Been busy/Campaign Update!

Hey everyone, I know it’s been awhile since the last post but I’ve been rather busy. The good news is level2 is 50% complete and looks gorgeous, though the colours are all dark and monotone to fit the atmosphere and the environment I wanted to build. But I’m here about something else today, something that will let those with creative inspirations and ideas throw out to the masses:

We need your help!

We want to reskin all the special infected, the commons and the survivors. But before we can do this, we need ideas for the project. We want you to send in 3d references or sketches of what you want the survivors to wear and look like as well as what you want from the specials and commons.

Please note this is for L4D2′s version of the campaign only.

If you feel like you have something you’d like to submit, you will get full credit if we choose your design. We’re also looking for more modelers to help with this process. But make sure you follow the below criteria for your designs:

• The design must fit in to a destroyed world, based around either Egyptian, Tibetan or Mayan civilizations and designs.
• The Specials and commons can be black or white; we aren’t racist, we just want variety.
• Take in to consideration the three (3) main environments you will be in in this campaign are: Snowy Landscapes, Tombs (Mixed with Egyptian and Tibetan design) and Destroyed Mayan structures.
• Boomers don’t have to be big and fat, they can be muscular. Smokers don’t have to be tall and skinny; you get the idea.
• Everything else is open to what you want it to be, as long as it fits the first 3 criteria.

For the survivors:

• You can choose the original four (4) survivors or the new survivors to base your concept off of. (Since no one is fond of Rochelle anyways)
• Try to focus on remembering that the survivors are running and gunning through snowy landscapes, tombs and caves. In the last chapter the survivors explore a ruined city where the Infection in the area originated from.
• Try to keep it as realistic as possible. We don’t want survivors carrying gigantic bags that make no sense whatsoever as to the concept of the game.
• No we will not accept survivors with glowing eyes or alien-like features. Keep the survivors realistic. They are humans trailing the military who passed through the area recently.

Also to all those who believe zombies can’t survive in the snow or cold environments based off of what Valve put in CEDA’s writings in L4D2: It’s a matter of opinion . Looks like CEDA was wrong about a lot of things.

If you’d like to help out you can email the lead of the team at cndmadmin@gmail.com with the subject AZ Modeling.

If you’d like to help out as a modeler for the team or as a texture artist hit me up on steam under Draugonian or email via the above address.

When L4Dmods.com is back up I will have a link to the thread where we will be asking for the communities help. Thank you and now on to the fun stuff!

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Dark, mystical, destroyed and corrupt landscapes, eerie places which bear a resemblance to time. What we are doing with level2 is a challenge: We are destroying it. I have built half of the level and now I am currently going back and destroying areas left and right. I want it to look destroyed, I don’t want pillars in perfect condition. I want you to FEEL like this place existed at one time.

To achieve this goal it is key to remember that lighting must match the architecture perfectly to give the biggest sense of awareness and realism to the area you are exploring. So what am I doing with the lighting exactly? Simple! I am making it look like it would in real life. It’s pitch black, but that isn’t all there is. That would be boring and pretty easy to do right? So what I’ve gone and done is made it so that the military presence you’ve been tailing has left objects and lights around from when they were staying there trying to survive; or researching the former inhabitants. You will see lights and wires strung up to generators, areas where the military presence was stronger; somewhat of a safe place to be (which doesn’t come often in my designs). If the lighting doesn’t fit then the whole level is out of accordance to what we want it to be. Dynamic, real, enticing.

The condition of a level is what stands out the most apart from the way a level is lit. If it’s a ruins from an ancient civilization you would expect that it wouldn’t be in perfect order right? You’d expect the pillars to be aged from time and crumbling to the touch. So that’s what we have done; In one segment for example, the area crumbles as you’re walking through it. I’ve taken extreme measures to make sure the physbox crumbling do not hurt the survivors since the area is already against them.

The Last design element I am incorporating in a great way that I would like to discuss is the terrain. In a lot of maps you see how you go up and down, turn corners and fall off ledges ( that are amazingly safe to fall off of); the reasoning behind this? So you have different areas of terrain to fight in. It increases the ability to go over the top, to change things up and to give a different experience for the players than say.. a flat road in the middle of nowhere, going nowhere if I might add. So right out of the safe room you are running up a long flight of stairs, pillars on both sides of the room as well as niches behind tapestries for the infected. Then you go in to a long straight room with 8 niches on each side of the room. But to make it more fun I decided to change things up by having the second half of the room flooded by sand and rubble. This helps to change up the game play and assure players that they will have to stay on their toes when exploring the tomb.

Perhaps I’ve lost you by now, but this is a blog and thus, I put how I feel and what I think from my experience in to writing for you to read. Now if my cat would stop climbing on my keyboard I could also tell you that there are purposely made death spots on the level. There are also many places to hide for the specials and there are a few spots where survivors cant go back if they drop down. Did I mention there is a room which requires the survivors to split up in to 2 man teams? I’ll have more on that later, but just know that we are working hard (as you can see from the lack of blog updates) to bring you a truly unique experience for L4D1 and L4D2.

P.S.

The L4D2 version sadly is the bulk of the experience since we can modify the character models. So if you have L4D2 lucky you, but remember that the campaign is being made for L4D1 first and foremost!

Any questions or comments are welcome as well as if you would like to help out with modeling and texturing. Go ahead and email us at cndmadmin@gmail.com or message me personally on steam. SteamID Draugonian.

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