I lost.

I entered my third tournament and lost on the first match for the third time. But not was all lost, I went to the Camotion film festival and ACTUALLY WON AN AWARD! I wasn't expecting SHIT!

I don't know which entries won, but these are the ones I entered.

Applied Science
Fire!
The Navenger
Ring Teleporter

Also, I'm finishing up the Blitz Rifle. Might as well make it nice before I post anything.

EDIT: Here ya be....still haven't painted the clip yet.

This site just continues to amaze me...
I wish everyone all the best for the festive season.

Andy

[u]Category Review/Rant[/u]: The Day The Earth Stood Still(film, 2008)

Quite possibly worst movie I've seen all year, and that's saying a lot since this year has been a landmark of horrible movies.

I'm trying to think of a movie i enjoyed less than this one in the recent past, but nothing comes to mind. I texted through the whole thing because it was so stupid and boring, while also listening to people complain how stupid the movie was behind and to the left of me. (their banter was actually more interesting than the film)

Keanu Reeves performance is as you would expect, stupifyingly bad, just as in every single other movie he's graced (besides Constantine and The Matrix Trilogy). In his defense tho, the part they wrote for him was horridly inadequate, regardless of who played fucking Klaatu.

The cherry on top of this big piece of crap is Kathy Bates plays a major roll in the movie. Need i say more? Even though i don't i will: every time you think the movie might actually be going somewhere, you have to endure another scene with her trying really hard to play a strong world leader, and each time she finds new ways to fail, even harder than the last. I don't blame Kathy Bates, I blame the retarded moron who cast this women to play something other than a psychotic, evil bitch (Misery), which is the only thing she can do well.

I could go on the horrible liberties they took with the original story(1951), more poor casting choices, and other major letdowns like the only action scenes in the movie are shown in the trailer, but why? There is only one important thing you need to know about The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008):

DON'T SEE IT.

A nice AG community wanted me to make a map for them. So started making a AG-CTF map. They also mentioned that it should look like a Quake 3 arena map. Well I can't really use Half-Life textures for a Quake map, it will look unrealistic. So I took couple of textures from NS for the project. Take a look and tell me what you think. The 3rd screenshot is the last version, still not finished ofc. The map will consist of 3 floating bases in space. Red = hot, lava, fire etc
Blue = Freezing, ice, cold etc and the middle (battlefield) Orange = Electricity, energy.

Screenshot1
Screenshot2
Screenshot3-Final version (still WIP)

well well well... looks like my time at the hospital is over - wisdom teeth out. face is still numb and had blood all in my mouth... hm, could be worse i guess...

Considering I was scutinzed for starting a "GENERAL DISCUSSION" thread about EP1, and it was closed, here's my journal.

I bought EP1 today, and started playing it, all I can say is WOW! I like it!

What is this? Nothing really except proof that i actually did some mapping yesterday. It didn't take long and not one leak (well, maybe a few). It's the pool and courtyard area (beyond the windows) of a local hotel that i like. The thing in the foreground is supposed to be a little whirlpool.

Once complete i may make it a cs, dm, or even possibly a vip.

)

I'm bored and tired. Almost 6:40AM and woke up at 5:45AM because I had a nightmare that our ex-member from Operation Black Mesa (See Unforseen Consequences new article on our Moddb profile) posted a download URL containing our shitty alpha build. I rarely dream of stuff like this unless something bad will happen during the day.
Been trying to learn how to manually make SSBump and Blending Textures to work neatly in the last weekend. This is the time I wish Valve would release some useful information or software for it already.

I'm planning to release the source files for my Vacant map so other mappers can modify it and have it properly optimized and compile for play at long as they credit me. Sick of people PM'ing me and having it sitting on my HDD make me feel guilty for not getting around to releasing it.

Is that l4d in my favorite review site!

http://objectiveministries.org/zounds/gaming.html

i think it is!

I got a nasty virus and now I'm having to reinstall Windows. Thank god I'm using like a million partitions, and I'm smart enough to install all my games and important files off of C:\ so I didn't have to do much backing up.

My only concern is that I won't be able to register Windows again.

Edit: great, now I accidentally overwrote my entire movie storage drive with Windows because it reported the drive letters wrong in the setup. And the previous Windows was still intact. That'll ruin your day.

Having an AGP system isn't that great at all especially when trying to upgrade. But finally I've upgraded from a 5200FX to a 6800XT ($40). I could have gone for a 7600\7900 but my budget is extremely tight ($50 or less) and this was all I could get.

In terms of mapping, I can get back to it now as it's the holidays and my second hard drive works again as it has all my mapping stuff (IDE cable wasn't in right... /facepalm).

Something arrived in the mail for me this morning...Fresh from EBay, this (new) copy of Psychonauts is all mine! This is rather special, because of several reasons:

• Psychonauts is one of the greatest games of all time
• The retail PC version was never available for sale in Australia (notice the ESRB label instead of the Australian OFLC), so this is would have to be imported

It ran me back $30 (including postage), which is a great deal (remember, in Australia, new games are $100). It's available from Steam for US$20, which is AU$30, so I got a physical copy for the same price, and some boxart and a manual to boot! I've started replaying through it and it's even better than I remember!

So, in light of this wonderful occasion, here's some homework for you:
1. Buy (yes, BUY) Psychonauts for US$20 on Steam, or get a retail copy if you can/want to.
2. Play it and enjoy!

If you're unsure, you can try the demo, and then buy it once you've played it. If you already have a copy, play it again! Finally, if you have a pirated copy and enjoyed it, buy it! You won't regret it!

Got this partially done this weekend.It is coming along nicely. I now need to finish it. Slowly, the whole set will be remade. I plan to spend some time on it over the Christmas break. No promises on completion though.

Work is slowing down and other neat things...

Category Computing
I've finally setup my new computer for goldsource editing. (when i bought the thing i didn't think Hammer and lots of the 3rd-party tools for HL1 editing would work--Vista, 64-bit--, but everything works so far like a dream--except muzz's HL Launchpad... = <

I'm most excited about it's speed in terms of compiling. This lil' guy drops my VIS calculations (compared to my old computer, for every map i've test compiled) substantially, and it reduces my RAD calculations rather substantially: My longest RAD compile ever on the old machine was 1 hour, 42 minutes; My new rig does it in a mere 6 minutes, 22 seconds! = O

BTW anybody want a map compiled, give me a link to it in here and i'll do it simply for fun/benchmarking purposes. I'm set up to compile HL and Counter-Strike maps--willing to try others tho. I'm not sure how my machine will fare with HL:S and CS:S, but i'm willing to try...

Category Mapping
So besides bragging 'bout my new computer, i'm going to start actively mapping, reviewing maps in the map vault where i left off eons ago, and start Source mapping as well. I've also started to build some low-res textures from scratch for HL1--i'm sooo tired of the standard ones--, but i won't show any until they start to look respectable. = )

I've kinda considered modelling too archaic for me, at least the texture mapping part, so i'm putting it on the back burner for now.

Category Overshare
Lastly and definitely not least, i was "seeing" this girl Jaclyn for a couple of weeks, and it was completely awesome. We don't see each other anymore--aw sorry captain terror <tear tear>--, but what a couple of weeks it was... = )

Flat-Life: Source Alpha build 2 hands-on preview!

Through trial and error, I've finally gotten a chance to test one of the first builds of Flat-Life: Source with ChickenFist. Currently being multiplayer-only, it's already showing some awesome potential. Zero point energy manipulation in top-down view, for example, has never been this fun.
Even if lacking polish and having minor bugs in most areas, the current build is already pretty damn stable and fully playable.

tl;dr, have a look yourselves. With permission from ChickenFist, here're some gameplay screenshots from both alpha maps.P.S: There are certain rumours of a new survival game mode.