Mekworx

Things around this ole blogosphere have certainly been very quiet and dead-looking these days. Granted I’m pretty sure this place rarely gets visitors so that it’s not a huge deal. But after a bit of not making any posts, I start to feel like I’m neglecting the place. When that happens, I make these semi-empty posts at an attempt to make this place seem somewhat active. So here we go!

In the way of site updates, you’ll notice yet another theme change. Yea well…I wasn’t kidding when I said that I’m very indecisive . Truthfully, I was happy with the previous version (for those of you who didn’t see it, it was a dark blue theme). But, I dunno, I think I was looking for a lighter theme with more subtle blues instead of “blue overload”. So now I’m running a more minimalistic theme which, I hope, is easier on the eyes and a little more professional looking. I like it, so that’s all that really matters. I also updated the favicon to better match my dumb logo design. I still need to make an adjustment or two to the theme, like add in the site logo, tweak the CSS for tables, and maybe replace the background image too. We’ll see…it’s all low priority though.

Oh, and the site has been updated to run on WordPress 3.2.1 as well! There have been a few updates between now and my last mentioning of an update. But the thing to take away from this is that I keep the site running on the lastest WordPress version. That’s how much I care about all “1″ of you visitors

Ahem….umm, so….yea. What have I been up to lately? A metric crap-ton of things. Or that’s what it feels like anyways. Aside from my domestic going-ons (which I will spare you…but I have been very busy), I have stupidly put more work on myself in the Doom department. It’s clear to me now that I will never learn my lesson . From that last update I left here, I was taking a break on Vela Pax after the release of the public test candidate and I was also working on Supplice. Shortly after that, I resumed work on Vela Pax (specifically MAP04) while still doing bits of work here and there on Supplice. And then something happened. At one point I was a part of the The Shores of ZDoom team (check that link for more info on the project), but I had to drop out because I had too many things going on and school was also taking up a major chunk of my time. But the TSoZD team has been having a tough time with keeping work going and keeping contributors on board. I felt bad that I left when I did, so I decided to join back up and try to help out. So with that decision made, I decided that I would try my best to balance work between Vela Pax, Supplice, and now TSoZD; since then, I have yet to work on any of thosee three projects yet. Why? Well, for one, I’ve been busy at home. But another reason is I recently started working on yet another contribution for a yet-to-be-announced vanilla project. None of this is counting the stuff in-between that I’ve promised to do. So work is really starting to pile up and I’m trying desperately to whittle down the list as quickly as I can. To date, this makes almost 7 different major projects that I have some sort of responsibility for or to (again, not counting small bits in-between). And I’m going to try my best not to squelch on any of them. Although this does mean that there is no way I’ll be able to contribute to any other project for the foreseeable future. So please don’t ask (because I might be stupid enough to say “yes!”).

Like I said, I’ll never learn my lesson . Geez, it’s too bad I don’t get paid to do any of this stuff!

But enough of my lamenting. I have a few more posts planned for the future, some Doom-related and some not, so look for those if you are the least bit interested.

Hey everyone! Looks like I’ve been neglecting this place a bit. Well that’s not entirely true, as you can see. There’s a new theme! I did a bit of hunting a while back for a new theme since the old one was starting to get a little stale looking (to me, that is…I doubt anyone else truly cares). I found a few candidates but I finally settled on this one. I had to make a few alterations but I’m more or less happy with it. Except for the logo placement at the top…I wanted it to be centered but I wasn’t able to figure out how to do that in the stylesheet. But it’s fine for now . Oh and some older posts with large images might be broken because the width on this theme is narrower, but it’s really no big deal.

So let’s see, there’s the new theme. WordPress has been updated a few times and Mekworx is now running version 3.1.2. Lots of content on the Design page has been updated. I still need to update the Info and Resources pages at some point, but those aren’t really a priority.

Hey, what about some project news? About a month ago I finished up MAP01 of Vela Pax and released a public test candidate! Since then I’ve received a ton of great feedback and bug reports. The general reception has been very positive, although many people are finding it really hard to digest and navigate such gigantic maps (especially without saving). I knew that might be the case given the goals I had for the maps; it’s just the nature of the beast. But all of that aside, people seem to have genuinely enjoyed my work so far. And that really makes me happy

In case you missed the test release, you can grab it below. There are also two time-lapse Doom Builder recordings of me working on MAP01 available for download:

Vela Pax Beta 1 [18 MB]
Time Lapse Doom Builder video #1
Time Lapse Doom Builder video #2

If you have any feedback or bug reports or anything, please don’t hesitate to send them to me!

Continuing on with the project escapades, I’m currently working full-time on my other Doom project, Supplice. I decided to take a break from Vela Pax and mapping after that test release to then focus my efforts on Supplice. It has been over a year since the project was officially started and things have been going relatively slow. Since starting my break I have been working on making textures…lots and lots of textures. So far it’s been quite the learning process, but I have made a nice chunk of textures that I’m happy with. The challenge thus far is trying to make details. I am able to put together base textures and then some really minor details like bricks or bars. When it comes to adding details like fancy indents/extrusions, tech bits, computer panels…all stuff similar to that, I fall flat on my face. But I’m still trying and I’ve also scoped out some possible help too. We’re also looking for a dedicated sprite artist to help finish and polish off some of the work Jimmy and I have started. So far that hunt has been really difficult…but we’re still looking to get someone interested on board. If you are interested, please contact me

Well that’s all I got for now! I’ll be sure to post some more about Supplice as I continue working. Perhaps sometime soon we’ll have something worth showing off