Digital Amusement Game Development
  
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I'll post screenies and comments later. Download from fsk405.com!
I have come to appreciate the work of the concept artist. With sketchwork, one can bring imagination to life so much quicker. I know that from first hand experience, in breaking out the sketchbook and drawing up designs for various areas in superman. As for taking pictures and getting material there, the hotel roof is taken from a hospital roof I used to live next to. As I mentioned a few times before, a bunch of ideas were taken from the matrix. It's a matter of finding appropriate content and applying it. And having a more clearer mind helps too. :)
Spent the night two nights ago trying trickjumps with DankRider. He pulled off a jump that I hadn't seen, which is a first for me. It's a modification of the hotel side jump, except this puts you on the highway. Basically you need the falling velocity of the military building to pull it off. Otherwise I realized an 11 or so point jump combination. I'll post a demo when I can. Regretfully I had to inform digismack that I will not be able to complete the spaceship map for FragArcade. Time is not permitting me to do so. I really should get my stuff together so I can have a level design session for QuakeCon2006. Have to put the map down for a day or two to get that going. Here's an idea I'll expand on later. Playing in a painting vs. playing in an environment. Most current maps/levels are completely static, no or hardly any changes that affect gameplay. I call this playing in a painting. I want to create maps that are environments - stuff happens, landscape changes, stuff breaks, blows up, moves, a player is involved with their surrounding. More on this idea later.
Programmers are lazy, but dedicated. The original xbox had hardware limitations that restricted designers from simple implementations of high quality visuals. Basically, the programmers had to try very hard to figure out how to pull off hollywood magic using a minimal amount of resources to produce maximum effect. And they did well. So well that all their hard work is now working against them. Current generations of gamers (for some dumb reason) require current generation of graphic capabilities, regardless if that xbox is running a 4+ generation old GeForce3 enhanced video card. Yeah Doom3 runs on the xbox, but the team had to stress out all available hardware resources to pull it off. On the flipside, you'd expect a game like Doom3 to run on the xbox360 flawlessly. We find the Doom3 engine in the form of Quake4. What's the main complaint against Quake4 on the 360? Low frame rates. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? What could we do to increase the visual quality experience? Perhaps add more polys. Oh wait narmal mapping already fooled our eyes into believing that was a high-poly model. So what else is there to add visually? I'll tell you... 1 - THROW AWAY POLYGONS. Move to voxels. This will create volumetric properties and realism that 2d visual emulation simply can't match. Remember 3d games are mearly complex iterations of 2d triangles stuck together to appear 3d - which is why it is so difficult to create things like lifelike flesh (you see many layers at once). (continuing excluding voxels) 2 - every surface having reflective, light dampening properties 3 - every surface having energy retention properties 4 - anybody heard of a physical state? let's see how the aegia physx engine handles lava pouring down a snowcapped mountain into a forest. So tell me, with the xbox360's MASSIVE OMG NEXT GEN 3 core processor, why aren't the above properties being implemented? I'm guessing I'll find somewhat similar beefs with at least 1st gen PS3 games. The xbox is a marketing engine, so my hopes are greater with the PS3. I'm not worried about the Revolution at all, it's targeted towards gameplay (what? a game system meant to play games? wow!). Any visitors to the pond, there's a forum link on the left. If you want to discuss this or your ideas on game development, feel free to start a topic. I'd like to hear them! :V
I have predicted the downfall of videogames happening roughly around 2019 for some time. Now I will reveal why. First there's simple problems like sequel saturation, lack of innovation, mainstream media, but there's far more complicated issues such as A.D.D. gamers who are no longer buying the marketing B.S. that's been shoved on them for over a decade, no significant visual improvements for years (and remember it's visual improvements that push the marketing engine through the mainstream), entrenched corporate monopolies, quantities of game design (programming, art, gametesting) jobs being outsourced, the question of upgrades - current console makers (in this time) have streamlined the all-in-one console media center, saturation of dumbed down games meant for the 5 minute attention span of a corporate executive, saturation of purely marketing driven games, government's persistant involvement in content control, security fiascos (see sony's rootkit), the general knowledge of paid-for [magazine ratings] and hype, video games becoming equivilent to substance abuse due to the mind altering conception and belief of convincing alternate realities... And the trends go on. Bascially the videogame industry is a bubble that has some ways to go before it hits critical mass - 1982 all over again. I've been fortunate to be a part of gaming since the CollecoVision, Commadore64, and Atari 800 (Ataris' computer, which I wrote my first game on). Over in the pond is my first interactive game built on an x86 platform, punchman, try it sometime. It's dissapointing that the industry that is a significant part of my life will eventually crumble. There's a reason why I take breaks from level design to "work on other projects". I'm not acting on paranoia, I'm acting on proven patterns. To be fair, any unforeseen variable could radically change the theorized outcome. Guess that's one of the cool things about science, doesn't always work like it works on paper. :) :V
I can tell I've come a ways in level design because I've been looking back over existing brushwork, and actually getting disgusted with previous work I've done. Had to rip out a bunch of brushes and rebuild them because they were either of really bad design or contributed to minor performance problems. Of course for everything I clean up, I add more details. The military building walls are a stupid performance penalty in superman_b3. The whole wall outside is drawn, then the support beams are drawn over that. That means half or better of the wall doesn't need to be drawn. The walls on the first floor were also stripped down in this matter. You'll never see the difference, but it will draw faster. The bus stops are going to be a very welcome addition when moving along the ground. There's a standing shelter with painted lines on the street. The glass on the shelter is individually breakable of course. Breaking stuff pwns. :) Had lunch today with FSK405 clan member Frog. We had quite a discussion about superman, and some improvements that could be made to deep and sled. This is really great for moving superrman in the right direction. Frog always has excellent feedback. One thing we agreed upon is that superman is more of a game itself than just a level. Pretty impressive! Another thing was that I have roughly 600 network entities worth of blowing stuff up to use. That means when you start the map, by the time you finish it'll look much different. The hell with static maps. The future of level design requires dynamic design. I also mentioned that I hope to have an early playable test of superman in the next 2 months. Later I intend to remove the texture dependancy of the UrT base pk3's as well so the map can be portable... this of course means more time. Anyone up for some junior level design
:V
Began creating the next building today. It's in back of the military building. Curves are giving me trouble for some reason. Trying to endcap a curve and the patches that should be created become lines. Found a way around that for now, but it's kinda annoying. Gotta love gtkRadiant.
update: Probably should tell you why any of this is significant. All the details get overlooked (well that's the point anyway). All the lines added to the street introduce more tri's. For example, there's a square brush that makes one section of the street. I have to split that in 3 to insert the double yellow line texture in the middle. then with each split brush on either side, I have to split those again in the same fashion to lay the dotted white line texture. This means that there's a few more tri's to render. For sake of astetics that's ok with me. It also looks a lot better than stretching a single texture across the whole street... otherwise you'd get a blotchy low-res texture that sticks out. Not for me! The Y intersection has been a challenge... here's something you'll never notice. The crosswalk between the curved curbs is not horizontal/vertical, nor at a 45 degree angle... it's about 12 degrees or so. This meant I had to do some wacky texture alignment, and fancy brushwork to make it fit correctly. You have to remember, anything in the map that's not |, -, or / requires a lot more work. However the visuals of such things takes away from the geometrically perfect edges which don't exist in the real world. All this means is more realism. :) 
Something more upbeat. I got a compliment from a server owner (dank rider... if I got the name wrong I'll fix it later, sorry) last night that blew me away. We were talking superman, and he's spent over $2000 on my map. I said what?? how?? He's run a superman 24/7 server for over a year and a half. To me, it's surreal to think of how other people have invested money, time, and resources into something I've created. I have a screenshot of at least one player on superman for over 8 hours. That's a full day, no map change. With Frozen Sand updating urban terror, this may help get superman out the door. Again, it won't happen by the end of the year and I apologize. Another something that came up last night... I've made many comments about my displeasure of what Silicon Ice has done to the community. On top of that, ydnar pulling the shader manual, Q3 no longer updated, ET:UT revealed as vaporware, Oswalds' distaste for 3rd party maps, other key members of the community calling it quits... it doesn't surprise me that I give the impression that I've given up on Urban Terror. To set the record straight, I have not. To me, UrT has been deprioritized. With genuine interest one finds ways to retain high priorities. Realizations and compliments like the one I talked about earlier help revive those priorities. I've been through many issues in r/l as of current, trying new things (such as my electric guitar), and working on other important projects. Actually playing Call of Duty recently was my way of stepping away from all of that (ha, a vacation from life stuff). Ok back to work for me. Gots plenty to do as you can imagine... all one step closer to having a .pk3 on your harddrive.
1. Game mode called Destroyer. Three team TS, one team is all bots. The bots are there to infiltrate, but do not have to be beaten. The two human teams need only defeat the other to win. 2. UrT wants vehiles? CoD engine has 'em. I do not know the vehicle's engine limitations however. 3. CoD fits a huge amount of characters onscreen at once for the Q3 engine. I'd guess that in certain large scale battles there are easily more than 50 guys onscreen at once, upwards of 100. Other high points of CoD include: great A.I., well done large environments, killer level design, great gameplay, great scripting, and your squadmates seemed to be pretty useful - although they are helped along with scripting as well. Yay, fun game! :) Other news... map-depot is evolving to Quake 4, good to see. PlanetQuake is showing a lot of promising progress in the modding community with Quake 4 as well. I'd say by the next quakecon we'll be seeing quality mods gaining popularity on the scale of what Urban Terror has done. Probably some great less popular ones too... like have you heard of the mod Niflheim for Quake3? Unlikely, but that's an incredible mod that's worth a couple hours of your time. Keeping up with planetdoom, some classic mods and other development work continues, kinda quiet. The weekly DoomToon strip has turned out to be pretty funny. If you're looking for something different, check out The Dark Side of Phobos. You can download the torrent for the 2 cd's. I'm listening to it right now. Dark and electronic remakes of original Doom music. Sounds great in the car too. In UrT land - I guess Frozen Sand is progressing. They've posted more that one update in a single month on the urban terror site. Hey guys, you should have though about this a year and a half ago before you started alienating your community. Last night I read through an article in Game Developer about the making of Half-life 2. This was an amazing article for anyone involved in game design. Reading about the how's and why's of the design process they used made sense as to why Half-life 2 emerged as a superiour game. If you can find a copy of that article, I'd highly encourage you to pick it up. :V
Sweet hey? More to come of course, got lots more to go. :V
Lots of under construction brushes, and of course no lightmapping so this is as raw as you get. Still crafting the gameplay as I go along. Think I'll try a -light compile tonight, maybe it will even load in UrT! K.. got a little time here, some explaination to what I'm showing you. The Doom tower has a breakable roof. It breaks piece by piece. You can land on it til it's all gone, then you fall into the exec floor. The room on the hotel will probably turn into a luxury pimp-pad, but will allow traffic to go from the back of the hotel up through the new door next to the blue flag. The river allows safe falling from snatching the red flag and jumping, it will also be a tunnel to a yet built building. Parking garage is sealed, new vertical path up from the check-in booth. Streets in NW part rebuilt to have an angled street. This will serve the bus system. Front of pond publishing is carved out, detail work to be done. Various other little things I can't think of. Doesn't seem like a lot of progress, but really it is. Then again it still doesn't seem like a lot of progress. So much to go. Damn map could be Urban Super Soldier the game powered by Urban Terror it's so friggin large and involved. Maybe I should get a texture artist to help. Not a bad idea. Any takers? Requirements: enough photoshop experience that you feel confident about using the tools to whatever whim you have, and be a texture artist that can manipulate or doctor most any image, being able to make the new image look real is a plus. Email is above-left in the pond.
Got the park surfaced. I'll add detail like trees later. My curve skills have paid off as I was easily able to create multi-axis curves and line up all the vertexes spot on. Another path to be built will be from the parking garage floor entrance, straight up to the top floor. This will be a highly strategic path for blue. I'm considering another highway overpass, curving over the existing one. The rear of the military building needs a lot of landscaping work. Front of military building is going to get prettied up. Added the water reglow shader so water will hopefully appear more realistic. I won't be able to tell for a while, -light compiles take a day. Brings me to another point. Next it-may-get-released-by-date is march. I will of course keep you updated. One of the reasons for this is that I'll begin building my next-gen computing monster in February, that can compile this beast of a map in a reasonable amount of time. Wonder if I could port superman to q4... that surely would be painful on the light renderer. :)
The real issue will be that I want this final version of superman to be to mind blowing, there will be no comparison. It will dominate the game, bring in new players, be an interactive action movie, a game in itself. All this means it's going to take a lot of time to build. I have to create that time. I'm slightly concerned that the Q3/UrT engine is going to have a hard time choking down the amount of detail I'm going to put into it. For instance:
Basically if I find an area with too high of fps, it's going to get knocked down by visuals. Current generations of games are requiring video card and cpu upgrades. I'm going to take advantage of that. update Ok didn't get to install gtkradiant, ran outta time and had to leave. However I did do something else interesting... check out who lives down the block from me. 
Now how cool is that. Austin contains many game makers, but coincidentally they're right down the block. For those uninformed, Retro Studios is responsible for the Metroid Prime series on the gamecube. As I cruised past, I thought to myself "Miyamoto was here...". Treading the ground of legends. btw I watched the Doom movie. Your trusted wily duck would not lead you astray. The movie was... terrible! LOL really it was the stuff of B- movies. 1/2 of the trailer was 1/2 of the best and only scene worth watching in the movie. Let me tell you, that scene was... beautiful! In fact it portrayed what FPS games could only dream of being. If you get the chance, do see the movie for only the 1st person scene at the end. It was truly remarkable. That's all for tonight. Full night ahead, day off tomorrow. Can I use the day productively? Will our hero succeed in not failing?? Where's the damn beef???!!! STAY TUNED!!!!
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