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The Jungle, Explored...


sroberson

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Lol, thanks for dropping by Psy!

Yeah, I sometimes wish I could find a way to never sleep so I can keep up with everything going on here plus everything else in life. I started house hunting around 1.5 years ago when I found out that interest rates were incredibly low, the market was a bit deflated, and I thought I would eventually become a land lord and should start early. Ended up buying the place I am at now about 6 months ago. I had to have a bit of help buying it by getting a co-sign and having a roommate to help pay for things. It would be a lot harder otherwise XD

See my problem I face with a fennec fox here in Arkansas, is that while it is legal to own foxes in Arkansas (they kind of suggested that only red and grey foxes are allowed...maybe...) it looks like a city ordinance prohibits it, which is pretty lame. I have been meaning to get a straight answer as to whether I can own one or not (and furthermore explain how silly it is that I cannot own an animal smaller than a house cat), but I am not really sure on who to contact :/ . I have also heard that a fennec can be super expensive which is another reason I haven't been completely gung-ho about it. I could do it...but it wouldn't be the brightest investment I have done.

I would actually love to learn more about rendering/modeling, graphics and game programming! I just honestly never really knew what to look for as far as knowledge base, books, etc. The college I go to will simply suggest that you try taking "graphics and animation" but the teacher is so horrible...that and I think its way to basic teaching how to simply draw lines programmatically - but maybe that is the whole point. Have any books in English you would suggest? I don't speak French :( . I think one of the biggest problems I found was just as you said...hard to find information that is well explained on the internet and even less of an idea of where to get started and work from the very ground up. Like the dummy series books!

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Yeah, Fennec are pretty expansive, I've seen people asking 2000$ for a kit ! In Japan they seem to be much more common pets though, and they probably are sold for less than that, and the animal control laws seems much less archaic than around here ! But, this is mostly an assumption. Reading a page in Japanese takes me an entire day and millions of dictionary searches :S

Well, if you want to start modelling, like I said in the other thread, Blender can be a good start, there are even professionals that use Blender. There are tons of tutorials and there's a wiki book : http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

You really want to develop some texturing skills too. Texturing is much easier than drawing ! And you can do a pretty good job using Gimp instead of Photoshop, that's what I use for all my textures. However Photoshop has some tools and techniques that makes thing much easier, but I'm positive that all you can make in Photoshop can be done in the Gimp, it may take longer, but its still doable.

For graphic programming, its essential to learn how objects and a scene is rendered, along with the shader pipeline. Everything you do after makes sense then. Its pretty simple, but you have to find a good complete explanation.

If you want a good game and graphics Math book, I really liked that book : http://gamemath.com/about-the-book/

For computer graphics and real-time rendering, I haven't read any books on the subject, besides my teacher's notes. But I found a few books that are available for free online :

http://szeliski.org/Book/ <- They're pretty mathematical in their appraoch to show how it works, and they touch some other field of computer graphics, like image recognition. Might be useful.

There were also the GPU gems books that NVidia put for free on their website, but they got hacked and haven't restored the books yet :S

You may want to check this out : http://www.realtimerendering.com/books.html

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Talking about game programming, i would like to show you this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/WolfireGames

It`s some independent developers doing an amazing job at a full 3D game, maybe it would interest as well as inspire you.

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Talking about game programming, i would like to show you this:

http://www.youtube.c...er/WolfireGames

It`s some independent developers doing an amazing job at a full 3D game, maybe it would interest as well as inspire you.

Heh, I wish I was half as good as their programmer !

But yeah, I think you should check it out too ! :)

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$2000

D:

Maybe i'll pass... lol.

I actually by coincidence ran into that wikibook that you reference Psy. Very thorough introduction I have to admit, my problem is finding the time where I have nothing else to do but work on learning about modeling. I think at this point I would be happy with simply making a cube and animating it to move around anywhere XD. Speaking of, since i'm a total noob, how do I go about animating models that I make? I'm not sure if I had to come up with a set of models to simulate walking and simply load those models or what. I actually was looking around online for a nearby tech college that teaches about animation and modeling. Ended up finding one so I am hoping to find out more about the program and maybe sign up for classes!

I'll have to continue working on those links that you and Luminous suggested so I can get a thorough understanding of it all. I think it would be pretty neat if I could eventually work up to contributing on the fan game that is being worked on :) ...that is if updates are going to be considered after it is released.

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Well, I'd suggest you check out a "getting started" tutorial to at least understand how the program works. Then just try to find a simple tutorial for animating.

And, are you talking about project sfr / lylat last stand ?

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Yeah its going to be a bumpy ride for me i'm sure. Sadly haven't had much time to really focus on learning much more or working on installing Blender. Still on my mind though.

And yeah I was talking about Project SFR

So, I have lately been distracted by a new venture...Very serious landscaping overhaul of my front lawn. I'm talking retaining walls, raised beds, hedges, etc, etc. Need to actually come up with a design and talk to the right people about properly setting up retaining walls since I certainly don't want to do something like that the wrong way. I think first step will be to make a large raised bed around a pine tree I have and build a hedge there. Reduce the nuisance of pine needles everywhere and get to work on making a precisely cut hedge :3...also cuts down on space to mow which is a beautiful thing. Wonder how much landscaping affects property value...I have heard that its not effective from some real estate people. I might have to get a hold of my former Realtor and banter lightly about it. I have been interested in carrying out projects to raise the value...'course that might be a bad idea while I barely have any equity on the place. Grr....

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Yeah its going to be a bumpy ride for me i'm sure. Sadly haven't had much time to really focus on learning much more or working on installing Blender. Still on my mind though.

And yeah I was talking about Project SFR

I was just making sure, there is still Starfox RTS that Nephalim is working on. But yeah, any form of help is very welcome. And yeah, updates are planned for a while, we'll release a little more of the game at each releases. And we'll always need new people, in mod teams people come and go, especially because of school and their new job, its pretty hard on the mood when that happens, but its part of the whole thing..

So, I have lately been distracted by a new venture...Very serious landscaping overhaul of my front lawn. I'm talking retaining walls, raised beds, hedges, etc, etc. Need to actually come up with a design and talk to the right people about properly setting up retaining walls since I certainly don't want to do something like that the wrong way. I think first step will be to make a large raised bed around a pine tree I have and build a hedge there. Reduce the nuisance of pine needles everywhere and get to work on making a precisely cut hedge :3...also cuts down on space to mow which is a beautiful thing. Wonder how much landscaping affects property value...I have heard that its not effective from some real estate people. I might have to get a hold of my former Realtor and banter lightly about it. I have been interested in carrying out projects to raise the value...'course that might be a bad idea while I barely have any equity on the place. Grr....

Well personnally I wouldn't bother much with landscaping if I owned a house. Just put low maintenance trees and stuff, so it doesn't look too bland and make sure it won't easily end up looking neglected. Some people spend their entire days just taking care of their landscaping, and I don't really want to do that ever personnally !

Also, the only way I know of raising the value of a property is from the sims, and I doubt it works in RL :P

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I can definitely relate with the problem with jobs interfering lately. Mine has gotten to the point of not being able to bear it really. Stopped me from doing much research on modeling/rendering because I have been too worried lately about whether I want to stay or not and how to make my way out the door and take some vengeance with me.

Heh, well, I was looking to just doing crepe myrtle trees and chinese fringe flower bushes because they are very sturdy plants that can take abuse (and my forgetfulness to water thoroughly). Hell, I have chopped crepe myrtles down to the base with a chainsaw and they still came back. Might have to forgo any plans I had, but hopefully not forever. I agree with your statement regarding raising property value in the Sims lol. I am in the same predicament. Sooo...I simply make my house bigger right? Maybe?

Well...now for the somewhat serious part. I won't create my own thread to say this because it may not be anything serious, but I might be a bit quiet for a while around here. Maybe just a few days, may be a week - but a lot of stuff is going on with work and it really got to me today...My boss has been on my case and been treating me pretty bad, not giving me any respect, etc, etc. And I would probably put up with more of this if I didn't already know how the company works - back door meetings and talk behind people's backs then *boom* another terminated employee I have to remove access for. I would also put up with more of it if I wasn't paid basically the same thing Best Buy Geek Squad is paid to be a Linux/Network/Windows Support Admin and then Tech support for a network of easily 100+ computers. Anyways, its really kind of scary territory for me as my confidence in myself is somewhat wrecked and I am kind of scared of looking for a new job because I don't know what to expect or if I am good enough. As a result I am getting somewhat withdrawn and moody and I don't want to drag that all over this place.

TLDR Summary: I guess what I mean to say, is I need a few days to just get things sorted out, calmed down, and I will be back full force!

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Ticked off? You'll probably hate my solution, but I find it helps; play TF2, even if it means getting spanked a little. You get killed, but you want to get kills, so you keep playing. It does help!

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Hoy Srob. Sorry to hear about your work stuff. All I hear is horror stories about how everyone's boss/manager is a total ass and it's been discouraging me from getting a job. :S

On a lighter note: I found that one rant I did about the 13th Zodiac sign when we were talking about thatt stuff in Steam:

There is a reason why there are 12 signs and not 13. It has to do with the lunation cycle. There are approximately twelve cycles of the Sun and Moon (or lunations) in the year. A sign stands for a month even though it is a bit more than a lunar month. The exact division is one-third of a season, and there are four seasons defined by the equinoxes which define the beginnings of spring and autumn; and the solstices which are the beginnings of summer and winter. A constellation is a pattern of stars, whose pattern is not in any way related to the equinoxes or the solstices. A constellation of stars as a pattern seen from earth will eventually disappear due to the movement of its component stars. There will always be four seasons which can be divided into three parts, or twelve signs. And there will always be a part of the zodiac, eighth in order from whatever is defined as the first sign. It is called Scorpio but it need not be.

Now about Ophiuchus... Ophiuchus is not a "sign." It is a constellation of stars that forms a pattern in the part of the sky which crosses the ecliptic in the tropical sign of Sagittarius and toward the end of the sidereal sign of Scorpio. Other than the fact that their light appears to shine in the same part of the sky as seen from earth, the stars in Ophiuchus have no necessary astronomical association with each other. They move individually on their own courses in the galaxy and eventually the constellational image will disappear (after some millions of years). For this reason Ophiuchus cannot ever be a "sign."Â The signs Sagittarius and Scorpio (not the constellations of the same names) are not things composed of actual stars. They are concepts and measuring tools which we visualize as a counterclockwise, 12 fold symbolic system.

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That doesn't sound like a healthy work environment..

I heard tons of horror stories with assholic people on the workplace. Either co-workers making false accusations or treating others like dirt, or bosses being totalitarian asshole.

I'm pretty sure you should be able to get another job. I've seen some really clueless people working with computers (those kids at staples, best buy, future shop, that just format your computer when you are having problems with it...), and they somehow got hired.

And doing tech support for a network of over 100 computers isn't as complicated as it looks like.

At the Correctionnal Service of Canada, where I worked as a student IT thanks to a government program, we had a network of about 225 computers and like 25 printers. It wasn't very complicated. Except that for some reasons my supervisor along with the other techs left me alone in charge of the whole thing... And the worst part is that a javascript file to assign printers that I made by the specs of the master IT dude ( which was a huge switch case for all the computers, which is completely retarded ) went into service on my first day alone.. Lets say that people started complaining that their printer wasn't the correct one, so I tried disabling the script by modifying the copy on the network so the switch case was empty. But in javascript unlike in C/C++ an empty switch case is an error, so as people started their computers the master script running at the computer launch that assigned network shares and all just crashed.. And I essentially paralyzed the whole office for a couple of hours... Even got a call from the big boss, and he wasn't really happy, but at least he seemed to agree it wasn't a good idea to leave me all alone in charge of the network, lol. At least I didn't get fired :)

Heh, later I even wrote a much better script, with WSH, that took excel sheets with computer and printer names and generated a printer assignement script automatically ! I bet they don't use it though..

But I doubt you'd find a job with as much problems coming with it as mine. Since the CSC network is pretty messed up. And there's the protocols you have to follow.

Anyways, good luck with that.

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  • 1 year later...

Been a long time since I touched this thing.  Guess I felt like venting my thoughts here was just attention seeking, but i'll return to just try and collect/organize my thoughts for now and if someone has something insightful, coolio. 

 

To be overly dramatic, i'll say winds of change are blowing in my life.  I've mentioned and complained about my job before in this space, but I think it has reached a point of no return.  I've gotten fed up with the management who seems to bungle lots of things and expects peons like me to pick up the slack and fix mistakes to make them look good. My boss, who I have always had this problem with and is always putting me under his boot, was promoted to basically supervise over half the company - meaning I am still under his boot, and I have no way of talking about my feelings of his mismanagement since he was clearly promoted to that position by the highest authority.   The second in charge that I once hoped would officially become my boss, eventually did become my boss...and also became just as cold and mechanical in his authority.  I used to be happy to work for him and carry out everything he requested.  Now his new tone almost sounds like he doubts my ability to do anything and condescends my willingness I once had to help.  My suggestions on how to handle issues are largely ignored and are only taken seriously if somebody else says it, then takes credit for it.  I have no clearly defined responsibilities, and thus no static metric to gauge myself against.  I'm not able to specialize in anything and remain in a pseudo-System Admin/Help Desk Support level that keeps me from accomplishing both jobs with much success because I can't focus on it.  I know it is partially my fault I won't take a stand and talk to management about my problems with them, mostly because I am non-confrontational and would rather hide or run from it.  I'm told I may just have a problem with authority, which is concerning since that is a fact of life for most of us.  

 

Anyways, TLDR for that section, for the first time in 3 years I am determined to leave this job - which is kind of scary for me because I dislike change for the most part and I have always convinced myself in the past that if I simply work hard enough I would make a difference and be taken seriously.

 

But there lies another problem.  The past couple weeks, it feels like I simply don't care about the going-ons or self learning process in my line of business.  This sort of thing happens once in a while and it usually passes after a couple days.  But this feeling is different.  I have just felt totally apathetic and barely concerned with my continuity at my job - which I was once afraid of losing.  I want to argue with myself that this is a symptom of just being at my current job and it would change if I left, but I am not so certain.  I am prone to fantastic ideas of doing something else with my life to simply take a new challenge - but the idea of moving (albeit very little) back down the pay scale to start a new line of business is a bit upsetting.  And the notion of going back to school sounds like it would set my bills back to the stone ages and I would have to spend years just to tackle that new debt with no guarantee I would find a better paying job.  Don't even know what I would do if I didn't work on computers - I guess that's the "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" question that I cannot answer.  My growing technophobia makes me want to just go study trees and horticulture.  Or something not computer related.  

 

For now, I have applied to a bunch of jobs within my same career - network specialists, help desk, system administrators.  I guess if I still hate it somewhere else, then maybe it was just not meant to be.  I can't help but wonder, as I look at my peers picking up odd jobs, "How are they faring?"  If I feel like I am struggling, then what are they feeling?  Maybe they are just doing fine, and I am doing something wrong?

 

Something needs to change and I know it, but I guess I just feel overwhelmed by the options I can think of and I can't come up with a good plan.  

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