Status, and minor blog update



Hi y'all. Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. But it's been even longer since you commented. Unless you're selling Ugg boots -- I got hammered with 8,000 spam comments for them in two days. So I had to implement a spam filter/turing test on comments. Sorry about that. For what it's worth, I don't think it's that big of a pain in the ass. In fact, I made a game out of it! Kind of.

I plan on blogging more soon.

~Hanford

Unity 3D subreddit on reddit.com

Unity has it's own Subreddit on reddit.com. Not a lot of activity yet ... but let's change that! Check it out at http://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/.




Unity: Rotating GUI text




Just a quick one: Unity/iPhone developer Col000r throws a cool code snippet to do rotated GUI text:

// This comes from Col000r's site: 
//http://col000r.blogspot.com/2009/08/unity-rotated-gui-text.html
function OnGUI () {
   var pos : Vector3 = new Vector3(100, 200, 0); //position for matrix
   var quat : Quaternion = Quaternion.identity; //rotation for matrix
   quat.eulerAngles = Vector3(0, 0, 90); //set the rotation to something - rotate around z!
   GUI.matrix = Matrix4x4.TRS(pos, quat, Vector3.one); //Apply the matrix 
   GUI.Label(Rect(0, 0, 200, 20), "Some Text"); //notice how the rect starts at 0/0 and the matrix handles the position!
}


I've not tried it, but it's pretty cool. Nice work, Col000r. Col000r's got a lot of great tips for programming, sound, modelling and animating. Definitely a blog worth bookmarking/subscribing to.



Craigslist is lazy

Part 1: the Mountain View bug




Close friends of mine know that I don't think Craigslist does a very good job at what it does, considering how much far of a lead it has above all the other sites out there. Here's one of the reasons why: The Mountain View bug.

For years now, Craigslist has had two entries for Mountain View, CA. One listed in the Peninsula:

Mountain View Craigslist
And one in the South Bay:

Mountain View Craigslist
If you post in one, it does not show up in the other. Let me repeat that: if you post in one Mountain View, it does not show up in the other Mountain View. This means that people checking Mountain View areas have to either check both sections, or they're unknowingly missing out on a bunch of stuff. Likewise, if you're posting to Mountain View, you have to post to both, or risk that a good portion of people don't see it. Continued

Note: old blog feeds rolled over to the new site



LEGO architecture series




LEGO has a new series of sets based on famous architecture. They run from the simple (like the Space needle) to the complex, but they're all done in a surprisingly serious tone. Here is Frank Lloyd Wright's falling water.

Lego Falling Water

Cool stuff.

Insanewiches: a site about insane sandwiches




Sandwiches as high art. High art that devalues gradually over the period of a week in the back of your fridge.

Rubik's Cube Sandwich

[via LostAtEMindor]

Random thoughts on Ultima 5




Ultima V Warrios of Destiny I've played a LOT of Ultima. It's my favorite game series of all time. My personal favorite was Ultima 5 (U5). I know not as many people played 5 as 4, but starting with 4 all of them had this concept of "living by the virtues" -- meaning, not randomly killing, stealing, hording, etc. Being a Hero in the world, not a villain. Each Virtue (there were 8 of them) represented a commandment in a way.

U4 introduced those Virtue concepts, and U5 turned them on their head. U5 showed how taking the virtues to the extreme could have negative consequences. Poor people going to jail for not giving to the church (or was it the state? I'm not sure). Etc. U5 is sited by many as one of the best in the series plotline-wise because of this.

The game was also substantially more difficult to succeed in than U4. But what I never understood originally, was this difficulty was supposed to force you to break the virtues. Force you to steal. Force you to be bad. That was in part why it is very difficult to get going at the beginning.

I never got this as a kid, and it pissed me off. The virtues acted like rules that weren't *programmed* into the game, but existed to me anyway (you were punished if you broke them, but it didn't not KEEP you from doing bad things, like some games do). Starting off in the game, it was near impossible to stay alive. The amount of gold you got for killing the basic monsters was not enough to keep you fed, healed, and supplied. Food was the big issue for me. If only I didn't need to spend my money on food, I could save up for better weapons!

I started to steal food off of tables, and looking to see if the engine counted it as stealing. I started going into the farmlands and stealing food (did you know you could do that?) and I kept going back to my house at the beginning and taking the food there, too.

Looking back it was a clever thing for the designers to do, but since there was nothing in the game that pushed you that way -- nothing that gave you a wink and an nod that perhaps you needed to steal to make ends meet -- it pissed me off internally; it bothered me I was resorting to this.

Perhaps it was better that way; if I knew the designers had intended that, I wouldn't have felt bad. But since I really did think I was supposed to stay true to the virtues, I had a lot of mixed feelings about playing the game in the manner I did.

Facebook Lite




This showed up in my facebook account today, for about 10 minutes:

Facebook Lite
(click thee image to see the whole thing)

Here's the full text:
You have been selected as a beta tester for Facebook Lite!
We are building a faster, simpler version of Facebook that we call Facebook Lite. It's not finished yet and we have plenty of kinks to work out, but we would love to get your feedback on what we have built so far.

It didn't work. Every time I clicked on the link, it took me back to the homepage. 10 minutes later, it was gone. Was I not fast enough? Did I miss an open beta?

Something tells me this Facebook Lite is going to look a lot like Twitter.


Xbox360 and Zune vs iPod




I think that MS wants to compete with the iPod, they should hit Apple where it husts. The Xbox 360 (or it's sequel) should use a memory card system based on the Zune line of players. Continued



      
 

Video Game Design

User Interface Design

Creative & fun stuff

 

I'm Hanford Lemoore. My parking skills are unparalleled.

I design things in Silicon Valley; mostly consumer electronics media players. Perhaps I can design things for you. Check out my UI Portfolio.

When I'm not making things for other people, I'm usually making video games. more

 

Please use our contact form.

 

RSS 2.0

 

monolux.com

tikiroom.com

junkyardclubhouse.com

 


 

   


Copyright 2010 Hanford Lemoore | Blog | About | Portfolio | Contact
Powered by Olark