Hm, it seems I always want to post a Dev Journal when someone else has queued one up (sorry eat - I don't mean to purposely steal your thunder! Happy lovely pie & chips and stuff {Hey, that geico lizard says that crap!]).

So anyway, I'm sitting here and my cat is driving me crazy doing stuff she's not supposed to be doing so my water spray bottle is going crazy getting her wet. (Um, that's not pornagraphic, you freaks.)

Anyway, I'm getting excited and so should you as the badasses of FF are finally getting close to being done with their prior obligations so that they can now spend their time working on FF. Of course I'm talking about Mirv, Decs, & FC (Rebo's a badass too but he's always been around).'

Anyway, I'm still working on some bugs and some fun stuff - like the respawn turret some other stuff.

Alright, back to foobar and beer, late.

Well what do you know? My dev journal login works! Guess that means I will be writing one every week while I'm at work .I would read the dev forum or public forum but they are banned at work "For suspected pornography and bad language" - shame on you FFers!

Well or ff_well as I like to call it is practically finished now. Everything I wanted to implement is in and its just a case of getting the last few props made and then I can mirror the base and we can play test it properly.

Recent additions include :

- Map location system. Me, Mulchy and Fry got it to work as intended so Ive split the map into Ramp Room, and Lower Flag Room, etc. When you move between rooms text appears on your screen saying your current location and it is either blue or red depending on the base you are in. This is all done with LUA so all you have to do is make a info_ff_script with name blue_flagroom and it will do the rest. Simple huh?

- Water texture. The water texture is still being tested because it is quite damaging to frame rates. I think it is because my bridge supports in the FR are going through the water so its rendering them twice. I can't finalise it until I get the props (a couple of days fingers crossed) so Im hoping I wont have to do any major editing in the flag room before finishing. And yes the water is green.

- 3d skybox. I want to keep my skybox quite simple, and just make it seem as though each base is a huge beheamoth of a building. I don't really subscribe to the idea that Well is in some kind of a realistic universe so I see no point in putting other buildings for people to look at.

It's a shame to say it's nearly done because it has been really fun making ff_well. I'm surprised how fast it's come together. I will go back to crossover next and make some adjustments to it before taking on a new project.

Other maps in creation by the team are also coming towards the finishing line. I think everyone's favourite map is ff_dustbowl so far. When you see the style Zouave has gone for, and all the props and textures that have been made for it, I can guarantee your jaw will drop.

Just a quick note to say that I've been very busy for the last two months, but the end is in sight. On Friday, my last university deliverable is due. Other than a possible maths resit (wahey...) that means I'm finished for the summer. Since I've been too busy to keep up a sustained assault on FF-related issues, I've spent my free time on making props for my maps; I've also done some other bite-sized tasks here and there. I always hate not being able to devote a lot of time to FF (as I'm involved in many capacities; mapping actually takes up a relatively small portion of my time compared to everything else), so I'll be glad to get back to normal.

Other news: Even though decs was revising for exams, he managed to take the time out to skin umpteen props for the mappers, which was nice. Omen has also made a lot of stuff for the mappers and he and decs have formed a nice tag-team :)

Patty (Mulch) has been a hive of industry over the last few months and we're very grateful to him for his devotion to FF. It's the time of year where everyone inevitably grinds to a halt due to university/college work, so it's always cool to see certain people really putting in a tonne of effort to help us along during the slow periods. I could do a list of bugs that have been fixed lately, but it'd take forever to write. Lots remain, but mirv and co will be back from their educational commitments in the coming weeks.

Blunkka has finished the push textures I needed, and I can get on and finish the map now. The CS:S textures he replaced are no longer missed, as his stuff is just as good, if not better.

On the mapping front, eat has really cracked on with well, and it's now getting to the finishing stages. Zouave's dustbowl is looking splendid, and there's potentially an additional surprise in the works, too. Kermit has returned to the Internet and blessed us with an updated version of SD2 and I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Crackerjack's openfire theme is beginning to emerge and I'm sure he'll have some stuff to show in the coming months. Zazi continues to work on avanti and it's looking nice. Finally, the trepids have busted out of the asylum to continue work on cz2 and hunted. They have some very interesting concepts for the map and they'll no doubt write a deranged journal detailing some of their ideas and stuff.

On the modeling front:
rebo has reworked a character model or two and very nice they are too. The spy's skin has been finished by Spewok and it'll be winging its way to your monitors soon enough. The soldier has put on weight. The prez is running around and swinging his unbrella. Lots of animation bugs have been squashed by DK and rebo.

Tang has been fixing up the odd sound problem here and there, but the majority of the stuff is essentially finished. He's workin' on the vox / announcer (whatever you want to call it) right now.

Although it is slow going at the moment, we know for sure that several (usually productive) team members will be back with a bang very shortly, and then it'll be all systems go once more. We'll try and get a media release out at some point; we have a lot of stuff that's basically ready to go, we just haven't got around to it yet.

Apologies for the matter of fact machine gun delivery of 'stuff' but I don't have time to write a hugely detailed account of proceedings. Until next time!

Hey again!
Im having some bad luck theese days it seems, some of you allready heard about my camera purchase fiasco. I basiclly paid a bit much for an old Digital SLR camera, then it broke down the same day i got it. Today i had my final exam in newer history and i was very well prepared, atleast i thought, until i got my subject which was "American History 1861-1975 From the civil war to the vietnam war". And that was a shocker since american history isnt really mentioned all that much in our history books. But i thought "allright" and made the best out of it. I allready knew shitloads about the cold war, spent the preperation time to freshen up on other parts of american history within that timeframe.

My exam went over all expectations, i remember alot of shit and i talked about the civil war, USAs view on imperialsm, WW1/WW2 from USAs pov, the stock market crash and its effects, the cold war with emphasis on the cuba crisis, korea war and vietnam war (which i didnt finish because we were out of time). After this i felt great.. everything went way beyond my expectations but when i get called back to get my grade i got a horrible grade. D; I think they must have been very harsh this day, the chick before me failed.. I passed but only one grade above the passing grade, i was expecting atleast a grade better than i did..

ANYWAY to sum this up, reason im posting this: IM BACK! I can work 100% fulltime on ff again :] Ive been doing alot of props and shit latley and now when FC returns im ready to finish all the remaining weapons as fast as i possible.

This will be a good couple of months for ff.. very good.

I've been really busy of late (University crunch period, wahey) so I've not really got much done on the FF front other than some playtesting and bug reporting / testing. I went through the trials and tribulations of creating prop collision models for some girders I made. Riddle me this: Why do prop collision models require smoothing groups and a texture? It's baffling. I can understand the necessity for a bone (as each collision section may be animated)... but smoothing groups and a texture? Is there actually any point in this or is it just included to infuriate people? Also, if a prop is static then surely the compile tools should be able to figure this out and add a bone if one isn't included? There's three simple usability issues with the prop pipeline valve could sort out (or at least clarify) for starters. Answers on a postcard if there's actually any point in having a bone for static props or applying smoothing groups and a texture to collision models; I'm interested to find out whether any of this stuff actually serves a purpose. If it does serve a purpose, then I can't find any documentation about it. I also find it irritating that the compile tools don't warn you if your collision model is misbehaving (it will warn you if your shapes are bad, but if you forget the texture & smoothing groups stuff it will quietly compile it and you'll have a messed up collision model). Thank God for HLMV, I guess. Anyway.. that was the little FF work I did this week.

Annnnnnnnnnnd... I went to see Morrissey in Dundee last night. It was the first time I've been to one of his gigs and, the amount if dolts in the crowd aside (my friend and I got stuck beside a group of about eight people who were daubed in permanent marker and all kissing each other while chanting "FREE TRADE". I would've thought that Moz would've taught 'em that shyness is nice.), it was a fantastic gig. We moved away from the extroverts/twats and got a bit closer to the front. Morrissey was on top form, banter aplenty. It took a while before they got the sound levels right, so the first few songs were a little bit off due to heavy distortion and guitars drowning out his voice, but as the evening went on his voice cut through the instruments a lot more. The highlight of the evening was definitely "Life is a Pigsty". I was wondering how they'd replicate the earth-juddering huge drum thumping parts, but the esemble came replete with a couple of huge drums (including a man-sized bass drum which shook the whole venue with every impact) and a gong to boot. Splendid. If you've got a ticket for the tour, you shan't be disappointed. "Julia knows."