So Monday was my first day of my new semester, and the first time I’ve taken classes since 3 or 4 semesters ago. So far……….so good, I think . All of my classes are DE (Distance Education) meaning I stay at home and do all of the work on my own. Then I just submit assignments via email or on Blackboard. I’m taking College Composition I (basically English since I didn’t take college-level english in High School), Concepts of Personal and Community Health, Introduction to Network Concepts, and Microcomputer Operating Systems. I should mention that I decided to change my major to Computer Graphics and Web Design Specialization; previous to my return to school I was working towards a Game Design Specialization. The two degree only differ by 3 or 4 classes, so what I may end up doing is just take an extra semester and see if I can’t get both specializations.

I’ve had some problems dealing with these classes in the past and I didn’t do so well as far as grades were concerned. Not so much that the classes were hard…just that I’m not a school-type of person. For some reason I just don’t get that much out of the type of teaching atmospheres that schools around here use. Not to mention there’s a lot of social stresses that I have to deal with, which makes it that much harder. But I’m really gonna try and buckle down this time around. I’m pretty sure I’ll regret it later on if I don’t go through with it.

So the question has to be asked – how will classes affect my mapping and projects? The list of priorities has definitely changed, that’s for sure. But that shouldn’t be a surprise. I won’t say that they bring me to an utter grinding halt; I will almost certainly still have some free time. I’ll just have less of it, that’s all . Progress will probably be slowed down and you may not see much of or from me. But rest assured, they won’t be canceled or anything drastic like that…unless something drastic happens. And it also depends on how demanding these classes turn out to be; right now I can’t give a definite answer on that. The tl;dr is this – I got important, grown-up school stuff to do so I may not map as often, but I’ll still be around and I’ll never, ever stop mapping completely.

So…*sigh*…I tried to make that post sound as positive as possible. I just hope I can follow through with it. Wish me luck guys!

Just in case the 2 of you here didn’t get bored enough from the previous post, here’s another post full of text and no images .

Firstly, Mekworx has been updated to WordPress 3.0.1! Yay WordPress, how I love thee

I can’t remember if I mentioned this here or not, but recently I sold my Alienware Aurora M9700 gaming laptop on eBay for $800. The reason? I’m planning on building a brand new box with the help of Super Jamie! Well ok, to be fair, the laptop was still in perfect working order and still suited my needs. However the fact of it being a laptop never really had any use to me; it sat on my desk pretty much the entire length of my ownership of it. So it was basically a desktop that was prone to getting really hot (the thing had two video cards jammed into it…not so good when you’ve got all those components so close together in a laptop case). The heat never actually caused any problems as it seemed to be ventilated just good enough…but I didn’t like it. So that’s why I’m building a new [desktop] machine. Super Jamie was kind enough to help me with the list of parts based on my price range; this is what we came up with. (big thanks again to Super Jamie for setting that spreadsheet). It’s subject to change, of course, since some of those deals will probably change before I can buy the parts, but that’s gonna be it more or less. Super Jamie’s setup is very similar so it should turn out to be a pretty good machine . I’m planning on chronicling the building process with some pictures and a post…if I’m not too lazy .

For some more immediate news in the realm of Meka-projects, a couple of things – Vela Pax is currently on hold, Supplice was briefly in-progress but is now back to on-hold status again, and I started a new vanilla map for Joshy’s Plutonia Revisited Community Project. And now, explanations – Since I sold my laptop, which was my main computer, I’ve been relegated to two much older and much slower machines; my mom’s old ThinkPad (just for internet usage when I’m around it) and my old Win98 box [running XP] for everything else. The Win98 computer is atleast 13 years old though it’s had a few minor upgrades done to it since then. But it still can’t run a whole lot. I attempted to try and work on the latest Vela Pax map in it and it basically laughed back in my face saying “I don’t think so, scooter”. I then attempted to run GIMP on it so I could possibly do some texture work for Supplice. Well, needless to say, it was waaaay too slow for my tastes, so I promptly dropped that plan. Then I remembered back at Joshy’s new community project. I had thought briefly about contributing something to it since I was sorta itching for some vanilla-style mapping. At the time I was too busy with other things to help out though. However, now that I’m stuck on my older box that can’t do what I need it to for my projects, I decided I’d try and contribute a map. And so I started something a few days ago! No shots right now, but I’m hoping to have the bare layout done in a few days. The work-in-progress name for the map is “Atlatl” and it’s probably going to be a episode 1 map (both in terms of appearance and difficulty). There’s not much else I can say about it right now so keep your eyes peeled for shots.

Lastly, as many of you are probably already aware, QuakeCon started up not too long ago! And why am I mentioning this here when I obviously am not there and really have nothing to do with it? Well, because Carnevil and gang made it back there this year to show off the latest work on Last Bastion. Even though I’m not part of the team working on the project any longer, I still follow the project and support it 100%! Carn almost didn’t make it this year, which would have sucked. But with the help and advice of a few Doomer’s, he was able to find affordable lodging and make it down there this year . From what I’ve been told, the reactions so far have been very positive. Be sure to keep an eye out for more news and updates on the project’s blog as well as Carnevil’s twitter feed. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m really looking forward to seeing some new shots and vids by the end of this year’s QC

Well that’s all I gots fer now. I’ll be back with some pictures in the next post, I promise!

The past week has been a bit of a whirlwind of all sorts of things. Well pretty much everything but mapping . I got my hands on some Armored Core ports for the PSP recently and much of my gaming time has been focused on those. I even went as far as to compile a Hidden Parts Guide for it since the community hadn’t filled that void yet. I also recently made the decision to go back to school and finish up my degree. There were some personal issues that sorta hindered my college endeavors and really almost made me say “the hell with it”. But I realized that if I don’t go through with it, I may regret it. So it’s very likely that I may have to cut down on my mapping and other activities this coming Fall; it sorta sucks but I think most anyone would agree that it’s way more important. On top of that, there have been some really retarded issues that have been coming up in relation to my extended family. Long story short it’s put a lot of stress on the entire family as well as myself. So, I don’t know, it’s just extra baggage that I don’t care to be carrying around right now. It’ll probably also put some sort of hindrance on me as I head back to school as well as my personal and communal projects.

With the time away from the computer, I’ve been pondering my various projects and involvements in community related efforts. I was actually having a somewhat hard time getting away from Doom Builder a little over a week ago when I wanted to take a break. This time I was either having a hard time convincing myself to even turn the computer on or I was too busy dealing with bullshit or something else. Really, I could probably do with a few more days off from anything computer related. But seeing as how I don’t have much else to do during the day that doesn’t bore me to tears, I decided to hop back and and put my focus into mapping. And so that’s what I’m going to do!

I thought it would be a good idea to cap off where I’m at on each of the projects I’m working on. And also to briefly list off my future plans for each of them.

Vela Pax
The last time I stopped working on this, I was about 35-40% complete with MAP05. To give you a little perspective, from my last blog post with the work-in-progress screenshots, I was probably somewhere around 10-15% done. I’ve been moving at a steady pace on the map although it’s been a somewhat slow pace. Slower than I’d like, anyways. I’ll begin working on this map again today and hopefully I can progress a little faster now that I’m working my way into base layout. My goal is to be half-way or more finished with the project before Fall hits.

There was a concern I was having about the music; specifically the file size of the whole new music chunk. I have pretty much found all of the tracks that I want to use. The issue is that it’s going to be somewhere around 19 MB of extra space. If you think about it, that’s not a whole lot by today’s standards. But in comparison to the file sizes of a Doom map, it seems sorta lop-sided. I made some swap-outs and sacrifices here and there and I was able to find a working play list that equaled 10 MB; in comparison though, that 9 extra MB doesn’t really seem to make much of a difference. The music is in .it tracker format and they are of pretty high quality. They convey the mood I want for the maps almost “to a tee”. With some of the maps going to be a hour or more long in play length, my reasoning was that the large music file size was worth it in that regard. I would really like to hear opinions on this. But I think in the end, if I really think the music fits the map and works well with the project as a whole, then I’ll just have to overlook the file sizes and ignore the file size nazis.

Supplice
Ever since I started working on Vela Pax, things have slacked off tremendously with Supplice. Which is no surprise; I can only focus on one thing at a time and I don’t like working on other major projects until I’m done with the ones I’m working on. I guess you can chalk that up to my horrible multi-tasking skills. The only real work that has been done is the music; Jimmy91 is the man to thank for that. He’s been making some amazing tracks given my weird tastes and requests. Jimmy is really the only man whose done a considerable amount of work on the project so far.

To be fair though, I have done a few things since I first announced the project. Jimmy and I have discussed many of the project’s ins-and-outs in depth and we have a pretty good plan to work by so far. I attempted to try and create my own textures for the project; this is still pending but I will likely make a final decision on if I want to pursue that option once I make a few more textures. Right now it’s still mostly working out how we want to approach the various aspects of the project; we are pretty close to the point where actual work needs to begin so that we can knock out all of the resources and begin mapping. However I have planned on finishing up Vela Pax first before I start any major amount of work on Supplice again.

TSoZD
At this point I’m not really even sure why I’m on the team for this project . I really haven’t done a damn thing since I was put on the team. Other projects have been eating up all of my time unfortunately. Things have really been moving at a snail’s pace other than what essel and Vader have been working on. I recently had a discussion with essel about whether or not I was still interested in the project and what ideas essel had to get the project moving again. I’ve tried on a couple of occasions to break myself from whatever I was working on at the time and try to get something started for this. And every time something would prevent me from getting very far.

Basically, I’m still very interested in the project and contributing to it. The problem is that with all of the stuff I’ve got coming up in the near future, I’m not sure how much I’m going to be able to work on this. My goal is to try and start something before my classes start this August; that way I will at least have some ideas and a base to work from when I do have the time. After that, the trick will be trying to balance this with Vela Pax, other real-life activities, and school work.

Vaporware
So this project is pretty much in the same boat as TSoZD, unfortunately. To add to it, there are a number of Eternity-related editing additions that I’m not familiar with. As far as the mapping process is concerned, that’s going to slow me down a bit. Although I have done a little bit of work for it so far; I made a font set for it a while back although I’m not even sure if it’s going to be used. And I try to remember and test out the work in progress maps that are posted when I have a chance. But no, I haven’t started any mapping yet .

I was planning on doing 2 or 3 medium-length, hell-themed maps for the project. And whenever I can seize the free time to do it, I will. I don’t know what that will be though.

Long story short, I’m back in the same predicament that I didn’t want to be in and had worked hard to get out of when I hopped on board Project Vega Too many projects to work on/contribute too, not enough time and little-to-no tolerance to hop around from one to another. I try to remind myself that they are just games; they are nothing to be stressed out over. But I guess with everything that’s been going on my own little world, it’s sorta been eating away at me. So I’m gonna try and drown myself in some mapping for the time being

I have probably been somewhat inactive the past week or two. For one, there has been a lot of family-related drama going on (which I will not bore you with). So that’s been kind of draining on me. But more importantly/excitedly, I have come into possession of a brand-new computer! It’s actually somewhat related to the silly drama…but long story short is this: my Aunt bought this person a brand-new computer. We don’t really even know this person at all and my Aunt is just too nice. So it turns out that this person is a complete alcoholic and a general retard. She started making various threats (including burning down the house where she was allowed to stay temporarily), so the computer was taken away, among other things. At any rate, it was too late to take the computer back to Best Buy or wherever she purchased it, so she was stuck with a $1600 piece of hardware that she knows little to nothing about. That’s the extremely short version of the story.

Rewind to about a week ago. My Aunt offered to give the computer to me, which I was somewhat hesitant to agree to. Instead, I offered to try and sell my laptop to help pay it off (and then pay off the rest of the balance gradually). She was eager to offload it to me as soon as possible though, so she went ahead and gave it to me. I’m looking into a way to sell my laptop…but for now, here’s a picture of this beast:

My future plans for a new machine were going to be me building my own until this turn of events…but I’m not gonna complain. It’s a pretty slick looking machine. I don’t know anything about the Asus brand; I’ve heard of it, I just haven’t researched it or heard much about it from word-of-mouth. My impressions of it are pretty good so far though. This thing is incredibly fast. The monitor (that either came with it or was purchased separately…although it is an Asus monitor) is friggin’ massive! As far as desktop computers go, my last one was a Win98 machine from 1998. So I’m use to those old, boxy CRT monitors . It came with Windows 7, which up until now, I’ve never even seen, much less used. I did use Vista for a short time though and my opinion of it was pretty much “I can take it or leave it…so I’ll just go back to XP”. Windows 7 is similar to Vista in many ways, but so far I have found it to be much less annoying and more usable (with a few tweaks here and there). I was surprised to find that some of the wad editing utilities I had trouble with in Vista were no problem at all in Windows 7. Getting everything transferred and setup has been pretty uneventful save for a few niggles here and there. I did have to reformat/reinstall everything when I first got the computer since I was locked out because of the previous owner’s password, but that wasn’t a big deal. Really the only thing I don’t like about it thus far is the terrible flat-keyed keyboard, although I am getting use to it now. I’ll probably end up buying a new keyboard anyways though . There may be a potential issue in the future regarding the video card; I’m pretty sure it’s one of those integrated Intel cards. I did run Team Fortress 2 with it’s default graphic settings and it seemed to do ok. Although I don’t really own or play any games that would really require a beastly card…but I’d like to have the option available to me if I decide I want to in the future. I looked briefly at some graphics cards at Best Buy the other day but I’m really hesitant to purchase one until I can get some advice from someone more knowledgeable about those things. Ideally I’d like to get something that is going to do everything the Intel card is doing so far and thensome. Here are some shots of the computers specs taken with Speccy:

Incidentally, I am still looking into selling my laptop. If anyone reading this is interested, drop me a post or an email. It’s an Alienware Aurora M9700. It’s not quite 3 years old, still has a few months left on it’s warranty, and is in excellent (but used) condition. Not to mention I’ve kept every single accessory, piece of paperwork, etc for it. I’m not sure what medium would be best for selling it…maybe ebay or craigslist? But anyways, I’ll be happy to go into more depth on it’s specs and condition if someone is interested . Also I’d be very appreciative if someone could help me out on figuring out what kind of graphics card I could get for this Asus computer (if I can get one at all, that is). By the way, now that I’m pretty much settled into this new machine, I should be starting back up on my various projects again very soon.

TL;DR – Yay, I got a new computer!

Well not a whole lot has been going on in my little Doom world. Atleast not anything worth noting in the ole Mekablog. Since I finished Vela Pax MAP03, I’ve been working on a few things here and there; Jimmy91′s CC4 map, some textures for Supplice, and some other small things. Other than that, though, things have felt pretty slow and uneventful. I’m guessing that will all pass once I start back up on Vela Pax.

So in the meantime, here’s a new list of games I’m looking forward to getting

- Golden Sun DS [DS]
- Pokemon Black/White [DS]
- Nanostray 2 [DS]
- Halo 3 ODST (hoping to get this one pretty cheap)
- Halo: Reach (this one looks pretty cool actually…one of the very few console games I somewhat enjoy)
- Crackdown 2

Also I really wish Nintendo would port Cave Story to the DS. It’s the perfect little platformer to play on the go…in fact it’s a perfect little game period. I keep waiting for the day they make it available as DSi-ware. Well one can dream anyways