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Outdoor Snapshot |
01.Jul.2010 |
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While strolling around English Bay enjoying the cloudy overcast British weather,
I noticed something on the top of a nearby skyscraper. Perched high above the
ground touching the sky was a tree, yes a tree!
I know rooftop gardeners love to create the illusion of a tranquil oasis
high above the sea of concrete below, but growing a tree up
in the clouds seems to me taking the challenge to a new level. I am sure
sitting underneath that tree looking to the horizon must be sublime.
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A new statue by Douglas Coupland
can be found on the edge of the sea wall of downtown Vancouver harbour.
Made from large square blocks like something from an old 8-bit game is the outline
of an orca whale.
A strange but compelling mixture of brightly contrasting colours and a pixel
like structure makes this statue an interesting reflection of modern digital
times. Looking at odds with its surroundings due to its resolution it feels like a
model in a computer game being displayed at the wrong
LOD level.
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Sometimes it is a case of being in the right place at the right time. I was
walking around Stanley park
with a friend and noticed a couple of people with fancy
camera's pointing at the Vancouver skyline and waiting.
A beautiful red sunset was slipping behind the treetops of Stanley Park and
reflecting in the glass windows of the Vancouver skyscrapers beyond. Add to that the calm waters
of Coal Harbour perfectly mirroring the horizon while a wispy full
moon was gliding high above and you have the perfect moment.
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My first sighting of a Vancouver Eagle while walking around
Stanley park. It took
me a couple of attempts to get close enough but eventually
I got lucky and the eagle turned round at the right moment for a good photo.
What I did find strange was how the other birds (crows and seagulls) were flying around
the eagle squawking like crazy. I assumed most birds would be afraid of an eagle due
its size and strength but it seems this is not the case, some birds just don't care.
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While sitting in a meeting at work up on the 15th floor of a skyscraper
discussing the lack of features of the in-house editor, a friend
next to me noticed something out of the window. The building opposite
was home to a post-it note space invader.
What made this discovery even more amusing was that the makeshift
office invader could not be seen from the pavement below, but only from
buildings opposite. Nevertheless it was an awesome distraction from
the meeting and made me smile and that is what life is about!
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End of a Chapter |
01.Jun.2010 |
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The Berlin Aquadom is at the center of the
Radisson Blu Hotel (formerly Radisson SAS) offering a special bedside view of a towering watery
wonderland.
Built by Reynolds Polymer Technology the
Aquadom
is a tranquil home for 2600 fish and 56 species swimming around in over 900,000 litres of seawater.
The feeding of the fish and the cleaning of the fish tank is performed daily by a pair of full-time divers.
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The Pergamon Museum is located on
Museum Island and was built over a twenty (1910-1930) year period by Alfred Messel
and Ludwig Hoffmann.
The Islamic Art Museum is housed in the upper part of the Museum and contains
a wealth of fabric and ceramic exhibitions including the famous Mshatta facade.
The ceramic pray altars were a
breathtaking
sight of beauty
constructed from uniquely designed glazed
tiles
perfectly locked together.
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The Hungarian Parliament
building is the crowning jewel in the architectural landscape of the city of
Budapest with a symmetrical Neogothic facade, a sea of windows on all sides and a
towering dome in the middle.
This magnificent landmark was built (1885-1904) by Imre Steindl (1839-1902) who
also designed the St. Elizabeth Church
which is tucked away in Rózsák tere of the 7th District.
The building is 879 ft long by 404 ft wide and was built using 40 million bricks.
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The Hagia Sophia
is located near the Topkapi Palace and Blue Mosque,
which are all close-by to the Bosphorus river.
For more than a thousand years the cathedral had
survived many natural disasters until the city of Constantinople was
conquered by the Turks in 1453 and then converted into a mosque.
Having been rebuilt three times the building is a classic example of
Byzantine architecture with a huge 102ft wide dome standing 180ft
tall supported by giant stone columns.
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The Topkapi Palace
was the official residence of the Ottoman Sultans and
home to over 4,000 people at the height of its existence.
Many areas of the palace are decorated with richly coloured Iznik tiles
creating many unique and interesting wall designs.
Some of the courtyard buildings have elaborate ceramic
ceiling designs
with the surrounding furniture
adorned with beautiful mother-of-pearl and tortoise-shell inlays.
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The Parthenon
is the crowning glory of Athens standing tall atop of the Acropolis
surrounded on all sides by a sea of
urbanization.
Nowadays this historic site is littered with scaffolding, cranes and many large
piles of
stonework as restoration work
is being carried out by the Greek government. The new
Acropolis Museum
built at the base of the hill now houses most of the original sculptures
and is ironically more interesting than the ancient site itself.
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Gothic Reflections |
28.May.2010 |
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I always try to take a lot of pictures of different places I visit and this is one
Church
I have loved since the first day I saw it 2 years ago.
Eventually after much procrastinating I got the images in the correct order and spent
some time getting the background info right.
The Church
stands tall on the bank of the Duna river crowned by a beautiful example of
Zsolnay roof tiles.
Often missed by tourists because of the
Matthias Church
on the hillside above, this is a breathtaking example of
Neogothic architectural styles.
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The Great Market Hall
or Central Market was built at the turn of the 19th century by
Samu Pecz. Shortly before the
150 meter long Neogothic
market was due to be complete, a fire destroyed a large part of the roof and delayed
the final opening by several months.
When the Great Market
was finally finished it had up-to-date lighting, cold storage and an indoor canal running through
the middle so that goods could be delivered easily.
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St. Elizabeth Church is located in
the 7th District of Budapest and was built by
Imre Steindl
(1839-1902) who is more famously known for building the gorgeous looking
Hungarian Parliament.
The Church
has a classic Neogothic
design with sky reaching buttress supports topped with elegant crocket's,
symmetrical bell towers at the front and a large gothic rose window in the middle.
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I originally developed this game
a couple of years ago and always thought it had
potential to be a good game. I even started a new version with better effects and
technical fixes but I eventually lost interest when I got no feedback from
anyone.
After speaking to a couple of friends recently I thought I would finally release
the update I had planned years ago and see if anyone is still interested in the game.
The latest version
is 1.5 and hopefully this time around it might generate some feedback.
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The Edge of Forever source file
is a very large (10Mb) because I have included 200+ models and a
few of those are linked together. The model naming convention is a
bit strange but the level was developed over 8 months with 156 map versions so some
stuff will probably be in the wrong place.
The map source
is not for the faint hearted and will require a good understanding of
existing Q3 mapping editing. The source files should include everything to view the
map in the editor.
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Over the Edge |
07.Mar.2010 |
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The Edge of Forever
started life as an experiment into 3D scripting and entity chain triggers.
After a couple of prototypes maps I decided the concept had the potential
to be a single player experience and thought it would be an interesting
challenge.
The level features a brand new photo sourced texture set,
many unique map models, a background story, specially recorded dialogue lines,
custom audio effects and plenty of environmental ambience.
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The Medieval Court is a doodle map using a new
medieval texture pack.
The original plan was to create a CTF map with a tudor castle theme and the front of each
base (facing each other) was going to be a recreation of the front gate of
Hampton Court.
After spending so much time playing around with
groin vault archway
designs I decided to turn the map into visual project so that I could experiment with ascending
roof space and moody lighting.
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This is a small collection
of wood, metal and stone textures. All of which were digitally photo sourced
by me and are designed to work with gothic or medieval settings.
The photos were taken from various locations around the city of Budapest and
I am sure that most people wondered what sort of tourist I was for taking pictures
of stone walls and wooden fences.
This texture pack was used in my latest map release
Edge of Forever if you want to
see some working examples.
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Dreaming of Midsummer Nights |
01.Feb.2010 |
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I can't believe it! the weather outside is cold, global summer seems to be taking a holiday
this year. The good old days of winter chills and snow on the ground for weeks on end is
back. Even kids are outside loitering on street corners with snowballs in hands instead
of screaming profanity on xbox live, what is the world coming too!
After weeks and months and years I think I can finally see the end in sight, the map
that has taken forever
to complete is nearly finished. The last bit of detail has been added and now all that
remains is to give it a final bake in the beta oven and then voila!
While waiting for my friends to get back to me with some last minute feedback I decided
to pull my finger out and update my website. Yes I know, the place has been neglected
for some time now but the good news is, I have a huge pile of stuff to add.
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While creating gallery maps for my latest
plants and
terrain
texture packs I discovered that high contrast textures do not
blend very well using the existing alpha fade system.
After trying out a few different ideas I eventually found a way
to create better terrain blends using the existing system with
custom alpha channels and high contrast textures.
This article is about different ways of terrain blending
and how to deal with blending high contrast textures.
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While making the map Pyramid of the Magician I
spent a couple of weeks driving around to various locations taking close up pictures of
plants and I certainly got my fair share of dodgy looks!
This is a collection of all
the plant assets I created and never got a chance to release separate from the map.
This plant pack contains an example
gallery map, a Q3 material shader file and a dainty collection of plant leaves looking
for a new home. (only one previous careful owner)
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One of the greatest challenges of taking pictures of
terrain is getting the scale right
so that gravel does not look like giant rocks. After many weeks of searching
I eventually found some good locations, but sometimes I just wished I had a tall step ladder!
This terrain pack contains an example
gallery map, a Q3 material shader file and a giant bucket of sand with a dash of pebbles looking
for a new seafront home. (Sandbox gameplay not included)
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This is a small collection
of wood, metal and stone textures. All of which were digitally photo sourced
by me and are designed to work with gothic or medieval settings.
The photos were taken from various locations around the city of Budapest and
I am sure that most people wondered what sort of tourist I was for taking pictures
of stone walls and wooden fences.
The texture pack will be available once my latest
map is finished being tested
for bugs. So just sit back and enjoy the preview!
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