2010 May. 9
Web monitoring tools
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A new section dedicated to web monitoring tools has been added to the site. I includes a couple of robots right now that fill in different roles
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Affiliates
Recent Updates
News Articles
Forum Topics
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2012 Apr. 03
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2012 Mar. 20
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2012 Mar. 15
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2012 May. 18
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2012 Apr. 25
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2012 Apr. 23
2009 Sep. 21
Hammer VS GTK Radiant
| After having stopped mapping for several months, I decided to move on and discover a new game engine : Valve Source. This starts with the learning of Hammer map editing. I must admit I was quite frustrated at first when I saw how long it could take to just create a simple room... You have the feeling every operation takes twice as long as in Radiant. Then you quickly realize how efficient Hammer editor can be. In my case, I tested Hammer to make my first Left 4 Dead custom map Here is a short list of differences I noticed between L4D and Wolfenstein Enemy Territory: The layout of Hammer L4D standard map is very different from Quake 3 engine maps mainly due to the huge quantity of models it hosts. Even though Hammer's basic brushwork is very simple and remains unefficient compared to radiant, it shows all its power when you start fiddling around with models. Radiant stays miles ahead when it comes to brushwork and quick editing / texturing. Models, just like Q3 engine games, can be declared in 2 different ways : static or dynamic. In Enemy Terriroty, all model movement and animations was limited to scripted stuff, meaning there was no real player freedom. Valve introduced the props_dynamic which is the clone of the Enemy Territory misc_gamemodel but went one step further and created props_physics models. These are models that intereact with the environment (you can move them, pick them up, throw them, knock them over, shoot them to cast an explosion of fire...). Also, rotation and scaling of models if done directly with a couple of mouse clicks whereas Radiant required you to enter the [X,Y,Z] rotation and scale values for each model Another interesting feature is the introduction of displacements. These can be compared to the mesh editing in Call of Duty maps. Here again, Hammer gets thumbs up for overwhelming power compared to Radiant's Gensurf / Easygen pluggins. Displacements heightmaps are painted directly in the editor, can be changed any time with incredible flexibility and can also be sown together to make larger displacements. The alpha blending of textures on the displacement is done natively in hammer and not during compilation like in good old Q3 engine maps. Decal textures can be handled in a different way when using Hammer. You can just pick your texture using the overlay tool and apply it on a wall, as if you had just drawn the stuff... It avoids getting a brush, texturing it with nodraw, scaling it and apply your decal on one face... This info_overlay also works on displacements, which would be hell to do on a GTK Radiant terrain with a decal texture... |
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My first L4D campaign is now on it's way. It should be ready for release in the upcoming days. I'm also adding L4D Hammer prefabs in the Mapper's Database
2008 Nov. 11
Mappers' Database
A while ago, I had created a prefabs section that hosted a set of ressources for Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and specifically the GTK Radiant map editor. I decided to extend the idea and make a large online database that could be used by all map makers from all games. MDB is now open for all games and all type of mapping ressources (prefabs, models, textures, shaders...) and can be extended with new features within a couple of minutes.
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Visit the Mapper's Database now. |
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2008 Oct. 26
Enemy Territory - Battle for Wolken restored
The Wolken map set designed by Chris for Wolfenstein Enemy Territory provides a large amount of maps that all fit in the same ET theme, meaning they're perfect for a full campaign. They used to be hosted on my old webby (Game Design Online) and I've finally moved them to this new site. Click on the links below to get to the different chapters of Battle of Wolken
2008 Oct. 5
Crytel Sandbox 2 tutorials added
After fiddling around with the Sandbox 2 editor a couple of hours, I must admit the result is spectacular. Takes a look at the screenies below (click to enlarge) :
I've set up a first list of tutorials available in the Crytek Sandbox2 Tutorial section. I only cover the basics of Sandbox 2 editing in this first set of tutorials (Creating a map, a terrain, adding textures, adding vegetation and basic AI stuff). A lot more tutorials will come in the long run, once I study this editor a bit more :
2008 Sep. 30
New brain training game added to the games section
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A new type of brain training game has been added in the GDE Brain test. Unlike the previous games, this one does not have any time limitation but the game difficulty increase constantly. The aim of the game is to evaluate the player's ability to process information in parallel. Balls will fall randomly in baskets. After a moment, the game pick one of the baskets and ask the player how many balls it contains. The first mistake the player makes causes him to loose the game.
If you have an account on this web site, try the game out in the Brain Training section. |
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2008 Sep. 24
Crysis - A fresh start on map making
I've finally discovered a new toy for map making... The Crytek Sandbox editor used to design environments for Crysis. The capacity of this tool is just impressive compared with GTK Radiant series used on Quake 3 engine games.
I'll be working on my first Crysis map and probably focusing on creating a full single player scenario. As I progressively learn this new tool, I'll be posting tutorials for those willing to learn too.
2008 Aug. 4
GDE Brain Test released
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The very first version of the GDE Brain training program is finally up and running. It is available in the Games section of the web site. The brain training program is declined into many small games that test a specific brain capacity. After playing a few series of games, you will be able to check your learning curve and compare your statstics with other players. The games are similar to the old ones hosted on the Game Design Online webby, but they have all been written in Flash to avoid players having to download the games and tweaking config files to submit their scores. A forum will be created in the Forums section to get feedback, report bugs and get new ideas of brain training games that could be implemented. |
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2008 Apr. 29
Web site update
A massive update of the site has now taken place :
- MLB Starbase & El Kef map sources have been released in the prefab section
- User login is now possible to add comments on different new topics
- Forums are now available. They have been coded from scratch to avoid all the issues with popular open source forums (spam bots, hacking exploits...)
- Each section now presents a section map which makes navigation easier on the website.
The site will gradually improve and will soon intetgrate the GDE Games section.
2008 Mar. 16
MLB Map Sources released
The Prefabs section is finally up and running once again and has been updated with the MLB map pack sources. Only the MLB Starbase map needs to be added to have the 9 maps sources in that list. I will be adding other ET map sources little by little (Citadel, Flame Guards Warzone, El Kef...)
I am now working on a forum template to integrate directly in the website. This will eventually replace the one still hosted on the good old Game Design Online web site.
2008 Mar. 9
New Host + New Articles Updates
After having constant performance issues with the old Game Design Online host (IPowerweb), I decided to get a new domain but had to get a new DNS. Please note that Game Design Online has now become Game Design Experience and is now located at www.gd-experience.eu/
The site has also finally been updated with content too. You can now access the following topics :
- MLB Custom maps for Wolfenstein Enemy Territory
- Non MLB Maps for Wolfenstein Enemy Territory (El Kef, Citadel, FG Warzone...)
- Soldier of Fortune 2 - Double Helix custom maps
- Mapping Tutorials, prefabs
I will be adding more soon, and probably some sources of MLB maps since they have been requested to me on several occasions
2008 Jan. 6
Game Design Online is up again
After having corrupted the Game Design Online database (a silly click dumped the entire database that I hadn't backed up for several months), I decided to rewrite the entire site in order to have something more secure and flexible.
The different categories will be added little by little, starting with the mapping section (custom maps, MLB map pack, mapping tutorials, prefabs...). The rest of the site will be added on a little later