Acid

For this summer, I will be working on a group-based "research project" with several other students and an overseeing professor as a volunteer. The theme for the whole project is centered around creating fun, engaging and educational video games, to appeal towards a variety of subjects for those aged anywhere from 2nd grade to high school.

For our first week, we were given a choice of using either Unity or GameMaker (apparently idTech 1 or UE4 weren't allowed, so...) - to which I picked unity by the title, and were told to simply get our feet wet with the new editor and create any game. My background involves a bit of Python, Java, C, and Android (and useless stuff like Verilog HDL and Latex), so I didn't know what to expect when attempting to learn C# for Unity's scripting language. My only real game making "experience" comes from using DoomBuilder, Slade3, and some pwad modifications.

Anyways, since I'm a total beginner at using Unity, might as well document my little adventure here over the next few months :)

Moving on to our first week. I went through the Roll-a-Ball and Space Shooter tutorials (and some general editor stuff). Some immediate bad habits were using ESDF instead of WASD to maneuver the editor camera and trying some shortcuts for linedefs/vertices mode... whoops. I initially tried making some Super Monkey Ball clone, except with solid colour spheres as the player and rectangles as the playing field. I tossed that idea after a few hours after I failed to get player movement to work relative to the camera (ie, after you rotate the camera, moving "forward" is relative to some global axis rather than the camera).

Instead, I made a VSRG, or "vertical scrolling rhythm game". I figured why not, since I already love playing those games anyways. I tried to emulate certain regions to indicate accuracy, such as "perfect", "great", "good", or "miss". I ended up using a ragtag hackish method where when a key is pressed, it translates an invisible cube that contains a mesh collider, and checks whether or not there is a colliding note. It waits for 0.05 seconds before automatically translating back to its original spot. So even though the game is seen from a 2D billboard perspective, I'm using really ghetto 3D tricks to get it to work.

Something like , where you can see the pink column of blocks representing the leftmost (or right most from this perspective) lower compared to the other columns. Depending on which block touches the note, you'd get the appropriate score. I'm also sure that there's a better way to read user inputs, but I was running short on time and well, shamefully used an exhaustive list to cover every possible input combination of keyboard presses.

Similarly, I didn't have the time or dedication to create methods to read and sync bpm/music/fps/notes, so in the final project, the notes are very roughly placed and horrible off-beat (so much for rhythm game, right?). It also involves a rudimentary counter with like 50 different cases for each measure, which is terribly atrocious. Some other bugs were being able to delete two notes at the same time, if they were close enough vertically to be touched by two separate boundary checkers.

All in all, I learned that I'm probably going to stick to the 2D aspect of the Unity engine. It seems nice and all, but I suck at 3D animations/meshes and all that jazz, in addition to not having a source of custom 3D models (and I don't know how to model). I also discovered that C# is like some weird child of Java and C, but much, much, much nicer than C. (No char arrays hooray, there are actual String methods)

Week 1: Final game screenshot:

Download (why would you want to): https://www.sendspace.com/file/quhcwa

Hi, been occasionally lurking the post your doom pictures thread, always telling myself that I'd start mapping, but I haven't.

So yeah, what are some really big events (wads/news etc) of Doom stuff over the past, let's say, 4-5 months or so? I've suddenly got an urge to blast through some wads and just to catch up in general.

Thanks in advance and great seeing some familiar faces around the forums.

Cheers

In the process of moving houses to better suit my commute time for school, my family has unearthed many artifacts, so to say, from my childhood. Hoping to make some extra money, and before I go explore the wonders of ebay/amazon/kijiji/etc, I decided to post here on selling things.

I'll generally be selling very cheap compared to commercial prices, and I'm super open to negotiation. Most of these things are kids toys and things I've outgrown, but everything is in very nice condition and I can post pictures if need be.

If anybody is interested, you can post here or PM me.

Lego -> Mostly standard bricks, but over 1000 pieces that I don't mind selling for like $10 or $15
Bionicles -> Preassembled from generation 1 to 3-4 (or wherever)
In-line/Ice Skates -> Smaller sizes for kids roughly 6 years old, barely worn once or twice -> $10/20 or so
Accompanying In-line/Ice skate protective gear (wrist/shin/helmet)
Puzzles of roughly 1000 pieces (ie, picture of cats etc)
Old Bakugan (balls that pop open via magnet) toys


I'm listing this partially off the top of my head, so apologies if some things may seem inaccurate.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!~

At some shady office as a part-time worker/student doing 20 hours a week on top of school. Been trying to plug window and eaves cleaning and asphalt sealing into hundreds of customers. Getting yelled at means nothing to me since I'm not bothered by it at all, but me being racially...different from everyone else makes me question their motif for even hiring me.

Anyone in southern Ontario need eaves cleaning?

Enrolled, University of Toronto, St. George Campus, general Computer Science, $5,000 scholarship.

High school can fuck off now.

woke up at 6 am, stomach hurts like no tomorrow, been throwing up

it's been like 5 hours and i still feel like literal garbage

Happy birthday to me (and 40oz, if I remember correctly).

I'm 17 now.

5 years of modding and an even longer history of Doom gaming. Even if I'm in a slump right now, Doom's great fun. Here's to an awesome 17th year.

Up to you whether or not you believe me. I dream very vividly, but not to the point of exact lucid dreaming to control them, aka I sit and watch my body as a on-rails dream.

Today, I had a dream.

My mother and I were on two different sides of a subway platform. It was dark green, and a bit muddy overall. It was my turn to cross over to the other side. To do so, we had to hop over the top of it. I missed the first try and the car flipped over. I had a second try. I missed again. On the third try, the front pilot compartment flipped over onto the side rail. I jumped off and helped flipped it over again.

I get onto the platform and watch another subway rail from the right smash into the subway train that I just failed to jump over 3 times. I died from the explosion. Even then, I seemed to be a ghost, and watched as my mother cried from the disbelief of the death of her own son. I turn around and there's a good amount of people looking at me, all ghosts who have died from my recklessness.

I take a few steps towards them and some howls appear from behind us. We turn around, and see some monsters hop over the rails and onto the
platform, think Metro 2033. We kill them and get a move on. As we're about to descend the escalator, I see my mom sitting at a table across from me.

Even as a ghost, I'm crying my heart out. I jump over to the other side and confront my mother. She can't sense me, and she's crying. I put my forehead to her's and she looks up for a second. She tells me "I feel like Andrew (my name) just felt up to me. I know he'll be back"

Then we started our little "adventure" to come back alive again. Our group of 30 or so ghosts turned into 4 survivors, me and 3 others. Our adventures included more monster killing and the such, and helping out a cancer ridden woman in the darkest, most claustrophobic tunnels ever.

Suddenly, we were in high school again. It's been 10 years as ghosts and we're at school. I look at the wall, and see a little collage my mother put up as a remembrance to my death. I can't help but cry. She's old and frail and still believes that I'll be back.

The 4 of us for some unknown reason relived high school. I helped others, made friends and event went mountain biking. At the very end, the four of us looked up at the clearing sky. We were back.

At my house, I quickly ran from my room to the living room and hugged my mother. I was crying like no tomorrow, and she looked at me weirdly. "Andrew why are you crying?" "It's been 14 years since I saw your smile" "What? You went in like 10 seconds ago. What are you talking about?"

I look at the mirror, at my hands, and wake up.

17 November 2013

Ok, side note. I cried. Alot. For some reason emotions in dreams seem to be a lot stronger for me than in real life. I've never loved my mother so hard after today.

Ordering from Canada. I'm looking for a slightly-better than general use laptop, intended for mild video editing, basic 3D modeling, the usual internet browsing, and of course, Doom. An additional bonus would be some smooth performance on medium-detail games like Skyrim or DS3. I'd like to try a machine that can do some decent OpenGL.

Budget: $1,000 (before tax)

Candidate 1: Samsung

Price: $799.99
Size: 15.6"
Res: 1366 x 768
Processor: Intel Core i5 3230M (Dual Core @ 2.6GHz)
HDD: 1TB @ 5400RPM
RAM: 8GB DDR3 @ 1600MHz
GFX: AMD HD8750M Dedicated w. 2GB
No optical drive
"6" Hour Battery Life
~2cm thick, 2.09kg

2x USB 2.0
1x USB 3.0

Noted: potential overheating (no ventilation), matte screen muddles colours

Candidate 2

Price: ~$925
Size: 15.6"
Res: 1920 x 1080
Processor: Intel Core i5-3230M 2.6GHz
HDD: 1TB @ 5400RPM
RAM: 6GB DDR3 @ 1600MHz
GFX: Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI, 2GB Dedicated
"3" Hour Battery Life
VGA/HDMI Output

1x USB 2.0
2x USB 3.0

Noted: fingerprint magnet, dirt-cheap trackpad

Candiate 3

Price: ~$599.00
Size: 15.6"
Res: 1366 x 768 "Anti-reflective"
Processor: Intel Core i5-3210M (2.50GHz)
HDD: 1TB @ 5400RPM
RAM: 8GB DDR3
GFX: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M Graphics, Optimus technology
~3cm thick, 5.5lbs
?? Battery Life ??

2x USB 2.0
2x USB 3.0

Noted: 1 review stated overheat + crash

Candidate 4

Price: $699.99
Size: 15.5"
Res: 1366 x 768
Processor: Intel i5-3337U (1.8 GHz)
HDD: 750GB
RAM: 8GB DDR3L
GFX: Nvidia GeFroce GT 740M with 1 GB RAM
"2.5" hour battery life.


And, yea, those are my current candidates. As I've no experience with laptops (desktop + mobile phone), I'd like some help with choosing my first laptop. Suggestions and input is more than welcome. At the moment, I'm leaning towards the $799 Samsung because its battery life and decent GFX I can see myself using, but the 2/3 HR battery lives seem really disappointing.

Heh, first disk defrag on a 300GB harddrive in 6 years, running 3 web browsers and a multitude of other programs. It's been 30 minutes and it's still working on Internet Explorer.

Just like this, I've been viewing the DW forums at 90% zoom for years. Shit looks weird.

Here in Toronto.

Tornado warnings up north in Barrie, and thunderstorms + rain + heat + humidity warnings here in Scarborough. The rain's coming in sheets, and leaves are travelling upwards. The rain's practically flowing back up, and over 130,000 people are without electricity.

Turns out I've been browsing the idGames archive at 90% zoom for several years now. I noticed today when I actually zoomed in on Chrome.




WTF IS THIS SHIT

Me.

Another year, seems just as boring as the last.