Blade Edge

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Making Action Shots

December 29th, 2008 · Personal

This past Friday my friend Dizzle and I once again teamed up with our photographer friend Steve Sarafian from Fliptography to shoot some action shots with weapons. I brought along two swords, a katana and Ninja sword, as well as both my guns, a Walther P22 and P99. We shot the pictures at the gym where I work, since we needed to use mats for almost all of the shots, and having a spring floor to jump off of helped as well for some. We decided to get the hard stuff out of the way first, and that consisted of two different shots.

The Mirror Flip

After successfully executing my photo idea of standing on my head, my next thought was to try and capture me doing a flip over Dizzle when we both are in the same position. Originally I planned to do a backflip over him, but then I realized that doing a front flip would be easier and still yield the same results. Whether it was luck or skill, or a bit of both, it only took two tries for Steve to snap the perfect shot:

Awesome. Unfortunately Dizzle’s attempts didn’t go so well and we weren’t able to troubleshoot exactly why. After many attempts we finally decided to move on, although a few shots did come close.

The Matrix Spin

Everyone remembers that scene in The Matrix where Neo stands his ground against Agent Smith on the subway platform, and that they rush each other and fly through the air, grappling and shooting and spinning around. Well we managed to re-create this rather well after several attempts. The method we used was exactly the same as the trampoline trick another friend of mine taught me. It worked rather well, although there were a couple of rough landings – one time I kinda rotated over to my side and my neck popped so loud I don’t know why it’s not broken or something, hahaha. Another time I managed to spin over to my back instead of landing on my stomach. Not only did Dizzle and I have to meet at the center of the mats, but we also had to remember to keep our guns pointed at each other and some kind of mean, intense look on our faces.

We also tried to get a shot of us flying towards each other, but none of them really came out well. This was the closest we got:

Airtime Gunplay

The last couple of shots we did involed various ways you can fly through the air while shooting guns, that you see most often in movies. First we did the one where you fly forward and then tuck and roll. Well, the tuck and roll part works fine on film, but when you’re out for a still photo you want to give the photographer as much time as possible to snap the shot. So I ended up taking them all straight to my stomach 😛 That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be (yes, there was a mat there) and I can’t argue with the results:

Next we did a shot flying through the air sideways. This one was rough, because landing on our sides we were smacking our heads against the mat – both of us finished this shot with headaches. Again one of the main problems was making sure our facial expressions had some sort of angry or intense look while we were also concentrating on holding our bodies in the proper position while in flight and making sure our arms were low enough that they didn’t cast shadows on our face. Lighting is always a bitch.

Finally we did some shots of falling backwards, like you’ve been knocked off a high object or flung backwards through the air. I like this one a lot because it’s like “Oh no you don’t bitch!!”. Compared to the other two this was a peice of cake. You just jump up, straddle and stick out the guns, then land on your back on the mat. It took a few tries to get the lighting right, because now I had to worry about my legs casting shadows on my face, and I couldn’t lean too far back otherwise the guns would get lost in the shadows as well.

Secret… Agent Man

We had started at around 3pm and by now it was almost 5pm! So we had to wrap up soon, but I didn’t want to have brought the swords along for nothing so I quickly conceived an idea for a few portrait shots that let us put the swords in the pictures. A couple of poses, a couple of angles, and we were all done.

Touching Up

After I got the photos from Steve I went into Paint.Net and did some touch-up work. Mainly I wanted to get rid of all the bars and sometimes kids (Steve brought along a nephew and two neices) from the background. The only way to do that was darken the picture, but obviously I didn’t want us darkened as well. So I had to mask out myself and/or Dizzle from the photo so I could only adjust the background. This was time-consuming to say the least and on average took about 30-60 minutes per photo. However as you can see in the comparison below, the results are worth it.

Next Time

Dizzle, Steve and I will be returning to the gym again next month some time to shoot some more action shots, this time it’ll be just fighting moves – like mey getting side kicked in the stomach or me punching Dizzle in the face – all action and capturing the reaction of the other person. I guarentee you’ll be able to imagine me going “whoooff!” when you see me getting kicked in the stomach 😛

Click here for the full album of photos from this shoot and a previous one.

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Video Games Live – more than just a concert

December 27th, 2008 · Personal

I finally had the pleasure of attending a performance of Video Games Live where I was able to get to know more about the Elo rating system from P4rgaming, as the show was here in New Jersey putting on two shows today. Actually I’ve had the chance to attend VGL a few times in the past, during the Game Developers Conference out in California, but I never did. Yes, I am kicking myself now because the show was extremely entertaining and I would love to be comparing it right now to shows of years past, because like all shows it’s a constantly-evolving event. Still, I’m very pleased with my first experience, and here’s why.

It’s a show, not a concert

You think about concerts with orchestras and symphonys and you think black tie, formal events with just the musicians onstage performing various peices. I’ve been to several of those formal performances and while they are enjoyable to me as I’m a musician (yey Saxamaphone), I can’t imagine many gamers dressing up formal and sitting quietly while they listen to any type of music, game or no. Luckily the show creators, being gamers and game developers themselves, realized that and so VGL is more of a show that encompasses the performance of the live music. In fact Tommy made it a point onstage to tell everyone they could scream and shout and make as much noise as they wanted at anytime – which immediately loosens the atmosphere and draws people more into the performance happening onstage. The dynamic lighting on the stage is also something more akin to a rock concert than a classical performance, but it’s just another great technique to add to the experience and create a more exciting atmosphere. I admit a few times I shut my eyes so I could just listen to the music, but like I said I’m a bit more into that than an average gamer.

It keeps the “video” in video games

One of the reasons most people wouldn’t want to close their eyes is because of the huge projection screen behind the symphony and choir displaying relevant imagery to the music being played. It’s great because we’re not just listening to “game music”, we’re listening to “video game music”. It also provides proper context for those people who aren’t hardcore gamers and would be unable to otherwise place a song, but they may recognize the shots of the game it comes from. (It also saves the production the need for any kind of program. Genius.) Visit https://www.headphonage.com/best-headphones-for-video-editing/ to find thee bets headphones to enjoy your favorite games.

For those people who do recognize the song anyways, the video play has another effect – nostalgia. The show opened with a composition containing several tracks from classical games like Gauntlet, Centipede, Duck Hunt, Frogger, Tetris, etc – seeing those games and certain videos of them brought many a reaction from the audience, like the Duck Hunt dog (that annoying bastard). Even if it’s a more recent game, like the Legend of Zelda or Metal Gear, both are huge franchises of several games and not just recent ones which lets the audience experience the music as well as view past generations of the game. It’ll all bring back memories, trust me.

It’s inspirational

Not neccessarily to me, I just found it entertaining, but to the next generation of game muscians and even the current generation, it’s something to aspire to. It used to be you were happy if the people who played your slither.io game enjoyed your music, now with VGL constantly adding new segments to its program there’s a chance that everyone can enjoy your music, not just the people who played your game. Several video introductions to segments included composers like Koji Kondo and game creators like Hideo Kojima. I can’t imagine a game musician out there who wouldn’t want their work performed live onstage in front of an audience of thousands. For kids in the audience, no doubt many of them were imagining the same thing, that one day they could compose a game soundtrack that could then be peformed live onstage. And in the end the gamers reap the additional benefit of even better and more complex game music to enjoy while playing.

It’s accessible

You’d think you’d have to be a gamer, or someone who simply enjoys orchestrated music, or maybe a bit (or a lot) of both, to have a great time at VGL. Not so much. The dynamic aspects of the show – the lighting, the video, the various onstage events, the audience reaction/interaction – all make the experience entertaining for a wide range of people. The success of the show is no doubt a testament to this. Gamers aren’t just bringing themselves and their gaming buddies, I saw plenty of families walking around as well as older couples too. Again this is the effect of the performance being more of a show than any sort of formal event – yet it doesn’t take away from the musical element at all. I bet you plenty of people there never attended an orchestrated performance before in their lives.

It’s interactive

One of the main things about video games is their interactive nature like 20 questions game questions , so it’s only fair that a show based around video games share the same quality, games as CSGO are really interactive for the players and it even have different resources online to improve the game and experience. This ranges from the simple technique of lighting up the house so the audience can applaud themselves, to actually involving a person in the orchestra’s performance. That was cool. They invited an audience member onstage to play Space Invaders on the big screen, although these games may not be suited for little kids, so maybe looking for hand crafted wooden playhouse for sale can be a better option for toddlers and small kids. He wore a shirt with a bright green player ship on the back that served as a tracking marker, and the player shuffled left to right across the stage to move his ship, holding a simple button to fire off a shot, while the orchestra played the Space Invaders theme. He had six lives and 2 minutes to complete a level to win a prize and as the Invaders closed in the orchestra increase tempo accordingly. Show co-founder Tommy Tallarico told me they also do Frogger and Centipedeas well. Then they had the winner of the pre-show Guitar Hero contest (which I would have participated in had I remembered to check the pre-show stuff online. Grrrrrr) playing “Sweet Emotion” from Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (there’s a connection to that, which you can investigate upon here) up on stage while Tommy riffed alongside with his Steinberger Synapse bass, while someone next to me was wondering if it was a real guitar or not, hahaha. Part of the challenge was playing off the projection screen – the player didn’t have a monitor and when the lights played over him he would lose his multiplier. He still won though!

It’s just damn good

I have helped to produced live shows in the past (mainly stuntwork-related) and I know the effort involved and the quality that needs to be achieved. I can be extremely critical of performances (and in fact have been over the years for the Game Developers Choice Awards) and the VGL crew is top-notch, putting on a great show. Most people take for granted all the work that goes on backstage in order to run a smooth performance. I tend to stop by lighting booths at shows to say hi to the crew, I’ve done so for the Boston Pops and The Lion King on Broadway (the Pops crew even let me play with the controllable lights!) unfortunately I didn’t get a chance at this show through no one’s fault but my own. Anyways besides the overall production the sound was phenomenal, and in addition to the regular orchestra and choir they had several performances by Martin Leung on piano, who is famous for his blind-folded performance of the Super Mario Bros. theme. I don’t how often Martin will be touring with the show, but he was a treat to watch play.

Looking forward to next time!

VGL is due to swing by New York City in what looks to be mid-2009, so I hope to be able to attend as there doesn’t seem to be a GDC performace in the schedule this coming year. So in that case I’m doubly glad I caught this one.  If VGL happens to be swinging through your neighborhood, and there’s a good chance it will as the number of shows is up around 60 for 2009, I’d strongly recommend you check it out. You’ll have a good time and can bring along the family to share the experience. Speaking of games, please checkout and play geometry dash game.

Pictars

I made you suffer through enough text – onto the images, which were taken with my crummy little Sony Digicam that decided to stop working towards the end of Act I. I guess I should have bothered to pack along the much bulkier Rebel XT after all.


The opening cosplay contest, dominated by PacMan and Blue Ghost, here the  mic is next to PacMan as he has a speaker that plays PacMan music


Host and co-founder Tommy Tallarico onstage with conductor and co-founder Jack Wall


Another classic that opened the performace, Donkey Kong


the VGL performing the Metroid composition


In case you were wondering, he ended up dying and walked away with just the consolation prize


Tommy Tallarico is Solid Snake (well, in box form anyways)


Martin Leung performing. A dazzling pianist, as if you couldn’t expect that after hearing he plays blind-folded

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The Xmas Haul 2008

December 25th, 2008 · Personal

Another great Christmas has come and gone. It was a great time this year. My family has always had fun gathering together. I know of families that hate being in the same room with one another for extended periods of time but everyone in my family loves getting together and spending time with one another. So holidays are always a treat.

Every year we do the exact same thing: My immediate familt (parents, sisters) gather in the early AM (around 7-8ish) to open presents we got each other, then it’s off to my grandmother’s house 10 mins away for breakfast at 9. There we fill up on bacon and pancakes/waffles, bagels with locks or cream cheese, sausage, my uncle’s awesome soy sauce eggs (yum!), and way more. Stuffed to the max, we head over to my one Aunt’s house 5 mins down the road because she has her side of the family over for breakfast – so we eat again. Although it’s more like a nibble here or there, if at all. Then it’s home by 11 so we can get the house ready for the whole family (~20-25 people depending on whether my west coast and central US cousins come out) to come over to do the family-wide gift exchange. That usually runs 2 hours or so and then there are snacks to be had while everyone chit chats. Then some people like to nap off the food and drink so they’re ready for dinner at 5 over at another one of my Aunt’s houses roughly 15 mins away. Everyone usually starts saying goodnight around 9-10PM.

This year though we deviated from the norm just a tad because my one sister had to work overnight at the animal hospital so we did immediate family presents after dinner at my Aunt’s house.

I would also like to mention that it was nearly 50 degrees out and I was able to take my bike for a short ride over to visit a friend. Hells yea riding a bike on Christmas!! Climate change FTW 😀

Click on the image for a larger view and numbered items.

  1. Folding chair with canopy. I like those folding chairs you stick in a bag and carry around with you. Great for the beach, great for camping, great for just sitting anywheres. This one has a canopy that you can raise overtop to block the sun or the rain, as it’s waterproof. It also wraps around the chair when folded and has carry straps – way better than having to stick it in a bag!
  2. Cooler bag. I can see myself using this for beach trips. Yey.
  3. Mini tote. This held some gift items (you can see em in the first pic above). It’s a nice bag and it has my initial on it. Yea, it even threw some of my family for a loop who forgot what my real name is 🙂
  4. Oogie’s gourmet popcorn: Romano & Pesto. Supposedly this stuff is really good. Haven’t tried it yet though. Gourmet popcorn… okay
  5. Lay’s French Onion Dip. My mom likes to shake things up, like including my favorite dip as a stocking stuffer 😛
  6. Cornell tee. My youngest sister is graduating from Cornell this coming year
  7. CCI Calendar. My mother and sister are involved in the Canine Companions for Independence program, and one of the puppies we raised, Tiffany, is featured in the month of June. I needed a new calendar for 2009 also
  8. Strawberry candies. These are soooo yummy!
  9. Junior Mints. My mom asked me several days ago whether I like chocolates with mint. My reply was “yes” and hence this stocking stuffer was received
  10. Old Navy blanket roll. Another soft fuzzy blanket for use when playing PS3 downstairs during cold nights.
  11. Thermolite gloves. Nice warm winter gloves in case I have to (please no) shovel snow this season, or if I (please yes) go skiing at some point. Needed these too since I seem to have totally lost my winter motorcycle gloves, dammit
  12. Merona PJ pants. I’m wearing em right now and they’re nice and soft and warm. I also have another pair and my mom no doubt got me a second cause that one pair is all I would wear 😛
  13. Japanese lucky cat
  14. In car air freshner. My uncle says to put it under the seat, I never thought of that
  15. Eyeglass repair kit. My father got tired of me always asking him for a screwdriver so I could fix my glasses, haha
  16. Walmart gift card
  17. Five Guys gift card
  18. Nikki’s Hair Studio gift card
  19. Dick’s Sporting Goods gift card
  20. Best Buy gift card
  21. Sony Playstation Eye. Not only did I need the eye to snag my last trophy in Burnout: Paradise (and thus unlock my second Platinum trophy – w00t) but it’s just a cool toy on its own and you can turn it into a PC webcam too!
  22. Zelda Twilight Princess. I made a deal with my other sister almost a year ago that should could play Blu-rays on my PS3 so that I could in turn use her Wii to play Twilight Princess. But then I never got around to actually getting the game 😛 Problem solved.
  23. Lennox ornament. This is a family tradition dating back many years, everyone gets a Lennox ornament each year. Yea, our tree is practically covered in them now
  24. Socks. Just a pair of socks that came with the Walmart gift card – or I should say the Walmart gift card came in the pair of socks. It was part of one of those trade or keep games
  25. Nivea for Men. Some face washing/shaving stuff.
  26. Scotch tape. Every family each year gets a 3M box filled with all kinds of cool 3M products, all I needed from it this year was some scotch tape tho
  27. The Incredible Hulk DVD
  28. Kill Bill Vol. 2 Blu-Ray
  29. Kill Bill Vol. 1 Blu-Ray
  30. Iron Man DVD. I’ll be returning this so I can get the Blu-ray 2-disc version
  31. Star Wars: Dark Lord
  32. Risk II (PC). This is awesome, I’m loading it on my lappie and bringing it to PA next week. My friends and I always play the board game, but the computer could be faster and it also has additional gameplay modes.
  33. Guitar Hero mini game. My mom couldn’t resist 😛 It’s pretty lame of course hahaha
  34. Shout stain cleaners. Could prob use those on my desk right now…
  35. Planet Earth Blu-ray collection. This is such an awesome series.

That’s the haul so far! I also got some cash as well as candy and chocolates from some of the kids I coach. I do have to exchange some gifts with a few more friends so the getting isn’t fully over yet 🙂

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Season’s Greetings 2008

December 24th, 2008 · Personal

I got a couple holiday cards this year, both digital and post, and I figured I might as well post them up for rememberance-sake. Also so I can say Thank You back to those who sent them along. I’m not real big into cards myself but I always appreciate getting some. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!

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Burn Baby Burn!

December 21st, 2008 · Personal

So I was running workout at the gym this afternoon when we lost power for about 10-15 seconds. I didn’t think much of it until it was time to close up a little bit later and one of the parents, who told me about BestForTheKids the other day, mentioned all the smoke coming from across the street outside. So I of course hopped in the car after locking up the gym and drove out the lot in the direction of the smoke, which you can see here:

There’s actually a fairly large power substation over in that direction and I noticed as I was leaving the gym that power was still going off and on, and I was hearing a loud popping sound every now and then from the direction of the fire. I couldn’t access the road the fire was on, obviously, as emergency workers were already out and directing traffic past:

Luckily there is a baseball park right behind the area and the road to that hadn’t been blocked off, so I drove down and parked next to the fields. Across the street and a small lake was the substation – which wasn’t on fire. I turned around and saw the smoke coming from an Allied Movers semi truck which was parked at a Spirits Liquor store – those of you local will know the one, next to the Nissan dealership. This was the same truck I had passed almost 3 hours before coming home from shopping before heading back that way to run open workout at the gym. So it may have been struck by a discharge of the power lines it was sitting under? Arson? No reports have been given yet from the local newspaper as to the cause of the fire, and I didn’t stick around too long because it was freeeeezing out and my whole body was going numb. Plus I was late already getting to the movie theater to meet up with some friends.

Still, I was standing around for a good 15 minutes or so about 40 yards away from the truck behind the fence surrounding the baseball field, along with a few dozen other curious onlookers. The fire dept had about 4 engines at the scene, but they were all back at least 20 yards from the truck and just letting it burn out. I guess the loud popping noises I heard were the tires exploding. I took some more pics with my camera phone but apparently when you zoom in – it just makes the resulting image smaller. Well, I’ll have to remember that nonsense for next time.


Yea, wish I’d had a real camera on me. Totally sucks for those cars parked close to the rig 😛 Also you’ll notice there are trees right next to the rig, but the wind was fortunately blowing the fire in the entirely opposite direction. So while they no doubt got singed, none caught on fire – at least while I was there.

I’ll update this post if I ever find out what happened.

In other news…

Warning: potty mouth activated.

I was out shopping this morning (as in like, getting up at 7:30am *GASP*) and hitting up Freehold Mall when, upon sitting at a light while driving around to find a parking spot close to the doors so I wouldn’t have to walk far in the cold rain, a cop car passes me, pulls a U-ey and pulls up in the lane next to me… but only as far as my rear bumper. Fucking crap. I know from experience what that shit means. Sure enough the light turns green and as soon as I move he pulls in front of the guy behind me and lights me up. My offense? Tinted front windows.

I won’t get into the full details of tinted windows here in NJ because I honestly have no fucking clue what the law really is – every time I get pulled over for it I get a different result. This time however it was really bad. Apparently I now have been served a summons with a mandatory court appearance to prove that the tint has been removed. The cop mentioned this as “in Freehold Township”, so does that mean each township has their own statutes in regards to tinted windows? Like I said – no fucking clue.

However I will learn the full truth when I go to court on the 14th of next month, because I want this shit straightened out for good. It might mean though that I’ll have to just leave my front windows with no tint, which makes me sad 🙁 Full report coming then.

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Getting all festive for the holidays

December 19th, 2008 · Personal

It’s not something that a lot of people are into… yet – but while I loathe having to go outside and hang up lights for Christmas, or setting up and trimming the tree, I get much joy from decorating my various online profiles in tune with the holidays. I don’t recall exactly where this whole fad stems from for me – if it’s from me seeing someone else doing it I can’t remember who. Best I can figure it’s GameDev.net’s Christmas theme below that introduced me to the idea of decorating online websites.

In addition, Game Institute also is one of those sites that uses some Javascript to make “snow” fall down across the screen – although it’s hard to see because the majority of the site is white 😛 Still, they have the holly out and by chance the site is already very green, as that’s the color of the GI logo.

So far I’ve only modified my profiles for Halloween and Christmas. I do so mainly by updating my photos/avatars across the many sites (see the Social Homes sidebar) I have a profile at. Here are my images in the order of Normal, Christmas and Halloween:


Unlike all the other sites, Twitter lets me easily customize the look of my page, so I’ve put that to good use and created custom themes for each occasion as well:

I plan to capture a decent New Years picture that I can throw up for that time as well. I have some from last year but the auto-focus must have been off on my camera because they’re all just a bit blurry and grainy when you zoom in to crop just my face.

Anyone else partake in the online decorating? Share in the comments!

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Playstation Home – my experience so far

December 18th, 2008 · Gaming

Home? What?

So Playstation Home has officially been out for a week now. It’s basically an over-hyped Second Life for the PS3 console, and when I say over-hyped, I mean over-hyped. This thing has been in development for years and everytime someone asks Sony what it’s all about they say “the next big thing” or a “console seller”. It’s no big surprise then that when it finally launches people as a whole are completely underwhelmed. There are a staggering amount of news stories and blog posts out there (like this one) saying how much Home absolutely sucks. However, I haven’t said that yet myself. I too am underwhelmed like pretty much everyone else – Sony’s open beta launch last week was pretty much just a server stress test, something that should come as no surprise for a platform with around 15 million active users around the world but was nonetheless dissapointing because once you logged in (if you were able to log in) you basically ran around trying to find something to do (everything was always too busy) and not get raped.

The negative press has made things a bit better actually, because now a lot fewer people are logging in, the majority coming and going for good. I’m able to hop on some of the arcade cabinets (which for some reason only allow one player at a time to partake in) and I was pleasantly surprised with what I found. A lot of people have been bashing the arcade machines but I thought the Echochrome game was a nice twist on the original gameplay. Tonight I got to try Ice Breakers (a Breakout clone) for the first time and found myself laughing hysterically when I knocked a block out from under the snowball-throwing Eskimo and he fell screaming to his death. I played all the way up to level 11 before finally losing, and along the way unlocked several clothing items from the game. The problem though is that while Home tells you that you unclocked an item, it doesn’t tell you what that item is. So it took me some searching to realize I had gotten some new threads.

People were being a lot more sociable as well. I steered clear of any groups because I had forgotten to bring my keyboard downstairs with me (and voice chat has been disabled for the time being) but there were plenty of small gatherings where people were talking amicably about all manner of things. No one appeared to be acting like a douche although I’m sure those guys are still around here and there.

I checked out the Mall stores again and was pleased to find a bunch of new items available for purchase. Hopefully they continue to roll out features and items at this rate to keep things fresh and interesting. I admit I was suckered into buying a Santa hat for $.49 – it’s Xmas time I need my Santa hat 😛 However I could only add a minimum of $5 to my wallet (tricksy Sony) so I ended up making a few more microtransactions for items to spruce up my living space – a Samurai sword set, a grill and a Xmas tree. The sneaky thing about microtransactions is that it’s easy to spend a lot of money over a long period of time without really realizing it, since at any one time you’re only throwing out a buck or three.

The Potential

Over at the forums on GameDev.net I started a thread in the Lounge on Home. You can check it out for further insights. My latest reply there though I’d like to repost here because it highlighted what I think Home could become, based on reports I’ve heard over the years about the service:

  1. You login to home
  2. You walk around a bit, maybe check out the shops cause you heard there were new things to buy with points you earned from getting trophies, or you check out new items you unlocked by earning trophies
  3. You run into someone sitting around saying he’s looking for some co-op Guitar Hero
  4. You’re like, yea sure let’s go
  5. You both launch from Home into the game and meet up to jam
  6. He’s gotta go, so you quit Guitar Hero and land back in home
  7. You check your friends list and see that now a few are online
  8. You call em up and see who wants to play
  9. You launch into the game as a group and start playing together
  10. You finish and wind up back in Home. Oh look! You unlocked a new game picture because you nabbed a certain trophy. Well let’s head back to the apartment and hang it up on the wall in a frame
  11. You’re placing the image on the wall when another friend calls to hang out, so you invite him into your place and you watch a video together on the TV (from your PS3)

And so on and so forth. I think that scenario above is pretty damn cool, and if Sony can (eventually) pull it off with Home then perhaps people will admit that they were right all along.

The Key

There is one thing I can say about this open beta, and that is that besides the few connection problems I experienced on launch day, I haven’t experience a single serious technical glitch anytime I was logged in and mucking about. That’s pretty good in my opinion. There is one building out in the Central Plaza that reports a download error when you try to enter it, and sometimes you can get stuck in the doorway, but you can always bring up the world map and teleport someplace else to free yourself. While Home is lacking in content and functionality, it’s certainly pretty damn solid from a technical standpoint. Hopefully that means Sony is quickly just switching things on as the days progress. Speaking of home, if you need reputable local plumber checkout the link for more information.

Image Gallery

Here are a few shots of my place and me in Home.


Home still needs to work on the facial hair, although this is way better than they had before. Still waiting on the full goatee though


The view outside my window into the harbour. Maybe I could own that yacht one day? That would be sweet


Looking inside my harbour studio. They have an even bigger space for $5 but I’m more the tight and cozy type. This’ll do for now


My Samurai sword set, looks just like the one adorning my computer desk IRL 🙂


My tree stands proudly in the corner. Look I have gifts!!! (ok not really… but maybe someday?)


My grill out on the balcony

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A GameDev.net Collection

December 17th, 2008 · GameDev.net, Personal

For the past year I’ve been fortunate to be involved with the folks from Cengage Learning in working on a book series that has collected dozens of GameDev.net articles into 4 books for mass-market publishing. We at GDNet have know the Cengage folks for several years already, but this was my first chance to work with them on a project like this. It’s certainly been one hell of a ride, and it’s not quite finished yet! The last book won’t be on shelves until February, barring any delays, so we still have a little ways to go. Still, the first title, Business and Production: A GameDev.net Collection, is due for immenent release early next month, which means I get to show off this snazzy cover image you see below.

I’ve already blasted this out to my social feeds, GDNet Journal and GarageGames .plan of course. I figure might as well do it here too seeing as I haven’t updated this thing in a while, although I have been copying over lots of previous GDNet Journal entries – I just recently finished copying all of 2006.

When all is said and done I will write up a full report of my experience making this collection, so stay tuned for that!

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Adventures in Freeburn Online

November 11th, 2008 · Gaming

So I’ve been hooked lately on Burnout: Paradise’s online game mode Freeburn, and the Challenges that they have for you to accomplish. With 1-7 other players you have to complete a task either individually (like each getting 500 yards of drift) or as a team (like jumping over each other using ramps). Individual challenges usually don’t pose much of a problem, but co-op ones sometimes do. That problem is communication.

I have a bluetooth headset that I use now to communicate to other players, but the vast majority of players don’t have VoIP and many of those also don’t understand or speak English. So the real challenge of the Challenges is getting people to understand how to do things correctly. Here are three case studies:

Case 1: Location

In this one Challenge, we all had to drive through a certain tunnel in the world, which was marked on the map. problem was that it was off the road, and the access point wasn’t obvious so a few new players didn’t know where to go. I wasn’t using my headset at the time so I started to do donuts at the entrance to the dirt road leading to the tunnel. This made my icon on the map spin around in place and after only a minute or so the other players noticed and converged on my location, where they found the dirt access road. Challenge complete!

Case 2: Technique

Another Challenge involved doing barrell rolls off a ramp. Barrell rolls are tough to get the hang of, and many people don’t do a lot of them during the normal game mode. So it’s a type of Challenge I always dread activating in a lobby full of players I don’t know, because I’m afraid some will quit out of frustration and end the Challenge and/or it will take like 15 minutes to complete. Still, I have to try. During one Challenge involving barrell rolls I noticed one player was constantly going off the wrong side of the split ramp and crashing every time. Again, I didn’t have my headset connected so what I tried instead was parking my car next to the ramp so on his next attempt the guy had to swerve onto the ramp on the proper side to avoid hitting me. It actually worked on the first try and he landed his barrell roll. Challenge complete!

Case 3: Assholes

It’s an online game, of course there are going to be douche players that you run into every now and again. This actually happened today when I logged on for a short play session. One guy kept coming into the game and just crashing into other people’s cars, which is a Takedown maneuver. It would have been okay except for the fact that he was largly ignoring us trying to complete Challenges and was just crashing into people. So I kicked him. Twice. He came back a third time and I forgot to kick him before activating the next Challenge. Rather than cancel and kick him and re-start though, I decided (foolishly) to give him one more shot. So we’re all doing our requisite 6 jumps at this particular location, except for this guy and one other person. I check the map although they seem to be meandering down towards us, they’re constantly crashing into each other along the way. Now, I don’t want to cancel the Challenge because everyone else is almost finished, so it’s time to get creative. He likes crashing? Fine. Take this!! After ramming into him to get his attention, I then lead him on a merry chase… which just happens to lead him over the required jumps. I had to do this a few times to get the 6 jumps, and he caught on after the third attempt, but everyone was mixing it up around there (maybe they all caught on to my strategy?) so eventually he found himself jumping after people another two times. Challenge complete! I should note that this time I did have a headset connected, but figured screaming “you fucking douche stop being an ass and help before I kick you again you prick!” wouldn’t give me the results I wanted.

Nowadays I’ve got the headset hooked up all the time, which makes things way easier for Challenges that require co-op and timing, like where you have to jump past each other in mid-air (“1, 2, 3, GO!”). Still, I like the fact that there’s more to Challenges than just obtaining a certain objective, but also figuring out how to work as a team with random people.

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Back to the Track – with video!

October 18th, 2008 · Personal

For the third time I paid a visit to Raceway Park, which is only about 30 minutes north of me. $24 and you get at least three timed runs down the 1/4 drag strip that they have (along with pretty much every other type of race course). The last time I was there they actually let us go 4 times, which was great, but last nite I only was able to get in three runs because since I now coach on Fridays (the first two times I went during summer) I can’t get there until 6:30 and the track opens at 5. My friend Dizzle came along with me as a spectator and was able to sit in the stands and record me on video. Up until now all I’ve had was pictures.

Now remember that although there are two cars gated at the same time, we’re not actually racing each other. It’s all about personal bests, unless you’re in a grudge match with someone or participating in the betted time trials – then they pair you up. Even still, the timer does not start until you start moving, so I’m never aiming to hit the green light and always looking to get a smooth roll-out instead.

That being said, it’s hard to not want to try to beat out the car next to you, if at all possible 😛 That Honda Civic hatchback during run #1 was no joke, all kitted out for drag racing. I think it beat me by almost a half second – I don’t know because for that run I only got my half of the timeslip. However the next two runs although I start out slower, I actually managed to catch them both at the end of the 1/4 mile and the VTECH Honda Civic from run #2 I beat by 0.861s and the Maxima in run #3 I edged out by 0.092s.

Overall it was a good night – I was able to keep my times consistent, between 14.3 and 14.5 seconds, and I very nearly bested myself with a 14.318 on my first run – my best time so far is 14.317 😛 So close!! However I did set a new top speed for myself at 99.35 on my final run. My goals are to 1) get under 14 seconds and 2) cross the 1/4 going 100mph or faster. So, closer to the second than the first but I just need to find a nice empty parking lot or something to practice my launches and get my 60′ time down. After that it’s working on my shift points to keep me in my power band. Right now I pretty much just go to redline every time 😛

It was also in the low 50’s all night, and I was hoping that that would make more if a difference by lending me some more horsepower thanks to the colder air. I think it did for some things when I did them correctly, but I still need to work on the basic techniques I mentioned above I think to get an overall effect. Also, I need to practice spinning my tires, because keeping them warm for traction at the start is important. Tho, the track stays pretty warm from people launching almost constantly, and they close it down sometimes for a few minutes to lay down more tar.

Anyways, hoping to make it back one more time before the track closes next month. Below are my time slip data for those wanting the nitty and the gritty. All you trackfolk, speak up in the comments!

Run 1

Temp: 54F
R/T: .622
60′: 2.262
330: 6.156
1/8: 9.333 @ 78.81mph
1000: 12.038
1/4: 14.318 @ 98.31mph

Run 2

Temp: 53F
R/T: .924
60′: 2.320
330: 6.217
1/8: 9.414 @ 78.46mph
1000: 12.154
1/4: 14.439 @ 98.19mph

Run 3

Temp: 51F
R/T: .691
60′: 2.246
330: 9.343
1/8: 9.343 @ 78.42mph
1000: 12.053
1/4: 14.333 @ 99.35mph

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