$500 Mapping Contest! Sci-Fi/Horror Theme

Thanks Cybershead! We will absolutely keep working at the tool and always have something "in the pipe" to make it even better In fact, Karl just finished adding proper "Drag N Drop" prefabs, with support for the regular "Apply/Revert" buttons! I know you had some trouble with our, well, hacky, Prefab support- so this should make you very happy!

 

... and the judging is beginning now, as well! Huge thanks to everyone for the absolutely awesome entries and feedback!

Here are fancy links to each person's Contest Gallery- spread the word! We will also be posting all of these on our Facebook, at "www.facebook.com/probuilder3d". We'd love to see you "Like" the page and claim your album with a comment/etc, hopefully we can get some good design critique going there as well. Note: Would you like a link added to your Gallery? Just let me know! Also, if I somehow forgot anyone, PM me ASAP!














I'm just going to say it myself- wow, this all looks AWESOME! Great work, everyone!

 

Well Gabriel, you've pretty much just guaranteed that I won't get much sleep tonight. Between working on final assignments for my college courses and this...the anticipation is killing me. Good job Just kidding, sort of. There are some neat entries in here. Again, best of luck to everyone!

 

Gotta shout out to Zed an Trash for my favorites, love how you de-ressed the textures for a lo-fi vibe Trash, (your new game looks sick) an Zed yours is so unique, just drenched in atmosphere.

They all look awesome though.

 

The Good

It's been a looong time since I've touched a map-editor like hammer/unrealED... so I wasn't sure how I would get along with probuilder. So I imported the package and 4 minutes later... or was it 4 hours later?...
To summerize it up: The learning curve is incredibly small, the controls and hotkeys are intuitive and with a snapping tool like progrids it gets real easy to build a simple prototype and to add details later. Same goes for a modular approach.
Also, the draw calls are incredibly low - which is simply awesome.


The Bad

-Well, because (nearly) everything starts with cubes, the levels can quick become kind of blocky. It can get very tricky to "round" everything up. Haven't had the chance to test the 2.1 smoothing-feature, though.
-Sometimes, I got confused by the icons - especially "Merge selection" and "Group merge". But it could just be me.
-Also, it may be the fact that I used a modular approach and just copy&pasted the hell out of everything: Selecting a lot of probuilder objects (like 20+) had a high impact on the performance. So the repositioning of multiple objects at the same time was tricky at times.

The Ugly

Time flies even faster with probuilder. (Could be a slogan ^^)

Summary

Awesome tools, great features, very good handling, still room for improvement. I had a blast working for this contest!

Edit: @yahodahan: Thanks for the gallery. Even if I don't get (and I don't think I will - there are simply too much other amazing entries!) the 1. prize, its great to see one's work put to good use - and if it's simply to make some publicity for this awesome tool!

 

PRO BUILDER 2.0 COMPETITION
JUDGE SIMON DEAN - CRITIQUE

I've judged entries on geometry detail, lighting and shadows, color palette, texture detail and UV, image effects and credibility – could this be a level from a commercial game? Normally I'd take performance and game flow into account, but as we are only judging visuals these factors aren't being considered. However, because they are static visuals I've taken photographic aesthetics under consideration including image composition, lead in lines, and focal points. These are all factors taken into account when producing marketing screenshots so are valid criteria.

Rank 1 – Brotherhood
Rank 2 – ZedalisDesign
Rank 3 – Alexm_Infinite

Critique is in bullet form, my apologies if this comes across as a little abrupt. This is a competition though, so I've included both positive and negative observations that were factors in my ranking.

Well done to all entrants, some great work submitted; it's been a pleasure to judge them. I wish you all the best of luck. Also a quick thanks to Gabriel for inviting me to be a judge and making the process fast and efficient.


Alexm_Infinite – RANK 3

Anti-aliasing looks a little harsh
Questionable flare on lights and the light sources don't seem to correspond with light source geometry.
Theme lacks cohesiveness – rib bones in a metal environment?
Color palette showing promise
Pipe work adds interest and catches the light nicely

Brotherhood – RANK 1

Nice lighting
Nice use of image effects; not heavy handed
Soft lighting helps hide texture repetition
Nice touch with the broken glass panel – suggests that they might be breakable
Rooms and layout is believable – like the staff locker room, and stasis chamber
Breaks up corridors nicely with support beams, and photographically speaking lighting leads the viewer into the scene.

BucketMonkey

Texturing needs improvement
Feels unfinished

Cybershead

Nice soft lighting
Could benefit from some image effects and an expanded color palette
Good job of breaking up long corridors, but lighting could lead the player's eye more to where they should be exploring
Could use Kaiser mip-map filtering, the mip-map boundaries are fairly obvious

Ebkac

One of the few entries not to be inside a spaceship, which helps it stand out
Lighting is over-exposing parts of the level
Feels unfinished

FreakForFreedom

Color palette needs more consideration
Over-exposed lighting
I like the space bridge but I'd like to have seen more of the ship exterior in shot

Jesus

Too much ambient light makes the scene look a little flat
Textures seem inconsistent, some with a lot of detail, others with very little
Not enough geometry detail, and feels very geometric
Needs more time spending on it

JorgeLuis

Decals are a plus but they seem emissive
Good cracks in the glass panels, but maybe needed to be more opaque to stand out
Depth of field used by no “focal point”
Textures and UV need improvement
Color palette is too primary – could benefit from application of advanced color theory

MetaKid

Better color palette, although texture scale is too small and quickly makes the scene look grainy over distance
Needs more time spending on it

TrashGames

First one to feature a character, although it could be a 2D sprite
Quite a lot of pixelation in textures, I'm unsure if this is deliberate – reminds me of Doom
Room geometry could be more complex

ZedalisDesign - RANK 2

Image effects give this a film/fmv feel
Lovely use of lighting to set off the desaturated tones
Texture scale is excellent, helping sell the scale of the overall scene
Strong geometrical design softened by lighting, shadows and image effects
I'd like to have seen another room, but it's good that the time and thought has been spent on making 1 good room rather than 2 average rooms.
Device in the middle is 'believable', reminds me of a spark plug
Second screenshot lets the other 2 down on shot composition

 

Thanks, good to know!

-We are definitely working to make ProBuilder more "organic friendly". You'll see soon...
-The icons could use some differentiation, true. Might be just early enough to change them a bit- just enough to be properly obvious.
-2.1.1 really sped things up, you should definitely upgrade! Let me know if that solves your issues with performance.

It almost is- I do say "ProBuilder: Mapping for Unity, made FUN again!"

Many thanks for the pointers and info, we'll work to make ProBuilder fix those issues you mentioned, for sure. We have some very cool additions being worked on already!

 

Thank you for your comments, all taken on board.


Cybershead

 

Hello everyone, here are my decisions and feedback on the entries.

1. ZedalisDesign

+Very interesting geometry and great lighting, nice usage of textures.
-Could have used more rooms, more variety.

2. Brotherhood

+Lots of variety, solid geometry, good lighting. Good usage of textures.
-Mostly confined areas, would benefit from one larger space.

3. AlexM_Infinite

+Good geometry, nice colors.
-Lacks variation, could improve on texture usage

Samuli Viikinen / Recoil Games

 

Hi All
Well Tony and I have judged the fantastic entries independently of one another and the results are:

My Choices:

1. Brotherhood
A ton of work as clearly gone into this one and it seems to cover both aspects of SciFi and Horror, the attention to detail is splendid, it could be a complete level.

2. AlexM_Infinite
Liked the different feel to this one, the wonky pipes etc showing a nice design and almost toony sci fi feel

3. ZedalisDesign
Lovely unique scene something different from corridors and rooms, nice open scene with some great design ideas, would make a great ending to a level.

Tonys results. (He didn't give his reasons, hes a bit busy)
1. Brotherhood
2. ZedalisDesign
3. AlexM_Infinite

 

Thanks for posting your votes, SamV and Chris/Tony!

Just a few more votes remaining, hang in there folks!

 

1. Zedalis
2. Brotherhood
3. AlexM_Infinite

Zedalis will make some great screens for ProBuilder.

Brotherhood looks like there is enough to be a completed level, geometry wise. I found that to be very impressive. Good use of prefabs.

AlexM because there's something unique and interesting about the space. Interesting shapes and structures in the background created out of the ProBuilder geometry.

MetaKid gets a shout for the interesting Geiger hallway and Jesus for the interesting space station room. It was difficult to determine if there was more rooms/spaces beyond the areas in the screenshots.

Are web player demos of all of them posted? It'd be great for everyone to be able to run around them all and look at the use of ProBuilder geometry!

 

Congrats to all of the entrants! It isn't easy to complete a project and put it out there for everyone to see. Allright, my choices for the top 3 are as follows:

1. Brotherhood
These shots tell a story. Something bad happened here and I want to learn what that was. It also nails the theme of the contest. Having worked on a few horror games, I could allready pick out where I would set up encounters, spawn enemies etc.

The lighting is solid overall. Shot 14 is a great example of drawing the player to the end of the hall, but also envoking a sense of fear due to the darkness on either side of the t-junction.

Texturing is solid overall, but there are instances of misaligned textures that negatively affect the impact of otherwise nice shots. (the tile floor in screenshot 17)

The geometry appears to be well constructed and creates a believable environment. There are enough rooms of various sizes and scale which is condusive to a horror/action sci-fi experience.

2. Zedalis

The scale of this environment is awesome. Creating areas this large that still look good is not easy.

Overall the lighting looks good and there are some rather dramtic shadows being cast. However, I am not a fan of the contrast between the exterior orange/white light and the blue lights. Screenshot 3 would be far more dramatic if the blue lights did not cast nearly all the way to the roof.

While this room looks friggin awesome, there is no horror element present. Dramatic and cold, yes.
I could picture a cut-scene taking place here with flying vehicles and a huge meteor breaking through the windows, but the scale of the space is just too large IMO to create a sense of dread and fear.

3. AlexM

This area did something different and the author created very unique shapes and silhouettes which would do a great job of playing tricks on players. I would love to see the author continue this project.

 

Hi guys

Nice to see some very cool entries that really show that you guys have put some serious work into your levels.

Note that my selection is solely based on the screenshots and as such does not take into account level layout, routes, balance, flow etc.
My selection is based on attention to detail, sense of proportions and the ability to create and inspiring feel.

Here are my choices:

1. Brotherhood
Takes first place because effort was clearly made to create a relatively complete level that might well serve as an environment for a game. The design itself is a bit generic, but this is accounted for by great attention to detail e.g creating unique props that give the individual rooms character and purpose.

2. AlexM_Infinite
A very original design that has a lot of character. It establishes a Tim Burton'esque scene that is both a bit spooky and quite intriguing. It has decent geometrical detail and good lighting but lack in terms of texture work and it would have been cool to see more than this one room.

3. ZedalisDesign
Big epic sci-fi chamber that succeeds in making you imagine it as part of a giant space station or something like that. It has pretty good proportions and an interesting design that uses both curves and straight lines. It lacks somewhat in detail and it would have been nice with some props to break the symmetry of the room as well as a more diverse texturing.

All in all good work. I hope to see more from you all in the future.

 

1st Place


Brotherhood will receive the top prize of $500, and a full year subscription to CG Cookie! Congrats Brotherhood, and thanks for making such an awesome level with ProBuilder!

Runner-Up


Zedalis design will receive the runner-up prize of all SixBySeven tools, plus a 3 month subscription to CG Cookie! Amazing work Zedalis, I'm sure we'll see more from you in the future too

Honorary


AlexM_Infinite takes an honorary win- so we'll honor him/her with any SixBySeven tool for free, just choose. Great work, especially for a first time ProBuilder user!

~

That's a wrap for Mapping Contest #2, folks- my sincere, humble thanks to everyone for participating, especially since I know many of you are first-time or early Unity/ProBuilder users. Your creativity and willingness to dive head-first into a challenge like this, is what makes the indie game-dev revolution so powerful! Keep at it!

Of course, thanks to the Judges as well! Much appreciated, having your votes and input really makes the contest more fun and serious at the same time. So that's a big thanks to:
Simon Dean of Games Foundry - http://www.gamesfoundry.com/
SamV - http://www.rochardthegame.com/en/
Megafiers Team - http://www.west-racing.com/mf/
EricV - http://www.redchurch.com/
BenColeman of U4iA - http://u4iagames.com/
Jess Rahbek of Zero Point Software - http://www.interstellarmarines.com/

~

As always, all contestants can pick up ProBuilder, or any other SixBySeven tool, for 25% off- just email/PM me

Mapping Contest #3 is already being planned, and for various top-secret reasons, I am especially excited about this next one! Details will come in the next couple weeks, you can stay up-to-date via our facebook, twitter, or by signing up for the Newsletter (lots of goodies in there!). Thanks all!

~

A note on final score calculation:
Rank 1 was given 3 points, Rank 2 gave 2 points, Rank 3 gave 1 point.
Total Scores were 19, 14, 9, for Brotherhood, ZedalisDesign, and AlexM_Infinite (respectively)

 

Congratulations to Brotherhood, ZedalisDesign, AlexM_Infinite and to all the other entries.

Hugz

Cybershead

 

Congratulations to all the winners! I will be anxiously waiting for the next contest !

Jorge

 

Same here!

 

Congratulations to Brotherhood for the win! Also, just wanted to shout out to the rest of the contestants for making this competition as enjoyable as it was. All of you will be seeing me around.

 

Yepp, congratulations to the winners! See you (all) next round

 

Thanks a ton everyone! I honestly entered not expecting to win so I'm naturally completely thrilled with the result!

Congrats Zedalis, AlexM, and good job to everyone else who took part. It was great fun competing with all of you, and seeing your maps as they were being worked on. It was quite inspirational to see what everyone is capable of doing.

I'm sorry for responding a bit late but I've been terribly busy these last two weeks or so. I'll have a ton of free time in two weeks from now, so I'll be sure to try and remember to post a proper ProBuilder review then.

Thanks again!

<insert a paragraph telling people to hire-me here> (Hey, it's worth a shot... haha)

 

Big shout out to the winners, well done! Also a big thank you to the judges for taking the time to give such excellent feedback

It's been amazing being part of this, eagerly awaiting the next one!

 

Atmosphere tests, work in progress.. very low light bake to...









More on the way ..

 

Those look very nice Did you create the mist particles yourself? Or are they the standard Unity?

 

Very cool! Interested in that mist as well

 

The mist is the old cone around the light trick, I did some tests and then found the asset in the store that made a much better effect than I could..

Link to asset for light beams:

http://u3d.as/content/stu-assets/volumetric-light-beam-kit/30f

Also to make it look like that I used unity 4 post processing effects.

* it looks dame fine in game to, the beams animate and move, ill do a vid on my final version for you to see.. Who needs UDK when you got unity 4 and pro-builder, lolz

 

+1 !

Thanks superme2012, that's the idea Looking forward to that video!

 

Awesome stuff guys! Some of these entries blew my mind. wow

 

I'm finally back home and figured I should post a ProBuilder review before I forget. Terribly sorry for the delay.

ProGrids
Pros:
Pretty standard grid-based snapping tool; makes aligning ProBuilder geometry a breeze and I love the fact that it's toggle-able by the click of a button.

Cons:
Had a few instances where I'd have child objects snap to a different grid than the base parent object when selecting them individually. This was a bit annoying because I'd have to go through my other prefabs that were aligned with those objects and select their children one by one in order to snap them to the appropriate grid. This would happen a few times, even to objects it already happened to. I have no idea what caused it but it was my only gripe with ProGrids.

Bottom line:
It's a handy little plugin that makes working with ProBuilder a lot simpler. For the entirety of the contest I used the free version of the plugin and I didn't feel that it hampered my ability to produce quality work although I'm definitely liking the ability to set grid sizes in the full version. I'd definitely recommend that you try the free version of the plugin alongside ProBuilder and decide for yourself, as for me I'll gladly use it again.

ProBuilder
Please note: I didn't/don't have access to the full version of ProBuilder so my list of pros and cons are solely based on my experience with the free version.

Pros:

• Simple, easy-to-use interface.
• Blocking out a scene takes a couple of minutes.
• Making modular assets is a breeze.
• Simple enough to allow programmers to quickly whip up a usable test scene.
• Is flexible enough to be used to create virtually any static props.

Cons:

• Texturing made me want to shoot myself. (Free version limitation)
• Lacks edge select.
• Often selects vertices of other ProBuidler geometry when you're trying to select vertices on the current object.
• No geometry mirroring.

Bottom line:
There are a few things that could be improved but overall it's a great tool that can simplify the lives of artists and programmers alike. I personally plan on using it in the future and I'd highly recommend that you try it out for yourself.

 

I have been developing and sci fi horror game and im sad i didnt find your contest when i was creating my level in probuilder so unlucky. I started unity making racing games then horror and now i know sci fi horror is best for me it even matches with my username by chance i have been making games only sice i was 13 now im 15 and i could end up
with a huge alien isolation doom 3 exploration playstation 1 styled horror game in 2 months.

 

That's nice but thread and competition was in 2013, not 2020. You will have been 8 years old at the time. I'll lock this thread.