Tadd Mencer

Posts Tagged ‘Handful’

I recently stumbled on this interesting site/idea. It’s called 960Grid and is basically a handful of templates for web developers who need something to help them quickly roll out designs and keep things crisp, clean and together. It’s honestly hard to explain.

The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels. There are two variants: 12 and 16 columns, which can be used separately or in tandem.

The premise of the system is ideally suited to rapid prototyping, but it would work equally well when integrated into a production environment. There are printable sketch sheets, design layouts, and a CSS file that have identical measurements.

And that’s basically what it is … easy eh?

Ok, so the download consists of basic CSS and template files to help you quickly knock out designs. Of course, it’s still work and you still have to DO the work – but the templates will help you streamline it much more effectively.

I’ll be redesigning (yes again) my Tadd Mencer site in the future. 100% custom. So keep an eye out in the future. I’ll be using this ‘grid system’ for that, or that’s the plan.

http://960.gs/

Ok, here is the two different ‘scar’ designs I’m playing with for Deadland Chronicles. Since this is taking place in a war-strewn future the ‘heroes’ of the day will be pretty beat up. So, scars are necessary!

The original. Easy to so – but doesn’t look overly convincing that it’s a scar. I just used the pen tool, drew the line and added a handful of effects to try and make it look .. scar like. Not the BEST look but – not bad. Takes me about 5 minutes to do the scarring here.

Pros: Fast, easy and doesn’t eat up  a lot of resources.

Cons: Not the most effective scar, may not be consistent in design

This one I used a ZBrush sphere, drew a quick gash and exported it as an OBJ file. I then imported that into Photoshop (which takes a few minutes) and rotated it to where I wanted it. I changed the 3D object to a flat layer, masked and erased around it and added a little red tinge – only too about 5 minutes (well, 10 with the load time and making the sphere). Yes, I’m aware that this scar looks .. lame. But the feel is more realistic than the pen-tool method.

Pros: Looks better and has more possibilities. I can take the same sphere, rotated for where ever you look and add a pre-defined action for the coloring as needed, so it would look more consistent – and I could probably get it looking  more realistic

Cons: Takes a while to load (high poly count), the reflections may not always look natural, which CAN be fixed in Photoshop, but adds another step.  If not done right simply look clayish.

Out of the two I like the second better – I can make it look more gashy and stuff in Zbrush, then I’d have a changeable 3D object ready for placement which – in the future – could save some massive time.

What are your thoughts?

Call of Duty, the original, was my first real online multiplayer experience. Before then, I never played a game online. Well, I tried playing Quake online back in the day – but that was a failed attempt when my connection was 28.8 … which was horrific even at that time. The lag was terrible … and I was just no good.

I also played ‘Blood’ with my friend a few times over the phone lines – but even that wasn’t very slick.

Beginning of the End

However, about 4 years ago (or five, I can’t remember) my wife bought me Call of Duty for Christmas. I played the single player at home, multiplayer from the DSL connection at the office (since we only had dial-up) and to be frank – I was horrible. And oh so addicted.

Fast forward: I’m still addicted to online play. Not really because it’s challenging, but because it’s a good way to have fun with other people. There is only so far you can really go with single player. After you beat the game, you’re done. But with multiplayer, you have endless gameplay. Brilliant!

I have been in a handful of gaming clans since starting. A clan is basically a group of like-minded gamers who get together regularly and play the games at hand. In my case, it was usually Call of Duty (though I do enjoy Neverwinter Nights). My first clan was called ‘Short Bus Riders’ but that lasted only a short time. After that, I started ‘Silver Bullet Mafia’ with a friend and we did fair for a few months. Members left fast (no server = no members I learned) and I moved on to United Base Players.

The First Real Clan

This was my first real clan. In less then two days I went from a recruit member to a server admin (thank you Squeeg for believing in me). In a few months I was the web admin as well as server admin for any server I wanted. Sadly, there were many factors in this clan that led me to leave.

After leaving, another gent from uBp (United Base Players) left also and begged me to start a clan with him. I happily agreed (he was the reason I had Call of Duty:United Offensive and Call of Duty 2!) and we started Perfect Killers.

Now this was the clan. We had two servers, ventrillo, members galore, a pretty rockin site. All the things to make a good clan. Sadly, this too fell through as the up-keep got the better of me (too much drama and problems for me) and I left. Sadly, it closed it’s doors a month after.

Since then I was a pub – public player. Non-affiliated with any clan. I changed my gaming name from Lord Thaddius to Azrael (the angel of death .. not the cat from Smurfs) and started gaming anywhere I wanted. A friend from uBp asked me about starting a clan with him, but I didn’t have the heart.

Today

Months passed and I played. I got Call of Duty 4 (finally!) and went to play on my friend’s clan server. It was fun. He bugged me and bugged me … and finally I conceded last week.

And to be honest: I’m quite happy I did. The clan I joined is friendly. It’s about having fun – not about competing against clans or anything. Just a good time.

So Psyc .. stop bugging me! I joined already! Now make me a founder.

www.clandhd.net – For gamers who like to have fun.

I’ve been doing a bit of work on my Deadland Chronicles designs. I’m pretty excited to see where this goes. I’ve “signed on” Pete Mumbower to do the photography as well as the models for the main characters. I also made a very simple splash page as a place holder to get “people excited” about the future novel. It will be extremely fun, I think, to do – and very challenging. But I have moral support from a good handful of people. It will be hard trying to find sub-characters and writing the script, but again … should be fun.

The main character is tentative “played” by me … unless I find someone else to do it (which I may) that will be one of the hardest things. Writing a script and ‘acting’ the character for photographs without being completely crappy or looking egotistical and pompous.

Anyway, to see the design and to read a not very well written synopsys, go to:

http://deadland.studio646.com

Enjoy!

I don’t even want to think about where my blog would be without Akismet. It comes pre-installed with WordPress but I know there are a good handful of people who delete it right away. "Oh it’s made by WordPress and I don’t like to do things that are all by one company .. and if I get too much spam I gotta pay .. wah wah wah"

First – you’re not going to get THAT much spam – and if you’re blog is cool enough to get spammed that much, the price is worth it.

Just check this screenie out:

My measly little site has gotten over 1000 spam comments … to me that is amazing.

We can’t stand spam.

Who can? You have better things to do with your life than deal with the underbelly of the Internet. Automattic Kismet (Akismet for short) is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again.