War Saves Lives

A man used the medic training he learned in America's Army -- a video game the Army gives away as a promotional item -- to save a life.

It is the same game that the Iraq Veterans Against the War protested last year at the Black Expo in St Louis. There they lined in formation and yelled "War is not a game!"

I am grateful for their service to our country, but in this case, War Saves Lives!

What A Character

I went to the Scott Air Show at Scott AFB with Signgirl and D. We were treated to a rare display of a grounded B-2 Stealth Bomber from Whiteman AFB. The bomber is seldom seen outside of its home base and is even more rarely seen grounded. We also toured a massive C-5. We climbed the ladder to the cockpit and checked out the cramped sleeping quarters up there. In spite of the heat D played in a bouncy castle. We had a good time. I highly recommend the show especially for parents with children interested in airplanes.

Today we went to the Saint Louis Science Center. They had a special exhibit with Marvel Superheroes that D enjoyed. They had several Playstation 2s set up for kids to play Marvel-based video games. This got me thinking of a question: who is your favorite video game character?

My favorite video game character is the space ship. I really enjoyed playing space shooters such as Wing Commander and FreeSpace 2. It is a shame that there has not been any innovation in this genre since FreeSpace 2's massive capital ships and foggy plasma clouds. Graphical hardware and CPU horsepower has improved to the point that it would be possible to have battles with massive ships and have it highlighted with dramatic interaction with your teammates.

Recent history has shown that a smart company can breathe new life into a underappreciated genre. Role playing games had been given mediocre treatment for years when BioWare came along and blew everybody away with Baldur's Gate. The company breathed new life into the genre and continued rolling out successful titles for years afterwards. They gave us these gems: Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

I would love to see some company buck the trend of Resident Evil clones and Grand Theft Auto knock-offs. Making a space shooter is a risky proposition but could be profitable for somebody willing to take the risk.

Resistance Gets the Chimera

I finished playing Resistance: Fall of Man, the Playstation 3's flagship launch title. I was pleasantly surprised with the game. It is a decent first-person shooter that never got bogged with game play flaws. It has some weird weapons and a dumb jump segment but that can be forgiven because the game mostly flows well. With so much to loathe about the PS3 (like the Playstation store!) Insomniac Games has redeemed my $600 purchase.

Underrated Items of 2006

It is time for my third annual list of underrated items. The past year, 2006, once again gave us its share of hype and hero worship. This is my list of underrated items that I feel deserve some exposure.

Last year I mentioned a gazpacho dot net podcast netcast. I am still toying with the idea. I am especially inspired to produce something light-hearted and funny.

I Got a Playstation 3, Sugar Babe

Second Lieutenant in Battlefield 2

What I Am Playing: December 2006

I finished Quake 4 Special Edition. It is an adequate sequel to Quake 2 produced by Raven Software. The Extras DVD is totally not worth the fuss. It contains Quake 2 and both expansion packs (er, already got 'em) and some marketing videos that are heavy on hype and scant on details.

The most disturbing part of the game is the hovertank. I blame Half-Life 2 for introducing this concept. Lately, I have also seen these sluggish borefests in the Battlefield 2142 demo. If Unreal Tournment 2007 has them, I am going to make a sound like a tea kettle. Seriously, sliding around in a hovertank is not a gameplay innovation. This reminds of when the game Thief introduced stealth as the center of its gameplay. There were a lot of game companies that latched on it as a great innovation. In fact it is boring and leads to a lot of frustration. Thankfully, games are finally starting to move on from stealth. Lets hope that the same happens for hovertanks.

This game has completely unnecessary cursing. It's pointless really. I want to play a game and not have it curse at me. Thank you.

I wouldn't recommend this game for anyone but the hardcore fans.

Now, I plan to go back and finish Titan Quest. I had a lot of fun playing it when it first came out. Lets hope that recent game and video card patches fix the issues I had with the image getting trashed.

What I Am Playing: November 2006

I finally finished Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. It is an adequate sequel with some compelling moments. Unfortunately, I found the ending to be disappointing.

The game was made by Obsidian Entertainment. Earlier this month they released Neverwinter Nights 2 which I picked up last week. It looks like it too has a disappointing ending. We will see.

Helicopter Specialist Ribbon

A few days after I received a Helicopter Service Ribbon in Battlefield 2, I earned a Helicopter Specialist Ribbon last night! I loaded Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 on my laptop so I can finish it while watching TV.

Sony's Playstation 3 (PS3) has been in the news lately. There has been a lot written lately about the fanboys who camped out in order to get their own PS3. Like the rest of America I am going to acquire my PS3 in January when Sony works out its manufacturing issues. As a public service I put together this list to help America cope with the holidays without a PS3.

THINGS TO DO WHILE WAITING FOR A PLAYSTATION 3

1. Go to work/class
2. Finish the games you have for the Playstation 2
3. Go to an Atomic Squash game night
4. Learn a foreign language
5. Volunteer to help a charity
6. Learn how to cook spring rolls
7. Practice new chess moves
8. Build a joystick out of a soda can
9. Alphabetize your spice rack
10. Donate old clothes/books to the Salvation Army/local library
11. Write software to make something easier and open source it
12. Take some cool pictures with a digital camera and post them in your blog
13. Get in touch with an old friend
14. Throw a holiday party
15. Participate in NaNoWriMo
16. Write characters for a live action role-playing game
17. Test drive a new car
18. Learn to play a musical instrument
19. Go to the movies with a friend
20. Play some billiards
21. Bake some cupcake/brownies and share them with friends
22. Send out Christmas cards
23. Post a comment in my blog

The Helicopter Ribbon Eludes Me

I have 580+ hours playing Battlefield 2 now and decided to go for the Helicopter Service and Helicopter Specialist ribbons. The thing is that I've come close to the 19 kills in the helicopter. Yeah, I need more practice. But my efforts to get the kills and the 15 minutes in a round always seem to be frustrated by eager teammates crowding the helipads (the reason I haven't tried sooner) or by solo pilots who spin around and fly off before I can jump in the gunner seat.

What kills me are the lamers who insist that you must be an ace gunner in order to be in *their* helicopter. What elitist nonsense! It's a game, man. I'll get there but I need the practice.

Playstation 3 Pre-orders

I got my copy of Initial D: Street Stage for the Playstation Portable (PSP) today. It is in Japanese. Fortunately the manual is in English. I managed to play enough of it to see that it is a decent recreation of the Initial D v3 arcade game. The physics are a little off. The car in SS seems to drift more than the arcade v3 game.

I found out in the afternoon that EB and Gamestop were taking pre-orders for Sony's Playstation 3 today. By the time I called all three of the stores in my area were out of reservations. I read that some stores only had five pre-orders available. I further read that employees were allowed to buy a reservation. So it looks like if you want a PS3 this holiday season you will have to pay the "eBay tax".

Know Your Game Designers

I scored 15 points (600 batting average?!) on the Game Designer Trivia challenge. There were quite a few games about which I couldn't care less. Who designed Gabriel Knight? I knew the answer but only because I believe its game designer may have been overhyped.

Veteran Transport Badge

I earned my Veteran Transport badge in Battlefield 2. This represents over 25 hours of game time driving a vehicle and gaining 5 road kill points in a round. I finally got this badge on the Warlord map. I drove a circle around the TV Station running over any enemy I found. I lucked out and found a squad all bunched up at the base of the building. That netted me four road kill points right there! My fifth point came from a lone soldier to had just ambushed a teammate. Suprise, there's a pickup truck! Heh, too much fun!

By the way I downloaded and played the Armored Fury booster pack. It adds three maps, one from Alaska and two from the American heartland. I only played briefly and enjoyed them. I would definitely recommend this booster if you own Battlefield 2.

Click image for larger version

Veteran Transport Badge

Promoted to First Sergeant

I have been playing Battlefield 2 quite a bit lately. It helps me manage the incredible stress I have been under lately. The first award I earned was the Legion of Merit Ribbon. It represent 200 hours of game play, 26 best kill streak (without dying), an at least 8 death streak and 50 teamwork points in a round.

Then I earned the Air Defense Ribbon. I earned it by spending 3 minutes in an anti-air vehicle and getting 11 kills in a round. I basically hopped in an AA tank and blasted any enemy I saw including ground forces. Yeah, I got shelled by tanks and APCs quite a bit.

Medals are harder to get than ribbons and badges. I got my Good Conduct Medal. I accomplished 27 kills in a round with no team damage, no team kills, no team vehicle damage and over 250 hours of game play. This is difficult to achieve because it is easy to get accidental team damage if a teammate runs in front of your gun or runs in front of a vehicle you are driving.

Finally, I was promoted in rank! I achieved the rank of First Sergeant. In order to reach this rank I needed the following: 20,000 total points, the basic knife badge, the basic pistol badge, the basic assault combat badge, the basic anti-tank combat badge, the basic sniper combat badge, the basic spec-ops combat badge, the basic support combat badge, the basic engineer combat badge and the basic medic combat badge. Whew!

Now I need a whopping 30,000 more points to get the next rank. To give you some idea of the effort involved, my best round so far was 190 points. My average points per round is 19 points. At that rate it will take me 1,579 rounds.

Click image for larger version

Legion of Merit Ribbon

Air Defense Ribbon

Good Conduct Medal

First Sergeant Rank

Veteran Engineer Badge

I earned my Veteran Engineer badge in Battlefield 2. This represents over 15 hours of game time as an engineer and gaining 10 repair points in a round. Quite an achievement especially now that EA patched the game so that there are fewer opportunities to repair a helicopter while riding inside.

Click image for larger version

Veteran Engineer

Veteran Pistol Badge

I got my Veteran Anti-Tank and Veteran Pistol Badges in the Battlefield 2 game last night. I know this falls into the category of my-doggie/my-kittie blog entries. You know them. Who cares how cute your doggy is? Why do you have those pictures in your online personals ad?

I have a friend who plays the game. I am catching up with him in hours played and points earned. I have more badges then he does. What was his reaction when I told him about my achievement? "The game must be easier now." What?! When I invited him to join a game, he declined. He told me that he was going to play a different game with other friends. Yeah, he is a butthead.

Click image for larger version

Veteran Anti-Tank Badge

Veteran Pistol Badge

What I Am Playing: April 2006

I have decided to make periodic entries about the computer games I am playing. Lately I have been racking up the ribbons and badges in Battlefield 2. I have been spending a fair amount of time playing BF2: Special Forces maps, particularly Warlord. I really need to go back and finish Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. I am on the second mission of Black. I am having a difficult time not finding it boring. Lately, I am annoyed by the cutscene movies in games. On a related note it seems nature always calls during the lengthy Metal Gear Solid 3 cutscenes.

WHAT I AM PLAYING

• Battlefield 2 (PC)
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II (PC)
• Black (PS2)
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)

Being a Master of Battlefield 2

I have been playing Battlefield 2: Special Forces quite a bit lately. In order to gain ranks and win medals you have to play online. The online experience differs depending on how your teammates play.

The following list comes from many hours of frustration. I play under the name TomGazpacho. If you see me online, why don't you tell me how much you appreciate these helpful tips. Yeah, I am being sarcastic.

BE A BATTLEFIELD 2 MASTER

1. The Commander Makes a Good Wheelman

   Nothing inspires your team more than seeing the commander taking a Sunday drive in a vehicle. Hey, if they really wanted UAV, supplies or artillery, they would ask, right?



2. Revive Fallen Comrades in Firefights

   The medic can revive team members who have been killed. Once you have been revived it takes a second or two to get your bearings. Nothing is funner than being revived in front of the armored tank that just gunned you down.



3. Exact Revenge! Punish Team Kills

   Hey look, there are two guys having a gun battle in the stairwell. Why don't you run in front of your teammate with your gun blazing? Oops, did he get a teamkill for shooting you in the back? Punish him. It's his fault for not ceding the kill to you.



4. Bring Your Gun to the Knife Fight

   Look at the sniper going for a knife kill. It is a perfect time to hose him and his prey down with your PKM. You should take from him all the joy of sticking a knife in a Communist.



5. Lock Your Squad Down

   Squads are for the weak. You are an übersoldier. Those lamers would just steal your kills. But if you are squad leader, the server won't switch you to the losing team. What should you do? Obviously, start your own squad and lock it so that you and only you are the only squad member. Do it quick before the maximum number of squads is reached on the server.



6. Take My Ride

   I am an engineer repairing a vehicle. I don't mind at all if you hop in and drive it off. That's why I am here.



7. Don't Spot Squat

   Playing a sniper is so much fun. You get to watch your teammates get crushed by enemy armor and helicopters. What's all this racket I hear about spotting?



8. Drop Artillery on Contested Flags

   The commander's job is to dump as much artillery on as many enemies as possible. You know there will be many enemies at that flag half your team is trying to capture. Hey, your teammates will scram when they hear the arty coming.



9. The Base Will Defend Itself

   Woah, the enemy is driving a tank to your uncappable base to camp and get some spawn kills. You should not take the time to spot it. You should run as far away as possible.



10. Steal the Repair Points

    That engineer is repairing the UAV. He will not mind at all if you whip out your wrench and help. After all he does not the repair point.

More Additions from the Archives

I made more updates to this blog thanks to the Wayback Machine at archive.org. I dug up the web log entries I made around January 2000 at the now-defunct sleepwalkertc.com website. The web site was for a project to make a H. P. Lovecraft inspired total conversion to the Unreal Tournament game.

Games to Which I Am Looking Forward

GAMES TO WHICH I AM MOST LOOKING FORWARD
YEAR 2006

1. Black (PS2)
2. Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
3. Half-Life 2: Aftermath (PC)
4. Gran Turismo 5 (PS3)
5. Killzone 2 (PS3)
6. Neverwinter Nights 2 (PC)
7. Unreal Tournament 2007 (PC)
8. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
9. Gears of War (PC)
10. Hellgate: London (PC)

Underrated Items of 2005

The past year, 2005, brought its share of hype and hero worship. As I did last year I decided to give a select list of underrated items some exposure.

I read an excellent article on podcasting. Would anybody listen to a gazpacho dot net podcast?

Tom D Hosts a Lan Party

Tom D hosted a LAN party Friday night. Basically, we brought our computers over, assembled them together in an impromptu network and played Battlefield 2. Virtual casualties were tallied. Joysticks were utilized. Team work was experienced. Fun was had by all.

Click on an image for a larger version

Tom D Hosts a LAN Party

Adam and Jason Playing Battlefield 2

Mods for Battlefield 2

As I mentioned earlier I have been playing EA's Battlefield 2. The game lends itself to modification. Such modifications are called "mods" in the gaming community. They typically include such things as new weapons, characters and maps. In fact EA provides a MOD editor for the community to add content to the game.

Here are some mods I would like to see for Battlefield 2

• Gender Mod

  Where are the ladies? I mean, this is modern warfare, right? The lack of female characters seems to be an oversight.

• Shoulder Mounted AA Mod

  Currently the only anti-air weapons are fixed land-based guns or lightly armored anti-aircraft tanks. I cannot count the number of times I have seen the AA guns being strafed by jets. The gameplay could benefit from AA that can be better concealed such as a shoulder-mounted Stinger.

• Mouse Tweak Mod

  I still haven't found a setting where my aim does not fly around wildly. I seem to fire at somebody right front of me without hitting them. Either the hit radius is the size of a basketball, the lag is causing the game not to track my aim well or the settings need a smoothing option. I miss the fine control I get from FPS games like Unreal Tournament and Quake.

• Vehicle Exit Mod

  When I exit a vehicle I still have not gotten used to that fact that the game does not let you decide on which side to dismount. I'd like to modify the game to add the ability to tap the 'E' (exit) key followed by the side of the vehicle on which you want to exit.

Give War a Chance

Lately I have been playing EA's Battlefield 2. It features high-quality graphics and gameplay that encourages teamwork. It has a steep learning curve. Also, the default settings do not suit me. But my stats have been improving as I learn and adjust my controls.

Underrated Items of 2004

The year 2004 was filled with many overhyped products. I decided to give some exposure to a few items I feel did not receive the praise they deserve.

Good news! My Windows installation is mostly working. Look for the article on quiet PCs soon.

What Video Game Character Are You?

I am a Defender-ship. I am fiercely protective of my friends and loved ones, and unforgiving of any who would hurt them. Speed and foresight are my strengths, at the cost of a little clumsiness. I'm most comfortable with a few friends, but sometimes particularly enjoy spending time in larger groups. What Video Game Character Are You?

Native Functions in Unreal Tournament

I have received three emails in the last two months concerning native functions in Unreal Tournament 2004. I wrote a document on native functions in 1999 -- almost five years ago! Epic Games has released two major revisions to the game engine since I wrote the document.

Perhaps I will find the time to expore the latest version of the game and update my document. I'm suprised that an old document can still generate interest.

Bring the Doom

Lately I have been playing Doom 3. The game sports a state-of-art graphics engine. It is second to none! The gameplay, however, does not innovate at all. It shamelessly falls back on the key hunt and monster ambush mechanics of the original Doom. New to the game, but far from innovative, are elements such as the abandoned-yet-mutant-infested space station story (first seen in Half-Life), the duck-and-cover enemy AI (first seen in Unreal) and tram vehicles (first seen in Half-Life). Also, the game is dark. Very dark. So dark it does not look good on my LCD monitor. I crank up the gamma, but then the bright colors are washed out.

In other gaming news publisher Namco Hometek Inc. announced today the upcoming U.S. release of Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse will not arrive until February 2005. I enjoyed Xenosaga Episode I. The anime-inspired RPG set in futuristic world of space travel makes a fun break from the swords vs goblins dungeon crawl RPGs.

Shoes Objects

I talked to Mike, a former coworker, this week over IM. He told me he reads my blog and wants me to write something entertaining. The pressure! Hey, I will appease him for now by giving a link to Mike's Blog.

Just finished playing Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring on the PS2. For you joystick junkies out there this is fun, but short. I was having fun but it was over too quickly. On the plus side there were many characters in the game that did not appear in the movie.

I Am A Gauntlet Adventurer

I strive to improve my living conditions by hoarding gold, food, and sometimes keys and potions. I love adventure, fighting, and particularly winning - especially when there's a prize at stake. I occasionally get lost inside buildings and can't find the exit. I need food badly. What Video Game Character Are You?

Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance

I picked up Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance. It is well-written and tons of fun to play. My brother, not a huge game player, even got into it. Nice!

Top Ten Games of All Time

To get some idea of my taste in games I have put together a list of my top ten favorite games. All are innovators in their genre and have great gameplay.

10. Half-life
9. Metal Gear Solid
8. Planescape: Torment
7. Freespace 2
6. System Shock 2
5. Diablo
4. Baldurs Gate 2
3. Unreal Tournament
2. Tetris
1. Doom 2

Baldurs Gate II

I am nearly finished with Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. It is a brilliant, well-written RPG. I have enjoyed every minute of playing it. I look forward to buying the add-in pack when it is released it is this Fall.

Left the Sleepwalker Project

I have decided to leave the Sleepwalker project. It has been a creative and rewarding experience for which I am grateful. However, I cannot continue to work on two games, a web site and keep up with my commitments at my paying job. After re-examining my priorities I have decided to focus my work at the start-up.

I joined Sleepwalker last fall and have invested a lot of time into it. I have been rewarded with learning many things about the mod community and have been fortunate to work with talented individuals. AmberEyes, you are a promising designer and the most underrated mapper in the Unreal community. It is a shame that your work has not received a more public light. I will continue to be one of your biggest fans.

Ingenue has some interesting plans for the future. Without her art talent the asylum and warren levels would not be where they are today. I wish Peekaboo Software the best of luck. I believe the company is on track to become a champion of quirky titles in many popular genres.

I had fun writing The Truth. But I cannot commit to an aggressive schedule. I feel great pride in knowing that we transformed the game from the state it was in January to the demo that was shown at CGDC in March.

To be honest I do not think an amateur-based Sleepwalker game will ever be produced. The nuisance threats of lawsuits are very scary. I very nearly quit the project both times we were threatened with legal action.

Another reason Sleepwalker is doomed is the failure to attract dedicated volunteers. It is a sad commentary on the Unreal community that an interesting single player mod cannot draw the talent that yet-another weapons or combat mod can.

I have spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect exit plan. I think it will be best to simply say I will cooperate with future programmers, artists and web talent. It, however, will not be my priority.

Sleepwalker and Truth Projects

We are working out what I need to have done on the Sleepwalker and Truth projects over the next two months. I am recruiting a web administrator. Hopefully, the web pages will experience some much needed changes soon.

I see that someone is using Crusher to export Quake 2 models to Unreal Tournament. I think it is time that Crusher gets an update. I plan to carve some time to fix it and release a new version sometime this weekend.

Use the Profiler

I know somebody is reading this because I received the most cryptic email yesterday. *shrug* If you send me questions, please be more specific than "show me how to program".

CODING TIP: Do Not Fear the Profiler. So now that you have written your program, you would like to optimize it to run better. A profiler tool helps identify the areas in which you spend the most time and of which you call most often. These areas are good candidates for optimization. As an aside I would love to see debuggers and profiling tools for the next generation of in-game scripting languages.

Profiling tools work by doing two things. First of all code is automatically added by the tool to the prologue of each function. When the calling program enters a function, the function name and program time are recorded in a file. Secondly, a profiler has a clock-driven information gatherer. At regular intervals the profiler examines the location of the program instruction pointer and records the function in which it is located to a file. This data is then analysed to produce a call graph and do statistical analysis.

Armed with this analysis you can target those functions where optimization will give you the best payoff. I will mention optimization techniques in future plan updates. For a good discussion of graphic code optimization check out M. Abrash's Black Book of Graphics Programming.

Unreal Tournament on Linux

Last night I compiled and ran Unreal Tournament in Linux on my TNT2. I have to say I was not impressed. I have to agree with whoever at Epic said, "[Linux UT] does not rock." My Linux game session was stripped of its windows header and a stuck at the absolute upper left hand corner of the screen. Whenever I was shot in the game, my screen turned black for a few seconds. Also, the intro fly-by showed mostly blackness until about five seconds into it. I think there might be issues with texture management. Alas, I already have too much on my plate to consider fixing it. *sweats*

Our quota issue was worked out quickly. So far I am pleased with the service we have received from dreamhost.com.

Flu? We are experiencing an outbreak of the flu here. My mother called me yesterday to see if I had picked it up. Fortunately I have not yet. But I am not out of the woods, so to speak. Flu season lasts until March. *crosses fingers*

CODING TIP: Write debug code. Experienced developers know what I mean by this one. It is a fairly common mistake for inexperienced software hackers to produce code that does not have debugging statements. Retrofitting debugging code can be a chore. You can save time and suffering by writing error handling into code as you develop your software.

Sleepwalker TC Forums

Guess what? Our forum software is not Y2K ready. Oh well, we are planning on reorganizing the site anyway.

A programmer sits alone in his office quietly writing software for a clinic/neighborhood services organization. Out of the corner of his eye he spots a shadow. Glancing up he notices somebody standing in his doorway. "Tom," says the figure, "you are not going to believe this. Our database serves three different sexes." X-Files episode or my life? :)

This weekend I had to opportunity to play Unreal Tournament over a LAN with TerrorX. We played a few CTF games as well as team deathmatch. AmberEyes' latest creations, namely DM-TetanicGrip and DM-Strangelove'sRun, were very cool. TerrorX particularly liked flying the Redeemer around the Strangelove's Run map. We added bots to both our teams. This evened things out quite a bit. Overall, I must say that it was the best experience I have had in multi-player game to date.

I spent over seven hours making a new map page for AmberEyes yesterday. After I finally had it uploaded at 2 AM this morning, the provider's host machine told me that we had hit our quota. Ugh, I apologize in advance for any glitches we have in service until I get this straightened out.

They Killed Kenny

It seems great minds think alike. At one time I attempted to start a Quake clan named Killkenny. The name is derived from the cartoon character named Kenny who appears in the popular show Southpark. In every episode (expect one) Kenny meets his demise in sometimes gruesome, sometimes humorous ways.

Today I confirmed that earlier this month somebody registered the domain name killkenny.com. Those bastards!

/me goes back to reading the Starr Report in Eric Cartman's voice.

Yeah, Whatever

I saw on the Shugashack that Epic's Mark Rein gives an apology fit for a politician:

Actually I did say that the patch would be out "later this week" referring to the end of last week. When I made that statement it certainly looked like a slam dunk it would be out around the weekend. The whole team was planning two days off from Unreal Tournament to work exclusively on testing the patch thoroughly. But as the weekend rolled around it still had some problems that needed to be resolved and retested. So, I apologize for that. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now in terms of letting people know our expectations. I think I'll just slink back into my cave in shame with my tail between my legs and shut up now.

Once again, sorry folks for making yet another release-related statement that turned out to be erroneous. We're trying to give you as much feedback as possible and sometimes we step on ourselves when we do that.

Where is Unreal 224?

Well, we were told to expect the latest version of Unreal this week. I can not hide my disappointment as I realize Epic Games' clock is different from ours. Once again the patch for which we have been waiting since Christmas is vaporous.

Blitz rants: Face it. The year 1998 was the year of the oft-delayed game. How many games were promised, yet not shipped? This year, the year of 1999, is shaping up to be the year of the oft-cancelled game.

The game software that does ship this year will probably be merely one-half the products we saw in 1997. Back then we paid US$50 for a game containing both single-player and multi-player modes. Multi-player was often less than polished. But it was there none-the-less.

Now companies have improved on the multiplayer blemishes. Joy! Unfortunately, they expect us to shell out more money for a multi-player only game. Baaah! Do not be deceived. There is no single-player, story-driven, goal-oriented game. Also, do not expect any of them to sell for less than US$40. Sad, but true.

There is no spoon single player.

/me goes back to playing Baldur's Gate.

Exporting Models Step-by-Step

I wrote a tutorial, crushtut.zip (250 kb), showing step-by-step the process of exporting a model from Crusher and importing it into Unreal.

Blitz asks: Unreal demands that the dimensions of skin textures be equal to a power of two. If anyone knows a good way of addressing this problem, please send me email at blitz (at) gazpacho (dot) .net.

Crusher v1.06 beta Released

A new version of Crusher is online: crush16b.zip (52 kb). It features fixed flat shading and the ability to export to Unreal file format. Review the readme.txt file for instructions on how to import an exported model into Unreal.

I already have a request to write a tutorial with step-by-step instructions and screenshots. This is a very good idea which I am considering.

A little known fact: some freely available skinning and texturing tools save PCX skin files in uncompressed format. You can do a check for yourself. Open the PCX file in your favorite paint program, such as Paint Shop Pro. Now save it as a PCX file under another name. Compare the sizes of the two files. If the new file is smaller, chances are that your skin tool is being wasteful.

The latest source code, cr-v16bsrc.zip (155 kb), implements the run length encoding (RLE) outlined in the PCX file format specification. The skin files exported from Crusher have valid Quake 2 palettes and use RLE for lossless image compression.

Crusher Exports to Unreal Format

The next version of the Crusher md2 model viewer adds a new feature not seen before: the ability to export to Unreal I file format! It will take a Quake 2 model file and convert it to the intermediate files used by Unreal to import the model into the game.

Below are screenshots of two popular Quake 2 plug-in player models (PPM): the Crack Whore and the Perilith Knight. I used Crusher to export the models, then imported them into Unreal and added them to the recently released qtest3 Unreal map.

Until Crusher is ready I uploaded q3ppm.zip (926 kb) which contains the modified map files. Unzip the .unr and .u files to the Unreal\System folder. Place the .utx file in the Unreal\Textures folder.

Crusher Fixes Flat Shading

A new version of the Crusher md2 model viewer is online. New to this version is improved flat shading and support for Unreal package files. Flat shading appears much better now that the program no longer limits itself to the 15 greyscale colors found in the Quake 2 palette. The current codebase is able to read chunks of data from an Unreal package file. However, work needs to be done before the data can be deciphered into a mesh.

Take a moment to download version 1.05 beta.