Olivers privater Blog

Convex Hull Dilemma

2011-01-26T06:38:00.000-08:00

As i haven't found any good function in 3D Studio Max to generate a convex hull, i had to do it on my own if i really wanted it. So i did do some research and stumbled over a nice java applet demonstrating various convex hull algorithms. Excellent!

I at least understand the java source code, so all i have to do is port da shit. It wasn't all too easy, as it needed quite some rewriting thanks to the OOP-unfriendly MaxScript, but finally i got it working.

And that way i found a problem with the algorithm implemented like this: The moment where four outside vertices are on the same plane and part of the hull, you run into the following problem: When you test one vertice against the other three wether he is "outside" and therefore part of the hull, he tests positive. Yet all the other four vertices do that too! So the code ends up looping through the edges of those four vertices for ever...

As the applet only creates random vertices to test and doesn't try geometrical primitives like for example boxes, this problem pretty much never occures. And the moment i shake up those quad-vertices, the algorithm works excellent.

I only tried gift-wrapping so far, so maybe the other algorithms don't have this problem, but my feeling is they do too... At least in some or the other way...

That means i have to adapt the algorithm for a more rigorous edge-filtering.

You are the Sony of my life...

2011-01-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

Brilliant. Now i got this beautyful ID-tag for my Playstation Online account additional to my XBox Live account tag here on my blog. But what do my patriotic eyes have to see? The german flag next to my nick! Blasphemy! "This witchcraft can't go on!" i said to myself naively believing in the power of online support. Alas, Sony once again disappointed me, the online support is pretty shitty. I couldn't find any way to email them my sorrow and i had a hard time finding the support forums on the site. I didn't expect to find anything flag-related there, but at least there was a thread about ID-tags... Great! Lets post there! And again Sony managed to drown all my hopes, the moment i tried to post, the "Sony Network integrity indicator" changed from "fully working" to "not really doing all too much"... ARG!

Sorry, Sony, i hate to break this to you as i loved the PSOne and the PS2, but seriously: MICROSOFT KICKS YOUR SORRY ASS AT GAME CONSOLE BUSINESS!!! And thats a shame.

FBX Exporter, Quo Vadis?!

2011-01-05T03:56:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to script the 3D Studio Max intern FBX exporter. The Manual seems to be pretty straight forward. And also when i set and query various values of the exporter, everything seems fine. So i thought i'd be cool writing my own little toolchain around it, as the unit system in 3DSMax can surely be a major pain in the ass. Oh naive me, of course nothing ever works in 3DSMax as described for sure. Take a look:


units.SystemType
#centimeters
FBXExporterGetParam "ConvertUnit" 
#cm
exportFile fbxfile #noPrompt selectedOnly:true
true

Typing this, my object is exported with a scale of 100.0. Why? I don't know. Maybe the exporter assumes for some unknown reason that the scene system unit is meter? Well, lets put it to a test:


FBXExporterSetParam "ConvertUnit" "m"
OK
FBXExporterGetParam "ConvertUnit"
#m
exportFile fbxfile #noPrompt selectedOnly:true
true
FBXExporterGetParam "ConvertUnit"
#cm

Aha! Exporting the file resets the exporters settings to default even though stated otherwise in the manual:

Note When you export or import files in MAXScript, use the command #noPrompt to prevent the FBX Exporter/Importer user interface from appearing during the process. For example: ImportFile “C:\test.fbx” #noPrompt. If the UI appears before an export or import command executed through MAXScript, the last used preset is chosen, and effectively ignores any recent scripted changes.

Now this is simply brilliant! With other words i have no fucking influence on that exporter! Lets try a workaround:


units.SystemType
#centimeters
units.SystemType=#meters
#meters
units.SystemType
#meters
exportFile fbxfile #noPrompt selectedOnly:true
true
units.SystemType
#meters

That must do it, right? No. No change at all. Really? Not even the system units are influencing that thing?!

Final word: I solved it by just scaling the object down before exporting. This way it works. Dumbfuckstupid Autodesk shit, seriously...

Harms Way, Baby!

2010-12-08T03:24:00.000-08:00

YES! The first XBLA-game i worked on is finally online!

Harms Way

And the best thing: It's free! Yes, as in "just get it, no strings attached, go and play it now"-free! And if you don't own an X-Box, go get one. Or read all about it here:

Joystiq: Harms Way goes from dream to screens, trailer

And then come over again and tell me how good it looks to boost my self esteem a little ;)

Bongfish

2010-10-25T03:14:00.000-07:00

Now i am an official employee of Bongfish, the only game developer in Graz, Austria. This is great, because my flat is only 10 mins from the company by feet and the path goes pretty much through the city center, so the whole walk feels like a little shopping stroll each morning. Plus i work on a super secret game for a major console. Lets see how much other work i might get done next to that...

18 / 6 = 3...

2010-10-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

There will be 18 games at the Kinect launch. But wait! Some games cover the same topic. Actually pretty much all games cover the same 3 topics:

- Snowboard (Konami, Sega)
- Various sport mix (MS, Ubi, Konami)
- Fitness (Ubi, EA and two other nonames)
- "Party" (2 titles by MS, one by Warner)
- Dance (Harmonix, Mindscape, Konami)

Beside of those, unique titles are Kinectimals, Harry Potter and Fighters Uncaged. I guess i pass on Kinect for now...

Excel, quo vadis?

2010-07-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

Excel in Deutsch ist eine Zumutung. Und nachdem sich alle Office-Pakete daran orientieren, sind auch diese eine Zumutung. Natürlich komme ich mit dieser Erkenntnis gefühlte 20 Jahre zu spät, egal. Ich erledige meine Finanz damit, habe ich mich deshalb mit dem Formelgenerator rumgeschlagen und bin komplett sprachlos ob des Wahnsinns, der da herrscht. Hier ein paar Beispiele:

- Sämtliche Bestandteile der Scriptsprache zum Erstellen von Formeln sind übersetzt. Das macht mir als zumindest Scripting-Erfahrenen das Leben ordentlich schwer, wenn ich mal den Syntax einer Funktion suche... "WENN()" statt "IF()"? WTF?!

- Es gibt eine Funktion, die einen Text in eine Währung umwandelt. Diese Funktion heisst "DM('text')", also von Deutsche Mark... WTF?! Man nimmt einfach die Abkürzung EINER Währung, um eine ganze Funktion zu benennen?! Wir Österreicher sollen gefälligst in D-Mark arbeiten? Und dass die Währung mal geändert werden könnte war bei der Entwicklung der Programme komplett plunzn, oder?! Dementsprechend dämlich liefert die DM-Funktion auch EURO...

- Es gibt zwei Funktionen, um einen String (also Text) zu durchsuchen. Die eine heisst "SUCHEN()", die andere "FINDEN()". Aus dem entlehnten deutschen Wort der jeweiligen Funktion lässt sich zumindest dessen Wirkungsweise einigermaßen erahnen. Was den Unterschied zwischen den beiden ausmacht, liefert gottseidank die Hilfe zu "SUCHEN()": Die Groß-/Kleinschreibung spielt hier keine Rolle. Soweit zu deskriptiven Funktionsnamen. Natürlich benimmt sich keine der beiden Funktionen gut, beide liefern zwar brav die Position des gefundenen Textblocks bei einem positiven Suchlauf, ansonsten eine Fehlermeldung. Insofern muss man beide Funktionen in eine zusätzliche "ISTFEHLER()"-Funktion einfassen, um sie zu einer klaglosen Mitarbeit zu bewegen.

Dieses Programm steckt so voller Relikte, dass es einem die Fussnägel aufrollt!!!

3D Studio Max hates me. And i hate it!

2010-06-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

Alta... Nicht meine Woche! Gestern Vormittag hab ich das Problem gelöst, warum Unity meine Lightmaps nicht anzeigt. Problem? 3D Studio MAX fucked it up! Egal, Problem gelöst, weitergearbeitet. Plötzlich ist meine Arbeit ein Morph. ARG. Wurscht, neu angefangen. Heut arbeit ich weiter, plötzlich besteht mein Objekt aus lauter einzelnen Faces! Ich merge die Faces und mein UV-Layout is im Arsch...!!! WAAAAAAAAAAH.... Was?!? Was hab ich dem großen Gott der 3D Programme getan, dass er mich so straft?!?

Blender issues

2010-03-24T04:43:00.000-07:00

Applying UV's is surprisingly well solved, working with them is another thing. You can have different selections in the 3D view aswell as in the UV-editor. Sounds great at first, but it brings along problems. The UV-editor for example is only showing faces i selected in the 3D-view, unselected ones are invisible. I see the principle behind it, but i'm not all too sure about how practical that is. It leads to other problems, like the next one.

- I didn't find a quick way to determine how the selection from the UV-editor correlates to the ones in the 3D-view. I have one face selected in the UV editor, which one is it on the model? This is especially annoying when you haven't finished the UV-seams-setup for the unwrap. Beside several well unwrapped bodyparts I ended up with one big blob of uvs that i didn't know what it belonged to. So selecting that piece alone didn't give me a hint. The only option was to select various parts of the model in the 3D view and check back wether it would include the blob-UVs. I hope it's just me who does something wrong...

Edit: I have the solution. It's of course trivial, i just didn't find the correct button. It's surprisingly called "Keep UV and edit mode mesh selection in sync"!

- The only format that i found to export the UVs for texturing was to EPS or SVG. I didn't find any bitmap-format and if i want to use phtoshop for texturing, i guess i have to go through another program to convert that, as my PS version isn't up for SVG. Maybe i find me a plugin somehwere...

- The texture placement of the 3D view doesn't really represent the actual texture placement you'll get when rendering. For my little skin-man i used several options of the file-texture. For the skin i changed the size of the mapping, as i have a small skin texture applied to a human-sized figure. The 3D view is not updating any of that. For the eyes i used a simple texture of a pupil. I turned off the texture repeating and again the 3D view didn't acknowledge for that. Bugger!

- The blend modes in the textures seem to work differently than layer blend modes in Photoshop. I tried "overlay", in which a perfect 50% gray isn't making any difference to a picture in Photoshop. In Blender it seems to darken the material. If it is only layed over the diffuse texture, then it's calculated differently than in Photoshop. This way i am not really trustful in the other blend modes. I'm not saying that Blender is doing them wrong, i am just used to the Photoshop ones.

Blender, the first.

2010-03-24T02:37:00.000-07:00

I finished the tutorial, thats what it looks like. I know this looks a little ... scary actually, but thats just me. I like bizarre things ;-)

The link to the tutorial for whom it might concern:
How to animate a character in blender.

Trying to blend in...

2010-03-22T02:05:00.000-07:00

I was on a local Blender workshop recently. It was okay, alltough not really aimed at my level of experience. I had a little trouble keeping my concentration up because the tutor explained even the most basic 3D concepts.

Nevertheless the whole thing fired up my interest in this 3D suite, so i've been playing around since in this program and my first impression is ... well, mixed. When i spoke to the tutor, i explained that certain shortcuts just didn't make any sense to me. He answered that one should be open for new workflows and such, which is of course right. So I have now about 1 1/2 days of intense tutorial following and certain concepts are still new to me.

First one: There was a certain sense of "Maya is unintuitive and menu items are deeply hidden in menues". This is sure right if you don't know the shortcuts and quick menues behind several shortcuts. Sure, this isn't especially intuitive, but then again, Blender hides a lot of functionality behind shortcuts and quick menues, so this critic doesn't sound very valid to me.

On the other hand i found a solution for my annoyance with the sub-object-selection. In blender ctrl-tab is opening a menu to select vertice-, edge- or face-mode. In 3D Studio Max and Maya i simply press 1 for vertices and 2 for edges. As 3DSMax offers the additional sub-object "border", which selects open edges, in poly-mode (highly useful!), face-mode is selected with 3 in Maya and 4 in 3D Studio Max. In blender you activate layers with the number keys, f. e. 1 for layer 1, 2 for layer 2 and so forth. I can understand why layer selection was valued over sub-object-selection, after all Blender's funcionality is far beyond simple modelling and layers are a globally used functionality. Still pressing three keys for something that i use very often in modelling strikes me kinda odd when other (less used) functionality is far closer (like extrude hidden behind the E-key). Anyway, the solution that i found useful is activating all sub-objects at once by shift-clicking all sub-object-mode-buttons. This way you don't have to change subobject mode at all! Now i just have to get used to pressing A all the time for erasing the current selection...

Another thing that bugs me is that on my blender version (2.5 alpha 2), the "edge loop"-shortcut with alt-select edges doesn't seem to work. The only alternative possibility to select a loop is by selecting an edge and then pressing ctrl-e to pop up the edge-submenu. There you find another "select loop" menu point. That's not that intuitive eighter. And not especially quick considering you have to press three keys and possible navigate to the right menu entry if you used something else from that list before. I hope i'm just doing something wrong and there is a faster way, otherwise this would be a major annoyance.

Finally i also found how to deactivate the home grid. This hides now in the properties panel, which you get with N.

At least what i can say so far is that i feel much more comfortable in Blender now. The 2.5-version is a huge improvement, it adds a lot professionel feeling to it. Especially the fact that you can customize the panels so much is a huge plus. It's definately much more appealing than the rigid UI of 3D Studio Max. I am still suspicious wether i would archive a similar modelling speed as in Max, but for every other workflow i guess i'd prefer blender by now. And this is a huge compliment!

Panda is great! But...

2010-02-09T00:23:00.000-08:00

...there are some details that sorta spoil the fun.

One thing i dislike is for once the fact that the libraries are quite big. That's not really a problem, if your game is big, but an unoptimized "hello world" program took about 60 megabyte. Nodody would download a small game with such a size! That's an issue it owes to it's huge functionality...

Another thing i am sorta unhappy with is the matrix/vector functionality. I compared it to the implementation of the (supposedly discontinued) "Python Computer Graphics Kit" and i prefer the cgkit's version much more. For example you can multiply a vector (Vec3) directly with a transformation matrix (Mat4) via the normal multiply operator (*), which isn't really crucial, but a nice touch:

Panda3D:

>>> myVector=Vec3(2.0,2.0,2.0)
>>> myMatrix=Mat4()
>>> myMatrix.scaleMat(Vec3(2.0,2.0,2.0))
Mat4(2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1)
>>> myMatrix.xformPoint(myVector)
VBase3(2, 2, 2)
>>> myVector
Vec3(2, 2, 2)

(which isn't the correct result anyways... wtf?!)

CGKit:

>>> myMatrix=mat4(1.0)
>>> myMatrix.scale(vec3(2.0,2.0,2.0))
[2, 0, 0, 0]
[0, 2, 0, 0]
[0, 0, 2, 0]
[0, 0, 0, 1]
>>> myVector=vec3(2.0)
>>> myMatrix*myVector
(4, 4, 4)

Another one is the fact that when Panda3D is scaling a transformation matrix, it overwrites the matrix with a comletely new scale matrix:

Panda3D:

>>> myMatrix=Mat4()
>>> myMatrix
Mat4(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1)
>>> myMatrix.setTranslateMat(Vec3(2.0,3.0,4.0))
>>> myMatrix
Mat4(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 2, 3, 4, 1)
>>> myMatrix.setScaleMat(Vec3(2.0,2.0,2.0))
>>> myMatrix
Mat4(2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1)

...does pretty much the same as...

>>> myMatrix=Mat4()
>>> myMatrix
Mat4(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1)
>>> myMatrix.translateMat(Vec3(2.0,3.0,4.0))
Mat4(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 2, 3, 4, 1)
>>> myMatrix.scaleMat(Vec3(2.0,2.0,2.0))
Mat4(2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1)

...whereas CGKit is doing this:

>>> myMatrix=mat4(1.0)
>>> myMatrix.translate(vec3(2.0,3.0,4.0))
[1, 0, 0, 2]
[0, 1, 0, 3]
[0, 0, 1, 4]
[0, 0, 0, 1]
>>> myMatrix.scale(vec3(2.0,2.0,2.0))
[2, 0, 0, 2]
[0, 2, 0, 3]
[0, 0, 2, 4]
[0, 0, 0, 1]

I have no clue why, but i am not too experienced with that stuff so far, so maybe i'm just thinking wrong. Nevertheless most of the time you don't need that kind of stuff anyways, Panda3D does a great job keeping these issues away from the user. I just had to use these vector calculations for my tree project.

Serious games

2009-12-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

Today i want to talk about "serious games". I personally hate the word "serious", mostly because of its inflationary overuse nowadays. I worked in several companies that threw around with it like some nasty people (not me!) popcorn in theatres... Err, where was i?

I mean games, that adress a more mature player with maybe a splash of intellect and yet still manage to make a good game. My favourite example of that is the Total War Series. I played Rome and Mediveal 2 so far and i love both of them. On the one hand they are great strategy and management games. But what i really, really love about them is the mature way of dealing with the matter. The written text is so well crafted, i really read most of what i was presented through... Something i barely do in say a Mario game or for that matter actually 90% of the games out there.

The developers have no problem with giving the characters all kinds of character features, good as bad. It especially adresses a topic most game make a huge bow around or treat it in the most superficial way possible: Sexuality, even homosexuality is just another part of the game. In the sorta 200 years my campagne is lasting now i came across a gay general, a lesbian princess and a spy, who's complice seems to be a male stripper kinda guy. And it is nothing all too special.

Thats exactly what i would like to see more: Sexuality treated in a mature kinda way. No japanese schoolgirls panties, no huge titty warrior mamas, no "oh, she's an archeologist, so it's okay to look like porn actor barbie". Pure and realistic depiction is quite a nice break once in a while and i can't imagine i'm the only one that feels that way.

In a way i'm not surprised that games are still treated a little like the younger immature brother of cinema, it seems games feels pretty happy and safe in this role. Which is another reason why i buy less and less fullprice games. They just don't seem to adress me any more.

To end that rant with a positive note: It's not like the total war series is only serious. The developers built in a very nice and subtle humor that contrasts beautifully with the general over-the-top-presentations of the mainstream:

I actually laughed...

Cloneroids

2009-11-05T06:43:00.000-08:00

Long time no post. I am still trying to find a job, one in Vienna looked promising, but i haven't heard from them since... Lets keep fingers crossed.

Nevermind, in that way i have time to work on a little project of mine again: Cloneroids. This is my first shot at flash/actionscript and it was quite fun so far, even though i had to find my own approach to AS...

Anyways, i am still proud that i managed to get this far. There is a massive amount of work ahead of me, but at least the whole thing is now identifyable as a sorta game. If i get finished with that, i at least have a stable base to create internet games. Most internet games are quite horrible (with some pearls underneath), lets see if i can make this situation a little better...

Synchonising a folder on two systems...

2009-10-23T05:15:00.001-07:00

Finally i found a program that does the work of synchronising a folder from my desktop to my laptop based on the timestamp in a useful way. I hereby introduce RichCopy! It's a bit of configuring at start, but hell, that thing is powerful, clean and pure, just like i want my software to be. You can choose updates depending on various properties of files, you can also move two folders into one, it copies in a chosen number of threads, you can exclude certain files, ... the list is endless!

What i do for example for my actionscript project: As you can store update settings in a file, i pretty much have two files called "FromLaptop" and "ToLaptop" on my desktop and the vice versa on my laptop. As i use PSPad as my text (and therefore code) editor, i just added those files as source files in the project structure and can start them via a context menu entry. That way i can update the project from each machine whenever i want! The versions on both machines are identical whenever i need them to be.

Over are the times when i couldn't continue my coding ambitions because i forgot to update the files!

Whats the deal...?

2009-10-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

I found a nice litte game called "Alien Assault" on an indie-gaming-site. At first i thought it might be nice, as it is a clone of "Space Hulk", a game my best mate Mike used to love and he looks back in sweet pink nostalgica everytime it's name is said.

Oh god, not a good idea. The game is more than hard. It is unfair. I played the tutorial missions until the flamer/alien-mission. Then i couldn't take it anymore. Thing is: You have six space marines, each of them packed with a flame granade thrower, on the way from one end of a space ship to the other. The problem is it's filled with aliens. Those buggers are quick and pretty much lethal in melee combat.

The unfainess comes with two problems: The aliens spawn in spawnpoints. And those are endless. The ammunition of your granade blasters though is quite limited. Furthermore these blaster have no guarantee to kill an alien, which makes a daring offensive attack on one of these pretty much as surviveable as a round of russian roulette. Endless aliens, limited ammo and random surviveability mixes to a highly frustrating cocktail that only the most masochistic players will happily endure.

Respawning enemies should be a big "Nono" also for indie programmers... goddamnit...

Launchy

2009-09-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

I recently tried Launchy, a nice alternative to the start menu in Windows XP. I got used to that in Vista, which came preinstalled on my laptop.

Launchy's funcionality is quite a bliss! After adding some custom paths to make it work properly, it made me a lot more independant of my ever mutating start menu (which spans over more than half my screen on 1280x1024 with it's three bars of menu entries!). I am not so happy with it's CPU consume though. Wikipedia states that occasionally older versions were reported to use up to 100% CPU every five minutes. From what I see now you can adjust the interval, the consumation stays the same. When scanning, it still abuses one of my cores up to full 100%.

I don't understand that behaviour at all! After an initial scan (which i would acceptto be CPU-heavy), the constant background scan shouldn't need the whole processor...? Scanning itself is mainly accessing the HD and computing the results shouldn't be that tough on a gigahertz core? After all it's not like hacking decryption or trying to unfold RNA molecules...

Tree Generator

2009-08-06T03:35:00.000-07:00

I created a little script/programm to generate 3D trees. Check it out on my homepage!

Clawjelly.net

It's for 3D Studio max, but i managed to translate the code to Panda3D (a 3D engine for Python). I like this Panda! As Python is a great and easy language to work with, Panda3D is just what i needed.

3D Studio Max => Valve Source SDK & Hammer

2009-06-23T02:01:00.000-07:00

I've started a little project once again and once again it's an exporter for 3D Studio Max. I've seen that there is an exporter for models, yet there is none for maps. After all my experience with Hammer, i have to say i'm surprised nobody tried that yet. Hammer isn't really what i would call "intuitive" and the low number of beautyful user-maps so far sorta proves my point (at least to me).

Nevertheless, i started my own exporter script. So far it's kinda not even alpha, but i guess the results are promising. I can export all objects that can be converted to mesh objects (like boxes, cylinders, polygons, meshes of course, etc...).

Download MapExporter.zip

Hook Nr. 1: It only works as far as these objects are convex (just like in Hammer). A concave objects (like say a pipe) has to be created out of convex objects. I'm working on a solution of that problem.

Hook Nr. 2: The UV-coordinates in the map-file are in world space, while in max they are stored in UV-space. This is a major pain in the ass to convert, the moment a face is in an arbitrary position (both in the world and in uv-space) there has to be a lot of math shit evaluated to get to a conversion matrix. So far my poor little artist brain can't handle the pressure, therefore i integrated a generic uv format so far. It looks alright for general texturing, so i'll put that back in priority.

Hook Nr. 3: The geometry shouldn't be too detailed. I've exported a normal sphere with 16 segments as a test and the result was... "okay". The problem comes from two issues: For once 3D Studio MAX gives no proper access to UV-data via Poly's, so i have to use Meshes. This mostly doubles the amount of faces, which isn't a problem most of the time, as Source works with planes. Only if loads of planes connect in a single point, you will encounter some problems for sure.

Anyway, take a look of my results so far:

For that last picture i created a temporary light to have some contrast. So far i don't export lights, but that's next on my list.

EDIT:

Okay, lot of progress, by now the exporter is (at least on my machine :-D) in a quite workable state, as these images prove:

For these images i didn't have to start Hammer at all, everything from modelling to lighting to exporting was done purely through my script. Of course for finishing and setting up entities i'll still rely on the Valve-editor, but hey, at least some of the more tedious work is eased :-D

Lets get physical

2009-06-03T01:50:00.000-07:00

E3 hat begonnen und die grossen Game-Hersteller versuchen sich gegenseitig die Show zu stehlen. Da müssen natürlich Superlativen aufgefahren werden, ganz besonders der lukrative Casual-Markt will beeindruckt werden.

Der Platzhirsch Nintendo präsentiert hierbei wenig innovativ die MotionPlus expansion device, welche anscheinend allein die Präzesion hochschraubt. Ansich eine gute Idee, trotzdem bleibt der schale Nachgeschmack, dass das ganze im Prinzip nur ein Patch einer existierenden Technologie ist. Sozusagen funktioniert die Wiimote erst mit diesem Ding "wirklich".

Microsoft hat da schon ein interessanteres Blatt in der Hand, das Project Natal. Ob der Name jetzt darauf anspielt, dass es möglicherweise zu Weihnachten in die Läden kommt oder Microsofts Trademark-Agentur mal wieder einen Anfall von Kreativität hatte, wird sich wohl nie ermitteln lassen. Der deutsche Wikipedia-Eintrag meint zur Namensfindung:

Das Projekt Natal ist nach dem Herkunftsort des Entwicklers Alex Kipman, welcher das Projekt ins Leben gerufen hat, benannt. Natal ist eine Stadt an der nordöstlichen Küste von Brasilien.

Soviel also zum Namen. Was mich eher irritiert ist das Promotion-Video:

Es startet mit einem Teenager, der ein Kampfsportspiel spielt, die Tech dahinter nimmt offensichtlich seine Bewegungen ab und kopiert sie auf den virtuellen Prügelmann, der diese Bewegung seinem Gegenüber in Form eines Schlages weitergibt. Soweit so gut, das klingt ja alles noch schön plausibel. Szene zwei zeigt dann die ganze Familie beim Formel-1-Fahren und ausgerechnet das pupertierende Töchterlein lenkt den Wagen (beeindruckend kompetent übrigens). Microsofts Beitrag zur Anti-Rollenerziehung? Angst vor Imageverlust durch protestierende Frauenverbände? Noch bizarrer triffts uns ein paar Szenen weiter: Mutter und Tochter spielen Fussball! Okay, neutrale Geschlechterrollen hin oder her, aber das ist lächerlich. Speziell im Vergleich mit der einer späteren Szene, wo selbige Tochter dann wieder brav Kleider mit einer Freundin tauscht. Wo lebt die Firma, die solche Promotionvideos kreirt? Alles wird aber getoppt durch mein Lieblingsbild, jetzt mal alle raten, was diese Familie gerade spielt:

Da könnte man jetzt alles mögliche hineininterpretieren, aber es ist ganz harmlos: ein Ratespiel. Den Vogel schiesst jedoch Sony mit deren Präsentationsobjekt ab:

Ansich ein Motion Sensor Controller ident zur Wiimote, jedoch könnte die Form den einen oder die andere dazu verleiten, es zweckzuentfremden. Der Sony-Mann liefert dazu noch das passende Kommentar:

"Sports are a kinda no-brainer, but you can hold anything in your hand."

Und falls das noch zu subtil war, hier ein passendes Rätsel: Spot the PS3-Controller!

Hmmm... Denkt irgendwer, woran ich gerade denke? Nein, das nicht. Das auch nicht. Dachte eher an was symbiotisches wie z. B. eine Sony-Microsoft-Kooperation:

Fresh goes better with TF2!

2009-05-17T02:59:00.001-07:00

Best ever user made TF2 movie!

Nein zum Ausstieg aus CERN!

2009-05-15T04:48:00.001-07:00

Ich bitte alle meine österreichischen Freunde, diese Petition zu unterschreiben:

Unterschriftliste - STOPPT DEN BEABSICHTIGTEN CERN-AUSTRITT ÖSTERREICHS!

cheers
Oli

Girl Face

2009-04-29T01:25:00.001-07:00

Some progress on the girl face i started:

2009-04-26T02:38:00.001-07:00

Everybody needs somebody to LOVE!

Wow... i just found my personal favourite indi game! And it's called Love! It's a multiplayer first person shooter and i know what you're thinking: Come on, an FPS? Are you serious? Yes i am!

Just watch the gameplay video. The sole programmer of that thing really pulled it off and put enough creativity in it to make it look very promising. I totally dig the graphic style (which comes to me already highly surprising considering that i usually don't like indie graphic style for it was usually done by programmer minds which usually don't have a lot of aestethical spirit). Check out the screenshots, they look like kinda aquarell paintings to me. I want to print them out and hang them on my wall!

And as if i wasn't sold already, the gameplay itself sounds very interesting. One thing i was especially impressed with is the fact that you can change the level geometry quite easily. In that aspect it reminded me to Dungeon Keeper or Magic Carpet. I am quite intrigued why there are not more games like that. It seems to me almost like by improving the graphical possibilities, the world of the games just became more and more fixed and solid. That just now breaks up a little with all those fancy physics engines, but it's still far from the level of those old bullfrog titles. Tell me one recent game where you can create a bloody huge chasm with a single magic spell or where you just totally transformed the level with craters by shooting around meteors! Even in Far Cry:Crysis, where you have a gun that shoots nuclear bombs (!!!) they barely make a ditch into the ground... wtf?! Where did it all go wrong?

So LOVE it is then. As far as i understood the whole game is created in a quite radical procedual way. There are cities, that react to the player and form defenses in an AI-fashion. You can create huge defense networks. With turrets, mines, bombs and the whole necessary stuff. The game is planned to be persistant with around 200 players. DEAR LORD! Just by writing it i get so horny for it, i could jump into my screen and eat up the LED... patience... patience... ARG

I hope it's done soon. Somebody should finance that guy to do nothing else but that! If i only had a lot of money...

2009-04-22T07:49:00.001-07:00

Stuff i did recently...

This is a poster for some friends, who make a bobbycar-race. Never seen something like it, but i guess it's gonna be a lot of fun.

This is for Herbert Wippel, who's doing a reading of texts and lyrics of various Hobo-poets. I'm looking forward for that!

cheers
Oli

2009-04-15T04:16:00.000-07:00

Is it really too much to ask of windows to store the view of a folder in the explorer?! We have come all the way from windows 1 over 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP and finally vista and still that bloody thing suggest constantly the worst option of all the view templates possible. Why in gods name does it think that i want to view my MP3 folder as if it would contain pictures?! Why do i always have to put the "change date" collumn back into the download-folder-list?! Why?!? ARRRG! For every good thing that you find in windows, you receive three things that don't work properly. If the car industry would work like that, we would all drive cars kinda like an old, rusty but pimped-up 2CV. No seatbelts, but a 12-inch-screen in the glove compartment... Ludicrous!

2009-03-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

"Erst wenn das letzte Spiel verboten, der letzte Computer abgestöpselt und die letzte LAN Party aufgelöst wurde, wird man feststellen: Man muss Kinder trotzdem erziehen!"

(Leicht abgeändertes) Zitat aus dem Standard-Forum zum Artikel "Totales Verbot von Gewaltspielen gefordert".

2009-03-10T11:46:00.001-07:00

Okay, so you want to see what i am working recently?

This is a project i work on with a friend, it's going to be a magazine for Graz. Can't say much more yet:

And here some girl model i created recently:

Wires here:

2009-03-08T03:41:00.001-07:00

Ja, es müssen brutale Videospiele sein.

Als wäre es nicht schon überholt, beschreibt ein weiter Artikel in einem seriösen Magazin Videospiele als Originalzitat "nicht nur brutal, sondern auch platt und dämlich". Diesmal nimmt sich Christian Stöcker vom Spiegel dieses Themas in seinem wenig subtil betitelten Artikels "Alien-Schlächter romantisieren die Weltkriege" an.

Im Forum dazu hauen sich selbsternannte Moralapostel ohne Einsicht in die Thematik und beleidigte Videospiel-Konsumenten die immer gleichen, alten Argumente gegenseitig an die Nicknames. Eine der berühmtberüchtigten Fragen der speziell sensiblen Exemplare ersterer Gattung ist diese: "Wie kann ein erwachsener, halbwegs intelligenter Mensch Spaß an solchen Spielen haben?" Die lockere Antwort ist natürlich, dass indem er Schein und Realität auseinanderhält er sich aufs wesentliche im Spiel konzentriert: Die Unterhaltung.

Aber warum Krieg? Warum empfinden wir (oder zumindest einige von uns) diese Blutorgien als unterhaltsam? Haben wir nicht schon genug Leid auf der Welt, dass wir es virtuell noch selbst erleben müssen, nein, machtgeil und blutlüstern es sogar noch selbst verursachen müssen? Sind wir schon so weit auf dem Weg in die Degeneration? Ich sage nein. Alles vollkommen falsch. Es ist genau andersrum.

Dass es öfter Kriegsspiele sind, ist von meinem Standpunkt aus nur eine Reflektion der Realität, ein Symptom der Gesellschafts- und Mediensituation. Als Nachrichten-Konsument erfährt man passiv die neuesten Brutalitäten aus aller Welt. Dabei kommt ob der eigenen Unfähigkeit diese zu beeinflussen ein Gefühl der Hilflosigkeit auf; dass hat jeder halbwegs sensible Mensch schon verspürt. Ich denke, brutale Videospiele sind für einen halbwegs intelligenten Erwachsenen ein Weg, mit diesem Gefühl vernünftig umzugehen. Es ist aktive (virtuelle!) Arbeit gegen dieses persönliche Hilflosigkeitsgefühl. Im Spiel wird mir zumindest für einige Zeit vorgegaukelt, ich hätte die Kontrolle über Tot und Zerstörung. In einer Welt, wo einem permanent, gierig und in möglichst riesigen Headlines berichtet wird, wo schon wieder Zehntausende hingemetzelt wurden und gleichzeitig die Politik lieber Milliarden in marode Finanzgiganten schaufelt, gibt ein bisschen Kontrollgefühl durchaus persönliche Zuversicht, selbst wenn es unecht ist. Die Alternative dazu wäre im schlimmsten Fall Lethargie und Depression, wollen wir das?

Warum so blutig? Nun ja, ein Kriegsspiel mit Teletubbies und Wasserpistolen wird ob dieses täglichen Vergleichs mit den Bildern "echter" Medien als lächerlich abstrakt empfunden. Daher ist es unfähig, die nötigen Emotionen zu erwecken und kann diese Rolle logischerweise nicht übernehmen. Ein bizarres Detail an der gesamten Tatsache des virtuellen Blutes ist vermutlich die, dass die, die am lautesten nach mehr davon schreien, zu den Hilfloseren in der Gesellschaft gehören: Jugendliche und Aussenseiter.

Nein, sie sind nicht für Kinder.

Dass diese Thematik deshalb aus der Sicht eines Jugendlichen oder Kindes ganz anders aussieht, ist klar. Ein Kind ist erst dabei die Welt zu begreifen und ein Jugendlicher versucht seine eigene Identität zu erkennen. Die Frage, ob eine Aussetzung dieser Halbwüchsigen dieser Thematik eine gute Idee ist, ist Aufgabe der Psychologie, hier kann ich nur mutmaßen (Gefühlsmässig spreche ich mich wehement dagegen aus). Aber wie gesagt in unserer Welt ist das sowieso nur mehr eine theoretische Frage. Kaum ein aktuelles Magazin, Filmposter oder Internetportal kann inzwischen komplett auf die Darstellung von Gewalt verzichten. Es ist unmöglich das Stimulationspotential von blutigen Messerschneiden, Einschusslöchern und gebrochenen Knochen zu ignorieren; schon allein aus der Notwendigkeit heraus, in der schieren Masse des Angebots nicht vollständig unterzugehen. Das ist eine der dunklen Facetten einer Informationsgesellschaft.

Es ist daher inzwischen sinnlos den Versuch zu starten, das eigene Kind davon fernzuhalten und den Einfluss andererseits zu ignorieren könnte fatal enden. Die dritte Alternative, sich mit beidem (also Kind und Gewalt) gleichzeitig auseinanderzusetzen, ist die Aufwendigste und widerstrebt den meisten Eltern naturgemäß. Lieber sucht man einen Sündenbock, der das Kinderhirn mit all dieser süssen, bösen Gewalt füttert. Es ist wahnsinnig leicht und scheinheilig, die allein Schuldigen beim für diese Gruppe inzwischen offensichtlich interessantesten dieser Medien zu suchen. Politiker tun genau dieses; was sollten sie sonst tun angesichts der eigenen Handlungs-Unfähigkeit gegenüber einer Tragödie wie Columbine oder Erfurt und der Wählerstimmen von scheinheiligen Eltern, die ihre Rolle als Erziehungspersonen in diesem Bereich gern ignorieren und sich stattdessen lieber rechtlich von dieser Pflicht entmündigen lassen möchten.

Die "seriösen" Medien springen auf die Idee einer neuen, unklaren Gefahr nur zu gern auf, speziell wenn sie sie mit solch extrem emotionalen Schockereignissen in Verbindung bringen und damit nebenbei noch einem populären Konkurrenten in die Suppe spucken können. Sie nehmen in Kauf dass sie damit eine Gruppe von verantwortungsvollen Konsumenten dieses Mediums mitverunglimpfen; unbewusst, dass sie hierbei den bösen Fehler begehen könnten, diese Gruppe sowohl ihres Intellekts, ihres Alters als auch ihrer Grösse zu unterschätzen. Der durchschnittliche Spieler ist inzwischen über 30 Jahre alt, ein Alter in dem man normalerweise sehr gut unterscheiden können sollte. Zum Beispiel zwischen Realität und Fiktion, zwischen Wahrheit und heuchlerischer Scheinheiligkeit und zwischen einem ernsthafen, recherchierten Artikel und einer populistischen Aneinanderreihung von oberflächlichen Beobachtungen.

Und sowohl diese Medien als auch diese Politiker sind dann erstaunt, dass nicht viel Bereitschaft zu einem ernsthaften Dialog von der Seite signalisiert wird, die sie gerade als realitätsferne Mörder und virtuelle Vergewaltiger brandmarken? Ja sind wir denn noch zu retten?!? Wenn ich meinen Nachbar mit "Hallo, A-loch!" begrüsse, kann ich doch auch nicht erwarten, dass er etwas in der Art wie "Danke, gut, schön sie zu sehen!" erwidert. Das Zauberwort hierfür ist "Respekt"!

Gottseidank bricht das langsam auf. Solche Artikel wie dieser des Herrn Stöcker sollten eigentlich schon ein Relikt einer anderen Zeit sein. Sind sie aber leider noch immer nicht; das Thema Videospiel ist in der Politiklandschaft (zurecht) ein Nebenschauplatz und wird es immer bleiben. Daher werden diese Politiker ob anderer Gründe wiedergewählt und diese Medien ob anderer Themen gelesen. Das ist es nicht, was diese Situation ändern wird, das kann und wird nur die Zeit. Diese Ressentiments bleiben solange bestehen, bis die Generation mit ebendiesen ausstirbt. Und das wird sie.

Ich als einer dieser gebeutelten Spieler sehne diesen Moment durchaus herbei. Ich wäre nur zu gewillt einer ernsthaften Diskussion beizutreten, aber auch ich werde warten müssen, bis die Zeit reif ist. Wir sehen uns in... naja, sagen wir mal zehn Jahren wieder.

2009-03-07T00:13:00.000-08:00

As i have a lot of spare time at the moment, I'm trying to write some game in Python using Panda3D. So far i like Python a lot. It's just the right amount of complexity without getting over my head. As i'm not a real programmer, i guess it just serves me right.

I tried C#, but i had quite some problems defining an array of types of an own class. I guess i just had the idea C# was python or whatever. The only reason i would love to write in C# is the fact, that i could develop for XNA, which would make it possible to run my stuff on Xbox 360.

But then again, why would i? I own this bloody thing, but so far it has given me a lot of headache. No standard hardware works withit. If you own a PC, you have to buy everything twice (once for the game, once for the XBox live account). My Logitech Steeringwheel, which works great on PC and PS2 is ignored by the 360. And if i want to play online, i have to pay twice. And all this is gets even worse if you consider, that Microsoft is trying to make XBox hardware and XBox live mandatory on Windows aswell (without much success so far). And finally it turned a really funny german journalist into a douchebag. (Okay, that was Microsoft itself, not the console... but who cares...)

I guess the only way they could archive this is by buying Valve and Blizzard (hopefully i'm not waking any sleeping dogs, but then again, who am i?).

Back to Python, lets start nitpicking: Why the hell does a command like "readline" leave a linebreak in the returned string? I mean that command is called "readLINE", so why do i have the need to erase any control chars that just symbolize that very end of that line? Makes me think of a TV presenter reading the additional mimic- and gesture-info from the prompter. "Good morning, Austria. Now turn to guest one. How are you?"...

2009-02-24T04:50:00.001-08:00

As if we didn't know this so far, but it's good a big company speaks out:

Valve says games are too expensive!

I bought like 10 games at that promotional offer back then, i'm glad i could help!

2009-02-19T03:00:00.000-08:00

Oh, before i forget: There was another great Austrian "I want some attention therefore i behave like a raving moron and police aswell as media paint me as a dangerous criminal" incident yesterday. In upper Styria a 55 year old guy claimed that he was holding a german tramper girl hostage and threatened to blow up the building. His demands were the reopening of some trials against him whose judgement he didn't approve and instead viewed it as unfair and as a conspiracy against his person.

In detail he was held guilty of having made dangerous threats against various people. And the best way to enforce a commission to prove his innocence is to make further dangerous threats?! Brilliant, way to go! Quite a confused fella... He sent tons of letters to all kind of personalities including various judges, the austrian president, big newspapers, etc. claiming being a victim of ruthless and corrupt law officials. His "final letter" even tries to paint him as a mixture between Robin Hood and David (in opposition to Austrian law-holders posing as Goliath) and describes what he wants to be imprinted on his gravestone: "The lawful is mortal and has to step down, but his light shines on". Words of a martyr truly!

Nevertheless, the whole thing ended unbloody. After communication breakdown with the suspect around 2:00 o'clock Austrian special forces "Cobra" stormed the building and after some confusion due to a released fire extinguisher, they could arrest the man who was hiding underneath a blanket (i am intrigued wether he was really hiding or thats what media made out of him just gone to bed). No hostage was found (alltough they might want to take another look at the basement?) and the man admitted that there never was any. He probably chose german nationality to gain german media coverage additional to austrian. Beside some gasoline and molotov cocktails the police also found a rather sophisticated weapon: a knife mounted on a stick! I wonder what the guy had in mind with that... Wave it before the SpecOps shoot him?

Austria is really a sacred island sometimes.

2009-02-19T02:44:00.001-08:00

I found a great documentary about AIDS/HIV.

The Age of AIDS: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Each episode is about 50 minutes. So the whole thing is quite long, but definately worth watching.

2009-02-19T02:34:00.000-08:00

Super Comment vom Standard-Forum über Richard Lugner, dem "successful Austrian entrepreneur".

Richard Lugner ist die Rache der Kleinbürger an den Superreichen
Weil sich unsere obrigkeitshörigen Untertanen niemals zu einer Revolution haben durchringen können, haben sie Richard Lugner erfunden, der ihre Phantasien auf die dunkelste Art verkörpert. Seine pöbelhafte Kulturlosigkeit, die andere als Mut zum Peinlichen sehen, ist die treffendste Antwort auf die Walzerseligkeit Reicher und Schöner.
Keine Antiopernballdemo hat diese Veranstaltung tiefer denunzieren können, als der Lugner mit seinen Pornostargästen, seiner neureichen Verschwendungssucht und seinem unbeholfenen Kretinismus. Lugner ist ein typischer Österreicher: Er will von jenen anerkannt, die ihn verachten, weil sein Untertanengeist immer zum Stiefel zurückkehrt, der ihn in den Staub tritt.

sicklikejosef vom Standardforum

Und dem hab ich nix mehr hinzuzufügen...

2009-01-18T05:27:00.001-08:00

Genialer Ausspruch von meinem Bruder:

"Glaube is etwas eigenpersönliches... so ähnlich wie halt jeder sein eigenes genital hat"

Wie recht er doch hat... :-D

2008-08-28T03:50:00.000-07:00

Today i want to talk about Firefox, not the browser (which is worth to be mentioned anyways), but the movie from 1982. Great piece, love it. Clint Eastwood rocks!

But the most funny part of it (at least for me as a Viennese-by-heart) is the fact that all the scenes in Moskow were filmed - you guessed it - in Vienna! Watching it seeing all the familiar places stuffed with Soviet Union flags, communist posters and russian signs was quite an interesting experience... and here is my personal guide through the most recognizeable scenes:

Clint arrives at the Airport. I just put this one up for the funny Aeroflot signs placed perfectly right in the first scene in Vienna.

On the drive to his hotel, he's peeking back from the taxi to his follower... or maybe he's just interested in the ÖAMTC-Sign, the austrian club for cars and motorbikes?

Finally, after arriving at his hotel, he takes a walk to some of Austrias places of interest. Here he's passing the Heldentor.

His path leads him just across the street to the Naturhistorische Museum. This has a beautyful garden in front and is quite close to one of my favourite places, the Museumsquarter.

Another fine place for a little stroll is of course along the Donaukanal. I gotta admit, Clint is demonstrating taste in his Vienna-Selection!

He meets some friends in the Wiener Stadtpark. Very beautyful park, a little kitschy for my taste, but hey, it's Vienna after all. It invented Kitsch back around 1600 ;-)

And off they head for the Vienna Metro. Yes, that's what all metro buildings look over here!

This is the interior of that metro station. Great, how they put russian writing on everything visible. And next time i am there, i have to take a look wether that security camera is for real. And if it really was there already in '82...!

They are lucky and reach a train right there. In the evening time this isn't that easy...

Okay, Clint has to hurry a little.

But he does it already like a true Viennese. Congratulation, Mister Eastwood, first test passed!

On the train he can rest a little and watch the russian soldiers patroling at U1 Station Südtirolerplatz, which hints us, that they swapped trains at Schwedenplatz. Pretty silly route, they could have gone much faster by changing at Karlsplatz. Well, Tourists...

On the way out he's passing some russian checkpoint in the station. Nice painting in the background! My guess is that this is U1 Stephansplatz, but i could be wrong. Any guess?

After all this stress of sightseeing, Clint takes a trip to the countryside, passing a poster of the famous Milka-Cow and i can't get around the fact, that i doubt this would have hung in the USSR back then, but nowadays, it's sure possible.

This concludes my little guide through Vienna with the help of Clint Eastwood. I hope you enjoyed! See you soon when i lead you through The Third Man!

2008-08-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, heut mal was in Deutsch: Sehr interessantes Interview auf einem Schweizer Fernsehsender mit einem Historiker.

2008-08-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Oh, one thing was missing: A big thanks to the people of Ireland for saying "No" to the Lissbon treaty! Lets fight against this piece of military doctrine shit!

2008-08-17T05:36:00.001-07:00

Yippie! Finally uploaded my video from the pier in Brighton:

Those grannies 're sure shakin' it!

2008-08-12T03:03:00.000-07:00

Star Wars: Clone Wars is out! Great news for all the super-starwars-fans, but for normal people? Especially for the nagging, pessimistic ones like myself, how does this news apply after all this licence-milking George Lucas had going on recently...?

Well... Bad. Can't say i am especially marvelling about it. It's not like the protagonists could reveal anything new to us, can they? We have seen them more than enough. We know pretty much their full life. We even know what their kids will do, for christ sakes! About how many other movies beside Star Wars hold this fact for you?!

The obvious difference with this same cast as in the prequel movies is: They are now 3D Models. You know, 3D is the magic, that turns everything into gold nowadays. At least that's what the big bosses in Holywood obviously believe, how else can you explain all this 3D junk we got fed recently? I guess it was just a matter of time for a 3D Star Wars movie to show up. For me the 3D novelty has worn off with probably Ice Age 2. This pretty much put the great Ice Age to sleep.

I can spot two groups that might be seriously interested in this instance now: Kids and Fans. And if you're neighter there isn't really any reason to watch this. For Kids the "Rated PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language and momentary smoking" is a definite disadvantage. Leaves the Nerds... Fans i wanted to say. So what do the fans got to say? Here we go: Mental Floss speaks it's mind. And i disagree.

1) "No More Hayden Christensen!"

If the non-presence of something is supposed to be a prove of quality, then this license is in serious problems!

2) "Awesome Anime-Inspired Art"

Three words with A, must be true, huh? Gimme a break. Mixing 3D, Anime and Western SciFi is the dummest thing i heard in a long time.

3) "Clone/Droid Carnage Galore"

Yea, that might tickle me a little, but these scenes are probably just during the end and i can't be assed to watch a movie just for the end.

4) "Jabba’s Southern Uncle"

Oh, for god's sake... Instead of coming up with a new character, they just recycle another one through the family ties bullshit. This license really turns into the biggest family clusterf*** eversince. How many brothers, fathers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nieces and who knows what do we have to endure?! It puts the Waltons to shame! Oh, and another one: I wonder who Ziro the Hutt's brother had to bang to come up with something like Jabba. And especially how these Hutts pull off such a stunt would probably drive tears into any slug-interested biologist's eyes...

5) "It’s Actually Funny"

Finally a reason that might make a difference. But without any glimpse of it, i can't seriously be interested, can i? So unless some friends tell me they laughed their asses off, i don't even care.

6) "A Female Main Character Who Fights"

Pfff... she looks like a little boy, so no real difference there.

7) "George Lucas Didn’t Write, Direct, or Produce It"

Oh well... look up 1) for that. At least he invented the whole thing, kicking him off board sounds to me like they movie studios are giving the fanboys control of the universe. Like one of those that stand in line for a ticked dressed as Darth Vader in bright sunshine. I would say the movie is a success if the story is better than this dudes costume smells...

Seriously, this license is dead meat!

2008-07-27T04:22:00.000-07:00

Err, wow... this is a 1980s Soviet-era Estonian commercial for meat and meat products.

2008-07-18T02:58:00.001-07:00

Oh Bryan, Bryan... why had you fall asleep on the last party in your hoody...

Just too easy ;-)

2008-07-17T00:23:00.001-07:00

Yatzhee sums one of the main problem of "Alone in the dark 4" up pretty well:

- You're not alone.

- It's not dark.

The rest of his Review is also quite funny once again.

2008-07-14T02:45:00.001-07:00

Austrian Government is history once again thanks to the idiots sitting in our parlament unable to work out some compromises. Well, here comes my prank to the situation:

Sorry, austrian. ;-)

2008-07-06T04:53:00.000-07:00

Wow: It's a big compliment for a game if it can make me smile. If it can make me laugh, it is already bought (at least in my mind). This time: Lego Indiana Jones! I just tried the demo on XBox Live and it's really funny! Damn, i guess now i have to replay all Lego titles for all the possible missed humor...

2008-07-06T04:26:00.001-07:00

Just a little one: Why is there no comfortable definition on how you are allowed to leave a game demo back to XBox live? Every demo seems to cook it's own dish in there. Most game developers there seem to believe the harder they make it for the customer to leave the demo, the higher the chance he will buy the game (maybe only for the sole purpose of being able to quit it). What crude logic is this? My favourite so far: The demo to (the purposedly long titled) "Wolf of the battlefield: Commando 3". You select "Return to XBox Live Arcade" to be questioned "Really exit the game? - Yes or No". After choosing "Yes", the present another screen (which they showed you at least 2 times already!) with three options: Buy the Game, Exit Game and Back. The standard controls for exiting something on xbox is the B-button, but on this screen it brings you back to the game... WTF?! Is Capcom really thinking i'd change my mind and buy the game if i accidently pushed the wrong button and end up in the main menu...? Well, news for you then: NO!

2008-06-30T01:05:00.000-07:00

Shacknews reportet Dutch police caught the notorious Valve hacker. He seems to have been quite a pain so far... if he's just hanging around on their servers, okay, but he stole credit card info and sorta blackmailed several companies. Now this is a No-no, Mr. MaddoxX.

Still, what i liked most about the article:

The criminal was eventually nabbed by a Dutch police unit called Team High Tech Crime. There is no word on whether members of Team High Tech Crime go by code-names or wear special uniforms.

Go Team High Tech Crime!

2008-06-23T23:33:00.000-07:00

2K Lead Programmer: 'BioShock Should've Failed

"Some people think that constantly messing up, and pushing dates isn't a good way to make a game, but as far as I'm concerned it's the only way to make a good game."

Interesting point. I'd second that with the little difference that it probably isn't the only way. It is just highly illusoric to expect that delays can be absolutely avoided. Sometimes they are necessary.

Still making the assumption the other way around is highly fishy. If i would apply this theory to our project here (and actually most project i worked so far) just because something is late doesn't mean it is really getting good. Hopefully it's getting better at least.

Milking on the milky way.

2008-06-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

Hay there.

I wanted to talk to you about this trailer of "Star Wars: Force Unleashed" i saw on XBox live, which is... well... just another Star Wars game. The title says "Unleashing the force", and my nerd-knowledge teaching me jedis wouldn't unleash the force and sith would not appear in a george lucasarts advert, we are left for interpretation on what force is unleashed.

So we jump onto the "i gave you Han Solo, therefore i want money forever"-train and endure the lionkingonesque drumsolo to embrace... Peter Hirschmann talking about the summer of '69. No, sorry, 2004. And in an eighter royal or skitzophrenic plural he announces that

"We knew we wanted to make another star wars game"

Which hits me by surprise, with his track record of 13 (!) star wars games you'd think he might want a break? Trying not to judge the book by the cover i expect to see at least two other people to qualify for an honest "We".

First "We the people": Haden Blackman. And can you believe even though his name and his haircut, he was not invented by George Lucas! His title says project lead.

There is Hirschman again stating that they always had too many ideas... clearly he was hired long after they stopped making great adventure games...

Second "We the people": The president, Jim Ward! Obidient as a little puppy dog, he wants input from George. Seems like something went wrong with the too many ideas problem Peter Hirschman mentioned. Obviously, as they are teamteaching me, there was the idea of a wookie as superhero and my bet is on Hating Blackmail not getting over the traumata of loosing his bobtail to mange or something. Oh, there he is, telling us proudly about how George Lucas kicked his ass about the Wookie Idea, i bet that looks awesome on his resume. There is Hirschmann again telling us about problems with details. There is Jim telling us they didn't understand what Star Wars was about... waaait... Why are you making this game then in the first place?! Dear Lord, i can't continue watching that...

After the recent layoffs all i can see is: Lucasarts really goes down.

Jamie Oliver suffocates Chicks

2008-06-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

Wow, i'm impressed. The guy has balls. If you'd do that in austria, animal rights activist would stab you to death on the streets...

Way to go, man!

Perfect self humiliation! I can do it!

2008-05-24T05:41:00.001-07:00

Yes, i am guilty. Guilty of Karaoke. Here's the evidence:

Wild Karaoke Nights with Oli

I took a quiz!

2008-05-19T05:21:00.000-07:00

Oh man... i am 51% wonder woman!

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Green Lantern		95%
Spider-Man		80%
Hulk		70%
Supergirl		66%
Batman		65%
Catwoman		60%
The Flash		55%
Robin		53%
Wonder Woman		51%
Superman		45%
Iron Man		35%

Hot-headed. You have strong
will power and a good imagination.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Oh, and this one:

Your results:
You are Magneto

Magneto		66%
The Joker		62%
Apocalypse		61%
Mr. Freeze		56%
Venom		56%
Dr. Doom		55%
Dark Phoenix		54%
Green Goblin		54%
Juggernaut		50%
Two-Face		50%
Catwoman		45%
Riddler		44%
Lex Luthor		41%
Mystique		30%
Kingpin		26%
Poison Ivy		23%

You fear the persecution of those that are different or underprivileged so much that you are willing to fight and hurt others for your cause.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

Ba..ba...bankrobbery!

2008-04-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

I had to do it. I have to show the world what a funny country Austria is.

There was this bankrobbery last year, which turned into a hostage crysis. And with that it also turned into a total hillarious farce illustrating the way Austria works. There are country where such situations are handled professionally, to ensure the safety of each and everybody. There are countries, where these are handled to show the least of public attention. Other countries might handle it rather clumsy.

But i bet you, there is no country which handles such situations with such a comedic approach, disclosing the brutal stupidity and incompetence of the protagonists and portraying all people around here as the kind of stoic and naive crowd they are.

For this, i translated the recorded phone conversation between a journalist of an austrian boulevard newspaper, who boldly called the bank that was robbed (and surprisingly got through hinting a neglect by the austrian police force) and the far-from-being-aware-of-his-situation bank-robbber/hostage-taker. I want you to notice the bland journalism hitting boldly without any preparations. This is true craftsmanship! While reading you can listen to the original conversation. Let it roll:

(J = Journalist, E = Employee, H = Hostage taker)

J: Goodday, i wanted to talk with the gentleman, who... who... who's sitting in there with some people. Errr... With whom do i have the pleasure?
E: Employee of BAWAG.
J: I understand. That means, you are hostage?
E: Yes.
J: What's happening right now?
E: Who are you, please?
J: My Name is Hodjo from the Newspaper "Österreich".
E: No please, not now, thanks.
J: Could i please speak to the gentleman, who's hasseling you?
E: From whom are you?
J: "Österreich".
E (to the hostage taker): A gentleman from the Newspaper "Österreich".
T: Hand over!
E: I connect you.
J: Thank you.
(Waiting line loop of the bank institute)
J: Hadjo, hellohello?
H: Hello.
J: Greetings, my name is Hodjo from the Newspaper "Österreich".
H: How are you called?!
J: My name is Hodjo from the Newspaper "Österreich".
H: And? What countryman are you?
J: Austrian.
H: Haudesk is not a countryman!
J: Sure, sure,... sure, sure, believe me.
H: Okay, and what further?
J: Well, i wanted to ask, how are you now?
H: How are YOU?
J: I am marvellous.
H: There you go.
J: But, i mean, well, that's not the question right now, i heard, you got cigarettes delivered?
H: What did i get..?!
J: Did you get cigarettes delivered?
H: No, we don't have cigarettes.
J: You did not get cigarettes delivered?
H: No,.. that were... are you from the "Kronenzeitung"? ("Kronenzeitung" is the biggest competing Newspaper from "Österreich")
J: No, from "Österreich".
H: "Österreich", well, okay, listen closely, i'll tell you one thing, prince charming:
("Märchenprinz" - "prince charming" was a hit song by an austrian comedian band)
H: I didn't get neighter cigarettes nor anything else, right?
J: Yes, yes...
H: And now ... we gonna call, ... so we finally ... can go to the toilet, because the toilets are locked.
J: Really? And.. w.. why is it locked?
H: Because it's closed, i mean, what "why is it locked"...?
J: Is that normal there?
H: What... no, that's not normal. I'll gonna shoot at it and...
J: Yea, yea, yea...
H: Yea, yea, yea. Now listen, i don't know you, how are you called again? Hodi..? Hodi...?
J: Hodjo
H: Yea, ok.... yea, wait, do you wanna talk to a hostage?
J: No, no, no, i mean, i wanted to ask, how it's going to go on? What does it look like?
H: What do you mean with "how it's going to go on"?
J: I mean, ...
H: Where did you get the number from anyway?!
J: From the telephone book.
H: That's not possible...
J: Sure.
H: What's sure... how do you talk to me?! "Sure" ... thats "YES" for you!
J: YES.
H: Now that sounds better.
(click)
J: Hello?

The toilet situation was quite a critical one for the hostage taker, as instead of cigarettes he actually got pizza with coke delivered to the bank (!!) and due the nature of coke was forced to really adress his own natural desires. The situation was solved unbloody with the capitulation of the hostage taker, because he was embarrassed of having peed himself. And that's not even half of all the hillarious incidents that happened that day at this bank building... dear lord, bless our unworthy souls.

Try to imagine you get that story told by a friend... would you believe it?

World of hypocrazy

2008-03-20T01:35:00.000-07:00

Stanford researchers developing 3-D camera with 12,616 lenses.

Sounds awesome. A little like a Pro-Version of the ZCam thing i posted down there. And? What are your first thoughts you could use that? Games? 3D-graphics? Fun? Yea, well... not quite what these people thought of first:

One obvious potential use of the technology: facial recognition for security purposes.

Yes. Security. Nowadays the same as surveillance. Whole world goes crazy because fear of terror. Seems like every inventions perceived value is the usability for this security purpose. What's wrong with this world?!

2008-03-15T05:20:00.000-07:00

I bought Gary's Mod, as i intend to create a vid to my song... News will soon revealed ;-)

Z Cam!

2008-03-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

Now this is awesome:

Z Camera

This is camera similar to eye toy, but with a major difference: It measures depth instead of light. Why is that important? Because this thing really can "see" your hands, your fingers, your head and doesn't get distracted with background or other stuff. In the vid it is mainly shown as a sort of game device, but actually i think this thing could change the way we use computer radically (and this comes from a rather pessimistic person when the topic is "predicted revolutions").

The guy in the vid mentions it shortly: Minority report! Tom Cruise handling the computer with his bare hands moving in midair looked technically hardly feasible back then, but with it seems trivial. If they could make real holograms aswell, this is the only realistic technology that could make us control these kinds of visuals, because it looks very stable, you don't need to wear special "gear" to use it and this way of controling "things" is just very intuitive, after all: what's easier to handle things than using your hands?

And there are just more and more ideas for it: Think of using that Z-buffer it delivers as a mask for a video image of the same source and voilá! You are within your game! Not just a sily image, no, you are there as a 3D body!

One word: Awesome!

Transformers Stop Motion!

2008-03-12T03:02:00.001-07:00

Yes!

Indy 4 final poster...

2008-03-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

The final poster is out now! Indiana Jones IV doesn't have to go without (a final) one anymore. But looking at it, i couldn't resist...

I think he's too old.

Kommentar Niederösterreichische Landtagswahl...

2008-03-10T04:49:00.000-07:00

Die Niederösterreicher sind ein eigenes Volk. Aber die burgenländischen Serben, die in Niederösterreich leben, umso mehr. Vom Standard-Forum (ungeschnitten!):

"ich serbe aus bg. wohnhaft in nö habe fpö gewählt, bisher fast immer spö, aber wegen der kosovo politik von gusi(ca) war es anders nicht möglich.
das werden wohl die 7% serben gewesen sein die bisher immer rot gewählt hABEN.
freue mich schon auf die nationalratswahlen. in wien leben noch mehr serben und ich weiss schon wem sie wählen werden!!!"

No, da weiss einer, was er will. Freiflug nach Serbien mit zwei Beamten der Exekutive...? Das ist noch echte Ironie.

Phobia!

2008-01-11T04:37:00.000-08:00

60 Weirdest phobias one can have...

Wowie... my favourites so far:

Barophobia: Fear of gravity. Yes, you got yourself a probem there!

Apeirophobia: Fear of infinitivity. Don't look up to the sky.

Arachibutyrophobia: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. Errr... yes.

Phronemophobia: The fear of thought or thinking. No, i'm not stupid, i'm a Phronemophobic.

And my personal favourite:

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: The fear of long words. The guy who named this fear sure had a sense of humor.

Weng Weng...!

2007-12-05T04:50:00.000-08:00

Weng weng was a small actor, so small he's in the guiness book of records for being to shortest actor in a leading role. Reason enough for two rappers called the chuds to remix one of the overtures of his movies and create a cool funk/rap/hiphop tune. Check out the movie:

I wanna make a funky 70ies videogame now!

Missverstanden!

2007-12-04T04:48:00.000-08:00

Heut mal auf deutsch, da es ein richtig schön österreichisches Thema ist: Kärntner Landeshauptmann Haider fand sich kürzlich unfreiwillig auf Fotos wieder, die ihn (möglicherweise!) alkoholtrinkend mit Jugendlichen posierend zeigen. Ein gefundenes Fressen für die immerhungrige Presse, die da natürlich gleich die Fakten verdreht...

Team Fortress 2!

2007-10-24T02:53:00.000-07:00

'nuff said. It's here, it's new, it's cool. And i played it. You can look it all up on my TF2 stats page!

My fav is the engineer so far, alltough this class is already so widely played, i try to avoid it nowadays. My sympathy goes for the spy now, as everybody hates the spy (including other spys). For understandable reasons i have to add, as he is a pain in the ass for almost every class (maybe excluding the scout, as this one is simply too fast to kill in melee). Especially thankful targets are of course snipers, as they present a perfect aim for backstabbing, when they are trying to get the next headshot. And your ability to sabotage the funky toys of the engineers makes them enormously annoyed and suspicious about practically everyone. If you get shot on by a friendly engineer, don't mind, he is surely just very caring about his turret or teleporter or whatever he calls his child at the moment.

But of course the most mentionable about the game is the look. It all reminds me so much to roadrunnder-cartoons, that i am constantly laughing just at how all these characters are represented. From the medic as a german doctor ("I am ze Uebermensch!") to the grunty heavy with his minigun fondly called "Sasha"... It feels like you take your part in a roadrunner (which clearly is the scout guy) and coyote (which is approximately every other class) cartoon. That alone is already a huge motivator! As the whole action of any FPS and this one in particular is pretty cartoony with respawning people, unrealisticly huge cannons with unrealistic amounts of ammo and an inhumane playing speed, valve's choice going with such a cartoon style fits just too perfect.

With other words: If you have just the slightest sympathy for online FPS, then you got to buy this.

Amsterdammit!

2007-06-12T01:36:00.001-07:00

Oh, i just found some image that was lying around on my HD... was working on that some weeks ago when i was suddenly interrupted by some annoying work stuff and forgot about it. I guess it tells pretty well how our amsterdam trip went...

Ali G kicks Becks and Posh's ass!

2007-02-08T16:12:00.000-08:00

This guy is as hilarious as he is brilliant! He humiliates the two of them for several minutes and only Posh manages once to maybe sorta answer it sorta witty...

God, David Beckham is so nice and ... boooring, he has troubles to see where he stands...

Ali G: "Beckham, was u into the spice girls before..."
Becks: ... laughs, then gets serious: "No... but i was into Posh!"

There were at least 3 times that Becks started laughing until he reconsidered and answered with a very serious "No." on some questions... What a dork. Posh is at least trying to fight back, you can tell she has an easy game with Becks, she's about to jump into Ali's face for severals times, but hey... This is Ali G, he basically squashes them to pieces and they can't help but laugh... brilliant! This is high comedy! This is Art! Awesome!

Whats up with my blog?!

2007-02-01T05:30:00.001-08:00

Seems like blogger is making some changes, which affect my blog. Damn! Hope that stuff is viewable soon again...

NO!Spec...

2007-01-31T13:10:00.000-08:00

This basically tells the old story of "Can u make me bla bla for xxx and maybe for free?" Loads of people can't see creative work as what it is: hard work. Even if it doesn't look like it to you, you ignorant fool. I myself was asked to lower my price for an illustration because "i know i an artist who does a logo for half of what you want..." Yea well, can he do quality illus?

To make my point more precise, i link here to the NO!SPEC homepage!

Death Metal!

2007-01-06T06:01:00.000-08:00

The Mythbuster found out that plants grow better with constant death metal music! Even better than with classical music. Brilliant!

To find out more about their experiments, you can find all results at mythbustersresults.com.

Self-Cleaning Underwear...

2007-01-06T05:11:00.000-08:00

Yippie, one of the biggest problems in human existence got finally solved! Scientists working for the US-Airforce finally succeeding in creating self cleaning underwear! God bless America...

Oh god...

2007-01-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

They finally hanged Saddam Hussein, how wonderful for the world. Did anybody see the footage of the white house announcement? Reporters and visitors were cheering the comment about Husseins death as if somebody would have had announced "free beer!"

Being that happy about having a person killed is pretty sick in my point of view. The politically important actions were all over already, he was trialed and found guilty. All what comes after now is morbid lust of voyeurism. That existed back in medieval times and keeps on to now.

You don't know Jack returns...

2006-12-20T01:48:00.000-08:00

Just heard some great news: You don't know Jack, the probably best home-quiz-game on earth, is coming again with a new installment. And the best: As a marketing idea they give one episode of "DisOrDat" for free every day... Wicked!

Play with your face!

2006-12-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

Again i found something to play around with my face... simple coincidence, i am not especially narcistic. A website called Face Transformer can give you an idea what you would look like as an asian, child, woman or a monkey!

Total change!

2006-12-18T15:26:00.000-08:00

So, i finally made a complete change here making this page my personal homepage with link, with pictures, links, some contact info and this blog. All my graphic stuff went over to badoli.com, so take a look over there if you're interested. I hope you like the new look.

Well, how does it go for me at the moment? I am pretty much waiting for my job to come along. Christmas is next week, so i will go for Graz visiting family and stuff. And unbelieveable: I can live from my workless money! I even spared something like 200 Euros this month! It is good when you can surprise yourself once in a while...

Damn FTP!!!

2006-12-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

Hmpfr... something went wrong with the FTP-Access from blogger. Lets see if posting still works.

Finally also the blog...

2006-11-29T09:44:00.000-08:00

It took a while, as there is so much other work to do, but finally i updated the site with the correct blog. From now on also my newest blog posts will be here beside my actual other stuff. If you have been more often on my site (which i doubt), you'd see quite some changes being done since i started it some months ago. Lets keep it on!

Added items...

2006-10-24T05:32:00.000-07:00

I recently added several items to the page, like some a logo animation in the 3D section and some new 2D stuff. Have a look!

People and their faces...

2006-08-24T03:35:00.000-07:00

I just found a funny site. You can upload a pic of yourself (or somebody else) and let it be compared to various celebrity faces for siliarity. Pretty nifty, no?

Oh yea, i tried some other people too...

Gareth

Chris

Brilliant idea! (Even though i'm not sure on how serious u're supposed to take it...)

Nothing special...

2006-04-13T04:21:00.000-07:00

In my spare time i am working on some t-shirts via Spreadshirt.de. I've made a little Shop, although most t-shirts are kinda insider jokes from our team at Rockstar Vienna. Have fun ;)

Abandoned places...

2006-04-04T04:05:00.000-07:00

Opacity.us

This guy makes pictures of abandoned buildings. Some of the are just awesome. I guess the guys from Stalker took some references of those.

Flyer...

2006-03-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine, Petra, is making a nice party for some of her mates. Those mates actually perform in a soul/funk/hiphop-combo and so it is sorta combo with a concert. If you happen to be in Vienna on the 8th of april, take a look over at the beautyful Flyer i made for that. Hope to see you there! Cheers!

F**king cold!!!

2006-01-23T03:06:00.000-08:00

Vienna has around -15°C today, alltough sun is shining. I wanna go back to brazil!

Herberts birthday was fun.

2005-07-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

On friday was the birthday of one of my best friends Herbert. He is communist, therefore he got a lot of communist things (like a little handbag with a big red star from me). But looks like he didn't get the hang of all the things, as this document proves... Kommunismus für Anfänger

Fun on the Nuke Festival

2005-07-11T04:14:00.000-07:00

I was on the nuke festival this weekend. The weather was horrible, but that did not put anybody down too much. I even ended up in a river, as the fact of being wet all already made the decision easier to get even more wet.

You can get a glimpse in my nuke picture gallery.

Can't deny it...

2005-06-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

Isn't it embarressing sometimes to find out you like a song from somebody you already marked as "not important"? Happened to me recently. Don't take me for an idiot, but i really like the new song from Kelly Osbourne named One Word. Together with the video this is a piece of brilliant work. With Kelly Osbourne. If you are able to deny this fact, than it is definately highly recommandable. Because in the end: She neighter wrote the song nor did the video, so who really cares about which girl is singing in there?

Crunch

2005-04-25T03:42:00.000-07:00

This week will be pretty work-intense, crunch has begun for the milestone ahead on this friday. Hrmpf!

Changed my homepage a bit! Finally!

2005-04-20T02:47:00.000-07:00

I promised to work on my homepage, but i failed awekwardly... shame on me! But i will improve this section a little. As a proof: Gallery of recent scribble as a start. Have fun!