JamesKing3d

man, Campaignjunkie, you've done some cool stuff with angular and abstract shapes, but this is awesome. I would love to see how this type of visual would play out in a 3d game.

heh, it'll be a while. I haven't touched this map for 3 weeks almost. I am in a transition between steady jobs, working a time job which needs lots of overtime. so don't have much down time. I liked your comments, Chimeray, especially the ones about marking/scribbling. I usually do that as well, but I'm trying to get together some super-clean 2d maps along with their greyboxed 3d counterparts, and also trying to teach myself a bit of illustrator as well. I've used it, but never for mapping. my goal for this project is clean/precise 2-d and a to-scale 3d world. I have issues going from my brain to 3d without all the scales getting weird.. so it's practice. I will definitely take that into consideration though, and try to add some clean gameplay descriptions somehow. also "Ask yourself if this is ready to be shown to other people, this is a tool for yourself but more often than not you'll have to share it at design meetings, show it to your art director, ... Is it missing key elements that are important for these parties?" excellent point. This should be asked any time something is going to be shown off. thanks for all the advice guys, I'll keep at it.

I think minecraft is a fantastic example of indie game, not for it's success (most indie games don't earn a living for their developers) but for it's continued support, and simple idea as foundation. good ole' notch did something simple, and he was selling it 3 + years ago as a"pre-alpha" with super discount, and continued to work on it sans-outside funding.

Thanks Sentura, I'll have to think that out. I have no problem adding design/gameplay elements to this map, and diverging from the concept a bit. I will probably add some high brambles or stones to the field on the bottom left, to break it up and create some areas for monster battles. I'm thinking of designing this map for action/adventure gameplay. like zelda or metroid gameplay. (except no arm cannons.) good advice, I'll make sure to post when I've updated. James

I'm currently just doing the layout and planning. I think I'll probably grey-box the whole thing, and then try and model/fill 1 or two areas. I'm thinking probably 1/2 of the town and the shrine area would be the two I'll try to fill in. anyone ever map out in 2d levels like this for work? if so, any tips/hints? i come from a CAD/carpentry/assembly background, so i'm having a bit of trouble thinking in mapping terms when it comes to 2-d layouts. I get like 1/2 as detailed, then I begin to struggle. James

Hey all. I've begun to draft out a simple top down map based on a concept painting by Noah Bradley. Painting is: I've been working in illustrator, as a new direction, trying to find a middle ground between CAD (what I worked in for the last 2-3 years) and game engines. here's the map, as it's coming along. I'm planning on designing it out kind of like the first location/town/area you would play in an RPG or an adventure game. it'll have a town hub with shops/mission centers and story elements, then it'll have 2 or 3 different spots to adventure to where you would find a dungeon or have to run errands or look for stuff. anyhow, here's the result of about a week of lunch breaks at work, trying to get the basic map layout down.

Bunglo, if that column is to be used in an animation/render/game, you definitely want to have a broken column somewhere, so the capital can be seen at eye level. In all it's finial glory. it would be a shame to have that awesome detail up at the top, where a player can't see it as clearly. James

trying to simultaneously wrap up Bastion, Skyrim, and Mass Effect 3 currently. I am 2 or 3 levels away from the ending in bastion, and love it. bought it opening week, but then skyrim came out, and friends were playing Halo Reach... anyhow, good times, wish I had more time to play. will try to play some Spiral Knights sometime this week, hopefully. anyone else play that here?

yea, I was planning on entering too, then... BAM, FREELANCE WORK! so yea, no maps from me. good work though, I'm looking forward to downloading them next week and checking them out.

just finished watching Hanna on my lunch break. good flick, in the same vein as The Professional, kind of. I was surprised with it, I hadn't heard anything about it and wasn't interested, not knowing what it was about. but then I read the summary, and figured it would be worth a watch. it didn't disappoint.

I don't understand whats up with the "listening in" process of getting missions. it doesn't make sense at all. I hate the fact that to get various side and mini missions, I have to go around eavesdropping on random people who make no difference in the "world" of mass effect. the savior of the universe shouldn't have to listen in to solve problems. I love the game, although it ranks 2nd in the three for me. one had a fantastic structure and design, two went way too "cover based generic fps", but three bridges those two nicely. I still want a moon buggy/mako to cruise the low-grav universe of planets.

haha, of course. thats alright though, I don't have a ton of time, so perhaps that's better for me. anyone else basing their map off a single idea or design theme? (i swear I won't copy, since mine is now pointless... )

I'm hoping to get some time in at home this weekend to throw together something, haven't used the mapping tools yet, but look forward to learning them! I'm thinking of something with angled light bridges. don't know if that's possible, but would be cool.

i guess numbers like this end up so lumped together, it's a shot at the "whole" game industry, rather than "hardcore gamers" or "social gamers" I remember when I was about 10 (1993) this guy who ran a gas station played golf ALL day while behind the counter, on the work PC, because the gas station was so slow. and that dude was 50. I work with at least 3 people here in the States that are above 35 and play regularly. (one of which is on XBL daily playing COD or Noire) so as a whole, it's a pretty awesome wide-ranged demographic. I find year by year my game-time fluctuates as I settle into adult life. my first year of being a dad i had tons of time to play, played from 10PM-2AM 3-4 days a week, as I would pause and feed my daughter when she woke up at 11 and 1... but year 2 I cut back like 70%.... I think I play for an hour or two once or twice a week now. so, it's a massive industry, with TONS of people playing games. As much as I usually can't stand Casual games, I can't deny that it's part of the industry, and a huge part.

also, this:

picked up some cheap indie bundle, which included Delve Deeper. I highly suggest anyone who liked and played games from the 90s like Worms, and Lemmings to check it out. it's pretty sweet. also, Bastion. (one of the best indie/arcade games i've ever played!)

thats one of the big catches of most semi-realistic space travel sci-fi.. every huge trip is a one way trip, and that being the case... most trips, by the time they are undertaken, there is no need for them back at the origin point, or it's already too late for them to help.. in other words, if every trip is a one way trip, then those one way trips would have to be imperative, and permanent. i.e. colonization. The main reason we'll keep pressing into space in the next 100 years will probably be industry or manufacturing. I think those things would be so much cheaper to do in z gravity, especially with robotics doing the bulk of the work..

yea, pretty sick. got kind of weird and creepy when they started placing objects into the scene, and the 3d-reconstructed scene added the objects in. about 1/4 of the way in. the table grew a teapot top, then grew a book out of it's top surface. heh.. i'm not creeped out at all.....

here's my attempt at combining the dribble.com image with mapcore's previous design. been watching this thread for a while, but I suck at graphic design, so haven't really entered anything yet.. James

i agree. also, its going to be hard to be taken seriously, when you post that you have this awesome idea for a mod, but need to find/fill: pretty much every role in creating a game. perhaps if you had some backer money, and were paying for the work, or already had the whole framework structured out, and could ask for little tidbits here and there.... but you're talking about a "mod" that is as expansive as a console release.. thats not going to happen without some seriously devoted people who work well together. and your 1 post-count doesn't inspire too much faith.. i know I'm not one to boast about post counts... but still..

rage knockoff? rage knockedoff! in all seriousness though, they need to come up with a better ending. I loved the first one, but the ending SUCKED BALLS! where the HELL is my vault full of insanely awesome weapons? bleh... the DLC secret armory kind of fixed that, but still.... it was lame that the (a bit too real-life for me, i want the lsd induced alien to provide me my blastola, not an old white marine..)

other than reducing the scale on that gold texture, it's much better. perhaps go for the same scale as before. I would suggest looking into tv shows or movies that did the modern sci-fi thing right, to get an idea for lighting. Moon, Firefly, even going as far as Fifth Element. thats the first flick I thought of when I saw that gold gaudy color reigning over your map. super dark corridors in space usually mean horror. (Alien, Advent Horizon.) if you want calming chilled out feel, try to keep more white tones, with lots of light bounce. Moon did this, as did alot of 2001:A Space Odyssey (space station interiors.) James

damn, I missed this one. first time I've logged in in about a week and a half. you guys have been busy! they look fun, I'll keep an eye out for update on play times. James

I love these three. I'm up for any extra challenges added to a map challenge, but would love to work with ambient sound and/or lighting or particles.. that would be fantastic. (especially since I know next to nothing about particles and sound in UDK.)

3Dnj - fantastic subway floor textures. knew asap what it was. (if thats not what it's based on, then ohh well.) anyhow, here are 4 textures i'm working on, and their use on modular environment pieces for a game called Radiant Escape. render from maya, roughly the lighting we want. 2 screen caps from Unity, with point lights dropped in to show spec and normals. James * EDIT: these are still WIP, alot of the UVs are not quite lined up correctly, and subsequently the diffuse/normals sometimes look weird....