For Nik - A Yuletide Poem

You came into my life
Like a wet spot in my jocks
You seem nice, if a little
Preoccupied with cocks
I hope you go to prison
And all your dreams come true
And a man built like a hippo
Pushes in your poo

Parmas!!

Click on the beautiful Chicken Parma to be taken to "Search for a Super Parma" these guys have a ladder of the best parmas around Melbourne, scored according to their meticulously developed rating system.

They include a list of pubs that don't sell parmas too and ways to protest and encourage the practice at these foolish establishments.

I am going to the Palmerston Hotel tomorrow for lunch to give the top rated a go.

Nintendo DS, baby

Got the 10 year old one yesterday, for xmas.
Schweet. Wireless play with another DS, etc blah blah

Ultraman Milk

On the plane they had long life Ultraman milk, apparently they hand-milk them in Japan and then package it. Nice.

Thai-horreah

Thai-horreah, Thai-horreah
Sticks to your bum
Like Pukheti chewing gum
Thai-horreah

I now have Dubai-horreah

Cartoon Skeletons

If this doesn't fill you with existential dread I don't know what will.

S'bin a While

S'bin a while since I did the bullshit abstract 3D wallpaper thing. So long in fact that the background is a rehashed image from 2002, but I've been teaching myself 'hot rod pinstriping' in Illustrator & thought I'd post this baby up for those in need of a new 1600x1200 wallpaper in colon searing orange.

This wallpaper is available in other sizes, when you download it & resize it yourselves.

& yes, at least one of the Robot Uprising motorbikes is going to be garishly covered in hot rod pinstriping.

I am inflexible on this

Security Arms

Weapons ref site for Skaffen

Crazy Americans with too much time...

This dude has rigged up something like 17,000 christmas lights on his house and then handed control of them to the internet. Hours of fun when you're at work.

MATRIX a ripoff?

I haven't had time to read these nor care, but if you are stuck at work today it might pass the time.

Nik I'm particularly interested in your basement think tank's take on all this.

I'm back (arse, fuck, tit, sad little metal fan pricks, etc)

I've been away from the blog for a bit because of a shitload of work and other shit, but if I can't take some time out of my work day to read TML, online comics, slashdot, the Reg, Whirlpool and other shit - what is the use of coming to work ?

Rather than posting comments to all of the previous posts I'll type shit here.

1. I'm interested in the TML mod, but fucked if I know what skills I have (fuck all) or when I'll get time. [I can offer a bit of remote processing power].

2. Everyone is right - HalfLife 2 is awesome. I still haven't finished it. I have to get up at ridiculous times of day to play (before 6 this morning). Going to work eats into gaming time. I don't agree with the steam fucking me over if my Internet connection is down, but the bastards have got me by the balls because the game is so good.

3. For me - the only good coming out of Diamond Darrell's death (wow that is like some sort of dark alliteration) is that I've dug out Mrs Monkey's old Pantera CDs (Vulgar Display of Power and Cowboys from Hell) for another listen. These are from before Pantera began to possibly suck. I can't comment here on level of suckage because I haven't listened to anything of theirs after this, but I know that most of the bands I listened to in the early nineties began to suck by about 1994. I also know that sad little turds that write bad poetry and can't get a root shouldn't piss of Skaff.

4. Web comics are still cool. Here are some that have kept me amused. For a start Penny Arcade's comments on Acclaim are funnier now that Acclaim is dead and the corpse being sold off. Remember BMX XXX ?

Catapult
Now you know


I found Butter Nut Squash a while back. Some of it is amusing and the dudes done some art for some familiar stuff.

5. I've bought World of Warcraft, but I'm not installing it until I finish HL2. I'm a fucking moron. I paid money for a game and then I'll have to pay more to play it. There was a penny arcade comic on this as well, but I couldn't find it in the archive. I'm also worried that by buying a MMORPG I'll start to smell even more, lose my family and live under a table in a University computer lab. The last one really happened. At a Uni where I used to word a sad fuck hid under the table in an X-terminal lab so he could play MUDs all night.

6. Listing shit is fun. I'd better go do at least a bit of work. I started this post at 11:40 this morning. Fuck.

Animated undies

New York Times Magazine article about issues Pixar had with animated clothing. They appear to have solved several unwanted actions of materials by putting undies on the people too.

Hee hee, undies.

NYTimes registration:
login: stalin60
password: stalin

There's some other interesting parts of the article worth looking at too...

Mwahahahahahaaaa!!!!!

gnikrapon

My mates site, for reference. He's working on some Batman game, which implies the important fact that I have a mate working in a games company now. Yay.

He started it...

I didn't want to do this sort of thing, but find myself compelled considering the circumstances.

I do find it amusing that someone discovered TML and decided it was the right forum to begin a debate about metal. Very ballsy from someone who writes poetry and puts it online.

Please oh masterful fairy, tell us what makes decent metal. While you're at it, can I ask you to explain and justify the following two statements:

"With out pantera metal would have been dead long ago, pantera caried metal through the late 90s.."

and

"..dime bag getting shot is to metal what bill gates being shot would be to shitty operating systems."




Oh yeah, learn to spell, cunt.

Sweet Zombie Jesus

Fuck a rabid parakeet, this guy needs to save some for later.

CGtalk thread, worth linking for wireframes and discussion of technique - people ask questions like "how the fuck?" and "are you god?"
- check his signature for links to more CGtalk threads where he explains and shit, little videos to look at, oh my god.

And here's the dude's site:
"For more shots, texture sheets, turntable rotations etc"
- look for the showreel, meant to be awesome

If I could even get within whiffing distance of this kind of low-poly glory I would stop wearing pants. BAM! No pants. That would be it, end of discussion.

Dimebag Darrell Shot Onstage

Sure Pantera have done more bad than good for metal in the last 10 or so years and I never heard any Damageplan.

But sweet zombie jesus this is messed up.

The Greatest Fucking Comic Devised by Man or Beast

AppleGeeks went from unknown to ruling my ass in 15 minutes flat

remember this?

If this site fills you with childish glee as it does me, download the comics, because they can't track down the guy to release a compilation book, and TSR are heavy handed apparently with copyright, shutting down these Wormy sites shortly after they appear.

That dude finished his dreadnaught

Webcomics again

Applegeeks

and

Paradox Lost

Bastards.

Umm....

Go and look. No, I don't know either...

Just because we love them...

IG Productions article

Haven't had a chance to read this, but looks rrad. GITS - Innocence people

Razor Prices - Aus Hardware Price Search Engine

Eightball reckons not as good prices as centrecom.com.au

Real Time Glow

Someone suggested the Dystopia guys implement this in that mod's forum.

Skaffen could you do this stuff? It would look SICK MATE

Here's an extract, the conclusion:
"Large blurs and convolutions can be computed efficiently in real time on a broad range of graphics hardware. The code for processing and creating these effects is easily encapsulated into a few C++ classes or a small library. These classes and sample code are available on NVIDIA's Developer Web site, developer.nvidia.com. The effect requires additional data to specify the brightness of glow sources, and this data can be incorporated into existing texture assets, namely the texture alpha channel. The effect offers intuitive controls for the brightness and shape of the glow. The ability to apply largearea convolutions to full-screen rendering is useful for a wide variety of effects. It is key to depicting bright objects in a scene and can greatly enhance the look and quality of real-time rendering.

Screen glow is one of the rare effects that are robust enough to be easily extended for use in nearly every situation, yet it is versatile enough to allow numerous additional effects to be created through it. The final effect is subtle but powerful, and well worth prototyping in any game."

"STHAW - tho thcary idth amathing"

If I read one more fucking newspaper article about how Lee Wannel (from Recovery) is "the next big hollywood hot-shot writer", I swear I will kick the cunt out of someone. First Adam Elliot, now this. AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!! What the fuck is happening to my life!!! Is it supposed to be a sick joke! GGGGRRRRRHHHH!!

"Next on E, no-talent Melbourne boy poos in a bucket, puts a ribbon on it and is flown straight to Hollywood for cocaine-fueled orgy with lingerie models."

COCKSUCKERS !!!!!

Japanese architecture reference

Lots of photos on the first page of this Spinquad forum thread (Lightwave forum) and links to more ref material on page 2.

Neo and Mega Tokyo are both I think Tokyo rebuilt after a cataclysm. It would be cool to do a sci-fi Tokyo with strong Japanese aesthetic on some buildings...

Games design linkage...

...and interesting sites to boot

'Levelling'

'Erasmatazz'

Dystopia - "Jack In. Kick Ass."

Whoah. Check out the site for this HL2 mod.

"Team Dystopia, an all Australian development team, are proud to announce that they are working on a Half Life 2 modification entitled; Dystopia.

Taking the vivid imagery of the cyberpunk genre, with obvious influences from such classics as Snowcrash, Neuromancer and Shadowrun, and melding the gritty future themes with fast and furious team based, objective style game play.

Dystopia will place players into a world of two sides; the punks and the corporate mercenaries. The punks are street samurai and slum dwellers who are waging a guerilla war against the faceless multinational corporations which have risen to over throw the corrupt governments we currently know.

Players select one of three cybernetic upgrade classes, choose implants to give them the skills and abilities required by their chosen role and to suit their desired play style. Such roles include; scout, hacker, heavy weapons, sniper, grunt and medic."

Design Document and resource website?

Hey Skaffen, get back to me about the Mod ideas in that thread.
If you like the basic NeoTokyo Highway idea, we should think about starting on a Design Document (HL2 Mod Central "tute" here)

I don't knwo if you have server space/access, but it might be worth thinking about FTP for our shit? Then any one of us can get the current version of the design doc (and later other shit) down and look at or work on it. I'd suggest number it by date, then your name, before uploading an update. That way we never overwrite old files and can always revert to older version.

It would mean we wouln't have to rely on email, you can work on shit whenever you want without waiting to hear from each other. And you can see other people's updates.

Max Game Modeling Video Tutes

Sure enough, the R&L forum proved useful immediately, pointing to
This MAX modeling video tute
Skaffen I strongly recommend you give this a look over. You could probably just dive into MAX with this, and refer to the other learning material if you need it to complete the tute. You'll come out with a gun and able to do more, as well as knowing your way around MAX game modeling.

I expect you to start regurgitating huge guns, Simon Bisley ABC Warriors style. Go forth and be rad.

EDIT: oh, it's on HL2 MOD central, which you know about. Ill shut up then

Some HL2 Modding forums

3DBuzz HL2 forum
- this one looks like a superb modding resource. Broken down into 6 sub-forums on each aspect (eg texturing, modeling etc.) Whoah a lot on level creations etc.
CHECK this out, a sticky list of tutes and VTMs. A lot of "hammer" stuff, these guys are dorks like you Skaffen.

Often with these forums the best way to make use of them is as soon as you have a question get in and ask, it gets you established as a known member, people are more forthcoming later with help, and people see traffic there which promotes more visits. Some 3DBuzz forums are too quiet to be useful (I rarely visit their LW or Motionbuilder forums anymore) but I have a sneaking suspicion there might be more action in the modding ones.)

R&L HL2 forum
- Resistance and Liberation - WWII infantry simulation HL2 mod
Dunno how much use this is, found it thru a link, the LW->HL2 script author posted them there also. Could be a good place to find nerds who can answer questions. That kind of shit will be invaluable - ask a nerd and save yourself a week of swearing at your PC.

Mod Ideas

I agree that ongoing discussions will need to span multiple post and carry on forever. But I'd like to have just one post for now with Ideas for Mods that we can pursue, else everything will get lost in the jumble of brilliance that is Tentacle Monster Lair.

Begin...

LW to HL2 Scripts

Still only beta, but hugely useful for LW to HL2.
Skaffen can use Max if he wants, I can use LW, and everything finishes as HL2 files (whatever the format's called..)

He's talking about the next version supporting "export physics models" which sounds interesting.

Whoohoo! I might be able to do all my modding in Lightwave!! I can animate in Motionbuilder using (chopped, edited and tidied with a layer of keyframes) mocap files, model in Modo... This is going to be fun.

More transformer action

The articel talks about how they did it, download the 6 moeg video file.

Fuck it, HERE is the direct link, right click OK

TML game modding 2

Replying to Skaffens epic comment at the end of the original "TML game modding" post:

(Maybe we should just keep adding numbered threads once we hit 3 comments, or each day. I nearly missed your huge comment Skaffen.)

- I definately agree keeping it fun is very important
- Starting with several multiplayer levels sounds good
- I have some interest in storyline and level development, but I think I'd need a multi-player session or two to get into that headspace and get ideas flowing.
- At the moment I wouldn't know where to start.
- What about a joke/fun level for a start, super deadly trap multiplayer level? Where campers have a few seconds before pendulum/crusher/etc gets them, timed rising pillars from lava, button combinations to slide walls...? It could be an asteroid, and you can get onto the surface, but it spins fast and when "dawn" comes around (every 30 sec or something) its a swollen red giant sun which cooks you to death on the spot. You can try to run to cover - there's shelters, bunkers, various entrances back into the catacombs.

So encouraging the sort of skipping about like an idot gameplay we have all seen Skaffen indulge in, taken to the nth degree. Supergore characters and all around fun-ness, so we can learn the basics and come out ready to do another one.

WH40k C&C style game mod recruiting

HERE is a Lightwave forum thread, have a look. Not what you have in mind but work a look out of interest.