Firefly - UT Unlimited

2008-09-13T10:07:00.002+01:00

The move has happened :D
UT Unlimited

Many thanks

UTU News

2008-09-13T00:31:00.005+01:00

I've been offered hosting for UT Unlimited. Hunter over at the Beyond Unreal site is the really cool guy who's helping me resurrect UTU. Why not visit his blog and say thanks and hi. UT99, 2k4, UT3 and GoW are games I would like to support as well as PS3. If the situation with custom content is the same for XBox 360 then that will be included as well. I will also need extra reviewers and admin. If anyone wants to help then post a message.

I found this unusual gaming news site. GameTab. Huge amount links to gaming news across all formats. Also how about a game related bookmark/blog site? GameBlogs. Not sure about the colour though :D

Did some more to the map and finished a small section mesh-wise. I'm quite happy with how it's turning out so far. More screens soon.

Till then.

New Blog Site Soon

2008-09-12T00:22:00.005+01:00

As I stated yesterday I'll be moving this blog to Wordpress. I've spent all evening configuring the look and widgets. Also I've finally managed to add Digg to it. It doesn't work properly here. I've searched but any help I've found didn't work for me. This was one of the other reasons I wanted to change. Anyway, soon I'll switch over, most likely this weekend if all goes well.

Not done anything to the map due to the above but the weekend looms so I'll have a bit more time to spend on that.

Hourence has posted the results of his level designer's survey. It makes for very interesting reading.

Sorry for the short post. The new blog will make up for it.

Till tomorrow.
btw you can leave comments, I won't bite ;)

Remember the Mapping Competitions?

2008-09-10T23:51:00.003+01:00

I remember one where the map had to be kept inside a 1024 cubed box. There was another where only a certain number of textures were used. I've been thinking of running some competitions. The prize wouldn't be much. Pimpage all around the community which is still fairly wide by the way. I've checked my referrals. Several news sites have passed the news that I'm trying to restart UTU. My point is, the community is still alive and in several different languages :D.

I'm finding that Blogger, though good, is a bit limited. Soon I'll be moving to Wordpress. It can handle separate pages and is Digg friendly. Blogger is a bit tricky when it comes to stuff like that. This will make it feel more like a site rather than a blog. I'm hoping that I will be able to start posting reviews. The Wordpress dashboard is not the clearest in the world but beatable :D. It's more versatile generally. Untill everything is ready though I'll stick here. Plans for a main UTU site are still very much on.

Progress on the map is still happening. Nothing worth taking screenshots of yet. I'll probably wait until I've started the lighting.

I've found some new Custom models for UT3. Warhammer 40K + Warfare, oh yeah. Now if only someone would mod the vehicles to match. :D

One Small Step Closer

2008-09-09T23:23:00.003+01:00

I've had an offer of help to re-start UT Unlimited. Big thanks to you :D. This is obviously encouraging and I will, of course, tell you more as it develops. If you think you can help then please get in touch.

When we get a rough beta of the site I'll preview it as soon as possible. My head's full of ideas but I need to get them on screen.

DM-Quatro '08 is growing. I'm at the mesh stage. Adding these things takes longer than it should because I'm still learning where things are. But progress is progress and that's always good.

I want to say a big thanks to all those who remember UT Unlimited. It seems you guys have long memories. Thanks also to hal at Beyond Unreal and RaptoR over at Planet Unreal for the pimpage. I've also noticed that other sites carried the news as well. Thanks to them also.

Might have some screens tomorrow if all goes well.

In the mists of time.

2008-09-08T23:57:00.007+01:00

I'm toying with the idea of starting UT Unlimited again and expanding it beyond the confines of this blog. The trouble is I have no coding knowledge. I'd also need help with the reviews and general running of the site. If I can find some free web space I'll try and run something for a while to see how things pan out. If anyone is interested in helping me get this off the ground please get in touch. Either use the comment or the email link at the bottom of this post. The reviews would be of all UT types and perhaps GoW.

Some sad news, another UT mod team have decided not to develop for UT3. The classic Chaos UT mod is looking at other engines unless a talented coder can convince them to change their minds. If you haven't already you should download it for either 2k4 or original UT.

Ever fancied going back in time? Remember this, this or this or how about this one. I even found these I wrote for UT99. Search using the Wayback machine and remind yourself how good the community was. It can be like that again with a bit of collective energy.

The map's comming on as well btw ;).

cya

More Screens

2008-09-07T23:49:00.013+01:00

First off I'd like to thank all those who have visited and posted comments here and at the Beyond Unreal forums. It really makes it feel worthwhile when I check the stats for this blog.
Thanks. :D

There is an ambitious project posted at those forums. The idea is to re-do almost every part of UT3. Sir_Brizz started this thread airing the idea. If you want to help get this idea off the ground then why not visit and see if you can help. It's all good news for the UT community. Lets beat epic at their own game (pun not intended). It's nice to see the majority of the UT community trying to pull together.

Speaking of Net based projects, I'm also involved in one of a musical variety. You may have heard of Discogs.com. In March this year Discogs version 4 was rolled out much to the anger of a lot of the long time moderators, submitters and users. Discogs used to be heavily moderated for accuracy. V4 allowed anyone to submit or change anything and it would show immediately in the database. A lot of people's hard work started to unravel before their eyes. Some people have been working on that database for years.

We broke away and formed DiscographyDB or DdB for short. The aim is to have an accurate database of as many audio releases as possible. If you can help coding, ideas or anything please go to DdB. It's just a forum at the moment but this is a great chance to get in to a project from the start and make a bit of history.

Two new screens for you tonight. The lighting is more functional than final. Also there's no post processing in place yet. That's why it looks a little plain.

Thanks for visiting. :D

Up and Running

2008-09-07T00:07:00.008+01:00

This blog is up and running now. Didn't get much of the map done though. The UT3 scene has been stagnating of late but there are hopeful signs. A classic mod Jail Break is being developed for UT3 as is Tac Ops. The community also needs new custom stuff like meshes and textures. Hourence has created a texture pack for UT3 over at his site. There are other teams and mappers that are producing custom content.

These are all good signs but it's still moving slowly. UT3 has great potential but it takes a long time to do anything because of the new technologies involved. It seems to be a common misconception that you need to know Maya or 3DMax, this isn't true from a mapping point of view. It does make things a bit easier though. I don't know how to use any other 3D software other than UED. I know I should but it takes time. One day eh :)

Another problem is that there aren't many sites that review maps and skins. In the days of the original UT there were almost too many sites. This made for a great community and a very encouraging environment. The big review sites such as Nalicity are no longer around for whatever reason. I really hope this changes. If I could code I probably would run a review site.

Here's hoping.

I might have some new screens tomorrow so I'll post them if I can.

The First of Many (I Hope)

2008-09-06T00:51:00.022+01:00

I felt I needed somewhere to devlog what I'm doing with UED4. Also somewhere to talk about the gaming culture in general. Bear with me as I settle in to the new site.

I've added links to my old maps. These link directly to the map's Filefront download page. There you'll be able to see screenshots and comment on them as well if you want.

The map I'm working on at the moment is DM-Quatro08 for UT3. It's an updated version of one of my old maps for the original UT.