TV/Film Work Currently Endless...

Well, it seems that it's going to be a while before I have a chance to get back at the level design in any kind of concerted fashion...  Just finished 11 days in a row on Covert Affairs (TV show, believe it's airing on USA in the States), and it look like the next few weeks will be just as busy.  I'd been trying to get Escape From Parkdale finished up to be hosted by Valve on their official servers, but even that has had to be put off for the time being.  As soon as I can I'll get that done, at least.  Not sure when this massive wave of work will slow down, but for the moment I have no choice but to go with it, and fill up the bank account for when it all slows down again.  That being the nature of the business...  Cheers!

Long Overdue Update!

It's been quite a while since I've posted on the blog.  Life seems to have a way of getting unbelievably busy lately.  There's been lots of work in film again, so that's been keeping me out of the house a lot more.  Good for the bank account, not so good for the level design work!  Most of the work is for TV Series/Pilots, so the wages aren't what they are for Feature Films, but so be it.  They're saying that there will be fairly solid work through to next Spring.  At that point, the actors, writers and directors will all go to the bargaining table with the producers at the same time, and the general thinking is that there will be some fairly significant labour stoppages. We'll see, i suppose.  In the meantime, we'll be getting a lot of work so they can bank shows/movies to see them through any strikes that may occur.

As for the WoLD Challenge, well, I lost that one quite badly, it seems.  Not quite sure how that happened, but suffice it to say that's it for me and contests for the time being.  I could still swear that mine was the only one that actually worked properly...  In any case, it's time to set aside such things and get down to work on a proper campaign.  The screenshots from my My 16th post are all outdated.  None of that will be used in this new campaign.  The team is currently myself and MikeTheBodacious, and we've come quite a long way with the first map.  It's coming along really well, although we're still unsure as to whether the campaign will end up being 3 maps or 5.  The first map is fairly long, but instead of doing 2 more longish maps with the finale at the end of the thrid, we may do 3 additional shorter maps, with a fifth that would be mainly finale.  That remains to be seen.  In any case, I'm going to start doing more of a development diary for this campaign.  I imagine that I'll use this blog for that purpose, instead of one of the mapping site forums, at least for now.  So, I'll get some screens together soon and post them here.  Not sure when I'll actually get to this because of all the IATSE work, but I'll be trying to update a lot more as the work progresses.

Cheers!

WoLD Challenge Update & Sneak Peek...

The WoLD Gameplay & Flow Challenge is heading into it's last week.  I've been sitting on my entry for a week, now, getting some feedback, etc.  Monday I'll be starting to do the final changes & fixes for the Friday deadline.  I'm not going to go crazy with it, though, as I think it's achieved what it was meant to do.  It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that a campaign should, but it's not ever going to be that, so why do that much more on it, is my feeling. I'm happy with the way it has worked out in any case.  I think the level design, within the parameters of the challenge, is actually pretty good...

So, here's a sneak peek at a couple of screens from a new campaign.  Seems we'll be a team of three for this one, at this point.  I'm really excited about working with a great modeller.  So nice to not be limited to Valve's props...  More news about the make-up of the team at a later date.

Check out the screens:

 

Not sure when we'll be officially announcing, so there won't be an official WiP thread for now.  I might drop some screens on here occasionally, though...

Cheers!

Playable Map For WoLD Gameplay Challenge...

OK, here it is...  First version publicly available to test.  Download it here!  Contest is over on the 21st of May, so I'll be making changes for sure.  Love to hear any feedback, opinions, etc!  Latest screen shots and such on the most recent page of my WIP thread over at World of Level Design.  Cheers!

New Shots From The WoLD Gampeplay Challenge!

Hey!  Thought it was time to put some screens up here, as well.  Pardon the quality...  Since the Passing, I haven't been able to run my graphics above medium or the game crashes to desktop.  Ugh.  Anyway, Here are the screens!

Interior of the last room before the safe room.  Safe room entrance is at the left of this shot.

 One of the outside sections.  Few more props now, starting to look like a map!  :)

Looking through one of the arches into the final area.  The wooden barricades on the left will be blown up in the event...

Event sequence:  1. Player presses button on C4 Remote Detonator.  2. Wooden barricade is destroyed, opening way to the safe room.  Onslaught begins.  3. A second later, the charge at the top if the fire escape goes off as well, blowing open the blocked door.  Survivors can now make their way to the safe room.

Some overhead shots.  Again, sorry about the quality, it's really kind of embarrassing...  Valve may force me to get a new computer sooner than I'd wanted to.  Ugh, again.

Overhead again...

And again!  :D

That's it for now.  Here's a link to the latest page of my WiP Thread over at World of Level Design.

Cheers!

Back At It!

Well, there was a nice little burst of film & tv work there for a few weeks, but it seems to be dying down a bit now.  Highlight of that was 2 1/2 weeks in a gravel pit north of Toronto making it look like the Antarctic for the prequel to The Thing (John Carpenter's 1982 version).  Loads of fun (and brutal work) and some money in the bank to last until there's more work!  Haha.  So a few days here and there, I imagine, for the next couple of months or so?  Hard to say, but that seems about right.

So that means it's back to mapping!  I haven't gotten around to posting here yet, but I've been working on a new World of Level Design contest for the past week.  Here's a link to the Gameplay & Flow Level Design Challenge guidelines.  Here's a direct link to my WIP thread in those forums.

I'll post here occasionally, but that will be my main thread for the development of this new map.

Here are a couple of screens of it coming together:

Cheers!