The Evil Pit Light

I just don’t get it. Everybody agrees that Kurt Busch got shafted by the pit light abruptly changing to red on Sunday. Not everybody might agree on whether he should have been given some leeway in the ruling or not, but what’s this discussion about how to fix the problem? “You shouldn’t be penalized when you’re committed to pitting! But wait, how do we decide when you’re committed?” – Put a second light further away from the pit entrance! That might work!” – “Etc. pp.

Am I missing something here? Just add a fricking yellow light phase and don’t abruptly go from green to red. Problem solved! Apparently the idea is so successful that they’ll start using it on all the major highways in the country soon. You know, so that you don’t run down 37 at 65mph and get shafted by the traffic light jumping to red when you’re ten feet away. “I’m sorry officer, but what was I supposed to do at that point? You gave me no warning!” I dunno, maybe I’m missing something…

Now Playing: Titan Quest

I don’t play that many games anymore, so when a game hooks me for more than a few hours that’s a major accomplishment. By that token, Titan Quest has already done an incredible job. But I was predestined to play this game ever since it was announced. I have an affinity for Greek myths and anthropology. Combine that with a solid Diablo-type experience and I’m there the day the game goes on sale. Never mind that it took me almost three weeks just to get through the Greek part of the quest. That’s a different story. My actual problem is that now that I’m done with the Greek quest I don’t have any motivation to go back and finish the game even though I really want to want to. The experience curve in Titan Quest is well paced. It looks great. It’s easy to play. But unfortunately the game just kinda flattens out after a few hours. You just stand there clicking away without ever having to dodge anything (the first Telkin battle is a joke compared to the Diablo II bossfights), losing your companions (who do most of the work for you) isn’t penalized at all, and the economy is so out of whack that reaping in all the gold you find doesn’t add to the feeling of accomplishment. I never finish listening to the conversations because they’re non-quintessential to what I’m doing anyway. There’s only one way to follow and I’m following it because that’s where I get more experience, not out of motivation to further the story. But anyway, it’s hard to make great games and it’s easy to criticize them after they’re done (I should know). The point is this: I’m done playing about a third of Titan Quest, a game I really like – and what’s it’s really made me want to do is play Icewind Dale again.

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Siggraph…

My Siggraph 2006 experience, in glorious 3D 2D boring text. Siggraph was kinda fun, but damn stressful.

Monday: 10 hour workday. Dinner with Victoria on the way to the airport. 11pm departure on the redeye to Boston.

Tuesday: Arrive at 7am local time on almost no sleep. Check into hotel, shamble to the showfloor to hook up with the Softimage people and to take a quick peek at the showfloor. Back to the hotel for A/V setup for the user group. Back to (nice!) hotel room for updates to the Powerpoint and a quick 1-hour nap. 3 hours of user group preparation and the actual show. The Softimage|3D demo was particularly fun, and the future technology preview was cool. My talk went okay, but I could have used some sleep beforehand. Softimage party afterwards and drinking. I certainly had fun there, minus the completely drunk guy who tried to punch Javier as we went back to the hotel for a while. Went to bed at 3am with way too much alcohol in my bloodstream.

Wednesday: Get up only three hours later. Still hung over, of course. Arrive at the airport to find that the nonstop flight back to SFO got cancelled and I’m rebooked on a route with layover in Denver. 45 minutes additional wait for the flight to Denver. Sleep on the plane next to a hyperactive little girl. 2 hour wait in Denver. Finally arrive at SFO at 3:15. Rush hour has started, Airporter and subsequent drive home take another 2 hours. Finally get to our house at 5:30 – only 4 hours late. Thank you United, there’s a reason I don’t fly you anymore unless I absolutely can’t help it (but that’s a story for another time – the amazing E3 2005 experience).

So yeah, my Siggraph 2006 experience certainly could have been less stressful. The Softimage people around Jennifer Goldfinch made up for it, but if there is a next time I’ll do it in such a way that I get to have more sleep inbetween everything.

Sonoma Heat Wave

It’s over 100 degrees in Sonoma…and our AC unit is broken. Fun

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

God bless YouTube. Sure, they are still trying to figure out how to convert their popularity into profitablity without scaring away their user base, but they bring us easily accessible gems like this Leonard Nimoy obscurity. We had it on the Legend network a few years ago and were scratching our heads, now I can finally watch it again!

What The Hell?

Hillendrand for Arcado? You’ve got to be kidding me! Way to shaft a player that the club slowly and steadily developed and who was starting to get real results. Well, Victoria and I are going to the game tonight…not sure I wanna go now ;(

dotXSI4Maya Plugins

These files are (hopefully) outdated with the release of Crosswalk, but there had been a lot of people asking for compiled versions of the Maya .xsi plugins every other week, since Softimage could only offer the source code and that code was a bitch to compile and link. Hopefully these two compiled plugins will make your life a bit easier!

Download dotXSI4Maya for Maya 6.0.
Download dotXSI4Maya for Maya 7.0.

Siggraph 2006

August 1-3, 2006 – Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

At SIGGRAPH 2006, Softimage will be showcasing the tools and technologies that empower artists to create the world’s most compelling 3D character performances.
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And don’t forget to register for our user event, taking place on August 1st at the Seaport Hotel, which will include a look back at Softimage’s twenty-year history of 3D innovation, presentations by Marc Stevens from Softimage and Matthias Worch from Factor 5, a sneak-peek at upcoming technologies, and a few exciting surprises. Registration opens July 10th.

I suggest you register, last year’s event was full! I might post more details as they become available – if Softimage only do half of the stuff I’ve heard the whole event will be very cool!

Siggraph 2006

Getting serious now finishing my Siggraph stuff. I’ll be in Boston all of Tuesday (Aug 1st), doing the user group (and assorted Softimage parties) in the evening. I don’t know yet exactly what material I will show at the user group, but you should expect everything that was shown at this March’s GDC session – and maybe some extra stuff as well. Looking forward to it! It will be a hectic schedule, but fun nonetheless.

Montoya And NASCAR

Well, this will be interesting. I grew up on Formula 1, and I grew tired of Formula 1 before Montoya even entered the circus. It just became so painfully obvious that in F1, races are never decided on the track – they’re decided in qualifying and on the pits. Nothing against a little pit strategy, but it’s almost like there’s “No Passing!” signs posted along the entire track. Oh, and as soon as two cars touch they fall apart and the drivers are out. Not all that much fun to watch, no?

So to see Montoya get into fulltime stock car racing (and NASCAR in particular) should be fun. Passing aplenty, bumping aplenty. Not enough road courses for my liking, but it sure will be interesting to see how that goes. In the meantime, I will watch the World Cup Final