Posts by Defrag

You can't do that with some stuff, though. Some flaws only become apparently when you're actually testing the map.

If you give a European a job, the terrorists win!

I'm not going to go into huge detail, but it's obvious that more guns means more potential for death. Even in the wonderfully neutral land of Switzerland (somewhere perceived to be very peaceful) there is a higher rate of firearms deaths than in the UK (the UK is apparently now one big ghetto if you listen to the newspapers ). What's the difference? Swiss men of a certain age have to keep a gun in the house as a military obligation. I don't really see the point in having the right to bear arms if it makes you more likely to get shot by someone else. It's a false economy.

I think this quote sums it up: "Even good people do bad things." I'm sure everyone knows someone who has done something in the heat of the moment, or they know someone who is outwardly normal but is capable of indulging in some ... very dubious behaviour. That's why I'm against the general public bearing arms.

However, my attitude towards violent games has shifted somewhat. I used to think "blah blah whatever", but now there's a few books I want to read (by Dave Grossman) that deal with how games can mimic some of the training you find in armies etc.

The main difference in the media's (lazy half-assed) perception seems to be that any game featuring violence is bad and helps to condition to kill, whereas Grossman apparently makes a link between more physical games and the action of killing (i.e. light gun games where you physically hold a replica and have to aim properly), including a case where someone who had handled a gun only once was able to take out a group of 8 people, 5 of them with headshots. The guy played arcade light gun games a lot prior to the shooting. Grossman states that experienced gun-handlers in the army & police would've found it difficult to achieve such a feat. Unfortunately you then get hacks like Thompson who jump on this and apply it to all games featuring violence.

I agree with you btw. This is total hypocrisy and big business hand in hand.

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Yep, to me the cockpit doesn't fit with the real Super-Cobra ! Have a look to the blueprint !

Anything in particular that stands out? I've had to use a mix of AH-1W and AH-1Z blueprints and even those were really shitty quality, so it's kinda hard to see anything beyond coarse detail on those. I do have a lot of good AH-1W reference photos, though.

Re: Smoothing. By smoothing, I mean smoothing groups

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BTW. every edge need to be connected with other edges...

I've read varying advice on this. Some espouse the importance of an all quad mesh (by any means) whereas others say that maintaining loops (4 edges meeting joined at every vertex) is more important. Others say that having 'poles' is fine yet others don't. Some people say not to worry about triangles at all. I don't really have an opinion on it -- I'm just interested in finding the best way to get results

Blah I can't find the link any more, but the Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack is a classic. If you look hard enough you can definitely still download it these days

Updated pics at foot of page

Click the thumbnails for bigger pics.

[Blocked Image: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~msimp2k2/models/ah-1w/ah-1w_01_thumb.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~msimp2k2/models/ah-1w/ah-1w_02_thumb.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~msimp2k2/models/ah-1w/ah-1w_03_thumb.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~msimp2k2/models/ah-1w/ah-1w_04_thumb.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~msimp2k2/models/ah-1w/ah-1w_05_thumb.jpg]

Still to do:

[*][*:nq6cblhd]Optimise
[*:nq6cblhd]Sort out smoothing (keep getting horrible smoothing results even though I've got very few triangles and the rest quads, any hints?)
[*:nq6cblhd]Not really happy with the wings or the fuel tank (hence why one side is kinda done and the other is bare). I think I'll just remove the fuel tank and put rocket pods (whatever the hell the technical term is for them ) on both sides for nice looking symmetry, plus it looks meaner.
[*:nq6cblhd]Interior
[*:nq6cblhd]Touch up the tail & tail rotor a bit, it has lots of wasted polys right now[/list]I started this ages ago, but I've not had time to work on it for various reasons. It's taken far too long to get this far because I've been pretty anal about the details due to the large amount of good photo refs I have. This is just a bit of fun and a salute to my favourite BF2 chopper, so I made it a bit more high poly than needed for a bit of a challenge on modelling the more complicated bits (like I modelled most of the intricate detail on the rotor.. the rotor is usually spinning so...). The nose cone detail is probably overkill; again, I just felt like it.

Each half of the body is ~1250 polys but I will be ably to reduce that by quite a bit. The total is about ~6000 polys. If I got rid of most of the detail that nobody cares about, it'd probably be about ~4000 which is still kinda high considering there's no interior yet.

Anyone got any good hints on achieving nice smoothing with a minimum of lighting artefacts while also simultaneously removing as many edge loops as possible? I often create new edge loops to retain an all quad mesh (or as much as possible as quads) but if I'm getting shitty smoothing it's wasted effort & polys. Any other c & c appreciated, cheers.

As for me: It's going alright. Got a first class degree after working my balls off, now I'm job-hunting. Got turned down once already but I'm confident I can get a job programming somewhere

Anyone know what sort of adverts we're talkin' 'bout here?

D3ads, regarding you being attacked:

Take some self-defence classes or take up a martial art. It'll do you wonders. A lot of the classes feature people like you and me (a bit nerdish, not really fighting types, wouldn't know what to do if attacked). Think about it: Are you more or less likely to take up a martial art if you're already confident about defending yourself? I've been going to a local instructor for approaching four years now (he teaches hand to hand combat to the special forces amongst other stuff) and I know I can handle myself these days because I know various things for every angle of attack etc. I'll never be a hard bastard or a great martial artist, but I now have a good understanding of what I can and cannot do and plenty of stuff in my locker for both recognising & dealing with various situations, including someone with a weapon.

Also, if you find the right class and instructor, it will also do wonders for your self-esteem, get you fighting fit and teach you a lot about life in general. Just make sure you find a good instructor; avoid the cowboys (one touch of death!111 I will throw you with my Ki power!) & sport-based martial arts.

If I can do it, it's almost guaranteed that you can, too. I've been trying to get my brother to take it up too as he was almost assaulted a few months back but he's wary of the effort involved. Once you're in and training it's grand, you just have to have the confidence to take that first step. Personally, it was something I always wanted to do but never got around to. Once I started, I was so glad that I actually took the first step. Definitely one of the best decisions I ever made.

The reason I think this is a good route is that you can overcome your fears through confidence in your own abilities. When I started uni prior to starting training, I used to wonder if I was going to get mugged when wandering through the overpass to the train station late at night (almost happened once when two dickheads started asking me for money then started following me while abusing me). Nowadays I'm still careful to avoid trouble, but I'm much less worried about anything happening.

If you're ever interested or want any advice on choosing an instructor etc. just shoot me a pm sometime.

Looks lovely. The cars & shaders etc. are top-notch. I wonder if their graphics programmers will do an article for the GPU gems / ShaderX series 'cause I'd love to read it.

I did notice a few low detail parts of the environment, though. Check out the grassy areas at track side -- it just looks like flat polygons with a repeating green texture! I suppose you won't notice that when you're actually playing, but it did look a bit weird when the rest of the world is sumptuous.

Hey good stuff, thanks. I particularly like the websites you linked (http://www.boreally.org/fr/photographies.php = excellent!)

The huge ream of text really does break up the page too much. You've got loads of text there that is mostly redundant. Personally, I'd put your current career goal at the top followed by a summary of your key skills similar to the bullet point list you've got. Don't include your favourite book and interests there, either -- you can briefly include that sort of stuff in a more expansive resume/CV under interests.

Anyway, hit them with the skills then get straight down to displaying examples of your work. The mistake most people make (myself included) is to waffle too much about what they do. From what I've been told, you want to keep a portfolio / CV as skills based as possible. Telling a big story about the chronological order of your development / modding experiences isn't a good idea because recruiters don't really care. Listing your dev & mod work (number of years, maps contributed, responsibilities) in a concise fashion is a much better idea than an expansive story about how you joined a mod and made a map in March 2006 and that it was your third map and that you were kinda happy with it.

I.e. compact everything you've got and prioritise the information. If a sentence or paragraph doesn't actually tell them anything useful, get rid of it.

You might also want to think about reformatting your page. Maybe have a compacted style of resume & the art directly in their face, then include a link or a separate area that contains the (full) resume.

Look at ReNo's portfolio site to see what I mean:

http://www.reno-vation.net/

In addition to what I suggest, there's a great site that's been posted multiple times before: http://www.thejonjones.com/2005/10/07/y ... pels-jobs/

The main things I'd take from that site (in addition to what I've said)

[*][*:haxrq65b]Contact information! Where is your contact info? I can't see it. Put it at the top of the page. Make it more prominent than the rest of the information.
[*:haxrq65b]Image sizes (already covered). I personally really hate small screenshots (< 800x600) because it's almost as if the person is hiding something. You might notice that even shitty stuff looks cool if you shrink it enough, but it dies on its arse if you see it at 1600x1200. Higher res = better. I'd personally go for ~1024x768 as that's a fairly good baseline of screen resolution these days. If I see small screenshots I automatically think the person is hiding something (usually a lack of craft / detail in an environment). I'm a cynical bastard, and I can guarantee that a lot of recruiters that deal with this stuff on a day to day basis are significantly more cynical than I am!
[*:haxrq65b]Image branding. This is a lot easier to do in a tasteful fashion if your images are fairly large. Just put your name & web/email address on 'em as unobtrusively as possible.[/list]I'm by no means an expert on this stuff, but I have had my portfolio & CV shredded lately by someone who has dealt with recruitment, so I figured I'd pass on some of the stuff I had said about mine .

Looks a bit... muddled.. to me. I see what they're trying to do, but the visuals just look really messy to me.

I think you need to buy a set with a modular wire thingy that will disconnect, then. I've had my PC150s for two years and suffered no mishaps.

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think the only problem with games that hit the PC and consoles is that the developers just seem to not understand the way a PC game should fundamentally feel. It's usually really obvious stuff like the mouse acceleration (this is a problem with BioShock and Lost Planet) and basic stuff that just makes it feel a bit iffy.

I really, really hate it when developers slip mouse acceleration into their games without letting you customise or disable it. BF2 has very subtle mouse acceleration (probably aids flying planes & choppers without having a joystick) and I get narked by it when playing infantry.

Full marks to Valve. I (amongst many others) made a suggestion that they should allow users to customise mouse acceleration and, sure enough, you can tweak it to your heart's content with HL2 (on/off and various other parameters). At the very least, FPS developers should always disable their own mouse acceleration code by default. Windows already has acceleration by default so just leave it as is. I've got the no acceleration .reg file and mouse acceleration totally disabled in windows, but my preferences are totally ignored because of some developers' choices.

If you want a nice cheap pair for gaming with good quality for the money and a nice mic, I'd recommend the Sennheiser PC150s (or similar). Should be able to find them for £35-45 these days. For that kind of dosh, you won't do much better.

Hell's teeth! Girls pissing on the street? Even in darkest Scotland I've never heard of such a thing and we have plenty of drunks & mingers (and drunk mingers).

Nice one

Should get a torrent going too, if possible.

*edit - to anyone who opens this and then wonders why winrar doesn't appear instantly, give it a while. I'm running a dual core and it still took something like 30 seconds for Winrar to appear and give me any kind of progress update (usually opens instantly for me).

Like Thrik said, they're using some new shaders for the characters, so it might be quite a bit more intensive. Or maybe it won't. Looks bloody ace. I still crack up every time I see the soldier's run animation.

Even if it's more complicated than the engines people are modding at the moment, I'm sure the increases in workflow / productivity will more than make up for it.

If I have to put in a lot of effort to learn something that will ultimately boost my productivity in the long-term, it's something I am happy to do. I feel like, at the moment, a lot of modders are using SDKs that force them to 'muddle though'. You get there in the end, but waste a lot of hours on the way to achieving your goal.

If I have to spend 20 hours learning a tool to a standard where I can do stuff and then that tool saves me 50 hours over the course of a couple of months, that's absolutely fine with me. That's significantly better than learning a tool that takes a couple of hours to get the basics down, but costs you countless hours over the course of a month due to 'muddling through'.

I suppose the only danger is that when you have to learn multiple new tools to get the job done (e.g. someone who models, maps & textures may need to learn all of that stuff simultaneously which may be a big hump to get over in the early days), or someone who is relatively new to modding gets put off because the learning curve is too steep before they can actually achieve something.

Maybe modding will just get a bit more hardcore but more productive with these sorts of tools, or maybe it will die on its arse. I dunno which. I know certain companies (including valve) now hire people solely to deal with their SDK & interacting with modders, but I fear it shan't be enough.