Legacy:WheatPuppet

Yup, that's me.

Contact me:	nhusher@uvm.edu
Web Page:	HomePage(Maybe)

STUNNING!

The life of WheatPuppet (sometimes known as Nick Husher) is about to get much cooler!

With two-and-a-half years of computer science/computer engineering school behind me, I got my first job within my field. I actually get to try (*gasp*) programming for a living instead of teaching irritating Maine children about frogs for 10 weeks or stocking vegitables at the local grocery store part time for lousy pay.

Why, you may ask, did it take two and a half years for me to secure an internship? They're a dime a dozen wherever you happen to live. I don't happen to live there. I assure you that. I live in Vermont, which if you don't know already, is the ass-end-of-nowhere when it comes to computer technology. Yeah, yeah, we've got an IBM chip manufactory, but they don't count because they havn't hired anyone in five years. Oh, and we have a nation-wide software firm, too. They don't hire people, either.

But I got an internship. It's full-time, pays 10/hr, and I get to sit in front of a computer writing interfaces, algorithms, and whatever else. I hope it's not databases. I hate databases. Maybe because I had a bad (post-traumatic stress level) experience with PosgreSQL a few years ago when trying to interface with Perl. Not happening again. Perl wasn't meant to do databases (other than cheap-assed flat text ones) and databases were not meant for Perl.

The best part about this is that I actually know what I'm doing with my summer, which starts in exactly...5 days. It's a good feeling.

May the good feeling spread around, leaving a warm afterglow like a scene from [www.guildwars.com Guild Wars], which is running a Public Alpha test today (12th) to Friday (14th). It's pretty. It makes me happy.

~WheatPuppet

May 12, 2004

Random Unreal Ideas

Battlezone:

I really want to make a mod for UT2k4 that's a remake of that old Activision RTS/Tank(?) Sim where you got to shoot commies on the moon. I'm trying to get a friend of mine to learn UnrealScript and make a silly DM mutator as a proof of concept. I'm still trying to figure out how to make a terrain zone big enough to be moon-like while not being a horrible lag-fest, and then simultaneously working around the stupid 60000 UU max distance clipping plane. I'm trying to think of plausible reasons why the moon would have caves between zones. Luckily, air vehicles won't be a problem, just fast-moving hovertanks.

I havn't had time recently to take a look at the 2k4 vehicle code, but I'm hoping I can easily make a good-feeling hovertank without being an uber-whiz at UScript.

Heavy Gear:

There are a bunch of people working on a Heavy Gear mod for UT2k3 that I'm really excited about. They don't have a web site (beyond the one at moddb), but the models I've seen look nifty. I'm really interested in the mod because I'm totally in love with the tabletop game made by Dream Pod 9, and I wasn't terrably impressed with the Activision releases of Heavy Gear and HG2.

Carryall:

I think it would be nifty to make a mutator that replaces a certain vehicle with a Dune 2-style carryall to pick up vehicles. It wouldn't be particularly useful for anything but the Goliath, Hellbender, or Leviathan, but it would be a nifty thing to fly around in.

When thinking about this a little more–it would be fun to give the carryall a weapon that flips over vehicles. This would have two purposes. The first would be for self defense, because there's nothing that would piss off a would-be fragger than to be flipped over in his spiffy new Leviathan. The second purpose would be to flip over piloted freindly vehicles and pick them up upside-down. This would make it much easier for the crew of the carried vehicle to act as a flying gunship to defend the carryall in flight. It would also be off-kilter, and therefore a good idea.

Ponderings

• Why didn't the dropship in Halo have a "Spooky" modification wherein a hole is cut in the side and a rotary cannon stuck onto it?
• For that matter, why didn't the damn thing have windows?
• And how the hell did it manage to carry around that huge jeep? Good karma?
• Why does flying the Battlefield: Vietnam helicopters suck so much?
• Why doesn't voice-over-net work on my computer for UT2k4, except when certain people talk?
• Am I the only one who would pay $10 a month to play massively-multiplayer Fallout?
• Who the hell came up with the idea to pasturize apple cider? It all tastes like apple juice now!
• In Black And White, why did my monkey always become addicted to mushrooms? It's really hard to impress your people when your creature is stoned off his ass.
• Why has everyone seen Snatch, but nobody's seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels?

Statements of Truth

• X-Com: UFO Defense is the greatest standalone game ever created.
• Spilling hot tea on your foot hurts. A lot.
• Home-made hard cranberry juice is tasty.
• Techno music makes you sterile. Well. Maybe. That's what my "l33t" friends tell me. In fact, never mind. Techno is good.
• If Cid Meier's Colonization were to be re-released and updated it would have only one change–the graphics. And that would be good.

Short Scribblings in General

Legacy:WheatPuppet/Thoughts On Pipes - Some thoughts about the beauty of (meta)pipes.

Legacy:WheatPuppet/Thoughts On GUIs - Some thoughts about the nature of Graphic User Interfaces

Legacy:WheatPuppet/WikiThoughts - Some thoughts on the Unreal Wiki, and Wiki's in general.

For more scribblings, look here: www.livejournal.com/~wheatpuppet

Guest Book

This seems to be the norm, so have at it!

Hi WheatPuppet. Welcome to the wiki :) – Tarquin

Cripie Jeez! That was fast! – Me

 :-D Spotted you on Recent Changes. – Tarquin

Mychaeel: Hehe.  :-) It's called Wiki for a reason.  :-D

EntropicLqd: Hi there. Enjoy your stay.

SuperApe: Hey there, WheatPuppet. Don't forget about Mapping for 1on1. ;)

WheatPuppet: Well, I wrote something. It's not a masterpiece of mapping theory, but it's passable. What I really want to do is get ahold of the essay someone (was it tarq, mych?) wrote about 1on1 mapping. I repeated what they said a little bit, with a few of my ideas mixed in, but I'd really like the original work, so I can reference it properly.

Tarquin: Hey great work on the UEd bugs page :D

WheatPuppet: NP, I just read your mumbling on the future of the Wiki, and I don't want the wiki to go stale. Ever. Even if I have to buy a broadsword to do it, I'll keep this wiki alive. Well... I'm going to buy a broadsword anyway. ;)

Foxpaw: I noticed you mentioned Battlezone above. Just thought I'd mention, Battlezone is super fun. However, if you do plan on making a Battlezone mod, I wouldn't use Karma. (if you were planning to) In my experience with "physics system" and "non-physics system" vehicles, the non-physics system ones are better. Not only will it run faster, but all the physics systems I've seen so far (not just Karma) have annoying glitches that can occur. Also, they don't network very well. The upshot is the simulation can be a little more realistic in extreme conditions.

Anyways, if you do end up doing something like that, PHYS_Hover is probrably more in line with what you'd want than the UT2004 vehicles.

WheatPuppet: Probably. I havn't really looked into making vehicles. If it turns out that a non-Karma vehicle works better, then I'll use that. That's not my main concern. My main concern is making a Wings3D file into a Maya PLE mesh without screwing it up in the process.

Foxpaw: Ah.. I don't think that Maya PLE can import anything, nor can it export. (with the exception of exporting to UnrealEd) I could be wrong on this, however.

WheatPuppet: Actually, it can import DXF files with one of the packaged plugins, and it turns out that ivcon is able to convert .obj files into .dxf. It's a convoluted path (*.wings -> *.obj -> *.dxf -> *.mp -> *.(whatever Unreal is, I've forgotten)) I loose texture mapping, but I'll just have to learn how to do that in Maya (**SIGH** Working with Maya is like stabbing myself in the foot with an XActo knife repeatedly, especially after using Wings3D).