well, in making art and tutorials, anyways :p
Continuing bad weather over here in UK = too much pain etc ot enjoy doing art. Where the hell is Global Warming when I need it, eh? ;)

Frost = sucky, but cold AND damp, i.e. above zero with cold wind, mist etc is much worse, meh
So just collecting content, tutorials and such until good weather comes back in :)
So apologies again for not being round much, just whacking monsters and aliens in Mass Effect and Dragon Age, does give good ideas for scenes though ;)

(Games = anaestheic with less side effects!)

Scifi-meshes.com got re-organized so there 3D art newsfeed has been down for a couple of motnhs, damn, that was really helpful for keeping abreast of stuff in our "world", doh!

glad to hear from you, was wondering where you where at.

think you probably have the same weather as in goteborg, so I can sympathise with you (as far as I can obviously...)

hope the weather clears up soon! (for both of us :D)

how is mass effect and dragon age? played the first M.E. and it was ok, kinda got sick of the pointless conversations where most of the time whatever you said didnt make a difference, is this different in later bioware games?

I have a friend in Kinross - 'its baltic' at the moment.

Rich
oh mass Effect 2 is WAY better, at least on the PC :) absolutely amazing.
choices in ME1 affect stuff in ME2 so it's well worth importing ME1 games.

well I foudn thing smade a difference but guess it's way you play it and get faction with characters, like the Krogan character with you, if you get high faciton with him...wlel I won't spoil it ;)

Visuals in ME2 are like an entire order of magnitude better on the PC. Really stunning!

Dragon Age is hugely complex with plots/backgorund etc. Whole world full of lore. Though a smany folk complain in the new add on, your prior choices don't have much REAL effect on this expansion, sigh. But then again it's a small area and kind of a side story, but a good one.

Again, visuals in Draogn AGe are awesome and gave me many great ideas for scenes, like lots of small coountry side areas with ambushes.
Many fantays scenes are NVITWAS, or 1 or 2 characters...so I have ideas...

*elven forest, anicent ruins, massive gnarled trees, an old road...high ground on right with archers, an ettin (2 headed giant) and goblin allies battling elves and their animal companions....mm :)

*from ME2, the way they made the black hole look is awesome, so I would love to try that in Vue somehow!

Some ME2 videos , note in game visuals are slightly better (compression etc I guess for YouTube)

MAJOR SPOILERS IN THIS ONE !!!
this is the end mission, note this is a mix of actual game play grpahics and video sequences you have various possibilites depending on how you did/didn't upgraded your ship
plus, game music blows the garbage in the music charts away, jeesh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL9V-A5a2sQ

this shows some of the landing sequence at Omega, which is one of my faves :) Very Blade Runnerish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnAIM_f3DRI&feature=related

Cinematic trailer..it won't be too long until thi sis how actual in game grpahics will be  ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb17mHotTkI&feature=PlayList&p=DB7BAA4AC8A39428&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=25

there was an article in 3Dworld on how they did the in game gprhics, as it's hugely imporved

What I find so impressive is not the visuals, it's how well Bioware crafts the stories/characters/worlds. :)

Glad to hear from you

*elven forest, anicent ruins, massive gnarled trees, an old road...high ground on right with archers, an ettin (2 headed giant) and goblin allies battling elves and their animal companions....mm :)

*This sounds awesome :D

The visuals in the last two videos (not watched the first one, due to spoilers!) are incredible, moreso the second one.  it will be a great day when the first video game with those graphics are released.

Having said that i seem to remember saying the same thing about the old "jedi knight" series with good old kyle katarn, hehe.

im quite tempted by M.E.2, but since a general lightness of purse at this point in time is occuring, might have to wait for the new fallout - new vegas in october, which from your rave reviews last time i assume you will be getting to :D

 SilverBlade: For the same reasons as you (severe pain in most of my joints) and the UK weather since October, I've done very little in the way of Art but like you I lost myself in PC gaming. I played ME and ME2 back to back, which was a real blast and have done the same with the STALKER series (1-3). I also bought Bioshock (gotta love Steam) but have so far avoided it's sequel as I don't like what they've done with it. Unless the weather improves dramatically I'll probably dig out Fallout 3 and the addons as I haven't played that in over a year. 

*waves at Lior :)

Rich,
oh yeah, heck my first computer was an Amiga, which I got to play "Eye of the Behodler" as I'ma HUGe dungeosn & dragons nerd, lol, that was oh 1991...and 20 years the chnages are amazing
Eye of te eholder was the 2nd faux-3d dungeon game (Dungeon master being 1st)
they made it appear 3D-ish, by having many 2D images for each compass direcioin you turned in and was much better than Dungeon Master. It was amazing!

And now look at the graphics we have!! :)

oh the video trialers for Dragon AGe, the maincharacter in amrour, ye gods that looks so good!! but yeah, bet in 10 years we'll have that in games ;)
the new Nvidia card has 500 GPU's for goodness sake, lol.

oh heck yeas I'll get Fallout New Vegas ;)
you cna get Fallout3 Game ofthe Year eidition with all the extra downloadable content, wich I recommned, also with the FOOK2 mod, a user made mod for the PC verison, it is MUCH better!

Rids,
ack, sorry about you having woes too :/
I generally start gettign worse mor elike December, I think I folllow a sort of slightly delayed cycle form the weather, the summer time peaks through to autumn, and the trough is in late december to march...but we've had hellish winter as you know.

ME1 and 2, the story was just so damn engrossing, I honeslty think games now blow the arse out of films :p fabulous, good scifi story, amazing characters, sites etc.
last such classic scifi game IMHO was "Privateer the Darkening" as it too had truly beautiful cut scene son landing at worlds, even little thing sliek fancy mouse pointers made the visiuals on space stations top notch :)

STALKER games are great , love their different East european feel, the griminess, and scary, ye gods those bloodsuckers scare the PANTS off me! :D
STALKER games are very good for Vue users as they have tons of outdoor scenes with foliage

In Privateer the Darkening there's a scene isnide a wheel space station, a prerendered still, liek the Presidium in Mass Effect, was a gorgeosu image :)

*also with the FOOK2 mod, a user made mod for the PC verison, it is MUCH better!

*Haha, every bethesda game ALWAYS has a user made mod which kicks the arse of the hundreds of devolopers in a room all thinking in the same direction boxed up version, its amazing.   Still they generally (not always) produce stunning games (probably my favourite games company purely for oblivion/fallout3)

Seem to recall playing video games in a simliar fashion, most notably stonekeep and might and magic 5, unfortunatly the games of 20 yeras ago would mean i was 5 and prob not able to reach a keyboard :P

I was never a fan of Stalker, partly becuase I got it when I was waiting for fallout 3 to be released and it felt like a bland version of that :( and since f3 has been released, i just cant be bothered with it anymore :P 

I can play Fallout 3 all day until my body yells at me to go to sleep.

Rich
lot sof little tweak make the FOOK2 mod seriously damn good in total! :)

Fallout rules as you can use strategy to win not just run n' gun..dear gods, do I love, laying a mine field and pull them through it BUHAHA!!!!
watch them corpses fly!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBQODlM__14

Shawn
lol yeah I do too at times, but staying up late kicks hell out of me next day, sigh, but I sitll do it now and then, hehe.

Well thank GOD the weather has warmed up! WOOOT!! 12C, man what a huge change that makes, jeesh
So I went to Clash of the Titans with my cousin and his kid for kid's birthday treat :)
Put me right back int he mood, plus watching the Iron Man2 trailer, so slammed in Black Ice in the CD, "War Machine" by AC/DC, warm glow left by classical fantasy mayhem (hellfire the giant scorpion fight is awesome!), oh yeah, that and some real warmth me = in the grove!!!
now I need ot wade through a PILE of tutorials, download/install DAZ, C3D and Rendo content I've bought overt the Winter...and bring back the MAYHEM, booyah! Muhaha! ;)