GDC Plz

I've been wanting to go to the GDC for a while now, though how much it'd cost me has been the major sticking point.

As it turns out, you can get in for free if you volunteer there - also known as becoming a GDC Conference Associate. (helpfully pointed out by [Zakelro] Corvus on Indie Games Chat on Xfire
January 24th, 2008 (Q&A Session Transcript))

I don't think I'll be able to make it this year between classes and everything else, but I should theoretically graduate by December of '08, so hopefully I'll be able to make it out for the 2009 GDC.

Working on a TF2 map

I haven't done too much mapping this past year, I got burned out on it more or less. Between;
A.) One of the major mods I was involved with collapsing and

B.) A large HL2 mod a few friends and I were working on dying (one of my friends got called up to go to Iraq, the other didn't have much time when he started working on getting his PhD in quantum physics [as you might imagine]),

It was just hard to keep an interest in it.


But today I fired up Hammer (Valve's map editor) and decided to try my hand at mapping for TF2. Hopefully it will go somewhere.

On a side note, when you're not paid, and you're working with other volunteers, actually *finishing* a project is like moving heaven and earth in terms of difficulty. You either have to be a highly motivated team that's in close contact with each other on a regular basis, or the thing just doesn't work out.

Being located far away from each other tends to make things problematic also.

Quick update / Stayalive Ping

Been rather busy lately, not too much to say.

Some days, I hate Maya. That's all I'll say on that.

Quick Self Portrait

the "beefy laser"

A bit of concept art from our current game.

A pair of eyeballs

Did a bit of sketching this morning. Getting somewhat better.

Getting Rusty

I realized today that I hadn't made a start-to-finish serious map in a heck of a long time. So thus the idea for a project to bang out a series of small, polished maps that focus on the themes inherent to their parent games. Bit of a mouthful there.

So for Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike: Source, I'd make a small, polished DM map, a defuse map and a hostage rescue map. And maybe a AS map for 1.6 for reasons of humor and nostalgia.

For HL2; DM.

[will add others to this list later]

Top priorities:

1. Level plays well.
(the world is littered with beautiful maps that no one plays, and maps that are ugly as sin, yet are the most played ones by far. Level design is based far more on tactics than looks and forgetting that will always come back to bite you in the ass)

2. Level has unique and beautiful architecture that contributes to the level.
(rather than just purely being decoration)

3. Levels are small.
(I don't want to create some monumental work that will take months and months to make. I'm look at stuff I can bang out in a week and still have it look good. That means 'small')

4. Multiple engines; Source, Goldsource, Quake IV, Doom III, Unreal engine.
(this is just sort of a hope, mostly on the basis that knowing more than one engine is a good thing)