he walked into my car! bumped into it! nearly fell over too. And then he was like 'sorry mate' and walked around it. It was like something the AI in crysis would do!

Just goes to prove that Crysis has more realistic AI than anyone imagined.

I can't understand what you're saying .

It's okay, I speak Chinese. It says "I love carrots, dance on my hat."

I did a Computer Graphics course also, I saw it through to it's crappy conclusion. They didn't teach us much, just kinda showed us how to open the programs and let us get on with it, and I think most of the class surpassed the tutors' abilities.

Damn, that's a shame. If you're going to shell out the money for school, they should be giving you what it's worth.

My photoshop (aka "Image Manipulation") classes were, thankfully, educational for me. I thought I was okay at it before but damn, I didn't know half as much about photoshop as I thought I did. Even so, I only took the intro and intermediate classes, they don't require you to take advanced classes unless you're going into web design or whatever. Still, they teach you enough to do texturing and compositing and matte painting and stuff, and some print media prep. I mean, besides the regular photo manipulation stuff.

Ahrg, I miss school

Welp, I tried out the HL2 demo, and am pleasantly shocked to find that it worked almost flawlessly, even with the quality all the way up

It looks friggin' great on my 62" HDTV (yes, I hooked my computer up to my TV, it makes for one hell of a sweet monitor)

Color me surprised. Maybe my crappy little computer isn't as crappy as I thought it was. The demo only had the intro level and the Ravenholm level, so I don't know how it would handle that outdoor level with all the water in it. I suspect it might get a little choppy there. As it is now, it only hung up a couple of times on explosions, and oddly enough the sound skipped more than a few times.

I was also shocked to realize that HL2 isn't as recent as I thought it was... it came out in 2004. What the hell? I don't remember it being that old. Time flies I guess.

deadeye: I think then you would like this game:

http://www.penumbra-overture.com/

Horror/Adventure/Puzzle.

Yeah, I've seen screenshots and stuff. I always wanted to check that one out, and I guess now I can. Thanks for reminding me

You ran over a poor, defenseless lizard?

I came to say exactly what AsparagusTrevor said. Awesome graphics, but too damn hard... mainly because of the controls.

Looks great! I imagine this can be combined with other effects, to make the fire wavy and such?

http://www.download.com/Half-Life-2-dem ... 49536.html

Try the HL2 demo.

Eh, what the hell. I'll give it a shot...

On a side note, a friend suggested I try Indigo Prophecy, and lent me his copy. Hot damn! That's a fine game. I dig the cinematic style of it... it's kinda like a survival horror game mixed with an adventure game, but it plays like a movie. The controls are a little funky sometimes, but otherwise it's pretty badass. If only there were more games like that. Supernatural, mystery, and horror are my favorite genres of games.

I'm into computer graphics, using Photoshop and 3D stuff like, generally trying to create things I think look good. I like movies...

Same here. I actually went to school for graphic design and 3d animation, but I dropped out my third year. I kinda had a mental breakdown during one of the finals weeks. I haven't modeled anything since then.

Some day I hope to go back to school, but I kinda screwed myself financially so now I owe an assload of money before I can go back. Ho-hum. Such is the life of an art-school dropout.

I still do some photoshopping now and then, but nothing too special.

I also dig movies, but after taking some film classes I tend to be more critical of them. I can usually guess the entire plot of a movie within the first five or ten minutes, just based on the introduction of the main characters. Often times I can guess it just based off the trailer. Kinda sucks watching movies when you have knowledge of plot structure and character archetypes, but it makes movies that I can't guess the plot to all the more enjoyable.

Oddly enough though, having a little background knowledge has made watching bad movies more fun. I know it's going to be bad, so I can just turn off the analytical part of my brain and enjoy it. It's good movies that I have a hard time enjoying thoroughly, because I'm always "behind the scenes" so to speak.

I also like reading, but I haven't really found the time lately to get into anything I'd recommend. I read Duma Key by Stephen King about a week ago, the first Stephen King book I'd read in about ten years. It started off okay, but eventually devolved into the same old crap that was the reason I stopped reading Stephen King in the first place. I don't recommend it, unless you happen to like crappy horror writers.

I thought a white filter would make the sprite brighter or something. It doesn't?

Nope.

But yeah, if you just want to change a specific color on a sprite, and not the whole sprite, you'll need to draw separate sprites.

Oh, hell yeah!

That opens up quite a bit (Vampire, HL2, TF2, Dark Messiah, Etc).

What, are you kidding me? Half Life 2 would actually run on my machine?

Now this I find hard to believe. I suppose I could borrow a copy from a friend and give it a shot.