#setpieces

[donegames]

Kick in the face (JUST FOR FUN) How it feels like working on a dark fantasy game as an indie game dev

[mtaartsdesign]

Dazzling Fulton Center this holiday season is Rashaad Newsome’s ‘Set Pieces’, a selection of scenes from his films, 'ICON', 'KNOT', and 'LSS Kassandra 'Ebony', featuring kaleidoscopic portraits of vogue performers within a digitally rendered ornate architectural environment. These films examine language, power, and representation and are a loving portrait of devotion to the community that inspires Newsome and his work.  All videos run simultaneously for 2 minutes at the top of each hour on 52 video screens in the Fulton Center Transit Hub in Lower Manhattan.

[dont-offend-the-bees]

Having a nice chill day of painting set pieces in my PJs 🎨 #painting #acrylicpainting #setpieces #amdram #terrypratchett #wyrdsisters #greebo #wip

[soulofnamelessartist]

More progress on Dragonfate Dais. And a sincere thank you to everyone who found me on the last post. I've been away for so long. I wasn't sure that Tumblr was a good place to post projects, but hoping on and seeing this one get attention was really reassuring. I'll start posting more of my models and artwork in the future.

[dutchiha]

RP - Set pieces

Itachi and Sasuke run from Konoha together. @icebloodedprince

"Sas-ke," Itachi squatted down next to his little brother. There was a paper headband around the dinosaur toy, it was 'knotted' with cellotape. The dinosaur was now attacking Itachi's knee. Sasuke was making sound effects. "Can I talk to you for a sec-... That is not what a mega demon fox sounds like."

[remusicals]

Then there's this off in the corner of the room.... Is it a wall? A ceiling? Beats me! #settour #bendyandtheinkmachine #batim #randomencounters #irlencounters #setpieces

[procedural-generation]

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri

There are a number of features that make the maps in SMAC more interesting than those in the earlier Civilization games. It uses height to make hills and mountains, for example, instead of them being tile-features. The special resources are distributed in more interesting patterns; the newly-introduced borders make the size of the map work better; and the native lifeforms are better integrated that the barbarians were (or are, for that matter).

But the map generator has two really interesting features that still set it apart from other Civ-style games.

The first isn’t a feature of the generator, per se, but greatly affects the meaning of the maps: the player can terraform the planet. And not just in little ways, like raising or lowering a couple of tiles, though you can do that too. A couple of the council resolutions can raise or lower the sea level across the entire planet. (Global warming from too many boreholes can also melt the ice caps to the same effect.) The malleability of the terrain makes it fairly unique among strategy games.

It can be a viable strategy to flood the map and drown your opponents cities, or to drain the ocean and march your armies across on dry ground.

The second is vital part of the generator: the landmarks.

When a map is generated, it scatters a number of prefabbed features on the planet. A few are mostly decorative, but most have an effect of some kind.

They owe a bit, I think, to the discoveries in Seven Cities of Gold (like the Grand Canyon) and the wonders in Civilization--the manual refers to them as “giant natural wonders of Planet”--possibly via Colonization, though at the moment I can’t remember if that game had any exploration bonuses for natural wonders.

The landmarks in Alpha Centauri are unique even when compared to the later Civ games that included similar features. They occupy multiple map tiles, sometimes forming significant strategic features on the map in addition to their resource bonuses.

Moreover, they help give the random maps structure. In contrast to the accidental chokepoints of earlier Civ maps, they have deliberate strategic importance.

The map generator as a whole is “spikier” than earlier random Civ maps. The landmarks make things a bit less fair but more interesting. There were a lot of high-value city-sites in Civ II because the even pattern ensured that they would be frequent and predictable, but there’s only one Manifold Nexus.

Which is not to say that it’s an absolutely dominant strategy: There’s enough landmarks overall that everyone should be able to claim one, if they work on it. But there’s plenty of other things going on, so you may have other priorities.

In the end, it is a good demonstration of how maps (and procedural generation in general) are much more interesting when they have outliers to act as landmarks and memorable setpieces.

[kipgrandstand]

Finals Are Won Where the Box Gets Ugly

Set Piece Traffic Decides Finals Again: The Teams That Weaponize Congestion Best

Set Piece Traffic Decides Finals Again explains how Arsenal, Chelsea and United turned corners into footballs sharpest pressure weapon today

Football loves pretending finals belong to beauty.

Then a corner ruins the story.

One delivery. Ten bodies. A goalkeeper trying to see through elbows, shirts and panic. That is where the cleanest teams can suddenly look helpless.

Set piece traffic is not random anymore. The best teams build the mess. One runner blocks without fouling. One player drags the main marker away. Another attacks the blind spot before the defender even understands the danger. The article frames modern set pieces as planned congestion, not lucky chaos.

That is why finals keep bending around dead balls.

Arsenal, France, England, Real Madrid and Manchester United all understood the same old truth in different ways: when open play gets tight, the crowded box becomes its own battlefield.

The prettiest football still needs a mean corner.

Sometimes the trophy is not won by the perfect pass.

Sometimes it is won by the player nobody saw through the traffic.