Mod the Movies

Starting to play the game again.

admindeity — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 07:35:00 GMT

Apparently, no one who makes movies for judging over at the Movies official site likes to play the game.

I like to play the game.

I have a few limitations I've made on myself; I only make movies in-game, no sandbox. This makes it more of an interesting proposition, in my mind.

I also don't really like to use Mods. I avoid it. I have a few sets I downloaded, and a few outfits, but thats it. I only got those because I felt the game lacked them and should have had them.

There are a few other lacks I've felt, and for a while there I was getting pretty interested in trying to figure out ways to provide them; the last I looked, for instance, the only way to bring new 3d models into the game was via Blender....and I hate Blender with a deep loathing. Being a Edumacated guy with training enough to program a 3D studio script, I started work on one. It was a real pain, but I plugged at it every chance I got.

(By the way, I'm not just a dabbler; check out this for an example of what I can do when I'm trying a little)

Then, as has been my habit, I tried to see if I could take a story in my head and animate it using "The Movies". Thinking it was pretty close to what I was trying to convey, I posted it on the lionshead website.

I guess I had been pretty lucky, previously. the people who bothered to check out the stuff I was posting were able to usually see what I was trying to do, and apparently it was considered relatively "Good"; my game-studio over the course of a year rose to around 55th place; out of several 10's of thousands, not bad.

Then it happened.

A Critic.

I had not changed the intro screens and end screens that the game automatically generates.

I had not used Audio dubbing. (I had occasionally done so, but didn't when a movie required more than one voice & I was the only one handy).

I used other peoples materials without giving them credit (nope. Only the stuff supplied by the game manufacturers for this film).

I had used improper music techniques. The techniques i was supposed to use involved an editing method that I was not aware of, as it wasn't supplied in any company FAQ or in-game material. I went looking for it and never did come across an explanation.

For these crimes, the Critic decided my film rated a 1 out of 5 stars review.

Ok. I'm not a little kid. I'm Retired; on disability for injuries, actually, but old enough, barely to retire. I go into the forums at lionhead to *** a little (less that i did above, actually), and see if this was commoner than I thought.

I was vilified. reviled. The person who did me the "favor" of reviewing my film was just trying to point out errors that he had seen. He was a member of a cabal of sorts that espoused making films in a certain, specific way...and I had apparently broken all the commandments.

My feelings at the time? well, I think "Pissed" pretty much covers it. I got so mad I couldn't even play the damn game anymore (part of the fun was making a story that was in my head appear on screen, and then making it available to others). And I haven't. Not since Nov. 1, 2007. I even tossed the code out for the 3D studio script, uploaded what i had and forgot about it.

But. It's a cool game.
I'm starting to play it again. played it for 6 hours this morning.

(sigh)

Feel free to check out the Evil Movie I made, it's here: The Rhodian Scarab

But don't bother reviewing it; the Lionhead system gives heavy weight to the first review, and that one was sort of bad.

Someone finally noticed Obama's gun problem

admindeity — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:33:00 GMT

Pretty good article on the Daily Kos. I've been sort of freaking out on how terrible Obama is on Gun Rights for about 2 months now, making posts on reddit and digg only to see them modded to oblivion.

Finally, someone relatively eloquent is getting in the act.

Evolution

admindeity — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:55:00 GMT

I've got a HP DV8230US laptop computer. it's a monster, 17" screen, core duo, 1 Gb ram, and a Nvidia GO 7400 video with 256MB of dedicated memory.

For the last year it's been kicking ass and taking names; Oblivion on full detail is no problem.

However, I have a confession to make; I like The Sims 2. I like to think that since I bought "The Streets of SimCity" when it came out, It makes me slightly less gay for liking it.

But, anyway, ever since I got the "Seasons" expansion pack, I've been getting CTD's, with the error code being NV4 INFINITE LOOP.

This is weird. and a bummer, as HP hasn't updated the GO 7400 driver since mid 2006. and the stock drivers from Nvidia.com don't work.

So I had to find another fix. I kept a look at memory usage; it looked like the game was blowing through the 256MB dedicated memory on the 7400, and calling up 256MB of swap memory. at the same time that the virtual pool was maxed out.

It may not seem intuitive to you, but due to me seeing this problem before, I knew what the answer was. I turned on the game and after it was running well, put the game to processor affinity with core 1 (not 0).

Fewer CTD's. game runs smoother.

the thing to remember is that 1GB of RAM is not really enough when you are talking about XP (otherwise known as Windows 2000 with PLUS! pack); you have a boatload of not-needed processes running in the background that you don't need, but can't kill. you either need 3GB or better than stock resource allocation.

In a further note: everything runs better on win2k. if you are having problems getting something to run on Win2k, please let me know, i might be able to help.

Of course, I still get CTD's. But that is the Nvidia Driver, not anything I can do.

Stability

admindeity — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 18:29:00 GMT

This software seems pretty stable. and it is certainly simple to use; I've got 3 other primary web sites, 1 is a hodgepodge of everything under the sun that has been growing since '97. Another uses, primarily, Postnuke, and still another, DontNetNuke.

Community server is easily the easiest to use, but the least modifiable. a good point about it though is that it doesn't really NEED much in the way of modification, it comes with about everything you need for a website, and this is the free version! pretty impressive.

Postnuke is the most modifiable, open source, and every expansion you could want is out there, free. not the easiest thing to use, but easier than dotnetnuke.

Dotnetnuke comes with a good out-of-the-box feature mix, and has LOTS of after market features available....for a price. very little free stuff available for DNN .

Community server seems ideal for what I want to do with this site; I just need something to manage content, I don't need to be redesigning and adding features every day.

I'm getting started

admindeity — Tue, 29 May 2007 11:06:00 GMT

This is my first time using Community Server, and so far, it's pretty sweet.

Nothing really to say here except I hope this works; I set up this site in order to provide a home for something I've been thinking about a LONG time, which is essentially amateur CGI films.

One of the first things that will be worked on is a Unseen Fan created script for Firefly, from the stillflyng website; the tool used will be a game called The Movies, from lionshead..