Journals
As I write this I'm exactly 2 minutes and 4 seconds into being 17 years of age, sadly I still only have one hair on my chin and a few under my lip, but I guess the hair in other places compensates for tha-
We're getting slightly side tracked here...
My parents bought me some stuff for my car, so now I look like an awesome boy racer(!) I'll be so cool. -_-' And I have my first driving lesson in 15 hours.
In other news, I'm not allowed to have sex with a girl for two weeks so I win World Of Goo off Huntey, tommorrow is the first week mark, only one more to go! (Don't ask)
Get your credit card ready Huntey! >=]
We're getting slightly side tracked here...
My parents bought me some stuff for my car, so now I look like an awesome boy racer(!) I'll be so cool. -_-' And I have my first driving lesson in 15 hours.
In other news, I'm not allowed to have sex with a girl for two weeks so I win World Of Goo off Huntey, tommorrow is the first week mark, only one more to go! (Don't ask)
Get your credit card ready Huntey! >=]
Obama details his economic recovery plan in the weekly YouTube address.
I never thought that I would bookmark the White House website.
But I just did.
Obama gave the site a new life.
But I just did.
Obama gave the site a new life.
Yeah, moving to Source.
Starting with the Room Compo for source.
Starting with the Room Compo for source.
I originally posted this on LiveJournal, so it's a little light on technical talk, and a little heavy on explanation to non-Hammer-savvy civilians, but it's relevant here too! 
January is half-gone already, and it's been an interesting month so far, full of ups and downs. I'm not here to talk about those, though; I'm here to talk about my next HLDM mapping project. I'm actually slipping this in front of the ongoing work on Lab11: Erupt, and I'm basically treating it as a "quicky" project -- which, for me, means less than a month. Hopefully. Needless to say, there's a back-story...
Many moons ago (mid 2004) my buddy Ben built an HLDM level of his own. I'd already built a couple, and was working on another - off-hand I don't remember which one - and he wanted to get in on the act and express a few ideas of his own. It was his first -- and so far, his only; with a wife (and now a child) Ben does not have as much free time on his hands as I do -- and he'll be the first to admit that it is not as, uh, visually polished as it could be. That level was (and is) called Canyon.
The original design idea behind Canyon was the same original idea that drove the creation of my first level, LavaLab: quite simply, "glass walkways". In fact, one of my false starts before I settled on the LavaLab setting was a canyon. I didn't know enough back then (and was working under an artificially imposed constraint which I have since ignored) to do the idea justice, and finally set about to remedy the situation with my most recent level, Lab11: LavaLab... Of course, the remake has no glass walkways at all, and the original had them pared back to squeeze the level into that constraint I mentioned, so I haven't yet managed to produce a level making proper use of the idea. I'm sure it will manifest itself at some future point in my map-building career...
(Edit: Ben tells me that the original design idea behind Canyon was actually one of the extremely vertical, vertigo-inducing levels of one of the Jedi Knight shooters, combined with some other canyon-like level we'd seen. Live 'n learn, huh?!)
Canyon, meanwhile, ended up with a grand total of one glass walkway, and absolutely no "canyon"-like features apart from its being a long deep hole. The story that we developed to explain the purpose of this facility was that it is a garbage disposal thing, but there was little in the design to back up that explanation. A couple of years ago, with Ben's permission, I set out to "reimagine" the idea, making the place a rocky hole on an asteroid somewhere, with a garbage compactor at the bottom. I was using a set of grungy tech textures from the same guy who made the Egyptian texture set I'd used in my Necropolis: Mausoleum level, and I was excited. The attempt stalled, however - I'll get back to it sometime - and I then decided to work on the remake of LavaLab instead.
At around that time we discovered that Ben had mislaid the source files - the MAP and RMF - from which the playable BSP file is compiled. Without those, he was unable to make any changes to his level, and over the years that we've been playing it, he had numerous things he wanted to fix, or change, or add. At the time I hunted out a decompiler, which takes a BSP file and generates a MAP. The process is far from perfect, and the resulting MAP file would have required a lot of work just to get it back to its current state, so he (and I) gave up on the attempt.
Then, in the lead up to my release of Lab11: LavaLab - something we both highly anticipated (Ben with delight; myself with more than a hint of trepidation) - we stopped playing whichever of my levels we had been playing and switched back to Canyon. After we started playing my level, of course, we had Ben's on our minds. One thing led to another and, on a whim, I went looking for another decompiler. Of the few I found, one gave us a MAP file which was almost useable. I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, and then I told Ben I had a working canyon.map file. I offered him first dibs on jumping into it and fixing up all the things he wanted to fix.
When he declined, I made my counter-proposal: I would take it and work on it. He agreed.
For a time I simply sat and stared at it, in the editor. (Interesting typo there; I originally typed "deitor"!) Where to begin? It didn't take me long to decide that I would use his work to arrive at a hole of the same dimensions, and with the same doors and walkways and layouts -- but that I would rebuild the level from scratch, within those constraints, with my own design sensibilities. It was the only way I could get fully enthusiastic about the project! The original transformation of the layout from untextured blockwork to final design went fairly quickly: after all, I did not have to think (much) about layout and could focus all my energy on detail and texture. And since I already knew I'd be going back to the same texture set I'd wanted to use the first time I reimagined the level, that texture set began to drive detail design much as its sister set had guided the design of Mausoleum...
I very quickly arrived at something which had both Ben and myself really excited about what I am now calling Canyon: Redux... I also very quickly pushed the compile time up from minutes to hours.
So far, Canyon: Redux has no glass walkways at all... Additionally, because 18 months of work on Lab11 had cured me of any wish to do rocky walls (to do them realistically, they rapidly consume the available resources) I have opted for the same full-tech approach of the original Canyon. I always like to try new things when building a level -- I'm more than happy with how my garbage disintegration field is shaping up, and the round doors have me quite excited, although I haven't yet proved I can get them to work. Revisiting complexities that I've already proved (to myself) that I can make work ... there's just no fun in that!
Which brings me to last night. After Ben and I finished firing it up -- 30 minutes in Lab11: HeatHaze (which is merely Lab11: LavaLab with gorgeous orange fog, and surprisingly the level works quite well for its size, even with only the two of us) -- we were talking about Canyon and Redux as we packed up our stuff in preparation for our respective trips home. (We play after work most nights...) Ben referred to it as "this thing we call Canyon", and the phrase lodged in my head. I decided we needed something to explain the actual "Canyon" name, given its complete un-canyon-ness, and the idea of having graffiti tagging the facility with its "common nickname" (given, no doubt, by those who worked there) occurred to me. (I'd already been thinking of using some generalised graffiti art somewhere, but that thought now crystallised into something very specific.)
Of course, while I'm fully confident in my mastery of Valve Hammer Editor when it comes to building levels, I have a dim view of my digital art abilities. So making a suitable piece of graffiti art for inclusion into Redux was something of a challenge.
I do like a challenge! I have to say, I'm pretty happy with the end result; it's certainly better than any of the textures I'd made up till now. Of course, it is applied over one of the wall textures I was already using so it would fit seamlessly into the level -- making a texture from scratch is still beyond my abilities...
Also last night, apart from putting the finishing touches to my disintegration field, I solved another problem which threatened to stall my progress. I had all my wonderfully circular doorways -- they existed in the original Canyon, I merely found a texture to suit them -- which had to open into much smaller (than the exterior space, anyway) square rooms. My solution was to construct a square-to-round transition piece. I'm still compiling last night's efforts so I don't know exactly how it will look in-game, but I'm pretty happy with it...
So there you have it. New project, coming soon...
January is half-gone already, and it's been an interesting month so far, full of ups and downs. I'm not here to talk about those, though; I'm here to talk about my next HLDM mapping project. I'm actually slipping this in front of the ongoing work on Lab11: Erupt, and I'm basically treating it as a "quicky" project -- which, for me, means less than a month. Hopefully. Needless to say, there's a back-story...
Many moons ago (mid 2004) my buddy Ben built an HLDM level of his own. I'd already built a couple, and was working on another - off-hand I don't remember which one - and he wanted to get in on the act and express a few ideas of his own. It was his first -- and so far, his only; with a wife (and now a child) Ben does not have as much free time on his hands as I do -- and he'll be the first to admit that it is not as, uh, visually polished as it could be. That level was (and is) called Canyon.
The original design idea behind Canyon was the same original idea that drove the creation of my first level, LavaLab: quite simply, "glass walkways". In fact, one of my false starts before I settled on the LavaLab setting was a canyon. I didn't know enough back then (and was working under an artificially imposed constraint which I have since ignored) to do the idea justice, and finally set about to remedy the situation with my most recent level, Lab11: LavaLab... Of course, the remake has no glass walkways at all, and the original had them pared back to squeeze the level into that constraint I mentioned, so I haven't yet managed to produce a level making proper use of the idea. I'm sure it will manifest itself at some future point in my map-building career...
(Edit: Ben tells me that the original design idea behind Canyon was actually one of the extremely vertical, vertigo-inducing levels of one of the Jedi Knight shooters, combined with some other canyon-like level we'd seen. Live 'n learn, huh?!)
Canyon, meanwhile, ended up with a grand total of one glass walkway, and absolutely no "canyon"-like features apart from its being a long deep hole. The story that we developed to explain the purpose of this facility was that it is a garbage disposal thing, but there was little in the design to back up that explanation. A couple of years ago, with Ben's permission, I set out to "reimagine" the idea, making the place a rocky hole on an asteroid somewhere, with a garbage compactor at the bottom. I was using a set of grungy tech textures from the same guy who made the Egyptian texture set I'd used in my Necropolis: Mausoleum level, and I was excited. The attempt stalled, however - I'll get back to it sometime - and I then decided to work on the remake of LavaLab instead.
At around that time we discovered that Ben had mislaid the source files - the MAP and RMF - from which the playable BSP file is compiled. Without those, he was unable to make any changes to his level, and over the years that we've been playing it, he had numerous things he wanted to fix, or change, or add. At the time I hunted out a decompiler, which takes a BSP file and generates a MAP. The process is far from perfect, and the resulting MAP file would have required a lot of work just to get it back to its current state, so he (and I) gave up on the attempt.
Then, in the lead up to my release of Lab11: LavaLab - something we both highly anticipated (Ben with delight; myself with more than a hint of trepidation) - we stopped playing whichever of my levels we had been playing and switched back to Canyon. After we started playing my level, of course, we had Ben's on our minds. One thing led to another and, on a whim, I went looking for another decompiler. Of the few I found, one gave us a MAP file which was almost useable. I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, and then I told Ben I had a working canyon.map file. I offered him first dibs on jumping into it and fixing up all the things he wanted to fix.
When he declined, I made my counter-proposal: I would take it and work on it. He agreed.
For a time I simply sat and stared at it, in the editor. (Interesting typo there; I originally typed "deitor"!) Where to begin? It didn't take me long to decide that I would use his work to arrive at a hole of the same dimensions, and with the same doors and walkways and layouts -- but that I would rebuild the level from scratch, within those constraints, with my own design sensibilities. It was the only way I could get fully enthusiastic about the project! The original transformation of the layout from untextured blockwork to final design went fairly quickly: after all, I did not have to think (much) about layout and could focus all my energy on detail and texture. And since I already knew I'd be going back to the same texture set I'd wanted to use the first time I reimagined the level, that texture set began to drive detail design much as its sister set had guided the design of Mausoleum...
I very quickly arrived at something which had both Ben and myself really excited about what I am now calling Canyon: Redux... I also very quickly pushed the compile time up from minutes to hours.
So far, Canyon: Redux has no glass walkways at all... Additionally, because 18 months of work on Lab11 had cured me of any wish to do rocky walls (to do them realistically, they rapidly consume the available resources) I have opted for the same full-tech approach of the original Canyon. I always like to try new things when building a level -- I'm more than happy with how my garbage disintegration field is shaping up, and the round doors have me quite excited, although I haven't yet proved I can get them to work. Revisiting complexities that I've already proved (to myself) that I can make work ... there's just no fun in that!
Which brings me to last night. After Ben and I finished firing it up -- 30 minutes in Lab11: HeatHaze (which is merely Lab11: LavaLab with gorgeous orange fog, and surprisingly the level works quite well for its size, even with only the two of us) -- we were talking about Canyon and Redux as we packed up our stuff in preparation for our respective trips home. (We play after work most nights...) Ben referred to it as "this thing we call Canyon", and the phrase lodged in my head. I decided we needed something to explain the actual "Canyon" name, given its complete un-canyon-ness, and the idea of having graffiti tagging the facility with its "common nickname" (given, no doubt, by those who worked there) occurred to me. (I'd already been thinking of using some generalised graffiti art somewhere, but that thought now crystallised into something very specific.)
Of course, while I'm fully confident in my mastery of Valve Hammer Editor when it comes to building levels, I have a dim view of my digital art abilities. So making a suitable piece of graffiti art for inclusion into Redux was something of a challenge.
I do like a challenge! I have to say, I'm pretty happy with the end result; it's certainly better than any of the textures I'd made up till now. Of course, it is applied over one of the wall textures I was already using so it would fit seamlessly into the level -- making a texture from scratch is still beyond my abilities...
Also last night, apart from putting the finishing touches to my disintegration field, I solved another problem which threatened to stall my progress. I had all my wonderfully circular doorways -- they existed in the original Canyon, I merely found a texture to suit them -- which had to open into much smaller (than the exterior space, anyway) square rooms. My solution was to construct a square-to-round transition piece. I'm still compiling last night's efforts so I don't know exactly how it will look in-game, but I'm pretty happy with it...
So there you have it. New project, coming soon...
A historical moment, witnessed at home: Obama inauguration.
As I posted in this shoutbox, I found an internet-based-game-thing that I think is worth a look from everyone.
http://playauditorium.com/
It's probably the most fun you can have in a browser. Addicting, too.
Check it out.
http://playauditorium.com/
It's probably the most fun you can have in a browser. Addicting, too.
Check it out.
Well because of me being careless "Xen Assault Demo" has been deleted from filefront's server. And all my work was in there...after I reinstalled Windows I just realised that I didn't have any backups of the newest Xen Assault files I made (reskinned models, maps etc).
So if anyone still has the .zip or .rar file and can re-upload it somewhere on the net. And hopefully send the link, I would really appreciate it.
p.s: I also tried to "bump" the thread but it seems, i cant bump threads older than 3 months.
So if anyone still has the .zip or .rar file and can re-upload it somewhere on the net. And hopefully send the link, I would really appreciate it.
p.s: I also tried to "bump" the thread but it seems, i cant bump threads older than 3 months.
HEY! I got a spotlight for Riverpool over at Podcast17!
Have a listen!
Its at roughly 32 minutes in, its worth the wait. I was so happy to hear it, considering the comments from the vault have been rather lacking. I poured my heart and soul into that little room.
I guess people around here expect that I will do good work all the time. I want to do better. I really do want to improve far beyond what I can do now, and continue to impress TWHL with good work, but its a little disconcerting when people do the zombious 'oooh aaah' and all that. Yes, I like the HOLYSHITFUCK kinda comments, they at least let me know I have made someone happy, but if you sit there and complain about the minor details of negative points, how can you enjoy it for what it is? Nothing will ever be perfect, but practice pays off.
Aside from that, they mention about TWHL which brings a bit of recognition to the site. They may check back because of the Rooms compo. Keep up the good work.
Have a listen!
Its at roughly 32 minutes in, its worth the wait. I was so happy to hear it, considering the comments from the vault have been rather lacking. I poured my heart and soul into that little room.
I guess people around here expect that I will do good work all the time. I want to do better. I really do want to improve far beyond what I can do now, and continue to impress TWHL with good work, but its a little disconcerting when people do the zombious 'oooh aaah' and all that. Yes, I like the HOLYSHITFUCK kinda comments, they at least let me know I have made someone happy, but if you sit there and complain about the minor details of negative points, how can you enjoy it for what it is? Nothing will ever be perfect, but practice pays off.
Aside from that, they mention about TWHL which brings a bit of recognition to the site. They may check back because of the Rooms compo. Keep up the good work.
Decided to take a break from my big project (which is currently a lot of fiddly maths stuff) to work on something a bit lighter.
I wrote an FGD parser a while back, and thought that an editor might be useful for it, because it can get confusing at times.
For those who don't know, an FGD is the file that tells Hammer which entities it can use in maps. Different mods have different entities, hence the reason there are many FGDs - Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, etc.
I don't know how useful this would be to the people of TWHL, as you'd only need to edit an FGD if you have a mod with custom code. But here's some screens anyway.
You can change the classes that a class is based on (it inherits the properties, etc of the base classes), and add some editor-specific behaviours, too (e.g. what colour the entity will be in the 3D view).
There's also the description of the entity, which is shown when you hit "Help" in the entity editor window in Hammer.
You are shown a preview of the class as it will appear in the final FGD file. Ignore this if you don't understand the FGD format.
That's all I've finished at the moment. The Properties tab is half done, and it'll probably be all finished in one or two days.
Not very exciting, I know, but that's what I'm working on at the moment. It'll get released at the same time as my big project, unless there's popular demand for this type of thing before then.
I wrote an FGD parser a while back, and thought that an editor might be useful for it, because it can get confusing at times.
For those who don't know, an FGD is the file that tells Hammer which entities it can use in maps. Different mods have different entities, hence the reason there are many FGDs - Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, etc.
I don't know how useful this would be to the people of TWHL, as you'd only need to edit an FGD if you have a mod with custom code. But here's some screens anyway.
There's also the description of the entity, which is shown when you hit "Help" in the entity editor window in Hammer.
That's all I've finished at the moment. The Properties tab is half done, and it'll probably be all finished in one or two days.
Not very exciting, I know, but that's what I'm working on at the moment. It'll get released at the same time as my big project, unless there's popular demand for this type of thing before then.
[EDIT]
Updated the albedo/normal and exponent, phew:
Clicky! More clicky!
[/EDIT]
To those who commented on my barrel skin, thanks. I will fix the uhh... poo, and work on that shine. Tweaking phong lighting is a pain, which is what's causing the excessive shine. I copied the settings for the little butane tanks in Episode Two, but they don't really seem to suit the barrels.
Anyway, inbetween Rooms: Source and Volcano, I'm going to reskin all of the HL2 barrels (and other props) for funsies, and I need your help. I want interesting barrels, but I can't think of anything. If you have any suggestions, give us a hand! Pics = bonus points.
Updated the albedo/normal and exponent, phew:
Clicky! More clicky!
[/EDIT]
To those who commented on my barrel skin, thanks. I will fix the uhh... poo, and work on that shine. Tweaking phong lighting is a pain, which is what's causing the excessive shine. I copied the settings for the little butane tanks in Episode Two, but they don't really seem to suit the barrels.
Anyway, inbetween Rooms: Source and Volcano, I'm going to reskin all of the HL2 barrels (and other props) for funsies, and I need your help. I want interesting barrels, but I can't think of anything. If you have any suggestions, give us a hand! Pics = bonus points.
A term infant is delivered by emergency cesarean section following the acute onset of maternal vaginal bleeding and profound fetal bradycardia. The Apgar scores are 1, 2, and 3 at 1, 5, and 10 minutes, respectively. Resuscitation includes intubation and assisted ventilation, chest compressions, and intravenous epinephrine. The infant is admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit and has seizures 6 hours after birth.
Of the following, a TRUE statement about other organ-system injury that may occur in the infant is that:
cardiovascular injury is uncommon
hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy usually is an isolated condition
liver injury may result in a coagulopathy
most infants who have seizures develop cerebral palsy
necrotizing enterocolitis does not occur in term infants
Of the following, a TRUE statement about other organ-system injury that may occur in the infant is that:
cardiovascular injury is uncommon
hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy usually is an isolated condition
liver injury may result in a coagulopathy
most infants who have seizures develop cerebral palsy
necrotizing enterocolitis does not occur in term infants
This is odd... I was fooling around in a HL mod I made (Different models), and I decided to play the final level (c5a1) I noclipped to the outside of the tram, and jumped into the portal from there. I saw a short camera scene with Gman and the player.mdl model, when I was used to blackness. Intriuged, I quickloaded the game, and crouch jumped into the portal. same thing. So, I went to vanila HL and tested this. nothing. THEN, it occured to me to have the flashlight on. the scene showed up. That's completly new to me, and I thought perhaps not all of you guys knew. Try it!
I bought my first car today, it's a Fiat Punto (Gotta start somewhere I guess) It came with some extras too such as tinted windows and some nice alloys. I'll be able to drive it on the 25th, when I'm 17.
Here's a picture. Orange one.
Also, I went to see the band Architects last night, by far the best band I've seen live yet, I also got to meet the vocalist Sam, he shook my hand and gave me a hug, which was pretty awesome, it's nice to see that being in an awesome band doesn't always go to your head and turn you into an asshole! I also met the drummer Dan and guitarist Tim, so 3 out of 5 of them, I was pretty chuffed. To finish off the night we stopped by McDonalds on the way home.
I also have band practice on Monday, in a disused museum next to an abandoned mental asylum.
I love Wales, full of suprises.
That's all for now!
Here's a picture. Orange one.
I also have band practice on Monday, in a disused museum next to an abandoned mental asylum.
I love Wales, full of suprises.
That's all for now!
