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Amanda Tapping Sketch

Apparently.. Arrrggg! Sketching is tough.. Btw she's insanely cute in SG-1 X_x


DAZ3D Hexagon is Free!

Indies.. I just came to know that Hexagon from Daz3D is free!
It may not be as powerful as Blender but it's definitely more productive.

I've tried a lot of free tools recently, including Wings. All of them suffer the same as Blender - very unfriendly, bad key combinations, pathetic mouse and viewport controls (ok so blender has emulation mode but still).

This is definitely THE alternative to Blender in my opinion.
Update: There is not alternative to Blender. Check out Sculptris though.

However, it doesn't export as FBX (you have 3ds and obj) and the tools don't seem to be as advanced as Blender (at least so far)

Anything that can get me going in under 3 mins to do a simple model for the 1st time is fucking awesome.





Bigger fan than me!

This guy is a bigger fan of Carmack than me!

Check out this link

Respect _/\_

Meanwhile I'm busy with this

I didn't know!

High-end credit cards have java run time environment!!!??


Trying out UDK this week




















The development environment is simply superb. It's almost like a full fledged 3D program!
Except for a few editor annoyances, this baby will not hold you back when it comes to designing levels.


Most Awesome Dream

I had the most awesome dream yesterday.

I'm in a passage.. a big one. It's sometime in the future.. way in to the future.
There are a few people in there.. strangers.. then there's also my dad.

He's wearing some sort of a sci-fi suit which I gave him (I don't know about me, it's always like FPS).
So I tell him lets start the simulation and we both start running around, jumping around, picking up weapons etc, shooting, etc

The ambiance is pretty nice. Super cool light beams, bloom effects and nice shadows and all those HDR type of scenes.

So after a while, I ask my dad, "So how was it?", to which he replies "Reminds me of the old days."
Then I go over to a corner and toggle a switch.

Guess what happens?

The shadows get turned off!

Then I tell to my dad, "The whole software to put the shadows for humans in the real world was developed by me."

A future where there are no more shadows and I simulate shadow for the world. O_o

Love Thy Gravity - Mini game

Challenged myself to make a small game in under 40 hours.

Came up with Love Thy Gravity in 30 hrs (non-continuous obviously)

You can play here - http://www.kongregate.com/games/MakubexFox/love-thy-gravity/















Let me know if 30 hours was too much or well used O_o

Lesson learned: Level Design is really-amazingly-brain-fuckingly hard. Number of levels dropped from 20 to 12 X_x

VALVE rules \m/

Working with John was like the sequence in “The Matrix” where Neo has one martial art after another pumped into his brain.

Extremely awesome blog post

Flash 10 to 11 Issue

Well I got my pinball game to work in Flash player 11. \m/

The issue was I had set "mask" property on the root graphic.. well this wasn't an issue in 10.1

Fix is to -
1. Create a child
2. Make the child draw the mask-graphic
3. Set this child element as mask

Btw, Flash Develop 4 looks uber cool O_o

Tags: Flash Player 11, Bitmap, Mask, Redraw, Region, Bug, Issue

The XKCD Chick

FFighter

Free 3D model of a Fighter Plane, me calls it FFighter... and dedicated to Firefox.















Download

Creative Commons License

License file included in the ZIP, free for commercial use :)

NTFS: Stop being obsessed with FF logo

Infinite Fear

"You know there’s nothing to fear but fear itself. Yeah, that’s called recursion, and that would lead to infinite fear, so thank you" - Ze Frank

Paper Plane 3D Model

Free 3D Model of a Paper Plane.
License file included in the ZIP, free for commercial use :)

Creative Commons License

All good things come to an end

End of line.

2012 was supposed to be the year when I broke in to the industry. Didn't happen.
I worked pretty fucking hard, but I guess it wasn't enough.
Lame end to a memorable journey.

I'm gonna dissect the journey in case some one like me ends up here and is in a dilemma.

Here's a quote from my 1st post -
Cons

I may end up failing - DONE
It feels miserable, no longer feel like Awesome-O. Haven't socialized in 2 or 3 years. It's tough for an introvert to start making new friends again... I hate humans anyway.

I may not get the same pay for another 5 years even if I end up being a web-developer. - Nope
Well, I should have listened to the free advice out there - don't quit your day job. Life turned upside down within 3 months. By the 4th month I started looking out for a job, found one in 6. I ended up working as a fresh graduate. If you are in such a situation then find a job that will help you in the future - I joined because of C++ / C# / Windows developer. To be honest, I learnt a lot, enjoyed the company of a few awesome coders.

Good thing I took the day job as a backup. I actually am getting (a lot more) more than what I expected.

But i have this gap of 6 months that I can't show any experience and to my bad luck, it falls in the "recession" time. HRs usually think I got fired.. more lameness...
Get ready to watch your friends / college room-mates earn like shit and get promoted while you still are 1 year lamer (if you are primarily in the midst of out-sourced no-talent people, then you will NOT get promoted because of performance - keep this in mind - only experience in years count)

I may end up losing everyone I love. [I'll still have myself though] - DONE
Yeah, I still love me O_o
I lost everyone else though, conceptually speaking.

Actually if I look back, I thought the toughest challenge in the worst-case would be to find a job. Totally wrong, turned out to be easiest. Toughest is realization of what you lost, what you trusted, what fooled you for so many years, whats gonna stick with you for the rest of your life..

Hard part for me was getting my life back together... Be warned - you'll lose a lot of people you love. But on the plus side, you just end up unit-testing people and fixing bugs in life.. so I'm kinda really glad it happened.  Trust me on this.

I may have to start all over again as a fresher - DONE
I did. But remember again - Don't fucking quit your day job. Find one that doesn't stress you out too much, has good work-culture and doesn't require too much commute time.

Pros


I may end up following my dream - Bah
You may end up watching your dream crumble and feel helpless... x_x
But sure feels good... \m/


So what am I going to do?
Well, I'll be just another software geek. But -
I'll still follow the industry.
I'll still be using Unity.
I'll probably watch the demise of XNA in the coming few years (sad, I know).
I'll still dream
I still hope that someday I'll make it - say 10 years from now? (O'Henry cliche)

To all my loyal 4 followers and a few more others - Adios. I wish you succeed in your pursuit of happiness.

This blog will contain mainly right-side-of-the-brain-related stuff from now on. Doesn't mean I'll stop coding... c'mon... I'll still post some stuffs for the kicks.

At this point, I would like to sincerely thank -
XNA Creator's Club - It started here. I learnt "real" programming here.

Unity 3D - Most non-evil corporate entity I've ever seen (please remain like this)

Team behind X-Files, Fringe, Battlestar Galactica - Few things that have made me dream even more.

Right, now to see if there are indie / free licenses for artistic programs out there...  I get bored you know.

NTFS: Lengthiest blog post x_x

Teleport Rush - On Kongregate

My 1st Game on Kongregate!


Well, I've kinda reached coder's block. Teleport Rush didn't seem to be progressing a lot these days, so I decided to see the reception on Kongregate.


You can check it out here.


Screenshots






It's frakking tiring to come home after 9 hrs of work and 3 hrs of travel and do some game dev... sucks... wish there was someone to design tracks & environment, and I could just code... Also wish that someone was a cute chick X_x

Romero to Mechner

You gotta read this letter.


John Romero,
Disciple of the Great Jordan
and worshiper of the Magnificent Mechner!

Now that's how you sign off a letter!

Full post here.

Teleport Rush - WIP

Something I've been developing in my free time. It mutated from Desolate Racers..
















I was trying this out when Unity announced their Flash contest. So I submitted a proto for the contest. Flash export is still in Beta, but it's pretty good.

Here's link to Flash screenshots
Link to playable flash version (no sounds, lights and I couldn't put any cool shaders)

I'm actually amazed at the complexity of Unity to Flash publishing - it converts all C# code (.NET / Mono framework) to Actionscript 3. What's more frakking mazin? Unity engine itself occupied under 2.5MB for all this!! (all this means - rendering, physics, collision, particle-systems, audio and more)