Forum posts

Tito, that was possibly the dumbest comment I've ever seen, because if you even looked at the source code you'd see 215 validation errors on the front page alone.

I don't get what Hunter is trying to say. Are you pointing out the blurry screenshots or what?

Alright Penguinboy, here's the deal: As a fellow webmaster, I do appreciate your attention to details when it comes to proper, tidy, strict-to-the-letter, web standards compliant website source code. Really, I do. Now, with that said, I do also know that website source code is not an absolute, exact science. It can be, but it does not have to be. Why kill yourself over something that's not going to matter much, if at all? As long as the source code is not too sloppy and it's errors fall within the specification's margin of error, the web browser will display the website the same way as it displays one with a "perfect", written source code. Those 215 validation errors you said you found, if they were to be corrected, will the website display or function any differently? So, to recap, this 100% error free validation mentality is overrated, that is, as long as it does not interfere with the browser's ability to display the website correctly. Oh, and it's not just me that says that, a lot of those expensive, web development books written by these experts or gurus in web standards, say the same thing also. Now remember, I don't have anything against perfect source code, is just that I rather be practical over being a perfectionist.

As far as I am concern, SnarkPit looks okay. It's XHTML source code looks pretty solid. It's not heavily cluttered with advertising like a lot of other mapping sites out there.

Tupac is definitely still alive. He's released more albums dead than alive, for fuck's sake.

Very true. Also, don't forget the videos he's done being supposedly dead.

Well, since we are talking of conspiracies, or at the very least trying, allow me to treat all of you to some good reading on the subject. Here I present to all of you who are interested in knowing more about the strange world of weirdness, a very special e-book called "100 Strangest Mysteries", written by some guy called Matt Lamy. Below is a picture of the front cover of the original hard cover book followed by a small sample listing of some of the things it talks about. If any of you care to do so, you can download this e-book for free, which is really a PDF file, from this link: http://www.virtualhl.info/100%20Strangest%20Unexplained%20Mysteries.pdfThese are just some of the things this e-book covers:

Abductions
Ancient Astronauts
Area 51
Civilian Aircraft Encounters
Government Knowledge
Life on Mars
Men in Black
Nazca Lines
The Piri Reis Map
Rendlesham Forest
Roswell
The Tunguska Explosion
UFO Crashes
UFOs & Military Interceptions
Earth Energy
Crop Circles
Crystals
Earth Lights
Ley Lines
Mystical Places
The Bermuda Triangle
The Dragon?s Triangle
Easter Island
The Pyramids of Giza
Stonehenge
Stone Circles at Castlerigg
Atlantis
El Dorado
Lyonesse
Mu & Lemuria
Teotihauc?n
Amityville horror
The Borley Rectory
Hampton Court Palace
Longendale Ghostplanes
The Mary Celeste
Waterworks Valley

Man, this looks pretty damn good, too good for just a mod. This should be a whole, standalone game! I am a big fan of the Stargate franchise, seen all the episodes of both TV shows including the movies. Heck, I even turned a model of the Stargate Atlantis city in to a 3D chat VRML world, like shown on this old thread of mines: http://www.twhl.co.za/forums.php?thread=15554

Yea, this Bigfoot report has been a big let down already. Bigfoot in a freezer? My Ass!

Now, I don't care if all of you talk shit about Bigfoot and all the other monsters out there, just leave the Chupacabra out of this, he's one bad dude....

When I first read the title I was hoping they caught a live one.

After watching that video on FOX news, I think it's fake.

Well, I guess we all will find out in less than 24hrs.

Some of you might have already heard about this just a while ago, but either way, it's shocking assuming it's true. Several mainstream news outlets including Fox News, CNN, The Associated Press and a bunch of local broadcast TV networks across the U.S. are reporting that "a body" of the legendary Bigfoot has been found by professional trackers.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, Georgia residents who lead Bigfoot-tracking expeditions, say they found the body of what appears to be a Bigfoot in the woods of northern Georgia and will join local Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi at the news conference this Friday (8/14/2008), according to Robert Barrows, who is publicizing the event.

For the full story: http://www.ktvu.com/news/17174989/detail.html

For the Fox News video report: http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=3020481&referralPlaylistId=playlist

Bigfoot tracker's website: http://www.searchingforbigfoot.com

My personal comment: Just like previous stories concerning so called "proof" of Bigfoot, until this pans out as a truly legit, proven story in the media with actual physical proof of Bigfoot, I will sit in the sidelines for now on this.

You know, it's better to just ignore that crazy religious/gaming website by not ever visiting them again. Because the more you do, the more web hits they get, the more popular they get, which leads to more advertising revenue they get. And with more money they have, the more power they have to spread their twisted version of Christianity.

Tito, your taste in platform is only shadowed by your taste in games.
Doom 3, Halo 2 & Halo 3 are probably the worst FPS games i've ever played.
Get a PC.

Damn, I thought for a second you were going to say to get myself a PS3! Anyway, I did say that I have Half-Life 2 for the Xbox 360 besides the other two games you don't like. And as for getting a PC, I do have one, but I mostly play those online Java or Shockwave games. Now, I am thinking about getting some kind of real time strategy (RTS) game, like Command & Conquer or Supreme Commander or something like that. Any ideas what to get in the RTS category?

Man, according to those score screen shots some of you guys posted, I am way out of my league here! That's why I don't play on Xbox Live that much any more. The only FPS games that I have ever played were Half Life 2, Doom 3 and Halo 1,2,3 all on the Xbox 360, and got my ass handed over to me half of the time. But now, when it comes to racing games, that's where I shine! Example: On the original Xbox, the RalliSport Challenge game, I finished the whole game winning all the races on 1st. place!

Hey, is there any tools to make Half Life maps for, or at the very least, modify or convert existing Half Life maps to play on the Xbox 360's version of Half Life? I have heard rumors of people putting custom Half Life maps on the Xbox 360's hard drive and being able to use them while playing the game on the system. Now, some people that I have talked to on other forums, have told me that the Xbox 360 need to be modded for for this to work, but I don't know if this is true or not. Has anybody heard anything on this?

I know there are hundreds of search engines out there with more popping up everyday. But only one really matters, and that's Google, after all, they control about 80% or more of the search market. So when I heard this new one called "Cuil", I said to myself: Oh great, another fly by night Google whana be.

But then when I heard that the ones behind this new upstart search engine were the original team of ex-Google engineers who created Google in the first place, then,...well, that caught my attention! Now, according to a lot of people that I talked to, some say this Cuil is slow, others say it is just as fast as Google. Other don't like the way the search results are presented, while others say that Cuil's innovative "Explore by Category Show More" box leaves Google in the dust.

Here's the link to the full story, there are some very bold claims: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080728/wr_nm/internet_search_dc

If the game is linear, they can always do to what they do to some racing games: mirror flip the scene to reveal new trajectories. I know it works for race tracks, but I am not sure on how this method will translate on this type of game. Just a wild guess.

Only if they are good, I do have my limits. And no, I did not like Hancock that much.

Damn!,... Strider, you ruined my lunch with that last statement of yours! Oh, and since we are on the subject, what about that Hancock?

Yea, you might be right. God knows some of these Marvel movies are total crap! Now, I do have high hopes for the new, upcoming Wolverine movie, I hope they don't mess that one up!

Really, Strider?

What is it, not a Marvel fan or what?

Yep, that's right! A Spike exclusive clip of the new Punisher movie is up online: http://www.spike.com/presents/punisher

You know what, this FPR game engine would be perfect for some kind of super hero game, like for example a Spiderman or Batman game, it would really fit well with these type of athletics driven characters.

Well, let me put my two cents here........

I am pretty sure some of you have already heard of the Viacom vs. Google case where Viacom, which owns MTV and a bunch of other cable channels, TV stations, radio stations and other media outlets, took to court and won a lawsuit against Google over the pirated content on You Tube, which is of course owned by Google. For more reference on this, go here: http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=google+viacom+lawsuit&c=

Now, what does this tells you? What's going on in Canada is just the beginning of things to come.

Oh, by the way, I am also a pirate, and since I live in Puerto Rico, I guess you can say I am a pirate from the Caribbean,......HA!

Some time ago, I posted a thread concerning one of my websites, the one dealing with multi-user VRML worlds that were converted from Half-Life & counter strike maps. For more reference on this, here's the original thread that I posted about this website, so you know what I am talking about: http://www.twhl.co.za/forums.php?thread=15317&page=last

Anyway, I wanted to do a little follow up on my latest project. I just finished adding another VRML scene to my site, but this time, instead of it being converted from another Half-Life map, it was done from a model that I got from scifi-meshes.com. The model in question is a 3D mesh of the high tech city of the TV show Stargate Atlantis. Here's a rendered snap shot of the original .obj file:Now, after downloading the Stargate Atlantis model, I went ahead and converted it to VRML2 using Deep Exploration CAD Edition, and then did some corrections and adjustments with Flux Studio & Internet Space Builder, both programs being dedicated VRML and X3D editors. Once that was done, it was just a matter of uploading the VRML scene to my website and connecting it to the ABNet 3D chat server.

Here's a bunch of screen capture shots of the Stargate Atlantis city in action as a virtual 3D chat world. Also notice the 3D avatar characters being used by some of the visitors, which can be selected among others, as part of the login procedure. The Red Dragon avatar you see in some of the pictures is of course, me:If any of you are interested in checking out the Stargate Atlantis 3D chat world, for free of course, this is the website to go to: http://www.virtualhl.info/VHLbase/VHL_Front_Page.htm

Technical Requirements for participating in my website's multi-user VRML worlds:

512 MB of Ram or more
128 MB Video Card or higher
DirectX 8 or higher
Windows 98, XP or Vista
Internet Explorer browser*
BS Contact 7.1 VRML/X3D viewer*
ABNet client*

*The two plugins, BS Contact 7.1 & the ABNet client can be downloaded from my website. The reason that Internet Explorer is required, is because for some reason, Mozilla decided to make Firefox 3 incompatible with the ActiveX / DirectX controls employed by the ABNet client and the BS Contact 3D viewer. This was not a problem with Firefox 2, provided it had the add on "IE Tab" from the Mozilla website. But now, even with the latest version of IE Tab running in Firefox 3, it still does not work, it ends up crashing. I have already sent a bug report to Mozilla about this. So for the time being, Internet Explorer is the only web browser out there that can support ActiveX 3D viewing on the web. This problem is the same for all the other 3D chat communities all over the internet.

Well Mr. Tosse, I could not have said it better.

And another thing....

How did this thread deviate from talking about the Watchmen trailer to some non-existing typo? Strange........

That's the thing, I did not do a typo! At least, not according to Word's spell check. It gave me two correct spelling options to choose from, which I did.

To Kraken: Well, you know what, when I run "boxoffice" through my spell checker, it rejects it as a typo. It instead gives me two other options to choose from:

1. box office
2. box-office

Funny thing, uh?

Okay then, let's have it you way, Mr. Srry. Crappy movies rack up large audiences all the time, while plenty of good movies bomb too. I will buy that. Now, let's jump to opening day of the Watchmen movie: (possible outcome) Wait, what's this.....not enough viewers? Low ticket sales?.............SHIT!........The movie BOMBED!
I guess you were right, or were you? This is the way I will put it back at you: I will file this under your folder (Quote) "On the flipside, plenty of good movies have bombed, too." Does that sound familiar?

To all who said this movie is not good: The way I see it, the final word on if it's good or not, will be decided at the box office, and not by anybody else's opinion, period. If the movie does not sell enough tickets during it's first week in theaters and it becomes an obvious bomb at the box office, than yes, it must be crap, because the people in general said so by not going to see it. Now, if the movie opens at #1 and takes in more money than it cost to make it in the first place by the first weekend, just like the director's other movie "300" did, then yea, it must be a great movie, since this is where the people will give their collective "Two Thumbs Up" through their wallets. So.......anybody out there has the balls to argue with this "Money Talks, Bullshit Walks" logic I just laid down?

The long awaited first trailer to the upcoming Watchmen movie is finally up online! For those of you who are not acquainted with the Watchmen, the movie is based on a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, and published by DC comics. What also makes this movie so potentially great and special is the fact that it is being directed by Zack Snyder, the same guy who also directed the movie 300. I tell you what people, by the looks of it, they went all out on the FX and then some! It looks so freaking epic! Well, see for your selves:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/watchmen/

Are you talking about a real tank?

Have you tried using Crafty or GCFScape from Nem's Tools? If you don't know where to find these tools, you can find them here: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net

Before you read this post, see my first thread so you know where I am coming from: http://www.twhl.co.za/forums.php?thread=15317 Well, after putting up my first thread about my website showcasing Half Life & Counter Strike maps converted to the VRML format, and running as multi-user chat worlds, I have to admit I got mix reviews. Most of the negative feedback was all due to the fact that the multi-user server platform being used to turn my VRML scenes in to 3D chat worlds was not compatible with the Firefox browser.

The truth is, it is still not compatible, but there's still good news to Firefox users. The BS Contact VRML viewer is Firefox compatible, just not the ABNet multi-user server. So, I went ahead and updated my website's entry page with direct links to the Half Life VRML scenes, this way they are not connected to the ABnet server, which is the main thing that's not Firefox friendly. So all of you who saw my previous thread, and were using the Firefox browser, I would like to invite back again for a second shot at this.

Once more, this is my website to go to: www.virtualhl.info

Here are a few screen shots of the actual multi-user, 3D chat console window showing 4 different users with their respective 3D avatars. Each of these avatars can move with fluid animation anywhere in the VRML world, you even have the option to fly if you want to! Some of the avatars have special animated moves unique only to them. Oh, and yes, text messaging is possible between the visitors:

I downloaded Blender about a month ago, and I got to tell you, looking at the interface is like looking at the cockpit of an airliner, damn that's a lot of buttons! But hey, at least it has a ton of good tutorials, even a printed book. But of course, the best part is the price, FREE....I can afford that. Now, it's just a matter of finding the time to learn it.

Last time I used a dedicated CAD program, it was about 15 or 16 years ago when I was in the military. And it wasn't even the Autodesk CAD program, it was some cheap 2D CAD editor. Now, I do have the CAD edition of Deep Exploration, which is perhaps the best, universal 3D formats converter out there, but with a focus on CAD files. I sometimes on occasion like to import and export CAD models to other 3D formats. I am not saying that I am some CAD expert, far from it, but depending on your questions, I might be able to help you.

I have been using Crafty for about a year now, and it never has crashed on me. Now, I don't have Half-Life, Counter Strike or any other source or non source PC game installed on my computer. I do all of my gaming on the Xbox360. It is true when I load up a .bsp file with Crafty, that most of the time, none of the textures are there. Now, there are a few times where I come across a map where, when I load it up on Crafty, it does have most, if not, all the textures!

Why is this? Simple, the person who did said map, used his own, custom textures on the map, therefore, the compiled .bsp map comes with it's own set of textures. I figure about 1 in 20 or so maps are like this. As an example of one of these custom textured maps, download one of, let's say....Rimrook's maps, then open it with Crafty, and you will see that a fully textured, real time 3D rendering will show up on Crafty.

Of course, the main reason I use Crafty in the first place, is it's ability to convert and save the .bsp map as a Wavefront Object model (.obj). Once converted to the .obj format, I will then import it in to my copy of Deep Exploration, where I will then save it as a VRML2 world file (.wrl), which I of course, will be using on my special little Half-Life/VRML website: www.virtualhl.info I have seen other people save the map to the Direct X format (.x), and then use it in other non-Valve 3D game engines.

I demand a Bootang pie!

You know, when Tetsu0 brought up the idea of an easy button, it had me thinking. Sure, I know it's really sarcasm on his part, but still, I think he was on to something. So, to see how an easy button would actually look like somewhere on TWHL's header, I came up with this:Now, putting on the easy button is easy (pardon the pun), but I have a feeling coming up with the easy button cgi form script to make the button work might not be so easy, but that's just me.

I'm cool with you guys, no bad blood here. Besides, TWHL3 looks complete and functional the way it is now. After all, one of my favorite sayings is: "If it's not broken, don't fix it". Oh by the way, so you know, I am working on a solution to the Firefox/Opera non-compatibility issue with my Half Life/VRML website. I will be posting soon a new update thread once I get something worked out.

I will take note on your advice. I will also stop my ramblings on this thread and stop wasting your time, I'm sure your a busy bee.

I wish I had the Beastmaster's powers too. That way I can order my dog to fetch me a beer.

Maybe for you. I rather have something with "WYSIWYG", I need automation! That hand coding from scratch stuff takes too long, is too hard and it makes think too much. I once tried making a website with Notepad, and I ended up with a bloody abortion of a website.

"Because my jaguar said...."
You know Kraken, a comment like that is not helping your case. All it is doing is giving more ammunition to your detractors. When I had the puppy pictures taken, I also made sure to include a short video clip to compliment the photos. I strongly suggest you do the same. See if you can take a two or three minute video clip of your pink jaguar, and if possible, have somebody else take the video of you petting the jaguar. It does not have to be a fancy high definition video, a regular digital camera or cell phone video of decent quality will do.

Well yea, I already came to the conclusion that canvas or any other exotic client side scripts is not a good idea for this site.

I suppose for a traffic heavy website like this one, it needs to be accessible to as many people as possible, including the ones with dial-up connections, not just broadband, which is where Ant's comment comes in about this site not being connection speed specific. And this can be accomplished by not having too many graphics, too many different fonts, Java applets and especially, complicated Flash animation effects.

Hey Penguinboy, just curious with two questions: What website editor do you use to work on TWHL3? And what's your take on using frames?

Wow, I did not expect a barrage like this!

I suppose Penguinboy has a point on the HTML 5 thing, it's not ready yet. Now, the canvas tag can be made cross browser by inserting a simple Google script called "Explorer Canvas" on the website's HTML code. This will then make Internet Explorer compatible with Canvas.

I do admit that Canvas seems to be mostly for fancy eye candy. What really intrests me about Canvas, is it's 3D aspect to it. You can see it here for yourself: http://www.abrahamjoffe.com.au/ben/canvascape/

Why thank you. If you want, I could name one after you in your honor.

Kraken's pink jaguar score so far:

Believers = 1 (Rimrook)

Non-believers = 2 (m0p, Penguinboy)

Neutral = 1 (me)

So far, it's not looking good for Kraken......

To m0p:

What can I say about your observations.............WHAT!!!

Your findings are interesting indeed. But, for the sake of not making enemies so soon just after joining TWHL3 about 3 weeks ago, I think I am going to take the "5th" on this one and not go "THERE". This is between you and Kraken (and maybe his jaguar too if it exists). I would very much like to either back you up on your opinion or dismiss it all together, but the truth is, I am no digital graphics expert. Heck, I don't even have Photoshop at all and never used it. The only graphics editor I have and use is an old version 7 copy of Paint Shop Pro.

Of course the video quality is crappy, it was taken with a cell phone camera inside a dark theater. But you can still pretty much make out everything that's going on in the trailer. I am sure there is going to be an official, higher quality of the new trailer released soon, and when it does, a good bet is to check here: http://www.apple.com/trailers/

Yea, I don't know how long this bootleg version of the new Batman trailer from a London showing is going to remain on Youtube, but try to see it while you can before they take it down, it is freak'n awesome!

http://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=7135

So that's what a pink jaguar looks like....nice. Very unique and cute in it's own way. Now, I did some digging and it seem that jaguars are native to South America, found mostly in the Amazon jungle. There are not too many of them since they are always hunted down by the locals for it's fur and meat. Even more rare are the all black ones.

To Unbreakable:
If you do checkout my site, and if you are using Firefox, you will need to switch over to Internet Explorer for the time being. Until the there is an update to the ABNet multi-user client to make it compatible to Firefox, I am afraid only it will work with Internet Explorer. www.virtualhl.info