Shifting Gears

So yeah I know I haven’t yet put up a gallery for Frozen Assets. That’s mostly because I’m not quite sure what to do with it. While the contest at TF2maps.net isn’t quite over it’s become pretty clear I’m going to be the one at the bottom of the list, and that’s ok. I made quite a few mistakes (especially in testing) and I definitely didn’t detail the map as well as I could have. So in theory I could spend some more time fixing it up, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it given the inherent balance problems that many reviewers mentioned. I guess they were right in calling it a first map as well, but spending 2 years learning Hammer only to make mistakes that I also made with Aleutia kind of stings a bit.

However if nothing else I can at least learn from this and move onward. With that in mind CTF_Server_Farms has been almost completely torn down with the intent to rescale and start over. Either that or I might try making another KOTH map now that I have a better grasp on 3D skyboxes.

Of course there’s other stuff that’s been taking up my time, namely learning Blender as well as learning Unity in an attempt to get back on the independent game development horse as it were. Now that I’ve found some good books and tutorials for both Blender 2.5x and Unity 3.x I’ve been making great progress and I really feel like I’m capable of doing something with both pieces of software. But time will tell of course.

And for the few who read this that don’t know yet, the biggest piece of news I have was that I got a job at Irrational Games for a contract QA position. Granted that means temporary work but it does mean I’m back doing work that I enjoy in the industry I love.

Contesting: Frozen Assets Dev Blog

It feels really good to finally be done this map, and to have submitted it for the contest at TF2maps.net. It also feels good to have done so much that I’d as of yet not done before in this map. I’m not going to really go screenshot-heavy in this post because not much changed save for a few bits added here and there, but rest assured in the near-future I’m going to have download links up as well as a media gallery that will show off not only the map but also the custom content I created for it.

The map formerly known as Slush Fund: Frozen Assets Dev Blog

So the name change is official now. Slush Fund will hereafter be known as Frozen Assets.

I just finished going around the map testing out my latest set of changes which included putting in a fully working soundscape and almost completing the 3D skybox. I say “almost” because there’s still some minor graphical glitches that ruin the effect that I have to sort out. I also ran into some lighting issues that needed to be fixed. Those are fixed now in what I hope will be the “final” iteration of the Slush Fund/Frozen Assets development cycle but who knows.

I’ve also created two more custom posters that I’ve put inside my level, but lighting issues make them hard to read in-engine so i’ll just show them off along with some screenshots right after the jump: