sensee

sounds cool but I kinda understand why people here have doubts about the whole publisher thing. I mean there are tons of HL2 mods out there with WAY more media content and they don't get any publishing offers at all. /hmm... the more I think about it the more I assume that this is some kind of cheap way to get members for your mod. feel free to prove me wrong though.

bevel & emboss in photoshop are a big no-no

The face of that girl looked very weird and unnatural. It almost creeped me out. Maybe it has something to do with the Uncanny Valley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley I don't see why people make such a big deal over Heavy Rain. The characters in HL2 looked more sophisticated, had better facial animations and way better lip synch. And HL2 is almost 2 years old. Also you could clearly see that the kitchen later in the movie is only a flat texture. I'm quite sure you could run that demo on a mid-class PC or even an XBox1. I really admire Quatic Dreams for their work ever since Nomad Soul, but that Demo didn't impress me at all.

Feng is probably the most copied artist in the concept art community. I even saw some professional concept artists copying his style. It's not necessarily bad thing though.

hmm maybe you should have chosen the submarine. it's an incredible model.

i wanna vote for peris submarine, but where is it?

i got it and it's nice thx valve

Mod development is so wrong these days. First of all, it's been almost 1.5 years since Half-Life 2 was released and there are very very few mods you can actually download and play. For me this is a clear sign that something is going terribly wrong. Do you remember what the first Counter-Strike beta looked like? It had very cheap maps and no custom content except the weapons and the player models who looked like terrorist in pajamas and yet it did work and it was fun. Nowdays mods are trying to compete against professional games in terms of graphics and content. They try to make total conversions with custom textures, custom models, custom animations... hell, some mod teams even have concept artists. Mod leaders are more acting like some executive suits with their "recruitments" and "NDAs" and b.s. like this. There are tons of mods being developed for HL2 and only a smaller part of them will actually ever be completed. And even if they come out sometime in the year 2007, who's gonna play them? Let's take a look at Dystopia for example. It's good looking mod with fun and innovative gameplay. They were also supported by Valve and got some publicity via Steam. The first demo was released long time ago and there were several updates since then. And guess what, less than 80 people are playing it right now! (http://steampowered.com/status/game_stats.html) Maybe the mod teams of all these countless military shooters ("no, our mod is not like CS. it has different objectives and the M4A1 looks different...") should reconsider their philosophy. I have lots of years of modding experience and I've been watching the whole scene for almost 8 years and I can't help but feel that there is (almost) no more love in the community.

gearbox should make the half-life addons again. opposing force ftw

The second time when the "player" gives a command, the arm is waving before the marker appears. It's not as bad as Killzone2 and I'm sure many studios retouch their videos/screenshots when the game is not done yet, but still it feels a little bit cheap and fake. I'd like to hear a comment from the gearbox guys though. Maybe I'm getting it all wrong.

honestly I think we all shouln't listen to you Hourences. I've never seen somebody which such an huge amount of high quality maps in his portfolio and I've seen many portolios, even from people who already are in the industry.

I think it's going to be more and more difficult for a mapper to create a greater amout of impressive maps. To create an stunning map you need at least some custom content, because nobody gets excited by a city17-looking map, no matter how well it's done. And that's the big problem, because current gen (HL2, Doom3) mapping plus the creation of custom textures and props is extremely time consuming. There are very few HL2 (or CSS) maps with custom content. Maybe the best of them is de_corse by hessi and the guy worked as far as I know over 1 year on it. There will be less good maps in the future yeah but its still possible as discussed before. Certainly for HL2 its possible. I can understand that for UT2007 and HL3 or whatever there will be less content but that shouldnt be the case for the current generation of games. UT2004 is in a lot of ways similar to HL2. HL2 uses even more bsp thus relying less on meshes yet there are hundreds of UT2004 maps with a lot or nearly only custom content which results in a lot of themes. It is possible. Im sure fewer maps will be more able to impress in the future but the point will still stand. You do not have a lot of experience if you only made one or two levels and I see that happen to a lot of people, they still face a lot of difficulties or trouble when they design a level after they are hired. Its not just the skill of making it, its also the skill of designing it and finishing it. Someone who made a lot of levels is very efficient at what he does because he knows exactly what steps to take because he has done it so many times before. And no matter how awesome and extensive that one level is the author still did everything just one time... Of course experience is very important but I hope that an employer should be able to compromise in that matter because, as I said it takes a hell lot of time to gain that experience. Also we must not forget that there are many different genres and kinds of games and the creation of maps can be very different from case to case. Let's say you have an awesome CSS mapping workflow, it doesn't necessarily mean that this experience will help you a lot when it comes to create an map for an RPG. Most of non-professional mapper create multiplayer maps for "traditional" ego shooter, but only a small part of them will actually work on such maps when they get hired.

I think it's going to be more and more difficult for a mapper to create a greater amout of impressive maps. To create an stunning map you need at least some custom content, because nobody gets excited by a city17-looking map, no matter how well it's done. And that's the big problem, because current gen (HL2, Doom3) mapping plus the creation of custom textures and props is extremely time consuming. There are very few HL2 (or CSS) maps with custom content. Maybe the best of them is de_corse by hessi and the guy worked as far as I know over 1 year on it.

Do the good designer at least get a better paycheck? I can't believe what I'm hearing...

just take a look at FEAR or condemned. the level design (art & gameplay) is rather boring and unspectacular for such big AAA titles.

I've seen a lot of guys with very mediocre portfolios getting a job in the industry recently. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.

it's gonna sound funny when those kids get the wii...

I like the idea behind the name and the logo looks cool. The main problem is like Gaz said, that it sounds too much like wee. That's going to cause a lot of immature jokes... cOuNtEr-$Tr1kE1994: "LoL RoFL wii soundz like WEE" g4ngst4_50c3nt: "nintendo suxxx!!!!!!!!111111 L0L"

I'm shocked. Your portfolio is really outstanding and you got 12 rejection?! That does kinda discourage me... Anyways, congrats on your new job, you really deserve it!

You are absolutely right about having degree, but it takes time to achieve that and maybe in 4 years it could be much more difficult to actually get a job in the game industry. It also would be harder to build up a strong portfolio because school can be very time-consuming. Maybe it's the best way to study something that is somehow related to game design like industrial design or traditional art. I don't quite share your pessimism about the future of gaming. Games are a form of art and a form of entertainment and it takes creative minds and certainly not "robots" to create them. Of course there are many exceptions (EA...) but those studios who create dull and repetitive games will never be able to take over the whole market, because there will always be a demand for fun and creative games. And the demand is getting bigger. I mean the DS is outsaling the PSP. Ubi is getting bigger - EA is getting smaller. Games like Katamari Damacy are a huge success and last but not least, the Revolution is coming. I see a bright future

I wouldn't worry about such a thing. Let's say you are a texture designer who worked 5 years for the same company and you get bored by your job, you still have a lot of options left. You can learn a 3d application and become an environment or character artist or you can improve your artistic skills and start making concept art. You could try to get a job in another company (maybe the gras is greener there) or move to another country. It shouldn't be that hard to get "unstuck". Sure, being a game designer is a hard job, but which job isn't?

screenshot from poke646

I hate to say this but the screens on their page look very dull. The props are nice (probably downloaded from somewhere) but the brushwork is just horrible. Anyways who cares... I want more SP mods!!

Sure Wal-Mart is big but it's not that big. Even in the US there are many other big retailers like Best Buy and not to mention online stores like Amazon.com. And don't forget that there's a world outside the USA. Europe has a huge market as well and this is almost Wal-Mart-free. Last but not least, there's Japan. Not only that Japan is one of the worlds biggest game markets, it is also the the most important country for game development and I'm quite sure that Sony, Big N and all the others over there are not influenced by Wal-Mart. To be honest, the whole article from that guy sounded more like a conspiracy theory than a factual report.

I wouldn't even care if Revolution had the same specs as the GameCube. One of the best looking games I've seen on any system is Resident Evil 4. I mean, screw normal mapping and all these fancy shaders. What really counts is the art style and the lifelike animations. Same goes for Shadow of the Colossus btw.