Follow up
It's been quite a while since I've touched this blog. I was posting most of my content over on my Leadwerks Developer Blog (cause it was 99% Leadwerks related.) If you take the time to read some posts, I've released a Lua framework called Luawerks, and it's right now on sale on Steam for $9.99!
Luawerks is my first (and so far my only) purchasable content. Long story short for those who are wondering what the hell it does; it pretty much adds a developer console, menu ui, and other gross stuff that most people don't want to do. (You know, what most Triple-A engines give you out of the box sometimes.)
It's because of Leadwerks, I actually taught myself the gross bits of game developing. I wasn't just programming the fun gameplay stuff; oh no, I was doing the crap that most people took for granted, and ripping my hair out to get it right. While most might see it as a waste of time, I enjoyed the experience, and gained a lot of confidence in programming in-general.
After the release of Luawerks, and making plans for future plans of it, I ended up being employed by a local bank. I was shocked too! I've been looking A job since I graduated high school. I still don't understand that I was not qualified to put shirts in a box with education in the graphics art field., but qualified enough to do banking stuff. Weird.
Because of this, my time home making stuff has pretty much dwindled to one day a week; Sunday. Saturday's I do chores and prep for the next week, and when I come home, I'm usually not in a mood to get tangled in a coding issue or an art piece if I have work the next day. I don't want to be in the middle of something and then look at the clock to realize that I have work in three hours! Time escapes me when I'm really focused on something.
I decided it would be in my best interest to build a computer that's small, but decently powerful and runs Linux. Why? Well my main PC that I've been using since 2010 has two mechanical hard drives on it, a 650watt Power supply and a Geforce 750 Ti in it. It seems like a waste of time, ware and energy to boot it up just to play music, or do simple banking. I'm also looking more into the Linux ecosystem as I'm not a huge fan of what Microsoft is taking the platform; as you may know why at this point.
So I went on Newegg and dropped $300ish on this small thing.
It's current specs are:
Yeah, it's not a beast, but I didn't need it to be. I always wanted to build a mini-ITX PC and this was a great opportunity to do so. I was worried about heat so I didn't want to put anything too much in it, and the Intel integrated chip seems to be the most streamlined drivers for Linux. When I installed Linux on my main PC, the Nividia drivers worked, but there were hiccups with the desktop that I didn't like. And AMD? Yeah, a lot of bad experiences. The best I had was with a Radeon 5770 HD back on Ubuntu 12.04. You know, BEFORE they dropped fglrx. I haven't tried since, but Intel does fine. It plays Portal at 720p at 60fps; which was more than I was expecting! It feels as responsive as my Windows machine, if not better.
I also got a wireless keyboard and mouse for it. As you can see, really aiming for the minimalism thing with things like this. The only thing is that I still need my Windows PC hooked up to run my games, current projects, and until I master Inkscape, Illustrator. Overall, really happy with the machine!
Before this becomes a book, I'll end the blog to a shout out to my supporters on Pateron! Sorry guys for the lack of goodies, but I really appreciate all four of you! I hope to do something further with it. I was thinking of having it be a private beta group for my stuff. I've already shared some things on there privately, and I wish to do more in the future.
I hope to use this blog more often from now on, as I'm moving things and most of my life away from Source/Portal specific stuff. I'll explain more at a later date.
Luawerks is my first (and so far my only) purchasable content. Long story short for those who are wondering what the hell it does; it pretty much adds a developer console, menu ui, and other gross stuff that most people don't want to do. (You know, what most Triple-A engines give you out of the box sometimes.)
It's because of Leadwerks, I actually taught myself the gross bits of game developing. I wasn't just programming the fun gameplay stuff; oh no, I was doing the crap that most people took for granted, and ripping my hair out to get it right. While most might see it as a waste of time, I enjoyed the experience, and gained a lot of confidence in programming in-general.
After the release of Luawerks, and making plans for future plans of it, I ended up being employed by a local bank. I was shocked too! I've been looking A job since I graduated high school. I still don't understand that I was not qualified to put shirts in a box with education in the graphics art field., but qualified enough to do banking stuff. Weird.
Because of this, my time home making stuff has pretty much dwindled to one day a week; Sunday. Saturday's I do chores and prep for the next week, and when I come home, I'm usually not in a mood to get tangled in a coding issue or an art piece if I have work the next day. I don't want to be in the middle of something and then look at the clock to realize that I have work in three hours! Time escapes me when I'm really focused on something.
I decided it would be in my best interest to build a computer that's small, but decently powerful and runs Linux. Why? Well my main PC that I've been using since 2010 has two mechanical hard drives on it, a 650watt Power supply and a Geforce 750 Ti in it. It seems like a waste of time, ware and energy to boot it up just to play music, or do simple banking. I'm also looking more into the Linux ecosystem as I'm not a huge fan of what Microsoft is taking the platform; as you may know why at this point.
So I went on Newegg and dropped $300ish on this small thing.
It's current specs are:
- 6th Generation Intel Core-i3 6100 @ 3.7 GHz
- 4GB of DDR4
- 120 GB SSD
- 150 GB HDD
- 550watt modular PSU
- KDE Neon 16.04
Yeah, it's not a beast, but I didn't need it to be. I always wanted to build a mini-ITX PC and this was a great opportunity to do so. I was worried about heat so I didn't want to put anything too much in it, and the Intel integrated chip seems to be the most streamlined drivers for Linux. When I installed Linux on my main PC, the Nividia drivers worked, but there were hiccups with the desktop that I didn't like. And AMD? Yeah, a lot of bad experiences. The best I had was with a Radeon 5770 HD back on Ubuntu 12.04. You know, BEFORE they dropped fglrx. I haven't tried since, but Intel does fine. It plays Portal at 720p at 60fps; which was more than I was expecting! It feels as responsive as my Windows machine, if not better.
I also got a wireless keyboard and mouse for it. As you can see, really aiming for the minimalism thing with things like this. The only thing is that I still need my Windows PC hooked up to run my games, current projects, and until I master Inkscape, Illustrator. Overall, really happy with the machine!
Before this becomes a book, I'll end the blog to a shout out to my supporters on Pateron! Sorry guys for the lack of goodies, but I really appreciate all four of you! I hope to do something further with it. I was thinking of having it be a private beta group for my stuff. I've already shared some things on there privately, and I wish to do more in the future.
I hope to use this blog more often from now on, as I'm moving things and most of my life away from Source/Portal specific stuff. I'll explain more at a later date.
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