Blog - December 2005
02:14 - 08/12/2005 - Mapping -
I've been mapping solidly since about 7pm, for the first beta of de_nuclearwinter, I'm trying to make it reasonably good looking first time round, but not overkill or I'll never get a finished beta out. I haven't actually got much of the layout down, only 2 rooms in fact, this is because I was plagued by various errors because put simply I've never actually sat down and tried to figure out the source engine before, I just treated it like the HL1 engine. Tonight I did, things I've found out for all you HL1 -> HL2 mappers reading this, cubemaps make your map look MUCH better so use them, prop_static models with no vphysics model make a error in console when loading that speaks of your n00bness unless you change 'Collision' from 'Use Vphysics' to 'Not Solid', and you cannot put lights inside prop_statics that don't have vphysics models and expect them to do anything UNLESS you change 'Disable Shadows' to 'yes'. This last one may seem obvious but it almost had me banging my head against the desk because I had no idea why my lights weren't lighting anything. I think it's time to go to bed...
21:19 - 06/12/2005 - Thoughtful -
I'm in a very thoughtful mood at the moment, not sure how it will last before I degenerate into my normal running on automatic state, but I shall recall my day to you. I tried to get up early this morning to get in the shower before my housemates, but predictably when my alarm went off 10 minutes earlier than normal I thought something along the lines of "fuck that," turned it off and went back to sleep. Gordon was nice enough to check I was alive before walking out the door, this meant I got up at 8:30 (and it takes around 25 minutes at a very fast pace to get into uni) with lectures at 9:00. Being the speed demon I am I was in only a few minutes late, albeit having skipped breakfast (so along with your average student really), to discover the lecture had been cancelled... Well I could look at this as life spiting me or look at it as an opportunity to have breakfast, feeling optimistic I went to the JCR and had cereal and peach halves.
After a classwork and a lecture that wasn't cancelled, I decided to be a bit of a recluse and went to the JCR (again) for lunch on my own instead of going to the sandwich shop with my housemates. In the JCR sitting down with my oh-so-healthy chips and beans + can of fanta usual, I saw a great piece of amateur TV on ICTV. It was a story of some student training up to be a ninja / Jedi something other, doing mick takes of many different movies along the way ending with a show-down with a dark lord (read Chinese guy in a medic coat with a sword). This reminded me of mine and Raymond's Dixon cup sketch, which has made me miss Ray's company and the crazy fighting we did, and of course the karate club me and him to go to.
Neglecting the narrative for chronological accuracy I then went to the library to do some work, unfortunately lack of sleep and excessive heating meant I got nowhere so I decided to go for a walk around Hyde park. I'm not sure what it is about Hyde park, maybe the complete change in feeling from the streets of London, maybe because I used to go for a walk round Hyde park when I needed to thinking or get my head straight last year, but being in Hyde park tends to put me in a thoughtful mood and clarifies reality somewhat. After walking around the serpentine rather slowly and sitting on a bench for half an hour or so, I made my way back to the physics departments and spent the rest of the time before my tutorial in the computing lab.
Returning to my missing of karate mentioned earlier I did some google-ing for clubs that practice Wadoryu karate in London (my previous attempts had turned up nothing because google maps and yell can't tell the difference between different styles and I wasn't prepared to navigate reams of sites even more poorly designed than mine) after around 30 minutes of research I'm fairly confident the closest Wadoryu Karate club to me is in Islington, that's an hours tube away, they practice on Friday evenings at 7pm, which could make it a squeeze to get there if next terms time table has a 5pm lecture on Fridays like this terms does. There seems little point going before Christmas as I've only got 2 Fridays left here, and there might be other joiners in the new year with new years resolutions. Also the new imperial gym should open in the new year too.
There pretty much ends my day, the tutorial was informative and my tutor was amusing as always, although I feel a bit stupid at the moment, I can't seem do anything without making mistakes or misunderstanding the question. I'm using that as a bit of an excuse not to do anymore work today, but tomorrow I'll just have to bang my head against the problems if I can't do them easily, because I really need to catch up and start working properly at this degree if I want to end up with a first.
I've got a few other things I'm planning to do with my time, I'm working on a counter-strike: source map de_nuclearwinter, but I had to scrap it and start again after I ran into problems so I'm sure how that'll progress though I'd like to be seasonal and get it out this winter. I'm just installing visual C++ express, thanks to Dero's urging, he seems to have got some what of a reputation, I wonder why...
Before I go, I'd like anyone and everyone who's read this far to give me their opinion in the comments, do they prefer the current version of my site or this newer version. Depending on the results, my mood and how much free time I have will decide if I change my site over to a new layout, as I'm somewhat bored with the current one.