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ballzac

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Posts posted by ballzac

  1. Posted

    just got the new unreal tournament pre alpha, I highly recommend it for anyone that grew up playing those games !!!!

    There's not much to it at the moment (which isn't surprising for a pre-alpha) but it has me very excited about what it will be like when it's 'done'. Plus, afaik, it's going to remain free, which is awesome.

    If anyone is unaware of of what unreal engine 4 is capable of, download the paris apartment demo. Yeah, a fully fledged game is unlikely to look quite as good because it's not as easy to get away with baked lighting etc., but it's pretty damn impressive. Plus, the whole engine went free a couple of days ago, and then unity 5 was announced as free a day later. This means we're gonna see a crapton of indie games that are really nicely rendered in the upcoming months.

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    Dude... wat... you were using a mouse before? That's insane. You're insane. Nice portrait though!

    Yeah. Last time I had looked at prices (a few years ago) the cheapest decent ones were more than 300 bucks. If I realised they had come down in price so much, I would have gotten one ages ago. Got the Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch ($113).

    One way I got around the precision difficulty in the past was to draw with traditional media and then scan, and paint on top of it with the mouse. Or, as I said before, use splines and other vector objects for neat curves.

  8. Posted · Edited by ballzac

    I picked up a wacom tablet the other day. Soooo much better than using a mouse to paint with. I wouldn't say it's made a huge improvement to the quality of what I can do, but it makes the process much more enjoyable and saves a lot of time. One thing it has done to improve the quality a little, though, is that I used to use splines for outlines, to get a clean look that is hard to do with a mouse. Now I can easily sketch by hand, and it gives a much more 'organic' feel to the end result.

     

     

    Edit: Images are gone from original upload location. PM me if you want to see them

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

    I'm perfectly fine with advertising being added. I would personally prefer a sidebar or header than something that comes after the first post. That said, if paid exemptions are available, I would definitely pay, so the form of the advertising is a moot point for me.

    I know it's been mentioned, but adblockers hurt the website that has advertising links, so I think it needs to be made clear that non-paying members need to whitelist SAB if they want to support the forums. I suspect that the ratio of members whitelisting SAB would be higher than just about any other website, provided that they are reminded to do it.

     

    I think voluntary membership would work well here. As in, no one would be excluded if they don't pay. I like the idea of a keyring :) Or perhaps early/priority access to new plants as they become available from the store. That would be cool. Or a "free"plant sent to site sponsors, the value of which depends on the level of sponsorship. I.e. $20 = some seeds, $50 = a small viridis seedling, $100 = a caapi, $250 = a small loph. Or something like that.

    I like these sort of incentives, but I think it would be best if it was something exclusive; something made that not necessarily of much value, but is only available as a reward to contributing members. e.g., branded SAB keyrings or bottle openers, or something more apt like engraved smoking pipes or snuff paraphenalia, glassware, gardening stuff, etc. as larger rewards.

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    I second the popcorn maker suggestion. Most of them are roughly the same size and about 1/3 of a cup of green beans is the perfect quantity. Too much in one batch and they will not tumble around enough and the roast will be uneven. I posted a pictorial a while ago, it's a pretty self-explanatory process, but you might enjoy the pics nonetheless:

    pics

    • Like 1

  15. Posted · Edited by ballzac

    well it was around for 18ish years in one incarnation or another guess im just recalling the more weirder things that hey did mention and i dunno why you choose that boring ep instead of the one with robots shooting lasers or a talking car etc

    I reckon I could be pretty confident in saying that the majority of things they showcased are either widely available or are in the final stages of R&D before consumer release, but are more stylish and have more refined features than were imagined back then. We have phones that have more computing power than PCs did back then that you can make video calls on. Almost everyone has GPS in their car. Our televisions have huge, but thin, screens with high resolution and high refresh rates. The internet is a daily part of life for almost everyone. We have fridges that can order milk when you run out. Driverless cars exist and will be available to the public fairly soon. We have cheap virtual reality systems that are likely to be widely adopted within the next couple of years, as well as rudimentary HUD type augmented reality glasses. Research groups working for the military have bipedal robots that can run and can negotiate rocky terrain...

    Don't get me wrong, I loved beyond 2000, and all the tech they showed seemed really cool at the time, but a lot of it looks quaint by comparison today. I remember when they first showed a mobile phone, and it was like a suitcase with a massive battery and a corded handset in it. The thing is that you tend to remember the way it made you feel back then, rather than what the tech they actually showed was like. Another example, I remember when they were saying how in the future we could watch movies that starred dead actors who were computer generated, and they had an example scene with humphrey bogart and lauren bacall (IIRC). It was equivalent to N64 graphics, but at the time it seemed really cool. Now we could actually do that and if it was done well we would not be able to tell it was CG. Just look at Arnie in the most recent terminator, or watch avatar and try to figure out what is real and what is CG.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    lol wert sentient psychedelic coral does sound pretty cool

    Does anyone remember the show beyond 2000? and feel the constant disappointment it is to be living "beyond 2000" but without all the cool shit from the show!

    Perhaps you're misremembering it...

     

     

  17. Posted

    TES VI is online. It is out on pc already if I am not mistaken and will be out on xbox live in June. I am debating whether or not to purchase it for the reasons it is $15? A month and has already gotten a ton of bad reviews.

    "TES Online" is online. There is currently no game called "TES VI".

  18. Posted

    Just finishing playing through The Witcher 2 to see if it would be worth getting Wild Hunt when it comes out early next year. I think I still prefer Skyrim, but there's a lot about TW2 to love, and it looks like most of the shortcomings will be fixed for Wild Hunt, so I'm pretty sure I'll get it. Not so sure about Dragon Age Inquisition. I didn't find Origins very interesting, but Inquisition will be out pretty soon, and it's going to be pretty hard to give it a miss when it's going to be so long before Wild Hunt, and there isn't even word of an Elder Scrolls VI yet.

  19. Posted · Edited by ballzac
    typographical error

    Good thread that hasn't been posted in in a while, so I thought I'd bump it. There is a bit of a lull at the moment in game releases that I think is just starting to pick up again and we'll probably see a great deal of new AAA games out by early next year.

    Lately I've really been making the effort to pay for all the games I play. My philosophy used to be that I would pay for games I really like and would 'otherwise obtain' games that I wouldn't have paid for anyway, but I started to question whether I was really following through on that due to the small number of games that I actually owned. So I made a commitment to buy all games I want to play. I no longer even 'test out' games. I do my research to work out whether it's worth the money before buying. I gotta say that I'm enjoying playing them more. Games that might seem a bit shitty at first, I'm more likely to invest the time to see if it can win me over when I've spent money on it. Also, I'm using Steam, and the Steam cloud and the achievement tracking makes gaming a lot more fun. That, and games are less buggy this way because of updates, and online play works, mods tend to work better, less likely to end up with malware...and best of all I feel like a contributing member of the gaming community.

    Gotta give a big thumbs up for Steam in-home streaming too. It just came out of beta yesterday, but I've been using the beta for a few weeks and it's fantastic. I have computers all over the house, so it's great to be able to play anywhere I want. I'm using a wireless xbox 360 controller plugged into my host, so there's no need to setup controllers on each client computer. It's not ideal for quick-twitch games because of latency, but it's usable for all games, and great for more casual games.

    Also, my graphics card died recently, so I put together my new gaming PC a bit early. I could have possibly just updated the graphics card, but when it died, I decided to spend the money I've been saving up. I still want to get an 800 series GTX when they are out, so rather than getting a 780ti right now, I just got a gtx750 (~$140) to tide me over and I'm surprised at how well it holds up on demanding games. For cpu, I went with a 4670k, which should hold up well when I upgrade the graphics card again. I got an MSI Z87-GD65, but I'm not overclocking yet because I didn't have the money for custom cooling. At least this gives me a bit of headroom for the future.

    Games I'm really enjoying at the moment:

    Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Rise of the Owverlord (Standalone expansion. Really good hardcore platformer. Quite difficult, but the controls are fluid, so it's not frustrating. Thinking about getting the base game now.)

    Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (Excellent kart racing game. Was always upsetting to me that Nintendo don't release mario-kart for PC, but this definitely fills the void. Don't expect a cheap clone; this is a great game in its own right)

    SpaceChem (Difficult visual programming puzzle game. Any experience with programming will help here, but I think electrical engineers will have the biggest advantage)

    Danmaku Unlimited 2 (I love bullet hell shooters, but hadn't found one I really like on PC before. I usually play the old Cave arcade ones on MAME. DU2 lives up to the standards set by Cave games and I'm really enjoying. Not sure if I'll ever unlock the last two achievements though.)

  20. Posted

    This is his second post on the topic, and obviously no one contacted him the first time, even you folias. There are reasons that people may be reluctant to contact a stranger to 'talk' about illegal substances, when that person seems unwilling to get involved in moderated public discussions. Instead of simply being ignored like the first time, this time we have tried to help him out by explaining why people may be reluctant to contact him.

    I don't get what's wrong with this. If you think that we should all be jumping at the chance to help this guy out by talking to him in private, then PM him your phone number...otherwise, the most kind thing you can do is to explain why he's not getting contacted.

    • Like 4

  22. Posted

    • Gender:Male
    • Location:PERTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA
    • Climate or location:PERTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA

    sounds legit

    It's quite possible that he's moved since he signed up and hasn't changed his location details. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that's the case considering that his other post mentions that he is in Perth.

    HI GUYS

    I LIVE IN SYDNEY NSW. I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO PEOPLE WHO KNOW ABOUT AYAHUASCA.

    PLEASE MESSAGE ME SO WE CAN EXCHANGE EMAILS OR SKYPES.

    THANK YOU :)

    There is plenty of information about ayahuasca on these forums and elsewhere. If you are after more than just information, then it's unlikely you will find anyone that can (or is willing to) help you, by posting on a public forum, particularly when you only have two posts and both of them are basically the same. And on that point, was there really a need to start another thread? Clearly no one was interested in contacting you when you posted the first time.

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