I'm guessing that since it's from Ubisoft and there's a fair bit of incompetance going on that it's a French game. The full thing might be worth a look anyway.
Sunday, 10 August 2003
XIII [lurks]
Had a go of this XIII thing. It's an Unreal Warfare engine game which is drawn in the style of a cartoon. It's not cell shaded, exactly. Just the textures are cartoon-like. It's actually quite nice. Of course the morons couldn't resist making shiny things but so far there looks to be a fair few original takes on the genre. I like the animated cartoon speech bubbles. Definately worth a leech. It's buggy as hell mind and setting up the controls is just plain bizarre. It's return to accept your changes (took me awhile to figure that out). And it's ctrl-alt-delete to actually quit out but it's still worth a look.
Best compact digital camera evah! [lurks]
You may recall in blog 466 that I was on the hunt for an inexpensive digital camera. I did get the Olympus C-150 in the end. It's a solid little performer for the money. It's so gratifying to see that pretty much every USB storage device these days, including cameras, just turns up as a drive. It's also very nice that one of XP's default options is just to open the folder in explorer, or in my case Directory Opus.
Anyhow, the Olympus is now being used exclusively by the missus and she loves it. However the things that I found a little annoying prompted me to buy a new camera for myself. The annoying issues were the lack of a zoom, the lack of resolution and the length of time before it's ready to take a photo. It's also too big for the pocket.
Candidates for a new camera included the Canon Ixus range which is popular with EED. I've nothing against Canons but I tend not to like the controls and there are some more modern cameras around. Particularly the Pentax Optio S. Pentax make their own lens system for this, it's a stunning feat of engineering in that three lenses slide up and into the camera when the camera is off. That and the latest miniturisation technology yields a camera which is ridiculously small and thin yet has a 3X zoom lens. Here's it in front of a CD as a size comparison.
This then lead me on to discover the Casio EX-Z3. It uses the same Pentax lens system but the back has a massive 2' CCD on it. The back of the thing is mostly LCD. It also seems to fair a little bit better in the image quality stakes in comparisons with the Pentax. The more I came around to thinking this camera was for me, the more I came to realise that the thing was virtually impossible to buy in the UK.
In the end I found it on Pixmania (which appears to be closed for the weekend), which is a French shop. It was cheaper than anywhere else, in stock and with a bit of googling and a lot of guesswork I ended up guessing a coupon code and had the thing delivered in two days for around £250. Result!
I'll do things in reverse. So far the only things that remotely suck about it are as follows; The lens is a little soft in the corners sometimes. It has a tendency to overexpose light bits although conversely you could say that it tends to bring out dark bits automatically at the expense of light bits so I'm not really sure that's a flaw as such. When shooting movies, the vids are pretty low quality and you hear the clatter of the auto focus if you move the camera around. Comes with only 10MB built-in so an SD card is needed for any use (although you could also say it's nice there's any built-in memory at all).
Now about covering the stuff that rules; The camera is fucking tiny! It weighs fuck all! It fits very easily in a pocket and it has a stunning magnesium alloy case. In fact everything is rounded and recessed, it's designed for the pocket clearly. I also like the fact that there's no nooks and cranies to wipe pocket fluff out of.
The TFT on the back is bloody huge and this really does beat the shit out of squinting at smaller ones on digital cameras. The power-on time is insane. Given that this bloody lens appears out of nowhere on the front of the camera, it's ready to shoot in a second or so and already I've caught lots of pics instantly. It's the fastest-on camera I've ever seen by a long shot.
The controls are the most intuitive I've ever seen. There's a solid little metal power button that toggles on off. Play/record slider. 4 way scroll cursors with a set button etc. Seriously, I've accessed most functions of the camera in 15 minutes of just scooting through them. The menu system is way cool, superimposed on the video. While the cam is basically point-and-shoot, it has dozens of preset modes for types of shot, each with a helpful little picture demonstrating that usage.
It comes with a little cradle. You plonk the cam in the cradle and it charges but there's also a USB button. You whack that and bingo, it turns up as a drive as you'd expect. I like the whole, I wanna charge now, I wanna shovel pics off it thing. Standards default settings for this thing just appear to be the closest to usable I've ever seen. 2048 x 1536 images come out at a bit over a megabyte. The camera doesn't post process much at all by the looks of it, so when you get the images into a paint package they're ready for tweaking.
The image quality is, I would say, about on a par with the mid-sized zoom Olympus cameras I've used before. That is to say, fucking good but easy enough to fuck up with too much movement, not taking focusing into account properly etc. On the other hand, it seems to be impossible to take a completely duff image. I've got a couple of photos which illustrate me whipping it out of a pocket and pressing the button, moving quite quickly and not giving the auto focus any time whatsoever to do it's job. Here and here
The auto focus seems to work in virtually no light. The flash doesn't overexpose on close subjects, it seems designed for that sort of thing. However it definitely likes to pull out detail and overexpose bright bits. As a matter of preference I prefer that over losing detail but you often get some chromatic aberration on the overexposed bits. Image quality certainly isn't in the league as the modern mid-sized zooms like the Canon Powershot S45 or the Olympus C-450 but it's not really that sort of camera. It's a snaps cam, one you'll always have on you at a moment's notice.
The fact I'm even comparing image quality of a cam the size of a fucking credit card with mid-size zooms is just insane. The zoom is physically faster than my old Olympus C-200Z. It's got a full tripod mount on it. The macro on it, as picked up by dpreview and steve's, is absolutely awesome and by far and away the best I have used on any digicam other than a big-lens SLR. See for yourself.
General picture wise, here's a couple of untouched raw images in medium quality out of it of my lair taken from a tripod. Flash fill (auto) and no flash.
In all, it's an object of desire make no mistake. It was a toss-up between this or an Olympus Mju 300 but I reckon I've made the right choice.
Anyhow, the Olympus is now being used exclusively by the missus and she loves it. However the things that I found a little annoying prompted me to buy a new camera for myself. The annoying issues were the lack of a zoom, the lack of resolution and the length of time before it's ready to take a photo. It's also too big for the pocket.
Candidates for a new camera included the Canon Ixus range which is popular with EED. I've nothing against Canons but I tend not to like the controls and there are some more modern cameras around. Particularly the Pentax Optio S. Pentax make their own lens system for this, it's a stunning feat of engineering in that three lenses slide up and into the camera when the camera is off. That and the latest miniturisation technology yields a camera which is ridiculously small and thin yet has a 3X zoom lens. Here's it in front of a CD as a size comparison.
This then lead me on to discover the Casio EX-Z3. It uses the same Pentax lens system but the back has a massive 2' CCD on it. The back of the thing is mostly LCD. It also seems to fair a little bit better in the image quality stakes in comparisons with the Pentax. The more I came around to thinking this camera was for me, the more I came to realise that the thing was virtually impossible to buy in the UK.
In the end I found it on Pixmania (which appears to be closed for the weekend), which is a French shop. It was cheaper than anywhere else, in stock and with a bit of googling and a lot of guesswork I ended up guessing a coupon code and had the thing delivered in two days for around £250. Result!
I'll do things in reverse. So far the only things that remotely suck about it are as follows; The lens is a little soft in the corners sometimes. It has a tendency to overexpose light bits although conversely you could say that it tends to bring out dark bits automatically at the expense of light bits so I'm not really sure that's a flaw as such. When shooting movies, the vids are pretty low quality and you hear the clatter of the auto focus if you move the camera around. Comes with only 10MB built-in so an SD card is needed for any use (although you could also say it's nice there's any built-in memory at all).
Now about covering the stuff that rules; The camera is fucking tiny! It weighs fuck all! It fits very easily in a pocket and it has a stunning magnesium alloy case. In fact everything is rounded and recessed, it's designed for the pocket clearly. I also like the fact that there's no nooks and cranies to wipe pocket fluff out of.
The TFT on the back is bloody huge and this really does beat the shit out of squinting at smaller ones on digital cameras. The power-on time is insane. Given that this bloody lens appears out of nowhere on the front of the camera, it's ready to shoot in a second or so and already I've caught lots of pics instantly. It's the fastest-on camera I've ever seen by a long shot.
The controls are the most intuitive I've ever seen. There's a solid little metal power button that toggles on off. Play/record slider. 4 way scroll cursors with a set button etc. Seriously, I've accessed most functions of the camera in 15 minutes of just scooting through them. The menu system is way cool, superimposed on the video. While the cam is basically point-and-shoot, it has dozens of preset modes for types of shot, each with a helpful little picture demonstrating that usage.
It comes with a little cradle. You plonk the cam in the cradle and it charges but there's also a USB button. You whack that and bingo, it turns up as a drive as you'd expect. I like the whole, I wanna charge now, I wanna shovel pics off it thing. Standards default settings for this thing just appear to be the closest to usable I've ever seen. 2048 x 1536 images come out at a bit over a megabyte. The camera doesn't post process much at all by the looks of it, so when you get the images into a paint package they're ready for tweaking.
The image quality is, I would say, about on a par with the mid-sized zoom Olympus cameras I've used before. That is to say, fucking good but easy enough to fuck up with too much movement, not taking focusing into account properly etc. On the other hand, it seems to be impossible to take a completely duff image. I've got a couple of photos which illustrate me whipping it out of a pocket and pressing the button, moving quite quickly and not giving the auto focus any time whatsoever to do it's job. Here and here
The auto focus seems to work in virtually no light. The flash doesn't overexpose on close subjects, it seems designed for that sort of thing. However it definitely likes to pull out detail and overexpose bright bits. As a matter of preference I prefer that over losing detail but you often get some chromatic aberration on the overexposed bits. Image quality certainly isn't in the league as the modern mid-sized zooms like the Canon Powershot S45 or the Olympus C-450 but it's not really that sort of camera. It's a snaps cam, one you'll always have on you at a moment's notice.
The fact I'm even comparing image quality of a cam the size of a fucking credit card with mid-size zooms is just insane. The zoom is physically faster than my old Olympus C-200Z. It's got a full tripod mount on it. The macro on it, as picked up by dpreview and steve's, is absolutely awesome and by far and away the best I have used on any digicam other than a big-lens SLR. See for yourself.
General picture wise, here's a couple of untouched raw images in medium quality out of it of my lair taken from a tripod. Flash fill (auto) and no flash.
In all, it's an object of desire make no mistake. It was a toss-up between this or an Olympus Mju 300 but I reckon I've made the right choice.
Tuesday, 5 August 2003
Memories [spiny]
If you're interested in naval history or WWII then this may be up your street, if not, erm, it probably isn't :)
Here is a throw-together web album.
It's all stuff from my dad's photo album while serving with the fleet air arm in the far east. The shots cover 1943 - 1945.
Apologies for the 'unique' design, it wasn't me, it was a wizard :)
Here is a throw-together web album.
It's all stuff from my dad's photo album while serving with the fleet air arm in the far east. The shots cover 1943 - 1945.
Apologies for the 'unique' design, it wasn't me, it was a wizard :)
Monday, 4 August 2003
Galactic DampSquib; the new BF1942 mod [brit]
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, beardy George Lucas invented Star Wars. We all know this; it's writ large in stone (and come to think of it, writ in writs too).. it was magical, cutting edge, and some of the best Sci-Fi ever made; if you could forgive Princess Leia for being allowed any speaking parts at all.
Over the weekend I downloaded the latest BF1942 mod to hit the e-streets; Galactic Conquest. It is fair to say that given it's setting and the proven abilities of the BF1942 engine, this mod has been widely anticipated for some time now - everyone from Starwars Uber Geeks to Lightsaber Wielding Wannabes egged on by nice static shots and the possibility that this mod may let us play Jedi. Cue bass-enhanced asthma inhaler FX overlay.
Put quite simply, I found the play experience wanting. Desperately wanting.
This is Star Wars; this is *it* when it comes to Good versus Evil in the galactic stakes, and frankly it feels like the mod creators were more interested in releasing it than actually making sure it had any of the Star Wars 'magic'. It is, quite simply, BF1942 reskinned.
Perhaps I'm being too judgemental, it is after all an alpha release. Perhaps I'm expecting too much from a freebie mod development team, attempting to recreate something of the Lucas original inside a consumer orientated PC title.
Or perhaps, I've been spoilt rotten by the simply awesome Desert Combat mod, which has (in my view) delivered one of the best mods since Counter-Strike appeared and laid waste to Half Life traditional multiplayer.
Everything (and I really do mean everything) feels slow and clunky, or in the case of the Tie Fighters and A-Wings, not even properly configured - to the point where taking off is a near nightmare.. yes the textures on these craft are extremely detailed in most cases, but if you can't even move about semi-properly once embarked, what be the point?
Bases are given but the most cursory of textural makeovers - if at all. As an Imperial Stormtrooper, I was somewhat taken aback by the fact that practically everything I could see looked so Tribes-esque it was cringeworthy; huge swathes of gray and dirty brown; no feeling that it was the heart of my evil emperor's presence on the planet at hand.. I could barely see my way clear to crushing any rebel scum I was that dejected.
For me, Galactic Conquest has already put itself into a position of Galactic DampSquib.. considering the legacy it has behind it (though I am also intrigued by their legal position) I just feel that it's been thrown together in order to be the first Star Wars mod, as supposed to transporting the player to the Star Wars universe in a way which the BF1942 engine could do so well.
Still, it is their first release; I shall undoubtedly give it another bash when the new version appears on the radar, but until then I'm afraid this StormTrooper has put his boots up.
Over the weekend I downloaded the latest BF1942 mod to hit the e-streets; Galactic Conquest. It is fair to say that given it's setting and the proven abilities of the BF1942 engine, this mod has been widely anticipated for some time now - everyone from Starwars Uber Geeks to Lightsaber Wielding Wannabes egged on by nice static shots and the possibility that this mod may let us play Jedi. Cue bass-enhanced asthma inhaler FX overlay.
Put quite simply, I found the play experience wanting. Desperately wanting.
This is Star Wars; this is *it* when it comes to Good versus Evil in the galactic stakes, and frankly it feels like the mod creators were more interested in releasing it than actually making sure it had any of the Star Wars 'magic'. It is, quite simply, BF1942 reskinned.
Perhaps I'm being too judgemental, it is after all an alpha release. Perhaps I'm expecting too much from a freebie mod development team, attempting to recreate something of the Lucas original inside a consumer orientated PC title.
Or perhaps, I've been spoilt rotten by the simply awesome Desert Combat mod, which has (in my view) delivered one of the best mods since Counter-Strike appeared and laid waste to Half Life traditional multiplayer.
Everything (and I really do mean everything) feels slow and clunky, or in the case of the Tie Fighters and A-Wings, not even properly configured - to the point where taking off is a near nightmare.. yes the textures on these craft are extremely detailed in most cases, but if you can't even move about semi-properly once embarked, what be the point?
Bases are given but the most cursory of textural makeovers - if at all. As an Imperial Stormtrooper, I was somewhat taken aback by the fact that practically everything I could see looked so Tribes-esque it was cringeworthy; huge swathes of gray and dirty brown; no feeling that it was the heart of my evil emperor's presence on the planet at hand.. I could barely see my way clear to crushing any rebel scum I was that dejected.
For me, Galactic Conquest has already put itself into a position of Galactic DampSquib.. considering the legacy it has behind it (though I am also intrigued by their legal position) I just feel that it's been thrown together in order to be the first Star Wars mod, as supposed to transporting the player to the Star Wars universe in a way which the BF1942 engine could do so well.
Still, it is their first release; I shall undoubtedly give it another bash when the new version appears on the radar, but until then I'm afraid this StormTrooper has put his boots up.
Too much duck, not enough sauce! [brit]
I'm a big fan of chinese food - there is to my mind nothing better than a 4 pack of Stella and half a peking duck with all the associated pancake orientated paraphenalia..
Yet seemingly, no chinese restaurant can accurately calculate the duck meat to plum sauce equation; throw in the cucumber and spring onion variable and we're facing gastranomic calculus meltdown.
I've found a new chinese delivery service; Four Corners.. swanky menu pops through the door, and it does seriously nice stuff for reasonable prices and best of all, instant card payment (you wouldn't believe how many times I've had to go through the whole 'VISA? whats that then?' debarcle).
Yet even these fellows, with their authentic cooking (it is in fairness seriously tasty) cannot achieve the proper duck to sauce to pancake ratio; half way through my chinese & stella & Blackhawn Down dinner marathon last night, I ran out of sauce!
We can put men on the moon, lay cables across the world's oceans and split the atom, but we can't work out how much plum sauce to deliver.. or alternatively, we end up with an ocean of sauce and a duck which looks more like a charred pigeon carcass..
Is there no end to my torment!?
Yet seemingly, no chinese restaurant can accurately calculate the duck meat to plum sauce equation; throw in the cucumber and spring onion variable and we're facing gastranomic calculus meltdown.
I've found a new chinese delivery service; Four Corners.. swanky menu pops through the door, and it does seriously nice stuff for reasonable prices and best of all, instant card payment (you wouldn't believe how many times I've had to go through the whole 'VISA? whats that then?' debarcle).
Yet even these fellows, with their authentic cooking (it is in fairness seriously tasty) cannot achieve the proper duck to sauce to pancake ratio; half way through my chinese & stella & Blackhawn Down dinner marathon last night, I ran out of sauce!
We can put men on the moon, lay cables across the world's oceans and split the atom, but we can't work out how much plum sauce to deliver.. or alternatively, we end up with an ocean of sauce and a duck which looks more like a charred pigeon carcass..
Is there no end to my torment!?
Sunday, 3 August 2003
Lurks uber Laptop! [lurks]
Got me a new laptop, an Acer TravelMate 800LCi. It's your larger style laptop with a 15' display but it's a heck of a lot tinner and lighter than the Dell Inspiron 8000 monsters that Slim and I used I-8.
This is Intel's new Centrino chipset that is designed to be low power and integrates really nifty stuff like Firewire, USB 2.0 and WiFi. So it's got all of that built in, hell it's even got four USB 2.0 ports on the side for Pete's sake. The audio ports are colour coded and better quality than the Dell's and put nicely up the front left and the DVD/CD-RW is on the right hand side. Bloody CD-RW in my laptop!
LAN, phone jack for modem and S-Video out are on the rear along with your docking port connector, VGA out and stuff like that. The front panel has buttons to enable/disable the built in WLAN and Bluetooth. Did I leave that bit out? :)
Oh yes, I probably also forgot to mention what's driving at lovely 1400x1050 TFT panel too. The top of the range ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility. 64MB too! It's a bastard load faster than the Dell. Not just the graphics, the 1.3GHz Pentium-M encoded the soundtrack from a Spooks episode in LAME in 3:30 where as my Athlon XP 1800+ (O/Ced with cranked FSB and memory) did it in 3:09. So it's less than 10% slower.
It came with XP Pro. The software installed on it was appropriate without having too much irritating stuff. The touch-pad doesn't appear to work as smoothly as I remember the Dell's but that could be just me getting used to it. The buttons and surround around the pad are a sort of nasty silver plastic which is the only bit of the machine which looks/feels in any way cheap.
Being as this is a Centrino laptop, battery life is claimed to be in the order of 5 hours or so. I'm expecting 4 odd, going on some reviews but those numbers come from reviews of the faster model so maybe I will get five out of it.
The sound is, well, not so hot as you'd expect but it's fairly surprising that it doesn't sound worse. It has some kind of strange little woofer device on the underside which sits on the tabletop to extend the base a bit. It's all very adequate for sounds but I wouldn't want to play music through it, that's what the headphone jack is for.
The notebook doesn't come with a case, it's modestly packaged without the reams of unbelievable horseshit that comes with a Dell, for example. A case is extra, I bought a nice Dicota. Cost wise, it's available for a shade over a grand plus VAT. So far I think it's a stunning buy given it's less expensive by a good deal than the Dell I bought but the specification is a good deal more and it's a good deal more practical in size, weight and battery life.
Big thumbs up so far. This baby is going down to Houmous' yard for that summer LAN party, mark my words!
This is Intel's new Centrino chipset that is designed to be low power and integrates really nifty stuff like Firewire, USB 2.0 and WiFi. So it's got all of that built in, hell it's even got four USB 2.0 ports on the side for Pete's sake. The audio ports are colour coded and better quality than the Dell's and put nicely up the front left and the DVD/CD-RW is on the right hand side. Bloody CD-RW in my laptop!
LAN, phone jack for modem and S-Video out are on the rear along with your docking port connector, VGA out and stuff like that. The front panel has buttons to enable/disable the built in WLAN and Bluetooth. Did I leave that bit out? :)
Oh yes, I probably also forgot to mention what's driving at lovely 1400x1050 TFT panel too. The top of the range ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility. 64MB too! It's a bastard load faster than the Dell. Not just the graphics, the 1.3GHz Pentium-M encoded the soundtrack from a Spooks episode in LAME in 3:30 where as my Athlon XP 1800+ (O/Ced with cranked FSB and memory) did it in 3:09. So it's less than 10% slower.
It came with XP Pro. The software installed on it was appropriate without having too much irritating stuff. The touch-pad doesn't appear to work as smoothly as I remember the Dell's but that could be just me getting used to it. The buttons and surround around the pad are a sort of nasty silver plastic which is the only bit of the machine which looks/feels in any way cheap.
Being as this is a Centrino laptop, battery life is claimed to be in the order of 5 hours or so. I'm expecting 4 odd, going on some reviews but those numbers come from reviews of the faster model so maybe I will get five out of it.
The sound is, well, not so hot as you'd expect but it's fairly surprising that it doesn't sound worse. It has some kind of strange little woofer device on the underside which sits on the tabletop to extend the base a bit. It's all very adequate for sounds but I wouldn't want to play music through it, that's what the headphone jack is for.
The notebook doesn't come with a case, it's modestly packaged without the reams of unbelievable horseshit that comes with a Dell, for example. A case is extra, I bought a nice Dicota. Cost wise, it's available for a shade over a grand plus VAT. So far I think it's a stunning buy given it's less expensive by a good deal than the Dell I bought but the specification is a good deal more and it's a good deal more practical in size, weight and battery life.
Big thumbs up so far. This baby is going down to Houmous' yard for that summer LAN party, mark my words!
Friday, 1 August 2003
Working late, and watching buildings burn [brit]
As my fellow clan mates will testify, of late yours truly has been rather quiet on the 'EED scene' - 12 hour days are currently the norm as we approach the launch of a project that has eaten up 8 months of my life.
However, whilst toiling away last night, work was interrupted by the announcement that the rather large office block no more than 100 yards away (and directly opposite) was on fire. Big style. So much so, that the BBC even put a page or two up on their site, plus that photo gallery.
The last time I saw a fire like this, it was on a ship firefighting course in 1997; the flames were literally *pouring* out of the building; climbing up the outside to bypass the concrete (and hence fireproof) floor separators.. in the space of 2 hours it consumed 5 floors.
So, we broke out the beer.. after all, we couldn't leave; 20 fire appliances, 4 ambulances, a rather cool looking fire command unit, and truck loads of police were all outside, and the amount of shit in the air was quite visible..
However, whilst toiling away last night, work was interrupted by the announcement that the rather large office block no more than 100 yards away (and directly opposite) was on fire. Big style. So much so, that the BBC even put a page or two up on their site, plus that photo gallery.
The last time I saw a fire like this, it was on a ship firefighting course in 1997; the flames were literally *pouring* out of the building; climbing up the outside to bypass the concrete (and hence fireproof) floor separators.. in the space of 2 hours it consumed 5 floors.
So, we broke out the beer.. after all, we couldn't leave; 20 fire appliances, 4 ambulances, a rather cool looking fire command unit, and truck loads of police were all outside, and the amount of shit in the air was quite visible..
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