FUNside

I’m not the most active member of the 3D community but as I was lazily visiting the Softimage website the other day I found out that it was acquire by Autodesk in November.

Now even I understand how big this acquisition is. One might compare it with Google merging with Yahoo - but in this case no one is concerned about monopoly.

AutoCAD, Maya, 3ds Max, MotionBuilder, Mudbox and now Softimage has entered the one big family of 3D suites. From now on, you can consider Autodesk the pinnacle in 3D graphics as Adobe is for rich media and graphic tools.

Of course the 3D community was shaken by the news and in a practical manner (as many 3D artists are technical in mind) some where simply wondering where they can seek tech support for the previous versions purchased…

I think this story is something to ponder on - is it even good from a business point of view for Autodesk? Isn’t competition helping the software become more rapidly improved? What’s the competitions now? Cinema 4D, TrueSpace and Blender?

I don’t know, this all seems to extravagant to me. I only hope that Autodesk will not fall into the slippery slope of creating inferior software and thus bursting its bubble into millions of vertices.

I spent large part of my weekend playing Need For Speed: Undercover.

NFS games have been around for many years and it’s nice to see this addition returning to some older ideas that made the franchise popular instead of insisting on the false path of its recent history (I’m looking at you Pro Street).

Remember the good old days when “NFS Underground” introduced the open world layout for the races and “NFS Most Wanted” introduced the chasing element by the police? Well all this has returned in a big way.

Featuring a HUGE city you will never get bored to drive in with many different sceneries and probably the best designed city roads for any NFS game. The creators built upon their previous experience and have included many cool and realistically presented effects - most notable being the smoke effects of course. The graphics are siply superb.

The one thing that they really got right this time though was the soundtrack. At first I thought it was just another club mix with some repetitive songs but I was wrong. The songs ties around the action so nice that there were many times that I caught myself shaking my head during the races. At some cases I got so caught up by the music that it wasn’t even about avoiding cars - it was about driving with rhythm. Like a guitar hero piece where play the game with rhythm, this was the same expereince for me but in a driving game. A road hero so to speak….

Preview the addictive soundtrack below:

As for the rest of the game, the story is trivial and the babes might be the only good thing about the cut scenes (minus the acting) but it all adds to the cinematic experience. I didn’t like that there is no GPS for driving to the events - you just instantly start one race after the other. As much as that direction arrow was hated (not keeping a constant route), it did make driving to the races a more realistic experience.

But all this is insignificant…. Great music and graphics. That’s all I wanted to say. Works for me

Oh my… Fallout 3. Where to start with this one and how can I be something more than a negative creep… And with good reason if I might add, if you consider all the hype that has been going on for this game. I’ve heard people say “it’s the best game ever!”, “it will knock the socks off Far Cry 2″ and “a sure buy - with 100 hours of gameplay guaranteed”….

Having experience with the previous two games of the series, which were a completely different implementation of the same concept (isometric sprite-based RPG, for those interested 1, 2) and seeing the direction the developers were taking for the new game (first person in a real time 3d environment) I knew I had to be cautious and wait to see for my own eyes how this “mutation” is going to work out.

Unfortunately my fears were confirmed.

After watching a few hours on Justin.TV I was glad I didn’t go as far as purchasing it myself to test it out (and obviously will not be doing that now). Hmm, do you ask why? Let’s dismiss some of the major arguments:

• The destroyed environments look cool. They look crap cool I’d say. Everything looks the same, grainy and broken, and disorientation is frequent.
• The characters are life-like. Nah, more like avatars from an online world. And to top it off they lack any kind of intelligence. There are also robots in the game and they seem more realistic than the people simply because this mechanical behavior is more acceptable from machines. And to top that off twice the pre-recorded dialogues where done by some BAD actors. Bad acting, just bad.
• Cool retro style interface. Only the soviet military would appreciate this interface. And If you want to do it “console style” don’t drop the mascot on the side that removes any believability from the menu screen and just leaves the ugliness for us to “enjoy”.
• Turn-based gameplay done in real time. Oh man, is this for laughs or what? Once you confront an enemy all you need to do is freeze the game, program your move and then sit back and watch a cinematic sequence you can’t control. Yes, you’re done - you just eliminated the threat, and it didn’t even hit you. Hmm, yes this is even better than imagining your fights in Might and Magic. Barely…just that.

Shall I go on? I was astonished to find most of the common quirks older games usually have.

• The camera is off. In many occasions you can’t see the action. Someone might be talking to you and he is partly covered. And control of this sort is highly unlikable.
• Polygons are colliding-overlapping. It’s not unusual to see a character pass through another character, stand partly inside a wall etc.
• Animations are not natural. Just as an example I’ll mention that the player does not stop running when hitting a surface he can’t walk - come on.
• Repetition (of everything). Do the same 5 moves 100 times an hour and you will pray the game does not last 100 hours. What’s the point of extended gameplay if it’s going to be if it’s going to be painfully boring?
• No freedom. It looks like an open world, it tries to be an open world but it’s not an open world. You can’t do naturally all the things you want to do and I find the RPG elements to be less than helpful on this matter.

Awful, awful awful. To keep the retrospect from the game, play this if you want to see how a 50’s game developer would create a futuristic game about a post-apocalyptic world.

Fallout 3 falls out in my book.

Having played the Max Payne games years ago, I didn’t really feel the connection when the movie adaptation was released in cinemas. Still I was eager to watch it the first weekend it came out and I can simply say it was a warm welcome to a familiar atmosphere from the past.

IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467197/

It’s really interesting how they recreated everything for the movies. The visuals resemble a lot the video game and reminded me of specific levels and settings. The core storyline of the game was converted to a viewable screenplay. The hired actors where drafted suitably - everyone resembled their in-game persona.

Even the smaller details, like the way the snow is animated and the “dream” sequences are trademarks for the name and they were all pulled off elegantly. I particularly liked Mark Walberg’s performance - I initially had doubts that he would capture the pain in Payne but thankfully I was wrong….

Not to say that the movie is perfect though. A couple of issues really bug me and I think they are fatal flaws that will stop letting this movie become a classic. For one, the use of bullet time is totally circumstantial and not an integral part of the action sequences. My personal evaluation is that the director didn’t know how to use bullet time and just slapped in a couple of slow speed shots only because it was in the game. As a result, the scenes that use bullet time often seem to stretch more than they should and other scenes where the fast action dictates the use of bullet time (but in fact isn’t), simply past too fast - before the viewer can absorb all the details. As the Matrix is the definitive example of this kind of technique, this movie is a hit and miss in that regards.

The other biggy that really comes as a surprise for me is why they didn’t put a comic strip for the introduction of the story as both games have it (heck, even the Marvel movies do it…). They actually tried it for a trailer as shown below but didn’t want to include this narration in the movie - I can only wonder why:

!!!!!!!!!!! Spoiler Alert !!!!!!!!!!!
Lastly, I cannot understand why the “bad guy” is killed so easily, leaving the movie without a real climax for the ending. No big boss fight, no nothing. If I remember correctly one of the games ended with a helicopter battle. Yet in the movie the helicopter is called back and never confronts Max Payne. And what happened with Mona? The last time I saw her she was entering an elevator?
!!!!!!!!!!! END Spoiler Alert !!!!!!!!!!!

The ending is unsatisfying but that is in sync with the rest of the movie. Compared to the game, the movie has very few gunfights - sparse and with weak energy. It seems as if the movie is a compilation of just the cinematics of the game, leaving all the gameplay action aside.

As far as the other innovations of the movie, introducing new mythical elements, new characters etc. I don’t really have a problem with them - they seem to comply with the overall atmosphere that derives from the game and has been portrayed in the movie exceptionally well. Generally speaking, I liked the movie, I recommend you go see it and even buy it when it comes out on DVD. It’s one of those stories that we’ll frequently like re-visiting every now and then - I would compare it with something like “Underworld” rather than a more “heavy-weight” title.

Remote connection software has been around since the console age and was for many years used by “busy” professionals that couldn’t stop working while at home. But now that computers have become a large part of everyone’s reality, remotely connecting to another computer is convenient and adds to our potato-couch lifestyles.

Here’s an introduction on the technology…

I always like giving examples of my own life so here it is… I have a Q1 UMPC which I remotely connect to my multimedia PC in the living room so I can use it as a controller instead of another wireless device. Playing puzzle games on the big screen has never been more enjoyable

But the real purpose of this post is to present some popular options you can choose from to instal remote connection software on your computer. Firstly, I should note that there may be such software already installed by your operating system. Most of the times though it is quite limited in features (no common clipboard etc.) and performance.

Let’s start with the open source solutions. Free is always appealing and there is some quality software in this field, that have proven their worth. My software of choice would be the always popular:

TightVNC

Website: http://www.tightvnc.com/

TightVNC is a free remote control software package derived from the popular VNC software. With TightVNC, you can see the desktop of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard, just like you would do it sitting in the front of that computer.

Other cool software you can find for free:

EchoVNC

Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/echovnc

EchoVNC is a secure, “firewall-friendly” remote-desktop tool with support for VNC, Remote Desktop, and RAdmin servers and viewers. With it, a Windows PC or OSX Mac can be remotely accessed regardless of firewall, router or web-proxy configuration.

Chicken of the VNC

Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/

Chicken of the VNC is a VNC client for Mac OS X. A VNC client allows one to display and interact with a remote computer screen. In other words, you can use Chicken of the VNC to interact with a remote computer as though it’s right next to you.

If we are going to look into more commercial versions of the software, the most popular solution I guess is:

Remote Administrator

Website: http://www.radmin.com/

Radmin (Remote Administrator) is the world famous, award winning secure remote control software and remote access software which enables you to work on a remote computer in real time as if you were using its own keyboard and mouse.

RealVNC

Website: http://www.realvnc.com/

RealVNC provides remote control software which lets you see and interact with desktop applications across any network.

Just to connect to Windows computers from a Machintosh, Microsoft has provided the software with the less imaginative title….

Remote Desktop Connection Client

Website: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx

Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2 lets you connect from your Macintosh computer to a Windows-based computer or to multiple Windows-based computers at the same time. After you have connected, you can work with applications and files on the Windows-based computer.

And of course there’s the always simple…

CoRD

Website: http://cord.sourceforge.net/

CoRD is a Mac OS X remote desktop client for Microsoft Windows servers using the rdp protocol. It is easy to use, fast, and free for anyone to use or modify.

Read this chart which has for more programs for more platforms.

Whatever you choose be careful with your security, so you won’t be allowing unauthorized access to your computer. But apart from that the technology is mature enough to operate in a stable and responsive environment - you won’t even feel you’re on another computer