Journals
My roommate moved out to go back to his parents' place today. My pad already feels dreadfully empty and depressing. Luckily tommorrow I move out as well to another friend's place. He has great internet and it will help as I play TF2.
I'munna go play TF2 now. BONK!
I'munna go play TF2 now. BONK!
----------------Space shuttle Endeavour on Launch pad 39A----------------
To those who missed it, space shuttle Endeavour mission (STS-127) will launch tomorrow at 7:17 a.m. EDT.
Right now, the official NASA Countdown Clock is at T- 14 hours and counting.
NASA TV: http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1369080&segment=149773
A foreman was assigned three new workers, two big strong local men, and a little guy from Japan.
Because of their size, the foreman gave the two locals the digging work, and told the Japanese man "You'll be in charge of supplies."
After an hour or so, the foreman came back to check on their progress only to find the two locals sitting down doing nothing.
"What happened? Why aren't you at work?"
The men replied that their tools were broken and that the Japanese man in charge of supplies, had disappeared.
Worried, the foreman ordered the two men outside the mine to help look for the little guy.
Just when they were about to give up the search, the Japanese guy jumps up from behind a rock and yells "Supplies!!"
Because of their size, the foreman gave the two locals the digging work, and told the Japanese man "You'll be in charge of supplies."
After an hour or so, the foreman came back to check on their progress only to find the two locals sitting down doing nothing.
"What happened? Why aren't you at work?"
The men replied that their tools were broken and that the Japanese man in charge of supplies, had disappeared.
Worried, the foreman ordered the two men outside the mine to help look for the little guy.
Just when they were about to give up the search, the Japanese guy jumps up from behind a rock and yells "Supplies!!"
The past 2 days have been pretty crazy for me!
Thursday night I went to a party with some friends at a club near me, as usual I ended up drinking too much and got groovy on the dancefloor and I think I had something to do with making a radiator fall off the wall aswell. My bad.
So anyway, I staggered home at some point in the morning and spent about 10 minutes trying to get the damn key in the door, eventually I got in and jumped into bed.
The next morning arrived and I was woken up by my mum leaving for work at about 8:15am. I then spent from that time to 10:00am throwing up. Woo, but atleast I was done doing that so it can only get better!
10:15am my tutor from college turns up at my door and reminds me that I'm doing the sound for a college gig today and he's here to pick my drumkit up. FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU. Okay.. No problem, I'll just get my sorry ass through the day as quick as I can. I arrive at the theater and unload my drumkit, I then end up going to the backroom and falling asleep sprawled across two chairs when I was supposed to be setting up equipment, apparently I was so far gone that I didn't move when my tutor came in and dropped a load of metal parts and drumskins on the floor right next to me.
So anyway, a long story short, I eventually woke up and made my way back to the stage area, went and got some lunch and felt a little better, but then had to stay there until 11pm doing the sound for the show... And it was a loud show.
Thursday night I went to a party with some friends at a club near me, as usual I ended up drinking too much and got groovy on the dancefloor and I think I had something to do with making a radiator fall off the wall aswell. My bad.
So anyway, I staggered home at some point in the morning and spent about 10 minutes trying to get the damn key in the door, eventually I got in and jumped into bed.
The next morning arrived and I was woken up by my mum leaving for work at about 8:15am. I then spent from that time to 10:00am throwing up. Woo, but atleast I was done doing that so it can only get better!
10:15am my tutor from college turns up at my door and reminds me that I'm doing the sound for a college gig today and he's here to pick my drumkit up. FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU. Okay.. No problem, I'll just get my sorry ass through the day as quick as I can. I arrive at the theater and unload my drumkit, I then end up going to the backroom and falling asleep sprawled across two chairs when I was supposed to be setting up equipment, apparently I was so far gone that I didn't move when my tutor came in and dropped a load of metal parts and drumskins on the floor right next to me.
So anyway, a long story short, I eventually woke up and made my way back to the stage area, went and got some lunch and felt a little better, but then had to stay there until 11pm doing the sound for the show... And it was a loud show.
'(
Just finished putting together my new PC. Problem is, I'm missing a SATA cable for my DVD drive and I'm still trying to find my copy of Windows XP. :S Parts are:
-Asus M2N68
-Amd Athlon X2 7750
-Seagate 320gb SATA HDD
-Kingston DDR2 2GB 6400/800
-Gigabyte ATI 4850 512GDDR3
-Intech H340B 550W case
-SATA DVDRW - Sony
Should be running in 2-3 days.
-Asus M2N68
-Amd Athlon X2 7750
-Seagate 320gb SATA HDD
-Kingston DDR2 2GB 6400/800
-Gigabyte ATI 4850 512GDDR3
-Intech H340B 550W case
-SATA DVDRW - Sony
Should be running in 2-3 days.
Last proper day of School. I have the weekend to study, two exams Monday, and I'm free. (The other two classes from this semester had a sumitive project and two-booklet exam in class, respectively.)
Can't wait until I can spend all day every day mapping.
Can't wait until I can spend all day every day mapping.
Remember the TRAXX 160 locomotive i have been working on? I still am! Progress is slow, which is unfortunate since the animation im planning on wont be as good as i hoped it would. Mainly due to time and render constraints. Oh well, here's the current front end of the locomotive, the self-illuminating lights are temporary, im working on making them a bit more fancy with a map from the diffusing shade, and a volumetric light will be placed in front of it with a shadow map so it nicely projects itself on the environment. To many little details? yes, obsessive? yes..
Test animation, pan around the loc, 250 frames. Took about 4 Hours to render with 250 rays, 1.5 hours with 25 rays.
update:
youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmK0j4ikCPw
update:
youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmK0j4ikCPw
Project Source Development: Week 1
Week one of the Source development is off to a rough start.
As soon as i got news of the new compo i started sketching ideas and outlines and plots and battles etc etc on paper. I was at work when i found out about it so i was powerless to do anything but brainstorm. I did get a lot of ideas down and i have the barebones skeletal-layout of the map completed on paper.
I just forgot how involved source really was.
Aside from actually mapping, i had to re-learn a whole new I/O system. i have been experimenting (lucky) the whole week prior so i have a good foundation with that, but i also need to learn many other things.
Aside from the learning part, i now feel sub-par as a mapper.
Never in my life have i completed a map to my liking. It's always been at around 80% I feel that due to that i won't get this map done either. The scale that i have set for myself is huge.
I tried doing what strider did- apply the map as a texture in hammer. I build walls around the map surrounding the white, and decided that i did not want to do that. I felt that a lot of people were going to do that, and i did not want to follow the crowd. curse my quest for uniqueness
I Then decided i'd flesh out one room at a time.
Build the room out of dev-textures, set all the entities, basic lighting, and move on.
Well the way i have my storyline set out, that's impossible to do, and today i realized i needed to flesh out the whole map and then start with the entities.
Again i was wrong.
How does one start a project this large-with an unfamiliar engine and a deadline?
-Carefully
I basically scrapped my map 4 times in this last week. Wasting 20+ hours of time i could've spent better had i planned this all out. Again, that's where my lack of mapping experience comes in.
So i find myself starting over-again. Mapping the baselines, adding minor terrain detail before i do the entities.
After i have the minor terrain detail i think i'll work on the details (displacements, water, fog, areaportals) lighting, and the more advanced entitiy set-ups.
Plus my personal life took a spin into hell... Almost forcing me to lose motivation. But if i dont work on this at least once a day, it won't get done. This is one map of mine that CANT wait til last minute. Hopefully i'll keep my sanity long enough to see it through to the end.
Week one of the Source development is off to a rough start.
As soon as i got news of the new compo i started sketching ideas and outlines and plots and battles etc etc on paper. I was at work when i found out about it so i was powerless to do anything but brainstorm. I did get a lot of ideas down and i have the barebones skeletal-layout of the map completed on paper.
I just forgot how involved source really was.
Aside from actually mapping, i had to re-learn a whole new I/O system. i have been experimenting (lucky) the whole week prior so i have a good foundation with that, but i also need to learn many other things.
Aside from the learning part, i now feel sub-par as a mapper.
Never in my life have i completed a map to my liking. It's always been at around 80% I feel that due to that i won't get this map done either. The scale that i have set for myself is huge.
I tried doing what strider did- apply the map as a texture in hammer. I build walls around the map surrounding the white, and decided that i did not want to do that. I felt that a lot of people were going to do that, and i did not want to follow the crowd. curse my quest for uniqueness
I Then decided i'd flesh out one room at a time.
Build the room out of dev-textures, set all the entities, basic lighting, and move on.
Well the way i have my storyline set out, that's impossible to do, and today i realized i needed to flesh out the whole map and then start with the entities.
Again i was wrong.
How does one start a project this large-with an unfamiliar engine and a deadline?
-Carefully
I basically scrapped my map 4 times in this last week. Wasting 20+ hours of time i could've spent better had i planned this all out. Again, that's where my lack of mapping experience comes in.
So i find myself starting over-again. Mapping the baselines, adding minor terrain detail before i do the entities.
After i have the minor terrain detail i think i'll work on the details (displacements, water, fog, areaportals) lighting, and the more advanced entitiy set-ups.
Plus my personal life took a spin into hell... Almost forcing me to lose motivation. But if i dont work on this at least once a day, it won't get done. This is one map of mine that CANT wait til last minute. Hopefully i'll keep my sanity long enough to see it through to the end.
The Iron Man 2 movie has already been filming for some time now, and even though some film set photos have been released to the public, no direct pictures of any of the villains that Iron Man is supposed to fight have been shown, until now. Behold "Whiplash", one of Iron Man's comic book nemesis from years back:
Well, the super villain Whiplash will be played by Mickey Rourke, one of the most bad-ass actors around. Here is the first ever photo of him as Whiplash, without his black mask it seems:
I just don't know, I have a bad feeling about Iron Man 2 so far, that Whiplash outfit from the movie does not add up with Marvel's version. But who knows, if there is somebody who might pull off an upset, that will be Mickey Rourke. Now, I just want to know one thing.....what's up with War Machine? Are they going to have that awesome killer armor in the movie? If they do, it better be like the original one in the Iron Man comic:
Moved to a new apartment last month, and I'm still getting used to it. On the plus side the rent is pretty low and i can get 40mbit broadband if I want to (i settled with 10mbit to save money but it's nice to have the option), and it's a nice apartment with nice neighbours too.
The only bad thing is that I get the morning sun so it's impossible to sleep, especially in the summer when the sun rises at 4:30 in the morning
What else is new? Well I bought one of these;
http://www.gcainteractive.com.au/files/2015094/uploaded/p1.jpg
If you have a DS I can recommend getting one
EDIT: I have black curtains I'm just used to having no sunlight in the morning
The only bad thing is that I get the morning sun so it's impossible to sleep, especially in the summer when the sun rises at 4:30 in the morning
What else is new? Well I bought one of these;
http://www.gcainteractive.com.au/files/2015094/uploaded/p1.jpg
If you have a DS I can recommend getting one
EDIT: I have black curtains
I'm just used to having no sunlight in the morningmy father said I got a big pennie collection. Its pretty big I guess.
Next thing I want to show you are the basics of a design for a big competition. This is made in 15 minuts after a quick sketch on paper. So this work is only very basic.
Anyway, the whole thing will be made in chocolate and from buttom to top it will be 1 meter...
Next thing I want to show you are the basics of a design for a big competition. This is made in 15 minuts after a quick sketch on paper. So this work is only very basic.
Anyway, the whole thing will be made in chocolate and from buttom to top it will be 1 meter...
Has finally finished 12 months of study for Aged Care Cert 4...thank goodness...hope i pass...have to submit it all tomorrow...
Tomorrow I am leaving for Kentucky to spend ten days with my grandma on her farm, doin' hard labor 'n shit
Finally a competition.
Using my petite mapping skills I think I can definitely get before the deadline. From past competitions I can tell that the trend is that there is a dearth of entries in most of the competitions.
But on to my mod adventures. (For those of you who pointed it out, yes this is not a professional review, more or less a personal excursion. If you want reviews you can search online for the defunct Hangar 16, just make sure to turn on your pop up blocker once you find it. And yes it exists. At least parts of it.)
Today's mod is: HLDino, a dinosaur themed mod. (maybe)
This is another example of the sort of mods that, as mentioned in my biography, are master pieces that I strive to realize. You start out on a beach with an ak47 from counter-strike. Up ahead you run into dinosaurs from Gunman Chronicles, and they spitting green globs at you WTF. And across the beachhead you see zombies. WTF.
Your ak is surprisingly weak. As you (try to) deal with the oncoming hordes of dinosaurs and blood soaked zombies, you realize that you are dealing not with zombies and rabid reptiles, but infinite monstermakers. So you run and gun, but most run because ammo is a luxury. Eventually you make it to the sewers and that's it.
A mod like this one proves that gameplay is king, and that backstory, reasons for borrowing models from other mods, and making sense are not crucial to great gameplay. I have duly learned this valuable lesson and shall proceed to map based on what I just learned. Maybe you will too, but prolly not.
Using my petite mapping skills I think I can definitely get before the deadline. From past competitions I can tell that the trend is that there is a dearth of entries in most of the competitions.
But on to my mod adventures. (For those of you who pointed it out, yes this is not a professional review, more or less a personal excursion. If you want reviews you can search online for the defunct Hangar 16, just make sure to turn on your pop up blocker once you find it. And yes it exists. At least parts of it.)
Today's mod is: HLDino, a dinosaur themed mod. (maybe)
This is another example of the sort of mods that, as mentioned in my biography, are master pieces that I strive to realize. You start out on a beach with an ak47 from counter-strike. Up ahead you run into dinosaurs from Gunman Chronicles, and they spitting green globs at you WTF. And across the beachhead you see zombies. WTF.
Your ak is surprisingly weak. As you (try to) deal with the oncoming hordes of dinosaurs and blood soaked zombies, you realize that you are dealing not with zombies and rabid reptiles, but infinite monstermakers. So you run and gun, but most run because ammo is a luxury. Eventually you make it to the sewers and that's it.
A mod like this one proves that gameplay is king, and that backstory, reasons for borrowing models from other mods, and making sense are not crucial to great gameplay. I have duly learned this valuable lesson and shall proceed to map based on what I just learned. Maybe you will too, but prolly not.
I am not going to go in to details about the following topic in case it comes close in breaking the Journals rules, but I will say this, I am so getting this thing!: http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/bd6f/