Doug’s Blog

05.20.09

Woosh.

Wow, I’m bad at updating things. All my projects for one, as well as my blog and now my Twitter. And I was supposed to update my Twitter more than my blog… Well, I suppose I have, but still. Perhaps it’s because I’ve just been doing the same thing since the last Tweet that I have nothing new to talk about? Maybe, *sniff* maybe. I have yet to see one who can outsmart me.

In other news, lots of TF2 playing lately. I’ve been becoming a lot better than usual, especially as spy and soldier. Pretty cool, I think. Finally got around to putting the EXGN TF2 server back up too, this time better than ever. I’ve finally found the perfect balance of SourceMod plugins! Bwahahahahahahahaha!!! Anyway, check it out on exgn.ca, always good to see people playing; new and old faces alike.

Progress has been slowing down with Espionage Inc, and I worked on ToH for a couple days but got bored. Everything seems to happen in short spurts, so don’t worry; I’ll get everything finished eventually. Note that the key word here is “eventually”. I work on semi-Valve time, just a tad bit faster. But how much faster? It’s impossible to tell. As for EXRP, I’ve been working on it here and there in my spare-spare-spare time, but at least it’s progress.

Today I recieved a USPS package from the Neatherlands. The postal worker just practically dropped it on my doorstep and ran away, not even ringing the doorbell or anything. That’s why UPS is better, they have these RULES all workers have to obligue by, detailing everything from how to carry the package, place it on the doorstep, mandatorily ring the doorbell, walk away, and even scratch your ass properly. Seriously, these guys are like the badass militants of shipping–you don’t wanna mess with them. Although to be fair, I don’t think they have UPS in the Neatherlands, so moving on… I got a couple books about character creation and (mostly) animation in Blender. Should help a lot, I plan to make my first short in the summer hopefully. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyways, stop by the TF2 server if you have the time. I need to Tweet more.

04.8.09

Whoa, lookit awl dat joos

Lots of stuff has been floating about lately. I’m officially completely off my SWG addiction (seemingly I wasn’t after last post for about a week or two). I’m kinda in that stage where I have all these projects to continue, all these games to play, and all these things to do, but I don’t know which to turn my focus to right now. There’s ToH, EXGN/RP, Espionage Inc, and the periodically reoccuring  3D modeling and animation thing. I know I said I’ve made plans for the new updated EXRP script, and I will get around to that sometime soonish, but I think for now I’ll try to focus on Espionage Inc. Thing is, with such a small team of developers, we all have to do our part–And in some cases, we all have to do multiple parts. Especially me, for some reason. While coding and design are probably enough to keep me occupied, I’m still aiming for a pretty quick development cycle. I’ve started to model again, this time with Modo. It’s really amazing compared to anything else out there. Max was alright, but I didn’t like the way that the modifiers worked. You never really had any real geometry due to them, and when you come down into the technical stuff (and even trying to export things to Source) that was a real pain. Maya was a lot better, but I found it really glitchy. It absolutely loves to bugger out and go completely batshit insane when you hand it some backfaces. Now I’ve started looking into other things, like Blender for instance. Pretty powerful, stable, well-rounded tool, however I just horribly dislike it’s interface and viewport controls. Waaaaaay to complicated and unconventional. Houdini looked nice as well, but it’s node system is just completely unnecessary in my opinion. Lightwave is nice too, but it feels like just more of the same. So eventually I came across Modo, which has this whole philosophy about every concept and control just coming naturally and working how you’d expect them to work. And that’s true, Modo is by far the easiest to use modeling program I’ve ever used–besides Wings, but that’s a bit outdated I think. It’s pretty good at other things to, like texturing, sculpting, and rendering. It has a pretty primitive pivot-based animation system, which is great for smaller things, but for organics I just can’t see it happening. You can, however, animate in an external program and import the MDD. I’ll be doing this if I ever want to do animation (which I will) with another nice program called Messiah. Very very nice animation tools there. Anyway, in addition to modeling I’ll also be taking on the daunting challenge of creating a soundtrack of sorts. I’ve been looking into Reason, which looks really good actually, but the only problem for me is that you really do need a MIDI device for that. Actually, not too big of a problem as I already have a very nice keyboard, but it’s rather large and I’ll have to find a lot of space for it. Plus I’ll need a MIDI input card for my computer, and frankly I know nothing about those. I’m sure it’ll all work out though, I honestly can’t wait until we start getting some more content out.

01.20.09

Two projects at once

If you haven’t read my latest EXGN news post, do so now. I’m planning another rehaul of the script, but this time building off Lite since that’s treated us well over the past few months–or however long it’s been. I basically need some crazy ideas that I would’ve otherwise classified as “over-complicated” or “too much trouble to code” so we can set ourselves apart from other RP servers and scripts. As DarkRP is to DM, EXRP needs to have it’s own spotlight for something. So, get suggesting.

Anyway, this brings up one thing: I’ll have two big, high-profile (for me at least) projects going at once; EXRP and Espionage Inc. Now, you may think that I’m abandoning one and going for the other–definitely not. Right now I’m waiting for some more content (models and maps) to work with before I start the majority of the coding. After all, most of the coding involved in a SourceMod is just adding weapons and map-specific things like triggers, cinematics, etc… I’d just like to clear this up. When I was posting the news thread, it occurred to me that people may think I’m giving up on Espionage Inc. or putting it off for a while. I’m not, we’re still going to be in constant, active development, and I don’t want it to wait just because I’m doing my own thing. Just thought I’d get that out there–especially important to post this, if not just for the other devs to see. I’m still around, keep working!

01.11.09

It’s over 1400!

I’m not quite sure where to start. As always, I’m a bit late with my blog posts. I keep saying to myself, “I’m going to do blog posts more often”, but I never do. Ah well, at least that means I’m keeping busy, right? Anyway, as usual, lotsa stuff to throw out into this post. The post obvious I think would be the new blog design–do you like it? I thought it was time for a bit of a change, as the default theme is… Well, default. Nobody wants to read a blog that has a default theme. So yeah, here’s the new blog design, I hope you find it as visually appleasing as I do. I’ve also gone through and tagged all my posts, and I find it kinda funny how some of the sizes came out. For example, ‘exrp’ is bigger than ‘coding’, but usually all my exrp posts have to do with coding in some way. Well, the way I tagged it, I didn’t tag things as ‘coding’ unless there was actually some technical talk in them; if it was just concepts or ideas, I didn’t tag it. I guess that makes sense. Also, ‘exgn’ is only like one post. That’s crazy, seeing as it’s such a big deal.

Lets put a couple of those tags up though, shall we? EXGN’s been great lately. Even if I’m not on any of the servers, there’s always someone on them. The CSS server seems to be used occasionally by some random group of people, I can only assume friends, and that’s nice since it doesn’t require any immediate attention to get traffic. The TF2 server has been a bit less fortunate, but I’m planning on adding more SM plugins sometime soon to keep things a bit more fresh, so that should help as per popularity. I’ve shut down the L4D server since nobody was really using it, and since there’s literally no server customization available besides the hostname and MOTD–so any server would do if we decide to play it as a group again. Hell, even a listen. GMod is the one that’s really been thriving lately, which is great. EXRP Lite is still a little bit buggy, but I’ve been working with a community-maintaned bug tracker to get things done and that’s proven to be very useful. I’ve come across a few bugs that make literally no sense at all and shouldn’t ever be happening, as they seem to be physically impossible, but I’ll figure it out sooner or later I’m sure.

I guess the really big news right now is my new computer: It’s great. Really, it’s just amazing. It was delivered in two boxes right before I left for my aunt’s house on Christmas eve, and I started checking things out the next day. Then I realized that Windows goes apeshit when you change the motherboard, but you just have to use the repair disk. Uhh, problem! I don’t have a Windows disk, my previous computer was preassembled. So I went to Newegg and found a nice OEM Vista Home Premium for $99, which is great since it’s usually like $200-$400 retail. I also got more RAM since it’s Vista, but the warranty on the RAM I originally got didn’t let me return, so I guess I’ll just have to live with 6GB. The case is amazing, too. There’s so much room in there, cable management was a breeze. Also it comes with like 6 big fans mounted all around the case, so this thing is really cool–literally. Anyway, specs below. Picture coming soon.

• E8400 Core 2 Duo processor
• Gigabyte UD3R motherboard
• 6GB DDR2 Corsair RAM
• GeForce 8800GT GPU
• Antec 900 case

 

Also for Christmas I got The Force Unleashed, which is a great game but it can be really frustrating how the combos work and how inconvenient the save points are; Mirror’s Edge which is also amazing, especially due to it’s fresh concept, but you really need to know what to do before you do it–especially when ninjas are chasing after you. Lots of dieing and level restarts on that one, but I guess that’s what EA calls replayability. I also got Fallout 3 and Oblivion, which I haven’t played either too much since I haven’t had a lot of time, but they’re both amazing. No complains so far. I also recieved The Ship, which is what I’m going to focus on here. It’s a bit old, from 2004 or 2005 I think, and not that many people seem to still play it–I can’t immagine why, though. It’s simply an amazing game with an outstandingly original concept, utilizing a very unique art style. You might say the same style as Grim Fandango, but not as blocky–more like The Incredibles, but less high-rez of course. If you’ve never heard of it before, you’re  on a 1930’s cruise ship where you get a quarry to kill at the beginning of every round, and you need to go around and find things that can be used as weapons (wrenches, screwdrivers, umbrellas, even actual weapons like guns) and you score by killing your quarry. However you’re also someone else’s quarry, so you have to avoid being killed at the same time. There’s a security camera/guard and witness system that prevents you from killing people just anywhere, so that adds a lot to the game. I don’t know, this kind of game really makes me want to go out and make my own SourceMod. Anyway, I also got Ironman, The Dark Knight, WALL-E, Chocolates, LEGOs, and a couple calendars. (Jet fighters and Monty Python, if you’re curious.)

I’m definitely trying to get into the serious indy scene right now. I don’t know exactly what to do though, but I am. Son, Viro, and I are planning (if not already started) making an FPS similar to Goldeneye as per theming, The Ship’s art style, and Hitman: Blood Money’s kind of “go here and do this, but you figure out the in-between” kind of mission-based gameplay. We’re calling it ‘Espionage’ for now, but there’s no way to know if it’ll change later. We’re either thinking of using the Source SDK to make it a SourceMod, or just making it a standalone game in C4.  Anyway, back to what I was talking about. We want to use Source since it’ll get a lot more attention due to being a SourceMod, opening us up to the wide audience that is the HL2 community, but of course there are a lot of setbacks. As far as SourceMods go, it’s a bit hard to make something that doesn’t just seem like a reskin of HL2 in the end result. The code isn’t very well documented and there are literally no guides or tutorials out there to help get you started, so either you know exactly what you’re doing or you don’t at all. I’ve had C4 for a while, and it’s really starting to get really amazing lately with all their updates. It’s like Crysis in terms of power and features, now. Essentially C4 would be the better choice, especially since it’s a lot easier to use and build things on, but we may have a lot harder of a time getting recognition. The map editor is a lot more confusing than Hammer, which is Son’s job, so he’s playing around a bit to see if he can get used to it. Though another nice deciding factor is that if we get good, we can sell it with C4–something we can’t do with Source. I’m really not sure which to use, still. Think you can help me out? If you would, please vote in the poll and provide your insight in a comment below.

[poll id=8] 

And to conclude the first long blog post of the year: Gravitybone. It’s a weird indy game built on the Q2 engine that’s kinad like a mix of Grim Fandango, Portal, and Hitman–amongst other things. There’s literally no possible way to describe this game, so you might as well just try it out for yourself. Go download it over here. It’s a really short game, but it’s also really fun and unique. Stuff like this really gets my mind thinking about making my own game, even if it’s just a strange little thing like this with programmer graphics. You know, like Noby Noby or World of Goo. Yes, I’m still stuck on WoG. Damnit, brain, think of something else! Anyway, that’s it for me today. Remind me to make more, smaller blog posts more often and we can avoid this whole ~1400 word count thing, mmkay?

12.18.08

Proportionately long post title

Lots of stuff has been going on lately. Really, lots–it’s crazy. I haven’t even had time to update my blog all this time, and I know I kept saying I’d update more frequently. I’ll keep saying it again! Ha! Anyway, I have a lot to cover in this post, so bear with me if this turns out to be really long. Even if it does, I assure you it’s well worth the read. Now then, hopefully I can try and tackle this in chronological order without completely screwing up…

First up we have EXGN. Basically, we used to be EXRP (a strictly GMod RP community and server), and now we’ve officially expanded to EXGN (a multi-game community and server network). We used to have a CSS and TF2 server before, but they were always kinda in the background and nobody really paid any attentionn to them. Now it’s official and we have everything flawlessly set up internally to run all the servers at once, so we’re good to go. Since my last post, I got a new server; completely dedicated this time–that server is all mine! Really good specs too, quad core, assload of ram, buncha space, connected to 3 backbones, etc… I’m set for quite some time with that server I think. Then I had to configure all of it, which took a while since the hosting company I’m with didn’t provision the IPs properly, after that I set up the sites again, set up the new EXGN site, and then all the games. Everything’s running suspiciously smoothly now, so I’d say I’m quite proud of myself.

In order to set up the Garry’s Mod server without using a graphical X environment, using Xvfb, I had to use the -Y argument while connecting to SSH. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that this only worked when connecting to a Linux server from a Linux client. I had dualbooted Ubuntu before on my desktop, but I really have no use for it. However, I’ve gotten a laptop since then, and Vista really doesn’t run too well on it–bam, there’s a good reason to put Ubuntu on it; let’s do it! It took a while to get the partitions planned out so that I could have a primary NTFS partition for Vista, a primary FAT16 for it’s recovery and boot crap, a primary Ext3 for Ubuntu, a logical Ext3 swap, and a logical NTFS “data” partition to share between the two OS’s. Problem was for some reason Vista only wanted two primary partitions as Ubuntu would allow four, but then if I had four Vista wouldn’t allow me to have any logical partitions–it made no sense at all. After about an hour of deep thought and frustration, I finally got it figured out and installed Ubuntu with my carefully devised new partition table. Once Ubuntu was installed, however, the wireless card didn’t work–even after following all of the guides and forum posts online. After a couple days of trying to figure it out, I accidentally installed a module called linux-backports-modules-intrepid that automatically gets the wireless cards working. So, this is to any of you that have AR242x wireless cards out there: Just install that module, don’t do anything with modprobes or blacklists, and everything’ll work out just fine on your first try.

Next up: School. Ah, lovely, lovely school. I’ve been having some problems with my Algebra 2 teacher, such as when she gives us homework on stuff she hasn’t really explained, and that really set me behind–so much so that my final grade was failing and that I had to pull off an 88 on my semester exam toady. I really hope I did, I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I didn’t. The way it works here if you fail a class is you have to take it again the next semester. Then you take what would be the second semester not the first semester of the next year, but the second semester. Since I’m a junior right now, that means I would have only one chance to pass that second semester–if not, I wouldn’t be able to graduate. So yeah, this is really eating away at me and haunting me when I try to go to sleep at night, so I really hope the above situation doesn’t become a reality. I think I did well on the exam; at least an 88 I’m sure. I didn’t struggle with anything, everything seemed completely logical, and I’m positive I didn’t make any stupid mistakes like bubbling in the wrong answer or using the wrong method to answer a question. …Enough talk of this, I really want to get it out of my head so I can enjoy my Christmas and vacation.

Speaking of Christmas, my parents are surprising me with some new computer hardware I picked out and watched my dad order today. I’m really happy about that, as the hardware is really good. A general rundown: E8400 Core 2 Duo, 8800GT, 2GB DDR2 RAM (my old RAM was DDR, and wouldn’t be compatible with my new mobo), GIGABYTE UD3R motherboard, and an Antec 900 case. Nothing bleeding edge, but still really great and definitely a big upgrade from what I have now. I’m really excited for this, and can’t wait to play games on my new rig and see how amazing my FPS is. I’m taking stuff like the power supply and hard drives from my onw right now of course, and my old parts may go to my mum or dad. Depends if it’s better than my dad’s right now, which I think it is–he’s using a PCI 4x graphics card. Yeah, I didn’t even know they made those anymore either. Well, that settles it I guess.

I went to chop down my own tree last weekend (I think, my concept of time greater than two days is nil) and that was really fun. My parents and I drove up to the mountains of Cloudcroft, NM. There was about two feet of snow in some areas, so that made everything better. I brought my camera to do a kind of mockumentary (of Bear Grylls and Cloverfield if you’re interested), which is downloading right now and so far I think the footage is turning out quite nicely. The majority of it near the end is the epic struggle of dragging a tree up an 8-story hill. I’m glad there was snow, as it would’ve been impossible to drag the tree up to the top with dirt. Even with the snow, it was really tiring. There was really cold winds, and the temperature got somebit below freezing at one point, minus wind chill. As I said, it’s converting and stuff right now so I’ll have to edit it tomorrow. I’ll try to post it real soon, mmkay? It should be quite entertaining. I’ll try for tomorrow.

Last topic to cover, unless I think of something else, is the ol’ dreaded search for the perfect MMORPG. It keeps going. And going. And going… Ashen Empires released a massive update that fixes nearly every problem in the game, as well as adding and tweaking with a bunch of new things like nicer graphics, GUI redesigns, etc… They also released a new expansion pack titled Tides of Fate, which basically adds boats to the game. Pretty cool I think, as it opens up a whole new element to the game which is great, but the boats seem to be rediculously overpriced–the starter boat is around one million gold–I only have 1.5 million, and Son has around 4 or 5 I think, but he’s level 101 (I think) and I’m 34. People say the top-tier galleons cost around 15mil, which is ridiculous.

I tried Guild Wars today from a trial code Lawrence got when he purchased the game. I set my expectations rather low; just expecting it to be another failed WoW clone. However, it’s actually really good. It’s themed just like your generic medieval crap, but it adds some nice quirks and twists that make it unique. Really, it seems like a blend of SRO, SWG, and WoW, which is really nice. One could say Ashen Empires in some cases, but that’s a whole different genre I think. Anyway, F2P is a definite pro, and the combat is quite nice. Questing is also good, as it isn’t just grinding like most RPGs are–like WoW. Yes, I’m aiming that at you, WoW fanboys. Go play a game that’s the least bit fun, mmkay? The biggest con I’ve found so far is that all the male characters are rediculously ripped to the point that they just look really, really unsightly. I’m going to be looking at my character for the whole time I’m playing this game, and more specifically: their ass. I really don’t want to be staring at a ripped guy’s ass all day, so I made a female character. Actually, that’s not much of a con at all. Hmm… Well, the FPS is good given the quality of the graphics, so surely something’s wrong there. Yeah, let’s go with that for cons.