Computing

Yelling at the microphone followed by yelling at the computer.

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Had some issues with audio recording tonight in Sound Booth. It didn’t recognize my microphone and I had to switch to Creative ASIO. The good news was that I could record, the bad news was that I couldn’t hear myself unless I recorded it first. This lead me to uninstalling my drivers and reinstalling them over again. Followed by setting them up as they were before… Bleh.

I still sound good under Windows at least. 😛

My Linux Adventures Continue

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I haven’t really been in Windows much lately other than to do some animating, video editing, rendering and uploading footage with a little bit of the new Shadow Warrior on the side. Otherwise I’ve been staying in Fedora mostly for irc chats, voice chats, web surfing and gaming. Team Fortress 2 plays perfectly with OpenGL. I’m able to crank the eyecandy all the way up in the game and get no latency.

My recent adventure was getting Quake 3 Arena working under Linux. I just wasn’t figuring out why it kept installing as a demo. Then I figured out I was putting the files in the wrong folder… DUH! All of a sudden my demo install of Quake 3 was no more. I joined an interesting server too! It had permanent regeneration of health and ammo, and permanent haste (speed). It was like a bunch of Speedy Gonzaleses running around fragging each other it was so awesome.

I’ve also reinstalled Open Arena because that seems interesting. I like that it supports my native resolution without me having to edit a config. I’ll have to figure out how to do that on the Linux version of Quake 3. I’m sure I’ll figure it out if I’ve been thus far.

One complaint that I do have is the audio under Linux. I don’t like how I have to install GNOME desktop just to set a primary audio device for my programs. Under most programs in Linux it’s easy. All you do is tell the audio mixer what program gets what audio device. But if you want to get audio in Quake 3, TF2 or anything like that I have to install GNOME, go into that, and select the audio device through GNOME’S audio options. I hope Valve and other game companies focuse on getting their other game audio to run properly under other desktop environments in the future instead of just Ubuntu/Gnome style desktops.

I think later today I’ll take a break from Linux and do some Windows stuff. My voice sounds better under there anyway. 😛

AMD and Mixamo partner up.

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These games just keep getting more and more real. AMD and Mixamo are partnering up to create a realtime 3D animation plugin for the Unity engine so that future games can have more realism in them! Check out the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yNaympgBVpQ

Of course the software is a tad pricy. Weighing in at $1499 according to the author of the video. Which sounds expensive but actually gives you access to Mixamo’s Auto-Rigger and 3D animation library for one entire year. Which to me is still pricy but still pretty awesome. You can visit their main website for more information.

Forced Baptism In Bioshock Infinite = Refund?

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This is just stupid…

I wish to return/exchange this game (Bioshock Infinite) for steam credit or refund on the grounds that I cannot play it. I cannot play it because at the very beginning of the game there is a section of the game that is so offensive to my religious beliefs that I cannot proceed with it any further. I did not know this section of the game was there and had no way of knowing it was there before-hand as it was not shown in any trailers, previews, screenshots or other marketing material.

:roll:

Open Tech Thread

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I purchased 5 72GB SCSI hard drives recently to replace some old drives (since 1 drive was ready to fail and I needed more server space anyway) and one of the new drives decided to fail today. Luckily I bought a spare drive, but I’ll be contacting the seller to see if I can either get it replaced or refunded. Got a good deal on them, 5 for $75 total.

So I’ve been playing around with the latest Fedora release (Been using that for server operation since RedHat), and I have to say I haven’t been very happy with it. Instead of installing all the packages like you could do in previous versions it gives you 4 options to choose from, and none of them come close to installing enough. I can still use synaptic to install extra packages (and I do for extras anyway), but overall I’m not really digging Fedora 18. It’s like the Windows Vista of Linux. I do have to be fair though, one feature I do like though is the option to pause copying or moving files. I did wish windows had that option. 😛

In the meantime I’m still waiting for my 2nd kinect to show up so I can do some dual kinect mocap.

Do you ever feel guilty about all the time you spend online? I don’t.

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I was asked recently by one of my elder co-workers how much time I spend online a day. One or two hours they guessed? Hah! I honestly couldn’t tell them (nor would I want to).

It’s kind of difficult to explain to some people that a computer is for more than just gaming or surfing social networking sites. You can easily look at my Steam stats and see what games/apps I’ve been playing and how much time I spend in them. But that’s not all that I do when I’m on here. I do a lot of things that can’t be done in just “one or two hours”.

If you couldn’t tell by reading my blog I follow a lot of things. Sometimes technical, political or whatever stupid thing happens to be taking place (making fun of Facebook like every other day). I have a lot of interests. I follow a lot of sites (RSS or not). I enjoy playing with HTML when I’m in the mood (phpBB would even fall under this category), I also like making movies in Source Filmmaker and Adobe products. I can easily spend several hours doing those alone! That and of course gaming. But even then that can be divided up too. Since I like looking at things from the gamers perspective and the server side perspective depending on the game. For example I like playing with and putting together servers because 1, it’s fun and 2, it’s a learning experience.

I also like looking at modifications and addons. One of the reasons why I liked doing You Can’t Do That On XBox was because I enjoy looking at what people create. Be it good or bad. People are always reviewing new games that are coming out or what game or DLC the companies will be releasing next, which is fine and good. But you don’t really get to see what people mod for PC games (although platforms like Steam have been doing a good job showing these things off in their own right). I’ve shown an interest in this stuff since the early days of DOOM. I still have some old custom WAD files on Floppy discs somewhere around here.

I can do all of this and still manage to go to work, go out partying, or any other real life obligations. So I’m pretty sure my digital polymath antics are not getting in the way of anything. Find your balance.

It’s beginning to look like a laptop.

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Been a bit distracted with setting up my laptop the last few days. Windows 7 is completely updated, all my games and applications are installed, now I’m verifying my Steam games so that next time I go to use it I won’t have any problems.

I’ve taken it to work twice so far so I could surf during my lunch break. Been getting a good reception! So perhaps it was actually a driver issue the whole time. We’ll see as time moves forward.