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>>> Why are you always SO negative?
>> Well, let's put it this way. I've been using POV-Ray for, what, nearly
>> 10 years now? And I have yet to draw anything that can compare with the
>> designs on that website.
>
> But what was it that you were actually trying to achieve?
A website that doesn't look like something from 1996?
> My point is, do you try anything else? At all? And persevere with it?
What else is there to try?
> But how many times do you open your 2D app in a year? How will you learn
> anything if you don't practice?
Practice what? The problem here is that I lack talent.
Other people can pick up a pencil, draw a few brisk strokes on a pad of
paper, and produce something the like of which I couldn't copy if I had
several hours to work on it.
Using a computer doesn't really improve matters either. I played with a
copy of 3D Studio Max - allegedly "the most powerful 3D program ever".
All I could get it to do was render spheres and cylinders. I've got a
copy of Photoshop, but I can't make it do anything interesting. Ditto
for the GIMP. (But then, it's tricky just figuring out how to operate
that...)
I've spent years fiddling with POV-Ray, and to this day I have yet to
produce anything high-quality. Everything I make is dull and boring,
with bad lighting and laughable texturing.
> It's almost like you 'expect' an app. to do something magical for you so
> you don't have to do the hard work.
It's more like... I don't have any talent. No tool is going to fix that.
The problem is that I suck.
>>> When I started learning Sandbox 1 and 2 for Farcry and Crysis, I
>>> thought I wouldn't be able to do it, but I persevered and produced a map
>>> that's now had 1,711 downloads.
>> Jesus, that's amazing! o_O
>
> That's a small amount compared to some of the other guys maps, but I'm
> happy with that. :) It's part 1 of 3, but when I actually get to do parts 2
> and 3 is another matter...
I have never made anything in my entire life that has been downloaded
more than about 12 times.
In fact, I just had a look at the bill for my webspace. Apparently I get
I think 1,711 probably exceeds the total number of *visits* to my
website! I know for a fact it exceeds the visits to my Zazzle gallery...
>> I had a go at building levels for Quake II once. It wasn't very
>> successful.
>>
>> Still, a while back I had a go at producing levels for HL2. Those didn't
>> even *run* correctly...
>
> Well, I can't comment on those games and engines as I've never
> played/used them, but you have Farcry, so just load up Sandbox 1 (it's on
> the disc) and you'll see what I mean when I said I didn't think I could do
> it.
Yeah, but is it as impossible to operate as every other 3D editor out there?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Really? Well I must be looking at a different website or something... To
> me it just seems to contain lots of short articles which mumble
> something vague about what the technology is supposed to be and what
> it's for, and gives you a quick overview of the most rudimentry syntax,
> and that's it.
Whenever I've had to learn something they cover in a hurry, they've given me
enough background information and examples that I could then go to the
reference material and understand what it's saying. That's what a tutorial
is for.
If it doesn't work for you, then it doesn't work for you. Altho, honestly,
I'm not real sure how one "mumbles" in a text document. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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nemesis wrote:
> http://www.csszengarden.com/
I'm just flicking through all the styles in here.
This is a tour-de-force in graphic design. My mind is blown. This stuff
looks incredible. This lot looks like something out of a glossy
magazine. The "minor detail" that it's also completely independent of
the content markup is even more amazing.
Check out "retro theatre". Wow, WTF? How...??! o_O
The site seems to be a little slow to respond right now. (Or maybe
that's my ISP?) Makes it interesting to actually *watch* the page load. ;-)
If only I could take away something useful from all this...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Check out "retro theatre". Wow, WTF? How...??! o_O
That's good. I like http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=099/099.css also.
> If only I could take away something useful from all this...
The take-away is that if you ever work on web sites, you personally will
never have to learn how to lay out and style all the stuff you display. Give
it to the graphic artist instead. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Check out "retro theatre". Wow, WTF? How...??! o_O
>
> That's good. I like http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=099/099.css also.
>
>> If only I could take away something useful from all this...
Oh wow. That's pretty special. I mean, it looks butt-ugly, but special
all the same.
> The take-away is that if you ever work on web sites, you personally will
> never have to learn how to lay out and style all the stuff you display.
> Give it to the graphic artist instead. :-)
I still don't have any clue how you pick colours that will look nice
together. Even something as basic as that. And designing a good layout
too - styling the edges and curves, etc. Also many of the designs
feature beautiful flowers or dramatic cloudscapes - where the hell do
you *get* that stuff from?!
Obviously I'm never going to beat somebody with a qualification in
graphic design. But many of the designs I've seen today leave me starkly
wondering how this is even technically *possible*...
OTOH, I did have a go, and I managed to jiggle some boxes around on my
screen. I took some markup and completely rearraned the visual layout of
it. Unfortunately it looked like a ZX Spectrum on a bad day, but it
demonstrates how this stuff works.
So I see how the technology works now - I just have no idea how to apply
it to any kind of good effect. :-(
I guess my website is going to stay looking like crap after all...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:47:05 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I've spent years fiddling with POV-Ray, and to this day I have yet to
> produce anything high-quality. Everything I make is dull and boring,
> with bad lighting and laughable texturing.
Welcome to the club. I took drafting in college and with Moray I can
compose things OK, but my textures generally suck.
But I have not spent a lot of time learning POV's texturing system.
Nobody becomes an instant expert, you gotta work at it. Not fiddle with
it: Work at it.
Jim
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I still don't have any clue how you pick colours that will look nice
> together. Even something as basic as that.
You can go all the way through to graduate degrees in a field called
"graphic design", which addresses this sort of thing.
http://www.allgraphicdesign.com/howtochoosecolors.html
Googling with "graphic design" in the title (such as
nice colors "graphics design"
) can get you links to tutorials on doing this sort of thing.
> Obviously I'm never going to beat somebody with a qualification in
> graphic design. But many of the designs I've seen today leave me starkly
> wondering how this is even technically *possible*...
I'm still more boggled at things like dragging boxes around from one side of
the other.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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"Darren New" <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote in message
news:4978c85b$1@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>> It's almost like you 'expect' an app. to do something magical for you
>> so you don't have to do the hard work.
>
> That's not unusual with really smart people. They're so used to everything
> being quick and easy that when they hit something that's of normal
> difficulty, it seems overwhelming.
I think Andrew is 'too' smart, his brain is racing, trying *too many*
things at once, and *expecting* an answer from *terrible* code/apps/etc.
It's all supposed to be there, because, well, it's the year 2009, and it
*should* be there.
(Sorry Andrew, hate speaking from the third-person perspective, but it's
just my opinion).
>
>> Well, I can't comment on those games and engines as I've never
>> played/used them, but you have Farcry, so just load up Sandbox 1 (it's on
>> the disc) and you'll see what I mean when I said I didn't think I could
>> do it.
>
> And stay away from Thief's level editor.
Haha, I played the demo of some version of Thief a few years ago. I
thought it was really VERY good! Loved the hiding in shadows and the
lock-picking in corridors. :)
I would love to see the level editor for it though. I wonder how it
differs from what I've used?
~Steve~
>
> --
> Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
> "Ouch ouch ouch!"
> "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
> "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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St. wrote:
> Haha, I played the demo of some version of Thief a few years ago. I
> thought it was really VERY good! Loved the hiding in shadows and the
> lock-picking in corridors. :)
It's a great series with a wonderful story.
> I would love to see the level editor for it though. I wonder how it
> differs from what I've used?
Conceptually, it's pretty cool. You start with a solid block of
can't-go-there, then carve out the areas you can go, which is why you can't
crawl outside the geometry. Sky is just a texture that looks like
perspective when you run the game.
The suckage is that there *seems* to be so little automation involved. For
example, they make the default texture a really ugly plaid pattern, so it's
easier to find surfaces you forgot to texture. Instead of, you know, having
a button in the interface that says "find surfaces I forgot to texture."
There's nothing like "snap to grid" or any kind of alignment thingies for
ojbects, so you're constantly finding wall scones floating a couple inches
away from the wall and book cases facing the walls. And there's no assist in
building holes so that you can (for example) highlight a hole and ask "can
the player fit into this hole?"
And, as far as I can tell, there's no way to look at (for example) only the
close parts of the wireframe. So you get the entire city's wireframe when
you're trying to wireframe-edit the room.
I couldn't even get thru the tutorial on how to use it, nor could I use it
to .. well, cheat, I suppose you'd call it. I was looking for where
something in particular was in the level, and I couldn't even see the level
clearly enough to figure out how to get to where I wanted to go. (It turns
out I couldn't find it because it was only there on the hardest level, and I
wanted to see it again easily so I started playing the level on easy.)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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> Not quite as visually impressive, but look at this:
>
> http://www.slimeland.com/
>
> Now click on the various "stylesheet" buttons, and watch the entire site
> instantly transform.
Heh, wow, I forgot about that. In theory it's simple: you make the HTML
using simple structural elements, telling it what's a header, what's a
section, what's a paragraph, and then you use CSS to put things where you
want them and make it look nice. In practice, you have to know a lot of
hacks and tricks and what works in what browser. I spent a lot of time
learning that sort of thing in high school and college.
> PS. Last updated in... 2005? Wow.
Somewhere along the way I got bored with it. =)
- Slime
[ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
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