Forum posts

Thanks

Here's the original, plus a green one. Feel free to crop a 16:9 version.

Maybe original PSD

AE doesn't work with PSDs. Well, it can open them, but these have never been PSDs.

do you have a landmark entity in the same position in both maps?

Threw this together in about an hour in After Effects. Bloody pleased with how it turned out.

The maiden voyage of the TWHL ship Worm is sadly not under pleasant circumstances. The federation lies in tatters and The Worm has in its memory banks information required to thwart the rebellion threatening our way of life.In order to reach the fleet, however, the ship must pass through nine star systems in-tact. To do so, the finest crew has been appointed: Pebs, Strider and Ant. Never has the Federation seen a finer group of men. Well, Ant is a man. Strider and Pebs are members of the Engi - a race who pride themselves on their repair skill, but who fall sadly short in combat.After our first Faster Than Light (FTL) jump, we arrive at a small refuelling outpost being hounded by an automated rebel scout. We should make light work of this. Ant takes over the weapons systems providing a cooldown time decrease between shots. Pebs heads straight to the shield generator and works tirelessly to restore shields in the event that they get disabled and Strider mans the cockpit (he loves cockpits) and provides an evasion bonus as well as actually allowing the ship to make FTL jumps.After a short battle, the refuelling outpost is saved and they reward us with some scrap which is immediately spent on part one of a two-part shield upgrade.
Two FTL jumps later and the ship is hailed by a slaver.Aside from the fact that a crew so small couldn’t afford to lose a member, we owe it to slaves everywhere to kick their arses and as such charge weapons. This fight will be considerably tougher than the automated scout.Utilising an ingenious combo of Ion Blasts from the ship’s main gun to down their shields and quick laser strikes from an anti-ship drone, we quickly start disabling their systems, starting with their oxygen. It doesn't take long before they feel the clutch of death at their throats and offer surrender – their lives in exchange for one of their slaves joining our crew.Seems like a good idea and Nathan, a Mantis (great in combat, low repair skill) is assigned to our Engine room to provide a further evasion bonus.
After another couple of FTL jumps and a few more pirates destroyed we finally have enough scrap to afford part 2 of the shield upgrade and buy it immediately. Unfortunately it doesn’t have any effect because it isn’t powered yet… That will require more scrap.
But that will have to wait! A distress call lights up our screens!Upon arriving we find a lab in flames. We have to react quickly – either dock in a shuttle in an attempt to put out the fire (potentially risking the health of our crew) or dock The Worm and try to evacuate the scientists (potentially risking the ship.)I decide to dock the ship to evacuate the lab. Unfortunately it explodes as we’re doing so and we take some hefty hull damage which we can’t afford to repair. Piss.Nearing the beacon that will allow us to jump to the second star system, several more pirates and rebels fall victim to our Ion and drone one-two punch giving us enough scrap to activate the shield upgrade and also upgrade the engines.On the penultimate beacon in this system we come up against a fully armed rebel fighter with a mean missile launcher and burst laser weapon which tears through our shields.One of their number also teleports into our shield generator and begins to attack Pebs. Fortunately this is exactly what Nathan was brought onto the crew for and he uses his patented Mantis-fu to make quick work of the intruder.Simultaneously a direct missile attack from their ship ignites a fire in one of The Worm’s hallways. Rather than risking the crew, I open a nearby airlock and vent all the oxygen in that side of the ship to extinguish the fire.The day is won, and with roughly 65% hull integrity, The Worm arrives proudly at the exit beacon, crew unscathed.Find out what happens in Sector 2 soon.

Back into Drawception...

Damnit.

That's pretty damn pimp for a first attempt, I like it! Maybe add a little bit of that crosshatched detail in the dark part rather than having it pitch black, and some depth in the border'd be nice (although you said you haven't really started the border yet) but overall that's a really nice job.

Always awesome to see people picking up new tools.

Oh... so it'd always happen before compile regardless, even in goldsource?
Hrm. Not entirely sure where that leaves me. Is it a non-issue?

Hey, I'm not sure if this issue has been raised already - I tried searching and didn't find anything.
This has been happening to me a lot lately:I take care making perfectly clean, valid brushwork using vertex manipulation techniques that have been common practice since Goldsource days and until fairly recently I've never had an issue. All vertices are on-grid and are perfectly legal when the map is saved, but upon re-opening the .vmf all the manipulated vertices are ever so slightly off-grid making them entirely unmanageable. It's so slight that it looks absolutely fine from a distance and you'd only notice by zooming in.
Absolutely microscopic changes between the points of gridsize 1. For scale purposes, in the screenshot I posted, the image on the right is zoomed right in on gridsize 1. The image on the left is gridsize 32.

This is not overly-complex brushwork, it's made of standard 5-sided tris (inc top and bottom face) and 6-sided rectangles. I could build this identically in Hammer 3.5 and have no problem what-so-ever. It's something Hammer 4 is doing during the save.

This seems to happen pretty much 100% of the time after any form of vertex manipulation and occasionally just from using the clip tool. It's seriously messing me up! Any ideas?

No. Don't be ridiculous. The combine are more akin to the Borg; they don't even understand the concept of comfort.

Was Cryengine an upgraded version of Farcry's engine? Why would they use an older version of the engine?

I'm confused with what you're asking...
Far Cry 1 used the first iteration of the CryEngine. After its release, Crytek and Ubisoft had a falling out and both went their separate ways, but due to legal shenanigans Ubisoft kept the Far Cry IP, but importantly Crytek kept the CryEngine.

Subsequently, Crysis was released on CryEngine 2 by Crytek. Crysis 2, on CryEngine 3.

Meanwhile Ubisoft made Far Cry 2 using the Dunia engine which, while sharing some traits of the original Cry Engine, cannot really be compared to it anymore.
Incidentally, Far Cry 3 uses the Dunia 2 engine.

Far Cry 2's world looked a lot nicer than Crysis' imo, and the post processing was excellent. Still a shitty game :3

I have no problem with gloomy endings but I can't stand plotholes.

I get what you're saying, but have you played the extended ending? It fills in a lot of gaps. Also, how could they really answer every question after 3 remarkably open-ended games in which any number of major characters can die? They couldn't realistically make separate endings based on every single decision the player has made over three games. It's just not possible with a publisher like EA pushing deadlines.

It definitely did not use the CryEngine. Crytek and Ubisoft are at each others' throats over the 'Cry' series, with one going Crysis and the other keeping the Far Cry IP.

Also I actually thought Far Cry 2 looked amazing. It was just a pile of shit to play for more than, oh, 30 mins (or about as long as it takes to no longer be wowed by the fire physics).

Faster Than Light manages to be simultaneously one of the best games I've ever played and also one of the most frustrating. So much of it is random which often leaves you feeling like the odds are simply too stacked against you. It needs some sort of intelligent AI director ala L4D so that you don't end up getting two INSANELY difficult fights right after one another.

I hear the ending sucks but at least the ride has been fun so far

Don't let other peoples' opinions make you pre-judge it. It's way better than a lot of people said. There is no perfect happy ending and a lot of people can't handle the maturity of the writing. It couldn't have ended any other way without being horrifically cheesy.

The mod itself looks absolutely superb, but the trailer could definitely be improved!

Timing with the music could definitely be tightened up - focus your cuts on strong beats in the music. You did it sometimes, but others felt oddly out of place.

The action was also fairly incidental. Lots of taking a few steps then stopping or firing at an unseen enemy then taking cover. All parts of the mod, but not necessarily the most exciting thing to show. More stuff like jumping down onto the pipe that bends under you would be great or better rehearsed runs through the combat so that the visuals are as fast paced as the music.

You show off the locations so well, it's just a bit of a shame you don't show off the action quite as nicely!

Great work overall.

I don't want to be a dick, but... That took an hour? D:
I'd use placeholder textures for the moment until you have a more defined structure - it looks quite busy at the moment without actually having much substance at all, and that's definitely down to ugly combine textures. Too early to show WIPs, though. It's difficult to know what advice to give when the advancement options from this point are so open-ended.

Captain Terror

is a super-awesome ambitious mapper who rarely lets his creativity get restrained. He's still learning (as are we all) but already he's one of the most knowledgeable and skilled mappers of the community. For some reason he occasionally suffers from unexpected and poorly considered bouts of immaturity on the forums, but overall he presents himself as a helpful, friendly and all-round good guy.

The Core Development Log Updates found here

What do you mean you're not entering, Strideh?
Are you saying you're not interested in the prize? I'm aware you already have Payday...

If you're honestly saying we can use them for nothing that'd be awfully lovely of you - you'll certainly be credited!

The repo woman.

They give them RAY GUNS?!

That. Is fucking beautiful.
What fantastic tone!

Humanity, as a species

Still buys iMacs en masse. We're doomed.

Blitzkrieg's review of shampoo

That was lovely, despite the fact you don't seem to know what rhyming slang actually is!
I suppose it's quite a British concept, in fairness.

So I figure I probably owe you an explanation along the lines of why there is no new episode. Well it turns out that this game is horrible, the latest patch is a masterstroke in how to break a save file and editing and recording the voiceover is not easy when I'm juggling a full time job and many other commitments (read: BF3 & girlfriend).

So fuck ever releasing ep4.

That said, here's ep4.

Be sure to watch in 1080p if your net can handle it. I've not used an HD link for you low bandwidthers.

Special thanks to Warren Cameron for doing the voiceover.

Don't forget to vote for who gets punished next! Voting closes on Thursday at a non-specific time.

PLEASE AVOID POSTING SPOILERS

1280 x 1920 is rather odd!

The designs will probably be used on 16:9 monitors, but don't worry too much about it because I'll be adapting the winning entry to fit with existing textures anyway - as such Striker's 4:3 entry stands just as much of a chance of winning as a 16:9 entry.

If you're worried, 1600 x 900.

Games as an art form

To question whether or not games can be considered an art form is so utterly pointless in this day and age to render any argument against the idea completely null.

From humble beginnings with bedroom coders hand-drawing their pixelated visions to multi-billion dollar studios crafting unbelievably life-like experiences, games as an art form have all the pros of any other artform, while suffering from all the cons simultaneously.

Cons such as original work being stolen and rebranded. Cons such as lazy studios pumping out unoriginal crap and using their money and presence to overshadow the little guys. Cons such as people being pretentious assholes about what constitutes art and what a developer may have intended to convey with a certain scene.

But the pros make none of that matter. Look at creative projects like Dear Esther or To The Moon. Games with so little gameplay that the mere fact they exist can baffle people and make them look down their noses. They are complete unknowns with no guarantee of monetary reward for the work put into them, yet they were made anyway out of love and out of a desire to tell a story.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is art.

Rhyming Slang

Very cool! I like it a lot

Competition time!

Design a PC application that a scientist might be using on their computer. Either draw it, design it as a texture or describe it. Obviously people who actually make their entry rather than describing it will probably have a better chance of winning.

Think along the lines of data analysis or chemical comparisons or teleport research etc.

The winning entry will appear in The Core (although probably just using the entry as a basis for a new texture) and the winner will be credited.

You'll also receive 2 steam product keys:

Payday: The Heist
&
Dota 2 Beta

Competition closes Sat 6th Oct, so not much time. Post entries in this thread.

Dessert Forks

I have always been more partial to dessert spoons, personally. I like their smoothness and ability to both cut soft pastry and scoop cold icecream in one move.
Not to be confused with desert forks which are something else entirely, dessert forks often have a prong more akin to a knife than a fork which allows for cutting of cake followed by standard fork procedure with the other standard prongs. This is indeed a clever design, but really is somewhat unnecessary.
In conclusion, I own four dessert forks, but never use them in place of spoons which are better all-round implements.

The Bromance of Archie and Urby

I never found the combat too easy. Had to actually switch to medium difficulty from hard (I am not proud of this fact!). Human grunts were very, very accurate and vorts fire a lot quicker than HL1's. I got killed quite a few times.

Also the alien controllers' hitboxes are fucked. Their flappy heads don't actually register hits which makes my FPS training useless.

Assassins were maybe too easy, but aside from that I was very challenged.

Bidet

I've only ever actually seen one of these once - they seem to be very rare in this country. I was almost overwhelmed by curiosity to use it, but I resisted and as such have no first-hand evidence to back up this review.
I can however say that anything designed to help a lady keep her dirty little minge clean can only be a good thing. 7/10 for bidets. Fans of the series will enjoy.

This thread

You have such good taste in British telly, Strideh.

I was uploading my current desktop when I noticed that I have four previous years' of Septembers in my desktops dir.

September 2008:


September 2009:


September 2010:


September 2011:


September 2012:


Note Photoshop SIX in the first two!
Also definite bonus points for TWHL being open in every one.

EDIT:
Further digging reveals!

Desktop 2008:


Desktop 2011:

Needs more boshi.

terrible.

(it's not, I'm just Brucing)

some ones chicken

dr magnusson

I wanna keep playing, but FTL: Faster Than Light is just so good.

Okay, I found the time to record it over the weekend. It wasn't easy, however, because the latest patch to the game has completely fucked up the TWHL household. Sims keep warping through walls and shit because the AI has been tweaked in such a way that it can no longer handle the blocked off doorway. Before, Sims just got steadily more insane if you prevented them from leaving the house. Now, they warp through walls and disappear.

I had to repeatedly reset sims who vanished and unfortunately this also resets their current status meaning that, for example, punishing sims is now nearly impossible because trapping them and starving them doesn't work. They vanish, I reset them and boom they have fully satiated hunger stats again.

All that said, there were still enough incredibly funny moments (some due to the new bugs, actually) that I can get a full episode out of it.

I don't know if I'll get a chance to edit it before the weekend, though, I have a crazy high-profile client at the moment and a tight deadline. I expect I'll be staying late at the office quite a lot this week.

1. Get photo of grass
2. Make it tile in Photoshop
3. Save it as .vtf with Photoshop plugin
4. ???
5. Grass

Habboi speaks a lot of sense, it's definitely the surroundings rather than the buildings themselves (although some rooftop details wouldn't go amiss).

Remember displacements? I miss those.

The Core reaches the surface...

Really? Neat! Can you post it? I'd love to see the original.

[Edit]
I can kinda see it now. Rotated 90 degrees, and opening on hinges rather than pneumatics. Very creative.

Thanks, but I'm not sure what I could really say in another tutorial. I only used techniques mentioned in the one I already did.
Start by blocking out the basic shapes to a grid, all on separate layers, add colour layers, add tiling photo overlays, add detailing, shading and scratching and that's about it.

Double res version of a HL classic. This was pretty difficult to make and I'm still not totally happy with it. Needs a bit more tweaking I think.

You should look up the definition of "faster".

You should then look up what a nuclear weapon does.

People would listen to you more if you knew how to properly communicate, i.e. without sounding like an ass.

You have expensive bread.

You have cheap bread.

By all means, but if you find yourself using it a lot you should really buy it to show support to the devs, especially when it's so cheap. It's not like you have anything better to spend thirty quid on, with the possible exception being dinner for two at a restaurant.

The reason you're getting a black screen from the others you've tried is because they don't support Fullscreen recording, which is FRAPS' speciality. If you play the games in windowed mode you can use them.

FRAPs is well worth the money, it's stupidly cheap, but it's possible to get a free 'evaluation' copy from certain disreputable sources. I of course do not recommend you do this.

Seriously though, just buy it. It's futureproof because you get all updates for free and it's cheaper than a meal for two at a restaurant.

Update: Half a map seemed like too much so we've reduced it to three eights of a map.

No, he just placed one in the map.

Well, in the half-a-map.