Journals

Well, i've left it a bit late, but Santa's Revenge 3 is in the works. Should be done by Christmas.

I'm not gonna let you know the story but I will tell you that it is being made for Flat-Life!

Four things to report/log!

First of all, after a rather long break from mapping, I've finally released something!
Shady Sands is a fairly small map, yet it took quite a while to put together. Its main purpose is to test my current terrain techniques for a bigger project I'll be working on - give it a try!

Second, I've received my 1995 edition the collected Sam & Max: Surfing the highway. The condition is far better than I expected. See for yourself.It's kickass. it.

Third, the TF2 server is no longer online/available. Service discontinued due to obvious reasons..

Fourth, new xmas avatar. :>

I'm home (besides TWHL) at my mom's place. They have cable so I've watched a whole crapton of Mythbusters, a whole lot of the history channel, and also caught that special show "Life after Humans" about how nature would take back all that we had urbanized and stuff. Talk about a Gyradellgasm. There was so many cool concepts that could be taken to heart when constructing a map in an overgrown style. I would suggest seeing it if you haven't already. I lol'd at the flying cats concept :3

Yesterdey i have made map for one of Mapping.lt community campo "finish the map". Gave us a map and it had to complete. Here is the map before my edit:One of campo rules was: map need to be same size (can't be bigger).

And after my edit, the map looks so:I told map de_stroikes (in my language it is construction). I use de_vertigo textures. Now it is on beta stage.

Sorry for my bad english ;(

Scottie (my son) played HL2DM for the first time today.

He wasn't on a live server, but he was shooting a shotgun left and right while running wild.

I just tweaked my "Coding Fog Addendum" tutorial to incorporate the new code I've added...

The fog was, originally, switchable -- on or off. I've added "fade on" and "fade off" times, so that instead of just blinking in and out of existence, it actually fades in and out.

(I got it working so I could try out my "lab11_heathaze" idea, but at some point I shall have to design a level with fog in mind... ;-))

Edit: Of course, it wasn't until the drive home that it occurred to me that my revised version will probably do extremely bad things to network latency -- something I probably won't get to test until next Monday now...

sigh

Edit II: After all that, I've decided that Lab11: HeatHaze looks pretty damn good with fog, but the whole fading-in thing (which works fine) is not so great for the level. And yes, it does play havoc, so I'll need to revise the tutorial again sometime...

I started source mapping ! It's pretty hard , and if you're a beginner it sound like a better idea to start hl1 mapping first .

And even though I'm expert in hl1 mapping(not from the point of view of arhitectural design and these kind of stuff) I surely lack of knowledge when it comes to source mapping.

But today I made a test map and I tried and succeded to make a door !!! :So I was like "Omg this is ultra-cool" and I just stand there and open/close the door tens of times .

Well, yeah , anyway look at it ! It's soooo cute !!! I love it !

[EDIT] Oh ummm , I was very happy about my new video card because I can play all the actual games at full detail without framerates lower than 15 FPS.
But when I saw this..........Colin Mcrae: Dirt2 .

Oh my god now I have to lower the resolution again !!! Argh X(

Not that the game will actualy look like this, but they're aiming for it . Wow...

[EDIT2] Well honestly, Code Masters is the new shit. Dirt,Grid ,Toca ... this are epic titles.In comparison with EA they're way much better. When I think of NFS I just think at Underground-That's all. But EA has succesfully installed failure in all of their new NFSs ...
Prostreet was like StupidStreet and now NFS UnderShit ....

NEW MAP!

DM_BeerFort

Check it out!

I opened up Hammer and randomly placed some blocks until it melded together into a nice DM level. I kept everything simple, which in turn made a very nice map with minimal poly count. As the title may suggest, I wasn't drunk when I made it.

I dunno why, but mapping a simple and clean map like that was rather refreshing. I've been trying to complicate things with models and a slew of textures and little trims. I am very proud of this map and I would very much like feedback. I also overcome some nasty errors that would have otherwise stopped me from completing the map outright due to the brushwork.

I know I should move to source, but I feel my experience with Goldz0rz isn't over yet. I have a lot to learn.

Try it out please. Remember to run it with Deathmatch 1.

As far as my future endeavors, I think I will keep things limited to the defaults for a while. It has a sort of crete feel to it, only with 83% less crete.

Well, tonight ought to be interesting.

For those in the Vancouver area, you may already know of a nasty storm thats hitting as I type this. Oddly enough, there seems to be no signs of a 'storm' from what I can see from my window, but the flickering of lights in the house every 10 minutes is suggesting something going down.

Hopefully the power won't go out. The worst way to spend a Friday night is with no power. No TV, no Computer, no nothing.

Received admin status in Half-Life.lt, an awesome local HL-oriented community. It somewhat resembles TWHL in its early days, making the promotion really sweet.

Along with Mapping.lt, that's my third mod/admin achievement in HL comminities.

blows dust off mod abuse hat

Hmm..
I've told myself countless times that i will start mapping for source as soon as competition 'so and so' is over.
Well that never happens.
Ever.
I can't wait until i get the rest of my computer built (it's gonna run vista) so i can actually have an excuse to map for source only.
Apparently Vista hates Hammer 3.4 + 3.5
I'm overjoyed.

Now that Lab11: LavaLab is finished, released, done and dusted, my thoughts are turning to what I should tackle next. The rest of this month, of course, is taken up by NaNoWriMo: I'm writing a novel about how a gaming geek with no social skills handles a zombie uprising -- it's called Half Life Zero: No Life... It occurs to me that my next NaNo attempt should possibly be the story of my Lab17 complex - or rather, the story of a lowly security guard who works there... :)

My very next level, of course, will be Lab11: Erupt, the post-disaster variant of Lab11: LavaLab. My original LavaLab: Erupt basically threw away everything outside of the lab itself -- and one of the criticisms aimed at it was that much of the freedom inherent in the original level was lost in the spinoff. This time, the Erupt variant will retain much of the freedom of the original while opening up new options. I hope. Of course, this means it won't be a 10-minute conversion! There's a lot of work that will go into the make-over, so don't hold your breath...

I am also tempted to release Lab11: HeatHaze, which will be the very first level of mine to require my petesdm mod. Since I put all the effort into getting working fog, I feel like I should make use of it. In theory all it requires (apart from distributing my mod) is to add an [ent]env_fog[/ent] entity and recompile. In practice, however, what I really want to do is have the fog (sorry, "heat haze") fade in as the level floods, then fade out as the lava recedes. Which means modifying the fog code to allow timed fading rather than instant on/off...

And after that? Who knows. So much to do, so little time. I have numerous ideas to tackle. Also, I build HLDM levels for GoldSource because we cannot use Steam at work (behind way too many firewalls) so I am somewhat locked in to that engine -- but I really do want to have a play with Source too. sigh

10th birthday of Half-life, and the following franchise that made Valve what it is. Hurrah for good games!

Today is a historic day in the world of gaming, because exactly 10 years ago on the 19th of November (1998) Half-Life 1 was released. I was a young kid back then, but I still have so many great memories about my first gaming experiences that were HL1 and its respected mods; vague but sweet memories. When my brother first gave me the chance to let me play HL1 and CS/TFC I was instantly hooked. Especially TFC got me hooked, but also notable mods like Firearms and Vampire Slayer.

Anyways, I would just like to thank Valve for making such a great game.
I'll quit now before my nostalgic feelings truelly take over!

For those of you who have been waiting so very, very patiently for the new level that I've been hinting at for so long: it's ready to go!

Check out Lab11: LavaLab from my maps page...

I hope it was worth the wait! (It has been a long time coming!)

Edit: And what are the odds? I released this level to the world on Half-Life's 10th birthday! Great timing on my part -- I wish I'd known, I'd have put something in my level to acknowledge the date!