Posts by Defrag

  • The Best Song Ever Thread~

    I honestly couldn't say, but something always sends a shiver up my spine when I hear the acoustic version of Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" from the Stop Making Sense concert. God I love that song. Currently also addicted to Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around.

  • Community Death Match map project (HL2)

    I think it's a nice idea, particularly because new mappers can get involved and learn a great deal from experienced ones. I don't really think the final product will be particularly great in terms of aesthetics and playability, but it's great to see something that is open to all.

  • Favorite grid size in Hammer?

    Quote from KungFuSquirrel

    I still always build major architecture in divisions of 64 (if not 128) and try to avoid ever offsetting things by more than 32 units. There's nothing I hate more than major geometry going smaller than 16 units (16 at least lines up pretty well against the major grid sizes, but 8 always feelds awkward).Of course, I'll do things like split a 32 unit support into 8, 16, and 8 unit pieces or something and for fine details (and splitting things up on patch meshes in d3) I've gone all the way down to the .125 grid. But I'm quite the grid nazi otherwise.

    Yay. That's my thinking, more or less. I went back to a map I created for TFC (I'm overhauling it for Fortress Forever) on an 8 grid, and it felt like I had soiled myself and was sitting in it (urm, not that I'd know what that feels like). My later maps are mostly on a 32 (though obviously lower for detailing) grid and it's just so much cleaner to work with.

  • Favorite grid size in Hammer?

    Always 32 for basic brushwork, for several reasons:

    [*]
    [*:huibdtlr]Very easy to keep standard sizes and it keeps the map file very clean looking.
    [*:huibdtlr]Textures naturally allign themselves (particularly floor tiles etc) due to the reptition of the textures corresponding to the snap units of the grid. This saves hassle and means I don't have to bother with texture lock for the most part.
    [*:huibdtlr]It's much harder to make something leak with a larger grid size.
    [*:huibdtlr]CSG/BSP likes nice multiples, so this probably helps optimise the BSP[/list]When I detail, I usually turn the grid down to the level I need it (1 for props, grr), then turn it back up afterwards. I always try to keep rotations and stuff like so that the vertices align on the highest grid snap setting possible (e.g. avoid going to 1 unit grid unless necessary).

  • E3 Babe pics

    Christ on a bike, that last pic is nice. I'm always amazed at the amount of cash that is spent on booth beauties at these shows. You'd think they'd find something better to do with their money other than try to hire nubile women. Wait, what am I saying?

  • ragdoll in hl1 - holy shiat

    Heh that's pretty cool. One of the coders on FF (billdoor) actually implemented ragdolls for CS 1.6, but he didn't get around to making the model collision test against itself (i.e. so the limbs just fell through the character's body and it looked a bit stupid) as he had other stuff to do. It still looked pretty cool for HL1.

  • Doom III

    I think the engine is fantastic, but the game is ultimately very boring. I played up until around 1/3 through the game, then I just.. stopped playing it. Then I needed space on my games partition and uninstalled Doom III.

    Some parts were really cool -- creepy living walls, the scary bit with the mirror and the suspense in various parts -- but the game just did not grab me. It seemed extremely formulaic and I got fed up of being jumped by zombies and various other nasties that magically appear in dead ends that I'd already cleared. Boring.

    It came free with my graphics card. If I'd paid for it, I would've been pissed, to be honest.