CrimsonStrife

How so?

I assume you are referring to my statement that neither of the two remaining announcements are games.

 

Well namely the fact that on that page I linked, each of those "dots" is representing an announcement , with the first one being the SteamOS.  The paragraph below says that this is part of their effort to bring Steam as a platform, to the living room.

I tried to nose around in the page's code...not that I expected Valve to have just left names for things, but that maybe they'd left little teases...no such luck.  But practically everything in the code is marked "livingroom" I.E. that is most likely what this is all about.

 

With SteamOS being the first announcement...the logical step is to next announce some sort of hardware or peripheral, not designed to be the sole device running it (which as we've all pointed out, its open to everyone), but perhaps engineered to make the most of it for your money.

Now this does leave a curious opening with the third announcement, but if everything else is devoted to bringing Steam to the livingroom, then it seems highly unlikely that they will be including any sort of game announcement with these.  And the fact that it says they are "connecting the dots" also points towards it being some sort of tie-in, feature to Steam, hardware, etc.

 

Now that isn't to say that once these announcements have been made, that we won't see some new game(s) announced in the following weeks or months.

They've been planning to make a push to get into our living rooms for sometime now.

 

Big Picture mode was the start, and the increases in controler support.

They've just announced an OS, and they've been teasing a "console" of sorts for a while, mostly likely just a standardized media PC that will come with their OS installed.  Gabe Newell has actually mentioned the "SteamBox" in a number of interviews I think.

So I would imagine that at least ONE of the remaining announcements is this "console"...this would explain the consist references to streaming content, as it may be a lower power device that can stream the games from your gaming PC to your TV.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/

Last year, we shipped a software feature called Big Picture, a user-interface tailored for televisions and gamepads.
This year we’ve been working on even more ways to connect the dots for customers who want Steam in the living-room.
Soon, we’ll be adding you to our design process, so that you can help us shape the future of Steam.

 

This basically shuts-down the overall likely-hood of any of these being game announcements.

 

BUT then again, they have said it is open for hard-ware manufacturers...so would they really attempt to market their own device too?

I didn't watch the video (not allowed to stream media at work) but I can't imagine something like that being optimal with verts.

Firstly, 2000 hrs is nothing...especially when if you look at my profile you'd see that it is measured out over 3 years. So doing the math on that I'd be playing maybe 6 hours a day Which in reality I don't, certainly not any more. I may play 4 hour or so a week, and most of that I am often testing games for other people.

 

If you think 4GB of RAM is plenty, you've obviously never tried rendering films, especially when it comes to special effects. Note that doing so is something I get paid for, so do it faster is a must.

 

And I my not be rich, but I make decent money, and have no debt.

 

My reasoning is perfectly sound. Truth be told I could afford to live somewhere else for cheaper, but I live in the city and it is in a perfect spot, 5 minutes from work, and no traffic to worry about during my commute hours.

 

But this isn't the "judge Crimson for his actions" thread, it's the "let's talk about good computer hardware that will fit in a small case like that" thread.

They're completely relevant if your reasons are completely asinine.

 

In reality, they really aren't.  I could be doing this simply "because I can", while I'm not, it really doesn't matter.

 

What are your reasons though? All I've heard is "render farming" and "perforce", and both of those aren't particularly useful (do tell what you plan on using a render farm for exactly)

 

I am about to start process of handling special effects/post production work for a recently shot 30's/40's Noir crime short for one of my Director friends, a task that while I don't doubt my rig can handle, I'd rather not have to dedicate it to that when the time comes.

That among with a few other local media projects (some PSAs and other nonsense for a local community college) are some of the multitudes of rendering tasks that could be off'ed on it.

I also have a number of personal animations, portfolio work and the like, that I have not rendered simply due to the time it would take.

 

It should also be noted that I, as we speak, have a number of beta/alpha softwares I am testing, and since many of them are not optimized, some of which are used in development level work, are huge.  I have a LOT of space on this computer, but while I have the bays for more drives, I do not have the ports on my motherboard, and my space is rapidly starting to dissipate (I still technically have plenty, which is one reason this new machine likely won't happen till after tax returns at the start of the year).  And hell nearly 50 GBs(and growing) are dedicated to a constant physical backup of the entire JKHub site, and everything we host.  I COULD simply get portable drives, or even upgrade to larger ones as a few of them are on the smaller side,  But I could also just as easily, (not cheaply), get a secondary computer.

 

Also, I travel, a LOT, usually to places or events where I could easily use a desktop, if I had one.  Mine is far to large and heavy to be traveled with.  And I own a laptop, but it doesn't handle a lot of the things I typically run very well, especially if I am running say, Maya and Mudbox in parallel.  And god forbid I need to render in Premiere or After-Effects.  Now I could spend a few hundred bucks for a brand new one, but to really get a design level laptop, I could still be looking at at least near a grand, and it probably still wouldn't equal out to a desktop built for the same amount.  If I build a PC with a smaller footprint, I could travel with it more easily, and be able to still use a decent desktop, when not at home.

 

I've already mentioned the server options, Perforce and what not.  

 

The fact of the matter is, I don't dedicate my current desktop to most of this, because while it itself stays perfectly cool even when rendering and the like, it puts out far too much heat for my small apartment room (My desk is completely beside my bed.)

 

Old photo from when I moved in a year ago, but the layout is the same, just more monitors.

 

 

 

There is a reason I keep that fan level with my head.

 

So essentially, if it gets left on for anything more than a couple hours at a time, my room becomes unbearable, as the A/C is not particularly well ventilated.

 

If I had a smaller PC, that put off less heat, I could keep it in here, and put the larger one in the living room.  Simply allow it to be the "community gaming PC" between my roommate and I.

It's not dedicated to Perforce, but it is one of the uses I intend for it. I have also had plans of a render farm for a few years now and have never had the finances.

 

The only reason we are using Perforce is because it comes integrated into UDK for free. We've had it "working" on our web host, but the way they handle connections causes it to only stay connected for a few minutes at a time if that.

 

Again though, my reasons should really be irrelevant.

A couple of those aren't that bad. The Ratchet and Clank are actually pretty good.

 

The review for Inuyashu made me laugh though. The first line.

 

Lol yeah, it was my first mod ever submitted, and I got reviewed by @@Averus Retruthan .....just my luck XD he is like the Simon Cowell of mod reviewers.  But in all honesty, it was shit XD

I was a tad late to the JA scene by a year or so. I miss the old days!

 

My first mod was Rax made to look like Santa Claus using MSPaint. It was atrocious. It's still on JK3Files too!

 

 

Been playing JKA for as long as I can remember and played it since a little kid. I still remember launching it for the first time and playing MP as Luke with a red lightsaber and the brightness at 0% and not knowing what the heck was going on but loving every moment.

 

I started modding by mixing and MSPainting skins from other mods. My very first mod was a playermodel with no textures (the grey box thing) that was absolutely worthless but made me so proud.

 

 

Oh god, does anyone remember when I made these nightmares....mother of god I was terrible.

 

http://jediknight3.filefront.com/file/TFU_Starkiller_Model;93881

http://jediknight3.filefront.com/file/Ratchet_and_Clank;93126

http://jediknight3.filefront.com/file/Inuyasha;92572

http://jediknight3.filefront.com/file/Emperor_Kisu;95525

http://jediknight3.filefront.com/file/Ember_McLain;95212

 

My how I have improved,

Liara T'Soni (click to view in 3D)

Great work Crimson!

 

What would be really ghetto but cool was if we coded several spam bots with each having a modder type as a username. We could then have the spam bot post a list of people when @ModderType is typed in the topic. It would respond with a list of modders, just like how @@spior made the linux bot. RIP.

 

Example:

 

Person types @Scripters.

Spam bot posts:

 

Do we REALLY need to re-live Stallbot? lol

 

Pretty friggin sweet dude. Good stuff there.

 

@modeler would be the extreme though. Or if it showed under your name like "Retired Staff"

 

It "could" be done, but it would require edits to the theme, and Caelum worked so hard getting it looking good, I'd rather not go messing around in it.  Were it my forum I'd totally take a crack at it, given that I have done IP.Board theme-work, but since it isn't, I won't toy with it.

@@Circa , @@AshuraDX, you guys have your staff badges now. Just took care of it.

My god this makes me feel old.  I can only imagine how @@Inyri feels.  Old woman

Know what would be cool?  If for the Hub.. you can categorize yourself. Like.. mapper, modeller, coder, scripter, texture artists, shader specialist, animator, etc...

 

 

Abracafreakindabra, it is now possible.  The tagging users based on type is not, but you *should* be able to filter users by type now.  Edit your profile to take a look and set yours.

@@CrimsonStrife  that would be amazing man. I wouldn't mind getting notified when someone needs a modellers help or a quick texture or something. badass.

 

@@therfiles  expect a PM from me  

 that is incredible.

 

Make sure you go back and read where I edited my post, the "summoning" idea would really only work via groups methinks.  Which would require a metric fuck-ton of groups, plus all the permission work that goes along with them, and they'd have to be managed.  But as far as for profile customization, could be done.

 

I could be wrong though, I have only mild experience with IP.Board since Helical started using it too.  Wait and see what @@Fighter has to say.

That would be pretty cool...@@Fighter - would something like that be possible?

 

 

Would be easy enough, can add a custom profile box via the ACP, shouldn't harm the theme or anything.  Best option would be to have a dropdown box for them to pick from.  Hell, depending on how many options were needed, I could do it in a matter of minutes.

 

Only other way to do it without adding anything is via "Titles" but then you have to change user permissions and what not. Plus we already use those for staff, and they aren't done via dropdown choices, so people could put whatever they want in there (I.E. JKHub Staff)

 

EDIT:  I should point out that the whole "summoning" thing, wouldn't work that way....might work via groups but then we are getting into permissions and flexibility issues again.

 

EDIT2: OT:  @@ChalklYne hard to get a feel for your organic animation, but you seem to be a pretty good animator, it is fairly smooth overall.  Not sure how doable it is in XSI (particularly with the older versions and Modtool) but the fix for wonky cameras, usually caused by rapidly repositioning, is to cut between multiple cameras placed in a scene instead.  In Maya I think there is more than one way to do it, I used to use MELscript, but we also have a camera sequencer 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfLIv2ttNkc

I did some googling while I had downtime at the office,

 So far I am liking this case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144234

Case comes with an installed 500W power supply, so no need to change that as long as we don't exceed it

 

 

Looks like I could probably fit this guy in there without too much difficulty, and it only asks for a 400W minimum:

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-2653-KR

 

And I've already stated I'll be throwing 16GB ram into it, not sure what kind yet.

 

So far (not really counting in rebates and potential taxes and shipping) looking at like $200, which is a fraction of what I spent on my desktop.

I personally am no longer working that much. I only work 40 hrs per week now, but the same cannot be said for everyone else necessarily. And unfortunately I cannot do everything myself, certainly not in an efficient manner.

 

A big reason for the new one is as I said a Perforce server, my current one produces far too much heat in my apartment to be left on all the time.

 

EDIT: My reasoning for getting it/what Helical is up to, are both irrelevant to this topic. If we want to discuss that you can either start a topic on it, or contact me. I just want hardware recommendations for good power and performance in small size.

Developing what?

 

I stopped following Helical Games on facebook because every post I saw was about how many likes your page had, or how you guys were making your website spiffy, or search engine optimization, making your spiffy website pop up nearer the top.

 

I only saw some concept sketches and a very rough low poly model in a long time of allotted development. Perhaps you'd be more interested in a machine for social networking and or advertising development?

Well it should be noted that I don't handle our social media most of the time. But we have to juggle both our first development project as well as administrative level stuff as a starter company. Those types of things are important to a young company, especially one with no revenue.

 

I can assure you that much more is happening than appears publicly. But as I have stated before, we are all adults that work full-time jobs and in some cases have college courses on top of Helical. Hell one of our animators is known to work 12 hr shifts, and up until recently I was doing the same. We are so slow because we are very much having to keep this a very expensive hobby for the time being. I assure you that we would all be happy to be able to do it for our living.

 

But this computer is mostly to serve as a development and testing rig. Also a localized small server for Perforce as we've had issues getting it to work on our web host.

I'd like to keep work and play separate.

 

And while I would just do a full size computer like the one I have. My apartment doesn't have the space.

 

16GB RAM gogogo

Definitely, already have that in my current PC. But I also have an 8 core processor, which is a little uncalled for I would think.

Title is pretty self explanatory. I am looking at here in the not so distant future building a second PC.

 

I don't intend for it to be as insane as my current one. But I want to get a significant amount of power in a small a space as I can. My hope is to build it in a horizontal case even if I have to modify said case to make it all fit.

 

Looking for input on the parts I should go for. Cost isn't a huge deal as I have been known to drop over $800 on a single part.

 

I would like to avoid any international shipping costs though. (I'm US based for those that don't know)

EDIT: I made this special, just for you.

I wouldn't really accuse him of necro-ing the thread, since the last post was only about 2 weeks ago.

If they're like the people I work for, they have it on an intranet for a reason.  They probably want to limit external access.  From the looks of that you had to get permission to access it from your phone, so I imagine you would need to inquire about home PC use.  If they won't tell you how, then I imagine they don't want you doing it...at which point continued pursuit of a means to do so, might not be in your best interest.

I meant the site.

Also cause it amuses me.  It just exists, and i don't know why, but it is where I got the gif.

lolwut. Why?

Cause it amuses me.