The site has just been updated to run on WordPress 3.0. Cool beans! Also, at some point, I have a few more bits of content that need adding. I’ll get to that…eventually

I honestly have no idea how many people visit my site on a regular…or I should say “semi-regular” basis. Looking at the mean number of comments I get per post, it looks as though it’s not many. Although I have to say it’s more than some other blogs, and I can’t really count comments as visits. I guess it helps that I try to update and make posts on a regular base . Either way, I’ve really been itching to get the site as up-to-date with content as soon as I possibly could. I had the Design page’s template up and ready to go not so long after the site was first launched, but from that point on I haven’t touched it. The same goes for the rest of the site’s content. That is, until about a month ago.

I finally got the time and commitment to get content up and bugs fixed. I focused on getting the Design page updated first as it required the most work and time. I’m happy to report that the page is 99% complete and up-to-date! Entries are separated by personal projects and contributions I’ve made, the status of said project, and it’s release date (if it exists). There is a page for each project, and each page has some screenshots of the maps that I made for the project as well as a brief description, a download link (if available) and other bits of information pertinent to the project. Comments are enabled for the pages, so feel free to leave a comment or two! I need to go back through each page and make spelling and grammar fixes and whatnot. There are also a couple map sets that I submitted to /idgames a while back that use the wrong file name and readmes, so I need to get that fixed sometime soon. It took quite a while to get the Design page to where it is now; I had to take and upload a massive number of screenshots as well as write up a bunch of buffer text to describe each project. Not to mention I had to reorganize everything in a neat and easy to look up format. Otherwise though, it’s organized the way I wanted it and it contains just about all of the stuff I’ve released and worked on since I started Doom modding, so definitely check it out. Oh, and I have to give credit to Agent Spork since I basically stole his layout style from his site for my Design page

I focused on my new page next – the Resources page. Originally I was going to have the resources part of the Design page. Then I decided that it would make more sense and make it easier to navigate around the site contents if resources had it’s own page and sub-pages. And so, that’s what I did! At the moment, there are three sections in the Resources page; Fonts, Textures, and Everything Else. Ever since I started making font sets for Doom, certain people have asked if I planned on releasing them. Well, there ya go folks…a whole page dedicated to my releasable fonts! More fonts will come in the future once they are releasable. The Textures page should be pretty straightforward. Admittedly I haven’t really released or been known for textures packs. Right now the only pack available for download is the CR8 Quake texture pack that I converted for use in Doom a while back. I do have some other texture packs that I plan on converting eventually, and I also hope to possibly try my hand at custom textures for Doom someday. And then as for everything else…well, that’s where I’ll put up pretty much everything else! Such things will in include old sprite edits, graphics, etc that I’ve done over the years. Most of it will likely be sub-par . I haven’t gotten around to getting that page up yet since I haven’t had the time to organize all of that stuff. Anyways, I hope to be expanding and adding-to the Resources page soon.

And then there’s the new Info page. Be forewarned; it contains graphics that may startle or permanently scar a child’s mind. Heh, but this page is relatively simple and, I’d say, pretty important. You can read some bits about me, what I enjoy doing, and what my future plans are. You can also find some contact info there as well. Oh and the picture…yea. Well, I figured it would be a good idea at the time…hell if I know why now. I might update it later on with a better picture….actually, that might be an impossibility as I usually take horrible pictures. Either way, you get to see my ugly mug…so yay for that, right?

Finally, I made some bug fixes and enhancements to the theme. I’ve forgotten what most of them were now, but they were all for the better. One thing I could not figure out how to fix for the life of me was this:Click this link for great justice! I’m using a pretty hi-res, widescreen resolution on my laptop (1920×1200) but I think it should show up on any resolution screen. What I’m talking about is the image in that post, and how it cuts into the area below it. I was fixing my text wrapping on this theme when I noticed that bug. The text wrap now works as it should, but when it comes to non-text elements, I can’t seem to figure out how to make them wrap around the image correctly. Any help with this bug (pretty sure it would be CSS related) would really be appreciated. I spent hours trying to get it fixed with no luck . Otherwise, I think the theme is just about bug free as it’s going to get for the time being.

Oh wait, I almost forgot! I updated and made more of the cute little cube emots! In particular, I like how my spinny buddy came out

So yea, finally! I’m glad I got this stuff up, organized, and up to date. Honestly I was putting this post off until I got every single bit of content posted and up to date, but now I’m not sure when I’ll get that chance. And there are still some things that need fixing and adding since I first finished, but that should be relatively easy to do now that there’s an organized template. Please feel free to browse the site without too much fear of running into an empty page. I worked pretty hard on it and it would be really cool to have people dig through that stuff. And hey, let me know if you spot any bugs, spelling errors, inconsistencies….anything of that nature

I meant to make a post about this when it happened, but I never got around to it. Better late than never I suppose.

A user over at Skulltag named abdulmuhsee sent me a PM about a week ago asking about a download link to Sabbat Martyr Deathmatch. Since SMDM’s 1.1 release, all of the download mirrors have pretty much died. I wasn’t aware of any up-to-date download locations and the /idgames link was never updated from the initial 1.0 release of SMDM. I was planning on uploading it here on Phenomer eventually for that reason and abdulmuhsee‘s request just expedited my plan. So until I can get around to updating the /idgames version of SMDM to 1.1, use these download links:

SMDM v1.1
readme
If you would like to offer up another permanent mirror, please feel free and I will add it to the list!

There was an attempt over a year ago to try and get version 1.2 of SMDM going. Hidon [StrikerMan780] spearheaded the effort and some work was actually accomplished. However all of it was for naught; he lost all of his work in a hard drive crash and the effort came to a grinding halt. Since then little to no work has been done. I made a list of things that I had planned on fixing/updating/changing for version 1.2 which consisted of things that Hidon did and things that others and myself wanted changed. However, since it has been forever since SMDM has been release and Skulltag has been updated many many times since then, I’m sure there are other bugs that need to be fixed. After all, there was a renderer change from ZDoomGL to GZDoom since SMDM’s release . If you are reading this and you are a fan of SMDM, I implore you to help out. Post any and all bugs and concerns that you have here or in the original project thread. Any feedback at all will help out with this effort. As for plans on when any work will actually take place…it’s hard to say right now. I’m too busy with other things to take time to work on it at the moment, but it will happen one day.

One last unrelated note – I have updated the theme again with a few things I didn’t have the patience to do last night. Just some minor aesthetic changes here and there, nothing major. Again, if you guys spot any bugs, let me know!

I can never be happy with stuff. As evidenced by you reading this post, I’m terribly indecisive. And no, you don’t have to remind me It all started earlier yesterday…

I was working on a map for the new demo set for Project Vega when I ran into a brief mapping block. Having nothing else creative to really do, I decided to try and make some fixes to the Selenite theme Mekworx’s was running. Well…long story short, I get really frustrated and just ditched my efforts altogether (I was trying to fix a bug with the comments/post background images not showing up correctly in certain circumstances). So started the search for a new theme.

And then I came across the Shades of Gray theme. “Perfect!” I thought to myself. However it wasn’t so perfect, much to my dismay. But then, when it comes to WordPress themes by other folks, it never is perfect. I had to go in and widgetize the sidebar, remove the entirety of the bottom section (which had links and a bunch of forced stuff), add avatars to comments, add a new logo…and a few other things here and there. It was a bit of work and I didn’t finish it up until tonight, but there are some definite upsides. For one, I finally have a theme at the width that I wanted!. Also since it was made by someone more handy with php/css than me, it doesn’t have any major bugs (that I know of yet). Not to mention that I’m digging the clean/minimalistic gray scheme.

So far, so good. I’m happy. Let’s see how long this one lasts . If you guys come across any bugs or if you just have any suggestions/comments, let me know! I will probably make some further updates to it in the near future. And don’t feel too bad for the previous theme. I plan on sending it to Agent Spork to see if he can fix it up (if he has the time).

It’s true