CrackerJam.net

Network monitoring is important. Keeping track of your servers, and making sure everything keeps running smoothly is vital to any organization or advanced home network environment. Lately I’ve been looking for something to accomplish this that works well, and is easy to configure. A quick Google search brought me to the PRTG Network Monitor site, and I must say, it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. The whole thing just looks brilliant. Everything’s easy to use/find, the graphs are clear and informational, and it even lets you know when your devices are acting unusual for that time of the week.

PRTG is a glorious monitoring program. If you’ve got a company to run, or a home lab you want to keep tabs on, check it out, it’ll make your life easier.

K, so, this is supposed to be a development blog, but when a cute girl says “write that in a blog or something”, you listen.

Anyway, there was an interesting…development(LOLOL) in my history class earlier. We were talking about the industrial revolution in Europe, and the professor ended up asking who’s liberal/conservative. A large amount of the class said liberal, and one person said they were conservative. A couple didn’t say anything, because they’re retarded/indecisive. Anyway, the following conversation ensued.

 

Professor to Gentleman: “So why are you conservative”.

Gentleman replied: “Because I believe in keeping our nation protected, keeping with family values, and being a good Christian”(I smirked at the Christian part).

The professor then asked one of the liberals the same question.

Liberal: “Because I believe in the people controlling government, everyone having rights no matter whether they’re gay or straight, and because religion is a scar on our society”(I think it was scar, I’m paraphrasing).

Gentleman, who’s also one of the local country-folk, responds, quite aggressively: “What do you mean gay rights? Those people don’t deserve anything, they’re fucking disgusting.”

 

At this point, everyone is glaring at the conservative gentleman twat. The professor comes over to him, grabs him and his things, and throws him out the door, telling him not to come back.

We clapped.

 

I haven’t really been working on anything, unfortunately. That bridge map I was working on at one point got erased because of a hard drive error, along with another interesting looking desert map. I have some screenshots from when I was working on that, actually.

Here, desert-map-that-I’m-not-working-on-anymore-because-my-harddrive-failed screenshots:

Anyway, I’m probably not going to be working on anything else until Crysis 2 or Battlefield 3 come out. It really depends what’s available and who puts out map tools. Mapping for a game nobody plays (Crysis) is no fun. Oh, and my college schedule has been pretty full, so that’ll affect the things I end up working on.

Now, if you’re truly interested in what I might come up with in the future, subscribe to my blog (A feature I just added!), and it’ll probably send email towards your face when the time comes.

Until next time…

I was bored, so I decided to make a little cutscene in the CryEngine 2 editor. Only took like, 2 hours. Yay.

So, if you check this regularly (kudos), you may have noticed there hasn’t been anything up for over a month. This is because I’ve been working on an IA map that I intended to release. It’s mostly finished, however, it doesn’t actually work ingame. I have no idea why, I can host and play it fine, but others can’t connect. Therefore, I’m just going to release it now.

The main theme is this: There’s a US military warehouse, the North Koreans are trying to attack it, fighting ensues. There are weapons and vehicles everywhere, most of the weapons respawn, the vehicles do not. Players spawn at random places throughout the complex. There are also TAC lauchers hidden throughout the level, to add a little more chaos.

Some screens:

More screenshots: Here

Download the map (9.95MB)
Crymod Thread

Now, I know this is a “development” blog, but it’s got my name on it, so there. Today, I experienced something that must be told about, because it was hilarious. Let us begin…

I was on my way back from a haircut, not very exciting. However, on the way back my route took me through a road with construction going on, and traffic was slow. This, apparently, was the perfect place for a group of (stereotypically accurate) hippies to go and try to demonstrate about saving the environment, or something. They were calling people “fascists”, for doing things like driving SUVs and things of that nature. Now, I wasn’t moving, nor was anyone on my side of the road. The hippies were very close to me, and I decided to intervene. My quotes may be a bit off, but this is basically how the conversation went…

Me: Hey you, hippie!
Hippie: * Quizzical look*
Me: Yeah, come here!
Hippie: *walks over* Hey man.
Me: Hey, what are you guys demonstrating about?
Hippie: The fascists man, polluting our oxygen with their automobiles.
Me: Ahh, I see. How does that make them fascists, then?
Hippie: They’re polluting man, that’s like the textbook definition of fascism.
Me: Fascism is when a government has total control over it’s people, like a dictatorship. It’s got nothing to do with pollution.
Hippie: But we’ve got all these signs! *points at signs with “FASCISTS” in big red letters, and other stuff that’s not visible at 50ft away, being held by other hippies.*
Me: They’re wrong.
Hippie: Man, are you sure? We did a lot of work on this.
Me: Yeah, I’m sure.
Hippie: I’m gonna go talk to these other guys about it…*trails away*
Me: *chuckle*
*Main hippie tells other hippies, some look pissed, and they disperse.*

I successfully ended a hippie demonstration. Quite possibly one of the most important tasks I’ve ever been dealt. It was amazing, and I am proud of myself.

Here’s a couple more screens of my map, in the daytime, and without the fog.

After a long period of not getting anything done, I’ve finally gone and done a little more work on my level. This time I’ve added trees, rocks, all that good stuff. I still need to clean up alot of areas, but here are some screenshots for your viewing pleasure.

I’ve been doing some work with the ocean spray effects along the coastline.

Along the bridge pillars:

And, along the coastline:

I think it looks quite nice.

Another level update. This time, I have a screen of the under-side of the bridge.

Right now I have the terrain extending up to the bridge model pillars. If I had a custom modeled bridge, it’d probably look nicer, but that’s not the case. Oh well. Heightmap + cliff texture is the best I can do.