Comments

Thanks for the great comments guys. I appreciate it.

@Tetsu0: Now when you mention it.. That is true, I never thought about that. I guess, I was like "it looks sexier when it has more cracks and wear!"

@Loulimi: It took around a week to finish. I had to read and follow a lot of tutorials to get the hang of Zbrush and stylized architecture. I did a lot of mistakes at first. But now that I know most of the tricks, I believe I can redo it in 2 days.

@abbadon: Haha thanks.. It really is a beginner work. There are still a lot left. Texturing, Baking, Low Poly meshes.. etc. Hopefully, I can finish the UE4 version until next week. What you see above has been rendered in a non-game engine. Rendered with UE4 materials made to mimic the UE4 engine experience, so it may look even better in UE4. We will see.

Yes, stylized architecture! I am not going for realistic yet...

That looks bad. I hope it recovers quickly. How did it happen exactly? On a mountain trip? Or on the road?

Happy birthday! I liked your previous user name better.

Same as Captain Terror, I am intrigued to hear about your experience and progress about the new UDK as well.

Excellent map, Urby.

The whole map makes use of few textures with the same color scheme, thus making the colourful teleporters stand out as the main unique tools of the map.

And seeing where you are going to be teleporting was also a nice touch, helping new players getting to know the map a faster instead of them having to explore every part of it.

I believe it should also play well, the gun placements look solid and gravity + gauss on an open map is always fun.

Only complaints I have are that the teleporter seems a bit buggy. It repeatedly activates the sound while you are standing inside it... thus making it easy to abuse and annoy other players.

The ambience is a bit boring, triggering a few alien sounds in the distance should provide a more dynamic ambience.

In conclusion, great work! (:

Looking excellent. The details on those trees, boss, lighting. I'm very glad that it does not have the "look at me, I'm retro-esque" feel like most indie games. Even though, your intention was to just make a game that had Super Mario feel to it. It just feels right and spot on when I take a look at the screenshots. Perhaps, that is just me.

Just with an unique touch to the gameplay and it seems like it might be hell of a fun to play. The way you been working and experimenting, I'm sure you'll come up with that exact "touch" that it needs. And now, you have the license from Stencly as well! Nice! It would be awesome to play with a controller but there is the targeting system which might be problematic, I suppose.

"Development is a roller coaster with boring moments."
So true. And you been taking multiple roles throughout the development, which in normal circumstances you shouldn't have (as you already stated in your article). As a young and amateur "designer" in a developing-country, I can safely say that it is hard but it does make you love your work more..

Can't wait to see the final product!

Best of luck, Rim!
(Although you probably had the operation already)

Haha! So awesome!

Neat, but shouldn't it be in the example map vault?

Really nice.

The outdoor architecture is nicely done, nothing special but I loved the atmosphere. The gameplay should be pretty solid, low-gravity and gauss equals lots of multiplayer fun! However, I believe there isn't much vertical air-space for a gauss gameplay.

I have a few suggestions,

• Try using a clip brush on floating lands, so that the player view models do not appear pitch black when the players stand on them.
• The shadow of the spinning teleporter thing seems to ignore the mid platform's shadows, providing an unrealistic experience.
• I liked the water reflection on the wall! However, I wish you would have blurred the end of the texture a bit for a better effect. (:
• I liked the idea of changing the teleporter's destination with the console and according to which type of music that is playing. But I would refrain from using a globally playing music in a DM map. (The chiptune was awesome though!)

In conclusion, I think the map looks absolutely great and should play great. It just needs a bit more tweaking to be a 5 stars map. (:

A month old backups? Well, I would break stuff if that ever happened to me.
I usually backup the files I work on every hour. And still I get really pissed (who wouldn't) when I have to open an hour old backup.

I often use external HDDs but Penguinboy's suggestion is definetly far more efficient. To be honest though, nobody starts doing it until they lose something very very important. So, we all been there.

Wow, Kasperg is back?
Looking awesome. I'll definetly give it a try this week.

TJB: What about "Savage"?
You can also control NPCs, but they are just builders with very low damage.

Blocks your closet and door? Flawed design decisions there.

Still pretty cool though!

Following that blog might be fun.
I wonder what Carter's dad is going to say about that second blog entry.

Thanks for the information.
After a bit of searching, I was thinking of going for i7 as well. Since I won the GPU and some new keyboard and mouse, I do have the power to buy it at the moment.

That is true, P5Q is pretty good still and supports Intel Core 2 but however it is not compatible with the new GPUs, such as the "Asus Geforce GTX 650Ti" I have right now.

8GB of RAM seems reasonable, the old RAMs I am currently using are out of stock, replacing them is very costly. And the new RAMs are also not compatible with P5Q.

The good part is, after replacing them all. I might actually have a another PC at my disposal, I'll probably use it as a tiny render farm

Anyone rendering in Maya or Vray and such? What type of CPU and GPU are you guys using?

Rayman and Garrett (Thief series), drawing Rayman should be pretty easy. Garrett might be a bit challenging.

Also, hello and welcome to TWHL.

I couldn't even speak English right when I first joined TWHL. I spammed, acted like a jerk, made useless threads. Anyway you probably remember, yea.. this community is THAT awesome.

So, many thanks to you too and of course to the rest of TWHL.

Not to sound like the bad guy but marriages can go both ways. Things can go wrong in a relationship, and you might regret it. But, I suppose you can always go through a vasectomy reversal if that happens, but it will of course won't work like it used to be.

I have friends way older. And most of them do usually regret not having a child. The idea of having an apprentice is kind of cool as well, though.

However, I also do understand Lyssa, and the chance of baby having AVM or other illnesses. I worked with handicapped, autistic and spastic children for a year, ... Also.. I met their families.. and it was a very depressing experience. But.. unless your genetic illnesses are incredibly serious, I'm sure the kid can cope with it, like you and your dad did.

Anyway, I do not really know how difficult your life have been with these illnesses, so I might be being a bit inconsiderate. And yea, kids aren't for everyone as well.

Just my thoughts on the subject. Best of luck!

A white lie, perhaps? Some people are very good at it.

I'm sorry, I understand that you are very upset about it or you wouldn't share it here. But, I have to agree with Soup Miner.

@Penguinboy: Cool, I thought they didnt work well with large scale images.

@Elliot: Actually, it is quite the opposite. After checking all the materials, I noticed the reflectivity of most (vmt) materials are too low. That is why it creates a bit of unrealistic lighting, in all screenshots. I'll set them back to their default values and reupload the same scenes.

And also thanks for the feedback (:

Sure, I'll send the .vmf when I'm done.
Oh, that was me Penguinboy, you can still change it if you want. Because I'm not familiar with the code.

The texture resolutions are 2048x2048 mostly DXT1 with a lot of normal mapping, but there is also color correction with change on "levels" and "brightness" to increase the contrast between the dark and lit places. Does it look weird as in bad weird? Or non-realistic weird? I wanted it to be a bit mystical. I'm using Source 2007 by the way.

@Striker; Yes, I want the player to feel a bit uneasy and curious throughout the map.

Building and designing stuff in a MMORPG? Reminds me of Ultima Online.. God, how I miss that game.

The game looks very interesting, GrimReafer. I loved how the characters get fat or more fit according to how the players play the game.

I'll be backing and telling my friends about the game. Best of luck!

Excellent find, Tetsu0. Just what I needed!

Unfortunately you can't do that from here, you need to resize them yourself or just link to your screenshots instead.

Looking nice, is this still for CS 1.6 because it seems you labeled it as HL1?

Fun, funny. Could have been funnier and more fun, if it was polished a little bit more. It is ok, I guess.

Your description makes me feel I should not be commenting.. but anyway..

I personally hate warehouse maps..so I was a bit skeptical at first but.. Surplus is actually quite good. It feels like it should have been a CS map at first sight. However, after every player spawns with a long_jump module, the map truly starts to shine.

Jumping from roof to roof, throwing grenades to people below...
Giving eveyone a long_jump from at the start was a brilliant idea, if you didn't gameplay couldn't have been more boring in this container and crate filled map. Of course it is not entirely containers, crates.
There is some lovely brushwork too, the truck looks really good. It feels like it doesn't belong there however.. The hl1 textures used on the truck look a bit weird when you are using better textures on the rest of the map.

Weapon placement is pretty good. The brushwork inside the buildings are satisfying, it doesn't distract the players.

The thing I disliked the most was probably the skybox. It felt like the map was floating? Perhaps, some high walls or rocks just outside the fence could have been a simple solution to eliminate that feeling.

I actually liked the simplicity of it too.

It is blocky, it is ugly but it seems it would be very fun to play with friends. Silly maps like these, always provide the best amusement with your friends.

If possible, do not put many func_breakables in a HLDM, it is not CS.
Considering your first apartment map, 2Partment is an excellent improvement.
You definetly took the comments seriously and fixed the most troublesome issues, which is awesome!

+ I liked the extra entrances and exits, in the buildings. Good call.
+ Lighting is alright, ambience is alright. Nothing special.
+ Gameplay probably would be good.
- Very blocky, but I'm sure you'll improve in time. Try to learn more about the clipping tool and vertex manipulation.

I was going to rate the map 2 stars but I believe your thought process and consideration of the old reviews, makes it deserve one more star. It is good to see new mappers, who are taking the suggestions seriously and delving on them. Also, after seeing your older maps. I think you could have made this map a lot better.

Note: Jetmoto.. blast from the past..haha

That is very impressive!

I will definetly play it when it is done.

Alright, I suppose dm_warped_island is more of a killbox map?

There are some neat effects, some cool func_rotatings there and there.
Classic Xen teleportations, good entity work.

Would it be fun to play? Probably yes, since killboxes mostly are just spawn kills and stuff.

But, the endless water texture bothers me a little.
Lighting is pretty basic, and ambience is ok.

I'd like to give the map 3 stars but I can't, because that would be unfair to other better 3 star worthy maps.

So in conclusion;

+ Neat effects and ok ambience
+ Fun gameplay
- Almost no architecture
- It is just a killbox, filled with models, sprites, func_rotatings and lasers.

Thank you guys!

I can not give more information about it at the moment, but I'm planning to finish and release it around June. I'll definetly share more "work in progress" screenshots later.

I thought PMs were supposed to be private.

At least tell him about BspTwoMap so that he can learn more about VHE and your maps as well... So that he can improve.. if he was ever willing to. I suppose, that is the right thing to do.

I apologize if my comment is a bit late, I just.. I don't know.. He doesn't seem to have much ulterior motives. Or perhaps, I'm just too soft on the matter.

Sorry to hear that, I remember how I cried for every pet I lost. The worst... was watching one of them suffer from a disease, in front of me. There is nothing more painful.. when there is nothing you can do about it.

I'm sure that Marty had a great life beside you.

Hello, 2muchvideogames

Sadly, due to sadistic level of difficulty I have put in the maps, it is more of a torture than fun to play it, I never was fully aware of hard I was making the levels until a few people beta tested it for me. It truly was a great mistake on my part, I underestimated the importance of testing gameplay.

Still, I enjoyed making every levels/skins/textures/sounds and sharing it with the mapping/modding communities, even though I finished almost 40 maps and 5-6 chapters of it, I won't be releasing it. It is cancelled.

Because, there is no point in releasing a game if people can not fully enjoy it. I learned a lot from trying to make it a success though, it taught me hell lot of things about making a video game. I dont even remember how old "Xen Assault" is, wow...

I just grabbed every file about it and put them into a hard-disk, which is now currently rotting in one of my drawers. It was a good experiment which granted me much experience, (or so I believe). (:

Haha... someone is still mad. Come on, Jamie no need to stir up pointless drama.

Very nice. I was expecting a few funny scripted_sentences though

And I have no idea how you pulled of those fancy red ropes (or whatever they are) without getting brush errors? And I agree with Soup Miner there, "Crazy!" indeed.

Great job. Lighting, architecture, the car everything was high quality. This why i can't give up mapping for goldsource, pulling of these little details with an very old engine.

Great work, loved the alien slave in the mirror, was very creative.

For the rest of the mod, architecture was nice and HL-ish. The floating Xen platforms at the last part was very cool and inspirational..

Although the last battle with alien grunts was bugged... when I saw him teleporting in. I tried to make a run for it and got stuck in a func_wall_toggle, probably it was placed there so i couldnt escape from the battle. You might want to check the timings in the manager. Anyway amazing stuff

Congrats, sounds like a dream coming true which is excellent.
Do post screenshots of the HL2E2 mod you are working on sometime.

Good work.
Nice texturing.
Gameplay is a bit dull with only hallways at hand mostly.

Played it years ago on the server, good times.

Nox > Diablo 1-2 > Torchlight

"Some people are in so much pain that they would destroy the earth witout hesitation if they were given the chance."

It's not so bad, just some emotional shit that life throws at you.

Nobody ever remembered my birthday except for my family. No friends or GFs at all. I just call them "the people I know" cause they only know my name and nothing more. But I could have gained friends and gfs, it's not so hard. Just let the popular culture and society control you and "BOOM" you got friends and girls. But wait.. you also lost your unique values and now you are a worthless stereotype with more social power. But it were the choices we made that made us who we are, now. I don't think we should regret them, even if we do.. it won't be of any use at the moment.

"Self-interest" is what makes the world go around. Rarely people stand up for each other, for that matter. Keep trying, you can not lose. How can you lose when you already got nothing, right? When somebody lets you down, don't give up on her/him. To reach people no one else is reaching we must do the things no one else is doing. Never hesitate to make your intentions become real. The smallest good deed is greater than the grandest intention. These may cost you a lot, if you got the thing what they call "pride". Pride makes people go blind.. without it you'll be living your life more fuller than anybody else without regrets or depression of any kind. Also don't feel forgotten, when I do feel like that I just look at the sun or the moon and realize that there are actually hundreds or thousands of people like you and I, out there fighting the same thing. Always have a vision and think what it is fueling it.

I hope that things will get well together like the way you want them to be.

At least you can fill the unfinished section?

To sleep? Are you serious?

You dont have the heart to see your cat live happily with you still accepting it even if its crippled but you have the heart to put him to sleep immediately after it loses a limb. Yea, a true lover alright.