Steps into uncharted territory.

About

This is Nosoup.net, home of NoSoup4U.

So why can’t you have any soup? Well, it’s actually only my online screen name I’ve been using since 1998 and has been freely taken from a Seinfeld episode.

My real name is Roy van Es, I live in the Netherlands and I’ve been playing videogames since I was about six years old.
It all started with the good old’ Atari 2600 (Combat still rocks my socks to this day) and, while I swiftly became intrigued by videogames, I moved on to a VIC-20 so I could start to modify games myself (oh, how I loved the days of “hax0ring” a game with the help of the Run-Stop button).

I soon realized the limitations of the VIC-20, and my parents were kind enough to sponsor my trip to the superior world of Commodore 64.
When I wasn’t playing Lazy Jones I was very busy modifying the several games I had. To this day I still regret selling my C64 (the money was put towards a Super Nintendo), and have since then reminiscenced with my backup cassette full of bleeps and crackles of long lost ‘games’ (and I define ‘game’ very freely here, because some of my *cough* projects back then only involved the player typing in his/her name, followed by maybe some extra personal details, so it could result in a nice “[Insert name] has been an ugly penguin for [Insert age] years!” being spammed all over the screen).

So my hay days of C64 hax0ring were ended by the new reign of the Super Nintendo which took over the household.

I bought my first PC in 1997 when I went to live on my own, after finishing my high school and having traveled through Australia for a year.
I quickly became engrossed with the first Quake (which was the household game for LANs, shortly followed by Duke Nukem 3D), and shortly after discovered that I could design my own maps with Deathmatchmaker (I still wake up in cold sweat thinking of the horrible procedures I had to go through to build a proper map with that editor).

Thus my modifying-games-spirit had been awakened once again and I noticed how my architecture-study could be nicely incorporated in creating my virtual environments (what’s better than to test the flow of your building while deathmatching through it; although I wonder if any real estate agents ever considered rocketjumpable window heights to be an all-time seller…).

I started to play online about the release of Quake III: Arena and, halfway through the release, I got addicted to the Q3F modification, a remake of the popular Quakeworld Team Fortress mod for the first Quake.
Accidentally (or isn’t it?! *cue scary violins*) I also took a break from my architecture study as, after three years, I realized I wouldn’t be happy with a job where the actual creativity when designing a building was being limited to only five percent, whereas the remaining 95 percent consisted of either endless debating on the material being used for the wiring canals/draining pipes/[insert your own boring object], or slashing the best deals with the contractors, financial advisors and city counselors.

I indulged myself into the various aspects of creating a game, specifically the so-called first person shooters, and created my first, publicly released, series of maps for the Q3F modification. The Q3F Minigames (as the series of six maps was dubbed) were a collection of maps that were aimed at lower player counts (two to eight people) and instead of deathmatch/capture the flag game types, the pack was focusing on different game types for each map. My favorite map of the pack is still Q3F_mg_rockethill, where the player has to reach the top of a sloped ramp while constantly having to dodge rockets which are fired from the top of the hill.
I also created a few CTF maps for Q3/Q3F, but most stayed unreleased and were used to either make myself used to GtkRadiant (and Q3F’s complex entity system), or to test out different game play variations; a lot of which served me as a base for the fifteen mini-game maps I finished up for the Enemy Territory modification, ETF: the ETF Minigames.
I’ve also been busy getting myself up to date with the latest engines (specifically Doom 3/Quake 4/Prey and Half-Life 2), and one of the current results is the port of a CTF map for the Quake 4 modification Q4F (yet again another Team Fortress mod).

I’ve also been working on some private projects for some… years, one of which is a port of the popular eighties arcade game, Elevator Action, on the HL 2 engine.

At the moment I’m 29 and I finally made the decision to try to make a living doing what I enjoy most: Creating levels/virtual environments. I finally finished up my portfolio and from here on I’ll be trying to secure myself a job with a game studio; preferably as a level designer, but currently willing to take on anything which will get my foot into the industry.
So, to sum it all up: This site will serve as a showcase for the different things I’ve created, but also give a peek at the current projects I’m working on.

For now I’m focusing on designing levels for first person shooter games and besides that, I also like to create all sorts of other things such as object models, 3D animations, websites, and short movies.

I’m self-taught in most things I’ve learned so far and it’s been a fun experience along the way. I’m currently proficient with several 3D-packages, such as 3DS Max, Lightwave, Blender3D and, level design specific, the Radiant and Worldcraft/Hammer editors.
I’m also able to use several other tools such as Adobe’s Photoshop/Imageready/After Effects, Macromedia’s Flash MX/Dreamweaver MX and, after following several dedicated courses and studies over the year, I’ve become an expert in using Notepad ;).

For a more visual representation of who I am and what I’ve been making the past few years, have a look at my portfolio.

For more information you can contact me either by email at or on IRC.

Catch you around,
Roy ‘NoSoup4U’ van Es.