Leon has been a mapping machine in the last 5 years or so and I sat down with him to chat about his last Source project called Final Project diary
Audio Interview with Leon Brinkmann
14th November 2010
14th November 2010
Leon has been a mapping machine in the last 5 years or so and I sat down with him to chat about his last Source project called Final Project diary
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Just an out of topic curiosity question, how old is he now? 40……..3?
Forty something.
I’m just so looking forward to hearing this podcast when you get time to put it up, thank you Phillip.
Just finished listening to it. Good to hear him enthusiastic again, and I’m actually happy to know that he’ll be making Crysis 2 mods. I just think that Half-Life is getting too much credit for it and it’s good to have the most dedicated and correct modder transport himself to a modable game.
Well, Leon has IMHO done everything he could with modding HL2 (in his vision) with the longest mod of all time, namely Strider Moutain.
I greatly enjoyed his work, and I hope he will enjoy his future working on map’s for Crysis 2. I won’t play it, but I hope those who will play it will have as many fun as I had with his HL2 map’s.
What a great man. His enthusiasm is unmatchable. “Addicted to mapping” indeed!
well, in about 1 month time I will be 47. wow, time flies like crazy!
i have to hear that interview back myself, to see if I really am talking so enthusiastic. Not that it’s not the truth, when it comes to mapping and modding I indeed am very enthusiastic!
Hopefully many people will play Crysis 2 ones it is released, so they can play our sp-mappacks and mods that we will make in the future.
And I hope Phillip will do something with Crysis2 on this site, open a next one for C2, or just make a forum for it. Because I said it before and will repeat it, and really mean it;
Planet Phillip always has been and will be a very nice place for me to be, as player and mapper/modder. PP always felt like a warm bath. Not always were all comment positive about the mods we made, but our work always did get great cove ridge. And many people took the time to leave a comment behind, with just nice words, or constructive criticism, etc. I really will miss this when we are a half year from now. But who knows, maybe by then PP will have a small place for Crysis2 stuff.
thank you all for listening, and Phillip, thanks for asking me for this long interview. Hopefully will the listeners have as much fun listening to it as we had making it!!
leon
Oh, good for you leon, crysis is a good game, but please don’t forget our beloved HL community!!!, hope u keep doin” some new mods or even some maps for HL2 I beg it to you!! hehe ok good luck!!
Good interview. It was interesting to hear Leon’s response to the “quantity over quality” question. On a side note, I’m guessing Rooftopville would have been a fun project for Leon since he likes mapping vertically. Crysis is a great choice with it’s superb graphics, so I see more great maps in the future.
There was already a similar mod by Leon that had a lot of rooftop action.
Great interview (despite the problem cat 😀 )
The questions posed were sharp and relevant (bar the tutorial bit).
Very well done.
Leon’s responses were more than adequate.
He creates for his own pleasure and maps for his own style of gameplay.
As one of the greats and certainly the most prolific, he’s always going to be a target for some.
I, too, look forward to Crysis 2. I would not be surprised if a large number of SDK refugee mappers also take up CryEngine 3.
Nicely done by both.
Leon, are you South African?
You sound like it!
Just want to know.
Wonderfully insightful interview ! Legitimate questions and straight forward honest answers. from the man himself. Very nicely done and well warranted in my opinion. I’ve been a fan of Leon’s work for some time now and have grown to respect the man and his style. I’ll miss looking forward to his HL2 maps.
It’s good to see you taking your skills to the next level Leon. You seem quite excited and optimistic about your future mapping and I hope you receive a great deal of satisfaction working with the new engine. At least I can still look forward to seeing some more of your work in the future. All the best to you Leon and thank you Philip for organizing the interview.
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from time to time we see comment here in Russian or Polish I assume, am always interested to know what it says. tried to translate it with the google translator, but that didn’t work at all.
To AnonEntity, no, i’m not from south africa. but, it isn’t a strange thought because i’m Dutch, and as you maybe know do they speak in south africa a kind of Dutch dialect that I can understand for about 80% or so.
glad everyone liked the interview so much,
leon
Hey Leon, thanks for the reply. Listening to the interview reminded me of FarCry2. I guess you weren’t one of FC2 voice actors…………………………………….lol!!!
What I still want to know is what exactly was in those “3 removed areas”.
If Leon reads this, I would appreciate him giving a description of what exactly was cut from the overall product.
Thanks.
Hey PP & Leon, during the interview, I heard about your HL2 Mod: Coastline to Atmosphere and installed it, played it, but it crashes to the desktop when I take the buggy and level “leonhl2-2c.bsp” should load. I’ve searched the internet, tried various fixes, but still no luck….It dosen’t crash to desktop now, but load screen just, well, keeps on loading forever…..Any help? I really want to continue / finish this nice Mod!?!?!?
please read my asnwer to you’re question in my comment below!
leon
let me first say sorry for the very late reply of me, you can always mail me with questions otherwise, I leave my emailadress in every readme.txt that comes with a mod of us. that said I would like to start with answering Cavou’s question about what was cut out of Final Project. I have to be honest and tell you that I really have to think hard to remember what I did take out again because its already quit some time ago now. I do remember some models Baltic did make that had custom animations that didn’t work anymore due to the update, and they where taken out. Also did I had made some hallways with enemies and some firefights that didn’t make it to the end, (due to that the mapsize was way to large and I had to cut this part of it). It looked quit similar to the mappart where you fight against zombies, and where a large monster appears and disappear right in front of you. And I remember some indoor parts with lots of computers and staircases that had some great firefights in it that where removed too.
I don’t have these parts anymore, otherwise I wouldn’t have mind to make 1 or 1,5 map out of it and release it. Just a 2 months ago or so my powersupply and harddrive broken down and had to be replaced, what ment that I did loose these parts.
Of Course do I normally upload stuff to Baltic’s site, or somewhere else on the internet, so I can’t loose it. But all backup files of this last mod where deleted after the release, (we didn’t need them anymore, so why take up all that space).
And to Anonentity I would like to suggest that you take a look at one of our forums that deals with this issue. CtoA ALWAYS worked fine without any bugs that we knew of, but again, that one Steam update did cause a lot of damage, even with that mod of us.
please try what is said here, and if it doesn’t help then please just mail me or comment there;
http://www.balticforever-leveldesign.com/stridermountain/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=75&pid=561#post_561
hope it does help,
leon
Hey Leon, Thanks for the Fix. It works!
Best regards.
Thanks for answering my question, Leon. Its truly a shame that content was all lost. My favorite parts about your mods have always been the firefights, so its a pity that some of it was missed out on.
Really enjoyed this interview. Good job!
Too bad there won’t be any more releases from him and his team. I don’t fully agree with everything he says; I don’t think it’s necessary to have a playtester stay on the project for more than one or two playthroughs, after that he/she will also become blind. I also think it’s important to play games often, just to see what’s good and what’s bad design, so you can add those goodies or avoid those mistakes. I prefer quality over quantity, there are enough maps and mods released, so no need for garbage releases.
And I really don’t think Valve’s episodes are of bad quality and they are adding a lot to the story and character devlopment. How Alyx starts joking in episode 1 or how emotional you get when playing episode 2… anyway, maybe his only complaints are about the pricing of the products and lack of new visual content.
I psyched about this latest release; Final Project Diary. I haven’t got down to play it yet. Will do it soon, looks promising and fun!