Category: Video Games

Weekend Update

Posted on by Chewbode

Last night Millard came over and we all hung out, as is our usual Friday night. We ate a bunch of chips and beef jerky and ate some chicken salads. I picked up a low-end PC for him and we put Windows on it and installed all the patches and so on. I also had a chance to show him all the new studio gear I’ve gotten recently.

Today I played D&D Online for a while and got killed several times. I’m gonna go eat some more jerky and chips and watch some hockey for a few hours. Tomorrow I’ll be more productive, and will begin (finally) cataloging all the Will and Dana footage we shot a couple weeks ago.

Sick Thought of the Day: Backpack midget masturbator.

Elves, Screens, and a Spyder

Posted on by Chewbode

Yesterday I hooked up the new broadcast monitor, digital to analog converter, and camera. I got an ultra-accurate picture on the monitor and decided that the cabling I have was good, but not good enough. I ordered a really rare, 1990’s industry cable to hook the converter up to the monitor. Other than the fact the picture could have been crisper, the monitor was dead-on for color and chroma/hue.

Tonight I calibrated both of my LCD monitors on my main editing workstation with my new Spyder2. I’ll calibrate the monitor on the servers and Shauna’s LCD tomorrow or Saturday.

I spent some time playing Dungeons & Dragons Online tonight. All I can say is that this game is absolutely beautiful and I really enjoy playing it. However, I got really tired (yawn) and had to stop. So, I figured I’d blog and go to bed.

Goodnight.

Sick Thought of the Day: Thick finger, small hole.

Tests, Logs, and Configs

Posted on by Chewbode

When my editing workstation’s capture drive failed a while back, I lost a couple of projects. When I say “lost”, I really mean that the captured video went bye-bye, and I lost maybe a total of 3 hours of work (beyond the time it took to capture the video, which was maybe 2 hours). So, now the drive’s been replaced, and I have a secondary drive in the system as well, which now gives me almost half a terabyte of storage space for rendering, video and film work. That said, I’ve re-captured then next project and recovered the scene logs from backup tape. So, now that the project’s all set up, all I need to do is edit. I’ve done some tests with multi-pass VBR MPEG encoding, to see what settings I like the best and am happy with the results.

The 3D models for the Transformers game (we call it the TFMod) are shaping up. I’m working on the Megatron model now, and should be done in the next couple of days. After that, I’ll finalize the concept(s) of Optimus Prime and begin modeling that one too.

I really want to get these projects all finished up in the next 2 weeks (by October 7th) so I can start in on pre-production on the next project.

I also cancelled my City of Heroes account today, as I really have no interest in the game anymore and would rather play World of Warcraft instead. That’ll save me an extra $15 per month too.

Sick Thought of the Day: Midgets in heat, penes erect.

More Than Meets The Eye

Posted on by Chewbode

A project I’ve been working on for quite some time now is the Battlefield 1942 Transformers Mod video game. For those of you not familiar with the Transformers, check this out. I’ve only been doing some minor work here and there, mostly 3D modeling. The project manager has asked that I start working on some alternate aircraft/spacecraft modes for Optimus Prime and Megatron. I’m beginning the sketches and concept designs today and will work on them throughout the weekend. I hope the begin modeling no later than Monday night. Stay tuned to the Projects page for more info.

Slacker

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve been a bad boy (yeah, you all know that). I’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft lately and not spending any time on editing. I shall change my ways. Starting next week, tho. 😉

My brother’s in town this week so we’re all going out for some dinner together tonight and will hopefully have bloated, sick-feeling programmer’s belly*. I hope to be able to get back to editing tomorrow. We’ll see.

*Programmer’s Belly: The condition where, after eating too much food (as in “Thanksgiving dinner” too much), one sits in a chair (preferably one that reclines), moans and rubs his/her belly, hoping that the tactile sensation will ease the feeling of imminent gut-split. Commonly experienced by game programmers after eating too much pizza and drinking too much Coke.

Sick Thought of the Day: Up to the elbow.

The Holiday Event Horizon

Posted on by Chewbode

This week’s been nuts. I’m taking next week off (vacation), and I’m trying to get as much done as I can before I leave the office tomorrow at 2:30pm. I think it’ll be ok…

Friday (Christmas Eve), Shauna and I are going to go have a little dinner and present-opening party at her dad’s house. We got him some pretty good gifts I think he’ll enjoy.

Saturday is Christmas day, so everyone that came over for Thanksgiving is due over. Shauna’s decided that a large pot roast will be substituted for the turkey this year and green bean casserole will be substituted for the stuffing. Other than that, it’ll be the same. Well, other than the present festival.

After Saturday, there’s going to be PLENTY of relaxing and playing CoH. Oh yeah, baby. Oh yeah.

Sick Thought of the Day: Crashed Mapserver

Sleepytime Chewbode Museum

Posted on by Chewbode

Well, things are back to normal around here. Millard came by last night and we stuffed ourselves on Taco Bell. I showed him GTA:San Andreas. We then played CoH from 10:00pm until about 4:30am. I will try to post a new entry on By Baltar’s Balls! later today.

For now, I’m getting ready to take our cat, Max, to the vet for a follow-up visit. He was sick with a urinary tract infection the last couple of weeks. He’s doing real well now, tho.

Also gonna do some office work today. Got to head to the mini-storage unit to inventory all the stuff in them in the hopes we can get rid of it (it’s really just junk).

Hopefully, I’ll also get a haircut today, but I’m not sure if I’ll make it that far. After all, I’m only operating on about 3 hours of sleep right now.

Sick Thought of the Day: Wet and Brown

Up For Air

Posted on by Chewbode

I know I haven’t posted much lately, but that’s just too bad.

Actually, there really hasn’t been much to say for the past few weeks. Work, eat, sleep. Boring.

So, Millard’s back from San Francisco. He told me a crazy story about him coughing up blood and needing to go the hospital. If you get a chance to ask him, I’m sure he’ll tell you the story. Heck, he might just add it to his blog.

Some other shit you might care about (or not): I’ve been doing some work for the past year (give or take) by building 3D models for the Transformers Battlefield 1942 mod. Those of you familiar with BF know that there are lots of great mods out there, and I think that this mod will not only be good, but it’ll be quite unique (yes, you’ll be able to “transform” from robot to vehicle in the game). So far I’ve done the Optimus Prime robot model, the Optimus Prime vehicle model, and just recently finished the ATV/DTV model (Autobot Transport Vehicle / Decepticon Transport Vehicle). Next up are the weapons for the robots (guns, grenades, etc.). Check it out.

Haven’t played CoH much at all. I’m sure I’ll get back into that. I did, however, buy Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and have played that for about 5 or 6 hours. Great game. Not that you need my opinion on it.

Because of my work schedule, I haven’t worked on the side app at all for about a month. I really hope to get that done soon. Jeff and I really need to get that out so we can try to make some money off it and say we finally finished something.

Sick Thought of the Day: Bloody Throat Skin

The Week In Review

Posted on by Chewbode

Because of my crazy work schedule this past week, I’ve found it pretty hard to post in the blog. If I’m not sleeping, I’m working, and if I’m not working, I’m playing City of Heroes to chill out (for mental health). So to recap a bit of this week…

Monday was Columbus Day and I had the day off. Shauna had to work, so Millard came over to play CoH. We played until like 9:00 pm or something crazy.

Tuesday was Hell on Earth. It was the first day that I was alone since Schunk got his new job. On top of the craziness of rolling the hectic Monday fervor into the day, I also leave early on Tuesdays, so I had to really crank to get everything done. Of course, like it knew Jon was gone, the phone reporting server took a big shit and I spent part of the day trying to get it working so I could print some reports.

Wednesday I went in at 7:30am and didn’t leave until around 9:00pm. Phone reporting server was back up, but then the database fucked up. I spent more then 4.5 hours trying to fix it, only to find out (of course) that there was about a five minute solution I could do to repair it.

Thursday was pretty decent. We’ve brought Joe on board to help out. He’s working on a contract basis, and helping out doing the mundane day-to-day user support stuff. If he works out, I’ll increase his level of security and allow him to do more server-related functions. Stayed till about 8:30pm.

Friday things went better. Joe was settling in a bit, and was able to tackle more support problems. We got three BSODs in the office, but we were able to track them down to a new Microsoft patch. Thanks Bill. The “usual” Friday night party at my place was a bit skewed, as Millard was up in St. Pete. for part of the day. Shauna and I went to Ci-Ci’s pizza and pigged-out, and as we were finishing, I got a call from Mil that he was just pulling into the driveway at my place. After I got home a few minutes later, Mil and I… guess, now!… we played CoH for a few hours.

Saturday was a de-stress/get some shit done day. Payed bills, clean the apartment up, etc.

And now to today… I’m gonna go get a friggin haircut as soon as the underwear in the dryer stops tumbling. After that… yep, you guessed it: CoH. I’ll fly solo today, tho. Unless, of course, Mil decides to swing by.

Sick Thought of the Day: Toenails Split in Half