metadigital

Just uninstall that Sims 2 rubbish. "

Um, you have to draw animation with a bunch of static images.

K1 had a scenario where you could administer drugs to a prisoner to try to get information. But that was not the only option available. IIRC, it was really hard to that right. Something like: the more truth serum, the sleepier he gets. Then there is the "wake up" serum, but the more awake he is, the more evasive, etc. I don't know if that is "torture" per se. That is basically just a hardball interrogation technique. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hee hee, you sound like you're channelling Rumsfeld. :D Not necessarily: in a totalitarian state, for example, people don't necessarily expect that they will be tortured, even if their neighbour is; if there is a scapegoat being tortured, then they might even join in ...

Is that "bussed" as in cartage to / fro a far-off destination, or "busted" as in arrested, or "busted" like broke, or "bust" as in someone made a sculpture of your head?

You could say you were buying it for a relative's present ...

Clausewitz discovered that by applying greater force to a smaller one, the greater force loses less casualties. So your over-simplistic model fails. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> This was back in the 19th century though. We're not dealing with muskets and sabres anymore so would this theory still apply in ever more complex situations like Iraq and their car bombs, bazookas, and AK's? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sure. It's all about stacking the probabilities. If, say, the US has a Division of men (10k) versus a Division of men from Great Britain, all other things being equal, they will lose approximately the same amount of casualties. If the US attacked half of that UK Division, then they would inflict much greater casualties and incur far fewer; then they could attack the other half and have a net benefit. EdD'Oh!'s equation is too simple, because the amount of opposition will not necessarily increase with the increase in allied forces. Even someone you regard as none-to-bright, who was elected on an isolationist platform, learnt that there is no way (especially for the US!) to live in the world with such a foreign policy. It's a pity you haven't learnt this, as well, as you tend to crow on about Bush Jr's failings: at least he learnt this.

'Course, when I was a lad, we had to make the lego out of plastic that we drilled from the ocean-platforms, only after we had walked 693 miles to school with the firewood for the schoolhouse, whilst hoeing the field for next seasons food and this season's practice yard. I was excluded from the Physics Teacher's after school Meccano club. I didn't burn his house down. (Though I did make sure I had extra-sweaty hands when I felt the gold leaf, so that I destroyed a part of it.)

Well, if you used this forum as part of the argument a case could be made... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, writing is okay: few people here actually read other people's writing, so it should be acceptable. "

Crucifixion. First offence.

I don't recall owning any toys EXCEPT lego.

Clausewitz discovered that by applying greater force to a smaller one, the greater force loses less casualties. So your over-simplistic model fails.

Yep, reading is evil.

In advance? :D

Retrospection doubles the IQ. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I did caveat with my following comment ... after all, if he was seriously thinking about writing a new engine, he would need to scope it, and that would have been part of the process, so I tend to think it was more of a "let's see how much we can do in this engine" rather than "let's do this project to completion."

Bookmarked.

Um, Allan, I think you are missing my point entirely. We're talking about each image, not the animations. Animations are a sequence of images. To make a screen image full of little (STATIC) men, leaves, trees, etc. the way it is done in GPUs up to DX9 is to create little object one, then vertex shade and bump map it, then get next object. With DX10, the same little object can be used and RE-used, so the initial figure doesn't have to be created each time. I was talking about re-using a starting image, rather than having to create it from scratch; this is nothing to do with animation (though I suppose it could be cached for the next cycle).

I think you should try the Himalayan escape route.

Fairly poor research in the beginning of the project, then: that's a lot of effort to spend on a project to come upon a show-stopper than should have been seen during the preliminary scouting. He might, though, have been simply using the whole project as a learning exercise , too ...

So all that abuse hurled at people who wear magnets and by Science theatre 3000 at This Island Earth for the comment about their hands being stuck like magnets was in vain? Nah ...

In context of the sentence: the Rome: Total War man / leaf / tree need only be drawn once, then that template is fed in as many times as necessary to create the myriad different types of said item; at the moment (in →DX9) each time the game engine wants to draw a little man, leaf or tree it must be drawn from scratch each and every time.

could be water and the electro-magnetic forces.

I just went out to buy some food to cook; the local Waitrose was closed (just missed it), so I went and had a Sicilian pizza from Pizza Express with a mineral water (frizante).

No.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ah, so that's what happened to Max Payne. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Not sure about goal number three; I think it is quite common to use darkness as a mechanic in a game, even Tom Clancy games use shadow to allow the PC to hide.

Just had a four organic eggwhite omelette with some Leerdammer cheese, on organic 100% stoneground wholemeal toast with President butter.