunch of other HL1 DM maps that summer, leading to discovering a mod called Natural Selection that fall, and the rest is history.

Speaking strictly PC, I'll take Diablo 2 over Diablo 3 any day. Buuuuuuut....

My wife and I just finished our couch co-op sessions of D3 on the 360 the other night, and holy shit that feels like the definitive version of Diablo III. So, so good. We had a blast, and will probably tear through it another time or two before we end up co-oping through D3+Reaper of Souls on PS4. High fives all around!

Speaking strictly PC, I'll take Diablo 2 over Diablo 3 any day. Buuuuuuut....

My wife and I just finished our couch co-op sessions of D3 on the 360 the other night, and holy shit that feels like the definitive version of Diablo III. So, so good. We had a blast, and will probably tear through it another time or two before we end up co-oping through D3+Reaper of Souls on PS4. High fives all around!

Speaking strictly PC, I'll take Diablo 2 over Diablo 3 any day. Buuuuuuut....

My wife and I just finished our couch co-op sessions of D3 on the 360 the other night, and holy shit that feels like the definitive version of Diablo III. So, so good. We had a blast, and will probably tear through it another time or two before we end up co-oping through D3+Reaper of Souls on PS4. High fives all around!

Ok... I wont go as far as saying I'm a movie aficionado, but I watch shitloads of movies since I was a little brat, and I can say with a fair amount of confidence this movie will go down as one of my favorite and memorable movie I've ever watched!
 
I don't want to overhype it for you guys, I guess one of the reasons I've loved it so much is because I walked in into the imax room with pretty mild expectations and walked out with my jaw on the floor. I felt that little tingling sensation you feel when you walk out of a roller coaster, and thinking to myself "shiet, I wanna go again!"
 
Just... go watch this movie! And if you can, go imax+3d or at least 3d! I've always been very skeptical with 3d in movies but this is some of the best usage of 3d i've ever seen, you'll know what I mean when you watch it!
 
GO WATCH THIS NOW! 

hooooollllyyyy shit that was fantastic. Even worth seeing in 3D (though IMAX 3D is actually not terrible). Watch it!