Lord Ned

I downloaded the benchmark for kicks... I'm impressed. They've nailed the perfect settings for day/night and I'm needing new pants after scrolling back and forth on the time of day bar.

Too bad I don't get the tessilization on my Dx10 card.

In your articles consider using words like "diegetic narrative" for no reason, write as if rank is a modern innovation with the "AI director" and force references to it, ask that token game mechanics be removed for being unrealistic or old without any real justification other than "it's about time...", muse over a game you played 5 minutes ago with some youtube research for comparisons, suggest we remove "barriers" so games play on one context sensitive button, reach no conclusions under any circumstances, and champion post-game emotional art synergy.

Maybe because i'm tired and my eyes are blurring... but that made no sense to me.

The media handling functionality was dramatically upgraded about a year ago in WordPress. Have you used it since then?

I personally think the way it handles media is fantastic, able to auto-generate galleries and whatnot. I use them all the time on my WordPress site. You can even easily get per-image comments.

There's no upper limit on image resolution, to clarify. It'll always leave your original image as the largest size, and then auto-generate three smaller sizes for you that you can specify.

Yeah I've been using it for a college class (As a photoblog) and man... The make new page box is horrid with media. There's no sense of formatting in the box, and you import an image inbetween paragraphs... and it shows up on the side of the paragraphs in the editor and then in the right space on the actual blog.

Maybe it's because I'm using a domain.wordpress.com one?

I hate posting media in Wordpress.

i wish the game played like the trailer, rather than running between areas and hiding in small rooms shooting through walls.

That tactic among others are totally demolished.

Valve took some great L4D players, stuck them in L4D2. Utterly helpless. Every single tactic that worked in L4D1 has been smashed.

As for the actual content:

This is why I'm proud of Source.

On other forums and previously I've seen a bunch of comments "Probably done by some specialized company" and "Pre-rendered"*, etc. This is true source right here. It can look just as amazing compared to other engines, but Valve chooses not to. I imagine in the future when 16x cores and 32gb of ram is the standard (Not to long I imagine ), Source will look like this in real time.

Anyways: Valve's done a great job with it. They've introduced the characters, given them character, introduced weapons, shown off some events, taught players a little bit of tactics (Thrown gas cans, shooting SI, Nade launching the tank, etc) and wrapped it all up in one great cinematic box.

*

Pre-rendered as in made in an external application. Eg. 3ds Max and After Effects.

I'm kinda feeling like creating a development blog for the stuff I do. Not to have things like "So today this funny thing happened, right?", but to have stuff like "Here's revision one of my map. Here's revision two of my map. Here's what worked, here's what didn't, here's why I changed things. Here's a technique I used here. Here's why I used it".

I want to use it to first off: Share knowledge with other people, what techniques work where, what can you do, etc, and secondly to show off my work, get my name out there, etc.

So. When to start? Do I just go out there and register something at wordpress or blogspot and start using it? Pretend there's people out there actually reading it and act like their there in hopes that someone will see a recent blog post, get interested and read backwards?

Does the hosting site, name, or design really matter?

Thanks.

So much for anything but the road...

Here's what I've got right now... Happier with the old road I had:

Bleh.

Someone posted an alternative here: http://www.interlopers.net/forum/viewto ... 15#p378083 (I think this is the right post, I can't get it at school)

I think I might do a mix of both. I might use the above method for the ground around it and the dirt, and use the linked method for the road.

As to what Valve did with Hydro:

The curves are flat and only the straight gain/lose height.

I'm not too worried about texturing. I don't know if L4D implemented $seamless_scale but I think it has. Using this technology it reverts the Displacements from having their own UV map... Basically attemps to eliminate streaching as much as possible.

I'll do the stripes with overlays. Source's overlays are neat because they support "vertex editing" of the 2d plane basically. (Place an overlay, then click the overlay tool again and grab a white corner). I used this some in my LoZ map that I never finished. <-- Just realized this is what you were talking about.

If Pericosolo looks in this thread he can explain it better. He made such a slope in one of his never released Insurgency maps.

Can you point me to some contact information for him or point him towards this thread? Thanks.

Can't you place temporary disp-brushes "inside" all the curves that you skew, and use subdivide to get the base done?

That's how I would do it I think.

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but it sounds like it would eliminate the ability to sew. For brushes to sew in Source their vertex's have to line up.

Oh cool, 8 screenshots from my map!

Not always from the best angle, but still cool.Thanks for sharing!

most frustrating part of the game for me. could not figure out where the fuck to go, and having those fucking monsters flying at you constantly while you tried to figure out wtf to do was annoying

I forgot about them. Eventually ran out of ammo and just melee'd them which was pretty fun.

I've sat. I've looked. I've mulled. I've experimented. I just can't come up with the right way to produce this effect:

That is what I wish to create. I want to create a curved slope like that that remains a valid solid and displaceable geometry.

The only way I can see this is to convert each curve into a brush that looks like this:

As you can see, this would allow me to drop height, however it creates a triangle and becomes un-displaceable.

I could make each curve flat and make the straight sections in between drop height, but that would look a little odd, because you would have a series of flat/drop/flat/drop's.

I really don't think this would create the effect I want. Does anyone have some suggestions about how I could create this effect? I'm not worried about the cliffs in the background, I can manage that . I don't want to use a model and a displacement generated with Twister would have stretched textures on displacements.

Conflicting themes.

Corridor syndrome.

Tall building syndrome.

What happened to alphas?

Doesn't feel like TF2

Buildings make little sense.

Drop the attitude.

Lighting is way out of place for the skybox.

Need I go on?

":2zhujc7h]Yeah, the Core map is unbelievably beautiful dude! And very well designed for a linear level, you did a wonderful job!

I agree that it was a beautifully done map, but I hated it. Hated hated hated it. I spent an hour wandering around lost, spinning in circles unsure which way was up, which way was forward... if I was going over the same area again.

A hud would have helped but

Although the reward of coming out of the ship into the snowy land was so worth it.

I dunno, I like it. Tread area in general looks a little bare, and there's not enough dirt/mud, but I think the colors are a great improvement over the previous ones.

":10zj93us]Actually, that's faaar from being the best philipk work but whatever!

Yes but given what resources I have and what Source has, it was the easiest to recreate .

For vis its very simple to explain long compile times. The more vis leafs you have up goes the the compile time overproportional. So the difference between a quick compile time and a long compile time sometimes isnt even that big on paper. Just a question of proper optimizing.

Also you have to stop to be so pretentious about it when your test basicly proofed my point. Bsp merging the faces? Take a very very close look at your own example picture.

You don't need to sit here and explain how it works. I know how it works. I already said I was wrong. What else do you want?

You wanna know how many threads I've run across where "Compiling takes forever", and how many wrong statements I've seen people give about optimization?

I've heard that Nodraw gives you 95% of your optimization right off the bat...

I've heard that some map compiles can take up to several days. (Seriously what the fuck are you doing?)

I'd write a book on it but well.. Z@C beat us all, except no one bothers to read it when their map takes years to compile.

Also: If you can prove that mitering your corners from brush 1, and going along as you resize and such is faster than the compile times you'll spend, I'll miter my corners.

To my knowledge: Mitering is a waste of time.

It only adds hours to development time.. Every time you want to change a wall? Either have to vertex it it, or streach it out and re-miter it via Clipping.

This compared to just stretching the brush.

There is no reason it would affect VISleafs as VBSP merges the faces... Presumably before it creates the leafs.

A mitered corner should be no different from an unmitered one after the face-merging.

In the example Steppenwolf posted: That's deceiving. I bet all of the visleaf reduction is caused by func_detailing, and hints/skips, etc. and not mitering.

Gonna go test my theory.

Well then. A few less portals, but less portals non the less. I'm surprised.

Still not worth the time/effort especially for anything but a final... Unless you're somehow really pressed for leafs.

Logitech Mx 518.

Mine unfortunately got sporadic and died after a year and a half of solid gaming. Into intensive care it went.

The wires inside broke at the tip of the mouse (Where it comes out) From drag of the mouse cord hanging over the edge of the table. Little bit of solder later it works flawlessly.

I'd recommend it, unless you wanna get the Gxx that has adjustable weights, dpi, etc.

For goodness sake, please use a better image host than imageshat, that thing took about 6 minutes to load!

Looks like a good start anyway, reminds me of NOLF's U.N.I.T.Y HQ.

Hahah, sorry about that. I use ZScreen for auto-screen captures, and I normally have it set to Tinypic but a bug as of late makes it a pain to use Tinypic. (If it times out it breaks the keyboard-keystrokes for Zscreen)

Anyways: Thanks. Any suggestions about what to do with the walls? None of the texture I've picked look decent. Might try a white version of the HL2 Trainstation Walls, along with adding some shops and something behind the window in the background.

Then it's polish polish polish :/

Based off of PhilipK's work. Just had to re-create it

A lot of useful replies in here, thanks. However, my main question is: How do you showcase skills that aren't easily shown visually? I've got all of these skills (Or I'd like to think) that are up in my head that don't easily produce on paper or words... Analyzing maps, finding what's wrong (Why doesn't it play well? What makes this frustrating, etc), or other skills?

Would "Publications" per say work? Would these really help make my portfolio stronger? I know as a mapper/enthusiast I enjoy reading publications, both of other mappers/developers (I get a kick out of reading Valve's Siggraph papers, even if half the math/content is above my head. ), so I could make publications under the pretense of helping share my knowledge with other mappers but again... Does it make my portfolio stronger?

Do these skills need to be shown in a portfolio? Or is it something that becomes more apparent if you manage to get an interview or chance to talk about your work?

Thanks.