personally i think it looks best in motion -- seeing the air move like that (and air movement also has gameplay implications) and the surfaces abstracted. it's like a crazy impressionist painting that you move around in. it's obviously not going for realism.. it's more dream-like. video compression may effect how it looked -- i had downloaded and watched the HD version. i probably don't want every game to have that aesthetic (i'm not saying it's the defacto, bar raising, new standard for all games to mimic), but i do like to celebrate new and interesting game concepts.

That's what I was thinking. I didn't care much for the screenshots, since you can already do a lot of that stuff with just textures. But when the thing moves and the whole look is basically based on Post Processing Effects (which seems to be the big thing now, let's just look at Killzone 2), it truly becomes beautiful.

the point of one hour compos are to see what ppl can make in a single hour, its fun, thats the point.

we could have a one week thread, but that would be apart from this.

the point here is to see what ppl can do in a very limited amount of time under constraints, it creates alot of cool and funny stuff.

Certainly, I don't think anyone meant that the one thing would rule the other out - 1 hour competitions are great, but it'd also be cool to have stuff where users have a bit more time to not just see what they can do with their current skills, but where they're forced to put some thoughts into design and see what they could come up with if they'd have a couple of days.

Competitions in general could be very fruitful. Depending on whatever task is given, a realistic timeline could be set.

Only having 1 hour competitions would suck and only having 3 day competitions would suck as well, so let's make a salad. And put some dressing on, is what I'm saying!

39) Aeal already asked for this yesterday on the chat, but so that it won't be forgotten:

Layout Variables would be awesome. I want to set certain variables that only get triggered on a certain layout - that'd really help making the layouts come to life with events without having to clutter the whole project with tons of global variables.

In general, I think for bigger games we sorta have the problem that global variables aren't really all that organized in the system right now. It's just a huge fucking list. It'd probably be cool if we could create a higher level organizational layer to the global variables, like folders. Create a system folder with its set of variables, a combat folder with it's set of variables, etc. - that we could then trigger through actions. For a typical adventure where you'd have tons and tons and tons and tons of global variables otherwise, this would really help keeping things nice and tidy.

Aaaand:

40) Being able to give objects a 'Trigger only once' attribute. Like, in a runtime, there are various things I'd only EVER want to do ONE single time throughout the whole game and not repeat it once I re-enter the layout. That's a bit of a bitch to do right now, cause I'd always have to set variables and use them as conditions or I'd have to come up with some other clever idea like using hash tables or whatever and that's still sorta crappy in terms of organization.

If we'd have an adventure game where you could set an event to only happen once EVER, it'd make things a lot simpler.

I hope poeple from TIGsource would recognize this as much as GM and MMF

Give it some time. Construct still has some obstacles to overcome, but eventually it'll blow Game Maker and MMF away.

I think the controller system would be the next big thing to tackle - the easier it becomes to do the 'technical stuff', the more designers and artists will start using Construct to create some awesome stuff.

It'll only take a really big hit being created using Construct.

If you build it, they will come

Portal had a lot of re-play value? Really? It's a puzzler and once you solved the puzzles, you can just go through them again - but you already know the solution.

Do you mean in terms of speed runs / achievements?

Well, it'd definitely be simpler than Unreal or what you'd expect from any next-gen game (though not by as much as you'd probably think, since the only difference for next gen is that you'd have a high poly source file for normal maps and texture bakes), but you'd still have to have an idea about anatomy, polygons, subdivision surfaces, UVs, rigging, animation, shaders, lighting and rendering and probably post processing to create something like this within todays standards.

If this is the first time you delve into 3d, go with something different, something easier instead. Creating full production ready characters that are animatable isn't a thing you'll learn in a couple of weeks or even months. 3d isn't very gratifying in that regard, since it'll take you years to become really good and then you'll still sit at least a couple of days or even weeks (next-gen) on a single character asset. I've been doing this for a couple of years now working for some of the biggest developers in the industry and my first solo attempt will be very simplified, but stylish 2d because I literally couldn't afford creating all the 3d assets just by myself. It's not feasible.

The advantage is that if your character is done, you can play all the animations during render and render it out in one batch from all the perspectives you need, just by setting up a couple of cameras, like you would in real life. So it's possible, but if you're a one man team or an amateur, it's probably not feasible.

I haven't really worked with Blender too much, so I can't recommend it directly, but from what I've seen it's grown into a cool package over the last couple of years. Dunno if Blender is easy to learn though, cause the interface was always its weakest point.

I can't really give you a concrete answer to your question, cause it's like asking some other artist what sorta pencil one should use. I personally still prefer Maya over any other app, mainly because I'm so used to it and because my config is totally configured to my needs.

The games industry is mostly based on 3ds Max still and I don't think that's gonna change in the foreseeable future - I actually think Max will gain more and more popularity still.

XSI is also a _very_ cool package which is outstanding in many fields. Still, it isn't being used as much in the films / games industries as Maya / Max. It's pretty big in Asia though.

If you just want to render out sprites, I guess looking at Blender won't hurt, especially since it won't cost you a thing.

In general, whatever package you'll learn - 3d under the hood is the same thing everywhere, doesn't matter whatever package you'll decide on. It's like driving a car. Even if you're used to your Honda, you'll have no problem driving with a Mazda if you have to. Sorry for the shitty analogy

3d CG is still pretty complex and not that easy to learn - Remember, for creating appealing characters you should know a thing or two about anatomy, sculpture, texturing, UVs, you'd basically have to know the whole 3d pipeline, have a good technical understanding and also have a background or a vast interest in the art itself. I studied traditional sculpture and been working as a character artist for a couple of years now.

Really good character artists that throw out production quality work aren't that easy to find, even for high profile studios, because you really need years of training.

Sorry if that's not what you wanna hear. If you want to learn a package for your future career, I'd say look at Max, Maya or XSI. If you just want to dabble with 3d and render some stuff out, go with Blender. If you want good character art or 3d art like what I've described, consider hiring a freelance artist for that - that'll still be cheaper than investing years of your own time.

I'd also root for a week. Or 3 days or something. But more than 1 hour, since nothing really amazing could happen in an hour, because you don't have enough time to think.

A challenge where everyone has the same objective would be cool. Like:

From April 18th to April 25th, create one level / mission of a 2d sneak / stealth game.

Everyone would have to come up with a simple design that'd have to work technically and from a gamedesign point of view and then we'd just share the caps. That'd be very cool and everyone could learn form one another.

I dunno what you're on about, I love how it looks!

Weow! This is pretty fucking awesome.

So this literally means that you only have to create one layer in your first Layout that has the UI in it and then you just create a layer on top of every other layout which inherits the UI layer from the first layout. No copying instances around or shit, it just works.

Nice one!

Soldjah looks pretty much exactly like I imagined him. Creepy guys with half-naked chicks in their sigs usually look like that

<img src="http://loot-ninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/comic-book-guy.jpg">

Referencing my last post, this is somewhat out of place, but I always thought it's hilarious:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/user ... 88112.html

Classic.