25 May 2005 cTaylor   » (Journeyer)

Long time no post.

Well, I managed to survive my last couple of travel events. Saw my sister graduate from UPenn. Back into the swing of things CONUS style.

Recently picked up Guild Wars. It's been a terrific waste of time and it seems that plently of my old college buddies are playing it.

As you are about to discover. I recently have been re-introduced to gaming. I've been out of the loop since way back. Shortly after say...the original Quake game.

Doom 3 was pretty fun - scarey as hell but, I'd have to say it does a good job at what it was intended to do. Scare the pants off you. It's a bit repetitive but, the enviorns are really immersive and I enjoyed it. The teleport-ambush thing id does with the game is very predicatable for anyone that's played the original dooms or the first couple quake games. No suprises there.

1/2 life 2 has been fantastic. It feels like I'm *in* an action movie. I just cleared Ravendorf and that was a blast. It's been a really fun game thus far. It still packs the old-school 1/2 life 'flava'/'feel' and the physics engine they've implemented is unbelievable. I spent about 5 minutes the other day spliting wood underwater and watching it float to the surface. Really life-like and realistic. It also *feels* like you're in a 70's era John Carpenter movie.

As for coding. Normal Map Baker has required a lot of data structure considerations. I've had to scrap a lot of work and tweek some of it out b/c I was getting confused by my design. I want to say I'm 80% done but whenever it feels like I make progress, I move backwards a bit to make things 'better'. So, I'm getting there.

I have a new idea for another blender plugin. I've been using a lot of dan's shared memory code to get it together and while i've yet to even consider how far into it i am, i feel it has the potential of being another 'exceptionally cool' add on for blender. I'll drop more info out when i get the code going someplace interesting.

Beyond that I'm preparing for more drill weekends and another trip overseas.

Yay!

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