Paul Ille [dot] com

I haven’t done any level design in a while and to be honest it’s been bothering me a bit. It just so happens that Trevor was trying to spark me back into it and between him and I, I’m giving Half-Life 2 level design a try. I started learning it’s editor, Hammer, about 3 days ago and am starting small by converting one of my RTCW DeGeneration Deathmatch maps, Snowcabin, to Half-Life 2 Deathmatch. As you can see it’s been renamed to Ivy Hill Cabin. Give it a look

You can also find more info on the full development of the map in this post at the TRAM Design forums

I stopped into Mozart’s Saturday morning to record a few songs. I did “Blackbird” by the Beatles and “I will follow you into the Dark” from Death Cab for Cutie and then a few originals that I wrote recently. As always it was a lot of fun and I hope to do it again soon. You can listen to the recordings below or in the player under Studio Set 02-11-06. Enjoy!

[wpaudio url="http://www.paulille.com/mp3s/paulille/Blackbird.mp3" text="Paul Ille - Blackbird (Beatles)" dl="0"]
[wpaudio url="http://www.paulille.com/mp3s/paulille/I will follow you into the Dark.mp3" text="Paul Ille - I will follow you...(Death Cab for Cutie)" dl="0"]
[wpaudio url="http://www.paulille.com/mp3s/paulille/Rest of my Life.mp3" text="Paul Ille - Rest of my Life" dl="0"]
[wpaudio url="http://www.paulille.com/mp3s/paulille/This Smoke.mp3" text="Paul Ille - This Smoke" dl="0"]
[wpaudio url="http://www.paulille.com/mp3s/paulille/Whole Soul Now.mp3" text="Paul Ille - Whole Soul Now" dl="0"]
[wpaudio url="http://www.paulille.com/mp3s/paulille/With all my Love, Stephanie.mp3" text="Paul Ille - With All my Love Stephanie" dl="0"]

In this month’s edition of PC Powerplay, an Australian gaming magazine, they’ve included two custom map packs for CRASH Squad in the Bunker section of the DVD. The issue is #123 March 2006 and is available in Australia and New Zealand. The map packs are a collection of player created maps made specifically for CRASH Squad and there are 12 combined.

CRASH Squad is a game modification for a game called Kingpin: Life of Crime. This was the first modication TRAM Design ever worked on. I was the project leader and lead map artist as well. You can find more information about the game modification here.

It amazes me after all these years that it even gets a mention anywhere. I was working on this modification back in 2000 and I think we stopped sometime in 2002 maybe. It’s flattering for sure.

A good friend turned me onto this Karaoke site that I messed with for a while called www.ksolo.com It’s actually a really kewl idea. I thought I’d post one of the things I recorded Check it out!

[wpaudio url="http://www.paulille.com/mp3s/paulille/Let me be your teddy bear.mp3" text="Paul Ille - Let me be your Teddy Bear (Elvis)" dl="0"]

In a couple hours I’m going to go watch the Super Bowl with my Brother and a few friends.

I know two people who’s favorite team is the Steelers so it’s going to be sad for them when the Seahawks win! Go Seattle! I don’t really care who wins, but Seattle could use a win. I like rooting for the underdog. Hope there’s goodies there cause I’m so hungry I could eat a…pizza.

I really shouldn’t since I have a competition going with a woman at work for whoever can lose 10 pounds first. Whoever loses owes the other person 2 lunches. If I win I win. I feel like pizza and goodies today for when I watch the big game. I’ll work out harder at the gym I guess.

Been messing around with a game called RF Online recently which is pretty kewl yet a bit redundant. It’s a MMORG, ya know where ya level and stuff, and it’s done well, but it seems really repetitive. Sure some games are repetitive like playing FPS Deathmatch, but that’s not always predictable. In this game you do the same thing over and over again and you know what’s going to happen. You keep getting quest after quest (kill 20 monsters & kill 10 monsters) and your level goes up and up, you get new armor and new weapons, but it’s very samey. I’m curious how it goes as it gets further and further into the game.

I’m posting this video so you can see it, but also because I’m so impressed that it converted it from .AVI at 368mb into .FLV and it’s now 26mb! Unbelievable! I love the Flash Video format! Sure I cut the resolution in half, but still that’s some impressive size decrease!

From what I understand it’s more PvP which to my understanding is player vs player. I found that out when messing with the game as a whole horde or what seemed to be ‘players’ chased me and kicked my ass nicely. Seems like they were just a bunch of llamas since my level was considerably lower than theirs. Not sure why they’d bother unless it was just to show how powerful they were.

I like the game though and I’ll continue to play it. No doubt it’s more fun playing it with my friend Loo!