Campaignjunkie

I was watching the video game presentation on C-Span, by Senator Lieberman and the National Institute of Media and Family a month or two ago. Their argument isn't that violent video games will cause players to mimic the behavior. It's that it will desensitize them to this kind of behavior, especially since they're actively pushing buttons to make it happen on the screen. Kids won't start killing female prostitutes, but they'll objectify women more.

The scientific evidence isn't very compelling though - all that's proven is that players become more alert and aroused, which can really lead to anything or nothing. Developmentally, it helps a lot with critical thinking and hand-eye coordination though, especially with complex games like GTA.

Looked fun. I think I recognize one of the wall textures at the end from Mayang, specifically this one.

Randomly does / doesn't work for me. I just use "-smooth" in vrad.

If you haven't already, put an env_fogcontroller in your level. With it, along with fog, you can set a "Maximum Viewable Distance" that VIS will use. It's pretty handy when used together with fog; virtually unnoticeable at times.

Actually, there's specular preview in the editor. Not for normal maps though, since there's no lightmap view.

Oops, guess I should check the boards more often. Well then, I think Spacer should consider uploading the pack for public consumption!

I wish that they would look that awsome in Source, cause the "plain" .tgas are boring, and hell, I do not want the crap with adding normal maps for every single texture...

Actually, I don't think it would be that difficult. Maybe slightly time-consuming, plugging in all the filenames and configuring the material properties, but it wouldn't be too bad. Heck, I'll do it if no one else will!

It's a beta. You were supposed to understand that when you added "-sdk beta" to your Steam command line. Yeesh.

"steam.exe -beta sdk"

- Vastly improved model browser

- Autosave

- Vastly improved 2D views

- Lots of other things

I think Erik Johnson talked about this (kind of) in this interview:

I think the real mistakes are happening on the individual MOD teams themselves. They are becoming far too hesitant and conservative in their approach to how they design, develop, and release their games. If you go back and look at the first versions of Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, or Day of Defeat, you'll see rough games that focus around a single game play idea. The first version of Team Fortress for Quake only had 5 classes, and wasn't even a Team game. In the first version of Counter-Strike, it was virtually impossible to tell the CTs and the Ts apart. The goal of all MOD teams should be to go out and learn from the community as to whether or not your game idea is a good one or not, and plan on releasing as often as possible. Right now it appears that too many MOD teams believe they have to build the next huge hit with their first release, which is a plan that is pretty likely to fail. [...]

Sometimes it feels like the MOD community is becoming more and more like the "professional" game community, where products are being approached as something that should take a long time, ship once, and then everyone moves on to the next big project. MOD teams that are approaching building games from this perspective are throwing all of the advantages they have out the window, and are just competing with every other game developer in the world.

... Which pretty just sums up my opinion. Mod teams have a certain delusion of grandeur that convinces them "Hey, let's copy Halo and release in about a year" or"I want my own version of Resident Evil." Call it lack of technical skill, lack of resources, whatever - in the end it's lack of creativity, IMO.

EDIT: Oh, and there's always a 4th, very good mod you can map for, other than CS:S, DOD:S, or HL2DM... HL2 singleplayer. It's good stuff.

I actually love this feature - I use the mouse-wheel all the time in Hammer.

Mousewheel, Ctrl+E, Brackets = win

I disagree. Yeah, games don't have to have great stories, but after playing through a few levels, I concluded that Quake 2 was pretty damn boring even when judged solely on gameplay. Fortunately, my opinion doesn't count for much!

I haven't read the other posts, so excuse me if I'm repeating someone else:

Do you have the TGA patch installed? Photoshop 7.00 broke alpha channel support - you need to download the 7.01 patch on the Adobe website to fix that.

I think most HL1 doors were 80-96 units tall. Keep in mind that the player's camera is located at the chest (about 64 units high) while the player hull is 72 units tall, so 96 starts to look a little more reasonable. If you're building this for singleplayer, big doors are somewhat necessary for most monsters to fit through comfortably.

So far it looks good though, the office especially. (I would unstretch that rug though, it's a little too much)

Another picture posted, master ferret!

Donner, my favorite map (visually). I actually don't really like what they did with Avalanche; the others seem far more impressive, in terms of detail and such.

It's amazing how the author(s) wrote so much, yet said so little. Seemed like a pretty generic article to me. But then again, I don't think I'm the IGN target audience anyway.

I agree with ginsengavenger - the bumpmaps don't help the bricks. Sure, it's fancy shader technology, but I don't think it necessarily looks better because of it. While I'm sure there are brick textures that need normal maps, this doesn't seem to be one of them.

So, what's going on right now then? Is the port getting along fine or...? There's not a lot of news on the site these days...

I really wouldn't know, I left months ago. They're doing some sort of restructuring, apparently. I'm sure they'll figure something out though, PV and the team are very resourceful people.

I played the real thing - my friend got it for his birthday as a cruel joke. It wasn't that bad, but it clearly wasn't good either. Some nonsensical design decisions (stupid sidekicks, save gems, shooting mutant frogs with guns for a whole level) were particularly glaring. From what I heard though, the 3rd portion of the game n Europe was supposed to be quite good, assuming you can play it long enough to get there.

It was a little more complicated than polishing off a few maps. While there was a good amount playable (Adam's stuff especially), there was also a lot that wasn't (err, mine, among others). I'm not really exactly condoning the act of throwing the work away, but you have to understand that staff turnover was absurdly high and not much was getting done with HL2 sitting in front of everyone. It's like telling someone to keep watching black & white television when a High-Def widescreen is sitting next to him.

Sid Meier's Civilization 2, mostly the "early game" where you have to expand like crazy in order to have a fighting chance. Then it's a race to switch to a Fundamentalist government to crush the other players!... But I didn't care too much for Alpha Centauri or Civ 3 though, a little too complicate for my tastes.

Thrik: What makes you think the player is (kind of) a Combine soldier? I know the messages refer to you as a human and a traitor, but a traitor to what exactly?

I think Adam said he wanted to add voice-over, but he didn't have the resources to do so. I bet lots of people are going to offer themselves over, now that the first map is released.

That Riddick game wasn't half bad either.

... You -might- insult someone? :roll:

Anyway, I think it has potential, but right now this stuff probably isn't enough to attract experienced people. Some suggestions: Don't post unskinned model renders, and make sure the media you release is a bit more interest. Go for quality, not quantity.