Messages

316

General Discussion / Re: Shadows and shaders. What the hell's happening?

« on: June 22, 2012, 01:05:16 PM »

This is why we keep wedge here, people

I'll might post a more technical article on why interiors and and terrains need to die and what they can and can't be replaced with this weekend. Look for it here in General Discussion.

317

Off Topic / Re: Gay Marriage v.1000

« on: June 22, 2012, 01:03:30 PM »

my poor head. anyway it's a freaking greyscale, okay? some are at -100, some are at 100 and some are at -27.
There's no specific button that turns you strictly homoloveual. I hate the whole "people who are gay and people who aren't gay" concept.

This is called the Kinsey scale.

318

General Discussion / Re: Shadows and shaders. What the hell's happening?

« on: June 22, 2012, 12:53:47 PM »

Interiors are DTS Shapes.

Interiors and DTS shapes are about as different as you can get in the world of 3D modeling. Converting between the two is definitely possible, but with the exception of very simple models, it's going to require quite a bit of editing by hand.

Going from an interior to a dts shape is pretty easy but will produce stuffty models unless you edit them, because there's a bunch of extra bits on interiors that something like a dts shape doesn't need. In fact, interiors are just compiled versions of map files, which are literally text files containing the coordinates of the vertexes of 3D shapes, and you could even make one using notepad.

Going from a dts to an interior is pretty difficult and I don't think there will ever be an automated way of doing it since you have to slice up a bunch of concave meshes into convex, closed solids. A computer would have to guess how you meant to close up the meshes if they're not closed (like a sail, piece of fabric, etc), which side is supposed to be the inside and which is supposed to be the outside, then run through an iterative process trying to find the most efficient way to divide up the meshes without producing broken, concave, of mircrobrushes. Any model produced using this method would probably have tons of stuff at weird angles that would be extremely unfriendly to manual editing or texturing.

DTS shapes will make absolutely stuffty interior maps. I know people will try anyway, but I've seen maps based on DTS shapes before and they were stuffty. I'm not talking about any of the unreleased proofs of concepts people have been working on. Back in the days of blockland v0002, there were dts based maps, and they sucked. People didn't divide up the map into chunks correctly so the collision mesh was broken and you could shoot through any part of the map. Vehicles were extremely unstable on them and would fall through them far more frequently than they would on interiors or even bricks. They didn't interact with fog or view distance very well and on large ones you would generally just see the whole thing regardless of the fog or view distance. They also don't light like interiors, so the lighting on them looked like ass. Finally, they don't have all the optimization that interiors do, so you can't put as much detail into them and they'll put a lot more stress on a computer than an interior.

DTS shapes are absolutely, without a doubt, the wrong way to go for map making in Blockland's future. It's like deciding to hold hot coffee in your cupped hands because you're all out of clean mugs. It is physically possible to do so but you're going to get burned because you're not using the right tool for the right job. Anybody who tells you otherwise is absolutely wrong and you should link them to this post so they can discover why for themselves.

319

Modification Help / Re: What does JVS even stand for?

« on: June 20, 2012, 11:51:56 AM »

Oh god I wish I could port those add-ons

Quite a few of the good ones were ported. Most of the ones that weren't were either slightly above fail bin quality or fun when they worked but otherwise totally broken.

320

Off Topic / Re: The Computer Megathread

« on: June 20, 2012, 11:03:56 AM »

No. You'd only hear the beeps if you had a pc speaker.

321

Off Topic / Re: The Computer Megathread

« on: June 20, 2012, 10:53:34 AM »

I had something similar happen to me once, except my computer wouldn't even finish POST (that's where you hear the beep). It would just start up and do nothing.

I pulled all the components one by one and tested them to try and figure out what the issue was. It turns out it was the case. Threw it out and got a new one and the computer has been running fine ever since.

322

Off Topic / Re: Private Sections - Now with 100% more truth!

« on: June 18, 2012, 06:27:09 PM »

http://www.freewebs.com/combosecrets/

Holy stuff, I haven't seen one of those animated javascript clocks that follows your cursor around in years!

holy crap

nitramtj is still around?

:o

Yes. He doesn't post on the forums much that I know of. You might see him in game, if you hang out on Badspot's servers.

Wedge, are the pre-Retail posts archived by chance? I remember seeing those back then.

There are some pre-retail posts in General Discussion, and Clan Discussion. Of course, the entire AoT forums is also pre-retail. There's also the secret backup forums that some of the older forum members flock to when the forums are down.

Many of the pre-retail threads were erased when the forums crashed. This includes the first post I ever made on the forum, which was "What's a Corka?"

Here is a thread I posted a while ago that explores the old forums through archive.org: http://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=81935.0

323

Off Topic / Re: The Computer Megathread

« on: June 18, 2012, 11:35:02 AM »

I accidentally spilled coffee in my case and then tried to vacuum it out, and now my computer won't start. HELp?////??

If you spill a liquid on any electronics you should immediately disconnect them from any power source and let them dry out. They'll dry out faster if you take them apart and set them in a window or something. If you spilled something other than water on it, you should wait for it to dry then clean it with isopropyl alcohol using a cotton swab or q-tip.

If it's already not starting then it's broken. You're going to have to take it apart and test each component individually to see what failed and replace it. Sorry.

324

Off Topic / Re: Private Sections - Now with 100% more truth!

« on: June 18, 2012, 11:23:49 AM »

How many people have access to these forums?

For sure Rotondo, Badspot, kompressor, Ephi, wedge.

Maybe kaje and trader?

Off the top of my head there are about 16 people that have had access to this forum at one point or another. I don't know if they all still have access. It mostly consists of the current and former RTB staff and some former members of the USSR clan, plus a few other people.

Oh and do u have steam

Yeah, it's on my forum profile. I can't really play online games right now though, I've got a pretty terrible Internet connection.

Also, couldn't you have these privileges taken away for showing us? Or is it alright as long as you don't show us what is actually contained in the threads? I don't know why but this is so cool.

The stuff I've shown you isn't especially exciting, and that's just it. There isn't actually anything especially exciting about the hidden forums. They tend to go through long  periods of inactivity and the pace is a lot slower.

We've also posted stuff from these forums before so I'm not doing some horrible thing that's going to get me banned or something. In fact, before the retail version came out I think I duplicated the actual beta forum webpage and hosted it on a google site and branded it as a "beta tester simulator" so you could sit on the page and pretend you were in the beta. None of the links worked but it was still pretty funny.

The Beta Discussion forum has also fallen into disuse. I'm a beta tester and literally everything I know about the next version of Blockland comes from the public development forum. With the new autopatcher we haven't really had to test stuff much anymore.

can you explain more about the "people to ban" threads
do they just post names? or do they discuss it, or what?

It's basically where the forum moderators go to request bans. Generally what happens is they post a link to your recent posts and Badspot takes a look. It's generally obvious if you deserve to be banned. It's a step above the forum report button because it's filtered through the forum mods.

Hey Wedge, show us some more pictures if there are any.

I find this oddly fascinating.

I'll do it when I have some more time. Maybe I'll do like a "Best of the Fail Bin" post that has a collection of the most hilarious and stufftiest posts. I can also dig up some old screenshots from the beta version of Blockland.

I like posting stuff like this because it's funny looking back on the forums. There's a lot of silly posts and a a bunch of drama that was pretty dumb in retrospect. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I've been posting on them for 7 years, literally a third of my life.

325

Off Topic / Re: Private Sections - Now with 100% more truth!

« on: June 17, 2012, 11:41:14 PM »

Rotondo made a thread about people to ban? :o

It's a general moderation thread and everyone posted in it. Mods on the forum don't have banning privileges, as I recall Badspot or kompressor have to approve every ban... SMF is kind of stuffty in this regard. You have to individually assign permissions to each usergroup and there's like 3 or 4 dozen different permissions and it's not obvious what they do. If you're curious what the back end of the Blockland forums are, go start a demo forum on smfforfree or some other free forum site and take a look at the admin panel. It's a mess.

Could I request a picture of the cool people sub forum?

Sure, you can request a picture, but I'm not going to post one. I'll leave it up to the participants to post their projects when their ready, if they feel like it. I'm sure they'll mention it when PAX comes around, and if they don't, I'll point them out once the games get put up on the site.

why is that one thread by rotondo censored

Because it's regarding a feature that has not been added to Blockland yet. We don't know when it will get added, if ever, so I blacked it out to keep people from getting false hopes about it.

Wait, is it possible to enter one of these threads because there is a "Latest Topic Created" or "Latest Post" displayed at the bottom of the main page?  Wouldn't it be possible to cheat your way into these topics?  Or does SMF not even display updates to inaccessible forums?

Nope. SMF does not display threads that you can't see. The forum obeys this everywhere, even in user stats, etc. For example, if I check my stats panel it says I've spent 5.0495% of my activity in Beta Discussion, but none of you can see that if you look and it says something else.

If you've got any questions about the forums or Blockland in general, feel free to ask.

326

Off Topic / Re: Private Sections - Now with a Picture

« on: June 17, 2012, 09:21:42 PM »

you should totally take a picture of the beta discussion thing

327

Off Topic / Re: Private Sections - Now with a Picture

« on: June 17, 2012, 08:53:22 PM »

Here's what I think the fail bin looks like

I forgot there was some other stuff in there. Deleted threads sometimes get moved to the Fail Bin instead.

328

Off Topic / Re: Private Sections - Now with a Picture

« on: June 17, 2012, 08:32:10 PM »

Okay, well, I'll help fill in some of the blanks since the OP is really out of date. Most of those forums have been deleted.

I can tell you that one of the categories is called Archive - v8 and includes the forums Archive v8 - Add-Ons, Archive v8 - Maps, and Archive v8 - Faces, Decals, Prints. Shortly after v9 was released these forums were publicly accessible. v9 introduced a new add-on package format based on zip files. Before that add-ons were just random files and folders thrown in the add-ons folder. The boards were archived to give add-on owners an opportunity to convert their add-ons, then they were closed down after a few months. You can see some of those forums up in the main post. They've been merged, deleted, and renamed since then.

In the Files category, there is a forum called the Fail Bin. The Fail Bin contains add-ons in it that were deemed so horrible that they had to be hidden away for the safety of the community.

In the Blockland Forums category, there is a forum called Beta Discussion. This forum was initially used to discuss changes and features to the game before it was released. After Blockland was released, it continued to be used to test pre-release versions of new Blockland versions. The last version of Blockland we tested was v19. Now there's a constant update system and we test individual features on private servers, and news is posted to the public development board, so the forum has fallen into disuse. The last post in that forum was from December, 2011.

In the Off Topic thread there's a forum that mostly contains non-Blockland related projects produced by Badspot and the beta testers. You might see some of them if you follow PAX this year. The name of this forum is Cool People but this is in fact a misnomer, so don't feel bad that you can't view it even if you are a cool person. According to an official poll administered by kompressor, only 37.5% of the people who can access this board are in fact cool.

There is one more category and 2 more forums that I can't view. If had to guess, I would assume that it's a test category, and it probably contains a test forum, possibly for the RTB mod bot. I assume that the other forum is probably full of pictures of sharks skateboarding over an exploding volcano.

329

Off Topic / Re: The Computer Megathread

« on: June 16, 2012, 02:59:26 PM »

Read and write speed are probably the most important. They're not particularly expensive. Name brand optical drives include manufacturers like Asus, Samsung, Philips, Sony, and Liteon.

Check to see if it's marked OEM or not. If it is, you may need to purchase SATA cables for your drive separately. You can find cables on newegg for pretty cheap but monoprice usually sells cables for much cheaper.

330

Modification Help / Re: What does JVS even stand for?

« on: June 14, 2012, 08:11:43 PM »

Neither am I. I'm in a weird custom usergroup where I can view the extra forums and sometimes delete my own posts depending on which forum I'm posting in (which I don't do). I can also delete my user account, in which case my profile would disappear and it would say "Guest" under my name on all my posts.

But yeah, I made a mistake. Here's the post:

What does JVS stand for?

jvs=jedi vs sith

No.  JVS is simply a moniker, a name for all of my stuff.  I'd rather call it "JVS Doors" than "Trader's Doors".  I came up with the initials when working on an old vanilla-based mod, but the letters no longer mean anything individually.

It's hiding in a forum called "Archive v8 - Add-Ons."