Journals

DiscoStu13 years ago2011-04-07 04:04:04 UTC 8 comments
Since Captain Terror asked where have I been...

...here. Just not on Steam, I'm locked out of it for some unexplained reason. Or rather, for some vaguely explained reason:
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So yeah. You guys won't see me there until Steam fixes itself :(
Luke13 years ago2011-04-06 06:13:01 UTC 6 comments
Recently I decided I wanted to start reading comic books, and started with ones I know I'd probably like, being Batman. I like the modern approach to Batman, so I've been reading the recent-ish adaptations of Batman starting with Batman: Year One.

Year One is fantastic. It covers basically the start of Bruce Wayne's career as Batman, and introduces a lot of the main 'good' characters along the way. I'd go in more, but I just recommend picking up a copy. It's very well written by Frank Miller, and includes amazing artwork.

(I may add that I decided to go in chronological order of the modern comics.)

While I did skip a few issues due to (apparently) not so good story lines and whathaveyou, the next in the series was The Man Who Laughs, which features The Joker's first appearance in Gotham.
While not nearly as well done as Year One, it's definitely worth the read. The Joker is insane as always, and his story (which is very different from that of the movies) is pretty cool.

(On that note, I'll eventually get to The Killing Joke. I'm really excited to finally read it. I've heard nothing but great things.)

After that I got into The Long Halloween, which I'm currently still reading. Just done with the first chapter, and it's already fantastic. They're just getting into the origin of Two-Face. Very enthralling.

After this, I'll be reading The Dark Victory (featuring Robin's first intro), and THEN The Killing Joke.

I also own The Dark Knight Returns, but I think I want to read that last. It's apparently Frank Miller's take on the death of Batman. I plan on buying a few more comics, as well. Being Arkham Asylum (I want to read the comic before I play the game) as well as Batman: Hush, which is apparently also really good.

Has anyone else read, or take any interest, in Batman comics, or even comics in general? I'd like to hear what your reading / have read.
My roommate read a lot of the Punisher comics. They're insanely good, too. I think I'll read those eventually.

tl;dr Go fuck yourself.
tl;dr Batman comics.
Striker13 years ago2011-04-05 12:59:25 UTC 16 comments
I read a bit about eye colour on Wikipedia, since I really only wanted to find out why I am one of the "lucky" 22.3%( not sure if only reffers to USA) of white population to have blue eyes.

Turns out there was a genetic mutation in a common ancestor,
probably living in the northwestern part of the Black Sea region (around modern Romania) 6,000–10,000 years ago during the Neolithic revolution.Eiberg stated, "A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a 'switch,' which literally 'turned off' the ability to produce brown eyes."
I was surprised to see modern Romania was the territory where blue eyes appeared. I was expecting to be something like Russia, Finland, Norway or Sweden, since I thought that solar radiation is less around those parts and the melanin pigment is not as useful. Romania is in a calm temperate climate.
monster_urby13 years ago2011-04-05 09:47:54 UTC 7 comments
Dream Time

Bit of back story...
I am very fond of cats and as such, own a cat. I also live on a main road which travels from one county to another and as such is very busy. 2 years ago I learned the hard way that the 2 things do not mix and my relatively new cat, Mizzi, was knocked down and killed.
My new cat has been a house cat for 2 years to the point where the concept of going outside absolutely terrifies him. You open any of the doors and he shoots upstairs and out of sight. If he needs to go out (to the vets, in his cat box) he usually tenses up and pisses himself (literally)

The Dream
I am standing in my kitchen and I am quite aware that my cat is outside scratching the door and trying quite desperately to get into the house. I let him in, quite confused about the fact he was out there. He comes in and casually strolls into the house and up the stairs. I then watch as exactly 12 clones of him wander in and follow him up the stairs. This apparently does not phase me.
A few moments later, I hear a shriek from up the stairs. It is my fiancée. She then storms into the kitchen, looks me straight in the eye, as if I have gone completely mental. She then shouts, at the absolute top of her voice:
"WHY THE FUCK DID YOU JUST LET 12 FOXES INTO THE HOUSE!?"
I run up the stairs and find the 12 cats, (now quite obviously foxes) ripping my poor cat to shreds. I stroll back down the stairs, rather aloof to the whole situation and respond to the misses. "Fuck, I have no idea..."

Then I woke up...

wat?
ThatGuy487813 years ago2011-04-04 23:33:33 UTC 5 comments
You know that feeling, when you are working on something and you get bored of mapping/coding, but you know that when you done, the thing you make will be one of the best things you ever made? That feeling that what you are doing is boring and tedious, but it will be totally worth it? That driving force that compels you to hang in there, grit your teeth and persevere until every little thing is done right?

That feeling is one of the reasons I got into mapping (That and the fact that making maps is interesting). My point is, that this feeling is a great one, weather you hate it or not. I'm not sure about anyone else (I'm probably mad), but I experience this almost every big map I make, weather in Hammer or another mapping program for another game.

I am just putting this out there because I feel that this feeling should be noticed, and respected. I've given in to this feeling so many times, I have a folder full of maps that didn't even get past the 150 brush benchmark. Erfg.

Here's one to those that battle thought the tedious work to get'er'done and make something everyone will be talking about!
satchmo13 years ago2011-04-04 03:52:26 UTC 7 comments
I played "Hostile Negotiation" in GTA IV this afternoon.

The first time I played through it, my pistol aim was not accurate enough to eliminate the hostage taker in one headshot, so he executed cousin Roman. I started over again.

The second time through, I used a sniper rifle to pin point the target, so I blew his brain out in one clean shot. Just when I was giddy with my accomplishment, I drove through a construction site and the tire ran over a propane tank. It blew up the car, killing both Roman and myself. I was in such disbelief that I wasn't sure what happened at first. When I realized my mistake, I didn't know whether I should be laughing or crying. I felt like doing both at the same time.

The third time, finally, I did it without committing those mistakes.

This game should really have more frequent checkpoints.
Oskar Potatis13 years ago2011-04-03 05:18:18 UTC 14 comments
Welcome back!
This is your 10000th login.

In 31 years, I'll reach 100 000 logins and there will be free ice cream (cloudberry and chocolate) for everyone.
Kurosaki Ichigo13 years ago2011-04-02 11:15:10 UTC 6 comments
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It was found? How..?
[/bad joke]

Eh, might start mapping soon... Apart from procrastinating for roughly 4 years, I have been reading up articles (not for four years straight either) from over the years on console ports on how bad and how decent some are. I guess the games industry is heading down that path... hopefully PC gaming doesn't leave anytime soon.

In regards to console ports I own Rainbow Six Vegas 2 would have to be my decent port to be on my list whilst Blur would fulfill my 'hands down' console port complete with CPU-bound code and minimal use of my GPU also bundled with the DLC "Hitch-tastic". Re-mappable keys not included. (Yet despite being a major console port, I still play it...)
brendanmint13 years ago2011-04-02 08:11:16 UTC 9 comments
I'm Back! again! Only to leave! Again! Just wanted to see what was happening. Started mapping for fallout 3. pretty cool, custom textures are fun. Recently got a new computer for my birthday last tuesday, duel core with a good graphics card, can play all valve games at their highest resolution, cant wait for portal 2. Later TWHL!
Habboi13 years ago2011-04-01 16:35:58 UTC 15 comments
Got myself my first work placement. Some work experience at Beatnik Games. If all goes well they usually hire fulltime.

They said I'll probably start on tuesday and they're arranging a machine for me to use. God help them if it's a mac.
DiscoStu13 years ago2011-04-01 03:35:08 UTC 15 comments
Is a bit of privacy too much asking? I'm a member in a forum dedicated to the university I'm in. It's really helpful, I've learned what to do and what not to do, what courses to take, which ones are good, where should I look up information, etc. To make it short, pretty much everything a forum is intended to do.

But then someone asked to meet me. Being the only dumbass without a facebook account or rather, any kind of online identity everyone was curious. After they insisted so fucking much, I gave in and agreed.

They took a photo of me. I specifically asked not to have my photo taken or even uploaded. They still uploaded it to facebook. Now people recognise me around the halls. And there's no way I can request our mutual friend Suckerberg to remove my bloody photo.

Fuck the world, I can't trust anyone.
Unbreakable13 years ago2011-03-31 19:48:18 UTC 8 comments
So I moved from Prince Edward Island to British Columbia.

So decided to pack and ship my new computer. We packed it really really well. and the cooler broke and the revodrive got warpedand the metal that attaches the revo drive to the PC got bent, as seen in the photos, I insured the box thankfully.

in the last picture we unscrewed the metal part from the revo drive and had to hit it with a hammer to get it straight again.. Removing this metal piece made the revo card flatten out, and since theres no cracks on the card, I think its actually alright... hopefully.
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X-LAyer213 years ago2011-03-30 22:07:36 UTC 10 comments
Thinking about making maps based on my favorite books. The ones I'd like to most right now is one based on Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton and even more than that The Mist by Stephen King. I'd really like to do The Mist but instead of taking areas already in th book add new new ones. One area i think would be cool to do would be the military base that the "Arrowhead Project" had taken place at and is responsible for the disaster. I'd of course being doing in HL1 or maybe Op4 but Goldsource none the less. My current idea for creating the mist itself would be to create large func_illisionary brushes and use a custom texture for the fog and make it slightly transparent but I'm not sure that this would be the best way to go about this. Is there anther better way to create fog in Goldsource?

PS: How do I lock doors without assigning them a button?
Striker13 years ago2011-03-29 21:10:16 UTC 5 comments
Wow...

Is this thing for real?
I didn't have time to test it yet, I think you can freely test demos. This is the beginning of cloud gaming(frankly I don't really like this).
Striker13 years ago2011-03-26 21:50:45 UTC 9 comments
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