It's the small things

Okay, well. The new detailing on rust is coming along, so that is good. But I was also thinking about the little things I could do this summer. Stuff that won't take me forever to do, but still are useful. Anyways, here's the list.

1. Finish Portfolio - release to the interwebz
2. Play more Call of Duty 4 and then begin learning Radiant.
3. Write a tutorial/article on why Smaller maps doesn't mean better - add to portfolio.
4. Create an updated Youtube series on how to use Hammer and make TF2 Maps.
5. Turn this blog into less of a news, and more into resource about level design.

For 1, I need to finish Rust first, then do 3.

For 2, I'm working with another guy and we're going to learn it together in our spare time.

For 3, I need to just find the time and some examples.

For 4, That should be too hard, but I need to just outline what I want each tutorial to cover.

For 5, I need to stop doing what I'm doing now. I will be doing some cool stuff AFTER finals and AFTER the submission date for rust. I'm going to make a developer video, kind of providing commentary on what certain area's are set up a certain way. This, of course, will be attached to my portfolio.

Seriously, the next blog will actually have some design theory in it, at least the total 1 person reading this will mind.

42, is the magic number

There is about 42 days left to finish detailing Rust. That means it's time to start a new project! I mentioned it in my last post that I was going to probably do a 5CP map for comp, but I decided to revive cp_frozen and finish that. I'm basically rebuilding stage 2 and 3 while fixing up stage 1. This won't interfere with whatever my summer project is, I plan to do both of these together.

I still don't know what I'll be doing for this summer. Hopefully it will be a collaboration project with a programmer friend. Though, he might have a job, so who knows. We're looking at doing something with the Source engine, but nothing specific has been decided. If something doesn't happen, I'll be doing much more work with Radiant, as a way to push usage of that engine (Using Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 1).

Interesting thing I saw was that Borderlands 1 might have modding tools somewhere, so I may look into that for UDK work. I haven't found anything yet, but I'll keep looking.

The portfolio is coming along, I'll be finishing it up when rust gets finished and released. Don't have a domain name or host up yet. I may also include a "How to use Hammer" tutorial series on the portfolio.

Anyways, tis' be all for now.

pl_rust update and internships

Well, spring break was fast. I was able to get about another third of rust detailing (first artpass) and more framework on the portfolio done (coming soon, I swear!). I would have had more done on rust, but the wonderful artist block popped up (and my birthday). I still intend to have it art'd and tested by the 30th of April.

Another oppurtunity popped up, I had a friend shoot me an application for Raven Software level designer internship. I'm jumping on this as a way to learn Radiant, though I do not intend to submit an application. If I do, I doubt I'll get an interview, let alone accepted and add that to financial reason (cursed College student finances! *Shakes fist*) I probably wouldn't be able to do it this summer. But I'm still going to learn Radiant, and look forward to possibilities later on.

I believe my next project will be a 5CP map, as my "final" tf2 design project. This will be designed for highlander and 6v6 competitive play. I've decided to do a competitive map because I feel that it is a very good design challenge. Other possibilities (if I don't do 5CP) is 3 stage A/D (not comp) and a steel-type map (comp).

For now, here is an image from pl_rust. This particular area was nasty to detail because it was originally designed as an interior area.

Spring Break Agenda

Spring break is now upon us here in Happy Valley. I'll be traveling home, but I'll be bringing my computer with me so I get as much as I can done with pl_rust and my portfolio. For rust I'm basically going into super-detail-mode and for the portfolio I'll be populating the map pages and re-writing my tutorials and adding some guides.

For the map pages, I'm going to do something a little different than other designers on their portfolio. I'll provide plenty of images from the map, laid out in a nice gallery, but I'm also going to outline the though process on why I did what I did. Basically going to analyze my own map from a designer stand-point.

In the way of guides and tutorials, I have a couple of ones I'll be getting together. One is on lighting and using lighting to help guide players and help them recognize important areas, the other is from TF2 and how "smaller" maps do not mean faster or better gameplay. That article will cover mainly payload and payload race and probably general control point gametypes.