Family Dogs

Merry xmas and all. I’m too lazy to write much about it, so instead here’s pictures of our household pets. Terry is our West Highland White Terrier. He’s over 14 years old and is starting to lose his sight and hearing, but he can still be as cute and/or annoying as he’s always been. Flint is my brother’s Rhodesian Ridgeback. Young, big, tail like a whip – and excited/happy a lot. Did I mention that his tail is like a whip? Very cute, though – even though I don’t think I’ll be wearing those clothes he’s lounging on…

Not pictured: an old, disturbed budgie and the dead mouse my mom found in the box of xmas decorations earlier today

Impressions from Germany

Essen, Germany. Established ~800 around a Benedectine cloister, developed into a steel and coal mining town around 1830, destroyed 60-90% during the bombing of WW2. Today it’s being branded as a shopping town with its several miles of shops in the city center, attracting people from several neighboring countries.

GDC 2005 Lecture

My talk has been officially added to the GDC page! (Much) more later.

Page Redesign

Alright, version 2.0 of this design is online. It isn’t locked off vertically anymore and is (finally!) 100% 1024×768 compliant. I haven’t made a lot of changes on the outside, the gfx are essentially the same. But the entire underlying structure is new. Nothing fancy, it’s still trusty, hand-crafted HTML. But it’s set up in a way that’ll make automation through PHP a lot easier – if I ever do it. The articles section is still locked off, it will take some time to update them. If there’s one section that makes me consider going to a database ASAP it’s the articles

Most of the sections carried right over. The most notable change is that I split news posts and blog posts now. In the past I was always hesitant to put too many purely personal things on this page, because I also use it as a way to advertise new levels, articles etc. I didn’t want those news to get lost in the midst of unrelated stuff.
I added my backlog of olds news to the page, they now go back to 1999. I’d lost the original HTML files, but the evil ways of Archive.org made it possible to reconstruct everything but the pictures.

As for the look of the page, I’m still torn between doing a complete redesign and keeping the current one. I like the fact that my page doesn’t look like Just Another Blog(tm), but the dark look of the current page can be a bit too oppressive and overbearing at times. I’ll see, the new structure will make it easy to experiment with different graphics.

If anything but the Articles is broken please let me know!

Unreal 2 Screenshots

Here is a small gallery of my Unreal 2 level design work – nine shots are from the Atlantis level, one from an U2 XMP map, and two from the tutorial mission. Almost all 3D modelling work was done by me, textures were created by Dawid Michalczyk (Atlantis), the rest of the texture artists and me. The Desert XMP mission was created by Scott Dalton, using some leftover models I had created for a discarded Unreal 2 mission. The tutorial level was based on earlier work by Grayson Edge.

Atlantis Secrets

(And other neat stuff). This article reveals all Atlantis secrets from Unreal 2.

Available during all interludes:

• Secret Button #1: In the briefing room go to the right side of the holotank. There’s a hidden button on the right side of the table, between the table side and the wall. Press it to get a Seagoat holo.

• Secret Button #2: There’s a secret button in the the Armory, right next to the door. Crouch and look up at the table. If you push the button you get Isaak saying “Flashbang” and an EMP burst. This is an inside joke more than anything else, Isaak used to describe the concussion grenade as “It’s basically a flashbang[...]“, and we got a great deal of entertainment from using that word in every possible context. The line got changed, but the voice file stayed.

• Secret Button #3: Go past Ne’Ban’s cabin into the back hallway and jump into the open hatch in the corner of the hallway. If you look back towards head of the ship there’s a button, press it to get a few evil Lincoln and Grant heads laughing at you. In case you’re wondering, Grant Roberts is a co-worker and friend (and the voice of Ne’Ban!), I copied that picture of the Legend webpage one late night.

• Seagoat License Plate: You have to cheat for this. If you got behind Dalton’s locker in his cabin you can see a Seagoat license plate attached to the back of the locker.

• Seagoats: in all interludes starting with Obolus the Seagoat is hiding somewhere on the ship. If you find him he will run away twice, after that you can use him to get a dialog line from Dalton.

• Photographs: After each completed mission you get a new photograph of the planet that you just visited, it’ll be attached to the big screen in Dalton’s cabin.

• Artifacts: Whenever you find a piece of the artifact it will appear on the table in the back of Isaak’s armory.

Only available in specific interludes:

• PostM00 (after Avalon): to get the secret Lincoln briefing you have to talk to the hidden Seagoat before Aida gives her briefing. Go to the upper deck, past the player cabin and open the hatch opposite to Ne’Ban’s cabin door. Talk to the Seagoat inside and reply with “Spam”, “Spam”, “Spam”, “Humbug” (an homage to the Ultima 6 cheat). When Aida gives her briefing you’ll see Abe Lincoln doing the distress call instead of Danny Miller.

• PostM04 (before Obolus): When Ne’Ban does his briefing there’s 12 pictures that get displayed in rapid succession over the holotank. To see them clearly you can either cheat (“slomo 0.1″) or open the editor and check out the textures (they’re in MattT.utx).

• Unreal 2 Dance Party: To access the hidden U2 dance party you have to use the console or start U2 from command line. If you’re in-game: open the console, enable cheats and enter “open atlantis?missioncompleted=83″. From command line: start U2 with “unreal2.exe atlantis?missioncompleted=83″.

• Birthday Interlude: Do the same as above, but use “missioncompleted=110276″ instead (Feb 11 is my birthday ). You start in the player’s cabin and are treated to a bunch of Seagoat and Lincoln balloons. The interlude is empty otherwise.

Bonus Secret: Tutorial

• Nali Shooting Range: There’s a hidden shooting range in the tutorial level that let’s you mow down Nali. Here’s how you unlock it: in the obstacle course (where Raff tests your movement skills) there’s a fenced in area on the right side with a few boxes in it. If you stand on top of the mantling block you can jump over theose fences. Walk into the open box to find a secret Grant head, the game will announce that the secret shooting range has been unlocked. Proceed to weapons training and complete all tasks. At the end of the grenade launcher tutorial don’t go to Raff but walk over to the fourth shooting range on your left, which will now open.