Exploring free Linux Games

There is a whole bunch of free games available on Linux, the amount of which is quite shocking. Didn't really try too many though, but two of those that I have, are quite interesting. The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn based strategy game with ports for both windows and linux. It reminds me of this old Sega strategy called Warsong (aka Langrisser). Graphics are 2D, not to shabby, and it is highly addictive. Bad bad!

Another interesting nugget is FreeCiv - a free version of well... Civilization! I found it amusing when one of the default names you will play as could be an "Ah Beng" or "Ah Lian" lol! You can of course play one of the more historic figures like Sir Stamford raffles or one of the prime ministers/presidents.

Have fun on linux! It's great for killing time when watching sims :P

I got a flute!

Several posts earlier, I mentioned about Ultima 5 Lazarus, and the music for it has been so fantastic. It is great to relieve a lot of the Ultima 6 music in such high quality. I have also tried to replicate music I enjoy, such as Greyson's Tale on my Native American Flute, but it's chromatic scale is slightly off tune. I don't think it's designed to be a such an instrument anyway, so I decided to get a western concert flute i.e. the one above to see if I can pick it up.

Well for a start, it's a pain! Lol. Literally. I haven't got my finger positioning and posture correct, and my thumb hurts. It's probably that because I'm learning on my own based on what I can glean from home pages on the web =)
I'm also needing to build up my breath capacity =) I thought my plastic NAF was using up a lot of air, but this little puppy needs a whole lot more! Again, probably because of my n00biness.

If not, as of last night I was practicing from C-G, will try A to hi C tonight =)

Siggraph in 2 weeks! Woot!

Just home - and wireless works!

Well it's not too much of a surprise I guess, but I had zero luck getting Edgy to work in wireless. One of the reasons I didn't use it too much. But with Feisty, the moment I got home, I just input my password, encryption type and network name, BAM! I'm in. Friggin' cool. I didn't even have to edit my /etc/network/interfaces file. I also got msn/aim capabilities via Pidgin, also installed with the OS. Everything is slowly coming together =)

GallenWolf: Now on Ubuntu 7.04 :-)

Woo! I'm digging Ubuntu 7.04 - as of this post, I'm in a transition period between XP and Ubuntu :P Running fluid sims at the office, and there's only so much one can take Mario Kart on the DS. So I brought my lappy today to the office whilst sims are running. It's 9pm here, btw :P

Let's see... MP3s are playing fine, mail's fine, blog's fine, got my graphic drivers installed, figured out how to disable the touchpad, youtube works...DOSBOX WORKS! Life is good :) What's left is to get some IM software installed and see if the GIMP is up to photoshop, and of course, install Houdini, 64 bit :-)

PS: Ubuntu is a flavour of Linux in case you are curious.

The only thing to make it better if someone would give me 4gbs of ram lol :)

Switching to Linux?

I had the opportunity to learn how to setup a dual boot windows/linux system from one of our masta sys admins here with his l33t methods and crazy vi skillz. I actually have Ubuntu 6 on an external drive that I boot into, but without knowledge of drivers, how to configure wireless etc. totally put me off. So now, I can't wait for siggraph to be over and I can setup my system to dual boot into linux! The reason? Performance! Crazy performance.

My sys admin also gave me this cool link that I thought I'd share:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32967/113/

Yesterday I also cleaned out my laptop's fan with some canned air. Helps so much with my fingers getting hot lol. Do if you lappy is getting hot, clean it out :)

Still alive and sorta kicking

So... nothing new to post. I'm just basically on my way to check out another siggraph paper, of which the link is on the left side of the blog on my CG Resources section =) With less than a month to Siggraph 07, things are getting rather hectic at work. I am currently working on 3 separate projects (!!!), two at work, and one at home, all for siggraph. All this keyboard banging is getting some stuff working, and I hope to post more about what I'm working on after Siggraph. Till then!

Ultima V: Lazarus

With Siggraph quickly approaching, I'm up to my ears in work, and as I write this I just finished learning some new Houdini tidbits. Remember on July 10th you guys get your paws on this piece of software!

Anyways, during my break I suddenly had the urge to listen to the Ultima V soundtrack... duh is there one? Who know, I had to search for it! Well the first hit was.... Ultima 5: Lazarus? Was this some kind of re-release by Origin or? Nope! Evidently many fans of the game have banded and re-released an updated version of Ultima V based on the Dungeon Siege engine. You do need Dungeon Siege to play it though, so perhaps after Siggraph, I'll check it out. In the meantime, the soundtrack for Lazarus is freely available for download (!!). So for anyone that still remembers rescuing Lord British with thy Avatar, go for it! (Me? I only won U5 once......anyone wanna go steal magic carpets and dodge gargoyles? :-) )

http://lazarus.planetdungeonsiege.gamespy.com/index.php

Katamari!

Was working on this yesterday, had to learn a new scripting syntax in a few hours, but got the basics of the challenge working - to get a workable Katamari simulation in Houdini :)

Nothing new for now

Or rather, I have lots of stuff going on, stuff I don't wanna show till maybe after Siggraph :)

I've also resisted the bad urge to stop posting what I've had for dinner. Nyeh.

Mantra Rox, GW out :)

Human Tetris

Hilarious! Love Japan!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bK63uSTTNs

Rushed at Bar None

Props to Boon and his band to their first live performance (so I hear!), check them out at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=zanyama

Visit to Disney

Spent the good part of the day at the Disney lot in Burbank today, where we were given a guided tour of Disney's production facilities (they'd just finished Meet The Robinsons, so it was a tad quiet). After that, we went for lunch and took a tour of the other facilities, told which room was Walt Disney's old room (!!!), and got a chance to take a quick peek at some sound stages.

Also, I happened to come across this link:
http://www.renderman.org/RMR/Books/index.html#Sig

Cool PRMan SIGGRAPH lectures! Gah so much stuff to learn!

Legend of Zelda, real life!

_duh_

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsHknWPwts

And yes, for the curious, this is my board :-)

Grippins!

What's new in LA?! New wheels! New longboard wheels that is :-) I just got my new set of Abec11 Grippins. I haven't ridden them yet, but they're surprisingly soft. Can't wait to test 'em out!

Today...

Annoying fog! GAH! At the time of this post, the tall white building is even more friggin' obscured!

Yesterday

Experienced fog for the first time! Wonderful weather then suddenly... dun dun dun, this white thing rolls in. Instantly reminded me of Stephen King's The Mist.


Anyways, uneventful day till the bus home had some mechanical issues with the door (refused to close!) and it happened near.... Digital Domain! Yep that's the view through the dirt encrusted windows of the bus. I go by DD every single day. Twice.

More food!

In an attempt to bring living costs down (or the fact that you get sick of frozen food.... take your pick :P), I've started cooking stuff at home. This week I'll be having.... rosti! Ok well... not really. What we have here is some thai rice covered with potato slices friend in egg and sprinkled liberally with black pepper. Ahem.

The weather seems to be improving this week, it's almost too warm to wear a windbreaker when heading outside. Apart from the most welcome warmth, I think the sun seems to be rising earlier? Today I woke up with the Sun shining in my face, and I had a single, bladder loosening thought (ok so nothing with the bladder just pretending to be dramatic) - I'M GONNA BE LATE FOR WORK!!!!

Looking at my clock, it's..... 6am?! What the....?

Will report more happenings as it happens to me, noob houdnik in LA!

Animusic

Using CG metal balls to hit string and percussion instruments, an entire music piece is created. This is a really inspirational piece!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2942922314315974986&pr=goog-sl

Let's act like a tourist.

Yesterday was my second time visiting McDonalds in the USA, the first time I just got a Sausage McMuffin meal and it was pretty much the same as the ones back home, except somehow, they don't serve tea?! I had no choice but to go with coffee.

Yesterday morning I was real hungry for a reason (perhaps all the skateboarding and running around the boardwalk :P )
and I happened to meet my colleague on the way to work. We were originally going to Starbucks but the queue was rather long, so I said (and personally I don't like starbucks too much) "Hey let's go to McDonalds!". Once there I just picked the largest meal I saw, which was this deluxe meal. Ok so I wasn't paying attention to the pictures in the store, so when I got back to the office I was wondering... why did they give me syrup?! Did they give me the wrong meal? But obviously, I just wasn't awake enough to realise the amount of food stacked in my carryout! It's basically a Big Breakfast + Hotcakes meal + 2 slices of bacon!

Needless to say I had a late lunch as it held me up pretty well :-)

Check back again!

Welcome Angie :)

We've got a new animator join us a few days back, too busy to note it here, but welcome Angie! She is an extremely experienced animator that has worked with many productions across many places. She'll be helping prepare Houdini 9's character toolset from an Animator's perspective. Check out her site and blog here:

http://www.spicycricket.com/
http://thinkinganimationbook.blogspot.com/