Labor Day is winding down, which means that Chalk It Up 2022 is drawing to a close. It's currently 105° F outside and supposed to get up to 111° today. Yikes.
I'm happy I was able to get in and out quickly on the first day of the event, and get my art done before the heat rolled in. It makes a huge difference to the quality of my Labor Day weekend to be done early and have some time to recover. It's always surprising to me how much of a physical exertion it is to lay out on the sidewalk for a few hours putting down chalk dust.
It was nice to get out and do something, too. Doing art isn't always a public/performative thing for me, so it's fun to do it in the middle of where people are and get all the instant feedback that comes with that.
The people-watching is always great. Once I finished, I sat and waited for my family to get there to see, and I got a kick out of the things that unfolded in front of me as the small crowd walked by.
Lots of people really liked to see the bacon and eggs. At one point I heard a kid shout "juevos!" as they approached. Multiple people mentioned that it either made them hungry for breakfast, or that they had the same meal for breakfast, and I got to hear plenty of peoples' preferred egg preparations.
Then I came home, rested, and hung up some new blinds in our dining room the next day.
With less than a week to go until Father's Day, the ridiculous parade of allegedly dad-focused marketing is already well upon us. On the way to work this morning, I heard a countless number of commercials trying to convince me to buy my dad a new cell phone. On TV, I've survived a constant barrage of pleas to pick up new flat-screen sets, stereo equipment, and various implementations of carpentry hardware. Online, it's been cameras, camcorders, USB memory sticks, hard drives, and all sorts of other computer gadgetry.
Each holiday it gets worse.
I'm not against the idea of getting someone a thoughtful gift, either. I think that if your dad has been pining for something for a while and you've got the means to get it for him, then maybe you should. But isn't the whole idea of the holiday lost when you're stuck in some infinite loop of trying to one-up last year's gift with something more and more expensive and outrageous?
The idea of buying someone a cell phone as a gift is utterly absurd to me. A cell phone is a personal thing that you should shop for yourself, since you're the one who's going to be using it most of the time. Not only that, but if the gift receiver doesn't have a cell phone already, he/she's going to be stuck with a new monthly bill, thanks to your thoughtfulness.
The notion of gifting a new television is just as bad. As if people need another $1,000+ added to their burgeoning credit debt.
Since when did the idea of showing your appreciation for someone include buying them a menagerie of electronic gizmos?
While retail world is busy buzzing in peoples' ears about its newest pile of shiny garbage, I'll be taking a quiet trip up to the country to my parents' house. I'll probably end up wrestling with some technology anyway; I hear my dad's been having some computer problems. But I think that he'll appreciate the help a lot more than being saddled with an unwanted new cell phone.
Unfortunately, the balance of the entire universe will be thrown off anyway - because for Mother's Day, I only sent a card this year. Sorry mom!
I found myself in the local Target today, perusing the games section of the electronics department. Game releases have all but dried up over the last few months, but I always like to check in now and then, just to see if anything new came out that slipped under my radar, or to see if anything I'd been marginally interested in had been marked down.
Surprisingly enough, I found a single copy of Dead Space, which I'd wanted to try, marked down to $30 for clearance, so I decided to give it a go. I took it up to the register, and waited a few minutes for one of the clerks to notice me standing there.
Eventually one of the workers wandered over and took care of my purchase, and then I met my girlfriend up front and we continued to checkout for her stuff. We drove home, and upon arriving at our apartment, I forgot all about Dead Space and fired up some retro e instead; Wind Waker is turning out to be a great little game for me, but that is another blog post, I think.
An hour or so later, I finally remembered Dead Space, so I picked up the Target-emblazoned plastic bag it was in and brought it into our spare room. I noticed the bag was a bit heavier than a typical Xbox 360 game, so I opened up the bag and peered in, thinking there might be something else I'd bought that had completely slipped my mind. But no, there was nothing else inside the bag except for the game. Unless, of course, you count the plastic security box the game is still inside.
Yes, my new copy of Dead Space is still completely secured thanks to the Alpha Security box that houses it.
I find it odd that the alarm system in the store didn't buzz when I exited the store, because the plastic security case includes a re-usable security device that, to my knowledge, is not supposed to be disabled by the in-counter disabling device used by the clerk.
I am also disappointed that the clerk didn't take the thing off in the first place; I specifically paid for the game in the electronics department because I thought they'd be more mindful of those kinds of things.
So now I'm sitting here, staring at my brand-new copy of Dead Space, and wondering just how I'm going to get the case open without completely destroying its contents. Should I take it back and have them open it up for me? That seems like such a hassle... not to mention a great opportunity to test my own ingenuity. Okay, so it's not exactly a job for a professional safe cracker, but it should provide me with at least 15 minutes of fun. That's more fun than I've had with some of the games I've bought in the past, and this is before I've even opened the game's case!
Update: Case Open, Case Closed
The case has been cracked, as they say, and I now have my Dead Space, with only minor damages to the game's case. At first, I thought the best approach would be to hammer off the hinges. After sever futile attempts to break them off (and the minor damage to the game's case), I took the opposite approach and wedged a screwdriver into the lock casing on the other end of the box, pushed it inside and yanked it around to destroy the lock and allow the case to open. I think next time I mihgt just bring the game back to the store!
Pictured above is the demolished security case, my new copy of Dead Space, and the tools of war.
Late Friday afternoon my girlfriend and I found ourselves wandering around Blockbuster, suffering from that affliction everyone gets when they go into Blockbuster Video without a real idea of what they want to get - slack-eyed, drooling, wandering slowly, aimlessly, watching endless amounts of videos scroll by as you move around the perimeter of the store.
I stumbled across a whole shelf where at least a hundred copies of Love Guru were supposed to have gone.
I spotted a growing plague of Blu-Ray movies. I'm going to stop going to Blockbuster if they ditch DVD's in favor of that trash.
And then, just as I was nearing the end of the alphabetically arranged wall, I spotted Wall-E, and remembering I had wanted to see the movie, snatched up one of the few remaining copies. My girlfriend couldn't find anything herself, so we snapped out of the delirium, paid, and drove home.
We had a quick dinner, took care of the few things around the apartment, and settled in to watch the movie.
From the opening montage of a trashed earth to the film's glorious finale, I was both moved and impressed by Pixar's latest film. I won't discuss the plot in detail, since I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone. If you haven't seen Wall-E yet though, go out and rent it - it's worth the monetary, physical, and emotional cost of visiting Blockbuster (or whoever you rent movies from).
I went into Wall-E not knowing anything about the setting, the characters, or the plot. I'd not read anything about it, save for a few minuscule complaints (and counter-complaints) about the "message" within the plot and something about the Apple noise being played in the film. The few ads I'd seen on TV were vague. Being a fan of Pixar films though, I was intrigued by the look of Wall-E despite having no real exposure to any media surrounding it.
The story follows Wall-E, the last surviving Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class robot as he goes about his daily routine helping to clean up a ruined Earth, his friendship with another robot with a much different directive, and their adventure as they do all sorts of robot-y things to help make the world a better place to live. One thing I found really refreshing in all of this is that the two robots communicate almost entirely with gestures, as neither has the ability to perform advanced vocals of any kind. Through much pantomiming you learn a lot more about Wall-E, his friend, and their plight than you might have if the film had included more traditional dialog between the two bots, and this mechanic of storytelling really helps you feel the same sense of curiosity that Wall-E feels as he travels around and discovers new things.
The story is complimented by some of the best visuals I've seen in a Pixar movie to date, as well as a musical score that speaks to the same inquisitive nature of film's protagonist. I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed the visuals and host of sounds in the movie, but I'll cut that short and simply say that I was impressed, and I really think Pixar went above and beyond with Wall-E. This movie was fun, entertaining, and has a great message about the future, about friendship, and the rewards of teamwork, and it's got my complete recommendation.
After finishing Wall-E, I continued my bonding experience with the couch and watched some other movie on one of the time-limited movie channels I have, and then went back to my computer to play around with Terragen 2 sky boxes. I finally figured out why those seams were showing up on the edges. It was a good night.
I'm finally back from my Thanksgiving holiday at my parents' house, and I can hardly believe it's already December! Where has this year gone?
Anyway, I had a couple of things I wanted to post today.
A recent episode of The Simpsons took Apple down a peg, as Springfield mall got its first "Mapple" store. It was quite enjoyable. Of course, all the YouTube links are gone now, so you'll have to find the episode yourself.
The next thing I wanted to post, also a video, is a new trailer released yesterday for the Black Mesa mod - a Half-Life 2 mod that is looking to recreate the original Half-Life with the Source engine, but with more content, higher resolution textures and models, and environments that take better advantage of the engine than Valve's original port of the game. Normally I don't get too excited over Source engine mods, since they rarely make good on their promises, or even get finished for that matter, but the amount of polish that has gone into this trailer makes me hope otherwise for Black Mesa. You can view the trailer below and find out more about the mod at the official site.
I played through a huge chunk of Half-Life 2 this holiday weekend, so I guess I'm a little bit excited about Half-Life in general again.
I'm glad to see that people found my recent set of examples interesting too, and I hope to get a fixed GM6 version of the 3D Rain example up sometime tonight. Sorry about the slow rain example, I'll play with it and see if I can get something up that's a little easier on the older machines soon as well!
That's all for now - thanks for reading, and I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving (or just a good weekend if you're not from the U.S.)!
Update: I've made a new GM6 file that should run better than the previous rain example, and which should load correctly in GM6. The area that the rain covers is a bit smaller than the original example, and the rain is a bit more sparse, but you should get the idea.
You can download the new example at the link above!
Soon my brother and I will be packing up and getting ready for what will hopefully be a fun two days down in Anaheim, as we attend BlizzCon 2008!
I've been so busy with work and other things over the last few days, I haven't really had time to even think about it, but now that we're a day before the event I'm getting very excited about going. After only a short flight and a quick ride, we'll be heading over to the Anaheim Convention Center and getting an early start on the long days Blizzard has planned.
I don't have much more to say for now, other than I'm getting more excited as the event draws closer. If you're interested in seeing BlizzCon but weren't able to get tickets, Blizzard's apparently struck a deal with DirectTV for a live PPV broadcast, so you might be interested in that. Either way, with upcoming games like StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, it should be a great show, and I will be back to say more about everything when I can!
This weekend was a much-needed break from all the stuff that's been going on lately. We got a nice bit of rain on Friday night, and my girlfriend and I spent that night and all of Saturday watching movies and lounging around. I would have liked for the cloudy weather to last a little longer, but the Friday rain left Saturday feeling cool and fresh, if not gray.
So now I've finally seen Baby Mama, which was hilarious, and Iron Man, which was also good. I also saw bits and pieces of 27 Dresses, a movie my girlfriend picked out, as I bounced back and forth between my computer and the TV. It had its moments.
The rest of my weekend was spent at an indoor soccer game, doing laundry, working on achievements for Grand Theft Auto 4, and throwing down some retro gaming on my newly acquired GameCube.
Amidst all that fun stuff, I also found some time to do some work on my YYG Competition #4 entry. The car you saw in the last post now has textured tires, I've made some preliminary tree textures, and I am working on a layout for the area you can drive around in for the activities in the game.
Graphically, I want to see the game look bright, clean and open. Since most of the gameplay will be driving the car around the yard (what I'm calling the open, drivable area) and a racetrack of sorts, I think it's important that the graphics are bright and clear, and fun to look at. Sound will also play a large role in bringing the world to life, but I won't be adding that until much later in the design process.
I believe I mentioned this in my last post about the comp, but as far as control goes, the car in the game is mostly finished. It's able to go forward, backward, brake, turn left and right (at greater degrees depending on speed), and use a simple e-brake for making tighter turns. I've got collisions in the game now as well, so the car can bump up against walls... It's basic, but I'm afraid I don't have time to program anything too advanced as far as collision physics go. I might refine what I have a little later on to make them a bit smoother, but for now what's in there works. The only thing I may tweak as far as the collisions go is upping the scale of the game by two, so that I can use more precise sprites for collisions. This shouldn't be noticeable on the graphics end, thanks to the nature of 3D.
Most of the work I am focusing on now is conceptual - I know where I want to take the game, but I need to envision what the world should look like, and how the interactive areas will play out. I have a look in mind for the area decor, but translating a painting of a scene in your mind to working, interesting 3D can take some time and thought. I'll probably be working on maps later on tonight - perhaps I'll post one when I'm finished.
Also on the table is a little bit of character design, as I'm going to have the few characters in the game be represented as simple cartoon-style characters, hopefully to strike a good balance between something a little realistic (the driving portion) and a little more inviting (in menus, interacting with NPC's, etc.).
So yeah - lots of work to do. Plenty of time to do it. I'll continue posting my progress as the game gets built. Thanks for reading!
