19 May 2009

Becoming a Level Designer and Env. Artist Part 2

by World of Level Design

Once you have began on your journey to acquiring artistic skills it is now time to apply what you learned into a 3d digital package and a level editor.
I am going to cover the basics of what level editor to choose, which 2d package to work with, as well as 3d package.
All of these are based on my own experience and my opinion. You may want to try different things out and decide for yourself. It is ultimately up to you which one you choose and become a master at it. All I can tell you is to pick a few as opposed to many. Become really good at one or two. Read more ...

15 May 2009

Becoming a Level Designer and Env. Artist Part 1

by World of Level Design

How do you become an environment artist and level designer? Where do you start? What do you learn first? Should you purchase a 3d package? What about Photoshop? Drawing? Painting?
There are a lot of decisions to make and too many choices. As a matter of fact, there are so many choices that we don't make any decision at all.
It is paralysis by analysis.
Before I begin, there is a difference between an environment artist and level designer.
Environment artist is someone who builds the assets that go into the environment. They model, often texture and sometimes light their environments.
Level designers are responsible for taking the assets that environment artist have created and assemble them into an environment that we can all play in. They design gameplay elements, create scripted events and test gameplay.
Depending which studio you work for or what mod team you are apart of, you may do one or both of the title descriptions. Read more ...

02 May 2009

Day of Defeat: Source Update Released

Updates to Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Day of Defeat: Source
  • Minor update to address several exploits that allowed users to fire guns without any recoil