



|
Yeah, real life. It's where I live. Well within this dimension, my X Y Z location shall be cut and pasted. What?
It's early in the morning and I just don't have the "gumption" to be creative. The facts at hand are - my house is
getting quite empty. I'm moving in with my g/f, and most of my stuff is already out the door. So this is taking
up most of my time. Map making is on the backburner for the moment.
I can tell you that the next map you can expect from me will be a funmap. After which I'll be working on temple2.
There's been some issues surrounding superman_b3 lately, mainly how it's changed the dynamics of the game, and how
the gameplay has effected UrT gamers. The next version of superman will be pencil-and-paper for a while, so don't
expect a new version for some time.
In the meanwhile, I'm doing research into another field. I'll summarize with A.I. research. I suppose I can compare
myself to John Carmack in a sense, where he builds rockets on his time, while game engines are his job. I dunno,
sounded like a good comparison for a second, but as I said, creativity is awfully low right now.
You probably won't find me on UrT servers for a while, at least not until map-depot releases the map contest maps.
The UrT community feeds my net life, but I just don't want to network game right now. I'm moving through Doom 3
when I can, which is still an awesome game. Since I've been moving, it's been a game of "configure the new place",
which I have suggested to my g/f that we need puzzle music when we organize different rooms. You notice in Metroid
Prime when you get caught in a puzzle, there's music just for the occasion? That's exactly what I need.
Soon I'll have QuakeCon2004 pictures up. My net connection appears it will move on Monday (a week from now), unless
we can get it soomer. I don't plan on making any updates til I get moved. See ya around.
Returning from QuakeCon2004! The BYOC (bring your own computer) lan didn't allow for anything but port 80 out,
so I wasn't able to make any updates or upload any pictures. I'll be working on that soon.
I've gotten a couple emails about people having problems loading superman_b3. Here's a solution that seems to have
worked.
Create a shortcut (modify the path accordingly) and run this:
C:\games\violence\quake3\quake3.exe +set fs_game q3ut3 +set com_hunkmegs 256 +g_gametype 7 +map superman_b3
This starts the game in CTF, change g_gametype to 0 for FFA. See SIDs documentation for more info on g_gametype.
Well it certainly was a blast at qcon. The Gaylord hotel didn't find itself to match the hype of it's name, no, the
place was amazing. It was like it's own city. I wouldn't mind having qcon there again next year.
I didn't get to do much volunteer work, pretty much all I did was help with teardown. That's a job in itself, but we
had a lot of people helping and teardown took under 2 hours. That's FAST. My bro did helpdesk work for a day, which
he found to be very cool cause it's a great way to meet people.
When we got there, my 160GB RAID 5 array had 80GB free, and my stand-alone spare 80GB drive was pretty much empty. The p2p
network we had on the byoc changed those stats. I now have 0GB free on the RAID array and 4GB free on the spare. Yes, that's
160GB of (mostly porn) stuff I grabbed! People had really good attitudes about dl'ing and resharing
stuff back.
I met some fellow urban terrorists, even did some 1vs1 fragging. Also met a clanmate face to face for the first time,
FSK405 Sasquash. We hung out for a bit during the Mr. Sinus theater event (it wasn't that great imo), then kicked
it but he had to go. Bout time I met a clanmate! :)
Ok I've got some work to get done here. Lots of catching up, plus preparing for my move in like 2 weeks. The
server is going to be moved, so it may take a couple days for your dns to catch up. So if the pond isn't available
for a couple days, don't sweat it. ;)
Step 1: Take CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate, 640-801) - SUCCESS!!!!!!!
Step 2: Prep for everything else - well I'm getting to it!
Wow I feel good. What a day! And it's barely begun! Tonight we head south! See ya!
:V
Little update. I'm taking a break from mapping for a bit. Meanwhile I have studying to do for my exam on Tuesday.
That's the same day my brother and I will be leaving for Quakecon. Ok, here's my plan for that day:
- wake up
- take exam
- meet with brother, who's driving 3 hours to get to my house
- hang for a bit
- nighttime, go to Fear Factory concert
- return to house, get stuff
- midnight, begin 16 hour drive south
Sounds fun eh? Youbetcha. The party doesn't even start till the next night! While we're down there, I'll try
to get on irc once in a while. Last year I found that people lurking in irc really didn't care all too much
about the qcon'rs but I suspect jealousy. ;)
Other news. Been playing some doom 3. It really is an amazing game, keeps you on your toes. Been finding areas
that were in the alpha version, but all redone in different areas with different things happening. Damn poltrigeist
threw a mop bucket at me!! It will pay!!!! I've got something to say about the game as a whole though. I see
doom 3 as the next generation quake 1. What I mean is that although the stencil light shadows and effects are
new and exciting, they really aren't all that great... 8 years from now we'll look back on d3 and say "hmm it
was nice for the time, but things really have improved!!". So. I see doom3 as a quake1 of this generation. Wouldn't
you know, I see quake4 as the quake2 of this generation. Kind of funny how halflife2 falls right in there.
And what could be the quake3? That would be id's next
project they're working on. That will be the game that rocks the industry. Do you remember a year before quake3
came out, and a lot of people, reviewers, critics, etc were shaking in their boots cause id wanted to create
a strictly deathmatch internet game? It was radically different for the time. But now it's so commonplace. So what
will be this thing of the future? Dunno. Til then we, no I, got doom3, and will play the hell out of that cause
it's so much fun!
Let me go into a little more detail before I get too comfy sitting here. ydnar has done amazing things with q3map2.
What's that? It's the map compiling program for quake3/q3 mods, that does things like figure out lighting. There are some really awesome
maps that have amazing lighting, thanks to q3map2. Doom3 uses almost all stencil shadowing. I'm glad at least they
made some shadows blurred instead of all straight lines. But where's the radiosity, i.e. light that affects surfaces
from bouncing off of other surfaces? Shiny metal should brighten areas around it, matted objects should not reflect
much light. But still, we get no such thing. Hey and where's my character's shadow? I want to see my feet too! Am
I just a ghost with a gun? Ok now I'm way off somewhere else. The point though is that as a relation to doom3 being
a quake1, it has a long way to go with it's lighting techniques.
Damn, had something else important to say but now I forgot. Oh I do remember now! Haven't heard anyone talk about
this before but I couldn't be the first with the idea. I think id games are really just tech demos for demonstrating
their engine. They're fun of course, the games, but really from a business standpoint it's all about the engine.
The game having a name, i.e. Doom, Quake, Wolf, etc helps promote that engine. Then people license the engine
and make more games, in which id gets a cut of the profit. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, only pointing out
the obvious cause I wanted to talk about it.
Ok so this update turned out to be pretty long and full of b.s. but if you really didn't care why would you have
read this far? :) Anyway if you're going to qcon, look for me, I'll be hard to miss (just trust me). If not,
don't feel like a chump, plan for next year! Quakecon is a year-round event. This I discovered after last year's.
-duck
HAHAHAHA! I have my copy of Doom3!!! Can't play it til later, but who cares!!! Ok back to our regularily scheduled
program. :)
Here's the breakdown of the updates and fixes applied to superman over the course of testing, copied from the testcrew
page:
Mirrors:
map mirror 1 (thanks ghozt!)
map mirror 2 (thanks wolfseye!)
map mirror 3 (local download, slow!)
Fixes:
Added to beta 3 final:
- Made doors in executive hall less prone to getting stuck in
- Large tower of Pond Publishing wasn't touching ground - whoops, fixed
- Fixed some z-fighting on hotel roof
- Added new flypoint
- moved blue flag forward some
Added to beta 3 test 05:
- Confirmed visibility fix at parking structure top
- Fixed railing brushes in front of military hq
- Added nodrop to hotel awning
- Confirmed better lighting on van ;)
- Deleted areaportal in military hq lobby rear door
- Fixed hole under Pond Publishing
- Fixed some more cracks! All cracks appear to be in open terrain areas, which will be eventually filled with towers/etc
- Added breakable edges to the highway so when you're almost dead you can escape (couldn't jump over sides if almost dead)
- Added NEW flypoint on hotel, increasing mobility of blue side
- Moved flypoints on parking garage, less running around
- Fixed some light bleeding in combo with new _lightmapscale levels
- Fixed some cracks by parking structure, park, behind hotel
- Raised radio trigger on hotel, top portion now registers radio location correctly
- Changed _lightmapscale on many brushes, increased for tower external walls, decreased for inner rooms
- Added additional nodrop to diamond tower on Impending Doom tower
- Removed spare funky ladder on side of military hq
- Adjusted minimap so both sides of the highway are visible
- I think I fixed the weird visibility problem at the top of the parking structure
- Changed global _blocksize to 4096
- Van was caulk clipped, now playerclipped so light goes where it's sposed to, added spawnflags 4 although not sure that does anything ;)
- Thinned the areaportals
Added to beta 3 test 04:
- All textures accounted for
- Spawns fixed
- Global sky lighting fixed, shadows are brighter
- Nodrop added to building 4
- Building 4, Impending Doom, Inc., retextured (I like that name lol)
- Fixed a hole in the hotel lawn
- Added lights to dark rooms on top of hotel (stairs and generator room)
- Added lights to parking garage ramps
- Moved flypad on top of parking garage back some
Issues addressed in test 02:
- Missing textures - FIXED with patch
- Spawn on hotel gets stuck - TEMPFIX - crouch
- shadows will be much lighter
- nodrop to be added to crazy looking building :)
I did it. After so long, it's finally happened.
Superman beta 3 has been released!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll comment more on this later, but for now go see the superman test crew
page. I'm really really tired and must sleep now. Thanks everyone for being a part of one of the most intense Urban Terror
maps made.
We played 9vs9 tonight! WOW. The fun just doesn't stop.
I've made a bunch of new fixes/updates to test05, and I'm
compiling vis tonight. Hopefully my vis adjustments will cause the compile to take much less than the normal 14 hour
compile. :(
I'm sort of in a discussion with clan [fUn] about allowing sniper rifles on the map. I know that thus far in many
hours of testing with an average of 5vs5, there's been very minimal camping complaints. Spawns are diverse enough
and tucked away enough where there should be almost no problem. Can't stop them all, but that's the nature of the
llama. Besides, when someone grabs your flag and jumps into a flypoint, do you think your MP5K is going to stop
them as they scale away?
Release time is coming up soon...
Next page
|