It may be overkill

But it's fucking awesome. That is three monitors in Eyefinity. Just got a second monitor for my birthday and I'll be setting it up later today. You can never have enough space.

Man, this would qualify as a "tweet". I should write something more...

Ah, my visit to De Montfort University. Last week (if my memory serves me right) I went to an open day at said University. I went to go see their game related courses. The two being "Game Art Design" and "Animation Design". Both seemed more catered to the creative side of things, which is expected but I was hoping to cover a broader base. And most of the things they teach there are things that can be developed individually without having to pony up £3000.

But I digress. Futureworks, a university in Manchester that I visited earlier was more to my liking. They seemed to lightly cover some programming as well as scripting. While also focusing a lot on the creative side of making games; drawing, modelling, texturing etc.

I still haven't applied to any of these yet, although I should before March. The thing is, I doubt I'd be able to achieve the required UCAS Tarrif points. On the other hand, if I have an exceptional portfolio I could be slot in to one of the courses without having to go through a foundation course.

Or I could just skip University all together, and hone my talents on my own. That would require a lot of perseverance, motivation, passion, dedication, and many other inspiring words.

Decisions, decisions...

Kiss me, you frog

Just got back from watching The Princess And The Frog at the cinema, so I thought it would be a good idea to write how I felt about it.

So, one of the big things about this movie that I won't touch on, because I really don't have a solid opinion on it, is the whole princess being of african-american descent. To be honest, it didn't really matter to me at all, it's not like I was going to see the movie because of that reason alone. The situation was similar to that of Obama being elected, except on a much smaller scale. I'll just stop there.

Anyway, the other factor that helped hype the movie up was its return to traditional 2D animation. And it really is great, Disney definitely hasn't lost its touch. The characters are extremely well animated, and that special Disney feel is still present. There is much to say about how great the animation, how engrossing the New Orleans backdrops are, how colourful and magical most of the scenes are, but really I wouldn't do it justice.

As for the story, I rather enjoyed it.It basically takes the classic "princess kisses frog" and adds some neat twists and unique characters, and some voodooism . It was enjoyable from start to finish, nothing revolutionary or out of this world just a neat, warm, well told story.

Well, that was my half-arsed review of The Princess And The Frog. My final thoughts, definitely a must watch if you're a fan of the traditional Disney movies. Or if you've got kids; they'd definitely enjoy a magical movie like this.

"Endorphins 11" progress

Well this movie that me and 10 other guys from the forums is coming along nicely. Although there has been a change in the members, certain members were replaced because of their lack of activity. Good news is most of the environments are done, and done extremely well. And we've got War Horse working on the script.

I've been assigned to getting the character models done, after I found out a way to export models straight from GTA4. It's great stuff, although a bit creepy. Here's a quick picture of the progress:

This was just a quick test in setting up the hands and head. All of it works properly and I personally think the hands are very convincing. Still some scaling needs to be done and the rest of the model finished. Makes it really easy though, one you've got the whole mesh to customize within Max. Although the models themselves when opened in Max are quite complex, I strip them down to the bare essentials, so to speak.

I do this simply by detaching and deleting certain surfaces from the mesh. Then I export the selected section as an .obj file. I then open up a standard character in Endorphin and start modifying him, by importing these .obj files onto certain parts of the characters body.

This tethers them to the root node of the specific section. So that when the hand moves, the .obj moves with it. Easy to understand and implement.  Yeah, so that's pretty much it.

Just installed my new 5870

XFX Radeon 5870 to be precise. Haven't gamed yet but damn, I can't wait to.

Will also be great when I'm using 3ds max and the like.

All thanks to my awesome parents and family. ATI Eyefinity here I come!

Space Ghost Coast to Coast

God damn, I never knew how amazing this show was back when I was like 10 years old, all of the jokes just flew over my head. But now I really can't stop laughing while watching episodes on Youtube. It really is hilarious stuff.

Part of what makes it so funny is the god-awful animation, ripped straight from the original 60's show, paired up with a great voice acting cast. This results in some really awkward but hysterical movements from Space ghost and the crew. There's also just so many absurd lines you can pull from a single episode that never get old.

This is a great episode;

And there are many, many more.

God I love this show.