Blogs

2024

Dec 24 - 2024 Dev Notes - A look back at the software that took through 2024...
Sep 12 - Noclip Documentary - Dust 2's origins have been retold on camera by Noclip...
Jun 20 - 25 Years of Counter-Strike - Happy 25th Birthday, Counter-Strike!...
May 12 - Dockge - How I use Dockge to self-host...
Apr 27 - Configuring LXC GPU Passthrough - How to configure GPU passthrough for LXC containers...
Apr 25 - Updating Fedora on Raspberry Pi - Trevails fixing signature verification errors when upgrading Fedora on a Raspberry Pi...

2023

Nov 19 - Comments - My approach to writing code comments...

2022

Oct 28 - de_dust_infinite - Next de_dust when?...
Jan 2 - Netlify - My experience migrating this website to Netlify...

2021

Feb 6 - Depressurising - Sometimes accepting defeat is the key to success...

2019

Jul 9 - 51 Half-Life Editing Tips Errata - Errata for my 51 Half-Life Editing Tips, a mere two decades late...
Feb 6 - 3D Printing - Trials and tribulations of 3D printing...

2016

Dec 23 - A Third Dust Map - dedustpcg lives!...

2015

Dec 18 - Doom School - Turns out I did learn about level design at school...
Oct 1 - Barcelona - Trip notes from Barcelona...
Aug 20 - Go Package, Go - Make your Go package 37% more attractive with these tips...
Jul 25 - Why I quit level design - I what?!...

2014

Nov 5 - Just Go Things - Not another golang-is-better-than-yourlang piece...
Nov 1 - Christmas Countdown - Because Twitter wasn't scary any more...
May 1 - Cobbles and Castles - How Cobble in CS:GO achieved what I failed to do in the original...
Apr 6 - Function Timeouts in Go - How to handle Go function timeouts without causing a meltdown...
Apr 3 - Mission Not Accomplished - I think I have more...

2006

Aug 30 - Mission Accomplished - This is the bit where we end...
Aug 16 - Cruelneth Returneth (part 2) - Ok, this one's a bit mean...
Aug 14 - Cruelneth Returneth (part 1) - Cruelness' has returned, but with a slight lisp. Today's casualty: de_strata...
Aug 7 - Cruelness returning... - Just a quick request to anyone who had their map featured in the 'Cruelness' series I did a few weeks back: It's time to see the aftermath!...
Jul 28 - Preachin' Day 5 - Last one! (Note to self: add confirmation for 'delete post' button...)...
Jul 27 - Preachin' Day 4 - Some things are better created with brushes, as part of the world...
Jul 26 - Preachin' Day 3 - There are times when a change has to be made, but making the change will be tricky because it's being retrofitted to existing geometry...
Jul 25 - Preachin' Day 2 - Without a good design, your map is essentially wasted - unless that was the whole idea...
Jul 24 - Preachin' Day 1 - Hooray, a week of me pouring out my brain about stuff!...
Jul 11 - Doodle-storming - Now, I was going to write about something dull like how to get the most out of level geometry, but I had a far better idea before I got the first word out...
Jul 4 - Low-level 'design' - In the past I've written quite a bit about high-level level design, specifically, getting a good overall layout for multiplayer maps that isn't too convoluted nor over simplistic...
Jun 24 - How to topple Counter-Strike - Everyone who wants to make a mod wants it to be a popular as Counter-Strike...
Jun 15 - Texture-tastic diagrams - I was looking for some textures earlier today, and came across a few of the original files I used when creating Sienna...
Jun 13 - Playing by the rules - Many of the principles of game design rely on consistency - if a distinctive yellow-coloured barrel explodes when shot, players will expect this to be the same for all identical yellow-coloured barrels and will hopefully learn from it...
Jun 7 - Giving the player purpose - I've been playing more TFC lately, and whilst it may not have the bells and whistles of DoD:S or CS:S, it's still remarkable fun...
May 29 - Rabbits, Carrots and Werewolves - Consider a rabbit...
May 25 - Cruelness... the end! - Ok, over the past 4 weeks I've written about 11 maps whose screenshots were sent to me...
May 18 - Cruelness (part 4-ish) - Much later than I anticipated, so I'm gonna get this up and posted while I can...
May 9 - Im**rsiv*nes* - Where I live is quite industrialised...
May 2 - Cruelness (part 3) - Another two this week. I keep writing too much!...
Apr 24 - Cruelness (part 2) - Off we go again! Not too cruel this time, focusing on theme, style and architecture...
Apr 18 - Cruelness (part 1) - My request wasn't a complete failure!...
Apr 11 - Copy'n'paste - One of the benefits of working on HL1-based maps was that it took an order of magnitude less effort and less detail to create an area...
Apr 11 - Something a little different... - Ok, this should be fun...
Apr 3 - Big airy bits - Sometimes, I can't help but see something on TV and want to recreate it as a CS map...
Mar 27 - DoD:S mapping and that - I've been playing a lot of DoD:S in the past couple of days, and naturally having been used to BF2 (and the aggravation that comes with it), I'm hooked (again...
Mar 20 - A little wad (the story of cs_tire) - A lot of people don't know this, but Dust wasn't my first Counter-Strike map...
Mar 12 - Unplanned - I've mentioned enough times before how most of my maps have been entirely unplanned...
Mar 5 - More Fact! - Did quite a bit of work on pa_fact this weekend, including making the inside a lot warmer, making the outside a lot colder, and completely removing a couple of bits so I can redo them properly...
Mar 1 - Modding yourself employable - If my months of research, quantum physics knowledge, Excel spreadsheets and wild assumptions are correct, then most of the people who read this blog are modders with a passing interest in level design...
Feb 23 - Design Crossovers - I've been playing quite a bit of Trackmania Nations...
Feb 16 - Feeling It - After you've been playing games and designing maps for a while, you tend to get a good feeling about what works and what doesn't...
Feb 4 - Fact Screenshots - Well, it's Saturday 4th February, and as everyone knows, Saturday 4th February means I have to post some screenshots...
Feb 1 - Reach for the Skybox - One of the cool things about Source is the skybox feature...
Jan 25 - Twee Texturing Tips - A bunch of simple considerations when texturing your maps...
Jan 21 - Inkscapism - If you're like me, designing maps on paper leads to large swathes of forest disappearing, graphite stocks depleting, and a slow increase in aggrevation as you are forced to redesign large portions because it would be a pain to erase...
Jan 11 - Casbah... oh dear - So, this is the mess we ended with last time...
Jan 7 - Casbah... alpha - So, Casbah was proceeding nicely (actually, "mideast" was, because it wouldn't be named Casbah until much later...
Jan 5 - Casbah... - With traffic from digg...

2005

Dec 21 - DaveJ's Christmas Feel-Good Message - It's almost Christmas, and since it's hard to escape it, I suppose there's little option left than to embrace the season of good will, merriness, happiness, joy and other fluff...
Dec 13 - Dull map? - Right, so you've got your map...
Dec 6 - Light Me Warm - One of my favourite things about HL2, one of the things that set it apart from so many other FPS's, is the lighting...
Dec 1 - Me on: de_view_update1 - Since dumping Battlefield 2 due to its bugs and irritations, I've started playing CS:S more...
Nov 27 - Help me help you - I've finally reached it...
Nov 17 - pa_fact at night? - On my journey home tonight in the absolute freezing cold, the train passed the same old industrial yards, lit up in the otherwise black outdoors via their bright yellow incadescent bulbs and bright white flourescent floodlights...
Nov 15 - That D word again - I was pointed to an article on Gamasutra yesterday, covering realistic level design for Max Payne...
Nov 9 - website propaganda - Just a heads up that johnsto...
Nov 5 - pa_fact Source'd - Nothing's coming to mind to write about, so instead I thought I'd post a couple of screenies of something I did last Sunday and a few of the things in it that I think work quite well...
Oct 22 - The Hill - Part of the fun with level design is in trying to find solutions to simple gameplay problems...
Oct 19 - Dtaiel vs Dgiesn - Just over four years ago, I wrote that 'Detail versus Design' essay/article/rant, which basically said, "Gameplay first, geometry second, perfect texture alignment third...
Oct 13 - *design - Ever since I first got my hands on the DTP/art programs when I was about 10 (things like TimeWorks Publisher ST, Calamus 1...
Oct 5 - Mission One - Right, I'm back...
Sep 19 - Normal Service... - Now settling in to new flat...
Aug 30 - Game-time versus local-time - Modern FPS engines can do all sorts of remarkable things, from radiosity lighting to HDR lighting and reflections...
Aug 27 - Level design and style - It's quite interesting how level design has evolved stylistically throughout the past 10 years...
Aug 22 - Mission Statement - It occurred to me how the mapping world is very different to how it was when I started out 10 years ago (when I was, err, 12)...
Aug 16 - Random ETC2 stuff - Whilst my mind is empty of any real content, thought I'd let slip on a couple of stupid things I put into ETC2...
Aug 16 - Ups and Downs - Tonedef made this comment to my post from last week:...
Aug 15 - Black Mesa: Source - Another busy week...
Aug 8 - Flying Start - There's nothing more satisfying or enjoyable as a level designer as stumbling across a photo like this:...
Aug 4 - Engine Paradigms - Something that came out of the Quake 2 versus Unreal battle of years and years ago was the obvious distinctions between both engines...
Aug 3 - The Map is not the Territory - A popular expression from NLP is the phrase, "the map is not the territory", neatly describing that a particular description will not entirely reflect the details of some object or concept, but will act as useful information nontheless...
Jul 26 - Designing on paper - As I sat on the train home yesterday out of Waterloo station, scaring my fellow passengers by snapping photos through the window of derelict industrial buildings as they whizzed by and making frantic drawings on a pad of paper, I wondered how one would actually draw the layout of those locations...
Jul 20 - Making a map: first steps - One of the hardest bits about creating a map is actually starting one...
Jul 18 - Height Changes - No matter how much level design I do, there's still one thing that I have huge problems with - height changes...
Jul 13 - Common sense strikes again - Whilst redesigning the main site (not live yet) I've been streamlining the content and removing some bits and adding others...
Jul 8 - Tubes and Subways - The terrorist attack on London yesterday was terrible, but as always, us British continue as normal...
Jul 5 - The beauty of newbies - There's something strangely enjoyable about looking at the creations of others, whether they be established at the craft or merely trying to make that first, fundamental step...
Jul 1 - Directing the player - It occurred to me that most of what I post here is common sense...
Jun 25 - David Johnston MEng - I made a promise to myself never to let this blog stray from being about level design to being about my personal life so I'll keep this short: yesterday I found out that, after four years of University, I now hold a first-class honours MEng degree in Software Engineering...
Jun 23 - Learning from the Masters - *Just a quick post while I have some form of web access (I'll be back late next week when normal service shall resume)...
Jun 16 - A couple little tips - There are quite a few handy tricks one learns during the course of learning how to map...
Jun 16 - A couple more little tips - Inspired by the mammoth...
Jun 15 - A couple little tips - There are quite a few handy tricks one learns during the course of learning how to map...
Jun 14 - Making it all seem real - The past year or so has been a great time for level design aesthetics: finally, adding purely aesthetic, non-gameplay elements to maps is affordable...
Jun 12 - Fun Map Features - Having finally getting round to playing de_port a lot last week, and a bit of BF2 in the last day or so, and then cross-referencing this with my many years of FPS experience (haha) I think I've finally found the single thing that I enjoy most in any of them...
Jun 8 - de_dust_pcg: Source - PC Gamer issue 150 came out today, including the second part of my CS:S mapping tutorial...
Jun 6 - On Source map conversions - The past week has been quite interesting in respect to the conversion of various HL1/CS1 maps to the HL2/CSS Source engine equivalents...
Jun 4 - Mappers and Designers - Ever since being told my writing was 'pompous' 5 years ago during my English Literature A-level, I've had a bizarre interest for the real meanings of particular words, so I can ignore them and use them how I like...
Jun 1 - The Happiness Cycle - In my efforts to bring ever new groundbreaking material from the behemoth that is my crazy mind, I present to you, The Happiness Cycle:...
May 28 - Modding: doing it the right way - Ever since Quake, I've tended to follow news about mods quite closely - it's really cool to see what's being developed...
May 26 - de_dust_pcg: planning - I remembered that before I had even laid a Dust-textured brush of Dust PCG, I played around with HL2's mapdev materials and sketched out a rough plan...
May 24 - Flow: Keeping Players Happy - Another one of my pet hates in level design is how some maps consist of obstacles right in the most annoying places...
May 21 - The key to good outdoor maps - My favourite maps are always set outdoors, usually at some prominant part of the day where shadows are king...
May 18 - Old de_dust_pcg Screenshots - Dust PCG has been out nearly a week now...
May 15 - de_dust_pcg: conflict areas - I was going to post this in a few weeks time... but while the map's still hot...
May 14 - PCGamer Tutorials - A reminder that the current issue of PC Gamer UK has a tutorial on the making of Dust PCG...
May 13 - Fixed de_dust_pcg - A complete and fixed version of Dust PCG is now available, with all the annoying skywalking ironed out and a few small changes...
May 11 - de_dust_pcg overview - Due to popular demand, I and PCG present the overview of Dust PCG:...
May 11 - This is final - Time for a short lesson on how to release a map in complete and final form...
May 10 - de_dust_pcg screens 2 - Some more...
May 10 - de_dust_pcg: The Aftermath - Wow, what an amazing (and varied) response to the announcement of dedustpcg!...
May 9 - CS:S Credits - I get a lot of e-mails about CS:S...
May 9 - de_dust_pcg - So, the news is out...
May 9 - de_dust_pcg screens - It's actually illegal in the UK to reveal you're releasing a new Counter-Strike map without providing any screenshots...
May 7 - Keeping CS Maps Fair - Occassionally I like to download a few amateur CS maps, just to see what people are up to with the game...
May 4 - My Second Map - Quake 2 grew on me very rapidly...
May 2 - Doom to Quake - Following on from Doom, I went through Heretic, Hexen, Quake, Quake II and Heretic II...
May 1 - My First Map - In the interest of history, I felt it would be appropriate to post up a few shots of the first ever map I released onto the internet...
Apr 29 - Dust 2 = Cobble? - I came across an interesting blog entry by Luke Muscat...
Apr 28 - Working from the Core - I read or heard something the other day about the problem people have with doing something (yes, I've forgot entirely what that 'something' is or was, but bear with me)...
Apr 25 - Smarties for Statistics - Here are the current statistics for all my official (well, originally at least) CS maps, according to ServerSpy...
Apr 23 - csde_bridge: It's Here - Right, just for fun, csde_bridge is now available for download...
Apr 21 - csde_bridge - Earlier in the week it occured to me that there was a precursor to de_sienna that I had made, basically to experiment with a few things...
Apr 18 - Me and Machinima - Two things about this Slashdot post...
Apr 16 - More on Blender - After further playing with Blender and the SMD exporter, it's apparant there are a few problems...
Apr 11 - Source Modelling in Blender - I discovered today that it's now possible to create models for Source from Blender...
Apr 10 - HL2 Panoramas - Sunday is typically spent sleeping, eating, lounging, drinking, starting fights, enjoying the company of family and friends, shaving animals, more sleeping, and concluded with a pixie dancing contest...
Apr 9 - CS:S Tutorials Soon in PC Gamer - A while back I was asked by PC Gamer (UK) to write a couple of articles for them, introducing mapping for Counter-Strike: Source...
Apr 8 - Coming soon to PC Gamer UK - PCGamer UK are running a feature next month on de_dust...