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BeOSBoxBoy's Blog

Pirate Fever

News postPublished: Aug 30, 2007Comments: 2

Isn't pirate fever another name for scurvy? or is it malaria?

I recently saw that some people think I have caught the pirate bug, some how, to me, this pirate fad is a bizarre thing I can't say I will ever understand. The very idea of heavily clothed murderous men with brown teeth in the tropics practicing dubious hygiene in an era when most people had two baths in their life-time and only used perfume as a means to stave off the plague... well, Hollywood and the Sims Community seem to have a different idea about these things. Thank god for soap and hot water. I do, however, have a fascination with the clothing, architecture, and arts of the 17th and 18th century; I think it has something to do with all the period art I saw while growing up in the Hermitage and St Isaac's Cathedral in (then) Leningrad; St Petersburg is a commercial sea port that came into being through the will of Peter the Great and it veritably drips with the history of that period. Maybe I will make something for the game that demonstrates my love of the more conventional world that existed during the "Golden Age of Piracy" -- which is a bizarre name for an era. I mean, really, millions of people lived in cities and had normal lives compared to the handful of pirates. My heart is on the side of the hard-working sailors and sea captains that were of the more honest sort, rather than the ones who would ransom captives or sell them into slavery; but they all wore pretty much the same clothes, used the same technology, and walked the same streets, so then as now, it takes all kinds to make a world.

Futonesque Fantasy Completer Set by MsBarrows :)

News postPublished: Jun 01, 2007Comments: 1

Recommended download:
Futonesque Fantasy Completer Set by MsBarrows

With my permission, MsBarrows made versions of my "Maxis-Matching Futonesque Loveseat & Chair" that pull the Maxis-object textures and recolours. I wasn't able to fully understand the method to do this, I count it an especial favour that she did this, and I am deeply flattered she thought this set so good that she did this work. I am truly grateful for her work and help in explaining this mind-numbing mystery to me in a simple language I could understand.

I want to stress, my object meshes may be used to whatever end any creator wishes. The meaning of "community" is simple and needs no especial articulation. We, all of us, learn from one another with the single goal of making this game a better thing than EA gave it to us. We each of us follow different paths and have different beliefs on what is the best way to do anything; it matters not to me if you use my meshes to trivial or majestic ends, but I would think it nicer if you did the latter rather than the former.

So my hat is off to MsBarrows for being one of the best citizens in this community I have so far met.

Visit MsBarrow's Mini-Site

nVidia DDS utilities updated =)

News postPublished: Apr 17, 2007Comments: 0

DDS Utilities version 8.31.0225.1745 released - please update your software

Note: If you are looking for texture compression tools, please take a look at nVidia's new GPU-Accelerated Texture Tools, which provide a 10x performance boost if you have a GeForce 8 Series GPU.

This installer includes four separate utilities:
* nvDXT - convenient command-line access to nvDXTlib functionality and more
* detach - extracts MIP levels from a .DDS file
* stitch - recombines MIP levels into a single .DDS file
* readDXT - reads compressed images and writes .TGA files
* nvDXTlib - library for working with .DDS files

The latest release includes several improvements:
* Support for Visual Studio 2005 and 2003 libraries
* Texture sizes up to 8k by 4K are now supported (previously 2k x 2k was the limit)
* Support for DXT5_NM (compressed normal maps)
* The "Fastest" quality mode has been significantly improved
* Internal calculations are now performed using floating point arithmetic, resulting in higher quality textures.

Download link: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/dds_utilities.html

Artists Loft Series Preview :D

News postPublished: Apr 14, 2007Comments: 1

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Part One Armoire (Wardrobe) Bed-side night stand Coffee table Dresser (Chest of Drawers) End table Side-bar (3-tile) Side table (2-tile) Wall without wainscoting Wall with wainscoting Floor Part Two counters refrigerator (regular size) refrigerator (University/Wilde Campus-Jahre small size) low window table book-case table light wall light stacks of frames (d�cor) stacks of blank canvases (d�cor) roll of canvas cloth (d�cor) box of the tools for making frames and canvases Part Three a hot tub bench towel rack robe on a hook towels as rugs wall art more lights Part Four a bed (God willing & SimPE co-operating) sofa chair chaise-lounge desk room-divider/screen (d�cor) table clutter (d�cor) Part Five fence/railing half-wall with canvas inserts single-floor windows double-floor windows single doors double doors curtains roll-blind sun-shade ADDITIONAL PREVIEWS OF PART ONE Click Image To Enlarge

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