Setin

I'm writing an E-Book that covers the entire scope of the 3ds Max > Wall Worm > Source pipeline. It's name is Hammered to the Max .
 
The book is for new and expert Max users with a focus on helping Hammer users transition to 3ds Max for level design for Source. The Hammer community is pretty hard-core with love of Hammer... this book is intended to drop some seeds of lust and thoughts of 3D app infidelity.
 
The book covers the philosophy of Wall Worm, basic Max UI, Max and Wall Worm conventions, and the specific tools and work flows in Wall Worm to make a project flow efficiently--even with multiple artists in multiple geographic locations.
 
In it, you'll learn how to export various kinds of assets (models, materials, textures, levels, RES files, etc) and how to use various release tools (auto-PAKing and auto-zipping) and more.
 
Etc, etc.
 
I expect to be done with the first draft in the next week or two. I'm sharing news now to generate a little buzz, but also to ask for screen shots from WW users to include in the book. Please send any screen shots to my email (always included in the WW download readme) with a description of the asset(s) and permission to use them in the publication. Please only send me screen shots of assets you have permission to share, and only those that were aided in some fashion with WW. Shots of assets in-game with nice lighting are preferable. Feel free to send any captions or quotes to use as well.
 
I'm also looking for someone to do the cover art. Email me with any cover submissions. I'm not offering any pay for the cover, just credit and a link.
 
The book is going to be released freely to the community as an educational resource.

I don't know if this is really applicable and I don't know if it's even something that can be taught, but I think fostering a sense of self-discipline and self-motivation is something lacking in education. Having recently started going back to university to complete a degree it feels like a lot of fellow students I meet that want to break into games development think that they can get there without any sort of extracurricular practice or development and I don't find many sources that reiterate that it requires a lot of work and self-motivation to bring projects to completion, especially if one finds themselves working with a small development team or on a particularly ambitious project. I think this really applies to every aspect of life and education and not just game development, but it's really relevant here because of the scale and complexity of game development projects nowadays.

Regarding concrete teaching I agree with what you have mentioned above. However I don't think sketching is necessary for everyone because I think some folks have an easier time getting their ideas out in a software package than they do on paper, and this can help with understanding the end product, how all the pieces will fit together, and any potential complications early on. For some people I can imagine sketching works better, though. Whatever is fastest and helps get the ideas down quickly and early is the key, IMO. 

Regarding finding inspiration, and what helps with making things. Students should be encouraged to keep a journal/scrapbook (digital or otherwise) of ideas or things they find interesting, inspirational, whatever. If something seems really super awesome and really inspirational but the purpose isn't readily apparent, it's better to squirrel it away for reference and make a decision on its usefulness later, than to forget about it entirely. Encouraging ancillary creative activities is also useful because if you eat, sleep, and breathe making games, things can get a bit stale after a while, and doing a different creative activity for a while (I find, at least) often sparks new ideas and renewed motivation. Plus by doing other creative things you build up skills in something else while having fun. 

I'm sure a lot of this is really obvious. I feel really strongly about my first point though and I think schools would be producing graduates of not only a higher quality, but also better suited to the workforce they wish to enter, if they were to foster this sort of attitude early on. 

Looks cool. The overgrown/abandoned test chambers were my favourite areas from P2. I must admit that I skimmed through as to not spoil the puzzles so much, but the theming looks really faithful to the stock levels/style which is a good thing
 
 
Solid suggestions, cheers! I think you're spot on; 3 seems to be the magic number when it comes to hostage rescue maps.

I'll try and sort something out for a playtest on the server soon to collect some more in-depth feedback as I would really appreciate it. Probably towards the end of April as I'm going on holiday next week and won't have time to sink my teeth into any meaningful changes or join in with testing. 

Working on a series of Portal 2 levels involving time travel. These are images of the first level.



 

Working on a series of Portal 2 levels involving time travel. These are images of the first level.



 

Trailer Released!

Trailer day is a wonderful day in a mods life when it gets to prance around and express itself. Today Chell’s Legend comes before you as a small and humble mod with high hopes. In this trailer I present to you Part 1 of Chell’s Legend, I’m not quite sure how many parts there will be but whatever it takes to tell the story!

I’ve been working diligently on the project In hopes to get it finished before Portal 2. Most of my work recently has been on the story. Gameplay is important to me and I want to make sure I hit quality over quantity.

The trailer you are about to watch (or skipped forward and watched already) was constructed by Fearlezz. He is a talented mapper currently working on Factum Solus which can be found on Moddb and Desura.

Trailer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFArMzfk-oM

Animator Needed!

Currently I’m looking for 1 animator to join my team to help me finish / polish up a few of my sequences. You need to be dedicated and experienced enough to handle things on your own. You will not be required to compile your animations for the source engine (I already have everything setup). If you are interested and are an animator please read the requirements below and then send me an email at generalvivi[at]ChellsLegend.com with your contact info / portfolio link (if you have one)

Requirements :

programs -
- 3ds max 7 or higher

experience -
- Animation experience in 3ds max (1 year or greater)
- must be able to show previous work

- Jason

-----OLDER POST-----

Big Media Release!

Hi,my name is Generalvivi and I am the creator of Chell's Legend. This project has been due for quite some time and the moment has finally arrived to reveal some media. This release will mark the beginning of what I'm calling the media chain reaction. I'm really excited to finally show off some screenshots and I hope you stick around for more. For Updates over steam be sure to sign up on the Chell's Legend steam group. Also if you would like to contact me for anything I've placed my contact information below.

Links/ Contact

Email : Generalvivi [at] chellslegend.com

Moddb : {C}http://www.moddb.com/mods/chells-legend{C}

Website : {C}http://www.chellslegend.com/blog{C}

Steam Group : {C}http://steamcommunity.com/groups/chells_legend{C}

Live Stream : {C}http://www.livestream.com/chells_legend{C}

FaceBook : Chell's Legend

ScreenShots



















- vivi

Working on a series of Portal 2 levels involving time travel. These are images of the first level.



 

Working on a series of Portal 2 levels involving time travel. These are images of the first level.



 

The screenshots seen bellow are concept or level design ideas from an early stage development. Many of which may change over time or never be released in the final product.  

finished environment in cryEngine

Hi,
This is an adaptation of medal of honor solo campaign for Day of Defeat Source.
First beta very soon!
 

 

 

 

 

 
Maybe test it with someone of you! 

For anyone out there interested: CEVO/GAMEBANANA just announced their 2014 map making contest.

Nice work Austin, seems pretty clear and easy to access.

Hey guys
 
SO been keeping a little secret for 9 months or so. Here's an article in PC GAMER about it, with a couple of screenshots. 
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/03/07/building-crown-part-one-the-first-look-at-the-next-big-counter-strike-go-competitive-map/

Almost ready for a final shot, need to ad some small props, last light tweaks and bake it in production (now it's still a preview) and after that i need to work on materials, to make a small flythrough in it

W.I.P. by Alisher Mirzoev

This operation is a terrible joke, really. Big respect for all the people in there and I'm not saying that because the 3 maps I worked on are not in this pack but the best thing about operations is to see good new maps actually played with a lot of people. These operation make the csgo map creation more attractive because everyone can hope about a cool release like this. And thanks to that we had a lot of really good quality maps. But with this operation, people will certainly loose their moivation (lol, a lot of people don't give a shit about weapon skins). I'm thinking about the people who are working hard for the last few months to release their map in time, it's just a back stab for them, and more when you are seing seaside AGAIN!!! (seriously? just put it in the official maplist and let us see new stuff !!) What about Overgrown ? Marquis ? Print ? Backalley ? Season ? Castle ?

Valve have an infinite amount of development time tho, so it's cool.

Part of a map I'm working on.

Hello, my friend Mr. Chop made a large sum of skybox textures for use in the Source Engine. Since he is rather lazy, and didn't bother re-uploading his pack since I last downloaded it, I uploaded it to my dropbox with his permission to share with you all.
 
Here are a few sample skyboxes.
 






 
These are completely free, and Mr. Chop/Colter is completely fine with you sticking it in an operation map.
 
 
Anyways here is the download (96mb)
 Enjoy!
 
Please forgive me if this is in the wrong section, FMPONE suggested I share with you all as well, so if this needs to be moved please let me know.
 
Also let me know if the download link goes down as well and I will do my best to maintain it. Have fun!

Did a bit of work on readability, trying to make the map cleaner.
 

 
Older one.
 

 
Will add a blend of some sort so that the plaster textures are not just one colour. Older test blend.
 

Hello guys,
 
I guess you already have made a displacement with a blend texture, and just wanted to quit because you were only able to use 2 textures in your blend ?
Now you should be able to use 4 :
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Lightmapped_4WayBlend
 
It's new, if anyone can try it, don't hesitate to show everyone here please
 
I guess Robert Briscoe would have loved it for Dear Esther ...

Some new screens, added some CC in photoshop to gauge where I'd like it. Thoughts?
 

We have finaly released the game on the 22th (meaning it's not in Steam Early Access anymore). Feedback has been really great so far from what i've seen. People really seem to dig the gameplay, the weapon feel, the sound and fx.
First couple reviews i've seen are in the 75-80 range. Reviews on Steam Community are almost exclusively positive.
Also seems to be some word of mouth going on. Sales have been pretty good (p3 in top sellers yesterday, currently p4) despite not much PR and reviews in big publications yet. So it's looking pretty good.
 

 
Head over to http://www.playinsurgency.com/ for some gameplay videos.
 
PS.: could a mod rename the thread to just Insurgency? It's not called Insurgency 2 anymore. Thx!

Working fine for me, mobile version looks good too, nice work