Morning Polyhacker -- June 29

posted by Scott Hsu-Storaker at 5:09 AM

I'm still phasing back in to my full schedule and will be doing these image roundups on a more regular basis soon. The artists have been very busy over the past month even though I have not been posting work out here on the main page. It will take me a while to catch up in fact. Here is something that Yaniv sent me right before I took some time off with the baby. These are color variations on the axe texture he did for Khaine's model back in May.












This model and these textures will be included in the next release of the armory files.


Stay free.

~shs~

Thousander Club Update -- June 23

posted by Scott Hsu-Storaker at 1:45 PM

I'm getting back into the swing of things again. Last week, my first week back to work after my wife gave birth to our baby, started off pretty rusty. But, I'm starting to find my rhythm again and hope to be ramped up to full speed again within a few weeks.

Casey Dunham's hours (6/12) -- 54
GBGames' hours (6/25) -- 108
GBGames' game ideas (6/25)-- 408
I'll do it on monday's hours (5/5) -- Currently undergoing restructuring of goals
Scott's 1000 hours (6/25) -- 153
1000 models -- about 150 now -- I need to recount

A big hearty welcome to all the students taking game creation summer camp classes -- I think I saw a link to our site out there somewhere. Feel free to comment and ask questions here or on the forums.

Stay free.

~shs~

The World Pauses for a Moment

posted by Scott Hsu-Storaker at 1:56 PM

I'm not a superstitious guy. I do not grow a playoff beard. I always stop to pet a black cat if it crosses my path. In fact, I come from a Scandinavian heritage that is pragmatic to a fault. There is very little sentiment in my family -- things are all very cut and dry. In my house we always used to root for Bjorn Borg to win over John McEnroe.

Take this as an example of the the type of pragmatism that runs through my blood. In Jon Krakauer's chilling memoir of climbing Mount Everest during a disastrous season on the mountain, Into Thin Air, he recounts the tale of Swedish mountaineer whose goal it was to ride his bike solo from Sweden to Nepal and then climb to the top of the world. Along the way he met with many hardships, including being mobbed by a crowd along the way, in all making the trek just to get to the base of Everest an ordeal in itself. With typical stoicism he continued on and eventually came to the day of making his bid for the summit. He ran behind schedule and stopped mere hours from the top because he knew he did not have the time, energy and speed to make it the rest of the way and come down safely. So, he stopped, went back down to base camp and unsentimentally left it for another day. He was focussed on the reality of the situation and lived to climb another day, unlike others who, later in the month, were not as lucky when the were caught in a storm in a similar situation. That's how I was raised too, to take things at face value.

So, it may then come as a surprise when I say what I am going to say. I think the universe was trying to tell me something the night before our baby was born. We got home from our typical day of endless errands with the older kids and discovered that the power had gone out. It stayed out all night, and there were still a number of things that had to get done before we were scheduled to head off to the hospital in the morning. Sitting there in the light of a single candle and, of all things, my iBook open to a blank white page, there was complete silence. No fans, no TV, no hum of the desktop computer, no dishwasher, just the two of us watching over the house as the kids slept. It really felt like the world had paused for one night as a sign to us (and me in particular with my late night workaholism that was driving me into the ground) to take a moment and stop to appreciate the enormity of what was to come. It was like the baby was getting his turn to say, "Hello, world, notice me. Something great is about to happen." It was odd that I would feel that way. I'm not normally like that. I felt so certain that it was a sign.

It's a month later now. All is well and all are healthy. And growing. And changing. I'm eager to get back to the task at hand here with the coop. My time will still be limited until we get into a solid rhythm, which will probably be jumbled up with the start of cold season (AKA the first month of school) in September, but the time I have had with my family has been really precious and I am thankful I did pause for a while to be part of something so magical.

Stay free.

~shs~