Portfolios

regeneration

So who here on boards.ie actually models/mods/maps? I take it the number is zero, seeing that this board is permanently empty :O Anyone got any examples of their work?

Anima

Lets see some of your stuff.

regeneration

Some of it is linked off the website. I've only "finished" stuff for Bf1942, used to do Half Life material til I lost it all ... *sniff*

DRakE

Raven made a few halflife models, give the board a bit of a search

Lyconix

I have an unfinished HLDM map (which probably won't be finished ), I'll upload some screenshots later on.

angelofdeath

ive messed about with mapping, made loadsa crap fy maps, and one half decent de map, then posted it, got flamed and gave up, then got into making cs movies instead, i really should get back into mapping, ive got loadsa good ideas made, just nothin developed on

heres a link if ya wanna take a look

davil

Used to map UT a bit, before that I used to map Duke3d a shed load cos build was super - easy and fun to use. I want to get into CS mapping, just I'm not sure where to start.

Is Valve hammer the best way to get going? or Worldcraft> Which one's the most stable is really what I wanna know b4 I start.

angelofdeath

you'll need these, im not bothered finding links tho, sorry

valve hammer editor
zoners compile tools
cs expert fgd

apart from those, these might also be helpfull

pakscape
halflife model viewer
sprite viewer/wizard
some sort of terrain generator, i think surfgen is the one i have

theres prooly more that i left out, just cant think of em at the moment

if you want to try alternative editors quark or QEradiant are good but not as good as vhe

everything you could possibly need can be found here

read lots of tutorials btw

davil

Good stuff. I kinda guessed about the tutorials. But there are some seriously cack tutorials out there that will tell you to get the wrong stuff. Thanks v much

angelofdeath

no problem

regeneration

Originally posted by davil
Used to map UT a bit, before that I used to map Duke3d a shed load cos build was super - easy and fun to use. I want to get into CS mapping, just I'm not sure where to start.

Is Valve hammer the best way to get going? or Worldcraft> Which one's the most stable is really what I wanna know b4 I start.

Well the Valve Hammer editor is just Worldcraft witha different name. Worldcraft was buggy in my day (we're talking version 3.0) so I dunno what it's like these days; Half Life is a good place to start mapping because there's so much documentation on it.

Check out UT2003's editor, cos it uses the same mapping tool as UT. Best map
I made was a mock-up of the Event Horizon.

davil

I still map UT and UT2k3 as well. Terrain is so easy with Ut2k3 I just had to have a go. Making a map of my old school in UT2k3 but because of the way it's laid out it would make a great de_map. I might have used a few too many static meshes in my level though [I just went mad] but it looks well cool.

angelofdeath

class, id love to play that, got a url?

btw vhe hasnt changed much from wc just a small few improvements, still the same compile, vertex, texture etc error messages, but once used to mapping, youll be able to recognise these and rectify them before they occur, i strongly recommend regular saves and backups tho, many times ive had a map working well then save it compile it and it doesnt work anymore, cant find whats wrong, and hours of work have been lost:(

btw i cant wait for far cry to come out, the editor for that looks unbeliveable:)

davil

Originally posted by angelofdeath
class, id love to play that, got a url?

On a 56k I won't be uploading it anywhere anytime soon. Also I never really got meself any hosting yet.

Originally posted by angelofdeath
i strongly recommend regular saves and backups tho, many times ive had a map working well then save it compile it and it doesnt work anymore, cant find whats wrong, and hours of work have been lost:(

btw i cant wait for far cry to come out, the editor for that looks unbeliveable:)

All of that goes without saying once you start using any editor, sure u should do that in word even ffs but it's a fair point.

And yes the Far Cry editor looks the business.

angelofdeath

has anyone tried mapping for cs1.6 yet, i would've looked into it before, but i havent been mapping for ages, the thing im wondering about is that all the game data is in a cache file, so is there any program out there to explore the file like pakscape is used for exploring pak files

regeneration

Originally posted by angelofdeath

btw i cant wait for far cry to come out, the editor for that looks unbeliveable:)

Oh ? in what way ?

angelofdeath

from within the editor you can switch from editing to playing instantaneously, no more long compiles, also it just looks so easy to use and making terrain is really simple

angelofdeath

screens

http://www.gamersgallery.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1691
http://www.gamersgallery.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1686
http://www.gamersgallery.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1689
http://www.gamersgallery.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1687

regeneration

It's a very "topical" looking game
*l*
something tells me you're going to need a fairly beefy machine to be able to make use of that (cool) feature.

angelofdeath

typo? should that be tropical

and yes id imagine about 512ram and 64meg graphics (min)

regeneration

*cough* yes - just testing you there. Wonder if the modding community picks it up and mods with it - they *seem* to be hoping for a community to develop. must find a release date now...
(game characters look very plastic and "action-man"ee

angelofdeath

yeah, my first impressions of the game were, omfg thats bloody amazing, but on closer inspection, its very flawed, for one the storyline doesn't seem to be up to much, more like something tagged on to show off cryteks technological acheivements, the models are limited to about 5 or 6 types, so we get that whole halflife, barney and the scientists appearing dozens of times throughout the game, only in far cry they appear at the same time ffs, and also so far the editor seems to be focused towards outdoor terrain, how good its gonna be for cityscapes and such is yet to be seen, that said though im still really looking forward to getting my mits on this editor

regeneration

Well if it uses heightmaps with static object meshes plonked ontop, then mapping should be p*ss easy ala battlefield. So whether it can do cityscapes will depend on it's collision detection

angelofdeath

ok, well ill pretend i understand what you just said:o

Lyconix

Originally posted by davil
Is Valve hammer the best way to get going? or Worldcraft> Which one's the most stable is really what I wanna know b4 I start.

One thing I'd definitely advise is to stick by good mapping methods from the start. What I have in mind mainly is the Hollow function that allows you to turn a solid block into a room with walls and ceiling... many tutorials advise you to use it, and ultimately form a lazy habit that can be hard to break.

Put simply, it tends to restrict your creativity and have you thinking in terms of simple square/rectangular rooms, and it can make complicated areas difficult to envision.

Even if it takes a little longer, its worthwhile building your rooms out of seperate brushes (walls, ceiling, floor, all one by one). This allows for less confusion when you want to resize the room, lets you size your walls more easily to fit the texture you have in mind, and importantly, lets you be more creative with the shape of the room.

RopeDrink

I take it the number is zero, seeing that this board is permanently empty

A bit of an arrogant assumption. Lately, yes, the board has been empty, but thats mainly because we've already spent loads of time 'flogging' or 'pimping' our work before previously to your arrival.

I, personally, spent quite a considerable amount of time mapping for Half-Life / CS / Unreal / Quake and only posted a select few up here back when I felt compelled to scream at the world about 'Oh yay, I can map' (Despite being utter ****e at it back then) and after that I've kept my work to myself...

I've made StarCraft RPG's and Tourney's, KingPin Deathmatch maps, Half-Life Mods, maps for Undying & Unreal Tourney maps, all of which I've revelled in for a short period of time before either scrapping them or saving them to some CD or Disk that gets chucked somewhere in my room and lost.

It's a passtime as opposed to something I feel I should 'advertise', and am more than willing to give help and information to those who feel the same, rather than post work up here merely to prove that there is life on this Board.

At the moment I'm spending huge amounts of time improving the simplistic system of GamesFactory, by implementing my own graphics and engines into somewhat 'vintage' games. I've made countless amount of them, yet everytime I finish one I feel compelled to scrap it and start again in order to get the whole thing 'perfect'. At the moment I'm working on basic Bat & Ball games such as Breakout and implementing my own features and options into it, in order to make it into something completely different yet keep a firm grip on the basics of the game.

I love it, and when it's complete, THATS when I'll post it up here for you.

It's called 'MehPong' and an extremely dated and crap version is avaliable for download here on this board somewhere.
The latest version allows you to assign whatever statistics you want to you Bat & Ball as well as create your own levels, play Co-Operative / VS with a second player or the computer, play 'Destruction' / 'Convertion' / 'Objective' versions where you have to complete specific tasks in order to proceed and many many more. Despite all this, it's STILL only a basic variant of Breakout...

Most of the job entails graphic creation via Photoshop (Which I'm getting exceptional good at seeing as I've been working with it for months on end) and is a very rewarding passtime.

As for Half-Life and the rest of my Game Editing feats, I'm leaving them for the moment seeing as what I do now can benifit me more in the future, as I am able to sell the games I make and / or learn a lot more than simply creating a map for a game.

angelofdeath

you got a website or anythin with screens, so i could take a look at some of your work?

regeneration

Originally posted by RopeDrink
A bit of an arrogant assumption. Lately, yes, the board has been empty, but thats mainly because we've already spent loads of time 'flogging' or 'pimping' our work before previously to your arrival.

It's hardly arrogant - I asked out of concern more than anything; by default on arrival there were no active threads other than two stickys, so my very first thought was whether there was an Irish modding community on boards.ie, hence the "anyone out there?" post.
The two reasons I ask are a ) anyone like myself in Ireland, and who are they (this stems from my idea of the whole 1916 mod), who are interested in tearing open games and modding them, or simply making "game" orented models/textures etc for fun. Or even anyone who has actually programmed "gamey" stuff
and b ) I was affiliated (before leaving college) with the DCU Games Society (I was chair in my final year) One of the ideas we had for the future was organising modding or mapping tutorials/seminars, and obviously the first thing to do was find out if there was specifically a community (forum or otherwise) that took part in this. so no harm in asking.

At the moment I'm spending huge amounts of time improving the simplistic system of GamesFactory ...

Sounds interesting - programming is something I haven't done since April, the last thing being a stellar physics engine with a friend, and since then have concentrated on the graphic design. Intend throwing headfirst (again) into DirectX for a start.
What language/libraries? do you mainly use?

RopeDrink

Unfortunately it's restricted to 'within' the actual program.
For example, a simple engine such as StarCraft wasn't initially designed to create RPG's and such, yet it can be done with the right form of editing.

Same applies to GamesFactory.
I'm stretching it's capabilities via experimentation and the implementation of my own objects, graphics and engines to bring it's capabilities further than anticipated.
I don't actually EDIT the program itself, I simply mould it into a more... Whats the word... Capable program? Versatile program?

I wouldn't go so far as EDIT the program myself - You could get DONE for that

As for programming, well, my programming abilities merely stretch so far as to be able to create games like DOOM on the Spectrum128k or text / graphic based adventures on the Commodore64...
In short, the only programming I've ever done where on those systems and with C BASIC - anything else and Im hopeless...
I mainly work with packages and editors, yet I always find a way to mould them to my preference...

As for the arrogance thing, apologies, I'm a little miffed today.