Beck Shaw - Some of my work

[Beck]

Hi all,

Finally got a chance to post some of my work for you guys to have a look at. I'd love to hear your comments/feedback. Most of it is work from uni, I've got a bit of mod work I've done outside of uni/work but not sure if I can show that yet.

Codemasters Trial

Anyway, first off I'd like to show a video diary I made when applying for my job at Codemasters. They had me complete a trial before my first interview with them. In which I had to make a race track in Trackmania Nations which lasted about 1minute 30seconds. It had to be more of a "traditional" race track (i.e. no loops and jumps etc) but above all else had to be accessible. Having not used the editor for TM before I spent a day or two getting to grips with the editor. I then went ahead and made a track and then populated it with buildings and models. Following that I carried out a multiplayer test to get feedback which I used to iterate and improve the track.

You can find my video diary here:

This was my first ever race track and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Team Fortress 2 ctf_staffs

During university one of my modules had me creating a TF2 map from scratch. I decided to make a ctf map which had two buildings facing each other with multiple routes and levels (You'll learn that I like my multiple routes and levels ) After I had finished university I went back over the level adding more detail (The briefcase rooms are way more pleasing to the eye now).

Dissertation - Investigation into the use of Height within a Game World.

So for my dissertation I wanted to do more level design and wanted to try and tackle the use of height. I really feel the use of height and multiple levels are left out of a lot of multiplayer maps and they really add a lot of gameplay to a level. I researched the last 2500 years of infantry combat and defensive building styles to try and understand how height has played a role in battles. Using this knowledge I built a control point map in TF2 which had 5 control points stacked on top of each other. We had a blast in the multiplayer tests and overall I am happy with the results. I've always been meaning to go back and refine this level further and make it look pretty, but I've not got round to it yet. Perhaps soon

Anyway, it's 20,000 words long, I understand you probably don't have time to read it, but if you do, I'd love to hear what you think of it.

I'm pretty sure you can read it here, let me know if it's not letting you: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8OYda ... XpfRlRvMGs

As I mentioned I'm currently working on F1 Race Stars and loving every minute of it. Hoping to get into more mapping etc in my free time soon.

(Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, wasn't sure where to post it!)

*edit* Link to dissertation should now work

[Sentura]

i like what you've written about your dissertation, i did something similar for mine

[Beck]

Did you read any of my dissertation at all? Any ways you think I could improve or expand upon anything? How did you do in your dissertation and what was the result in the end?

Going to be teaching myself CryEngine 3 with Nysuatro soon. Hoping to have more stuff to put in here soon.

[Sentura]

i skimmed it over, i was mostly interested in how you used war for your theory. i did the same for another paper, where i focused on balance in games. i'm not one to give advice on papers, though, so i don't really have anything.

[Beck]

Yeah I used war since I was going to be making a map for a shooter (TF2) and since people are generally shooting at each other in a war I thought it might be a good idea to look at their defences and tactics and see what I could use within the level.

[Psy]

Wait a minute. I remember CTF Staffs. I swear that we PM'd each other about that map as well as Staffs Uni years ago over at HL2.net.

[Beck]

I just went through my old PM's and you did message me yeah (Oct 28 2008 to be exact!) Did you ever go to Stafford Uni?

We didn't talk about ctf_staffs though. Maybe over at TF2maps.net? I pretty sure I posted about it over there at some point

Small world! (especially since you live down the road from me haha)

[Beck]

I've finally gotten around to updating my portfolio. It's pretty much what is shown above with F1 Race Stars included now.

www.beckshaw.com

Any feedback or comments?

Edited March 24, 2013 by Beck

[blackdog]

I think the site is simple and nice, does its job I guess. What about adding some screenshots?

If i had to nitpick, in the Trackmania page, the header is from the F1 game; also whitespace could benefit some tweaking for improved visual hierarchy.

Off topic and totally a personal curiosity: the art of the Italian track, does it take inspiration from Tuscany and Rome? For the track design, did you get some reference from real F1 tracks?

PS: the yt playlist for the Codemasters' trial should be rearranged, "playing all" starts from the last video.

Edited March 24, 2013 by blackdog

[Beck]

Yeah good point, most of the stuff in there is videos, I'll try adding more screenshots to all of the sections

The headers I can't seem to get working right on some pages, I can't figure out why :/ Going to have to look into that a bit more!

As for Italy in F1 Race Stars, I took control of this track after all the concept was done and the whitebox almost finished so I didn't really get much input into the art style. But yes, it takes inspiration from Tuscany and some old Roman architecture.

In terms of track design the start/finish straight on all of the tracks was the same as their real-life counterparts. Other iconic corners were brought into the tracks and we tried to mimic the overall "feel" of the track. After the first couple of bends you break off and drive on the old Monza track too.

I'll rearrange the YouTube playlist

Thanks for the feedback!

Edited March 24, 2013 by Beck