Posts by twiz

Some random pictures of last year's trip to Nice, France and Istanbul.

They were taken with a digital elph, so if you're expecting professional quality photos, move on

Then again, it is downright difficult to take a bad picture in Nice or Istanbul.

My parents often make cameos, but they don't tend to block anything interesting so please forgive them

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Well, thats all for now. I have 531 pictures in total, so there will be more. Just whenever I get around to uploading them. Lots of them are of ornate plates and tiles and stuff like that, I'll try to stick with scenery and archetecture stuff since thats probably more interesting to you guys.

13, I started playing around beta 1.3? or somethin like that. I don't remember. Long ago. But I have no memory or care about random facts like this. I don't keep track of minor changes in the game, what beta they're on or whatever.

I remember having the most fun with beta 1.5 to 1.6. But I have no idea why I thought it was the best then, I don't remember what was different(if much of anything really, I could have just found a good server or gotten cable internet or who knows)

Quote from Warby

you went to nice ?! you lucky bastard

Yus, it was lovely

I have several hundred more pictures, mostly of archetecture and stuff, and my parents also have several hundred pictures from a trip to istanbul that are fantastic for references, all fairly high resolution. If anyone needs some ideas, I can pick out some interesting pics.

I think you have too many blue roofs out there. The blue isn't very common... almost all are the red brick. As for the houses being too close together, I don't think so. I think its about right.

Try changing the colors of the plaster. Some are very yellow, some are almost white. I think you also need some more industrial type buildings.

Heres a decent reference picture, too bad its small... But it'll give you an idea of a good sky color, building variations/colors, etc.

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Edit: heres some more reference pictures I took on my trip to Nice:

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Hope these help.

Quote from D3ads

No idea, but it sends messages and allows me to make phonecalls so I don't really give two shits.

ditto.

Cool stuff. Has anyone ever seen the little documentary on chernobyl, done by a woman on a motorcycle? Very interesting stuff. Apparently if you stay on the pavement you get very little radiation, but as soon as you go on the soil it goes very high. She had a gieger counter on her to make sure she didn't get too much radiation. I'll try to find the link.

Good joerb!

Heres another vid of it running, this time with daylight

Quote from Bic-B@ll

pussy

Quote from ginger_lord

Needs a manual gearbox.

Once you start getting over 450, 500hp manuals start to become more work than fun. I'm not a big guy, pushing a heavy clutch all day isn't my idea of fun. And an auto is faster anyways

But I do love driving a manual, and believe me, I considered it long and hard. But after driving a car with a heavy clutch, I decided against it. If it makes any difference, the auto that I have in it is no longer 'automatic', it does not shift on its own. You have to move the shifter to tell it what gear to be in. But it still has no clutch.

Probably only a handful of you know this about me, but I build cars. Well car technically, since this is the only one that has made it to some stage of completion. But anyhow, it runs kinda. "Runs" to the effect that the engine successfully turns and continues turning on its own via the internal combustion process. "Does not run" to the effect that the car goes nowhere. At the moment there is nothing connected to the transmission, and various other bits and pieces(like axles, wheels, and brakes) need to be installed still. But still, I'm excited, and though I'd share my excitement with you folk. And yes, I know the lighting is poor but I'm just working on the brushwork right now. Needs more props too. :roll:

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/c435 ... 3966b6.htm

And a horrific backfire (not really, just a timing mishap)

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/32ba ... 3ce44f.htm

Some info on the car, it is a 1969 mustang with a 351 cleveland all built up by yours truly. C4 automatic 3 speed transmission built by Dynamic, torque converter by TCT. Shortened 9" rear end pushing MT ET Street Radials 325/50R15. Backhalved, triangulated 4-link. Custom built fuel cell, A1000pump, yadda yadda yadda. I'm fairly sure most of you don't know what I'm talking about and probably don't care to find out.

Basic engine specs:

Displacement(size): 358 cubic inches(5.8 Liter) V8

Single Precision 67mm turbocharger

Holley 750DP carburetor

Basically everything besides the body and a few pieces in the interior is all custom built by me. The entire frame, rear suspension, dash, seat mounts, roll cage, engine, various turbo bits(headers, downpipe, oiling etc), radiator mounts, all plumbing, all electrical, all fuel, everything was built by me with my own two hands. Its very rewarding.

Basically imagine a map/model/code whatever you do, that took you 4 years to create, finally start to show life. Like you've run your first compile after 4 years. Yeah. I'm very very happy right now.

Here is a pic of the engine bay:

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/end mindless joy rant

Quote from Fletch

George Bush isn't going to go down in history very well.

Oh yes, he's already being hailed as one of the worst ever. I have a feeling in the 20 years after the presidency when we start to learn what really went on behind closed doors, it'll only get worse and worse. I still can't believe 30-something percent of people in this country still APPROVE of the job he's doing. Its disgusting.

We need a democrat in the white house. I'm not saying democrats are perfect, everyone in politics has their head up their ass to a certain extent, but at least a Democrat would ensure that there would be a drastic change from what is going on right now. Its worth a shot.

I know a lot of you aren't from the US, but I am. I live in Connecticut, if you follow US politics at all I'm sure you've heard of the race for senator going on right now(election in nov). Its huge. Joe Lieberman, that turncoat son of a bitch. Loses the democratic primary so he decides to run as an independant. And he's winning in the polls right now. I really really really hope he loses. If he wins, I'll probably cry. Its getting to that point.

Excellent bit by Keith Olbermann

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15147009/

IMHO the stones in the walls look a bit too 'busy', I would like to see it with a touch less contrast in the stones, but thats really a nitpick, it looks rather good. It seems a bit odd to my eye that the trim about halfway up the walls curves around the bends in the wall, if you know what I mean. I think the tiling of the trim should stop at a corner, hard to explain... Basically each 'block' of the trim should be flat, shouldn't curve.

I love trim on the walls of hte outside of the castle, the saw-blade lookin parts. The flag poles look excessively thick, I'd either make a bigger flag or smaller pole.

Quote from RD

Sindwiller Says: September 25th, 2006 at 6:25 pm

Wow, now thats nice stuff! I really love Windows satires Especially because im a Linux-User.

:LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL:

Looking very good. Heres a few crits for you:

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Green arrow : Chimneys need some trim around them. They don't look like they are going through the red tiles on the roof, just looks like its sitting on there. Looks hl1... Also try displacement mapping the roofs a little bit, look at hessi's de_corse.

Blue circle : I'd make these lights a touch yellowish, they look kinda odd as bright white.

Purple arrow : Just curious about this, looks interesting.. Can we get a close up?

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Yellow arrow : Ivy just ends abruptly. It doesn't look natural, usually it'll get shorter and shorter as you get to the end. I'd also lay some ivy on the roof above the hanging part, it doesn't just grow out of the edge of the roof, its gotta come from somewhere

Green arrow : Probably just an odd angle, this looks like a raised walkway to the door? But it looks like it needs some trim on the edges, a little raised concrete portion or something. Just to break it up. Then again it probably looks fine in game, just a bad angle on the screenshot.

Blue arrow : Can't tell what this is, too HDR'd.. It looks like a clump of ivy in the middle of nowhere. Hanging plant?

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Again, yellow up the lights a bit, especially in a cellar where its supposed to be dingy. I darkened, contrasted, and tweaked the hue a bit in photoshop.

Red arrow : Can't tell, but this kinda looks like the floor grate is right flush with the floor. I'd sink it down in, or make a slightly raised metal rim around it.

My joke fails.

I... just the other day, got internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday.

Why?

I blame the malfunctioning popups on the mapcore forums!

Nice pics spell!!! I'm gonna write a few things about my favorites

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Love this pic, but it sucks about the power lines Wish they weren't there. That weeping willow is spectacular! And the copper trim/towers on the building in the back is very cool

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I'd like to see a picture about 10 steps back, so to get a little more reference of the surrounding area. But nice pic, I like the shadowing on the water

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I really like this one, love the color of the rocks through the water and the little ripples near the sun reflection.

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Love the contrast and hazyness of hte background

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Another cool pic, I really like the color of the water

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Interesting...

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just like it

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Very nice picture, it makes me want to map

Quote from Thrik

This could have some serious implications on the film industry, similarly to how their music stuff changed the music industry. I mean, have you seen those prices? Brand new DVD releases are $13 (about £6.50) and they come out at the same time as the DVDs themselves.Considering DVDs are more like triple that at least in shops here, well, need I go on?

Damn, you guys get ripped off for movies. New releases in the states are around $25USD. Most DVDs are under $20. Unless you're buying a season of TV shows, then its anywhere from $35-$70.

I think they should be happy about this. I'm sure they're making close to the same ammount on a downloaded movie as they do on a DVD sale. You cut out all the production costs, shipping costs, packaging costs and design, and probably production/editing of all of the 'extras'. Sure Apple has to pony up the cash for the server, but I don't think the cost per movie download will be anything close to the cost of production of a DVD.

Also, the downloaded movies will likely be of lesser quality for faster downloads.. well here is a quote from their site:

"When you download movies from iTunes, you get near DVD-quality, 640-by-480-pixel video(1) perfect for watching on your computer and positively brilliant for syncing to your iPod."

I run at 1280x1024 on my monitor, so that is a quarter of the size... so to watch it at "near DVD quality" I'd be watching on the equivalent of a 8.5" monitor? And they don't even mention sound. I don't know about you, but when I'm watching a really good movie, sound is almost more important than video quality. I can deal with a little lack of sharpness, but if the audio is flat and static-y, man that gets annoying fast.

I mean, I'm sure the quality isn't bad. But its not going to be widescreen tv DVD quality, at least not yet. I only buy movies I REALLY like, and I'd certainly pay double or triple to be able to watch them at the best quality on a TV, not on my monitor. Maybe if I have a hankering to watch Old School or some other cheap(as in not epic, cinematic, oscar worthy, etc) flick, I'd go with iTunes. If I want to watch Saving Private Ryan, anything Kubrick, American Beauty, American History X, The Usual Suspects, American Psycho, Shawshank Redemption, or others of that caliber or even close to it I'll spring for the DVD.

But then again I'm sure most of you have a nicer computer setup than I do, so you may be more inclined to watch on your comp. For me, race car vids, game previews, and porn is all the video that plays on my comp.

Making games for my TI-83 calculator

I got fed up with it though because I didn't know assembly or have the cables to connect to PC, and running it through the calculator's program function was slow as hell, so it was all choppy . But I still made a few word games and stuff!

Then Warcraft/Starcraft/Hammer/A dash of Quark because RD told me to.

I still remember running around in RD's Inferno a few years back(not the CS Inferno, RD had an inferno before that.. dunno if he ever released it )