Design Blog

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

More Videos and a Bonus

Today I've got the next set of videos uploaded in the Personal Work section of this website.

Specifically videos for all of my Unreal Tournament Maps:

Sacred Order

Dragon Skyway

Jade Mountain

Shatter-Storm

All the videos have low quality embedded version that you can play as long as you have the latest version of Flash in your browser. There are also high quality downloads available below the videos. You may need to right-click and "save link as" if your browser does not automatically start downloading the video.

The Personal Work page seems to be getting a little long recently I'm considering segmenting it into multiple pages on the next updates.

Finally, my Dead-End Freeman: Reload map caught the attention of PlanetPhillip a site which hosts Half-Life 2 maps. He even was kind enough to review the map and even take some screenshots of his own here.

posted by Saikyo at 4:39 PM

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Shatter-Storm Fix

I've fixed the problem with the Shatter-Storm map. Turns out that there were some extra texture and mesh files that don't come standard with UT2004 that I used while building it. I've uploaded a new version that should work for most versions of UT, although the file size has increased slightly. If you've already downloaded a copy of the map you'll have to download this new copy instead. Sorry to anyone who has had trouble with it.

In addition to this fix, all the downloadable levels now include the name of the game required to run them. Since some engines are used in a variety of games this should reduce any confusion that might occur.

posted by Saikyo at 5:41 PM

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

First Videos

Today's update includes two videos of playtesters who played my thesis level. You can watch them here, and in the thesis downloads section which has high quality avi's of the videos.

I've also updated the personal work page to include the games necessary to play each of the levels, since there has been some confusion in a few instances on how to run the maps.

Finally I've had a few people tell me that they've had problems running the map Shatter-Storm. I'm currently looking into the issue and am working on fixing it. Watch this space for updates on the progress.

More videos coming soon!

Embedded video player courtesy of Flowplayer.

posted by Saikyo at 7:03 PM

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Major Website Update

It's been a few weeks since graduation and I've been working hard to make some important changes to this portfolio site. This update will be the first of several which aim to improve the accessibility of the site as well add content that has been previously unavailable.

One of the most notable changes is that the website is now larger and speced for 1024x768 resolution and above. I and several others felt that the website was a little too small to properly show off the work I've done. This means, LARGER pictures. Most of the galleries have been overhauled with much higher quality pictures and the high quality download packs also have higher resolution images (1920x1200 for several of them).

In addition to this change I've also added more of my work in the Half-Life 2 Source engine. The first one is Dead-End Freeman: Reload, which was a directed focus study map I made at the Guildhall. In addition to this map I've also added a section devoted to my Masters Thesis Project, which also involved a Source map. The map for my masters thesis was originally intended to be the prequel to the focus study map and is called Dead-End Freeman: Dead Angle.

I've removed the "Extras" section from the site since I found that the majority of the information was better suited to other sections of the website where it is more relevant. For example the design highlights mini-portfolio is not located in the same section as the project it highlights.

The last major addition this update is this design blog. Here's where I'll talk about my current and future plans in game design as well as updates for this site. I'm looking into adding videos of several of my levels soon, so check back every now and then.

posted by Saikyo at 4:18 PM