Slightly New Look

How I made the new header image

Like it? The old image was created by simple layered compositing in Paint Shop Pro X. The new one was created as a 3D scene in Vue 5 Esprit. To create the 3D models of Io and Venus (which replaces Ganymede in the original image) I got hold of cylindrical projection images and mapped them onto spheres. The background is a Hubble image (a part of the Eagle Nebula, I think). Even the text is a 3D object. The picture here shows the scene from a different camera angle so you can see the spatial arrangement.

On the Ultra setting it took a bit under 4 minutes to render.

New Computer, New Games

New Computer

My old computer was pretty good, even as old as it was - 2.4GHz with 2Gb of memory and a 256Mb nVidia 5900 graphics card that was close to the top end when I bought it. But lately there have been new games coming out for which the system didn't meet the recommended requirements. For one game in particular that I wanted - Bioshock - the system didn't even meet the minimum requirements.

As a slightly early birthday present Kate bought me a new machine - this one has a 3GHz dual-core CPU and came with 2Gb RAM, unlike many systems that come from the factory with the bare minimum of memory that the manufacturers can get away with installing. As for the graphics card, the store had nVidia 7600s on special for $80. And it came with XP Pro, not Vista (hint: if you want XP Pro you actually have to tell the salesman, "I want XP Pro, not stinky untested Vista that won't run my $X-thousand-worth of older software". The sales people aren't allowed to tell you that XP is an option - if they volunteer that information, Micro$oft can fine the store. Yes, fine them. This is legal in America, folks).

My new machine is wonderful; it boots in less than two minutes, isn't loaded with a bunch of OEM software (thank you, PowerSpec) and it runs like a dream.

New Games

Of course, with a better, faster machine I also have a few new games. The first, of course, being...

Bioshock: This is a brilliant game. I can't play it for too long at a time because it's pretty intense - there's so much going on it's actually tiring to play. I've also lost count of the number of times I got my character killed; some of the bad guys do spectacular amounts of hurt, and some will take incredible amounts of damage before going down for the long dirtnap (especially the Big Daddies). But it's addictive, at least in part because the different environments make you want to see what's coming up next. I'm some way into the story but I have no clear idea of whether I'm halfway through or only a tenth of the way there.

Half Life 2 episode 2: AT LAST it came out October 10. And it's excellent. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to give away any spoilers for anyone reading this who hasn't played yet. Actually I bought The Orange Box, which contains HL2ep2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 as well as the original Half Life 2 and HL2 episode 1. All for around $40, which is excellent value these days.

Portal: This game is short - you can play from beginning to end in about three hours - but it's very addictive, great fun. The centrepiece is the Portal Gun that lets you create doorways in walls and floors; the game itself is basically a series of puzzles to solve using the Gun, and some of them can take quite a bit of thought to figure out.

Once you've played through to the end, you can also play the Advanced levels, which are based on the normal game levels but with extra obstacles and limitations, and the Challenge levels, which use the same maps but add goals to beat such as limiting the number of portals you use.

Team Fortress 2: A multiplayer game similar in some respects to Counter Strike, but it takes itself less seriously. Unfortunately some of the other players out there take it far too seriously. Frankly, I wish there was a way to play against Bots as you can with CS - there are some really immature assholes on the servers. TF2 doesn't have bot play and it's not difficult to figure out why; while CS really only has a limited set of strategies, TF2 has no less than NINE character classes, each with its own set of skills and weapons. Programming bots to work with the strengths of each class and at the same time work together as a team, including playing with mere humans on their side, would take a hell of a lot of work. I don't expect to see bots on TF2 any time soon, if ever.