Journals
THANK YOU VALVE!
I know y'all havent seen me much, it's cuz I have been stuck on GMOD and a dedicated server I have been paying for through a hosting company.
Till last night I was having a LOT of fun owning a server and having a few friends as admins, building stuff, blowing up stuff, doing whatever comes natural on GMOD.
Valve went and ran another OB (OrangeBox) update and at that very moment a vast majority of the Dedicated Servers out there went unusable! After going through some email Ping-Pong with the hosting company, who by the way washed their hands of any responsibility to help fix this problem, it was basically determined that until Valve gets both thumbs out their asses, nothing can be done. They need to release a WORKING UPDATE in order for MY MONEY to be proven well spent.
So nw I have to resort to single player mode of GMOD (which SUCKS) or do other Steam games which I HOPE will work for other servers!
I've decided to dust off my Source SDK and try my hand once again at some mapping.
Thing is, I wonder which game to map for.... I have the following....
CS:S, HL2, HL2:DM, HL2:E1, HL2:E2, HL2:Lost Coast, HLDM: Source, Synergy, and I even bought Crazy Machines 2, and City Life 2008
So..... the question is.......... what should I create a map for (CM2 and CL2008 are excluded from that option LOL)
I know y'all havent seen me much, it's cuz I have been stuck on GMOD and a dedicated server I have been paying for through a hosting company.
Till last night I was having a LOT of fun owning a server and having a few friends as admins, building stuff, blowing up stuff, doing whatever comes natural on GMOD.
Valve went and ran another OB (OrangeBox) update and at that very moment a vast majority of the Dedicated Servers out there went unusable! After going through some email Ping-Pong with the hosting company, who by the way washed their hands of any responsibility to help fix this problem, it was basically determined that until Valve gets both thumbs out their asses, nothing can be done. They need to release a WORKING UPDATE in order for MY MONEY to be proven well spent.
So nw I have to resort to single player mode of GMOD (which SUCKS) or do other Steam games which I HOPE will work for other servers!
I've decided to dust off my Source SDK and try my hand once again at some mapping.
Thing is, I wonder which game to map for.... I have the following....
CS:S, HL2, HL2:DM, HL2:E1, HL2:E2, HL2:Lost Coast, HLDM: Source, Synergy, and I even bought Crazy Machines 2, and City Life 2008
So..... the question is.......... what should I create a map for (CM2 and CL2008 are excluded from that option LOL)
UPDATE
New screens:
After discussing it with my... uhh... dev team last night, the map's going to undergo another visual makeover shortly. The main focus of that will be the vegetation and possibly a new skybox texture (this one is causing problems). The tree's are ports, so they really should go, and they don't look 'tf2' enough for our liking, so hopefully some new trees and plants will come. The skybox on the other hand, while I do like it, is causing some HDR problems and the best solution would be a new custom sky, which I like the sound of. More on all that later.
/update
ctf_volcano has gone through a bit of a visual overhaul today. My goal from the start was for the look of the outside to basically oppose the look of the volcano interior. Before I reworked it, it sort of did do that, but not nearly the way I had planned at the start. So I got sick of the exterior's appearance and started reworking it. Starting with the lighting and the skybox, which was a sort of twilight, I deepened the lighting up, added much more contrast, and changed the time of day to a late evening. Secondly, the textures of the outside were a little.. flat. The grass and the dirt were too dark and like the lighting, lacked contrast. Playing with Lumberyard's nice grass texture, and some new dirt textures fixed that too.
Before:
After:
I am VERY pleased with these results so far. This map has gone through so many changes throughout it's development cycle it makes me really glad when I finally nail the look I'm going for.
Still, development is very slow. I am definately not going to rush this, but I do think that I'm on the final stretch. Check how long it's taken me to make it this far if you want to guess how long that means it has left. You'll be just as clueless as me.
New screens:
/update
ctf_volcano has gone through a bit of a visual overhaul today. My goal from the start was for the look of the outside to basically oppose the look of the volcano interior. Before I reworked it, it sort of did do that, but not nearly the way I had planned at the start. So I got sick of the exterior's appearance and started reworking it. Starting with the lighting and the skybox, which was a sort of twilight, I deepened the lighting up, added much more contrast, and changed the time of day to a late evening. Secondly, the textures of the outside were a little.. flat. The grass and the dirt were too dark and like the lighting, lacked contrast. Playing with Lumberyard's nice grass texture, and some new dirt textures fixed that too.
Before:
Still, development is very slow. I am definately not going to rush this, but I do think that I'm on the final stretch. Check how long it's taken me to make it this far if you want to guess how long that means it has left. You'll be just as clueless as me.
Ever had the need to change the rotation speed of a rotating func_train?
In my latest level, I built a fancy rotating door out of two func_train entities; one to serve as the sliding support, and one to actually rotate out of the way. I figured it should all work, because I knew that the path_corner definition in the FGD file included a "New Train rot. Speed" option.
Possibly I'm missing something, but it just didn't work. The door moved back and forth, but the rotational speed did not change (or, more to the point, the rotational direction did not change!) Eventually I hunted through the code until I found the relevant section, and it seems that the option is just not wired in.
When trying to fix this unfortunate omission, I ran into a couple of other peculiarites, the first being that the definition in the FGD file just did not seem correct. It called for yaw_speed(integer) where the prompt was clearly asking for three numeric values...
Ultimately, in the course of getting it to work, it turned out to be simpler to change the FGD entry. Sadly this means that if you wish to take this code and make use of it, you will need to recompile any existing levels which contain rotating func_trains. I say "sadly", but upon reflection it is possibly a good idea that this code not change the behaviour of any currently working levels...
So anyway, making this work is a very simple two-step process.
First, edit your FGD file. Find the path_corner entry, and replace the "yaw_speed" line with the following:
avelocity(string) : "New Train rot. Speed (y z x)" : "0 0 0"
Using "avelocity" means that no code needs to be written to get the vector value into the engine; it is handled by the initialisation code. (In fact I suspect that yaw_speed would be read, but handled as a single value rather than a vector, so the change is actually required!)
Second, open your dlls\plats.cpp file. Search for "CFuncTrain :: Next" and look through the function until you find the following:
if ( m_pevCurrentTarget && m_pevCurrentTarget->speed != 0 )
{// don't copy speed from target if it is 0 (uninitialized)
pev->speed = m_pevCurrentTarget->speed;
ALERT( at_aiconsole, "Train %s speed to %4.2f\n", STRING(pev->targetname), pev->speed );
}
Directly below that, add the following lines:
if ( m_pevCurrentTarget && m_pevCurrentTarget->avelocity != g_vecZero )
pev->avelocity = m_pevCurrentTarget->avelocity;
Be warned: While this does indeed work, I seem to have a logic problem in there somewhere (in the equality test to g_vecZero) in that it is applying the new angular velocity EVEN IF UNDEFINED, or if avelocity is set to (0,0,0). What this means is that any rotating func_trains you might have in existing levels will cease to rotate! If this is not a problem for you, then go ahead and use this code. Otherwise - well, turns out it breaks at least one of my other levels, so I'll be doing my best to fix it soon! Stay tuned! :)
In my latest level, I built a fancy rotating door out of two func_train entities; one to serve as the sliding support, and one to actually rotate out of the way. I figured it should all work, because I knew that the path_corner definition in the FGD file included a "New Train rot. Speed" option.
Possibly I'm missing something, but it just didn't work. The door moved back and forth, but the rotational speed did not change (or, more to the point, the rotational direction did not change!) Eventually I hunted through the code until I found the relevant section, and it seems that the option is just not wired in.
When trying to fix this unfortunate omission, I ran into a couple of other peculiarites, the first being that the definition in the FGD file just did not seem correct. It called for yaw_speed(integer) where the prompt was clearly asking for three numeric values...
Ultimately, in the course of getting it to work, it turned out to be simpler to change the FGD entry. Sadly this means that if you wish to take this code and make use of it, you will need to recompile any existing levels which contain rotating func_trains. I say "sadly", but upon reflection it is possibly a good idea that this code not change the behaviour of any currently working levels...
So anyway, making this work is a very simple two-step process.
First, edit your FGD file. Find the path_corner entry, and replace the "yaw_speed" line with the following:
avelocity(string) : "New Train rot. Speed (y z x)" : "0 0 0"
Using "avelocity" means that no code needs to be written to get the vector value into the engine; it is handled by the initialisation code. (In fact I suspect that yaw_speed would be read, but handled as a single value rather than a vector, so the change is actually required!)
Second, open your dlls\plats.cpp file. Search for "CFuncTrain :: Next" and look through the function until you find the following:
if ( m_pevCurrentTarget && m_pevCurrentTarget->speed != 0 )
{// don't copy speed from target if it is 0 (uninitialized)
pev->speed = m_pevCurrentTarget->speed;
ALERT( at_aiconsole, "Train %s speed to %4.2f\n", STRING(pev->targetname), pev->speed );
}
Directly below that, add the following lines:
if ( m_pevCurrentTarget && m_pevCurrentTarget->avelocity != g_vecZero )
pev->avelocity = m_pevCurrentTarget->avelocity;
Be warned: While this does indeed work, I seem to have a logic problem in there somewhere (in the equality test to g_vecZero) in that it is applying the new angular velocity EVEN IF UNDEFINED, or if avelocity is set to (0,0,0). What this means is that any rotating func_trains you might have in existing levels will cease to rotate! If this is not a problem for you, then go ahead and use this code. Otherwise - well, turns out it breaks at least one of my other levels, so I'll be doing my best to fix it soon! Stay tuned! :)
)
Countdown to the Scout update: http://www.teamfortress.com/scoutupdate/index.php
I've been looking forward to this for some time. This includes the scout's new weapons, the new payload map, and of course the new game mode.
I saw The Sandman coming from a mile away, and it looks fairly promising, but probably very annoying for the recipient. We'll see how it looks the first day the update comes out, with baseballs flying everywhere.
I'm hoping the gamemode is The Hunted. I really wanted this to come out, and I still am. Payload is nothing compared to Hunted, and it's no replacement.
Excited to see what's in store for the next couple of days. Thoughts?
(Also, I have been meaning to make an update to my TF2 map I showed a little bit about earlier this year. It's come a long ways and I'm getting anxious to show some media. After I finish this particular area you'll see what's up.)
I've been looking forward to this for some time. This includes the scout's new weapons, the new payload map, and of course the new game mode.
I saw The Sandman coming from a mile away, and it looks fairly promising, but probably very annoying for the recipient. We'll see how it looks the first day the update comes out, with baseballs flying everywhere.
I'm hoping the gamemode is The Hunted. I really wanted this to come out, and I still am. Payload is nothing compared to Hunted, and it's no replacement.
Excited to see what's in store for the next couple of days. Thoughts?
(Also, I have been meaning to make an update to my TF2 map I showed a little bit about earlier this year. It's come a long ways and I'm getting anxious to show some media. After I finish this particular area you'll see what's up.)
I'm feeling happy today. I got my 6800XT working again after unlocking them last month only to realise they were faulty. Now I'm back to playing Source games with effects turned on (DirectX 8 on 5200FX didn't support HDR or Shader).
Ahh... I guess, a year older... just not feeling too much wiser. Finally decided to ditch the faithful old factory radio for something that worked with my iPod. Picked up a CDA-9884 if anyone is interested in seeing. Lovely part is, the red color display matches the dash lights of my car (yay for a car that comes with red dash lights!). It's working quite lovely if I do say so myself.
This should be an easier question (and non-technical):
The mother of one of your patients is in the process of getting a divorce and has just moved into a small apartment. Due to her new work schedule, she has not been able to unpack the boxes left in the kitchen. She brings her 4-year-old daughter to your office because the child cut herself with a knife trying to open one of the unpacked boxes. The mother is visibly upset. After you bandage the daughter 's injured hand, you sit down to talk with the mother.
Of the following, you are MOST likely to
explore what support system the mother has to help her family settle into their new home
recommend that the mother place her child in time-out for playing with the knife
recommend that the mother have a psychiatric evaluation
refer the mother to parenting classes
tell the mother that you are obligated to report her to the child welfare agency
The mother of one of your patients is in the process of getting a divorce and has just moved into a small apartment. Due to her new work schedule, she has not been able to unpack the boxes left in the kitchen. She brings her 4-year-old daughter to your office because the child cut herself with a knife trying to open one of the unpacked boxes. The mother is visibly upset. After you bandage the daughter 's injured hand, you sit down to talk with the mother.
Of the following, you are MOST likely to
explore what support system the mother has to help her family settle into their new home
recommend that the mother place her child in time-out for playing with the knife
recommend that the mother have a psychiatric evaluation
refer the mother to parenting classes
tell the mother that you are obligated to report her to the child welfare agency
Results day today for the rest of the assignments that I did before Christmas and technically after slightly. (Deadlines were sort of in the middle so I worked through Christmas)
Anyway my tasks were to make an interactive Christmas card and I got a 90 for it which is out of 100.
Link: http://www.habboi.co.uk/Santa_Grab_FINAL.swf
My other task was working on a story and each week we'd do tasks to give us ideas such as adding a new character who can only communicate using actions. It got 78 and after we did the weekly tasks, we had to do one more revision which got 75.
Lastly I had to model a 3D scene set in the 1930's with the theme of escape. I showed you the pics in my last journal. It got 85 which I'm happy with although I'd love to have a 90
So overall very good results = Happy Habboi
(See blog for better post: www.habboi.co.uk)
edit
In other news, Little Big Planet is still fun.
Anyway my tasks were to make an interactive Christmas card and I got a 90 for it which is out of 100.
Link: http://www.habboi.co.uk/Santa_Grab_FINAL.swf
My other task was working on a story and each week we'd do tasks to give us ideas such as adding a new character who can only communicate using actions. It got 78 and after we did the weekly tasks, we had to do one more revision which got 75.
Lastly I had to model a 3D scene set in the 1930's with the theme of escape. I showed you the pics in my last journal. It got 85 which I'm happy with although I'd love to have a 90
So overall very good results = Happy Habboi
(See blog for better post: www.habboi.co.uk)
edit
In other news, Little Big Planet is still fun.
I diagnosed a boy yesterday with brain tumor.
It was a hard news to break to the mother.
He's getting brain surgery today. It was the largest brain tumor that I have ever seen.
It was a hard news to break to the mother.
He's getting brain surgery today. It was the largest brain tumor that I have ever seen.
I've finally finished the second post-disaster map in Colony 42. You can follow the link to see media: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Colony_42
I also remembered to update the team, Gman's last name is on the list.
I also remembered to update the team, Gman's last name is on the list.
http://www.vimeo.com/3121413
My new car suspension in gmod.
I'm looking for some guys to play gmod 10 with .
My new car suspension in gmod.
I'm looking for some guys to play gmod 10 with
.Liek "Skals", I'mma going to discuss the terrible Snow Day and how our country became third world lolz.
No, not really.
Couple of pics of the snow:
Yesterday
Today
Snow Woman ;O
No, not really.
Couple of pics of the snow:
Yesterday
Right, another one of those funny "about london" posts coming up:
you know how i posted my last journal about the little snow problem we had over here? well ive gathered more information about that. here goes:
you see when it snowed here, the roads became icy and snowy (slippery) and even tho the london mayor claims that there were people working on the roads to clean off the snow and the ice in any form of way, They haven't, and this had resulted in a number of incidents on the road. this is why all bus services in the first time of history were shut down in london for a whole day. Most of trains were shut down aswell because of these road problems. This is why there was also no school or no work for anyone yesterday, and there is no school today aswell. Which made england look like a 3rd world country according to some people
The mayor of london claimed that they were doing the best they could and this now 10 cm deep snow was the most snow they've had for 18 years. Well i guess we cant blaim our good old boris.
The number of incidents on the roads were huge yesterday, and i have a feeling it would be same today for the roads still havent been cleaned, and in some parts of london it rained meaning there will be ice.
But on the bright side, yesterday alot of grown-up's that couldnt make it to work got to go outside and play with eachother in the snow, yeah thats righ.
you know how i posted my last journal about the little snow problem we had over here? well ive gathered more information about that. here goes:
you see when it snowed here, the roads became icy and snowy (slippery) and even tho the london mayor claims that there were people working on the roads to clean off the snow and the ice in any form of way, They haven't, and this had resulted in a number of incidents on the road. this is why all bus services in the first time of history were shut down in london for a whole day. Most of trains were shut down aswell because of these road problems. This is why there was also no school or no work for anyone yesterday, and there is no school today aswell. Which made england look like a 3rd world country according to some people
The mayor of london claimed that they were doing the best they could and this now 10 cm deep snow was the most snow they've had for 18 years. Well i guess we cant blaim our good old boris.
The number of incidents on the roads were huge yesterday, and i have a feeling it would be same today for the roads still havent been cleaned, and in some parts of london it rained meaning there will be ice.
But on the bright side, yesterday alot of grown-up's that couldnt make it to work got to go outside and play with eachother in the snow, yeah thats righ.