Lord Ned

ARENA Draft

From Matt "Lord Ned" Hoffman and Ben "Nerdboy" Waters comes:

(Extra screenshots in the linked thread, they're 1080p so I don't want to link here without a resize-script on the forum)

So there you have it. Leave a post if you're running it on your server or enjoy it.

Extra Thanks:

Thanks to A Boojum Snark and Seba for help with server-list thumbs.

Thanks to Snacks for uncomplicated some displacements.

And really thanks to Nerdboy. Even though it's half his map, this guy has just been amazing to work with. I'd close the map in frustration over something and go to bed, and I'd wake up in the morning and Nerdboy would have fixed or detailed or taken care of whatever it was, without me even mentioning it.

The dream began one quiet August night as Lord Ned prepared to resurrect Hydroelectric. The very same night, Nerdboy, master of time and space, challenged him. "Lord Ned, good sir," he commented amidst the glow of the Livestream client, "I do believe it is preposterous for such an arena map to feature a sight line straight across both spawns." Insulted, Lord Ned challenged him to produce a layout that would be better than Hydroelectric's. And so, Nerdboy was off to produce such a layout in under 80 days. He took two hours. The rest is history.

Produced over the course of a months and eight iterations comes Draft, a new and exciting arena map from the creators of Hydroelectric and Drybed! A mega-fusion of height and options make this map more addicting than Gorge.

Full Change log available here!

Heh, compiling? hello 2004.

Hello UT3/3.5 engine.

I believe there's a client command to increase detail draw distance. However there's a per-prop detail sprite overhead and for a super full field like that it might be easier just to leave it as a prop_static. Just know that lod's is probably encouraged.

Can't wait to watch the full movie!

They talk about the energy crisis on earth but I think that most will be explain with the full movie with a longer intro!

My guess is unobtainium is a great fuel source which explains why this private group of mercinaries and contractors are so interested in getting it. Judging by the name it's fairly hard to get and if their the only company selling it they'd be very powerful back on Earth.

Too bad the Instancing dialogue is broken as per usual Valve.

(You have to type the filename/path by hand instead of using Browse and hitting Ok)

I just saw it, the work and thought they put into the environment was amazing.

I'm going to go see it at IMax in... 2.5 hours. Woo

Hey Swaty that looks grea- stop hijacking my posts please.

I think I'm gonna stick with this lighting.

Just doing a bit of detail on my Alpha in areas that play well.

Trying to break up the static world of the roofs by having a multitude of them being perpinicular. I've also tried to break up the skyline and make the buildings more interesting by adding the skybridge. Please don't mind the big white box building .

I'm aware that the roof textures are a bit repetative and the endless number of brown airvents is too but Valve seems to get away with it Ok on Lumberyard -- Plus not so many are visible from the ground.

Same thing here.

I generally break things down into smaller steps. "Okay this area plays nicely. Let's tear it down, and re-build it into a roughly detailed but 'finished' state."

Here's an example:

I threw this down in my 'creative layout mode' when I was first blocking out the map. It was crappy, it was rushed. However, it left a trigger there. Eventually I'd get annoyed at how it looked, and I'd re-make it. Re-making it then catapulted my interest.

Now it's acceptable. It's no where near final detailed but it makes me feel good about having it in my map, which inspires me to work on my map more (Because I like it now vs the fugly blocking stage). I'll then look at later parts of the map and say "This feels so crappy compared to the start" and that starts me off again with working on it to bring it all up to speed.

Another thing: Don't expend all of your energy in one day. I'll often try to go to bed while I still want to work on my project so that it grows overnight. I then wake up dying to work on it.

And third: Don't concentrate all on one aspect. This probably applies more to freelance work than paid work but: I'll often like to take breaks to manage the publicity side of things, or to create a new logo or pimp it somewhere else, or make a placeholder model or something. It's just different workflows and difference experiences breaks up the repetition which kills energy.

Also last time I looked it was 11am. It's now 4pm. D:

I'm pretty hyped. I saw the first one and loved it (And later learned there was no script!) so I hope this one doesn't have a script either.

I think the main bad guy looks a bit like the Prince from Prince of Persia. Can't wait though.

eeeC eeeP Phone home.

I'm starting to get ticked at Autodesk for this. None of their maxes are forwards compatible as far as filetype (So I can't open a 2009 file on 2008), and the plugins aren't backwards compatible.

I can see why the plugins wouldn't necessarily be compatible, but instead of refusing to run it should at least try... And if I were to try and help multiple people (All on different versions of max since no one has the money to upgrade every year ) you'd need multiple max installs... Argh.

Your cement mixer is all wrong.

The chute appears to be built wrong, and it's not big nor fat enough.

There's also no controls for controlling the speed of rotation, the angle of the chute, etc. (I've poured concrete once before from a truck.)

Brighter... More oranges.... More color contrast.

You can have pure white and pure black and it would fit "contrast" but without colors it's still very boring.

I played their little mod/demo/trailer thing. It sucked. Horrid level design, Dinosaurs are just re-rigged HL2 NPC's..

I've got nothin' either.

We should map/model/design/make a giant Mapcore christmas tree for all of us without ones.

They've switched to Maya. Now all of their DMX toolset is in Maya plugins, etc. And it's not a plaintext anymore so Wunderboy can't write an importer/exporter for DMX stuff until Valve gives him a few header files.

Lack of contrasting colors!

Ditch XSI. The workflow from XSI is so broken and unsupported it's just... argh.

Honestly, try exporting to Blender and then from Blender to SMD. All of the community plugins > The ones with XSI.

Tri-gram screwdriver. :/

This thread is now about Deadspace.

I just started my second playthrough and it's... frustrating. What used to facinate me (Chopping the limbs off) now seems tiresome and cumbersome. Nothing startles me anymore.

What's happened?

Defo an A for effort

Desired position sounds a bit odd ... I'd remove that. Environmental sounds odd too, just say Environment Artist :]

Consider it done.

I like it. You have to bear in mind though that dark portfolios are usually that way because screenshots are pleasant to look at when the background is dark and uniform, so I suggest you insert some screens in these squares and see how it looks with completely different color themes and shapes in the shots before you flesh your concept further.

Will give it a go and post the image back in a while along with consolidating other things.

About your domain name, I think the simpler the better, but there's no real need to find something extraordinarily memorable. People trying to remember your portfolio's address will be few anyway. Even with a standard name, a search like "surname lastname portfolio" should still put you on the first page of google. You'll have to mention your name in text a few times for google to take it into account though since it doesn't read images, like in the page title (what's displayed at the top-left of the browser), or as titles/alt for images.

Google it. "Matt Hoffman". I wouldn't show up until like 20-30 pages in. I unfortunately share the same name as a fairly famous (at least in the US) BMX biker -- All Google would do is point to him. :/

The issue about design decisions and all that has been raised in the "How to break into the industry thread" I think (or maybe the other one I made about my egotistical self), and the advices given were that the best way to show your reasoning is to write post-mortems afterwards, in which you explain away every important decision you made, show the progress the level went through etc.

Will read them.

Finally, about the 2 styles you mention, I'd prefer the second one (peris), :words: ...seconds so either make sure the big shots are really indoubtebly awesome or give equal sizes to all of them.

Fair enough

PS: if you need help with coding the website I wouldn't mind giving you a hand

Wonderful. When I fall flat on my face I'll send a PM your way.

Why did you insert the mario pipes. did you work on mario?

>.> I'll change 'em.

Currently looking for feedback on planned layout/portfolio design. No content (worth showing) yet.

Please excuse me until I can learn some HTML and get it into website form.

One of the things that I've noticed about a lot of level designer/environment artists is their portfolios are very dark... Dark backgrounds, darker text, etc. That was my initial thought for a portfolio too until I realized that was just that -- It wouldn't stand out. So I went completely the opposite way and tried to make a "Happy" portfolio, instead of a "Moody" one. I hope this worked.

I'm torn between two portfolio styles:

http://www.chrisholden.net/

This, where the biggest/best work is shown on the top, and then smaller thumbs of different projects. Clicking each thumb then leads you to more images and a description about the project. Additional information (job experience, etc) is listed on the front page underneath the artwork, shoving the artwork into the users face.

Or:

http://www.brameulaers.com/

This, where you have all the work represented in equal sized bars, with a few words about each project that goes with the project. I kinda like this design more but it doesn't seem to leave room for a lot of words.

In addition: Should I put any sort of design-process for projects in the portfolio? Explaining why I did X decision or chose Y color scheme -- Or is that something that you should be telling to the viewer through the images?

Another thing. Finding a place to park myself. I've had incredible trouble finding a url that's: Easy to remember, easy to type and stands out. I'd do my name like everyone else but if you do a simple google it's very taken... along with all of the variants. The other names I go by in life "Lord Ned" and "LordMattHoffman" but I wouldn't really want something like lordned.net because no one would remember it.

Thanks!