Haven’t had much to write regarding me. But it seems like I’m talking about everything else…
MENTLEGEN!!! BEHOLD!!!
It seems Adult Swim and Valve are teaming up together. For what? We have to wait until next week.
I have some mixed feelings about this. Granted, I watch Adult Swim almost every night. I love Family Guy, ATHF, Robot Chicken, Bleach and good portion of the lineup Adult Swim didn’t rape. At the same time though, this is the network that yes to more live action suckage like Eagle Heart, and no to Korgoth The Barbarian, Drinky Crow, Xavier Renegade Angel and a few others. So I can’t help but have mixed feelings about this.
Perhaps there will be a special airing of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room with the gang from Team Fortress 2 bringing it to a screeching halt? One can dream anyway…
Valve is at it again! A TF2 ARG.
If you pop over to the Steam forum’sTF2 section, you’ll be able to see some interesting pictures from an unknown update currently being called “The Mystery Update” which you can see in this megathread. So far there are banana peels, a goldfish, pocket lint, and a few other choice items.
What could it mean? We’ll keep you posted. For god sakes I should be sleeping…
Fight breast cancer by putting your head between a pair of these!!!
No, not b00bs (sorry Bong)… But you can help out by buying a pair of Special edition PINK Siberia v2 headphones from SteelSeries.
Between now and Halloween you can purchase these for 10%. SteelSeries has set a goal to raise $10,000, so if you’re a girl gamer or a guy who has no shame, you can get some nice headphones and help raise money to help the cure!
I know what Kaelis is getting for Christmas…
So Cyan takes a suggestion and actually does something this time.
The other day I talked about support (or lack thereof) on the MystOnline forum, since any support seemed to be under the Off Topic section while their other sections remained locked. Well, it seems Cyan actually listened to reason for once. KaelisEbonrai wrote an article over at SNews I’d like to share:
Nice to see things come together. 🙂
realMyst finally gets support forums!
Well, it looks like Cyan has finally realised that easy to access support is a prerequisite of success rather than an eventual result of it, and has reopened its iOS and other mobile devices forums, as the “Cyan World’s Other Games” forums.
‘Bout bloody time, I’d say.
Prior to this, it was suggested by Cyan’s forum moderators that iOS users should post their support queries in the “Off Topic” section of the forums, and that only if realMyst for iPad was successful would they consider opening a section for those users to get support.
Welp, good to see Cyan has listened to the fans, at least once in their existence. 😉
The Steam For Schools Beta Program
GLaDOS wants your children… That’s right. Valve has invited educators to participate in what they are calling the “Steam For Schools” beta program. Featuring a special edition of steam with only Portal 2 and it’s new puzzle maker. The goal is to use Portal 2’s mechanics to teach kids basic physics and to think. Because we don’t need anymore stupid people…
Taken from their FAQ
The interaction tends to be free-form and experimental and as students encounter new tools and challenges they may develop an intuitive understanding of physical principles such as mass and weight, acceleration, momentum, gravity, and energy. The games also put a premium on critical thinking, spatial reasoning, problem solving, iteration and collaboration skills, and encourage overall inquiry into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) learning.
Current lesson plans include: “Introduction to Parabolas with the Puzzle Maker,” “Spatial Visualization and Perspectives,” and “Building a Simple Harmonic Oscillator.” Where was this when I was growing up? Kids these days…
Also, you can’t do that on XBox!
Bringing You The Tour de France, with Ettetram!!!
Yes indeed, the Tour de France looks sooooo epic this year that I want to bring the thrills, chills, and spills to you via the Drunken Gaming Corner! This year, the Tour goes right through CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY on July 6th! Epernay, here we come! Party on, meh hearties!!!!
The fun overall begins in Liege on June 30th with the Prologue. So stock up now on your Champagne, bordeaux, and Le Roule Fromage cause it’s yumm!!!! Tour France with the Ettetram!!!! Wheeeees!!!!
This is what happens when I do things…
Okay so it’s been about, what, 6 months since I made the first episode of The Engine Room? Certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been that long; my brain’s been kind of on hiatus, focused on other things such as college courses and all that jazz. You know when they tell you school is like a full-time job? College just drives that point home.
Finished my college courses for the first year in early May. Why am I only posting this now? Well, there are a couple of reasons, but they both ultimately amount to my own laziness. Truth be told, I’ve also been looking for a summer job. I need some form of income to support my pixellated porn addiction through the summer, and until I graduate. Been making job applications up the wazoo, and waiting for a response (hint: nothing has come up yet, so I’m still waiting).
Then of course, there’s the project I’ve been working on in Second Life. I’ve been interested in designing some mesh items for some time, since Kaelis introduced me to it as a matter of fact. My training, however, is mainly with paints, drawing implements, and sculpting tools; I have very limited experience when it comes to mesh editing. I then looked at my TARDIS, which I originally modded after the Velvet Room from Persona 3 and felt it could really use a makeover. There was Blender, sitting on my desktop, practically begging for me to use it. I figured since I’m a total newbie when it comes to 3D programs like Blender, I would at the very least try to do something creative with it, if only for the experience.
I spent 2 weeks working non-stop, pulling my hair out in Blender, trying to make decent models, optimizing my models for Second Life, make clean UV maps, the works; I was going all-out on this one! Finished the raw edits in the first week, finished cleaning up by the middle of the second week, and just yesterday I finished all the scripting (and by yesterday, I mean before 12 AM in this case).
This is the result of 2 weeks worth of waking up at 4 PM and sleeping at 8 AM:
I give you, Hephaestus!
I completely redesigned the base Pod interior, and almost everything in this design is made using mesh. Most of the rust textures were acquired; I simply edited them to make them tessellate nicely. Was going for an old and tarnished aesthetic, leaning slightly towards the steampunk style, but what I really had in mind was a sort of submarine/bathysphere design. Outside the windows, you can see the orion nebula slowly moving around the pod.
The scripts for the texture effects inside the windows were fun to design; I wanted something that would keep a single texture when landed, and would randomly cycle through other various textures via UUID from a notecard when in flight. Of course, cycling through textures is a little messy, since they’re not actually saved clientside, and it only gets more awkward the more textures you need to cycle. To counter this, I created a texture preloading prim underneath the base of the console to keep all the textures loaded at all times. The rotor in the center keeps the same design as the rotor in the default Pod, ie. the sphere, but rather than shifting colours, it pulses while in flight and remains a fixed size when landed. Though personally, I like the cloister bell effect I added; the console turns red when the cloister bell is activated, and back to blue when deactivated.
So, I figured, a new TARDIS needs a new Chameleon form. Well, it just so happens, Bongmaster designed the perfect one. So I visited his store and yoinked it for L$ 500. Lovely little thing she is… the exterior, I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter!
Of course I realized when I flew outside the TARDIS, it would be awkward if someone cams outside their skybox and can look over to my TARDIS and see everything I’m doing, since I inverted the normals on the hull halves. Not to mention, seeing a plywood ball floating in the sky would look not only out of place, but incredibly boring. So what did I do to make the outside of my TARDIS more interesting…
Fucking Gallifrey…
This has been a fun little big project. While my meshes may not be the most optimal or cleanest out there, I’m still learning. Plus, I really hope to use my experience for certain upcoming SNews-related things (nudge-nudge, wink-wink).
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to masturbating in my TARDIS for the time being…