Comment Re:a slither? don't you mean a sliver? (Score 1, Troll) 633
Pet peeve of *mind*???
The Importance of Procedural Content Generation In Games 160
Gamasutra reports on a talk by Far Cry 2 developer Dominic Guay in which he discussed why procedural content generation is becoming more and more important as games get bigger and more complex. He also talks about some of the related difficulties, such as the amount of work required for the tools and the times when it's hard to retain control of the art direction. Quoting:
"Initially, the team created a procedural sky rendering approach based on algorithms — which led to a totally unconvincing skybox that was clearly inferior to what a hand-authored skybox would be. 'We considered it to be a total failure,' he said. He explained that a great deal of focus must be put on the tools that surround the algorithms, to allow the systems to be properly harnessed. In the end, the game shipped with a revamped procedural sky system that ended up much more effective than the first attempt."
Where's the "IronPerl" Project? 390
pondlife writes "A friend asked me today about using some Microsoft server components from Perl. Over the years he's built up a large collection of Perl/COM code using Win32::OLE and he had planned on doing the same thing here. The big problem is that as with many current MS APIs, they're available for .NET only because COM is effectively deprecated at this point. I did some Googling, expecting to find quickly the Perl equivalent of IronPython or IronRuby. But to my surprise I found almost nothing. ActiveState has PerlNET, but there's almost no information about it, and the mailing list 'activity' suggests it's dead or dying anyway. So, what are Perl/Windows shops doing now that more and more Microsoft components are .NET? Are people moving to other languages for Windows administration? Are they writing wrappers using COM interop? Or have I completely missed something out there that solves this problem?"
Comment Re:It wasn't the cannons man! (Score 2, Interesting) 289
I can understand your perception of how difficult and/or expensive it is to get technical assistance with creating your perfect recording, but you are not taking into account the fall in price of the necessary hardware and software.
Setting up a studio is a lot less than you might think - certainly cheap enough for a poor student to get a working rig together. As a gigging bassist in a number of bands, I can assure you that my first recording setup was less total value than my bass, amp and pedals and I have seen many (poor) muso's with substantially more expensive gear than mine.
Our local college runs a contemporary music and recording course - teaching general studio craft as well as Pro-Tools. Nearly all the students buy some form of recording set-up before the end of the course - they may not all become "genius producers", but in my experience there is some real talent there. Some of these guys have more of an interest in recording and production than in being in a band. It's just another form of expression.
This sort of thing is happening all over the country (here in the UK) - look in Sound on Sound mag and you see hundreds of adverts for courses. This months backpiece editorial was all about how there is an absolute glut of new recording engineers and producers desperate for work. You could look on this as the beginning of a new era - just like in the 70's everyone picked up a guitar and thought they could play, many now are entering sound recording as a pastime - out of this vast pool very few will enter large studios, most will end up doing it for themselves.
The main point is, *your* main thing is writing/producing the music, these guys main thing is recording - look around, maybe you'll find a local guy with a few decent mics, a macbook and logic.
The technical guys are out there - they are growing in number and have no industry to work in, so they are all working independently. Stick an advert up in your local music store and see how many responses you get!
Setting up a studio is a lot less than you might think - certainly cheap enough for a poor student to get a working rig together. As a gigging bassist in a number of bands, I can assure you that my first recording setup was less total value than my bass, amp and pedals and I have seen many (poor) muso's with substantially more expensive gear than mine.
Our local college runs a contemporary music and recording course - teaching general studio craft as well as Pro-Tools. Nearly all the students buy some form of recording set-up before the end of the course - they may not all become "genius producers", but in my experience there is some real talent there. Some of these guys have more of an interest in recording and production than in being in a band. It's just another form of expression.
This sort of thing is happening all over the country (here in the UK) - look in Sound on Sound mag and you see hundreds of adverts for courses. This months backpiece editorial was all about how there is an absolute glut of new recording engineers and producers desperate for work. You could look on this as the beginning of a new era - just like in the 70's everyone picked up a guitar and thought they could play, many now are entering sound recording as a pastime - out of this vast pool very few will enter large studios, most will end up doing it for themselves.
The main point is, *your* main thing is writing/producing the music, these guys main thing is recording - look around, maybe you'll find a local guy with a few decent mics, a macbook and logic.
The technical guys are out there - they are growing in number and have no industry to work in, so they are all working independently. Stick an advert up in your local music store and see how many responses you get!
Slashdot Top Deals
UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody.
