Interview with Matt “SweetnutZ” Vainio

Matt was asked the join Silicon Ice Development after the development team viewed some of his artwork which was transformed into background wallpapers. Unfortunately SID was unable to incorporate any of his concepts or designs into the first few beta versions. Not to worry, with Beta 2 being worked on, SweetnutZ plans to, “tempt tummies with the taste of nutZ and honey!” All you need to reference is his Mercer John’s Comic Book Art web site and you will see this guy is quite talented look for his work in Urban Terror!

Oswald: You were first noticed thanks in part you your Urban Terror artwork…talk about this….hobby? Profession? Passion?

SweetnutZ: My illustration is primarily a hobby. I have 3 years of formal training as an illustrator, but my last year of school I decided to pursue design as the market for illustrators dropped. Originally I made the few urban terror backgrounds for myself, but then I thought what the hell, maybe this Oswald guy wants to see em.

Oswald: Did you ever think you would be on a development team working on one of the up and coming Quake III mods? With your illustrating background, what are you looking to accomplish for Beta 2?

SweetnutZ: No, I never imagined being on a development team of any mod or TC. At the very most I could have seen myself creating a web site or logo for a gaming mod, with my design/web experience. As for what I want to accomplish, I’m not sure that I plan on using my illustration skills in urban terror for more then backgrounds or cool p1mpage shots. It really would not fit within the design framework. The main thing I want to accomplish is visual unity within the mod, in the form of user interfaces, heads up displays, scoreboards. Also to create a common theme and feel for the look of the mod.

Oswald: The new Team Arena user interface is much more complex and offers the gamers more in terms of control, what would you like to see happen with the UI for Urban Terror??? Any concepts you want to share?

SweetnutZ: For the user interface, I’d like to create something that not only uses the TA menu systems, but tops team arena graphically. This is not to say that it will have more graphics per inch, just come out looking better then the TA menus. The area that should deviate the most from TA is the player setup. We plan on including a player setup screen that allows users to store favorite player settings, from the ability to change head/body skins independently, to an enhanced inventory menu.

Oswald: I must say I was surprised to hear you had began work on a map. The I was able to get a few screen shots and was truly amazed at the design and layout. How did this all come about? Was it something you had wanted to do for Urban Terror?

SweetnutZ: Actually, yeah. Before I was on the team, I was working on a small business park map on my own, but the frame rate and r_speeds were through the roof. The design was pretty bad, but some people may remember seeing shots of it on the forums before beta 1. Before that, I had made a few aq2 maps for friends and LAN parties. So I have a little bit of mapping experience. The only real thing I have over the other mappers is that I can and do make my own textures.

Oswald: Your map is titled Casa, tell us a little bit about it. The design, the concepts, texturing, ambience, the major aspects which go into creating a successful level.

SweetnutZ: Hmmm…design wise I really like the way in which the quake series of maps were designed. Probably quake2 the most, because the maps were not symmetrical. I’d say that one of the reason’s I don’t enjoy Q3 as much has to do with the symmetrical maps. As far as concepts, do you mean how I started out? I started out with a ton of sketches. In the end the map grew a lot out of the sketches, but they still helped me out. Now, what makes a map good? I don’t know if I’m qualified to answer that as a mapper yet, so I’ll answer that as a player. Basically the biggest 2 problems I see in 3rd party maps are lighting and textures. I plan on getting to work to release a texture pack to help the 3rd party mappers out with the texture end of things, but the lighting still needs work. What I notice most is that mappers use too few lights that are at too high of a intensity. More low leveled lights help give the map a more realistic feel.

Oswald: By offering the Urban Terror community a texture pack, do you think that will improve the overall quality of the levels, or just the looks? Many say they would rather have a map have good game flow and look average, as opposed to a great looking map which has many choke points and does not offer good, intense gaming experience.

SweetnutZ: I’m not sure really. I hate to bring up counter-strike, but from what I have noticed, most of their maps are exactly that, photographic textures on maps with 2-4 choke points. Maybe the most enjoyable maps are those that combine playability with really good looks. I read somewhere that id goes to the lengths of creating the map with temporary textures, then having a 2d guy go through and make the map really look good. I am trying to do that with the new UT map releases. So far I have already made a few replacement textures for Tubby’s upcoming abbey map.

Oswald: What Urban Terror maps are you impressed with and why? What would you like to see the community level designers improve upon?

SweetnutZ: Obviously, I’m impressed with all of the team mappers maps. I like them for different reasons. Ricochet I love because I get the best frame rate off that map, way better then any other map. The game play is great on that sucker too, the map is giant but it doesn’t feel that way. Swim is probably my favorite NRGizeR map, the outdoor area is definitely my favorite area.I am also very excited to see how Gerbil and BBQ’s maps come out. I can tell they look great so far, can’t wait to team beta test them. Community mappers could improve simply with practice. I think we ran into a few mappers that released their first map, which is never a good idea. If you look, the quality of mapping is going up with time as people make more maps. Tubby is proof that with hard work and practice, mappers can advance. Each map he makes is a great improvement over the last.

Oswald: Would you rather see the community level designers take their current maps and improve on them, or knock them off as early beta maps and move on to a new map? For example, and this goes back the question about textures. The map Armory by dU KrOno seems to be quite popular, but the textures leave a bit to be desired. What would you like to see done with a map like this?

SweetnutZ: In most cases I would say that the mappers should just go on and make new maps. Down the road further if the map continues to remain popular, then perhaps a retexturing could be considered. I guess one of my only texture concerns is that we will see maps that have the same textures over and over. Say I release the textures for my map. (Essentially I’d be releasing them if I released the map), but one of the things that makes each map special are it’s textures. Seeing that great wall or stone texture that you spent hours finding/making on someone else’s map over and over again across 5-10 maps really dilutes the original map in which those textures were found.

Oswald: Well, we look forward to your continued work on the UI and your upcoming release of your level, Casa. Thanks for taking some time to fill in the Urban Terror community. Is there anything you would like to mention or p1mp?

SweetnutZ: There’s this great looking map coming out, I think its called reactor…..and uhm….wait a minute. Really all I’d like to do is thank the fans out there who are remaining patient. I’m sure they realize that most of us work and have lives. This is created in our spare time, unlike most professional games. Thanks guys!