Phil Cook wrote:

> For an example of destroyed information tell me the equation I used to 
> derive the answer of 9.

...I can't *believe* you robbed me of the opportunity to say "what do 
you get if your multiply six by nine?" :-o

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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And lo on Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:48:57 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>
>> For an example of destroyed information tell me the equation I used to  
>> derive the answer of 9.
>
> ...I can't *believe* you robbed me of the opportunity to say "what do  
> you get if your multiply six by nine?" :-o

Sorry I was thinking of a different book, in this case a Jasper Fforde  
dealing with Nextian mathematics that does allow you to work out whether  
the answer 9 is derived from 3+6 or 3*3, or something else entirely.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Invisible wrote:
>>> Unless quantum computing ever works some day, and it turns out to 
>>> have _fundamentally_ different capabilities, the halting problem will 
>>> never be solved.
>>
>> Quantum computing (today) doesn't even solve NP problems in P time, 
>> let alone non-computable problems. :-)
> 
> But you get what I'm saying. Maybe there is some fundamentally new 
> system that changes the rules, so to speak.

That still won't solve the halting problem, because the halting problem 
isn't defined in terms of this fundamentally new system.

It's like saying "integers are not closed under division", and then 
saying "but we've discovered rationals!"   Integers *still* aren't 
closed under division, even if you invent rationals.

> Even if such a system were to exist, you would still have a new, 
> generalised Halting Problem, and you're back to square one.

That's rather harder to say, really, since we by definition have no idea 
what a program in this entirely new paradigm would look like. But I 
suspect you're correct.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Phil Cook wrote:

> 
> What do the pair of you mean remember? I've still got a 98 machine here 
> that does just that if you dare to use more memory then is physically 
> present.
> 

I haven't used 98 in years ... That's what I mean by remember.

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On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:54:09 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> I don't know about you, but every time *I* look at either the GIMP or
>>> PhotoShop, I can never figure out what magical trick I'm missing that
>>> lets you do the impressive stuff everybody else does. To me, it just
>>> seems to be a small set of pretty simple tools that don't appear to
>>> give you much power to do anything.
>> 
>> ie, they allow you to do the "impossible". ;-)
>> 
>> (which is my point - don't let the limits of what you know - or what
>> humankind collectively knows - define what is possible and what is not)
> 
> And my point - which you seem hell-bent on ignoring - is that there is a
> difference between "we don't know if/how to do this" and "we know for a
> fact that this is impossible". :-P

Well, what fun would it be if I just agreed with you? ;-)

Jim

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On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:14:53 +0100, Phil Cook wrote:

> And lo on Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:45:13 +0100, Jim Henderson
> <nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:
> 
>> On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:10:38 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>>>> If the grains in the film reacted to colour in some currently
>>>>> unreadable fashion and/or those alterations were transferred to the
>>>>> photo itself then you could, in theory, recover colour from a B&W
>>>>> photo or film by reading those imperfections.
>>>>
>>>> That's kinda what I'm thinking.
>>>
>>> ...so in other words, hypothetically the information might not be
>>> "gone". If that were indeed the case, it is at least plausible that
>>> somebody could possibly get it back, yes.
>>
>> Oh, the information could well be gone, but it could be reconstructed
>> from the available data.
> 
> In that case the information hasn't really gone merely converted into
> another pattern?

Well, I'm talking about physical loss of "data bits", not about the use 
of patterns to reconstruct it.  The bit pattern is gone. :-)

> For an example of destroyed information tell me the equation I used to
> derive the answer of 9.

no. ;-)

Jim

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And lo on Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:07:54 +0100, Mike Raiford  
<mra### [at] hotmailcom> did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>
>>  What do the pair of you mean remember? I've still got a 98 machine  
>> here that does just that if you dare to use more memory then is  
>> physically present.
>>
>
> I haven't used 98 in years ... That's what I mean by remember.

Mistranslation of humour -

'I remember back in ye olden days using ye olden thing'
'What do you mean ye olden days? I'm still using ye olden thing!'

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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>> But you get what I'm saying. Maybe there is some fundamentally new 
>> system that changes the rules, so to speak.
> 
> That still won't solve the halting problem, because the halting problem 
> isn't defined in terms of this fundamentally new system.
> 
> It's like saying "integers are not closed under division", and then 
> saying "but we've discovered rationals!"   Integers *still* aren't 
> closed under division, even if you invent rationals.
> 
>> Even if such a system were to exist, you would still have a new, 
>> generalised Halting Problem, and you're back to square one.
> 
> That's rather harder to say, really, since we by definition have no idea 
> what a program in this entirely new paradigm would look like. But I 
> suspect you're correct.

The idea is that if you had some super-machine that could somehow decide 
whether any given Turing machine halts for a given input, you would 
still be unable to tell whether this brand new machine halts for a given 
input - using exactly the same proof as the original halting problem.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> Well, what fun would it be if I just agreed with you? ;-)

Damn it, that isn't even *logic*! :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> The idea is that if you had some super-machine that could somehow decide 
> whether any given Turing machine halts for a given input, you would 
> still be unable to tell whether this brand new machine halts for a given 
> input - using exactly the same proof as the original halting problem.

That's possible. But it certainly isn't obviously true. If the 
super-computer isn't programmed in the usual way, or if (for example) it 
can execute an infinite number of instructions in finite time, or if it 
can travel back in time, or etc, I expect you'd have to think hard about 
whether that gets around the technique the halting problem proof uses.

If your super-computer cannot, for example, have its programs 
represented as input to itself (i.e., you can't create a universal 
super-computer), then the halting problem isn't even *defined* for that 
type of computer.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Darren New wrote:

> That's possible. But it certainly isn't obviously true. If the 
> super-computer isn't programmed in the usual way, or if (for example) it 
> can execute an infinite number of instructions in finite time, or if it 
> can travel back in time, or etc, I expect you'd have to think hard about 
> whether that gets around the technique the halting problem proof uses.
> 
> If your super-computer cannot, for example, have its programs 
> represented as input to itself (i.e., you can't create a universal 
> super-computer), then the halting problem isn't even *defined* for that 
> type of computer.

I implicitly assumed that any machine that can't process it's own 
program isn't worthy of the title "computer", that's all. ;-) But yes, I 
see what you're saying.

As for being able to perform infinite instructions in finite time... 
surely that just makes it even *harder* to predict what the machine will 
od, no?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:18:43 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> Well, what fun would it be if I just agreed with you? ;-)
> 
> Damn it, that isn't even *logic*! :-P

LOL!

Jim

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On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:29:26 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> I am not aware - despite possessing a book detailing the entire history
> of Fermat's Last Theorum - of any proof that was widely held to be
> correct for a long time before being found wrong. All the incorrect
> proofs were discovered to be incorrect fairly quickly.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. ;-)

>>> And I suppose next you'll be telling me that some day, some future
>>> technology might enable us to find a sequence of chess moves whereby a
>>> bishop can get from a black square to a white square, despite it being
>>> trivially easy to mathematically prove the impossibility of this...
>> 
>> You're still missing my point....
> 
> You're still missing *my* point. :-P

Then we're even. ;-)

>> My point is that there's plenty of examples where raw data is lost but
>> it can be reconstructed.
> 
> Blurring doesn't actuallly "lose" nearly as much data as you'd think.
> That's why it can be mostly reversed.

Again, 10 years ago, doing this was thought to be impossible.

>> Well, who knows?  There are ancient civilizations that had no concept
>> of zero.  The introduction of imaginary numbers didn't come along until
>> the late 1500s.  Up until that point, sqrt(-1) was undefined.
>> 
>> Who knows what we don't know about mathematics even today?
> 
> If I were you, I'd be far more worried about the sky falling - it's
> about as logically plausible...

I don't see how your statement follows mine....

Throughout history, mankind has claimed to have reached the end of 
knowledge on all manner of topics, saying "there's nothing more to learn 
here".  In every instance (AFAIK), that's been proven wrong.

But now here, in the 21st century, we've finally exhausted the base of 
knowledge?  I don't think that's the case.

Jim

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Invisible wrote:
> I implicitly assumed that any machine that can't process it's own 
> program isn't worthy of the title "computer", that's all. ;-) But yes, I 
> see what you're saying.

So, your brain is weaker than a Turing machine? Cool.

It's the simplicity of the machines that make them amenable to 
universality, not the complexity. Remember that the Von Neumann 
architecture was a breakthrough.

> As for being able to perform infinite instructions in finite time... 
> surely that just makes it even *harder* to predict what the machine will 
> od, no?

Not if it can process its own input. Think about how the halting problem 
works, and why... If the machine has unbounded state, it might run 
forever without ever getting into the same state twice. But if you can 
run the computer forever without it actually taking forever, then you 
can say definitively "no, that machine never stops."

And a machine that can run an infinite number of instructions in finite 
time *always* stops. ;-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. ;-)

Sure it is. It's not proof of absence, of course, but it's stronger 
evidence than not.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/08/absence-of-evid.html

> But now here, in the 21st century, we've finally exhausted the base of 
> knowledge?  I don't think that's the case.

The problem is that you're confusing math with physics. In math, yes, we 
have exhausted the base of knowledge of the halting problem. The halting 
problem goes like this:

Assume A.  Assume B.   Assume C.  Therefore D.

You're arguing "maybe assumption B is counterfactual."  That doesn't 
disprove the halting problem. It doesn't mean you can solve the halting 
problem. It merely means the halting problem doesn't apply to your 
current situation.

Indeed, one of the assumptions required for the halting problem to hold 
(namely, unbounded storage) is *known* to be impossible to realize in 
this universe (or at least normally assumed to be impossible even by 
people who understand the halting problem). That *still* doesn't mean 
the halting problem is "solved".

Math isn't physics.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:24:30 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. ;-)
> 
> Sure it is. It's not proof of absence, of course, but it's stronger
> evidence than not.
> 
> http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/08/absence-of-evid.html
> 
>> But now here, in the 21st century, we've finally exhausted the base of
>> knowledge?  I don't think that's the case.
> 
> The problem is that you're confusing math with physics. In math, yes, we
> have exhausted the base of knowledge of the halting problem. The halting
> problem goes like this:
> 
> Assume A.  Assume B.   Assume C.  Therefore D.
> 
> You're arguing "maybe assumption B is counterfactual."  That doesn't
> disprove the halting problem. It doesn't mean you can solve the halting
> problem. It merely means the halting problem doesn't apply to your
> current situation.
> 
> Indeed, one of the assumptions required for the halting problem to hold
> (namely, unbounded storage) is *known* to be impossible to realize in
> this universe (or at least normally assumed to be impossible even by
> people who understand the halting problem). That *still* doesn't mean
> the halting problem is "solved".
> 
> Math isn't physics.

Now my brain hurts. ;-)

Jim

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>> I am not aware - despite possessing a book detailing the entire history
>> of Fermat's Last Theorum - of any proof that was widely held to be
>> correct for a long time before being found wrong. All the incorrect
>> proofs were discovered to be incorrect fairly quickly.
> 
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. ;-)

It *is* evidence. It isn't proof, but it is evidence.

Somebody having a proof that everybody thought was right but actually 
turned out to be wrong would make for pretty dramatic reading in a book 
which is basically a dramatisation of the history of FLT. Of course, the 
researchers could have missed something though...

>> Blurring doesn't actuallly "lose" nearly as much data as you'd think.
>> That's why it can be mostly reversed.
> 
> Again, 10 years ago, doing this was thought to be impossible.

Emphasis: Thought.

There is a difference between something being "thought" and something 
being mathematically "proven". A very significant difference.

Cryptographers "thought" that public key cryptography was impossible, 
and where astonished when somebody actually invented it. However, note 
that nobody ever *proved* that PKC was impossible, people just *assumed* 
it would be. Very Big Difference.

>> If I were you, I'd be far more worried about the sky falling - it's
>> about as logically plausible...
> 
> I don't see how your statement follows mine....

Your "logic" seems to be "absolutely anything is possible". That 
includes the sky falling down. Which is about as likely as the Halting 
Problem being incorrect - but, obviously, far more serious. I don't know 
about you, but *I* would rather be wrong about some theorum than have 
chunks of sky fall on my head!

> Throughout history, mankind has claimed to have reached the end of 
> knowledge on all manner of topics, saying "there's nothing more to learn 
> here".  In every instance (AFAIK), that's been proven wrong.
> 
> But now here, in the 21st century, we've finally exhausted the base of 
> knowledge?  I don't think that's the case.

In mathematics, learning generally consists of discovering new things, 
and rarely involves finding out that old things were wrong. (Although 
you have to carefully draw a line between *facts* which have been 
proven, and *ideas* about mathematics. The latter can and do change, the 
former are forever.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> I implicitly assumed that any machine that can't process it's own 
>> program isn't worthy of the title "computer", that's all. ;-) But yes, 
>> I see what you're saying.
> 
> So, your brain is weaker than a Turing machine? Cool.

This is not exactly news. A Turing machine has unbounded memory, 
remember? ;-)

> It's the simplicity of the machines that make them amenable to 
> universality, not the complexity. Remember that the Von Neumann 
> architecture was a breakthrough.

Uh... wuh?

>> As for being able to perform infinite instructions in finite time... 
>> surely that just makes it even *harder* to predict what the machine 
>> will od, no?
> 
> Not if it can process its own input. Think about how the halting problem 
> works, and why... If the machine has unbounded state, it might run 
> forever without ever getting into the same state twice. But if you can 
> run the computer forever without it actually taking forever, then you 
> can say definitively "no, that machine never stops."
> 
> And a machine that can run an infinite number of instructions in finite 
> time *always* stops. ;-)

Really? And by "infinite" do you mean Aleph0, Aleph1, or some larger 
cardinallity? ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> ...I can't *believe* you robbed me of the opportunity to say "what do 
>> you get if your multiply six by nine?" :-o
> 
> Sorry I was thinking of a different book, in this case a Jasper Fforde 
> dealing with Nextian mathematics that does allow you to work out whether 
> the answer 9 is derived from 3+6 or 3*3, or something else entirely.

That sounds like an "interesting" mathematical system. (And not an 
entirely implausible one, actually.)

By the way... 6 * 9 = 54? I'm confused now! o_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> By the way... 6 * 9 = 54? I'm confused now! o_O

Yes it is.

"...something is fundamentally wrong with the universe..."

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4885bf1a$1@news.povray.org...
> Today, anybody with sufficient technical bent can easily sit down with a 
> computer and cut CDs of their music, or burn DVDs of their graphics and 
> animations. It's not even expensive any more.
>
> We are truly living in the future, my friends...

    Yep, and even possible serious gamemakers can do it for free*. I've got 
to say that CryTek's CryEngine2/(Sandbox2) is fantastic!

      *Free to produce mods, levels, etc., but it would cost you your arm or 
two to use commercially. £500 Grand +, I think...  :/

        And yet... I would consider that good money well spent if I had the 
inclination to use such a program with a NEW (read: idea) game that would 
sell millions. ;) Wouldn't we all...


         ~Steve~








>
> -- 
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Ooh... I'm right at the bottom of this long thread!

Post a reply to this message

St. wrote:
> Ooh... I'm right at the bottom of this long thread! 

Yah - I'm on top. ;-)

[How often do I get to say that??]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Today, anybody with sufficient technical bent can easily sit down with a 
>> computer and cut CDs of their music, or burn DVDs of their graphics and 
>> animations. It's not even expensive any more.
>>
>> We are truly living in the future, my friends...
> 
>     Yep, and even possible serious gamemakers can do it for free*. I've got 
> to say that CryTek's CryEngine2/(Sandbox2) is fantastic!

I have absolutely no idea how to do that.

I see a bunch of guys used the Source engine to build a game called 
Dystopia. It's set in a dystopian future and features gameplay that 
alternates between the real world and a Tron-like "cyberspace". It's a 
slightly naff game, but far better than anything I could have built!

More recently another group of people used Source to build a very 
different game called Insurgency. This is your hyper-realistic US 
Marines vs Iraqi insurgents battlefield game. And when I say 
hyper-realistic, there is no crosshair on the screen. You walk at about 
1.5 MPH. It's almost impossible to know what's going on. And as soon as 
you get near a combat zone, you instantly drop dead due to a single 
sniper bullet. (In other words, it is absolutely no fun at all, just 
like a real war.)

Yet another group of people are working on a complete conversion of the 
original Halflife game. (Although the initial artwork - which impressive 
- deviates too far from the original for my liking.)

I have absolutely no idea how in the game of God any of this is 
possible. But people have done it, so it *must* be possible...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48976fd4$1@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>> Ooh... I'm right at the bottom of this long thread!
>
> Yah - I'm on top. ;-)
>
> [How often do I get to say that??]

 Heh, you know that patience is a virtue, right?  ;)

   And you do know that when you're 56 years old with 2+ kids with their own 
children, (your grand-children), you won't... won't... remember me typing 
the above... ?

    <sniff - the internet is bad>

      ~Steve~




>
> -- 
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48977221$1@news.povray.org...
>>> Today, anybody with sufficient technical bent can easily sit down with a 
>>> computer and cut CDs of their music, or burn DVDs of their graphics and 
>>> animations. It's not even expensive any more.
>>>
>>> We are truly living in the future, my friends...
>>
>>     Yep, and even possible serious gamemakers can do it for free*. I've 
>> got to say that CryTek's CryEngine2/(Sandbox2) is fantastic!
>
> I have absolutely no idea how to do that.

    Getting Crysis = free editor. Play around in the editor and listen to 
what the 15 year olds (ha, and older!) ;) have to teach on the forums. OR, 
you have FarCry installed, yes? Well, CryEngine1 is available with that 
game. Look on your disc for SandBox1 and have a play! Just mess around with 
it for fun! Here's my first vid (Crysis) on YT: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjaxyfTW3UY

     This shows how slow my comp is, but man, it was fun! About 180 Korean 
trucks falling from the sky... blissfull destressing. :)


>
> I see a bunch of guys used the Source engine to build a game called 
> Dystopia. It's set in a dystopian future and features gameplay that 
> alternates between the real world and a Tron-like "cyberspace". It's a 
> slightly naff game, but far better than anything I could have built!
>
> More recently another group of people used Source to build a very 
> different game called Insurgency. This is your hyper-realistic US Marines 
> vs Iraqi insurgents battlefield game. And when I say hyper-realistic, 
> there is no crosshair on the screen. You walk at about 1.5 MPH. It's 
> almost impossible to know what's going on. And as soon as you get near a 
> combat zone, you instantly drop dead due to a single sniper bullet. (In 
> other words, it is absolutely no fun at all, just like a real war.)

     Oh, trust me, it is just like a real war (in a game experience at 
least). I said to my son only last night, "What would you do if you were 
ordered to go to the front line to save your country?" He said, "I'd fight". 
I then said that he'll be killed fairly soon. No comment from him, and a 
despondant face to match. Me? Stuff the war. I'd be around the back sniping 
them if possible. I know for a fact that I wouldn't adhere to war 'rules' 
whatever I might do. I'd do my best though for my country of course.


>
> Yet another group of people are working on a complete conversion of the 
> original Halflife game. (Although the initial artwork - which impressive - 
> deviates too far from the original for my liking.)
>
> I have absolutely no idea how in the game of God any of this is possible. 
> But people have done it, so it *must* be possible...

    Yes, it's true, people have done it, including myself. I'm about a month 
away from publishing my first Crysis level, (the first in a series of three, 
hopefully), and even though I've published many PoV-Ray images to the world, 
it's scaring the crap out of me to upload my map. Really.O-O

   ~Steve~





> -- 
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I have absolutely no idea how in the game of God any of this is 
> possible. But people have done it, so it *must* be possible...

The one I appreciated most was Thief 2X, a full 15-level (or so) new 
game, with new story, characters, weapons, loot, levels, etc for the 
engine in Thief 2. All done as a free fan mission.

Doubly impressive if you know how hard Thief's editor sucks.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

>> I have absolutely no idea how to do that.
> 
>     Getting Crysis = free editor.

Getting the Source SDK = free download. I've even downloaded it. And 
several similar things like it for other games. (Most notably, there was 
a thing called Quake Object Oriented Level Editor or "QOOLE".)

What can I say? I just can't figure out how to produce anything 
worthwhile. :-(

>      Oh, trust me, it is just like a real war (in a game experience at 
> least). I said to my son only last night, "What would you do if you were 
> ordered to go to the front line to save your country?" He said, "I'd fight". 
> I then said that he'll be killed fairly soon. No comment from him, and a 
> despondant face to match. Me? Stuff the war. I'd be around the back sniping 
> them if possible. I know for a fact that I wouldn't adhere to war 'rules' 
> whatever I might do. I'd do my best though for my country of course.

I know some people who have really been snipers. As in, they've killed 
actual people during an actual war.

They don't talk about it much...

>> I have absolutely no idea how in the game of God any of this is possible. 
>> But people have done it, so it *must* be possible...
> 
>     Yes, it's true, people have done it, including myself. I'm about a month 
> away from publishing my first Crysis level, (the first in a series of three, 
> hopefully), and even though I've published many PoV-Ray images to the world, 
> it's scaring the crap out of me to upload my map. Really.O-O

Yeah, but... throwing together a new map is one thing, but building an 
entire new game... where do you get all the texture data from? Where do 
you get all the sounds from? How to you design weapons? How do you 
construct an AI engine? How do you do all of this with a few people in 
their spare time?? It boggles the mind...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:

> It all sounds a bit silly today. We tak such things for granted.
> 
> We are truly living in the future, my friends...

When you think about it, it's kind of like the industrial revolution...

The industrial revolution transformed the way mankind lives and works. 
It altered the economy forever. Fortunes were made and lives were 
ruined, and the world has never been the same since. You can argue about 
whether all these changes were for good or ill, but none can deny that 
society was transformed. Things which would hitherto have been 
considered impossible because quite ordinary.

But nobody really even thinks about the industrial revolution now. 
Because it's *happened*. It's *over*. We're *here* now.

I guess it's the same with the digital entertainment revolution - nobody 
really thinks about it any more because it's old news now.

Heh, I'm old enough to remember actual green screens. Computers that 
tried to play "music" by making beeps. Images that were a mass of 
multicoloured square blocks. The idea of a computer *so powerful* that 
it could show pictures that looked almost photographic seemed 
mind-blowing and futuristic.

Today, it's a mundane reality. Sure, you can now play a movie on your 
computer as well as on your TV. And how is that really different? It 
turns out that once you get over what a neat idea it is, the reality 
isn't so different to VHS.




Actually, at the weekend I was reading an article in Amiga Format. This 
was the April 1994 issue, and they're talking in hushed tones about a 
visionary new technology dubbed "Full Motion Video" (FMV).

The article goes on to explain that since it's now possible to store 
computer data on a CD (something they call a "CD-ROM"), in theory you 
could be able to store a computer animation on there. And since the 
Amiga can produce near-photographic image quality... hey, what if you 
could put a *movie* onto a CD??

Ah, but there's a catch. One frame of high-quality video takes up about 
1 MB of space - and you need 25 of them for a single second of video. 
That gives us a transfer rate of 25 MB/s, which *wildly* exceeds what 
any known CD drive is capable of.

(By my arithmetic, a CD gives you 10 MB/min, so 60x faster would be 10 
MB/s, and another 2.5x faster would be 25 MB/s. So we need a drive that 
spins at 180x normal speed. IIRC, normal CD speed is 500 RPM, so that's 
90,000 RPM. The *centrifuge* in our lab doesn't spin that fast. Hell, my 
*car* doesn't rev that high! The disk would surely shatter due to the 
extreme centrefugal forces...)

But there's a bigger problem than transfer speed: 650 MB / 25 MB/s = 26 
seconds of video (!!!), without any sound. Who the hell is going to 
bother putting together a high-end system so they can play 26 *seconds* 
of video on their computer?

It is crystal clear at this point that the storage requirements *must* 
be reduced. The data has to be compressed somehow. But as soon as you do 
that, the difficulty is finding a way of compressing the data so that it 
can still be UNcompressed fast enough for realtime playback. This is a 
serious problem.

Apparently Phillips has come up with a new device called the CD-I, which 
usees the "white book standard". This basically means you take your 
movie, downsample it to half resolution (so it's roughly 400x300 
pixels), and then encode it using a newly-developed system known as 
"MPEG". You then put this on a CD-ROM.

Trouble is, the latest high-end Amigas had MPEG decoding software, but 
would only manage maybe 3-4 FPS at low resolutions. This is clearly 
insufficient for FMV! But then there was the Amiga CD32.




For those that don't know, the Amiga CD32 is an Amiga 1200 with a CD-ROM 
drive, built in the shape of a games console. (There's no keyboard or 
mouse, for example.)

Most of the games released for it were actually just Amiga 1200 games 
with a CD soundtrack added. But a small few actually took advantage of 
the awesome storage capabilities of a CD-ROM. (Remember, previously 
games came on 720 KB floppy disks!)

In this same issue of AmigaFormat, I read an issue for a game called 
"Microcosm". Due to some sci-fi plot that isn't actually that 
interesting, you get put inside a space ship, miniturised, and injected 
into somebody's body to fight off a hord of robits inside the guy. In 
other words, basically you fly down organic-looking tunnels shooting things.

I don't have the magazine in front of me now, but the final summary read 
something like

   "This may not be the most playable game ever, but it doesn't even 
matter. This game is the future. And it's here right now. GET IT!"

The best screenshot I can find is this:

http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/screenshots/full/microcosm_(cd32)_20.png

The graphics were comparatively realistic. Certainly little like this 
had been seen before. Most games were either cartoonish platforms, or a 
few were very slow, jerky 3D things with giant polygons, point lights 
and no surface texturing. *This* looked almost real.

(In solomn truth, it's actually just a 2D game with a prerendered 3D 
background loop playing behind it. But it *looks* impressive. And it's 
only possible to fit that much animation data in due to the cavernous 
space on a CD-ROM.)

It was also intercut with smooth video sequences:

http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/screenshots/full/microcosm_(cd32)_03.png

Certainly it's nothing compared to what we have today, but back then 
seeing bits of jerky motion on a *computer* was astonishing.



Anyway, getting back to FMV... There was a [very expensive] card for the 
Amiga CD32 that allows it to play any White Book compliant CD movie. 
Phillips were apparently very surprised when they found out about this. 
But they seemed pleased. "I think anybody who does with producing a 
proprietry format has the wrong idea. We need a common format to 
stimulate adoption."

(Anybody who remembers the HD-DVD/BluRay feasco surely cannot doubt 
these words!)

The FMV card was reputedly about £300. It basically consists of some 
custom MPEG decoder hardware. The magazine mentions how "it takes many 
months of running time on the latest supercomputers to convert video to 
MPEG format". But, "amazingly", it makes the data fit onto a CD and play 
back even within a CD's limited transfer rate.

The article is of course liberally decorated with screenshots from an 
Amiga playing various movies. I've never heard of CD-I or the White Book 
standard, but apparently quite a number of titles were actually released 
for it.

The pictures don't actually look bad at all. If anything, the only real 
problem is the very low spatial resolution. They all look kinda fuzzy 
and out of focus, and very pixelish. (Remembe, this is 400x300 pixel 
resolution!) But the *colour* seems completely perfect. There is no 
*hint* of the MPEG artifacts you often see at high compression ratios.

When did DVDs come out? I don't actually know the answer to that, but it 
seems like comparatively recently. To think that the Amiga was already 
*doing* this stuff, for real, way back in 1994 seems quite impressive to 
me. Not that it apparently got very far...



How are things different today? Well today we have DVDs, which are just 
like CDs except with significantly more storage capacity. That means you 
don't have to downsample the video to make it fit on a disk.

But more importantly, today a cheap PC can decode MPEG completely in 
software, and the CPU is *idling* during this task. It's *easy*! And I 
think that's the key thing. The computer power necessary for realtime 
video decompression is now commonly available, which is why you can go 
to Tesco and buy a DVD player for £20. Hell, you couldn't buy a *VHS* 
machine for that price! EVER!

(I guess all those complicated robotic parts for spooling the tape and 
so forth were just inherantly expensive to make. A DVD player just needs 
a few motors, a laser, and a computer with some software. It's quite 
easy really...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48980a4a$1@news.povray.org...
>>> I have absolutely no idea how to do that.
>>
>>     Getting Crysis = free editor.
>
> Getting the Source SDK = free download. I've even downloaded it.



 Yes, I've got it too, but don't use it. You only need the SDK if you want 
to produce a 'mod' - i.e., provide a new weapon, or game strategy, etc. But, 
you still need the disc to see and play your level, right?

   You've got FarCry, so try it some time with their editor. ;)

   Get some of those FatBoys and Trigens out and have a war with loads of 
grunts! :)




And
> several similar things like it for other games. (Most notably, there was a 
> thing called Quake Object Oriented Level Editor or "QOOLE".)

    Never heard of that, although I knew there was an editor.


>
> What can I say? I just can't figure out how to produce anything 
> worthwhile. :-(

     Ah, well, I thought exactly the same. Then I played, and played and 
played with the editor and just came up with 'anything' that works. Gave it 
a name, and that was my eventual year long project.

> Me? Stuff the war. I'd be around the back sniping
>> them if possible. I know for a fact that I wouldn't adhere to war 'rules' 
>> whatever I might do. I'd do my best though for my country of course.
>
> I know some people who have really been snipers. As in, they've killed 
> actual people during an actual war.

    Lol at me ranting. ;) I don't know what I'd be like really, all I know 
is that I wouldn't be on that front line to get shot at, (who the f*** would 
in their right mind!) I admire snipers, they have a tough job to do. I have 
no idea what it's like to be a real sniper, but boy, these games do come 
close I think. If you're playing Crysis, when you're slightly out of range 
from the enemy sniper and he gets close with his shot by a few inches, you 
can hear the whizz of that bullet pass your ear, (and see it via the trail), 
now imagine that in real life!


>
> They don't talk about it much...

   No, and I wouldn't either. It's a hard thing to do.


>
>>> I have absolutely no idea how in the game of God any of this is 
>>> possible. But people have done it, so it *must* be possible...
>>
>>     Yes, it's true, people have done it, including myself. I'm about a 
>> month away from publishing my first Crysis level, (the first in a series 
>> of three, hopefully), and even though I've published many PoV-Ray images 
>> to the world, it's scaring the crap out of me to upload my map. 
>> Really.O-O
>
> Yeah, but... throwing together a new map is one thing, but building an 
> entire new game... where do you get all the texture data from? Where do 
> you get all the sounds from? How to you design weapons? How do you 
> construct an AI engine? How do you do all of this with a few people in 
> their spare time?? It boggles the mind...

      There are some clever kids out there, (and older guys), that's for 
sure. AI engine? No idea. (Well, programming, obviously, but what, and how, 
I wouldn't know). Textures? PS. Weapons (and everything else for a 'new' 
game) - a modelling program.

       Simple as that. ;) But you don't really need to do any of that for 
your first map in Crysis, it's all there and configurable in the editor. 
Takes some playing with to get right, but it works. I've tested my map loads 
now, but I still need to get the saves in the right positions and get the 
ending right.

   Btw, this is me DE-STRESSING in Crysis. 180(ish) Korean trucks falling to 
the ground:

      http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zjaxyfTW3UY

    Notice how slow it is on my 6600GT. ;)  I'll do a daytime version 
soon... ;)

       ~Steve~


>
> -- 
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Yeah, but... throwing together a new map is one thing, but building an
> entire new game... where do you get all the texture data from? Where do
> you get all the sounds from? How to you design weapons? How do you
> construct an AI engine? How do you do all of this with a few people in
> their spare time?? It boggles the mind...

Minus the AI engine, that sounds like building a POV-Ray scene. And people
do it in their spare time.

Post a reply to this message

"Nicolas Alvarez" <nic### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:489a6bf8@news.povray.org...
> Invisible wrote:
>> Yeah, but... throwing together a new map is one thing, but building an
>> entire new game... where do you get all the texture data from? Where do
>> you get all the sounds from? How to you design weapons? How do you
>> construct an AI engine? How do you do all of this with a few people in
>> their spare time?? It boggles the mind...
>
> Minus the AI engine, that sounds like building a POV-Ray scene. And people
> do it in their spare time.

     Yes, just an hour or two here and there, and maybe a full weekend if 
you're inclined, and a year later you've got yourself a map. (In my case 
that is. Some of these young guys can produce professional maps in like - a 
couple of months or less!)

     ~Steve~

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> stbenge wrote:
>> Thank goodness for the open-source movement!
> 
> Yeah - I'm still puzzled by all that. The Amiga had a strong "shareware" 
> scene, but I'm puzzled by this sudden new craze of giving away 
> fully-supported commercial-grade software (sometimes that *was* 
> commercial!) for free. It suddenly seems to be the "trendy" thing to do, 
> and I'm not really sure how that happened.

It makes sense when your primary source of revenue comes from service 
contracts.  Give away the thing you're servicing / supporting, and 
suddenly you've a lot more potential customers.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

St. wrote:
>     <sniff - the internet is bad>

But it's also good for lots of things!

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I have absolutely no idea how in the game of God any of this is 
> possible. But people have done it, so it *must* be possible...

It's not really possible.  They're just pulling your leg.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

St. wrote:
>     Getting Crysis = free editor.

I started playing with the UT3 editor last year when it came out.  A few 
months of being shouted down in the forums by fanbois who couldn't stand 
  my (imo) valid criticisms of the editor, plus seeing several threads 
(both my own, and others') removed from the forums with no explanation 
at all, convinced me that I didn't want to make levels for UT3 any more.

Pity, because if there's one thing that game needs (other than more than 
10 people online at any given time), it's more good levels.

I would consider Crysis, but my PC isn't up to snuff, and I don't feel 
like upgrading just for that.  Hopefully, Starcraft 2 will have 
scripting support on par with the original.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

>> Yeah - I'm still puzzled by all that. The Amiga had a strong 
>> "shareware" scene, but I'm puzzled by this sudden new craze of giving 
>> away fully-supported commercial-grade software (sometimes that *was* 
>> commercial!) for free. It suddenly seems to be the "trendy" thing to 
>> do, and I'm not really sure how that happened.
> 
> It makes sense when your primary source of revenue comes from service 
> contracts.  Give away the thing you're servicing / supporting, and 
> suddenly you've a lot more potential customers.

...is has a flavour

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Yeah, but... throwing together a new map is one thing, but building an
>> entire new game... where do you get all the texture data from? Where do
>> you get all the sounds from? How to you design weapons? How do you
>> construct an AI engine? How do you do all of this with a few people in
>> their spare time?? It boggles the mind...
> 
> Minus the AI engine, that sounds like building a POV-Ray scene. And people
> do it in their spare time.

(And the sound, and the animation element.)

Yeah, but POV-Ray supports procedural textures, so you can easily design 
textures of any complexity. Game engines demand bitmapped textures, 
which are far harder to make.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> I have absolutely no idea how in the game of God any of this is 
>> possible. But people have done it, so it *must* be possible...
> 
> It's not really possible.  They're just pulling your leg.

Wouldn't be the first time...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message 
news:489aa7ed$1@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>>     Getting Crysis = free editor.
>
> I started playing with the UT3 editor last year when it came out.  A few 
> months of being shouted down in the forums by fanbois who couldn't stand 
> my (imo) valid criticisms of the editor, plus seeing several threads (both 
> my own, and others') removed from the forums with no explanation at all, 
> convinced me that I didn't want to make levels for UT3 any more.

     Oh, well that's a shame. Yes, I know what fanboys can be like. And I'm 
sure your advice would have been good.


>
> Pity, because if there's one thing that game needs (other than more than 
> 10 people online at any given time), it's more good levels.
>
> I would consider Crysis, but my PC isn't up to snuff, and I don't feel 
> like upgrading just for that.  Hopefully, Starcraft 2 will have scripting 
> support on par with the original.

     Ah, well, if you want the Crysis experience, then get Crysis:Warhead 
this September. Crytek have optimised this game to run on $600/$800 machines 
apparently. But, you should be able to run Crysis on your rig if I can on my 
(now pitiful) machine. Anyway, see some of the video's for Warhead, and see 
what you think. I can't wait for it!  :)

    ~Steve~

>
> ...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
> It makes sense when your primary source of revenue comes from service 
> contracts. 

Actually, it makes a lot more sense when your primary source of revenue 
isn't software at all. Sun gives away Java because they make their money 
selling hardware.

> Give away the thing you're servicing / supporting, and 
> suddenly you've a lot more potential customers.

That really only works well if the software sucks to start with. If it's 
well documented and easy to use and just plain works, you won't get too 
much business from service contracts. If it's all that and yet too 
complex for the customer to easily set up (think SAP), it's probably too 
complex to be cheap enough to maintain that you can afford to give it 
away in the first place.

If you're giving away the source, other contractors will just eat your 
lunch because they don't have your overhead.

It's a good thought that really doesn't work out as well as you might think.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

St. wrote:
> that is. Some of these young guys can produce professional maps in like - a 
> couple of months or less!)

There's one thing I wondered about game creation.  (Hey, Warp! :-)

How does the planning and design go?  I mean, take a game like Thief or 
Halo or Half Life or something, where there's all kinds of complex 3D 
stuff going on.  It's not like you can whiteboard such a thing very easily.

I'm thinking maybe a group of people get together, think about the 
story, describe stuff that should be in the level,maybe draw a map or 
two, and then hand it to one person to put the whole level together, 
laying it out and all?  Then they go to the talent to produce the sounds 
and voices and all that?

Basically, how do you get from "next in the story, we have the secret 
lab level" to "here's the 3D mesh for the level"?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

>> It makes sense when your primary source of revenue comes from service 
>> contracts. 
> 
> Actually, it makes a lot more sense when your primary source of revenue 
> isn't software at all. Sun gives away Java because they make their money 
> selling hardware.

And yet Apple doesn't do the same. ;-)

(Mind you, Apple's software is what *makes* people buy their hardware...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> There's one thing I wondered about game creation.  (Hey, Warp! :-)
> 
> How does the planning and design go?  I mean, take a game like Thief or 
> Halo or Half Life or something, where there's all kinds of complex 3D 
> stuff going on.  It's not like you can whiteboard such a thing very easily.

Actually, I think I recal seeing some black and white pen drawings for 
the storyboarding for Halflife somewhere... Don't remember where though.

What *I* wonder about game design is how the hell you model 3D objects. 
Every 3D modeller I've ever used has been excruciatingly difficult to 
operate...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
>  my (imo) valid criticisms of the editor, plus seeing several threads 

That's one of the things that killed me about the thief editor. I didn't 
work with it much, but it certainly seemed like they should have been 
able to (for example) tell you when a hole was big enough to move 
through without getting stuck, or a gap small enough to jump over. 
Otherwise, it was all trial and error.

I mean, at a minimum, have the stuff you stick to the walls and floors 
be able to "snap" to the surface/grid/whatever. The levels are full of 
lights that float an inch from the wall, book shelves facing the wall, 
fire in the fireplace not touching the floor, etc.  As well as them 
having issued a patch or two that just made it possible to take routes 
where they'd made the window too small to climb through by 3 pixels or so.

There's even a garish default texture so you can walk around and find 
the surfaces you forgot to texture. Rather than, you know, a function in 
the editor that points the camera at any untextured surfaces.

How could it *not* save time to automate such stuff?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> It makes sense when your primary source of revenue comes from service 
>>> contracts. 
>>
>> Actually, it makes a lot more sense when your primary source of 
>> revenue isn't software at all. Sun gives away Java because they make 
>> their money selling hardware.
> 
> And yet Apple doesn't do the same. ;-)

Sure they do, in some ways. They certainly used to.

Try buying a third-party DVD drive, plugging it into an apple, and using 
iDVD to burn a video to it.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> What *I* wonder about game design is how the hell you model 3D objects. 
> Every 3D modeller I've ever used has been excruciatingly difficult to 
> operate...

Ibid. I think it takes a certain talent, probably not unlike writing 
sequential code.   I suspect the $300K modelers are easier to use for 
professionals in the same way that Photoshop blows away GIMP if that's 
what you do for a living.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:489b10f2$1@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>> that is. Some of these young guys can produce professional maps in like - 
>> a
>> couple of months or less!)
>
> There's one thing I wondered about game creation.  (Hey, Warp! :-)
>
> How does the planning and design go?  I mean, take a game like Thief or
> Halo or Half Life or something, where there's all kinds of complex 3D
> stuff going on.  It's not like you can whiteboard such a thing very 
> easily.

      True, but it can be done. I mean, I'm pretty sure that Crytek do this, 
and of course some of the mod teams do this too. I didn't with my map, but I 
now know that's a path I could take if I wanted to make a new map. I just 
built my map as I went along, and there is no storyline as such, but you do 
get ten objectives to accomplish, which all work, and some of the map is 
linear, but it really doesn't have to be as you can go over most land to 
complete an objective in a different way.


>
> I'm thinking maybe a group of people get together, think about the
> story, describe stuff that should be in the level,maybe draw a map or
> two, and then hand it to one person to put the whole level together,
> laying it out and all?  Then they go to the talent to produce the sounds
> and voices and all that?

      Well, the way that it's been working in the mod teams at Crymod.com is 
that a group of people will get together that each have their own 
'speciality' if you like. One guy will be really good with flowgraphs, (I'm 
crap lol), and then another guy will be good at modelling, and another guy 
will be good with texturing, and another will be good at storyline/game 
balance, etc. And if they're *really* lucky, they might just have a guy 
that's good at programming either C, or Lua, or both.


>
> Basically, how do you get from "next in the story, we have the secret
> lab level" to "here's the 3D mesh for the level"?

     If you're not making a mod, (where you introduce new elements, models, 
whatever), then it's basically all there for you in the editor, so it's then 
just a normal bog standard map and not a mod. So really, it's as I explained 
above. But, I don't think there's anything stopping me adding a new model to 
my map, and still call it a map other than a mod.

    See the attached top_down image. The big blue bounding boxes are called 
AINavigationModifiers, and as far as I know, they don't interfere with 
anything other than the white paths that you can see in the middle of them. 
You use these paths to give your helicopters and boats a path to follow. 
(There's a wedge shaped box to the right for my only boat). You can put both 
a heli and a boat in one AINavMod if you want and as many as you want.  The 
red lines are 'ForbiddenAreas' - an AI won't go in that, you use it to stop 
them climbing over objects, and the yellow lines are 'ForbiddenBoundaries' - 
the AI won't walk out of it. The light blue lines are land vehicle paths. I 
don't know how you programming guys do this, but to me, I've got more than 
enough respect for those that do.

     There are *many* other things that this image just doesn't show, but 
the attached screen2_pub shows just how beautiful Crysis can be, (and this 
is crap compared to what some of the youngsters can do! Lol!)  :)

     The only problem with my map at the moment is that I've got a nuke 
going off right at the start of the game, and I don't know how to fix that 
yet. It's really the ending of the map! (But it still works at the end too).

   I'd love somebody from here to test my map, but I don't think anyone here 
plays Crysis.  :o/


     ~Steve~


>
> -- 
> Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
>  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
>  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
>  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
>  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:489b11b4$1@news.povray.org...
> Darren New wrote:
>
>> There's one thing I wondered about game creation.  (Hey, Warp! :-)
>>
>> How does the planning and design go?  I mean, take a game like Thief or 
>> Halo or Half Life or something, where there's all kinds of complex 3D 
>> stuff going on.  It's not like you can whiteboard such a thing very 
>> easily.
>
> Actually, I think I recal seeing some black and white pen drawings for the 
> storyboarding for Halflife somewhere... Don't remember where though.
>
> What *I* wonder about game design is how the hell you model 3D objects. 
> Every 3D modeller I've ever used has been excruciatingly difficult to 
> operate...

     What? Even Wings3D? As far as I know, it's 'the' most easily used 
modeller out there. And very powerful.

       ~Steve~


>
> -- 
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:03:25 +0100, St. wrote:

>      What? Even Wings3D? As far as I know, it's 'the' most easily used
> modeller out there. And very powerful.

Well, even Wings3D has a slight learning curve.  Blender is easy to 
operate as well, once you have learned the interface - but for some, that 
takes years to master.

Today's society is full of people who don't want to take the time to 
*learn*, they just expect to be able to understand everything instantly, 
and get frustrated when they don't "get it" within the first 30 seconds 
of using a new tool.

Jim

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