stuff to think about

Houdini

wildside1 — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:51:44 +0000

I just sat through several hours of tutorial videos on Side Effects Houdini product. A very cool 3d modelling app that has a very unique workflow. I’ll be spending the next several days with it, learning the interface and workflow, and hopefully will be able to show something off in the next week or so.

Focus

wildside1 — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:40:46 +0000

Ok. I think that I finally found a focus for this blog. One of the many things that I’ve been doing lately is playing around with the Torque Game Engine, and I’ve decided to write a game. I’m still brainstorming for ideas, and learning the Engine, as well as C++ and Torquescript. Right now I’m tackling Torquescript, and so far it’s going fairly well. This blog will be my record of the trials and tribulations that I am going through in order to get this project started and off the ground. I’m doing this all by myself, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna accept help if it’s offered to me. Right now I’m digging into the Game Programmers Guide to Torque, a fairly massive volume that seems to be fairly well written and easy to get around in. Future columns will include reviews of assetts that I use, links to tutorials that I come across and find useful, progress on my game, and anything else I can think of.

As far as the technical aspects so far:

I currently have TGE 1.5.2. I haven’t decided whether to use the modernization kit or not, I’ll explain why in a future column.

What I will be using:

TGB – maybe at first to get a good handle on torquescript and what it can do.

TGE- I already have it, so that’s a no-brainer.

Torsion- Pretty slick Torquescript editor. Easy to use and I happen to have it, so…

Blender- Maybe? If I can get past the steep learning curve.

Milkshape 3D- fairly simple program, but I already have it, and know how to use it.

Houdini- possibly, if I decide to buy it. Side Effects Software, the makers, have made a pretty sweet deal for torque users. The apprentice addition can be used for commercial torque games for only $99. Definitely worth considering.

Gimp- textures and so forth. Decent graphics program, easy to use and a lot cheaper than photoshop. Did I say it was free? Yup, sure is. Can’t beat the price.

ok. That’s enough for now.

The Strangers

wildside1 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:40:30 +0000

In a word, this movie sucked. Don’t get me wrong, it started out good, but at the end, it just had me wondering what the whole point of it was. There were some things defenitely wrong with it. The first problem that I had with it was the timeline. I mean, in the beginning of the movie, it was something like four o’clock in the morning, and they had just traveled maybe an hour from whatever party they were at to get to this house. It seemed like it was darkfor three or four hours before the sun just started coming up. So it was dark until 7 in the morning, with no sign of a sunrise? Sorry, that bothered me. And what type of creep would leave an unarmed woman in a house that someone is hiding in, to find an old radio that may or may not work? I mean come on, the guy cameup with every possible reason to leave her all alone, weaponless, to fend for herself. Oh well, better luck next time.

Blender

wildside1 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:33:47 +0000

So, I decided to tackle 3d graphics. I’m using blender, which is an open-source 3d art program. It’sfairly complicated, so I’m sure that it’s gonna take me a while until I can produce something that is somewhat decent. So far, I’ve made a block, and moved around it’s edges so it’s not so much a block anymore, but more of a, umm, a deformed block. Pretty descriptive, huh? Anyhow, yeah, that’s what I’m doing now. Sounds fun, huh? On that note, there have been a couple of movies made with blender. One is called Elephants Dream, and, quite franky, it’s a mess. Graphically, it’s beautiful, but the plot leaves a lot to be desired. Extremely abstract, and that’s being polite about it. Overall, visually stunning, but lacking in the story side of things.

The Hulk

wildside1 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:41:39 +0000

I just saw the Hulk movie today. I’m wondering why they decided to do a new hulk movie so soon after the other one they made in 2003. It guess it was originally supposed to be a sequel, but ended up being a reboot. Overall, I think it better than the 2003 version, and it was tied into the Iron Man movie at the end, which was pretty cool. Looking forward to the Avengers movies in 2011.

A Couple Movie Reviews

wildside1 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:27:57 +0000

Over the last couple of days, I saw The Strangers, Horton Hears a Who, Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium, and The Happening. The next several entries will probably be movie reviews on some of those movies.

Here’s a quick rundown, though. Expect more in depth reviews in the next few days.

The Strangers: Hated it.

Horton Hears A Who: Some of it was good, some not so good.

Mr. Magorium: Can Dustin Hoffman get any uglier??

The Happening: What does the title mean, exactly? The rest of the movie is pretty straight forward, with no obvious twists. It does have one subtle twist, though, which is kind of silly when you think about it. For an M. night Shyam mum alum (I can never get his name right) movie, it seems pretty tame.

Anyhow, that’s the quick and the dirty. Now off to go play with blender…

June 11, 2008

wildside1 — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:33:43 +0000

Well, It’s been 543 days since that fateful day in my life where I became single once more.. You may think that’s a long time, and believe me, you have no idea. The things that have happened to me, and the things I have done, are almost too numerous to mention. One theme that keeps popping up, though, is the fact that I have no luck in meeting women. It’s just hard to meet women these days. I guess that makes me sound old fashioned, but hear me out, because I think I’m on to something. It used to be that you could go up to any random person and start chatting them up. This went for men and women. I mean, it was easy to walk up to somebody and start a conversation. Nowadays, if you do that, they look at you funny, worrying if you’re a serial killer or something like that. And that’s if they get off of their cell phone long enough to even acknowledge your existence. If you goto a mall, or to a grocery store and walk around for maybe five minutes you’ll see what I’m talking about. Everyone has a cell phone glued to their ear. We have truly become a nation of cyborgs, and haven’t even realized it. If it’s not cellphones, it’s mp3 players. We have truly gotten to the point where we are all in our own little worlds, and no one seems to notice. Is it me, or does anyone else see this?? I mean, even I’m guilty this problem. I have a cell phone/mp3 player that I carry around with me, and an ipod that I use when I’m not on the phone. Does anyone see this as a problem? Even though we are more connected now than we ever have been in history, we spend less and less time meeting people we don’t know, less and less time actually socializing.