Posts by Fletch

  • calling all metrosexuals

    If you have dark colored dress shirts, I sugest using something like Woolite Dark Laundry formula istead of normal detergent. It really helps prevent fading. Other than that, avoid using anything that has bleach in it.

    From everything that I've been told (by women), once a shirt starts to fade, it's going to stay like that. So the best you can do is try to prevent from getting that way in the first place by cleaning it as gently as possible. This meants light detegents, steam cleaning, and dry cleaning. That and invest in better shirts in the first place. More expensive fabrics have better base materials and finishes which keep the pigment and luster longer.

  • Lost Coast is out

    Well those were some fun jumping puzzles...

    Let's see, HL2 without HDR runs buttery smooth. HL2 with HDR chugs. HL2 without HDR exits properly back to windows. HL2 with HDR crashes my computer when I try to exit.

    Winnar: Epic

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    See, I knew people missed a good chance to rant and talk shop.

    Reading all these comments made me remember a thought I had a few weeks after HL2DM came out. People were commenting on how HL2DM was... well... not much fun. The reason people like Q3A and UT2K* is because it is so fucking over the top. You've got people doing backflips while shooting a rocket launcher as they hit a zip pad flinging them hundreds of yards over their opponents heads. HL2 gives you grav gun spam and underpowered weapons. So I had commented that I wish somebody would just make a fun DM mod. Over the top weapons (ratchet and clank style), bizarre levels, and fast gameplay. Oddly enough, it would probably be the easiest damn thing to code. No player classes. No detailed hit boxes. Just ragdoll players, visually fun weapons, and fast combat. But the odds of us ever seeing that mod are low. Why? Well, turns out they are the same answers that face every other mod out there.

    1) There are so few capable coders out there. And they all have projects their working on. Once they manage to get out one mod, they're going right into the industry. The remaining coders just face a lot of bullshit because the HL2 tools are sad. Go over to UT2K* and the code is easier to work with and easier to put together.

    2) I've got about 500 people who can model and AK47 or MAC10, but couldn't model a player (let alone a bizarre looking one) if I payed them.

    3) I'd love to have custom textures, but the texture importing interface is quite possibly the shittiest tool I've ever seen. So now I need a texture artist who also hopefully knows Unix or whatever the hell it's running.

    4) The remaining team I would need is too busy worried about NDAs and compensation to put out a rpoject for fun.

    Sigh. Oh well. At least this just give me more incentive to put good stuff out now. In the land of blind men, the one-eyed man is king.

  • Editorial: Did HL1 Ruin HL2?

    So I started mapping again this week. Yeah, don’t die in shock or anything. This is just a little test balloon kind of thing. I’ll hopefully have screens by this weekend. It isn’t the point of this post, it’s just the catalyst.

    Wanting to have a benchmark for my efforts, I decided to look around at the current HL2/CSS map community and see why the current standards were. Looks are, let’s face it, everything. I certainly didn’t want to put out a steaming pile of shit (not that it has stopped me in the past). But when I started to look around, I ran into a problem. There is no map community. If you want to make nice looking maps you go to… well… here. If you were to go over to the CS forums, they pretty much tell you to go here. It’s kind of surreal. But don’t take my word, go look for yourself.

    Look at Planethalflife. That place used to be top dog. I remember having to go on IRC and sweet talk them into posting some screens. Now they barely have a post a day about anything. CS Nation is just as dead unless you want to read up on CPL standings. The other Half Life community pages pretty much consist of the same layout and the same news. Snarkpit is just about the only HL2 map site, and even then it’s a slow trickle. If you were to look at PHL’s hosted sites, you’d notice every single mapping related one is at least 1 year dormant.

    Ok, so the map scene is pretty much dead, there has to be a mod scene, right? New level designers can surely show off their work in some up and coming mods… right? Oh, wait, there is no mod scene. Sure, there are things that might look like mods, but they’re not. Why? Because now they want to sell their mod as a content pack. So now, instead of dealing with a whiney 16 year old mod “leader” and his crack team of weapon modelers, you get to deal with them PLUS fight about splitting the money and intellectual property rights. That’s going to end well.

    So what the fuck happened? Didn’t we sit around for years salivating for this new engine? We were all going to release those projects that were always too grand to do with 800 wpolys. Sure, the DM mapping contest was great at pumping out community content, but that was the end. Since CS and DoD got picked up by Valve (hell, we’ll throw Gunman Chronicles in there, too, for shits and giggles), the new standard for mods is to release something to be picked up for distribution. Of course, release is the big word in that sentence.

    If you look at server stats, you can see you have three options if you want to release a map that will get played: CS:S, DoD:S, and HL2DM. Even assuming you get a good map that is polished and looks nice visually, there is no distribution hub. Sure, PHL and the rest will most likely post pictures, but I have to question whether people even go to those sites anymore. Now I’m not saying the HL1 days were better as far as getting your map played, but from like 1998-2002, there was probably one high quality map a month (sometimes one a week). There was still some underlying current of creativity that was creating these works.

    After seeing pretty much all of the top tier developers go into the industry now, it seems like the map/mod community has turned into some weird Escape From LA scenario, where the crazies have been left in charge you either go crazy, die, or try to get the hell out.

    Just a thought

  • Fucking Fred Phelps and His Nutty Fundies.

    I went to college in Kansas about 30 minutes from those nutties. They were on campus at least once a week reminding us that God hates fags, God hates us for not hating fags as much as them, and God hates people that hate them for hating fags. You basically learn to start ignoring them.

    Funny story though: a bunch of my friends lived in a scholarship hall (think fraternity for nerds) right next to campus and were preparing for a water war with the hall across the street. They spent all Friday afternoon making a few thousand water balloons. Then word came that Fred and his crew were a block away on campus protesting Mo Rocca (apparently, God hates comedy, too) who was performing that night. Fred got a little damp and called the KU police. They took 45 minutes to get there (about two blocks away) and claimed it was a low priority. Then the cops drove through the middle of the water war and waved to everybody.

    Oh, and Fred Phelps has cancer. I'm not one to say I'm glad somebody has cancer, but if you need proff of karma, there it is.

  • LCDs CRTs and LSD!

    I bought an NEC 17" LCD about a month ago, and I couldn't be happier. Goes up to 1280x1024 and it's super crisp. Plus, I've gotten a lot less headaches that I used to get from staring at my CRT.

    And you really can't put a premium on desktop space.

  • Some pictures

    A little trick with the Sony DSCs if you ever take more with this camera: They really dislike focusing on objects close up. So first make sure you hit the little faux-macro button on the back (it's the 'flower' button). Second, you can 'drag' the focus from one object to aanother. If I'm taking a close-up, I'll hold the focus then drag it around until the detail comes in crisply. it's annoying, but it helps get some clarity and sharp edges.