Forum posts

I bought myself a Wii, all I need to do now is buy Madden and I'll be set. Also bought some study guides for the FAA Private Pilot's exam, since I'll be taking that soon as well. Should keep me occupied for most of the holiday break...

No, not really, there's no direct way to correlate polycount and FPS. Put how many you want in your map and if you're having FPS problems then use showbudget to see what the problem is.

oh god this thread is terrible

I spent 350 on mine, the only things I didnt buy was a HD, a monitor, and a case. It runs HL2 on all high beautifully, and in TF2 gets about 45 FPS with high settings, minus HDR / motion blurring.

What processor, mobo, graphics card, and memory are you running? =/ Unless you know someone in a computer store or something where you can get a mad discount, that's awfully cheap.

I doubt you can find anything in that price range that will run HL2 at all, nonetheless well. Your best bet for a decent, cheap PC is to build your own, and even a low-end computer that can run HL2 will probably cost closer to $600 USD.

Minimum specifications are as follows. Also, be prepared to lower your standards of visual quality since the game won't look too pretty, and I wouldn't expect it to run perfectly either. I recall that HL2 was intended to be scalable to DX6 but I don't believe that was ever completed, so DX7 is the lowest I would go.

1.2 GHz Processor
DX7 compatible card (64mb is probably minimum for VRam)
4.5GB HD space
256MB RAM

It also lists an internet connection and DVD-ROM drive which I would assume depends on your purchase and installation method (Steam or Retail), so you need one or the other.

BSP has jack shit to do with dynamic lighting; the way the lighting is calculated (radiosity processes) and the baked lightmaps do. Dynamic lighting is still easily possible; and should be more useful once the new engine upgrades arrive.

What do you really need dynamic lights for anyway? You can make things look fine with static light sources anyway. Use a light_environment to provide uniform light throughout your map (the ambient value provides a uniform lighting level everywhere, the sky value or whatever provides light from toolssky textures in your map) and then you can fill in areas you'd like with light_spots or light entities, faking environmental light if need be. I find that light_spots are more conductive to atmospheric lighting because you can aim and focus them at will.

also, source kinda sucks. BSP format? archaic. don't let Ant see this thread.

Well; not necessarily. I used to think of BSP as an outdated method as well but if you really break it down it's fairly effective, especially with the newer version of the BSP Tree (KDTree) that Valve is now using. (Compare the Source engine's methods of rendering and occlusion to Unreal's; they each have their pros and cons.) Also, the upcoming particle editor and other useful features in Hammer should really make Source a much more powerful and useful engine, and should also make it more attractive to developers.

Yeah Rabid pretty much hit the nail on the head
I hate it because im too stupid to figure it out.. that and i dont have the motivation to care enough.

Hey, me too, I'm too lazy/not interested enough to sit down and figure out the intricacies of C++, but that doesn't make it bad ;P

I never really got into TFC, but I have a number of friends who were hardcore TFC fans and I figured they would probably be heavily critical of TF2. Instead, it's just been the opposite; they enjoy TF2, and I've really gotten into it as well. When a game can attract new players as well as keep the hardcore fans from previous versions or iterations thereof then you know something's right.

On the other hand, I didn't have as much fun with FF as I thought I would. Releasing a mod has no bearing on it's fun factor or how well it plays. I much prefer TF2; it's just more entertaining.

So C++ is bad because you can't understand it and don't want to take the time to figure it out? =/

The programming language has nothing to do with good or bad AI; it's how the language is used to program such things and the proficiency of the programmer.

No, they exist, I have copies of both the Portal and TF2 FGDs. They're not official direct from VALVe, though, and Hammer needs some work before we start mapping for the new games and the new engine; among other things, detail textures are not displayed for new materials, and there's purple checkers over everything. Also, they utilize a newer version of the VMT file architecture and a new BSP version so new tools are required for compiling/decompiling, and to utilize the new materials.

It's hidden...

The backstory stuff is pretty neat.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/subject.html

Another good resource.

Did someone say HWGuy screenshots?

http://images.rabid-monkey.com/tf2/tc_hydro0003.jpg
http://images.rabid-monkey.com/tf2/storeytime%20is%20looking%20good.jpg

Dead Kennedys - Cesspools In Eden

Heh, the Dead Kennedys are great.

You guys realize there's no listings for level designers on that page? =/

They're actively seeking people to work on the Steam platform, and software engineers. No listing generally means no position at any company, unless you are exceptionally talented and more than fit the requirements for your job.

Indeed, it's quite a bit of fun.

Caption this one:

You'd have to write your own shader.

Philly cheesesteak, cheeseburger, shit like that. So delicious.

Otherwise, mix some sort of steak or beef and cheese and onions together and I'll eat it.

http://www.vume.com/photos/browse/byuser/RabidMonkey

Most of my recent photos are here.

Yeah, it's barely noticeable to me as well. Once you nail the right color it should just click.

Oh, and it's pretty cool to see a lot of people interested in photography here. Perhaps we should start a seperate post-your-pictures thread or something?

"Amateurs worry about equipment, pros worry about money, masters worry about light." A fitting quote for this thread, I think.

You can still shoot great pictures on some cheap equipment; regardless of fancy features or megapixels. All you need are some fundamental controls, like aperture adjustment. That said, I'm dissappointed that most digital point-and-shoot cameras lack such fundamental features; which makes working with a Digital SLR like the 350D/400D a necessity for even amateur digital photographers.

Year of your equipment is a moot point. I occasionally shoot with a 70's era Pentax ME Super that puts out some great shots on film. I'm more satisfied with the shots I've taken with it than some of the shots my newer film Canon Rebel has taken. Nothing wrong with Powershots, but if you're trying to do any sort of serious photography you really need the functions that an SLR offers; the only people I see using powershots are tourists and drunk people at parties. And it's not about elitism; it's about the art of photography. There's differences between just taking a snapshot and a photograph; they're two different hobbies of a sort. Photography has a lot more to do with light, contrast, mood, and color if applicable.

Now, with regards to your picture, Strider; I like the way you've set it up, but it could use a little more overall contrast; perhaps it's just late and my eyes are tired, but to me the plant doesn't stick out enough and almost blends in with the background, mostly towards the top. I would also back up a little bit and try and frame the whole thing in your shot or find a good flat place to crop the ends out; instead of just letting it lead up out of the frame. Other than that, cool stuff.

Yeah, I bought some new ones yesterday as well, that look like these...kinda. The bases aren't white though. On sale for cheap, so yeah...

I lol'd at the fast powerthirst one

The pic is kinda small, but these are mine, except way more beat up.

Don't buy ethnies. They look good but make your feet smell like shit.

Not really ;P

I demand moar lulz

It's 'luxel', by the way, it stands for luminosity pixel.

Same; it asks me every fucking month too if I want to re-enlist or if I want to consider quitting smoking or start using illicit drugs. No and no and no. Quit fucking asking me, I said no the first time.

Somehow, I also became an alcoholic and died a year later, even though I never drank. What the fuck?

I've failed to lol yet. Moar!

If the prop is really big you can't pick it up anyway; like the cargo crates. There's a flag to prevent the grav gun from grabbing it like Habboi said. If you don't want it to move at all use prop_dynamic_override instead.

I've got an AMD 4200 X2, which is dual-core, I don't need an Intel, do I? =/

Other than that, I should be able to run it quite comfortably, I meet all the recommended requirements, save for a 512mb video card, but a 256mb 7900GT should hold up just fine.

And now back on topic, Symantec consumer products (aka Norton products) are awful in every aspect. I've heard Symantec's corporate products are very nice, but they're also very expensive and they cannot be pirated as they require a subscription as far as I know.

The only reason I still use the copy of SAV Corporate I jacked from work is that it doesn't require any subscription at all, even to use LiveUpdate or to get the latest defs. Still, it's only as good as Norton gets.

I created a full set of ANSI/OSHA safety signs for Black Mesa, here's a couple composite sheets;You can see the rest of them here. (These signs are decalstest0001-0006).

I've also created some other decal sets for Black Mesa for areas that require some paper clutter, posters, etcetera.Again, you can see the rest of them here.

If it's not enough, PSUs are cheap as fuck these days. I got a 750 watt PSU or something like that for around 20 bucks at CompUSA; more than enough to supply power to a 7900GT and a few SATA drives.

Ok, so they actually made it clear in writing that they basically copied those ideas from Halo, still.
But they ditched those for what they have now, so its all good.

I was privvy to a conversation at one point that they were trying to pitch the property rights to Valve and sell it off and make some money, so that's probably why they've changed some of that sort of stuff.

Get rid of the lights.rad file in your hl2mp folder; it should pull values from the one in the SDK folder with the compile tools. I've never seen that error; I don't know where your second lights.rad file came from ;P

Texlights look pretty shitty in Source, tbh - you're better off using light_spots, I swear by them. You have a lot of control with them, more than you should need.

It doesn't really matter which generator, the filter makes it sound terrible (in a good way) anyway. Try the AT&T one;

http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

EDIT: Damn you, beat me to it ;P

Yeah, the robogrunts are in place of the human grunts in singleplayer. They bleed oil or something if I recall too. This has been around for a while, ever since the first release of HL, to my knowledge...

It's actually not a plugin, but integrated into the latest version of the actual Winamp program.

Ambulance LTD - Primitive (The Way I Treat You)

Yeah, I have an iPod and switched over to Winamp with iPod support a while ago. It takes a bit of tweaking but it's much more convenient and saves me the hassle of iTunes/Quicktime.

Probably, but that might also handle iPod support as well.

I'll go ahead and move to Knightsbridge then.

Always scared that the next person will come and take it away.

It's already begun, to some extent. Certain social groups are being marginalized for certain activities or lifestyle choices, and therefore their rights to freedom are being limited at the hands of special interest groups. (ie; smokers, obese people)

Additionally, while a cop may get "uneasy" if someone's filming him in a public place, that does not give him the right to arrest you or confiscate your property, or take any action against you whatsoever for that matter. In a free state you are free to photograph or film anyone and anything in a public place as long as you aren't harassing anyone or causing any trouble, because public places are for everybody.

You could also argue that those people are arrested for fucking with the cops, but that's probably simply not true. It depends on the cop, but I've had enough dealings with the law and the court to know that the cops get away with a lot more than they should and don't always work by the book. Just last week my buddy was handcuffed (on a legitimate charge, I'm not going to defend him for that) and while cuffed, was kicked in the head and beaten while defenseless by a police officer. That's not an issue of freedom and a different story, but it always disgusts me to see that irresponsibility by people in that position of power.

0x1 = 0
0x2 = 0

0 = 0

...eh? I don't get what you were trying to get at, Espen.

Dethklok - Thunderhorse

Its not like theyll put us all into jail or reinstate slavery.

Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean you should rule anything out. Have you heard about FEMA and the REX 84 program, which would be enacted in a "state of civil disobedience" (another set of buzzwords, like 'national security' or 'terrorism')? Or another plan, Operation Garden Plot, which would give a new governmental system the ability to forcefully control the population (under this "civil disturbance plan", deadly force is authorized against any "extremist or dissident perpetrating any and all forms of civil disorder.")

You're going to have to dig around in documents and various sources to corroborate such sources and whatnot, however. Obviously a mainstream, corporate-controlled media outlet isn't going to report on such matters.

You can use another serial (from BS or OpFor) to get all the games via Steam if you have the big GOTY package.