American Graffiti, 1973. Before that, THX-1138 in 1971. George Lucas was nominated for best director, best original screenplay and best picture Academy Awards before anyone had ever heard of Star Wars...
So I don't *really* like Clerks, I just think I like Clerks because the mass media has told me to? Bah. You're just telling me that becaue that's what the cynical counter-culture has forced you to reply with
It's not up to Valve to port mods. While TF is a Valve game and CS and DoD are in a publishing agreement with them, NS and ever other mod out there is owned by the teams that created them. I created a HL mod, and Valve can't do anything with it unless I give them permission, etc.
More to the point, I am absolutely certain that even if mods were given some degree of direct portability (which is extremely unlikely), very few would bother. The visual limitations of the original HL engine significantly restrict the content created for those mods - 256-color textures, a fairly limited potential polycount on models, the limited and underpowered world building system and so on. If mod makers don't spend the effort to improve their visual elements, what's the point in bothering with a 'port' to the new engine?
Valve's delay with HL2 was so long, my team moved to working with Unreal Tournament 2003. I hope we don't come to regret that, but Valve certainly has taken their sweet time in getting the new engine together. Nonetheless, I think they definitely know where their bread is buttered and will again try to take a strong position in the mod community.
Riiiight. So Portland, Oregon is a major city? 28th largest in the country. St. Louis is a major city? 49th largest. On the other hand, Sony couldn't manage a showing for the 45 MILLION PEOPLE who live in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida. Cleveland, Philly, Miami... totally flyover land, neither compares to a metropolis on the scale of motherfscking Portland, Oregon!
On the other hand, Sony did manage to get theaters in SF, SJ and Berkeley, all of which are less than 50 miles apart. In short, Sony have no idea what in the hell they're doing with this release distribution.
Well, maybe you should consider the mod communities. Counter-Strike was essentially made by one guy, albeit with contributions from many others. I for one don't lament the days of the solitary game designer hacking away in his basement - I *like* working within a team, I find it much more gratifying than having no one to work with...
Just think what Michelangelo could have done if he focused on music or literature instead of incremental improvements in painting and scultpure. Sure, he carved David from a slab of marble and painted the ceiling of the sistine Chapel, but he was still using brushes and chisels and working in a contemporary style - not very revolutionary, was he?
Does anyone happen to know of a good site for explaining what the various facets of AGP Bios settings might accomplish? I'm running a GeForce3 on an Abit KX7-333, and my dxdiagnostic always reports that AGP texturing is disabled. There are more than a half-dozen bios settings for AGP, but the good people at Abit apparently don't want me to know what they do. From the manual:
Enhance AGP Performance
Two options are available: Disabled or Enabled. The default setting is disabled. This item can improve your AGP display performance.
How about that - the 'Enhance AGP Perforance' option can in fact improve my performance. Who'd have guessed? No idea how or why it does it, nor why it's disabled by default. Also available are AGP Driving Controls (with a manual specification option involving settings in hex), Fast Write, Read Synchronization, and a few others. Can anyone point me to a site that might demystify some of this stuff for me? Guess-and-check + reboot for each combination isn't appealing...
1) This series is being created by Production IG. The film was created by Production IG. GitS film, GitS series, same studio.
2) Manga Entertainment had nothing to do with the film beyond its distribution. The GitS movie was an entirely Japanese production. If you want to call the director, Mamoru Oshii a fanboy-whore, that's your call.
It's hopefully due in October of this year. And keep in mind that it's not a strict translation. Japanese books, including comics/manga, read from right to left instead of the left to right style in English. That means the artwork is also designed to flow from right to left, and has to be carefully modified for English-reading audiences.
Before you ask - no, you can't just mirror the artwork. Right-handed characters would become left-handed, Japan would have people driving on the wrong side of the road, all signs and writing would be backwards, etc. Most of the best-translated manga spends a lot of time back on the drawing table being layed out and adjusted to account for that.
The manga of Ghost in the Shell is significantly more in-depth than the film. While most American fans love the anime (it is well done), I was always disappointed in it because it barely skimmed the surface of the printed story. The anime only followed the core plot that ran through the manga, neglecting some of the really interesting side stories that developed the characters. This was of course necessary to compact 300-some pages of work into a two hour film, but the end result wasn't quite as satisfying (not to this otaku, at any rate!). IMO, Ghost really needed to be done as a series from the beginning, and I'm thrilled to hear that it's being done. If you get into something like Cowboy Bebop, you can really appreciate the depth of storytelling that can go into an animated limited series.
Regarding Ghost in the Shell 2, the creator (Masamune Shirow) has already finished and released the new series in Japan, and is in the process of converting it for an English-speaking audience. The first issue is hopefully due in October of this year, but don't hold your breath - Shirow is notorious for taking his time with these things. To keep an eye on how the manga translation is going, check out www.studioproteus.com and the fan feedback section in particular. Toren Smith updates more or less monthly, and almost always with news regarding GitS2.
Slashdot Mirror
American Graffiti, 1973. Before that, THX-1138 in 1971. George Lucas was nominated for best director, best original screenplay and best picture Academy Awards before anyone had ever heard of Star Wars...
So I don't *really* like Clerks, I just think I like Clerks because the mass media has told me to? Bah. You're just telling me that becaue that's what the cynical counter-culture has forced you to reply with
"I gotta say, everytime I see another part of Star Wars being sold out, a little part of me dies."
:D
Cool. A few years of a television series and you'll be dead. One less 'George Lucas raped my childhood' Slashdot poster is fine with me
OJ was tried in a criminal court and a jury of 12 citizens found him innocent. If that's not good enough, what would you propose?
It's not up to Valve to port mods. While TF is a Valve game and CS and DoD are in a publishing agreement with them, NS and ever other mod out there is owned by the teams that created them. I created a HL mod, and Valve can't do anything with it unless I give them permission, etc.
More to the point, I am absolutely certain that even if mods were given some degree of direct portability (which is extremely unlikely), very few would bother. The visual limitations of the original HL engine significantly restrict the content created for those mods - 256-color textures, a fairly limited potential polycount on models, the limited and underpowered world building system and so on. If mod makers don't spend the effort to improve their visual elements, what's the point in bothering with a 'port' to the new engine?
Valve's delay with HL2 was so long, my team moved to working with Unreal Tournament 2003. I hope we don't come to regret that, but Valve certainly has taken their sweet time in getting the new engine together. Nonetheless, I think they definitely know where their bread is buttered and will again try to take a strong position in the mod community.
Riiiight. So Portland, Oregon is a major city? 28th largest in the country. St. Louis is a major city? 49th largest. On the other hand, Sony couldn't manage a showing for the 45 MILLION PEOPLE who live in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida. Cleveland, Philly, Miami... totally flyover land, neither compares to a metropolis on the scale of motherfscking Portland, Oregon!
On the other hand, Sony did manage to get theaters in SF, SJ and Berkeley, all of which are less than 50 miles apart. In short, Sony have no idea what in the hell they're doing with this release distribution.
Well, maybe you should consider the mod communities. Counter-Strike was essentially made by one guy, albeit with contributions from many others. I for one don't lament the days of the solitary game designer hacking away in his basement - I *like* working within a team, I find it much more gratifying than having no one to work with...
If it bothers you that much, skip Doom III and hold out for Quake4.
Just think what Michelangelo could have done if he focused on music or literature instead of incremental improvements in painting and scultpure. Sure, he carved David from a slab of marble and painted the ceiling of the sistine Chapel, but he was still using brushes and chisels and working in a contemporary style - not very revolutionary, was he?
Bioware's not in the United States, cupcake. Don't let that get in the way of your smartass anti-America comments, though...
- Enhance AGP Performance
Two options are available: Disabled or Enabled. The default setting is disabled. This item can improve your AGP display performance. How about that - the 'Enhance AGP Perforance' option can in fact improve my performance. Who'd have guessed? No idea how or why it does it, nor why it's disabled by default. Also available are AGP Driving Controls (with a manual specification option involving settings in hex), Fast Write, Read Synchronization, and a few others. Can anyone point me to a site that might demystify some of this stuff for me? Guess-and-check + reboot for each combination isn't appealing...1) This series is being created by Production IG. The film was created by Production IG. GitS film, GitS series, same studio.
2) Manga Entertainment had nothing to do with the film beyond its distribution. The GitS movie was an entirely Japanese production. If you want to call the director, Mamoru Oshii a fanboy-whore, that's your call.
It's hopefully due in October of this year. And keep in mind that it's not a strict translation. Japanese books, including comics/manga, read from right to left instead of the left to right style in English. That means the artwork is also designed to flow from right to left, and has to be carefully modified for English-reading audiences.
Before you ask - no, you can't just mirror the artwork. Right-handed characters would become left-handed, Japan would have people driving on the wrong side of the road, all signs and writing would be backwards, etc. Most of the best-translated manga spends a lot of time back on the drawing table being layed out and adjusted to account for that.
The manga of Ghost in the Shell is significantly more in-depth than the film. While most American fans love the anime (it is well done), I was always disappointed in it because it barely skimmed the surface of the printed story. The anime only followed the core plot that ran through the manga, neglecting some of the really interesting side stories that developed the characters. This was of course necessary to compact 300-some pages of work into a two hour film, but the end result wasn't quite as satisfying (not to this otaku, at any rate!). IMO, Ghost really needed to be done as a series from the beginning, and I'm thrilled to hear that it's being done. If you get into something like Cowboy Bebop, you can really appreciate the depth of storytelling that can go into an animated limited series.
Regarding Ghost in the Shell 2, the creator (Masamune Shirow) has already finished and released the new series in Japan, and is in the process of converting it for an English-speaking audience. The first issue is hopefully due in October of this year, but don't hold your breath - Shirow is notorious for taking his time with these things. To keep an eye on how the manga translation is going, check out www.studioproteus.com and the fan feedback section in particular. Toren Smith updates more or less monthly, and almost always with news regarding GitS2.