Journals
Well penguinboy extended the competition, but i don't get to benefit from it much. Saturday morning i will be leaving for Jamaica and will not be able to finish everything i wanted to finish for my competition entry. I will be away for a week, and the deadline is smack in the middle of the week i will be away from this country, and a mapping-capable computer.
It's sad really. I've been making so much progress, and i actually have been working on this through out the entire time period instead of just in the last week. (like my previous 2 entries)
And i STILL run out of time.
I guess that's my luck though.
I'm just going to truncate the levels, debug everything, and ship it out Friday evening. I guess all those easter eggs will have to wait until after the comp and i release EVERYTHING i wanted in the mod with it to the general public. Daubster did offer to help code in the fog as well. Which would have been a huge HUGE visual boost. But due to his own problems combines with my crappy schedule the help came a wee-bit to late.
Sigh
And for those who offered to beta test; I'll be happy to let you guys test the final product after the competition is over.
Good luck to all the other contestants!
It's sad really. I've been making so much progress, and i actually have been working on this through out the entire time period instead of just in the last week. (like my previous 2 entries)
And i STILL run out of time.
I guess that's my luck though.
I'm just going to truncate the levels, debug everything, and ship it out Friday evening. I guess all those easter eggs will have to wait until after the comp and i release EVERYTHING i wanted in the mod with it to the general public. Daubster did offer to help code in the fog as well. Which would have been a huge HUGE visual boost. But due to his own problems combines with my crappy schedule the help came a wee-bit to late.
Sigh
And for those who offered to beta test; I'll be happy to let you guys test the final product after the competition is over.
Good luck to all the other contestants!
TWHL3 Development Diary Thingie #5
The subject this time is the Wiki. I've discussed the functionality of the Wiki in Diary #2, but basically it'll be similar to the current entity guide and glossary, except editable. You'll be able to add links and lists and possibly tables, and so on.
The reason I'm not making it like a full Wiki (every page editable) is because it isn't needed. You can only edit the content pages for each entity, error or definition. You'll be able to add new entries, but only admins can add whole new categories.
The job of a Wiki moderator is to look over changes and approve or revert them. Users who spam and/or make stupid changes will eventually have their editing privileges removed, and possibly a ban from the site. Each entry will also have its own comments, which are only reserved for helpful additions to the entry. Comments will be screened before being added.
An example of a useful comment is a specific case for the use of say, an entity - "This entity can be used for Specific Case x, set parameter y to setting z, etc etc etc", or maybe a different solution than stated to a compile error - "This error can sometimes be fixed by using function x on entity y etc", and so on.
Some examples of useless comments:
In error guide: "hlp i got ths error an i duno wut 2 do plz help"
In entity guide: "how do i use this to do blah blah"
In Glossary: "o i get it now thx"
etc etc. I think you get the point.
Too many of these useless comments will mean you will have your editing privileges removed (includes commenting privileges). Users who contribute lots of helpful information in the wiki (tutorials too!) will be rewarded.
Anyway, that concludes this diary for today. Next time will be about user control and the strike system that is being implemented.
The subject this time is the Wiki. I've discussed the functionality of the Wiki in Diary #2, but basically it'll be similar to the current entity guide and glossary, except editable. You'll be able to add links and lists and possibly tables, and so on.
The reason I'm not making it like a full Wiki (every page editable) is because it isn't needed. You can only edit the content pages for each entity, error or definition. You'll be able to add new entries, but only admins can add whole new categories.
The job of a Wiki moderator is to look over changes and approve or revert them. Users who spam and/or make stupid changes will eventually have their editing privileges removed, and possibly a ban from the site. Each entry will also have its own comments, which are only reserved for helpful additions to the entry. Comments will be screened before being added.
An example of a useful comment is a specific case for the use of say, an entity - "This entity can be used for Specific Case x, set parameter y to setting z, etc etc etc", or maybe a different solution than stated to a compile error - "This error can sometimes be fixed by using function x on entity y etc", and so on.
Some examples of useless comments:
In error guide: "hlp i got ths error an i duno wut 2 do plz help"
In entity guide: "how do i use this to do blah blah"
In Glossary: "o i get it now thx"
etc etc. I think you get the point.
Too many of these useless comments will mean you will have your editing privileges removed (includes commenting privileges). Users who contribute lots of helpful information in the wiki (tutorials too!) will be rewarded.
Anyway, that concludes this diary for today. Next time will be about user control and the strike system that is being implemented.
Back. For good this time.
End of March was a bloody mess, we've been in a long moving process, which only ended last week. Finally got my interwebs up yesterday, not as good as I expected, but hopefully enough to start that TF2 server.
I've stopped working on all the projects I'm in for almost a month, so I'll do my best catching up. Guess putting up Dec and Jan Motms would be a good start (woo, only two months late!) - will do that somewhere tonight.
Good to be home. ;>
End of March was a bloody mess, we've been in a long moving process, which only ended last week. Finally got my interwebs up yesterday, not as good as I expected, but hopefully enough to start that TF2 server.
I've stopped working on all the projects I'm in for almost a month, so I'll do my best catching up. Guess putting up Dec and Jan Motms would be a good start (woo, only two months late!) - will do that somewhere tonight.
Good to be home. ;>
Holy crap, awesome bit of info.
The hardest jobs to get because there is an over-abundance of people for them are:
Modellers (damn)
Concept Artist (crap)
Level Designer (sad... sorry guys)
Illustrator (bah.)
Jobs that need to be filled because of lack of capable people:
Programmer/Scripter (big money but not for me, maybe for Daubster)
Character Riggers (ok.)
Animator (i suck at it)
Lighting Specialist (I have a basic understanding)
Shader Artist (BINGO! Texturer all the way!)
Straight from Doug "Jolly" Rogers himself.
Higher resolution compared to the HL constraints I'm accustomed to. Its for class, the second part of the class with the same teacher that failed me for the "Purple Box of Doom" animation. I hope this satisfies, wish me luck.
The hardest jobs to get because there is an over-abundance of people for them are:
Modellers (damn)
Concept Artist (crap)
Level Designer (sad... sorry guys)
Illustrator (bah.)
Jobs that need to be filled because of lack of capable people:
Programmer/Scripter (big money but not for me, maybe for Daubster)
Character Riggers (ok.)
Animator (i suck at it)
Lighting Specialist (I have a basic understanding)
Shader Artist (BINGO! Texturer all the way!)
Straight from Doug "Jolly" Rogers himself.
Yay! I have Maya 8! Now how can i model?? hm......
Accidently said Snarks instead of Snakes when talking about the movie. Thus I did this.
My first concept art...
For the love of all that is good and holy, sign this now!
http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html
When you're a baby, you find new and exciting things everywhere.
Added more WIP
TWHL3 Development Diary Thingie #4
Well I thought that I should just keep along with doing these, as I am always doing stuff with TWHL (whether in the background or obvious). Since launch, a massive amount of bugs have been razed, new additions have been raised, and changes have been....made.
Whether my slightly incorrect grammar and terrible wordplay affects site development or not is yet to be known:- but, it is known that Uni is affecting it like nobody's business. I have hardly any time to get any sort of coding at all done.
That said, I am still getting some things done, such as the AJAX shoutbox, which was a completely random "out of nowhere" kinda thing, but now enables admins and moderators to edit and delete shoutbox posts without having to load up the shoutbox "Live" (which is even less "live" than the current shoutbox), which will be updated given the time of Ant's designing skills and my coding skills. The new shoutbox live will look similar to the one you see on the left, except with avatars. It will refresh every ten seconds.
Admins will get their moderator privileges back as soon as I finish coding the admin panel (maybe before), and they will be able to see the currently limited admin tools for themselves. That said, the prospects are looking good for admins and moderators, and the site is already much easier to use.
The addition of comments to journals seems like it is going well. The point of journals is to want other people to read them, and comments allow discussion and feedback. On the other hand, news comments seem to be nothing but spam, since news announcements are meant to tell you something and not expect a reply. They will remain though; maybe we can start posting some half-life related news in there and start getting some constructive discussion happening. In all seriousness though, anyone spamming "first post" comments anywhere on the entire site will be temporarily banned. You may have noticed that this happened to skals.
The wiki system is getting off to a slow start, but is still happening. I've decided to use a different system to the tutorials, and approach it more as MediaWiki does, where changes are made, and then approved afterwards. Some may have noticed that the Source entity guides are available to use, but they are currently a bit dodgy. This is simply because of my method of inserting all the information in, and I expect every entry to change drastically, with a lot more information, useful comments, and the like, on the introduction of the wiki system. (Some may have seen my SDE module, you can try it out right here; This is ripped from MediaWiki and modified, instead of the old PEAR module i was using before. It will be used in the wiki system.)
The tutorial system has has a bit of a workout, but now it's dying down a bit. A request to all members of the site: Propose a tutorial! We need Source tutorials, not so much Half-Life 1. Team Fortress 2 and Portal in particular need tutorials. To everyone with a draft tutorial: get writing!
Okay, I'm getting a bit sick of typing so I'll stop now. More stuff later.
Well I thought that I should just keep along with doing these, as I am always doing stuff with TWHL (whether in the background or obvious). Since launch, a massive amount of bugs have been razed, new additions have been raised, and changes have been....made.
Whether my slightly incorrect grammar and terrible wordplay affects site development or not is yet to be known:- but, it is known that Uni is affecting it like nobody's business. I have hardly any time to get any sort of coding at all done.
That said, I am still getting some things done, such as the AJAX shoutbox, which was a completely random "out of nowhere" kinda thing, but now enables admins and moderators to edit and delete shoutbox posts without having to load up the shoutbox "Live" (which is even less "live" than the current shoutbox), which will be updated given the time of Ant's designing skills and my coding skills. The new shoutbox live will look similar to the one you see on the left, except with avatars. It will refresh every ten seconds.
Admins will get their moderator privileges back as soon as I finish coding the admin panel (maybe before), and they will be able to see the currently limited admin tools for themselves. That said, the prospects are looking good for admins and moderators, and the site is already much easier to use.
The addition of comments to journals seems like it is going well. The point of journals is to want other people to read them, and comments allow discussion and feedback. On the other hand, news comments seem to be nothing but spam, since news announcements are meant to tell you something and not expect a reply. They will remain though; maybe we can start posting some half-life related news in there and start getting some constructive discussion happening. In all seriousness though, anyone spamming "first post" comments anywhere on the entire site will be temporarily banned. You may have noticed that this happened to skals.
The wiki system is getting off to a slow start, but is still happening. I've decided to use a different system to the tutorials, and approach it more as MediaWiki does, where changes are made, and then approved afterwards. Some may have noticed that the Source entity guides are available to use, but they are currently a bit dodgy. This is simply because of my method of inserting all the information in, and I expect every entry to change drastically, with a lot more information, useful comments, and the like, on the introduction of the wiki system. (Some may have seen my SDE module, you can try it out right here; This is ripped from MediaWiki and modified, instead of the old PEAR module i was using before. It will be used in the wiki system.)
The tutorial system has has a bit of a workout, but now it's dying down a bit. A request to all members of the site: Propose a tutorial! We need Source tutorials, not so much Half-Life 1. Team Fortress 2 and Portal in particular need tutorials. To everyone with a draft tutorial: get writing!
Okay, I'm getting a bit sick of typing so I'll stop now. More stuff later.
After looking for ages on my hard drive, I finally found my account details. =.= Yes, it's not safe to store account information on you're computer but I don't give a damn.. for now. Anyway, while taking a break from mapping I decided to muck around in UT2003 (because it's the only UT I've got). The Redeemer, nearly anyone who's played this game should know it. Here's something I came up with. 
The redeemer: Huge consequences when used incorrectly
YeA! Its almost done, I just got to learn how to not make it look so blured, maybe I'll add more reds to the character or something.. dunno..
Anyways here it is...
Anyways here it is...
Unbreakable has the right idea. Althought the issue with my professional career doesn't hold much hope as far as my concept sketches go. Its not as pretty as the calibre you normally see. I'm hardly a painter as is, its mostly photoshop tricks I know.
It was fun however, and I'll likely do it again. Just keep practicing and stuff.