tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33867621491466055402024-03-04T23:19:37.713-08:00Black_Stormy 1.9Black_Stormy talks everything from 3d modelling to fitness. This blog is literally my bitch.Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-36625841723771940162015-01-31T08:23:00.000-08:002015-02-04T07:55:27.639-08:00F2P - The go-to market plan for Magnificent Bastards around the world<p>It's a popular topic for people to slander Free 2 Play games. As an indie game developer myself I feel like I should be on the up side of the F2P debacle, but I really can't decide...</p>
<p>For starters, F2P is a veritable shortcut to riches for small indies (like me) working for their first break (like me). Mobile customers don't seem to view F2P as a bad thing, and since that is a logical market on which to release a small indie game I feel like presenting a F2P game to them will have minimal repercussions. So why does my gut tell me no?</p>
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<h4>The revolution</h4>
<p>Mobile saw a massive change in the way we make games. A new handheld platform with totally variable controls (you can put a button anywhere on a touchscreen) and virtually open source development software. It's like the Game Boy gold rush but everyone's in on it this time.</p>
<p>With a new platform, and with products coming from every side, the market got a bit saturated and in order to succeed people needed to change up their business plans. Some magnificent bastard decided to try out microtransactions (MTs). The idea has been around in one form or another but it really took off on mobile. Everyone loves a free game right? F2P allows more games onto the free market without sacrificing businesses to a profit vacuum. More players have access to more games because more games are free. Win win.</p>
<p>But F2P has been bastardized. I played a Gameloft game with my niece the other day and I still get angry thiking about it. It's some <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gameloft.android.ANMP.GloftSIHM&hl=en">infinite runner clone with a cel-shaded spiderman skin</a>. Pandering, lazy, sellout shovelware delivered straight to your phone. Now I have nothing against pushing a genre - and as new as it is, infinite runner is a genre now - and I had (up until this point) only a little animosity towards F2P. But good lord this one takes the cake.</p>
<p>So I played the game for a little while. It was as uninspired and generic as mobile infinite runners have become. Jump over a thing, slide under a thing - it had the nice addition of being able to kick people but it was just a slight variation of sliding under a thing. No problems here yet. I signed up for an infinite runner and that's what I got, plus spiderman. Happy like a pig in shit.</p>
<p>And then after a few deaths I find that I am no longer allowed to run. I have run out of lives. Fair play that's a legit mechanic that I'm ok with short ciruiting - where's the reset button? There is none. So how do I go about getting lives? Well, you can either wait three minutes for one to respawn, or you can pay for it.</p>
<p>Ok on blog that's not nearly infuriating as it is when it slaps you in your real life face. Lives are short. We're talking sub-30 seconds on average. Once you have a quick run you get dropped back to the menu screen where you can either wait or pay again. Now, isn't that a direct contradiction of the term "free to play"? I feel like what I am doing here is paying to play. I any case you spend more time either in the paying interface or just idling waiting for a life respawn so you can have another 30 second shot at another round of uninspiring repetetive and boring gameplay.</p>
<p>But SPIDERMAN. My niece loses her mind at the thought of spiderman. She'll sit there for hours straight, waiting three minutes between five second runs just to see that red spandex. If she had access to a payment option she would have drained the bank account dry by now in pursuit of a brand.</p>
<p>It's. Fucking. Genius. And it's making them BANK.</p>
<p>But it's also destructive as hell. It's an underhanded tactic to really squeeze money out of an innocent and ignorant demographic. It's the most obvious cash grab targeted at people that will never see it coming - spiderman-crazed children with middle-upper class parents. It's displaying to the rest of the game development scene "This is how far you can go and there's still no backlash". It's showing complete disregard for the end user and putting a taint on an otherwise stellar studio.</p>
<p>And yet I am enthralled and inspired by what Gameloft are doing. They are pushing the F2P genre as hard as it will go. In a way they are pioneering the deep end of the microtransactionable pit and I respect them for that. It's the kind of move that could potentially sink their ship, lose their legions of fans and put them out of business. It's a stunt that only a supermassive game developer with backup cash out the wazoo can pull.</p>
<p>I'd like to see what would happen to the studio if they did the same thing on Steam. Presented with the choice of waiting 3 minutes between short bouts of insipid gameplay or PAYING for that insipid gameplay, I think most players would choose option C - uninstall. Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for Gameloft) the mobile consumer base will eat up F2P devilry and demand more. And when the mobile consumer base makes the logical step from mobile to PC then the marketing values from mobile will find a home on on our platform and quality games, unmarred by the sticky grip of money grabbing marketing majors, will become even harder to come by.</p>
<p>And I still don't know if that's a world I want to live in.</p>
Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-14167599294268726332014-10-07T06:23:00.000-07:002014-10-07T06:23:03.368-07:00Everyone loves Nintendo<p>I was just watching some videos about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odUjMhc6YgU">Nintendos Amiibo thingies</a> and a thought suddenly struck me.</p>
<p>We used to love Nintendo. I know I spent days straight with my nose touching the screen of my gameboy. My hands weren't even big enough to hold the thing properly. Then came the snes and I couldn't believe how world-shatteringly awesome it was. We never had one in the house and yet I racked up some serious hours on it. Super Smash on the 64 was the mainstay of my teens, and was only dethroned by Melee.</p>
<p>But something happened.</p>
<p>I grew up and started demanding more gritty fantasy adventures. Link couldn't spill enough blood to sate my maturing entertainment needs. Metroid couldn't immerse me like it used to. I sought out obscure games in the hopes of something new and different, and found my way to PCs and The Internet.</p>
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<p>I hadn't realised, but I had shifted demographics. Nintendos marketing was no longer targeted at me. Microsoft and Sony, meanwhile, were battling hard for my affection. And The Internet was just <i>mean</i>.</p>
<p>Watching these new amiibo videos, the thought finally caught up with me. If I was 6 I would be all over that shit like a jack russel on a tennis ball. I'd be polishing the blades of grass in the front yard to make up pocket money to get at one of those suckers. 6 year old me was always broke as a joke and craving more digital delightment (some things never change). Now I'm not 6 anymore, and neither are you, but Nintendo is still marketing to 6 year olds. <i>That's</i> why link never got too gritty before snapping back into stylized art mode. <i>That's</i> why Metroid will never get Asimov-deep. And I think I <i>like</i> that.</p>
<p>Every gamer remembers Nintendo. We all got crack level addicted to pokemon. Gamers who see a plugged in snes with Yoshis Island lose their collective shit. We grew up on Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Donkey Kong. And we all look back with fond memories.</p>
<p>Now they are pushing a new product, and showing it to new rabid 6 year olds - and they have the advantage that the parents are nintendo-rabid too. The new generation (the ones that haven't shamed themselves yet) is going to grow up on the same things we did. I'll be 78 talking smack to a 26 year old about how bad I could beat his ass in Melee, and he'll know exactly what I am talking about because Nintendo stuck to their guns.</p>
<p>You can slag them off all you like for being 'immature' and 'last gen' but they know what they're doing and they're good at it. The collective nostalgia of the next generation is going to be just like ours: No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-19830825642624165642014-10-06T10:12:00.000-07:002014-10-07T05:33:55.906-07:00BrokenFolx - sexual discrimination discussion in games<p>This is a tricky subject to talk about. Inevitably whenever a straight guy voices an opinion about sexuality someone is along shortly to yell at him. This post will offend some, but read it to the end. I'm not a bigot. I simply don't see gender roles/sexuality as a reason to discriminate. I don't see a reason to react to it at all. On that note I am going to dive straight on into:</p>
<h4>Misinterpretation</h4>
<p>I played <a href="http://ariellegrimes.itch.io/brokenfolx">Brokenfolx</a> recently, a small game about sexual discrimination made by <a href="http://www.patreon.com/ariellegrimes">Arielle Grimes</a>. I guess it succeeded in its mission, because it got me thinking. It's a game where you are presented four examples of stressful situations from a queer persons life. Three of the four options were legit. Abuse from the family for coming out, the internal turmoil that gay people feel about themselves and the general lack of acceptance they feel in society. The fourth one struck me as pure misinterpretation. It involves a 'chat' between a gay employee (the protagonist) and a 'boss'. The subject of the chat is that the employee isn't pulling their weight. The protagonists response to this allegation is immediate upset and "you just hate me because I'm gay". This is the part that slapped me in the face.</p><a name='more'></a>
<p>I think everyone has the right to express how they feel about anything. No one has the right to tell them otherwise. In this case, the boss felt that the employee was not performing up to scratch. Common issue, no reason to assume it's a baseless accusation. The protagonist then drops into "You're just doing this because I'm gay, I'm going to sue you" almost immediately. This surprised me. Based on the conversation I just witnessed, I would say this has nothing to with sexuality. It has to do with the low standard of work being produced. BUT! Maybe sexual discrimination is still the problem <i>regardless of whether or not the boss means it to be</i>.</p>
<h4>Pressure and Stress</h4>
<p>Straight people don't realise the issues presented to queer people. We go about our lives - pay rent, find work, feed the kids etc - with our own levels of stress. And we all just love to complain about how hard it is. Queer people have these exact same issues (yes, even the kids) but on top of that is the constant pressure of discrimination that we don't need to deal with.</p>
<p>I want to head off on a tangent here to talk about my mate Daz. Daz is a bloke I know with red hair. Red as it comes. Daz is a big guy, plays rugby, lifts weights and that, he's confident, boisterous and has a great sense of humour. You'd never guess it, but calling him carrot top is a bad idea. He doesn't get angry, he doesn't get sad, he gets <i>quiet</i>.</p>
<p>You see, Daz has had to deal with people calling him blood nut all his life. When he was a kid he copped it every day in school. Blokes at work joke about it all the time. It's okay with friends - he gives as good as he gets - but in a social situation, especially when new relationships are being formed, it cuts him deep for someone to point it out to everyone.</p>
<p>To me this makes no sense. How the hell did we teach each other to make someone feel bad because of their <i>hair</i>? I saw Daz hold some dude up against a wall by the neck with <i>one arm</i> because he overheard him say "that bloody ranga". How does a human being feel that reaction is justified? Because it's not a reaction to that one comment. It's a reaction to the several thousand that came before. It's the product of the pressure he has felt for his <i>entire life</i>.</p>
<p>I hope I don't have to illustrate why this is relevant to the LBGT debate.</p>
<h4>Back to Misinterpretation</h4>
<p>So the boss presents a quandary to his queer employee: I feel you are not pulling your weight. The employee jumps straight to their sexuality. The boss is perplexed. When did they mention that? However, the employee has finally opened the tap and they aren't stopping now. It feels good to yell about it, it's what humans do. The situation escalates. The boss is a straight dude, he doesn't know where all this came from, he doesn't even care that the employee is queer. He feels this is a baseless retaliation aimed to scare him down from mentioning the employees bad conduct. The situation escalates. It's a positive feedback loop that happens all too often.<p>
<p>The problem is that it all comes down to misinterpretation. What if sexual discrimination was never the issue here? What if the employee was actually not pulling their weight? No one likes to be told they aren't performing well enough, and some people are more reluctant to accept that kind of criticism than others. I'm going to risk a whole lot of hate here and say that in some situations the boss is in the right. Some people are gay AND lazy. If I had an employee that didn't produce work of an acceptable quality I'd fire their ass, gay or straight. That's an employers perogative. You want your business to do well, you need good people. Hovering around (or forcing others to hover around) the issue of sexuality to avoid getting sued is just another version of sexual discrimination and only serves to perpetuate the issue.</p>
<p>The only way sexual discrimination will become a thing of the past is if people totally forget it ever existed. But that's a surprisingly hard thing for us humans to do. None of my actions are based on sexual shame and yet I have had them interpreted as such. As a straight guy in my mid 20s <i>I</i> feel misinterpreted. I don't even factor sexual identity into my thought process and yet it has been thrown in my face (a couple of times) as if I am the worst bigot that ever existed. In situations similar to that presented in BrokenFolx.</p>
<p>The solution (at least in this situation) is Daz. If you can't relate to the queer community, surely you can relate to Daz. Don't be that asshole who tipped him over the edge. Be the friends that can joke about his hair colour in confidence and comfort. Be the friend that 'gets it' and doesn't care.</p>
<h4>Militant Overreactionists</h4>
<p>This is the part I get yelled at for. The more vocal members of the more extreme queer communities often irk me. It's got nothing to do with their personal choices, they're just loud and obnoxious. I have been called a bigot for not embracing furries at games conventions. This makes me angry. I don't hang around with the furries because I don't fucking like them. Every time I have talked with people from that particular identity group they have been over-excited, loud, immature and ignorant. I don't want your fluffy dust mite and cat hair covered costume all up in my nostrils ok? I pushed you away because you fucking swamped me and I don't like being swamped. I don't deserve a tumblr dedicated to hating me because <i>you</i> don't know how to behave acceptably in a social situation. /rant.</p>
<p>So this is the ugly face of anti-discrimination, and it's just as bad as discrimination. The most vocal LGBT/pan/fur/fat/whatever seem to spew catchwords at 'everyone else' like we're all just one big group too. Sure, I'm male mid 20s but that doesn't mean I'm in the same basket as the bigot mechanic who charged you extra because you're loud and proud. Or the labourer who threw a bucket of water at you for wearing a hot pink latex jacket and matching pumps. Sweeping generalisations are what got us here in the first place.</p>
<p>The Militant Overreactionist minority are ruining sexual acceptance. Anti discrimination is a slow-uptake item that is hitting critical mass. The youth of today, with the avenues of the internet and mass media, are becoming more informed and more accepting of sexual diversity. When the youth of today is 40 years old, how accepting will their kids be? Sexual discrimination is becoming a minority vote, just like cigarettes. It disheartens me to see people as ignorant on the pro side as they are on the against.</p>
<h4>So what's all this got to do with the vidya?</h4>
<p>In particular, the Militant Overreactionists are infiltrating the way we design games and, I argue, having a negative effect on it. To illustrate, I recently made <a href="http://www.modelsforthemasses.com/images/dab/screen03.png">this character</a>, 'Bomber', for Double Action: Boogaloo. She went through several iterations before I landed on this design, and a lot of my choices were based on a fine balance of androgyny and making sure she still looked like a girl. I payed particular attention to the hip/waist/bust ratio in an attempt to make a character that was decidedly a lady, but not a sexual icon.</p>
<p>But I have since been told that she looks 'highly sexualised'. Her ass is too big, boobs are (and I quote) 'all over the place'. I implore you, don't make me wrap my female characters up in a carpet. The human form is there to be eploited in creative media, male or female. Yes games have a history of over sexualizing their female characters (thanks Soul Caliber) but that doesn't make every game character over-sexualised by default. I'll admit, the criticism of Bomber came from an exTREME source, but sources like that exist, and perpetuate themselves throughout our medium and design choices.</p>
<h4>LGBT in games development</h4>
<p>I'm living in Toronto right now and there is a big push up here for sexual acceptance in video games, in the development scene especially. It's great, but I don't want it to become a cornerstone up here. I recall when global warming was a buzzword science firms would use to secure funding. Let's not allow sexuality to become that bugbear for games. Don't get me wrong, media to discuss the issue is great and the more the merrier, but we should think smart about how we create it.</p>
<p>A lot of indie developers develop in their own time and on their own budgets. Often this results in very broke developers clutching at very greasy straws (not unlike yours truly). There is a lot of <a href="https://dmg.to/">institutional</a> <a href="http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/about-au_sujet/partnerships-partenariats/partnership_grants-bourses_partenariats-eng.aspx">interest</a> in anti-discrimination as a subject in games, and I'm hoping it will not be abused. Discrimination definitely needs to be discussed and I think games are a great way to start that discussion, but I don't want to see indies trying to get a name purely by making a game about sexual discrimination. I want to see games from the heart that invoke emotions and thoughts in the player, and I want to see them delivered in a method that won't shoo away the archetype that would benefit the most from that discussion - the bigot.</p>
<p>BrokenFolx is a good example of both sides of that coin. It is a heartfelt game and I feel like the creator has bared their throat by releasing it. It made me think about the situations presented (enough to write this whole post) and it made me feel for the protagonist in less than 30 seconds. That's a great acheivement. It's a perfect example of media discussing anti discrimination. However, the game is conceptually solely about discrimination and is presented in a medium that will only attract queer communities or those partial.</p>
<p>Games have a unique way of getting inside your head. The interactive nature of them means the player has to engage in the world presented, and this gives us an opportunity to present concepts like sexuality and discrimination <i>softly</i> to the consumer public. What if Elizabeth of BioShock Infinite (one of the most endearing characters I have recently connected with) was struggling with inner turmoil about her own sexuality? What if one of your companions in Baldurs Gate had come to you to ask your help with their sexual identity?</p>
<p>There are already plenty of examples of soft introductions to discrimination in games. In the Oddworld series Mudokons are racially discriminated against by Glukkons and ultimately almost wiped out. Did you play the recent Tomb Raider? An early quicktime event has you fend off rape before shooting the guy in the dick (it pretty much forces you to) and then blowing his brains out! The Last of Us shows a similar scene with everyones favourite Ellie. These few examples present the issue to players, and show it happening to characters they already relate to, thus making the action more despicable to the player.</p>
<h4>It's yours and it's mine</h4>
<p>I think this is what the institutional interest in discussing discrimination in games is based on. The concept that we can present the issue to the public in new ways that haven't been done before, and in ways that a politician simply can't. Governing bodies have already been formed to curate anti-discrimination legislation. There are support networks and companies based around the concept. But games are different. Games are grass roots, home grown and <i>effective</i>. We have a medium that is not only targeted at the demographic we need to impact, but that demographic is SCREAMING for more.</p>
<p>But the gov has a good track record of being so far removed from reality it's a joke. Peter Costello can have a peer effect on '==L33tG4m3r69==' the same as I can have an effect on his dinner choices. But this isn't politics, it's games. WE hold the cards. WE have the medium. WE shape thoughts and influence social debate. Lets not become that touring school yo-yo show that spouts 'Say no to drugs!' in an attempt to "connect with the youth"</p>
<p>There is a few more reams I could write about this but I've waffled on enough already so I'll leave you with one final paragraph</p>
<p>Indies have the power of creative control over their properties. I want to see this modern conciousness of presenting discrimination in games used properly and for good. Games can be a quiet tool for us to use in the war against bigotry, but they need to be well thought out and precisely injected into the public phsyche to have a proper effect. We're on a track, but let's make sure it's the right one before we get any further down it.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-31165493792235882842014-09-18T06:08:00.000-07:002014-09-18T06:09:59.446-07:00Source compiling issues AGAIN<p>So I recently tried to <b>compile a model for source</b> and received a semi-cryptic <b>error</b> in the form of:</p>
<code>WARNING: *** Encountered VTF file with an invalid minor version!<br />
WARNING: *** Encountered VTF file with an invalid full header!</code>
<p>I also had two <b>materials</b> on my model. The materials were in separate directories. I don't think either of those points were the problem. Considering it said the <b>vtf file</b> has issues I figured it was the vtf at fault. I had been using <b>vtfedit</b> to convert my png's to vtf's and I guess I hit a flag somewhere or something.</p>
<p>I fixed the problem by exporting my vtf from <b>GIMP</b> instead of converting it with vtfedit. I get the feeling I did something else too though. If that doesn't work for you, read on.</p>
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<p>Most <b>errors</b> from the <b>source engine</b> are cryptic at best and I spend most of my time troubleshooting. Somehow I haven't been stumped yet.</p>
<p>Things I did to troubleshoot this one:</p>
<ul>
<li>re-compile and change the material to a valve one</li>
<li>change the vtf conversion software (vtfEdit, GIMP, PS, VIDE etc)</li>
<li>drop it back to a single material (which didn't make a difference for me)</li>
<li>re-compile the model to a different directory</li>
<li>simplify the .vmt file to locate the issue</li>
<li>simplify the .vtf file (try a white fill, for example, or resize)</li>
<li>move to UE4 and never look back</li>
</ul>
<p>Can't wait to move to an engine that doesn't suck both my balls at the same time, chipmunk style.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-39294892486548741492014-09-02T16:35:00.001-07:002014-09-02T16:35:07.188-07:00Perfui! I just spent an hour searching for the <b>console command</b> for source that shows your <b>areaportals</b> and <b>visleafs</b> in-game. I'm putting it here in case I ever forget and lest it's memory be stricken from the net.
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To see all your areaportals and visleafs in your source engine (hl2, tf2 etc) game, as well as other tools in a nice handy UI, open the console and type in "Perfui". You'll see a thing pop up. Have fun!Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-59957178798390204792014-09-01T17:26:00.000-07:002014-09-15T10:14:13.511-07:00FindPortalSide: How to fix a tricky Hammer editor compile error<h5>FindPortalSide: Couldn't find a good match for which brush to assign to a portal</h5>
<p>Look farmiliar? This error can be from an array of things, but most of them have an easy solution on the net. I got this error when trying to compile my map so I loaded up a pointfile only to find the pointfile points at some random direction and never enters my BSP level. Perplexing. After a little bit of googling I fixed it.</p>
<p>Go to edit > select all, and then tools > center origins.</p>
<p>The reason this exists is because all the brush entities and world geometry brushes have 'origins', the place that they were created. Sometimes after some editing, you may move the brush but the origin point stays the same. If the origin point is outside the map it will leak, but you'll never be able to see why. Try the above solution.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-52707602509411475512014-06-30T12:20:00.000-07:002014-06-30T12:21:24.644-07:00Blend textures to add subtle wear and tear<p>I want to talk about tiles. Tiles are a nice texture to use because they have a lot of innate detail. They have grout, which provides opportunities for nice normal maps and variations in phong/envmap specularity, they can have cracks on them which looks cool, and the tiles themselves can have cool designs or just alternating colours. The problem with tiles though is that this inherent detail is misinterpreted for ease of use. As nice as it is to slap a tile texture down and give yourself a pat on the back as you sip you freshly prepared congratulatory cognac on the rocks, it's not at all that simple - as usual, como siempre.</p>
<p>Tiles are actually a pain in the ass to lay down in real life. I tiled my toilet and bathroom once. It was <i>horrible</i>. You have to cut here, lay there, measure this, and it's all such <i>work</i>. This experience led me to look at game tiles in a different light. No longer can I drop a tile texture down, rotate it 45 degrees and think no one will look twice.</p>
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<h4>Edging</h4>
<p>Let's start with a nice hallway, again.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_h7vhvWBXsr-_Cmbg_OBRaeFgV2-BHNN9CwioOGtTaCrFW2GESO6ipRgK3EPJcnkrJnX-wkzSCauvtevrlOa8u1riKL6DP4nv58eU6dFhJsIe19NWXXqk7y2WLRNxr57HEQIGLgVjmpu/s1600/tiles_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_h7vhvWBXsr-_Cmbg_OBRaeFgV2-BHNN9CwioOGtTaCrFW2GESO6ipRgK3EPJcnkrJnX-wkzSCauvtevrlOa8u1riKL6DP4nv58eU6dFhJsIe19NWXXqk7y2WLRNxr57HEQIGLgVjmpu/s320/tiles_01.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>Just slap it down, yo</i>
<p>So yeah, this has a bit of detail, and with some props could be passable, but it's not good <i>enough</i>, and taking a bit more time can give us some much nicer results. So lets do some basic edging and see if we can improve the general look with minimal effort.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXyb1UY-cWmzt8dD5oAZnrNmJ6uAUlgpywKFDa98WpyQS6TYHgMeNCXsrlcyHFXLuUNUkoB7-dUTarp_dASnzipvPFw_xsTp8_a9dMW9-l1iE_ecz7vj0dO2q9bSGQbJmycC1293SJNUl2/s1600/tiles_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXyb1UY-cWmzt8dD5oAZnrNmJ6uAUlgpywKFDa98WpyQS6TYHgMeNCXsrlcyHFXLuUNUkoB7-dUTarp_dASnzipvPFw_xsTp8_a9dMW9-l1iE_ecz7vj0dO2q9bSGQbJmycC1293SJNUl2/s320/tiles_02.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>Starting to improve a bit</i>
<p>So making a tile edge looks a bit nicer, and is more in line with real world tile construction methods. But what happens when people use our tiles?</p>
<h4>Ground wear and tear</h4>
<p>Tiles have a tendency to be walked on, and if our boogalooing goes to plan, dived, slid and bled on. With all that corrosive denim jeans slide action, our tiles will get worn. They also may get cracked and broken. The wearing doesn't take place uniformly though, think about the parts of your floor that get walked on the most, this is where the tiles will become worn. Usually you'll see that the tiles in the center of the hallway are lighter and smoother than those at the edges, where they get less erosion from peoples feet. We can add these details with a little bit of advanced thinking, and a bit of computer trickery. It's time to get your creative wicks wet, seatbelts on.<p>
<h3>TUTORIAL TIME!!!!</h3>
<p>We're going to rip out that tile texture from hl2, adjust it a bit and then make a new, cooler tile texture, and put it all back in. First youre going to need <a href="http://www.gimp.org/">GIMP </a>(or photoshop if you're that way inclined) and <a href="http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=238">VTFedit</a>, as well as a text editor, but notepad will do (textedit for our microsoft brothers).</p>
<p>First, lets find our tile texture, here it is: C:\Program Files\steam\steamapps\common\SourceFilmmaker\game\hl2\materials\tile\tilefloor001a.vtf. Let's just copy it over to our DA directory, for posterity: C:\Program Files\steam\steamapps\sourcemods\DAB\materials\tile\ (keep that directory open , we'll be coming back). Open it in VTFEdit, and save it out as a png. To do that you'll need to select 'export', as VTFEdit only 'saves' vtf files. Now, open your png in GIMP or PS, and fiddle with the brightness, saturation and contrast. What we're trying to do here is adjust the texture so it looks more worn and faded. I also ran it through a 'selective gaussian blur' to make it look a bit smoother. It helps to have the original texture on one layer and your adjusted output on another, for easy switching and comparison. Here's what I did:</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJOHGTHgGWvdmtW-v9nZe_F3aBZKfpSL0Hw2KXWhf-DOIKi3Im1xTR6lmsGDz2K5JlUNFFIQIYtUmhY3Z9nvoBsdG04_b9at6bOa3ITkUpZs0_su43KwNJuR47mIZ5ifs1-mSp6pnmUhly/s1600/tiles_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJOHGTHgGWvdmtW-v9nZe_F3aBZKfpSL0Hw2KXWhf-DOIKi3Im1xTR6lmsGDz2K5JlUNFFIQIYtUmhY3Z9nvoBsdG04_b9at6bOa3ITkUpZs0_su43KwNJuR47mIZ5ifs1-mSp6pnmUhly/s320/tiles_03.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>Hey that's smooth</i>
<p>Now crack open VTFEdit again, import your png (ctrl+i) and save it out as a .vtf into the DA directory, but rename it to tilefloor001a_blend01.vtf. We're going to make a fancy blend texture to have the worn parts fade in nicely, and we're going to do that through some tricky source engine sorcery (or SOURCE-ery get it??). Copy and paste tilefloor001a.vmt from and into its own directory, and rename it to "tilefloor001a_blend.vmt". Now open that sucker in your text editor. Now go read <a href="https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/WorldVertexTransition">this</a>, I'll be right here.</p>
<p>Back? Good. We're going to be using that puppy for our fade from nice to worn. You should be able to write the vmt yourself, but just in case, here is mine: (I didn't use the blendmodulate texture but feel free)</p>
<blockquote>
"WorldVertexTransition"<br />
{<br />
"$basetexture" "tile/tilefloor001a"<br />
"$basetexture2" "tile/tilefloor001a_blend01"<br />
"%tooltexture" "tile/tilefloor001a_blend01_tooltexture"<br />
"$surfaceprop" "tile"<br />
"$surfaceprop2" "tile"<br />
}<br />
</blockquote>
<p>Our alert boogalooers would have noticed the use of a tool texture there. Tooltextures are nice to make for your fellow mappers, but aren't completely necessary. If you want to make one, it won't be seen in game so keep it low res. Mine is 128x128 pixels. In order to make it, have both the new and old textures on seperate layers, select half of the image (usually in a diagonal line from bottom left to top right) and feather your selection by 50. Delete the selected half of the top layer and then resize your image and save it out. It also needs to be converted to vtf.</p>
<p>Finally, we're ready to use our texture in game. Blend textures can only be used on displacements so go read <a href="https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Displacement#Blended_displacement_materials_.28alpha_channel_painting.29">this</a>. Also when using displacements try to have your displacement brush as close to a square as you can, to get nice even subdivisions. For my oblong hallway I'm going to split it up into two so I can get closer to the squares I want.</p>
<p>To make a displacement, shift+a into texture mode, select your faces, click across to the displacements tab and hit 'create'. I'm going to leave the power at 3, and even that is a bit overkill for our little hallway. Make sure you have applied our blend texture to the displacement faces.</p>
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<i>Note the subdivisions aren't too stretched</i>
<p>Now hit the 'paint alpha' button and get painting.</p>
<p>I think tutorial time can be over now. You can play around with the displacement material all you like, and maybe go back to GIMP or PS and adjust the texture as you see fit. Here's what I did with my little scene:</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlUp6pPm2PFak_semLitSF4jpqHiZyTUizr_fKhpzTFzI1aXdK-Vq9J9MB0wF7KX0jL7kI33v8iP1zuZNeaSCC0DhH1ymrIVLttWOeH1IPOvazQCQ8sQIJQQsNnAY_Bj5KchHTfXyzwHcD/s1600/tiles_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlUp6pPm2PFak_semLitSF4jpqHiZyTUizr_fKhpzTFzI1aXdK-Vq9J9MB0wF7KX0jL7kI33v8iP1zuZNeaSCC0DhH1ymrIVLttWOeH1IPOvazQCQ8sQIJQQsNnAY_Bj5KchHTfXyzwHcD/s320/tiles_05.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>Simple</i>
<p>So this is a quick little example of how to edit existing assets and add just a bit more detail to your environment. It beats decalling everything and with a little work and a critical eye you'll be able to add life to your environments. Stuff gets worn in real life and an old tile floor is a good example of this. Other examples are wooden floors that lose their shine, dirt gets walked over floors, concrete floors change colour a lot over time. Consider using this in your maps where relevant.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-55392332703773334372014-06-29T18:30:00.000-07:002014-06-29T18:45:25.599-07:00Simple hallways aren't at all simple<p>Gameplay in DA is poised to be liquified awesome, as are the environments. Looking at some professionally made maps helps put your own environment art in perspective. I have taken a screenshot of a simple random hallway in CS:GO and analyzed why it is the standard people expect in modern games. I thought it would be nice to point out what makes a simple scene awesome, and hopefully our loyal readers will gain a bit of an insight into how to look at an environment as more than just an environment. If you can quantify what makes something look good and then replicate that, you'll progress in your skill faster than the average noob</p>
<p>Here's a simple screenshot I took, and the resulting revelations:</p>
<a href="http://www.modelsforthemasses.com/images/dab/WOOOOOULDNTITBENICE.png"><img src="http://www.modelsforthemasses.com/images/dab/WOOOOOULDNTITBENICE_thumb.jpg" /></a>
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<h4>1. Details outside of playing space</h4>
<p>Even though those windows face into the playable area outside, they add good detail to this hallway and show a good way of adding detail. If we have just a wall along one side of the room all we can do is populate it with static props, decals and lighting. Rather than doing that, how about making another 3d area, inaccessible to the player? In an office building this could be a closed off room with desks and shit in it. In any building it could simply be a window showing the outside world.</p>
<p>Of course, in DA we love jumping through windows. A glass surface is just another chance to make an epic midair entrance, akimbos asunder. In order to prevent the player from thinking it is a window to be jumped through - and supermanning headfirst into a solid wall - we can use the glass_unbreakable texture (which has wire mesh in it, adding more detail) or put metal bars, wooden planks or some other material in the window to show it is blocked off (and adding detail). Also, as with these windows, you can just make them inaccessible: too small (a player can slide/dive through a space 25 units high) too high, or oddly shaped. Or don't even have them as windows, some places have pipes or wires running behind grills in the wall. This is all 3d detail that the player can't access, but adds to the world in the map.</p>
<h4>2. Ceiling just as important as walls</h4>
<p>You can't just slap a tiling texture on a ceiling and assume the player won't look up. We boogaloo in all directions. Structurally, ceilings are a good place to put things you need to have, but don't want people to trip over. In this image, pipes. Ceilings are also the first point of contact with the roof, and as such will usually have supports. Supports can add a lot of detail, buttresses, logs, diagonal stays and braces, there's heaps of detail to be had here. Just make sure to think about the collision of it all, we don't want a player falling from glorious flight because of a 2 unit thick brush. Smooth it with playerclip brushes, or func_illusionary that mook.</p>
<p>Also don't be afraid to change up the texture in a long ceiling, or even bring in different levels/materials. Sometimes people add onto buildings and the result doesn't always match. Consider what the floor above is for and made of, and map with that in mind. Other things to have up there are fire alarm pipes, ventilation, maybe a bit of ceiling plaster has come off and you can see the supports and wires inside, go crazy with it.</p>
<h4>3. Detailed doors, even if not in use</h4>
<p>In this map, we have a nice roller door with side rails, side braces for the roll, and we can see a little bit of the roller door hanging down. That makes for one pretty accessway. In a small area like this, that highish-budget bessie is going to get optimized out out as soon as the player walks through that area-portalled doorway so don't even think about skimping in small areas like this.</p>
<p>The toilet door on the left is another good example of bringing the outside world into our map with bsp trickery. It's a toilet block, ok, that makes sense, but toilets are traditionally dead ends by design, which goes against our map flow principles. Don't delete it, and don't go to all the useless effort building the toilet, just leave the door closed, it adds silhouette AND texture details to an otherwise bare and boring bsp brush. Loving this alliteration or what?</p>
<h4>4. Structural features creating silhouettes</h4>
<p>This hallway has a lot of that. In concept it is simply a rectangular block with a door at each end and in the side, but we don't need to leave it like that. If your wall is going to have no effect on the player, might as well break it up a bit, kinda like we did in the first lesson. This clever meticulous mapper man has decided to break it up vertically as well, with the concrete block architrave running along the roof-wall edge.</p>
<p>You'll also notice that most rooms have architraves running along the wall/ceiling edge to hide the gap. This can be a good way to add detail. When you have a simple wall that is doing nothing, think about how you can break it up to add structural interest for the player. A boogaloo is nice, but a sexy boogaloo is nicest.</p>
<h4>5. Subtle and relevant use of decals</h4>
<p>An easy way to add detail to a wall is to throw a decal at it. HL2 has all those nice dilapidated plaster tears and rust drips all over the place, but you can't just slap them down and hope for the best. Why is that decal there? I have seen some terribad maps that have plaster tears on cinder block textures or rusty drips on a wooden fence. Decals are nice, but think about it from a real world perspective. Who would put a nice rug in the middle of an industrial accessway? Why are there oil sump drips on underside of the roof? How did those meddling delinquents spray paint the side of that smooth concrete wall, 30 feet up?</p>
<h4>6. Stuff along the edges of rooms</h4>
<p>This one is a bit of suck eggs, but it goes deeper than spamming entities. Our design principles of simple world collisions behooves placing models along the edges of rooms as opposed to in the guts of it. DA doesn't have a cover system. Boogalooers don't take cover, they soar through the air like a glorious eagle. An eagle with deagles. Golden deagles.</p>
<p>Players will tend to stay away from walls in DA because they interrupt gameplay so take that opportunity to populate the BSP walls until they look fully nice. Seats, desks, potplants, bookshelves, couches, storage racks, I dunno, have a look at a wall near you and think about what is there and how it could be used in DA. Again, if you need to player clip brush it to ensure a smoov moov, do it.</p>
<p>This is just a fast look at a simple doorway. If you want to make a sexy map, I advise you go through some already sexy maps and have a look. If you don't have CS:GO, I have a few copies I can give as gifts, ask on my <a href="http://forums.doubleactiongame.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=558&start=90">forum thread</a> for a copy. I only ask that you make a map for DA in exchange.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-8927305319939585992014-06-19T17:50:00.001-07:002014-06-19T17:51:48.190-07:00Continuous Boogaloo and Hotspot Distribution: Map design principles for Double Action pt 3<p>As we have <a href='http://blackstormyonepointnine.blogspot.com/2014/06/doors-double-action-mapping-principles.html'>already seen</a>, DA is all about continual, flowing movement through the environment. We have managed to <a href='http://blackstormyonepointnine.blogspot.com/2014/06/divey-wivey-and-smoothin-moovin-map.html'>tailor the environment</a> to uninterrupted slides and dives, but what about the greater picture? The very layout of a map should allow our action heroes to continually run, dive and slide without hitting a wall or a dead end and having to recalibrate their path. My favourite way of ensuring this is to plan our map in terms of:</p>
<h4>Overlapping circles of travel</h4>
<p>When planning a map (which is something that needs to take place before starting) you should take into account the greater travel paths of our intrepid heroes. A simple way to think of this for now is three circles overlapping, like a ven diagram:</p>
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<p>Our wide awake and alert tutorialees may have noticed I just snuck in the concept of 'hotspots' ever so sneakily. Oh what's that? It's a perfect segue to the next topic?</p>
<h4>Hotspots</h4>
<p>Hotspots are the core of a maps boogability. Hotspots are the points where all the players collide and duke it out in a grand battle royale. On rooftops it's that one spot at the top of the ramp, between the tall building and the other thing - you know the one I'm talking about, where everyone ends up sliding off the edge and superfalling to an epic death. On megachat it's near the spinny playground thingy and on streets it's the bit near the busted up truck all the way down the road to the construction site. These places are all hotspots created by overlapping paths.</p>
<p>In the past we have had maps that are designed around other concepts and they aren't particularly as fun. Cocaine used to be druglab and it had a lot of dead ends. As such it was a halting map that was only good after it got going. Doubletrouble had no circular paths but conformed to a more linear layout which ended up being too hectic or too boring unless it was in the 6 player sweet spot. Maps can have more than one hotspot, but for maximum boogaloo it is best to have one main hotspot with any others being incidental, or secondary hotspots.</p>
<p>So lets have a look at the plan for our tutorial map. I have designed this map in order to 100% conform to the guidelines I am writing about. Feel free to break the rules a bit in your own maps but you need to know the rules in order to know how to break them.</p>
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<br />
<i>What's that? Pen and paper?</i>
<p>Pencil on paper is my second favourite way to plan maps. A whiteboard and a bunch of different coloured markers is the epitome of awesome when it comes to map design. As you can see here, after I am happy with the paper design, I do it all over in pen and rub out the messy pencil lines. Then I take a picture of it (or scan it if you can) and drop it into my editing program so I can use layers to describe the map better.</p>
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<br />
<i>We live in a digital age</i>
<p>As you can see I have based the areas on three overlapping circles with the hotspot (in red) in the middle. Now, for a server with 16 people on it this map would be extremely tight, but up to five or six it would be just about right. This is why it is sometimes nice to have a secondary hotspot. If your first hotspot is a little tight for ten players then a secondary hotspot can add to the scalability of the map. When there are fewer players they can stick to the primary hotspot but with more they can spill over into the secondary as well. If I wanted to make this map more scalable (which I would if it were going to be played) I would add some paths to the outside area with the jacknifed truck and have that as my secondary. It's close enough to the action to catch the overflow of battle but it's de-centralized enough that if there were fewer players they could just use it as a path section.</p>
<p>With this approach to hotspot creation we inherently create a hotspot that has a lot of entry and exit points, which allows our players to 'switch lanes' and create more complex paths for themselves. To encourage this, it is nice to put in some extra accesses between paths, such as the 'slidey vent' that goes between the blue and green paths. This will be a vent the player can slide into and bust out into the hotspot to rain lead on an unsuspecting mook.</p>
<h4>Spawn placement</h4>
<p>When a player spawns, it's likely he has just been taken out by an adversary in the hotspot. He wants to get back into the action and boogle the loo out of that chump. Player spawns should be placed along the paths, facing the next area access point. As such, I want to place my spawns thusly:</p>
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<br />
<i>I'm almost out of gum</i>
<p>Now when a player spawns they can simply move forward and go bumbling towards the hotspot in a short amount of time. Note that there aren't any spawns inside the hotspot. A rule of thumb is that the hotspot is cool to enter at a dive, not to spawn into with a shotgun blast ready for your face. If you like ruling your thumbs, another one is to always have at least two primary entry points to every room. A water closet style dead end is something we want to absolutely avoid. There is no gameplay value in a dead end room. Also try to keep access points on different walls. When the player enters the room they need to be able to immediately see a way out in case it all goes pear shaped and they need to escape with the hair barely on their behinds.</p>
<p>This path concept is more of a guide than a rule, but most of our fun maps have somewhat conformed to this design. I appreciate having guidelines to inform my designs that are based on actual playtest data and this is the best I have come up with so far. Feel free to modify it in your maps but it is most important to have the player continually moving in any environment.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-75040762991702450282014-06-19T17:43:00.000-07:002014-06-19T18:03:33.426-07:00Doors: Map design principles for Double Action pt 2<p>Doors are a bit of an 'in joke' for game designers. For something so simple there are a million variables to consider. In DA we have a similar situaion. Considering what we <a href='http://blackstormyonepointnine.blogspot.com/2014/06/divey-wivey-and-smoothin-moovin-map.html'>already know</a> about DA's gameplay mechanics, we find that we need to use doors in order to <i>enhance</i> the probability of an uninterrupted boogaloo, which is contrary to the very idea of a door: to stop people.</p>
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<h4>Door width</h4>
<p>The regular size of a door in the mapping scope-o-sphere is about enough for our heroes to walk through with little interference. In DA the likelihood of a casual walk is akin to that of your mum hitting the treadmill. We don't want no stinky walking here, we want to see the glorious flight of a boogalooer in mid dive. As such, single width doors are a pain in my airborne ass and need to be done away with.</p>
<p>So lets turn our attention back to our hallway scene and run a leather gloved finger along our door.</p>
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<br />
<i>The devious, narrow culprit</i>
<p>Doubling this particular doors width allows us to do away with (or repurpose) some of the detail props surrounding it.</p>
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<i>Check these doubles</i>
<p>If you don't want to widen your door, consider a career at the Q-mart. If you are still adamant that a disgusting single door will supply more action than its clearly superior double counterpart, you can just make your door a little wider. Make sure that if you are using a brush to define your door that you make the textures line up. Play with the texture scale on the X axis until it looks nice. While double doors is not a rule, I really truly urge you not to use a narrow, scummy single door. We need nice wide open spaces in our map, and double the doors directly equals double the action.</p>
<p>But our nice wide doors here are still closed, and this procrastinant tutorial maker has yet to provide a doorway for all our epic, midair, akimbos blazing entry needs. Fortunately that segues nicely into our next topic of principilization.</p>
<h4>Open em or close em, but don't tease me like this, <i>please</i></h4>
<p>You may think it's totally whizzbang coolaliciously radical dude to have some super fancy door setups, but if playtests have taught anything to our most valuable high latency boogalooers, they are more like a birthday cake full of rabies-laced razorblades. Physics based doors that the swing on their hinges are pretty cool in local servers, but with a ping of over 150 they become a pain in the ass as even the slightest delay is distracting and sometimes lags the client out. Next option is player activated doors, and the solution is easy. Simply do not use doors that require the player to activate them. DA is all about constant movement and having to stop to open a door is lunacy. The next option, doors that open based on proximity, are only slightly more effective. But if you just can't sleep at night without having a super happy funtime technical door setup in your map then you should opt for this approach - just make sure they open when the player is far enough away and they open very fast to prevent the server from mismatching with the client when the player goes for a superman entry through the doorway. The most efficient and fun to play door assembly is a totally static func_detail or prop_static, as I have in my map.</p>
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<br />
<i>Are you sure it was the same cat?</i>
<p>There are more advantages to this than just helping our high latency players though. For starters a static door gives us more freedom to add detail to our level. It also gives us a way to cover up blank walls, but the best and most important bonus is this:</p>
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<br />
<i>Bonk</i>
<p>As you can see here, our angled door will funnel our heroes trajectory right into the doorway, allowing our players to think less about the linear algebra of their antics and more about the splodey bang bang.</p>
<p>On a side note, it's better to place doors like this on the hallway side of the wall. If the hallway opens to a larger area and the doors are angled out into an empty space, they have the propensity to block our heroes escape route if the situation gets too hot. Allow me to switch mediums and explain:</p>
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<br />
<i>That's a certified nut knockin'</i>
<h4>Door frame clipping</h4>
<p>If you are paying attention to the doors believeability here, you'll notice that there is a wooden door frame surrounding our door. Doors and windows are actually quite a large structural consideration in real life building. You need to make sure that having such a large opening won't cause the rest of the wall to collapse. As such there is always a form of reinforcement around large openings in walls. Doorframes serve this purpose.</p>
<p>When you put a doorframe in your door, make sure it is a func_illusionary. Usually a doorframe will prorude out of the wall and we don't want our wonderfully coneptualized and flawlessly executed doorway hindering our heroes shenannigans due to an oversight. My doorframe here is func_illusionary and it's GLORIOUS.</p>
<h4>If in doubt, cut it out</h4>
<p>If playtests tell you one set of data but your gut feeling tells you another, go with playtests. If the door just isn't working in practice, feel free to get rid of it entirely. If it's not supporting our movement system and gameplay, just drop the doors off - you can place them in the environment elsewhere if you like, or maybe even get rid of the door way entirely, as so:</p>
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<br />
<i>Nothin wrong with that</i>
<p>So you think we're done here? WRONG. We haven't even looked at:</p>
<h4>The greater door area</h4>
<p>We have spent so much time making the door itself play so nicely, we need to consider the surrounding area. Once the player is through the door, travelling in either direction, we need to ensure they will continue to sail salaciously through our environment. In my map, I want to put a stairway with rails on the outside of the door, but I don't want to prematurely halt the players line of travel. This is only one example but always try to think of ways to clear the path after a chokepoint such as doors. When the player enters a wide area (or 'hot spot' - more on that later) they want to keep moving, not be halted and possibly stuck on static props.</p>
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<br />
<i>Smoooooooth</i>
<p>Ok, NOW we're done. But there is still a lot to think about with all aspects of tailoring maps to DA. You just wait till I get to diving through windows. And don't even get me started on sliding UNDER stuff. I am really looking forward to sliding UNDER stuff.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-54018706095559901282014-06-16T19:42:00.000-07:002014-06-16T19:50:38.247-07:00Divey wivey and smoothin the moovin: Map design principles for Double Action pt 1<p>Double Actions gameplay is heavily reliant on smooth, fluid and continual movement around the environment. A player is having the most fun when sailing through the air and sliding around corners, akimbos blazing at a similarly horizontal opponent. DA doesn't have any cover system and the crouch key is rarely used (except to stunt). Taking these factoids into consideration we see that it is important that DA maps have long, unobstructed avenues for the player to exercise his right to boogaloo as a verb. Have you ever taken a lateral dive around a corner, vindicator poised to deliver a lead-whoopin on the briefcase bearers behind, only to clip into a stray pole or lonely brush face? You'll realise that this is heavily not fun.
</p>
<p>The problem with wide open, unobstructed lanes of fire is that they look bare, but as we start to add detail we also start to block the player. As a small mod dying for attention on the scene we want to have nice, detailed environments to show off to our adoring public, but we can't sacrifice anything in terms of gameplay. So in order to tackle these problems we have a few options.
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<h4>Obstructive mesh placement</h4>
<p>When placing mesh objects in your maps, try to keep them well out of the way of the player. Let's take this simple hallway for example, a common map feature:
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<i>Hallways are boring</i></div>
</p>
<p>No one wants to see a long ass empty hallway, so we spruce it up with some nice static prop action:
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<i>Goddamn that's action</i></div>
</p>
<p>The problem here is that the newly added props are now blocking almost half the hallway. If someone doc-martins that door at the end of the hall and we want to go into a boogaloo slide, we're going to knock our nuts on that largely useless setpiece.
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<i>Sometimes wish forgot about workplace etiquette</i></div>
</p>
<p>So how do we overcome this problem? We could just remove the offending items altogether, but that would leave us with a rather lackluster scene. We could try a little bit oooooooof...
</p>
<h4>Detail insetting</h4>
<p>A lot of details can remain in the map, albeit in a slightly different form. Lets decide to keep our cabinet and hell, even add some more obstructive meshes, but lets remove them from the playing field by insetting them into the wall as such:
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<i>Boogalicious</i></div>
</p>
<p>Now as you can see we have a nice, detailed hallway and no obstruction to the player. OR DO WE?!?!?!?
</p>
<p>Our more astute readers may have noted that if we were to begin a glorious akimbo glide on the wings of the gods of action, we're going to clip a collarbone on one of those walls and come crashing to our icarus doom. This brings us to our next smoothin the moovin element:
</p>
<h4>The fabled Player Clip brush</h4>
<p>When we have little ledges and edges that we would prefer not to get caught on, but are serving a valid purpose, we can use the Player Clip brush texture to make an airborne player slide nicely around the environment. In this case, I think I would like to have this area available for the player to use as a little hidey-hole, so I haven't completely clipped it out, rather placed diagonal clip brushes to guide the player on a better trajectory.
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<i>Trickflip that, Dementei</i></div>
</p>
<p>Other areas we can add detail to with little risk that the player will find it a hindrance are incidental nooks and crannies that are inherent in the design of buildings. There are places in your map that the player will rarely choose to store his body at all. The corners of rooms for example, or the vertex space where wall meets ceiling meets other wall. Luckily we have many such areas even in our tiny example scene, and we have the will and materials to utilize them. Lets put something in the corner next to our door.
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<i>Wood, and something to sweep it with</i></div>
</p>
<p>Now, it's starting to look a little more detailed, but be aware that even in small corners like that, the player may feel the need to visit. In this particular instance, it's near a door, and the wallspaces next to doors are good areas for taking cover or planning an entry. So, we need to make our meshes play nice.
</p>
<h4>Small detail meshes, and how to make them play nice</h4>
<p>If a player happened to collide with a vending machine mid-flight, they would be in their rights to see themselves at fault. I mean, who spear tackles the side of a vending machine? Feel free to put such large cover-giving features in your map if you feel they are validated and won't interrupt the gameplay. However, if the player were to be gracefully splitting fluid friction with both body and bullet and happened to inexplicably fall to the floor, only to find they had collided with a small insignificant detail prop, then their frustration would be justly directed at the mapper responsible. As it stands, our hallway needs some insignificant detail props.
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<i>Double mint gum</i></div>
</p>
<p>Just like our alcove, the more alert readers will have realised that our hero might still find himself handling some collision calls on these new props, and we are still blocking the wallspace on either side of the door too much. Time to make these puppies ephemeral. For small brushwork, like those wooden planks, we can just make them func_illusory. For our meshes, go into their properties and change the 'Collisions' property from 'use Vphysics' to 'none'.
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<i>Cut it open and tinker with the ticker</i></div>
</p>
<p>If you happen to be cheating in order to use a physics prop as a static prop, go into the 'flags' tab and tick the 'debris' box:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAxMOPhVYIfVuuwKZDnL7Lm1SyLALubcO4HxF5I8J2vuxqmaLQKHlzGa4dRAhsmfo3syXzzi4Bwp9AhB3y7kPLPikJUAHfIoyd7cRisdU42aqV7OZ20aHfcXk7lRln_GTO_Hxk9CRcGXbO/s1600/hallway_08.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAxMOPhVYIfVuuwKZDnL7Lm1SyLALubcO4HxF5I8J2vuxqmaLQKHlzGa4dRAhsmfo3syXzzi4Bwp9AhB3y7kPLPikJUAHfIoyd7cRisdU42aqV7OZ20aHfcXk7lRln_GTO_Hxk9CRcGXbO/s320/hallway_08.png" /></a><br />
<i>I am seriously running out of quips here</i></div>
</p>
<p>Now if we were to look at simply the collision data of our room here we would see that it looks quite similar to the first screenshot above. We can dive slide and shoot all we like and we won't be met with premature stops and unexpected flops (I'm sure there's a nasal spray for that).</p>
<p>That about does it for making mesh details in your map conform to the boogalooing of our action heroes. Other ways to add non-colliding details would be the use of decals, good lighting setups and inaccessible areas (like our alcove, but blocked with a fence or something). Stay tuned, soon we'll be leaving the tangible space of solid examples and delving into the murky depths of conceptual principles.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-89444742306448752422014-04-25T11:42:00.004-07:002014-04-25T12:41:10.798-07:00Blender to Max - thought conversionOver the past few days I have been learning 3ds Max. It's definitely a far more powerful modelling suite than blender, the modifier stack is a great method for non-destructive modelling and the tools are far more versatile and just feel really nice. But I just can't get around the interface, and no one will listen to me complain. So I am going to rant about Max today. Just so this isn't an imageless post, here are a few shitty things I made in max for DAB:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHYkmvTs25k9iQa_oFMxgf3SKxE2cTvRwGukqJK7remL4jys_M4J6MgF360FUmtsY4emdP7rBH5cBr_hftaWO9VnApsjKvstMpcxi85QGjFOc8fkjdadkPTl6an-bXb9ytKc37vIf2ve9a/s1600/street_shit.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHYkmvTs25k9iQa_oFMxgf3SKxE2cTvRwGukqJK7remL4jys_M4J6MgF360FUmtsY4emdP7rBH5cBr_hftaWO9VnApsjKvstMpcxi85QGjFOc8fkjdadkPTl6an-bXb9ytKc37vIf2ve9a/s1600/street_shit.png" height="206" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>I know right? Amazing art!!!</i></div>
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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The thing I hate most is all the clicking. I have set up most of my own hotkeys and changed the interface to something more usable for me, but I still need to click on stuff all the time. I have to click the gizmo in order to move rotate or scale something, but the thing is one pixel wide. I am constantly clicking on things in the background and accidentally moving or scaling them, and deselecting what I have selected. To counteract that I always change to the selection tool in order to avoid accidentally click-moving something, and when I want to transform a mesh I lock the selection using the space bar, but that's TWO keystrokes I shouldn't need to do. (three if you count changing from selection tool to transform).<br />
<br />
The view align system is nothing short of a brain fart. I hit 'l' to view my mesh from the left and the view snaps back to full view and I lose my pivot point for camera rotation. So I have to hit Z to zoom in on my mesh. This is particularly frustrating in large models with a lot of meshes when I am working on something small and intricate. To counteract that I can click the viewcube, but that means rotating the view and then more clicking on shit. Takes me like 5 seconds just to look at the other side of my mesh. Those 5 seconds add up. <br />
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And on the pivot point, I assumed that the camera pivot would default to the center of the scene, but every time I change viewport sides the pivot ends up being hundreds of units behind the model and when I rotate the screen the model just disappears.<br />
<br />
Also I now understand why everyone hates unwrapping so much. Max fucking SUCKS for unwrap tools. I know how seams work, I made my model with the seams in mind. I want to lay down my seams and unwrap my model, but max just assumes I am a UV retard and demands I use its over the top oven mitt unwrap tools. So much thought has been put into the unwrap tools it's a fucking joke. There's a bajillion projection options, stitching and uv space manipulation, unwrapping takes so long because you have to filter through a hundred tools to get a result you want. Luckily you can just lay out your seams and unwrap, but the process is a pain. And lots of clicking.<br />
<br />
Also the use of the F keys is just unfortunate. My laptop (the workhorse while I travel) has function overrides for all those keys, like change screen brightness, music controls etc. I can hold the fn key to access the F keys but can't toggle them on or off. This is purely a localization problem, but it creates a barrier for me.<br />
<br />
All this is just teething problems, I know, but I can't help staring in astonishment at some of the interface decisions. I am sure once I have used it a bit and set up the common tools I'll have no issues. The tools are incredible, I love the shading model they use and the spline system is inspired. The vertex manipulation is kinda wonky but the tools make up for it. Max feels like a program people made after they knew how to model. Blender is more like a program people made and then learned to model, and added features as they learnt that needed them.<br />
<br />
Learning a new tool is also teaching me a lot about 3d in general. Seeing the creating process re-imagined is really good for getting a broader understanding of the art. And Max and Blender are about as similar as chalk and orange peel. They don't even have the same reflectance value.<br />
<br />
So fuck it, I'm going to keep using max, if only to have that skill on my resume, but until I get it battened down I am going to complain and kick and scream and whinge about it. Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-65553969565973530322014-01-24T14:05:00.001-08:002014-01-30T14:05:00.885-08:00New blogSo I am traveling around South America at the moment, and I decided I should keep a diary. So I started a blog since I would just lose a book if I wrote in one. I guess I really could have just posted them here and increased my post count e-peen but I didn't think that through. Here's the new blog:<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_393594016"><br /></a>
<a href="http://blackstormygoestosouthamerica.blogspot.com.ar/">blackstormygoestosouthamerica.blogspot.com.ar</a><br />
<br />
I'll put travel related spunk on there and keep this stuff to models and games and more nerdy stuff.Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-91386140571606425852013-07-18T04:48:00.000-07:002013-07-18T04:48:52.643-07:00A Goddamn Squirrel<p>So I realised I haven't really put anything up here about my trip to Ultra Music Festival in Miami in March 2013. I don't really have much confidence in my own ability to retain any form of physical journal but I'm pretty sure google will use its overkill approach to ensure my useless data is recorded, stored and indexed for all eternity, so I'll post up a couple of things I thought about my trip. There is also another trip coming up so I am thinking about travel more and more recently.</p>
</p>I kept an ad-hoc diary of my exploits, and here I'll try to piece together the emails, notes, photos and facebook conversations (it's all first person current tense).</p><a name='more'></a>
<h3>A Goddamn Squirrel.</h3>
<p>When I get to Miami I have had a total of 6 hours sleep in the last 38. I am overdue to get dat travel lag. That's the part where people start whinging and dragging their feet, like they don't realise they are on a different landmass, like the new and wondrous surroundings take second place to their slight thirst and small discomfort. I don't understand these people. So when the front desk dude says check in isn't for another 8 hours, instead of throwing a tantrum like a predictable jetlagged moron, I decide to go down to the beach and have a sleep. There's a strange universal rule I have observed where it's fine to sleep in public under a very particular set of constraints. I seem to have a knack for naturally conforming to these unwritten rules.</p>
<p>I dump my bag on a sunny patch of grass, wrap my limbs through as many straps as I can, and drift off. I'm pretty sure my neck is draped directly over the hardest thing in my bag but that doesn't matter. It's a Miami kneck now. It's good. There's a certain form of serenity I get from travel where problems aren't <i>really</i> problems. The kind of feeling that even the most undignified public sleep cannot strip. Although my arm is dead and I have drool on my face in plain daylight in a busy park, I am in Miami now. This is Miami drool. I wear it with pride.</p>
<p>Rolling onto my side I drearily open my eyes to check I still have both kidneys and a bag, and there's a little flick of brown sitting right in front of me. It's not something I have ever seen before, and my sleep deprived brain does a kickflip on my crusty optic nerve before the connection is made. It's a goddamn squirrel. Oh my fucking god.</p>
<p>My eyes snap open and my mouth flies agape. A mouthful of until-recently captive drool flops onto my bag zipper. The brown fleck spins to face me. His body language says "You wot mate?" but his aggression is veiled in soft furry cuteness and a big bushy tail. This is no wiry furred bush rat from the gutters of Cloncurry, this is a real live squirrel. He even looks like he has been washed daily by some sort of local council tourism initiative.</p>
<p>Our moment lasts for an eternity and a milisecond. He has no idea where I'm from or what I'm doing here. He's just a squirrel. I'm a gigantic possible source of food or death to him. He is the coolest thing I have seen so far. He is even holding a hazelnunt. Where the hell did he get a hazelnut? What is he doing with it in front of my face? Is this what squirrels do? Taunt people with magically acquired hazelnuts?</p>
<p>And then he just... bounds off. </p>
<p>I have never in my life been able to describe a form of movement as accurately as that. Bounds off. The movement of a squirrel is nothing but bound.</p>
<p>With what I can only describe as dumb childish glee I flail around in my bagstraps to confirm that the squirrels visitation has been witnessed by another human. I am met with complete indifference. The runners keep running by. A group of people take turns slapping a ball over a net. The best I get is the old man in the hawaiian shirt across the park who looks up thoughtfully, accidentally makes eye contact with the obviously retarded homeless man, and frantically resumes reading his book.</p>
<p>After my heart extricates itself from my throat, I roll back onto my bag with a gigantic smile on my face and start drifting in and out of a hazy pre-sleep stream of consciousness.</p>
<p>I have always watched people from an outsiders view. They throw up so many walls in order to be acceptable to society. There is a permeating illness wherein people downplay potentially amazing things. My announcement of the total solar eclipse in 2012 was received with a condescending "oh that sounds interesting" and a swift topic change. Travel has the propensity to destroy these barriers, if people will allow it.</p>
<p>My motivation for travel revolves around a naive fascination for the locally mundane. Watching the local populace go about their days surrounded by amazing little things puts my own life into perspective. Maybe my job is boring and tedious, maybe my life is morose and repetetive, but maybe I'm surrounded by amazing little things that I never knew held wonder. Maybe I needed to get to the opposite side of the world to appreciate what I hated so avidly back home. Maybe it's 2pm and I should go check in.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-71874397171974199922013-06-04T19:04:00.000-07:002013-06-04T19:04:39.344-07:00Multiple .qc compile at once - Blender SMD tools<p>I knew there was a way to <b>batch compile .qc files</b> with this plugin. I have been making <b>multiple models</b> and <b>modular sets</b> that require a lot of tweaking and it sucks to compile the .qc files <b>one by one</b>. I finally recovered how to do <b>multiple compiles</b> straight out of <b>blender</b> (by looking at the <a href="https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Blender_SMD_Tools_Help">SMD tools page</a> on the VDC durr...).</p>
<p>All you do is select your qc directory, and then append the first few letters of your .qc files, followed by an asterisk (*) onto the filepath in the "QC file path" box. Observe:</p>
<p><center><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheUqbnT1ZHfPxMpa2PKp1Ma_ZagIiYQS8Yh9gDwB4z-OHADFSbBS1wXU_H_e1wpNLEGhwNe8PBc2ivfxBsbfhlr4yOyOgJVlye53B5sOw9W7AV3M2XYRY6g6x_ehx7Nrav4hOFPrqUcdoZ/s1600/export.png" /></center></p>
<p>You're welcome.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-62191836152328346692013-05-21T02:26:00.000-07:002013-05-21T02:26:16.644-07:00The Current State of Modding
<p>Modding has gone through a few iterations, waxing and waning over the years, and I have been having conversations with some steam friends about it over the past few weeks so I think I'll do a post about it, to get my ideas down on "paper". As usual, I'm just rambling here but I know some people take their scene history to heart so take it with a grain o salt. Also for the sake of understanding this article I would like to define four camps in the games development biosphere. The two in modding are the scene - the mod creators - and the community - the mod consumers. In "the industry" there is the indies and the AAA.</p><a name='more'></a>
<p>Modding started off as (and still largely is) a way for people new to the concept of game creation to get right into the guts of developing an idea with all the prelims taken care of, or as a way to improve on or change the mechanics of an existing game, and create new game modes or entire games. The people surrounding modding on both sides - the consumers (community) and the developers (scene) - have changed faces a few times over the past two decades, but I'm going to focus on where modding was when I started, where I think it is now, and where I see it going.</p>
<h3>Cheery beginnins</h3>
<p>When I busted onto the scene like a ruptured appendix modding was in the waning stages of its first real boom. The first boom of modding started when games like Doom and Half Life were being heavily modified into entirely new games (Half Life into Counter Strike and Counter Strike into Team Fortress, and even Doom II into Half Life, I believe). Playing mods was super popular since the communities link to the scenes developers was much stronger than that to AAA development companies. Modders were members of the community themselves, and they made mods that they wanted to play.</p>
<p>Another reason for the popularity of mods was that they were free. In the relatively virgin games landscape of the time the concept of a free game was not as mainstream as it is today. Most mods were like entirely new games and were being provided free, out of the creators desire to see them played. This formed cohesive and often loyal communities, and fostered a fervor for people to try out all the mods they could find for their games.</p>
<p>The more moddable the game, the more free games you got along with it. Communities would be built entirely around one engine and it's mods. This is similar to todays "UDK or Source" argument on the modding scene. But that's a whole other post. I think it's safe to assume that at least 80% of the people who have HL2, CS:S or Garrys Mod have a source engine mod (not counting Garrys Mod). Considering Valves dedication to their modders (CS, Garrys Mod, Portal, TF2, Dota2 and Left4Dead are all poached mods), this is not an unexpected outcome.</p>
<p>Modding from the creators side of the fence was a very niche culture. Not many people could get far enough into the modding tools to create something truly spectacular and this meant that most of the modders were clever and dedicated people. The community around modding was more one of pushing the boundaries and challenging yourself and each other, and this showed in both the amount of people creating mods, and the quality of work being produced. Sure there were some bad mods but they weren't numerous and pronounced. The small group of modders worked steadily away in their corners of the internet for the betterment of the scene as a whole.</p>
<h3>The release of Source</h3>
<p>With source, Valve sought to really encourage modders to do their thing. Seeing the vast amount of replayability and value that mods of the past had brought to their game, they released the SDK as well as a base game code for modders to create mods from. This was both a good and a bad move. On one hand, it was now much easier for the experienced modders to manipulate their game and subsequently a lot more fantastic mods came out. On the other hand, however, this newfound accessibility meant that any dweeb with a mouse could put together the first thing that came to their head, and the scene was flooded with decidedly sub-standard mods. Due to the inaccessibility and difficulty of creating a mod on older engines, only experienced and intelligent people could get in deep enough to make anything to show. This meant that, for the most part, mod making was limited to the best and brightest - resulting in much better designs from much better minds.</p>
<p>With the influx of potential modders, the scene saw a massive growth in its population. It went from a small amount of people plugging away and showing each other their work in hushed tones to pre-teens screaming from the rooftops about how good their mod is and demanding you make textures for them. The population grew and the skill level per capita shrank. These days we have to sift through a mountain of FPSbanana shit, ideas guys offcuts and never-to-be-finished mods in order to find the odd gem. The market has been saturated to the point of 'pissing in an ocean of piss' as it were. I guess it's the same as weightlifting. The bigger you get, the harder the gains come. Well source modding is pretty damn big.</p>
<h3>People grow up, and move to UDK</h3>
<p>Unreal modding has always been "the other child" and when UDK on unreal 3 was released, a lot of source modders got greener grass syndrome. Their toolset is better supported, the graphics more versatile and powerful, the scripting more accessible and the map editor does things it should (unlike hammer, which primarily does things it shouldn't). The problem was the lack of ready-to-go assets. In order for modders to move their creations to the nicer engine and toolset, they would have to forgo all the art and code that they had had to work with on source. The mod had to become an indie game.<p>
<p>This transition has been made many times, however, and has failed at least as much as it has succeeded. But the concept of making your mod an actual game changed the scene forever. Modding all of a sudden had the extrinsic reward of income. Mod teams started getting business registrations, art departments, pricing structures. A lot of people in "the industry" have come from modding via the fruit of their own labours. The good mods, once the apex of the modding scene, now became the indie games. This further restricted the flow of good mods to the community, since any mod with a good team and half a brain saw the benefits of moving to a superior engine. Now the modding scene was flooded with arrogant nooblets and had less spearheads to keep them at bay. The lack of good mods made the bad mods <i>worse</i>. And lord almighty there is a lot of bad mods.</p>
<p>The accessibility of UDK has also drawn would-be moddb-shitter-upperers to attempt to make games, rather than mods. This helps mitigate some of the flow of crap that we have been seeing in the past few years, as the greater power requires greater skills, and they fail much faster and don't end up releasing another smudge on the source engine mantle.</p>
<h3>A paradigm shift, or a return to roots</h3>
<p>What this means is that the modding scene is now slowing down, as it is less appealing to people who want to make games to gain income. The scene now really separates the people with extrinsic motivators from those with intrinsic ones. The modders I have worked with are doing what they are doing for the love of the act. The community may be a thankless swarming mass of bees but the scene has returned to a niche. Interlopers used to be a force in modding, a community of hundreds, now reduced to probably around 30 people. But the people who stayed are the ones we want to keep. People who want to push themselves and develop their skills, rather than find a quick path to riches. Of course, we all want to be a game dev one day, but we realise there is more to it than getting a title on the shelf.</p>
<p>I see the future of modding being a quiet and awesome place. Rather than hundreds of people creating quantity and no quality, we're having a return to the inverse. Smaller groups of people helping each other achieve greater results. We always want to share our love with new modders, but I think it is a good thing to have some peace in the scene, so we can just plow forward and get shit done.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-76357641075532207282013-05-05T02:00:00.002-07:002013-05-05T02:00:42.780-07:00Video Tutorial: Models from Dota2 to Blender<p>I made this one as much for myself as for anyone else.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0lxnb3rGORI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-69476651211461987922013-05-04T04:40:00.000-07:002015-10-09T00:29:07.298-07:00Rendering a transparent background (alpha channel) in blender 2.6<p>So after scouring the net for this and getting quite frustrated, I figured it out myself. Short and sweet: In your render panel (the camera) under 'shading', change the 'alpha' dropdown box to '<b>Transparent</b>'. Et voila. Render with a transparent background (you may need to make sure you have the 'RGBA' button pressed in the 'output' pane on your render panel as well).</p>
<p>EDIT: If you're trying to <b>bake alpha</b> from one mesh to another, you'll need to create a new material on the lowpoly mesh, scroll down and tick the 'Transparency' box, and slide the 'Alpha' down to zero.</p>
Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-34161942933642024702013-05-03T04:16:00.000-07:002013-05-03T04:16:50.487-07:00Decompiling Portal 2 ModelsI have been trying to decompile some models recently and I found out it's harder than it used to be. Luckily <a href=http://forums.thinkingwithportals.com/mapping-help/how-to-decompile-portal-2-models-t6068.html>this guy</a> has it sorted. I'm going to copypaste that post here, just in case that one gets deleted or something.<a name='more'></a>
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<br />
<h3>How To Decompile Portal 2 Models</h3>
<p>Postby Skotty ยป Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:12 pm</p>
<p>Because there are some problems with the newer model version some of the Portal 2 models are using, older decompilers won't work with them.</p>
<h3>The Model Decompiler</h3>
<p>However, the most up to date decompiler can be found here:<br />
<a href = http://www.hl2.boo.pl/applications/MdlDecompilerFixed/MDL%20Decompiler%20Fixed.rar>http://www.hl2.boo.pl/applications/MdlDecompilerFixed/MDL%20Decompiler%20Fixed.rar</a> (I also re-hosted this <a href=www.modelsforthemasses.com/downloads/MDL%20Decompiler%20Fixed.rar>here</a>)</p>
<p>Extract "MDL Decompiler Fixed.exe" to "Steam\steamapps\NAME\sourcesdk\bin\ep1\bin".<br />
Yes, exactly. Episode 1, not Orangebox, not Portal 2.</p>
<h3>Missing Model File</h3>
<p>Now you have a decompiler for models, but it still won't work for some of Portal 2's models (i.e. the cube (metal_box.mdl)).</p>
<p>The older model formats have files called "modelname.dx80.vtx". In Portal 2, these don't exist anymore.<br />
But because the decompiler needs them, you have to use a trick here.</p>
<p>To create the missing .dx80.vtx file, just copy the normal .vtx file of your model and rename it to "modelname.dx80.vtx". This was the first step.</p>
<h3>Changing Version Number</h3>
<p>New model version means another version information inside of the .mdl file itself. Now you need a hex-editor of your choice (i.e. <a href=http://www.handshake.de/user/chmaas/delphi/download/xvi32.zip>XVI32</a> - again, rehosted <a href=www.modelsforthemasses.com/downloads/xvi32.zip>here</a>).<br />
Open the "modelname.mdl" file with the hex editor and change "IDST1" at the very beginning of the file to "IDST0". This is a version number the model decompiler can work with.</p>
<p>Now just select that file with the model decompiler and it should work.<br />
Have fun manipulating Portal 2 models!<br />
Note: Animated props (i.e. the incenerator hatch) will screw some joints up and probably crash your decompiler, but the reference SMD will be generated.</p>
<h3>Models Using Other Models</h3>
<p>Especially player models use other, so called "animation" models as their animation source.<br />
If you want to decompile a model linking to another model, you also have to change the version number of that animation model.<br />
To find out what and where this animation model file is, you have to search with the hex editor in your main model's file for "ani" or "animation".</p>
<p>For example:<br />
"models\player\ballbot\ballbot.mdl" links to "models\ballbot_animations.mdl"<br />
Both files need "IDST0" instead of "IDST1", because both files will be decompiled.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-876921649880245582013-04-16T03:47:00.000-07:002013-04-16T03:47:43.998-07:00X tips for blender I thought everyone knew
<p>I have been using <b>blender</b> for like 9 years now (although I only count the last 3 being any good) and have never really gotten involved with any blender-specific communities. I have been somewhat of a silent learner, watching <b>tutorials</b> and googling for tips rather than getting <b>involved in the community</b>. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.</p>
<p>The thing is, I just finished a blender-related-forums web surf and I was surprised to see how many things people <b>don't know about blender</b>. So I'm going to do one of those "6 things you can do to lose fat RIGHT NOW" lists for blender features. I have no idea how many of these I'll do, hence the X. Rather than being a cunt, I'll start with the best first.</p><a name='more'></a>
<h3>1. Loop tools</h3>
<p>There are a heap of great <b>addons</b> that blender ships disabled. The best (I reckon) is <b>loop tools</b>. In user preferences, select the addons tab to see the list, and click on 'mesh' (on the left) to filter. Tick the box next to 'loop tools'.</p>
<p>Now when you hit 'w' you'll get a new menu item saying 'loop tools'. There are a few good items in there, my favourite being the 'bridge' function. Ever had two edgeloops that you needed to merge, or create faces between? This is the tool you wanted. Prepare to empty your sack. It takes this:</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg7qm7eaSMJdZxJul2OYZKN4kBejicW3Ik3pH4HWc0VWB2p_822BR7cArd1np30bvU5LgTsjf6M63csPtWUpu0urpX4vjmMrT6Dq5gGaI2P_Xk5Y-d0wof-2bcIjpJDBU23Mf1RWEmOSYq/s1600/open.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg7qm7eaSMJdZxJul2OYZKN4kBejicW3Ik3pH4HWc0VWB2p_822BR7cArd1np30bvU5LgTsjf6M63csPtWUpu0urpX4vjmMrT6Dq5gGaI2P_Xk5Y-d0wof-2bcIjpJDBU23Mf1RWEmOSYq/s320/open.png" /></a>
<p>And gives you this:</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2gxsYXNFuGh0f2qVxwz5FntIN6DnOJTtJ4vnNSnef6gF7I_7qDaPwzX-7id3cCU4d1sXA1uU5ImlMUwIo25fg1j8k6jiQ4IHQ_fSemRRUhu2rM3MRb-rNyAQIBnM-D9fLvEzQcPgZS9sV/s1600/shut.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2gxsYXNFuGh0f2qVxwz5FntIN6DnOJTtJ4vnNSnef6gF7I_7qDaPwzX-7id3cCU4d1sXA1uU5ImlMUwIo25fg1j8k6jiQ4IHQ_fSemRRUhu2rM3MRb-rNyAQIBnM-D9fLvEzQcPgZS9sV/s320/shut.png" /></a>
<p>I know. Grab a tissue, I'll give you a few minutes. Also try the other loop tools features, some are useful, but I abuse the crap out of bridge like you just did with your underwear.</p>
<h3>2. Custom hotkeys</h3>
<p>Almost any action that has a menu entry can be set to a custom hotkey. This made me slightly erect when I first found out, since a lot of the default shortcuts in blender leave me flaccid. Rightclick on the menu item and select 'create shortcut'. Be aware that blender won't erase old shortcuts, so if you double up on your shortcuts you'll have to delete the shortcut from the offending function in the same way you created your new one.</p>
<h3>3. Edgeloop select</h3>
<p>This one is absolutely essential. Alt+RMB on an edge to select the edgeloop it belongs to. In face select mode this will select the faceloop perpendicular to the edge you click on. If you're not paying attention to your loops, you haven't made it yet brah.</p>
<h3>4. Faceloop cut</h3>
<p>Similarly, alt+r will subdivide (cut) along a faceloop to create an edgeloop. When the pink lines show up, use the scroll wheel to change how many cuts you want to make. If you make one cut, you can then slide it along the face to position it better.</p>
<h3>5. Edge slide</h3>
<p>Shift+E brings up the edge tools menu. Select 'edge slide' to slide the loop you have selected along its perpendicular edges. Alternatively, just doubletap 'g' when you go to move the edgeloop to go straight into edge slide mode. I know, that's pretty sexy.</p>
<h3>6. View along normal</h3>
<p>This one tends to work sometimes and not other times and I'm not sure why. Select an edgeloop or face and hit shift+1, 3 or 7 to set the camera view to front, side or top <i>relative to the normal vector</i> of the selected components. I am not sure what the criteria is to make this work but it seems to work intermittently and is super helpful when it does work.</p>
<h3>7. Snap to face/edge/vertex</h3>
<p>By default, blender snaps to the grid increments if you hold ctrl when moving, scaling or rotating your selection. If you click on this button at the bottom of your screen:</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiew0d6-tkl9uBYeIjlrn7Y500lBv0Wo-q-YQpAHm8kxZ8cXiSG3FRjx6OEimh_QngZPW5Muagxc3OGFP-jMu3tiKTg-puV5qqiq4SvplnTms3Ua6BkOsmVZnmmPNQfLI69dYHHafWjz76M/s1600/clip.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiew0d6-tkl9uBYeIjlrn7Y500lBv0Wo-q-YQpAHm8kxZ8cXiSG3FRjx6OEimh_QngZPW5Muagxc3OGFP-jMu3tiKTg-puV5qqiq4SvplnTms3Ua6BkOsmVZnmmPNQfLI69dYHHafWjz76M/s320/clip.png" /></a>
<p>You can change this behaviour to snap to face, edge or vertex. You can also change the snap target between active, median, closest and some others. These will decide how your selected verts behave and you should have a fiddle with all of them to figure them out. You can also hit the magnet to have this behaviour on all the time so you don't have to hit ctrl to enable it.</p>
<h3>8. Multiple selection modes</h3>
<p>I never use this but people seem to get excited to the point of incontinence when they see it so I'll include it. Hold shift when you click the buttons down the bottom that toggle between vert, edge and face select and you can select multiple modes at once.</p>
<h3>9. Proportional falloff editing</h3>
<p>When I found this one I filled my jocks. Hit 'o' in edit mode to enter proportional falloff editing mode. Select a vertice and move it, and you'll see the surrounding verts will move in relation to it. Hot. HOT. Alt+o will change the mode to only affect vertices connected to the contiguous mesh of your selection. This button on your menu bar:</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTjYatalIlsAGumIoh6obgXIrRDP_Cm2f4bu7iLy7sODjZojTGqw_P2hpCLLX9dugt6njPp6CIOjkvN_mgY5kUZ9s5ujbJ-kb5a72uukFSbJIFsmeM1rQt9qks-DxnYdw_RWwzt4dkahm/s1600/prop.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTjYatalIlsAGumIoh6obgXIrRDP_Cm2f4bu7iLy7sODjZojTGqw_P2hpCLLX9dugt6njPp6CIOjkvN_mgY5kUZ9s5ujbJ-kb5a72uukFSbJIFsmeM1rQt9qks-DxnYdw_RWwzt4dkahm/s320/prop.png" /></a>
<p>Is the toggle for this mode, and the one next to it will change the pattern used for the proportional falloff. Mousewheel to increase/decrease the affected area.</p>
<h3>10. Linked mesh selection</h3>
<p>This is one I assumed EVERYONE knew but apparently not. 'L' will select all vertices attached to the same mesh as the vertice you are hovering, and add new meshes to your selection if you hit it again. Shift+l to remove from selection. This is so helpful in complex meshes, and even simple meshes. I can't believe how many people ask me how I 'did that'.</p>
<h3>That'll do</h3>
<p>That's all I care to think of for now, there are heaps more, and heaps more that I don't know of. If you know any others feel free drop a comment.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-41387136697057074752013-04-01T01:19:00.000-07:002013-04-01T01:19:13.117-07:00ModelsForTheMasses post mortem<p>As some may know, I ran <a href=http://www.modelsforthemasses.com>my own little freelance operation</a> for the source community for almost two years. The goal starting out on this was to see if anyone thought my models were good enough to pay for, but that changed over the course of the project. I ended up using the service to get news about as many mods as I could, to get my art out amongst the community, to build a portfolio and mostly to provide fresh content to the stale source modding scene.</p>
<p>I consider this my first scrape with monetizing my hobby, and I learned a bit about freelancing and dealing with people over models in general. So I'll chat about it a bit here.</p><a name='more'></a>
<h3>Pricing</h3>
<p>I never really set a precedence for my work (pricing, time scale or otherwise) and so people would come to me with vastly different expectations. Some assumed I freelanced full time and would be able to smash out their models in a matter of hours. Others were relaxed and had no time constraints. Some people were willing to fork out whatever I asked for and others expected... let's say an unbalanced work to pay ratio.</p>
<p>The thing is every model is different and every time I embark on a new model I gauge it differently. My pricing was based on four things: How complex the model was, how many features the client wanted, how much I thought I would enjoy making the model and how much I thought I would learn from making the model. In filling out this criteria, prices would vary greatly, since really the guiding rules were the last two.</p>
<p>If I was offered two different requests, one being an already concepted, well designed NPC model that needed animations and full baked textures, and one being a set of thirty light fittings and furniture pieces, I would probably charge half as much for the character model. A great concept is hard to come by and I don't do enough organic modelling. There is a whole lot more work involved in the character model (character models took me on average 3 months) but there is so much more to be learned and in the end I'll likely have a great portfolio piece, as opposed to a bunch of clutter props that any upcoming modeller would be able to make.</p>
<p>I don't think I lost too much work due to an ambiguous pricing structure, and charging less for models I liked generally attracted more enjoyable work, and repelled work I would have despised. After the first year I started setting base prices for certain models. Characters and vehicles would attract a $100 flagfall and then I could add pricing on top of that depending on the model and feature requirements.</p>
<p>Anyone who has been a freelance modeller probably just shot coffee through their nose when I said $100. Yes I was cheap. I had no idea what the value of my work was, and I still don't, plus I was catering to the largely broke modding community, so I shot low in order to secure work. Considering I would have done it for free if it wasn't for the site, I didn't mind making it dirt cheap. The most expensive model I ever made was somewhere in the range of $250, and it would have easily gone for $2000 if I was adhering to a proper pricing structure.</p>
<h3>Advertising</h3>
<p>Part of getting work as a freelancer is getting your name out there, making sure your target demographic knows you exist. I hate advertising and I think it's a surefire way for a smalltime freelancer to fail either through attracting too much work, the wrong kind of work, or no work at all. I chose to pursue a word of mouth advertising plan.</p>
<p>Instead of paying for advertising, I would offer discounts to clients who talked about me in the community. This usually came in the form of a few dollars off for a post on a few different sites (usually interlopers, facepunch, FPSbanana, facebook, moddb or the like) but more often than not I had clients conceiving better ideas. I ended up getting a big thread on interlopers, a blog post on PlanetPhillip and even podcast17 mentioned the service. These may seem like small things but for me they were big victories.</p>
<p>I never really pursued much advertising, as I could only really deal with the work I had coming in. I always had large scale projects on, and intermittently I would have small ones that I could do in between characters or vehicles. If I had have continued the project I would have started a page on modDB, posted more on facepunch (they don't seem like a community that would accept me very easily) and got my name in a few more mods. But as it stood, the workload was enough without those endeavors.</p>
<h3>Getting help</h3>
<p>I had quite a bit of work on at one point and was considering asking for a modeller from the community to help me manage it all when Livewire added me on steam. He wanted to see how the service was going and either start his own or tag on to mine. It was perfect and I don't think he expected me to be as excited as I was to bring him into the project.</p>
<p>Rather than try to manage the situation and get a cut out of each sale, I decided it would be better if we discussed each request as it came in, and whoever wanted to do it more would get it. If we both needed to work on the same model (for instance if I modeled and he textured or something) then the payment would be split arbitrarily depending on the perceived workload. This worked since we were both pretty relaxed in our approach and we never got into any disputes.</p>
<p>When I told friends what I was doing with M4M (by the way, look up m4m.com) they were all so confused that I wasn't going to get a 'cut' of what livewire would make. We weren't talking triple figures here, and taking a 'cut' from a $50 model would not only be pointless, but it would be an asshole move. I never even thought of it until it was suggested, and I quickly dismissed it. Perhaps if we were talking big ticket prices and ongoing contracts, but this was never going to be enough income to declare on tax.</p>
<h3>Networking</h3>
<p>Towards the middle of the project I started to realise that I had a powerful tool to get news on upcoming mods through making models for the creators. I also started to fill my steam friends list and email address book up with members of some prominent and some underground but promising mod teams and indies.</p>
<p>I started giving discounts to people who I wanted to come back or that I thought I would like to work with in the future. This resulted in getting some good contacts in the mod community and a few indies that I keep in contact with still. Part of the modding scene is that you need to find creative minds that not only compliment yours, but that are productive and committed. In a community full of young teens with all ideas and no skill, it takes a while to filter out the wheat from the chaff (actually a rage quit from a stale mod team was the reason for the creation of M4M). When you find a good modder you want to keep them on speed dial. Not only for the possibility of future collaboration, but to bounce ideas off and talk to.</p>
<p>I started to get job offers (kinda) from modders and indies. People wanted to recruit me into their teams and I had to continually decline. I wanted to follow the freelance rabbit hole as far as I could before jumping ship and when I jumped ship it wasn't going to be to commit to another possibly stagnant mod team. I'll have to do another post about my pathological hate for unproductive mod teams.</p>
<h3>The Death</h3>
<p>M4M didn't die because of some internal dispute or existential crisis. It simply dropped on my priority list. For a while I had been dabbling in making apps and websites and I got an intriguing response from a company that I showed a prototype program to, so I decided to drop everything and pursue that. Everything unfortunately was primarily modelsforthemasses.com, so I unceremoniously closed the site down one day. I kept it hosted so I could use it as a portfolio and maybe one day I'll open it back up but for now I have enough contacts and model requests coming in that keep me busy around my primary project, programming.</p>
<p>If I had any final lessons to teach from this experience they would be: know your audience and be as open and friendly as you can. The best thing I got out of M4M is a fat address book and my fingerprint on a lot of different projects.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-71911103647344253362013-03-06T02:03:00.000-08:002013-03-06T02:03:32.034-08:00The Jump<p>Every day at some point I get a pang of regret. Regret that a day has been wasted, that I am one day closer to the void, and that I still haven't made it. For the past four years I have been working on my programming and modelling, but not fast enough. Not hard enough. I trained myself out of mental stagnation and into being a productive powerhouse, but I still haven't progressed enough.</p>
<p>This pang hits me every day and pushes me to contemplate the jump.<a name='more'></a></p>
<p>At some point I am going to be a game developer. This is going to happen. The question that haunts me is when, and why not now? I have no doubt that I have the skills required to make a game right now, or become a very strong member of a small development team - right now. But the fear of the unknown prevents me from taking the leap of faith out of my comfortable - albeit absolutely unfulfilling - well paying job and into the realm of unsure success rates and sketchy income security.
</p>
<p>I guess the fact that these thoughts exist in my head means that I don't want it enough. I yearn to quit my job and use my savings to support myself until I can get a project off the ground but... there's no but. I just pine every day, and I'm scared and I make no progress. What do you do when you run out of money? How do you know when it's time to panic? What if you strike out and need to return to the workforce, and suddenly can't get a job? If I wanted it as hard as I swear I do, I wouldn't worry about these questions so much, I would just jump.
</p>
<p>I made a choice a few years ago to take the job I have now, which is soul-destryoingly unsatisfying but extremely well paying. The choice was made so I could duke out the hard yards for a few years until I paid off a property, because once you have a property paid off you hardly need to work. By working hard in my young days I could ensure I have the rest of my life to reap the rewards. If I stick to this plan I can have my apartment payed off in three years.
</p>
<p>But every day I get this pang of regret. Regret that I am pushing my youth to the side, that I am pooling resources that I won't be able to use anyway, that I am missing out on some of the greatest opportunities in my life by focusing on the wrong goals.
</p>
<p>So I have to, at some point, make the jump.
</p>
<p>I have to throw everything to the wind and create the life that I have been working so hard for. I have to truly come to terms with the fact that resources are no substitute for experiences. I have to face the void. It's hunting me hard and fast. I need to be the one hunting it.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-36649708921075929712013-02-02T01:54:00.000-08:002015-02-04T08:18:27.469-08:00Simplicity in design - friend or enemy?
<p>I have a real soft spot for simple designs - minimalist if you will. The thing I love most about modelling and coding for games is the way the restrictions of the medium force you to omit information, and the way you can construct your design so that the omissions of this information don't <i>detract</i> from the user experience, but <i>add</i> to it. Kind of like when people listen to music to "hear the notes they don't play".</p>
<p>This impressionistic approach to design, wether that be for websites, games or a simple logo, can be a double edged sword. On one hand it means that there is less production work to bring your design to life since there is essentally less information to display, but it also requires a lot of thought and planning to go into the early design stages and sometimes during testing it can all fall down catastrophically. So is simplistic design better or worse than the traditional information spam approach?</p><a name='more'></a>
<h3>Evolution of web design</h3>
<p>Remember those websites from the late 90s? The ones with a black background, yellow times new roman and marquee text? Flashy gif images with no anti aliasing and comic sans headings? My my, haven't we come a long way. Since HTML is a markup language designed to lay out information, the early times of its use were pretty much just that in drag. Information was sprayed onto the page and not much thought was given to the wheres and whys.</p>
<p>Then some people started lending design concepts to their sites. We started seeing some more intuitive designs come in. Comic sans was quickly stricken from the record, for one. Sites became more interactive and interesting to look at, for instance instead of having a login form as such:</p>
<label for=uname1>Username: </label><input name=uname1 /><br />
<label for=pword1>Password: </label><input name=pword1 /><br />
<p>Where the fields were clearly labeled and the form flowed much like a traditional paper form, designers started to think about the way their users thought of a login form. We started seeing more complex, yet simpler designs such as the minimalist login form:</p>
<input name=uname2 value="Username" onfocus="this.value = ''; this.onfocus=false"/><br />
<input name=pword2 value="Password" onfocus="this.value = ''; this.onfocus=false"/><br />
<p>This simple change allows a shift in design concepts. Suddenly we see that we can assume the user knows how to use the internet (to a certain extent) and we can design websites that, instead of leading the user through its use by a leash, gently take the users hand and allow them to discover the site themselves.</p>
<p>With mobile design (or responsive design, as some people call it) this simplicity has been explored much more. Mobile devices have smaller screens and therefore much less visual real estate than PCs. This has lead designers to squeeze even more information out of nothingness in order to not crowd the screen. The smaller screen has also meant that all information has to be graded on importance much more harshly, and only the most relevant information gets precedence.</p>
<p>The mobile design revolution has also brought about the part of simplistic design that I like the most. Important information is now displayed BIG. Little screens and big thumbs don't handle tiny buttons well. The aforementioned login form now looks more like this:</p>
<input name=uname2 value="Username" style='font-size: 32' onfocus="this.value = ''; this.onfocus=false"/><br />
<input name=pword2 value="Password" style='font-size: 32' onfocus="this.value = ''; this.onfocus=false"/><br />
<p>A nice BIG form for fat fingers and tiny screens. Luckily this translates fabulously onto a traditional monitor as well. If the information is easily noticeable on a mobile screen, it jumps out at you and smashes your head against the screen screaming "DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEEEE?!" on a monitor.</p>
<h3>Game design</h3>
<p>Valve do a lot of great research on this kind of design in their games. Their design doc releases for Team Fortress 2 are a valuable resource for anyone wanting to learn how to transmit important information to their players quickly. Valve placed heavy value on the silhouettes and colour pallettes of the characters in TF2, so that the player would immediately recognise a character in an instant and know how to react to their presence, allowing for much faster paced gameplay. Infact their colour pallette was so well designed that you can recognise all the characters from the following image:</p>
<img src="that TF2 colour pallette" />
<p>That, combined with the intensely varied silhouettes of the characters, ensures players intuitively recognise the characters they are playing aginst in the game. TF2 is a great example of simplistic design. The textures are monochromatic but have enough information so that the player recognises them easily. The levels are layed out in simple yet complex ways, with paths being easily memorable and visual cues for progression often onscreen. The classes each have simple gameplay goals and roles in the team.</p>
<p>Another example of simplistic design in games is the health counter. There are a multitude of ways to do this. A simple number, a health bar, screen effects, the characters animations, and plenty more.</p>
<h3>How this relates to me</h3>
<p>With simplistic design it's easy to see it and think 'I can do that. There's not even that much work there, the colours are simple, the words are big and almost the whole thing is blank'. But with simplistic design it's all about R&D. Sure, you can put a big form on a blank page, but how effective is it <i>really</i>? Does it squeeze the most out of the page? Is there only super relevant information there? Is there enough information there so the vast majority of users will understand? There is a delicate balance to be struck, and it takes a lot of fiddling for the uninitiated to get a really good design.</p>
<p>A good simplistic design will generally take more time to plan and design than it will to put together. You have to make sure you are leading the users eye to the correct areas, make sure the colours and fonts balance and a whole bunch of other stuff that has been blogged about ad nauseum (If you really want to dive into this, check out "Design for Hackers", a blog and book all about the technical side of design).<p>
<p>Simplistic design requires a lot of user testing and feedback, to make sure you are getting the most out of every piece of information, and that it is being displayed in the manner easiest to recognise. In this way, it actually takes a lot of time to get a good simplistic design, and (as with a lot of things in games/web) the final result rarely shows the true amount of work put in</p>
<p>For a small team (or a one man team, moi), where time is a valuable commodity, simplistic design can be good and bad. Often you can get it right the first time and will have put a fraction of the work into creating a working example of your design. Sometimes you'll flounder for weeks and months trying to get your design right and do all the testing you want but still have daddy eyes for it. The amount of thought and planning you need to put into a simplistic design to have it really pay off is disproportionate with the amount of work you have to do bringing your design to a functional demo. In this way, a simpler design can take more time than a more traditional raw data design, as more time is spent on the conceptual and testing stages than the actual production stage.</p>
<p>Simplistic design definitely interests me, and I love the intuitive results you can get from it, but I am only just learning the basics. I have been outsourcing a lot of my user experience design to a bloke on freelancer.com, who is really good at it. Perhaps this is one of those roles that I will need to outsource for permanently, or, when I finally get to it, employ for. Ah that will be the day.</p>Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-81786706375694395072012-12-29T00:49:00.000-08:002012-12-29T00:57:38.446-08:00 Community Creationism - or "Can I be a knight of Mars? With... you guys? Maybe get me one of them... bats?"<p>I'm going to coin a term here and I have no idea how accurate it will be. Community creationism. After being exposed to lots of different types of media and communities in the last few years, I have discovered what I think may be a human trait. It goes something like this:</p>
<p>As you are exposed more regularly to a media form, situation, thought process, community or other concept involving social interaction, no matter your initial thoughts on the concept, you will form an affinity for it. This affinity grows into a desire to contribute, and thus you become a community creationist. I'll explain with examples from my own life.</p><a name='more'></a>
<h3>I fucking hate country music</h3>
<p>The first time I noticed this was with country music. Goddamn I hate country music. But a few years ago me and two of my mates went on a massive road trip from Darwin to Uluru and back, stopping for a beer at every pub on the way. This was about four days solid driving, bundled together in a packed-up 4WD. Prior to this trip we spent a lot of time over each others houses getting generally pissed to the four winds and "preparing" for the trip. These mates were both heavily into country music, and subsequently it was played round the clock. To my surprise, by the time we got in the car to head off on our trip, country music no longer filled my throat with bile, my chest with burning rage and my brain with thoughts of genocide. I could actually hear the good in it. On the third night of the desert bender, I even had a go at a country riff on the communal guitar. What had I become?</p>
<p>This prolonged exposure to a genre of music that usually ends with a blood soaked rage had actually numbed my hatred and turned it into a desire to contribute. I think a major factor in this conversion was the heavily social setting in which I was exposed to the music, but more on that in a bit. Thankfully I got back to my house and regained my uncontrollable disgust and hatred of country music or this could be a very different blog.</p>
<h3>More examples - is it just me?</h3>
<p>When I was in high school I hung out with the musical group. We used to listen to acoustic and rock and generally just adore the music. Then my brother picked up a guitar. Of course this prompted me to do the same and after a while I was playing guitar and drums in the same vein as the music I listened to.</p>
<p>More recently I have started listening to electro, drum & bass and dubstep, and now I find myself on short musical jaunts with fruity loops and Audacity, making simple tunes and generally trying to contribute to the electro musical database.</p>
<p>But of course it extends beyond music. Before I started this blog I had been reading a lot of blogs, so naturally I started this blog. I have some friends who have recently got back from travelling and while I already have a serious travel bug issue (more on this later), hearing their stories has me on the very verge of quitting my well paying job and throwing my life in the bin. I used to read lots of fantasy books and I have a few messy manuscripts from that stage in my life. If I spend too much time on funny picture sites I find myself creating funny pictures to submit to them. I started doing parkour because I spent three weeks straight playing Mirrors Edge and Assassins Creed. The list goes on.</p>
<h3>What is the extent of this madness?</h3>
<p>But I wonder just how far it goes. If I spent a lot of time among car fanatics would I buy an expensive old car to fix up? If I exclusively hung around gay dudes would I become an eager receiver of the D? If I mixed with lawyers and stockbrokers would I wear suits? If you took a country boy out of the country and put him in a social group that loved trance, would he start to enjoy trance and trade his slide guitar for a mac?</p>
<p>And I wonder why this exists? Why can't I hang out with people I get along with but retain my unique opinions and interests? Why am I so heavily influenced by the interests of those around me? I'm going to take a wild stab in the unforgiving dark here and say it's a result of social conditioning. Here comes Stormy the evolutionary psychologist - helmets on everybody.</p>
<h3>Stormy's theory of the year</h3>
<p>In the blossoming homo-erectus community that relied on social acceptance to avoid ostracization and ensure survival, common interests would have been a form of currency. Ugg the caveman might have had no interest in training dogs to hunt, but the rest of his tribe liked the benefits it gave. If Ugg the caveman couldn't train dogs with the rest of his tribe he was of less use to them and was likely to get less brontosaurus meat for dinner. If Chantelle the cavewoman didn't like to pick berries, but the rest of the cavewomen did, then Chantelle the cavewoman would be less likely to be able to socialise and would be a less useful member of the group.</p>
<p>Evolutionarily, this recurring behaviour would have ingrained itself in our brains - in such systems as our reward pathways and dopamine release habits.</p>
<p>Fast forward a few thousand years and we can safely remove the social requirement for survival, but our little caveman brains can't drop a vice so readily. Now, if we head into a social arena with no common interest with the rest of the 'tribe', we unconsciously assimilate ourselves and defend against rejection by creating that interest unknowingly.</p>
<p>I'd like to reiterate here that I have no fucking idea what I am talking about. All the same, I am confident that this thing exists.</p>
<h3>Using this to our advantage</h3>
<p>So how can we make the most of this knowledge? Well I already have. I have been dilligently working away at a program that I am hoping to finish soon and release to prospective clients, and have had to shut down all other avenues of creation. My three avid readers may have noticed (and no doubt were violently appalled by) my total lack of blog activity. So I decided to do a blog post. But what could I write about? I opened notepad and nothing came. I had no desire to create a blog post, although I had logically decided that it was what I should do. So, having the above theory slewing around in my head for the past month or so, I decided to read some blogs and get that desire back. And holy McShit burger did it work. After about a day and a half of browsing some old and new blogs, I have written this gargantuan post, and have a few imminent posts looming.</p>
<p>Also, on the above note of my soul-destroying travel bug, I have used "community creationism" to suppress the aforementioned bug. I have plans to travel. They involve saving up for a very definite amount of time, acheiving a very well defined set of goals and then, on an already decided date, getting the fuck out of Australia. This travel bug (also an imminent post, no doubt) is currently threatening to destroy my well laid plans, and so I see a very real requirement to suppress it until it comes time to unleash it in full splendour. So I have gone back to Interlopers, which has re-ignited my game creation passion. I have started spending more time on fitness forums and that has made me want to focus on getting fit. I have tried to politely shun discussion about travel, and I have avoided the days long youtube sessions I used to subject myslef to about all the awesome places I am going to visit. Initially this took a lot of effort on my part, but as I removed myself from those communities, the desire to be a part of them faded. And the desire to contribute to these new (or at least repeat) communities is over-shadowing it.<p>
<p>So what are you struggling with? If you want to model more, look at more models. If you want to program more, look at other peoples programming efforts. If you want to make a webcomic, go have a look at some webcomics. I think that whatever your block it can likely be defeated, or at least dealt a blow, by involving yourself in a social community centered around that subject. Similarly, whatever your hangups, they can be suppressed (but not really dealt with) by removing yourself from that community and engorging yourself on another.</p>
<p>Fuck I want to travel right fucking now fuck.</p>
Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386762149146605540.post-74972276466159107472012-10-24T16:11:00.000-07:002012-10-24T16:15:52.233-07:00I fucking hate apple<p>I need a way to express how much I fucking hate apple and their fucked up interface.</p>
<p>I have just spent the last week trying to upload my app to the app store. The main concern being that I don't own an apple computer. This makes it very close to impossible to effectively work on an iPhone app.</p><a name='more'></a>
<p>First of all, the keychain access bullshit. To create your app profile you need to log onto an apple computer and use a program called keychain access to create passwords and shit for your app. Aside from the interface being fiercely counter intuitive to a windows/linux slob like myself, the whole process smacks of over-reactive security.</p>
<p>Then once you have got your keychain shit you have to create a provisioning profile. This appears to be for the sole reason of ensuring no-one but the people you select can use your app unless they buy it through the app store. This destroys one of the main reasons I like developing for android. I can make apps on android and hand them out how I want. Most of the apps I make have no market value and would only be useful to myself or a select few people I know. I don't want to have to go through a lengthy upload and review process to hand out a shitty app that plays fart sounds to a couple of my mates.</p>
<p>Heaven help you if you plan to sell an app. Google play store asks for one thing when you want to sell an app. The price. iTunes connect requests ABN registration documents, GST registration documents, you have to sign on to three separate contracts of sales, and all this has to go through a legal review process. FUCK. THAT. APPLE.</p>
<p>Once you manage to get through all the shitocracy, you go to registering your app. By this point my head was spinning from all the other processes I had just undertaken, mostly through the alien interface of my cousins mac, and I had no idea what I had just done. So naming package IDs and whatever the fuck else that screen wanted me to do was way past my cognitive capacity.</p>
<p>then I get a nice email from the review team:</p>
<code>
Dear Black_Stormy,<br />
The status for the following app has changed to <b>Missing Screenshot.</b>
</code>
<p>Wow thanks for the descriptive response! I uploaded 4 screenshots, didn't I? Look, they're all still there on my application application! What the fuck is wrong with the four I already gave you? Cunt?</p>
<p>A few days later I get another email telling me that the details on my GST registration documents don't match the details I submitted when I signed up for iTunes connect. At this point I'm over the edge. I don't give a flying fuck about your goddamn GST shit you fart sucking cum gargler apple review cunt. I'd prefer to stab myself in the open eyeball with a homeless mans diarrhea covered anus than spend more time enraging myself over your convoluted shit stain of an application process. You can go peddle your dollar grabbing sideshow on someone elses lawn.</p>
<P>FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK YYYYYOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU</P>
<p>Wow! and only $100 per year! I can't even get a refund for that shit! There's hardly anything pointing my rage-glazed eyes towards a "delete account" button. There's no easy way to close your account and remove all trace of yourself from the apple system. I want to strike this experience from the internet record. I never applied for iTunes connect. Application Launcher? What's that? Sounds like something that would be intuitive to use and launches applications. Developing applications for the iPhone? Sounds like it would be a well designed process created to allow people from all backgrounds to freely contribute to the great platform that is iOS. HA! Do go on.</p>
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<center><i>Here's an amalgamation of plagiarism I threw together from things I found on the net.</i></center>
Black_Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16312218616045413239noreply@blogger.com0