Mountain Sunrise
I just finished a new environment map (sky) which was requested.  I call it "Mountain Sunrise" (pretty obvious description of what it is :).  Check it out in the Gaming / Graphics section.
 
     Siege Castle
This is a new map I'm working on for paintball.  It'll have a yoyload of new textures and stuff.  It looks quite cool (if I don't say so myself ;).  Check out some shots of it in progress: shot1, shot2, shot3, shot4, shot5, shot6.  It will be surrounded by a terrain generated with my rawscape program that will look something like this (only better :).

     RAWscape Almost Done
I've got the basic version of my rawscape program almost completed.  All I need to do is fix it up so it can read data from an ini file and/or accept command line parameters and release it with some sample stuff.  The more advanced version will be able to do some really cool rock structures like caves and multiple "levels."  Take a look at a (bad) example of what it can do here.
 
     New Slide Times
Now that I've gotten more free time, I've started wasting it on slide again :)  It's addicting - especially when ppl have faster times than you :)  Some more ppl need to play this - It's like the best mod ever for normal Quake :)  Check out the Gaming / Slide section for the latest fast times (look at the dates to see which ones were updated).

     YOY Arena
Hehe, this is something I threw together just for fun.  It's a map shaped like "YOY."  We got an awesome 5 on 5 game going, I had a blast :)  (I had to set up my old 33.6 modem - for some reason the 56k gives me 4 digit pings).  PearlSlam got a buncha cool action sshots.  You can check 'em out in the Gaming / Levels section.
 
     YOY!
Yump for yoy!  It's yoy!  Be wary of the dark side of the yoy, though.  Hey, look! geek isn't in Netscape's spell check dictionary (neither is yoy, for that matter... sheesh, such a small vocabulary).  Click here for more yoy.  Enjyoy :)
 
     Simon Game
I threw together a simon game for DOS (yeah, it was the quickest way to do it :) after being inspired by my friend's simon game (the real thing).  It's sadly amusing :)  I'm at 131 or something like that as far as score goes.  This might be good for the Stuff section :)  Just grab it in the Files section for now.

     Sony Robot
I found this rather interesting.  Sony has apparently made an entertainment robot that's shaped like a dog, AIBO, selling a couple thousand bucks (currently sold out).  It can bark, wag its tail, sing, dance, etc.  I want one :)

     Blah, Testing
Heh, I sat down to take my SAT this wonderful Sat. morning.  I should have been sleeping.  Not only is it a Saturday, but it's summer!  Ahh well.  The math part was really easy... not too sure about verbal.  I always hate that part -- "What would this author say about this other author's comment ..."  It's over at least.  Hopefully I did well.
 
     Doomish Q3A Textures
Ahh, yes... remember that game?  I kinda missed out on it, but I'm remaking a bunch of the doom textures from scratch in nice high-res true color TGA's.  They aren't exactly the same as the doom textures, but they're certainly very similar.  If you wanna get an idea of what they will look like, check out some pix here, here, and here.  Mmm... doomish textures sure look nice around those curved surfaces.  I can picture some pretty cool maps already :)  I'll get some texture packs out eventually... I think I've got a fair amount of time before Q3A comes out (final version)...

     Summer Vacation!
Yeah, yeah, this is kinda old news.  Vacation started... some time... dunno, a few days ago.  I'm into the wonderful world of "time doesn't matter" now. :)  Heh, I've been slacking off quite a bit -- not even doing news updates ;)
 
     Q3A Tutorial Update
After getting some input from people, I made a few updates to the HUD GFX tutorial.  The biggest change was a "Notes..." section that has some tips, etc. that might help.  It's in the Gaming / Quake 3 Arena section.

     New Q3A HUD Graphics
I put together a couple number sets for the Quake3 HUD.  You can get 'em in the Gaming / Graphics section (if you want a preview) or the Files section.
 
     Q3A Tutorials
I put together a couple tutorials today for people interested in hacking up (err, editing) Q3Test.  One tells you how to explore .PK3 files, and the other is a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to modify the 2D HUD graphics (numbers for ammo count, etc.).  They're in the Gaming / Quake 3 Arena section (as well as the Gaming / Tools 'n Tips section).

     AP Exams Done
*Whew*  A true sign that school is almost over.  I took my last of three AP exams today -- Physics.  I had hoped for a 5 on the other two exams, but I'll be happy if I just pass this one.  My physics teacher is... ugh, I won't go there.  To give you an idea: I'm the only person that passed the practice exam... with a low 3.  All I have left to do for the last couple of weeks is English -- nothing is better than that (heh, that has two meanings... I mean i'd rather be doing nothing :).

     More School Stuff
It was brought to my attention yesterday that I'm a Junior Marshall.  I'm in the top ten students in the Junior class.  This means I participate in the graduation ceremony -- and do what? *shrug* Beats me.  I guess I'll find out soon.
 
     Q3A Funname Maker
I finally finished my Q3A funname maker.  I figured some people would be wondering how to make them and since it's rather complicated to explain to the newbie, I just threw together a little JavaScript program to make it easy.  I'm not a JavaScript programmer, but hey, it gets the job done :)  I might add a name previewer later when I have time.  It's in the Gaming / Quake 3 Arena section.

     Academic Awards
Heh, it interrupted my almost-completed Q3A name maker, but I guess the award ceremony was worth it.  I got awards in 3/4 of my classes: English III, Computer Programming III, and AP Physics.  Not bad :)  Ryan (Wyvern) really raked in the $$$.  He got a few thousand bucks in scholarships.  I scanned in my awards and threw them up in the School section... just in case you cared ;)

     New Top Graphic
The top graphic was rather large, so I shrunk it down for all you poor low-reser's. ;)  I don't think it looks as good, but it takes up less space.

     Prom
Well, I went to prom Saturday night and... yeah, I did, really... you can, uhh, get up off the floor now :)  Anyway, I had fun.  I went with Rachael as friends.  The DJ kinda sucked (skipping CD's to rap music just isn't as cool as the record thing... not that that's cool, and I don't really like rap...  He didn't know how to fade between songs worth crap either) and the dance floor was way too small (I'm dangerous dancing, and I couldn't really do anything without hitting ppl), but I still had fun.  I'll have to put some pictures up once I get them (me... in a tux... heh).  There were a number of interesting outfits there: Ryan (aka Smoo), who is quite tall, had a top hat that made him look even taller; Mr. Rudolph wore a jumpsuit; Wito, the crazy chemistry teacher, had a leather jacket and silver pants; and someone even wore jeans and a T-shirt.  My favorite, however, was Doug with his tux top, spotted cow pants, and red and blue (one red and one blue) sneakers.
 
     Q3TESTED
Well, I was gonna wait 'till I went to a LAN party to test this out since my ISP SUCKS ^@%&@$%, but I went ahead and found a server.  I just went to the one that had the lowest ping in GameSpy, which of course, gave me a ping of 999 once I connected.  There were 20-some people playing and I had a blast.  Even though I was so lagged, I managed to do pretty well.  It was kinda funny how my frags would take a while to update.  Here's how I placed on my first full game on each map: Q3TEST1, Q3TEST2.  I got 3rd on both of them.  The client-side prediction is so nice. I wouldn't have a CHANCE in any other 3d shooter with that kind of ping.

     Q3TEST for Win32 is Out!
Just in case you didn't catch that new in 10 other places already :)  I must say, It's quite impressive.  The graphic quality is downright awesome on muh TNT :)  It runs really nice too.  I've only got a 233 k6, but it was quite playable.  It's faster than Half-Life and Unreal.  It's too bad my net connection sucks and I can rarely get a ping with less than 4 digits on any game.  I haven't tried Q3 online yet (maybe all the client-side stuff will make it playable! yeah.. right), but my friends and I will sure be playing it a lot this weekend at our lil lan party :)

     AP Exams... Joy
Heh, fun... I took my first AP exam today.  One down, two to go.  It was the Computer Science A exam.  I think I did pretty well on it considering I did almost nothing in my computer programming class (besides homework for other classes :).  I HOPE I did well, anyway.  I knew all the stuff, but some of the things got a little confusing.  In the last free response questions, you had to make functions for creating a quilt which was a matrix of matrices that alternated between flipped and right-side up.  In the end you had to make a function that would create one big matrix for the whole quilt.  It was a pain :)

    Webcam Installation
Well, I spent several hours last Saturday installing a webcam for someone.  It took forever to get rid of all the conflicts between the camera, zip drive, and printer. Jumpers suck.  I'm planning on getting myself a camera this summer and making things like claymations with it.
 
[Back to the Joint]