WipeoutZone gets advance preview!

[Consortium]

Hello, fellow wipers!
I wanted to give the fine folks here at the 'Zone the first look at the 2097/XL icons I'm working on. I'll be releasing later this week or early next week through The Iconfactory. These icons will be available as freeware for Mac OS X and Windows XP.

You can view the preview here:

http://www.pixelhaus.com/images/teamcraft_samples.jpg

I'm still working on the Auricom craft, but the set is almost done. These are all generated from scratch, based on screencaps of the game models.

I'll also provide the 'Zone a special early download link, if there is a delay between completion and release (sometimes done for strategic reasons). Wipers will get 'em first!

:wink:

c.

[infoxicated]

Fantastic work, man - I cannot wait to see the end products and I'd be privelaged to have a download link on the site. :)

[Vasudeva]

Superb work, my friend! Will there be WO3 icons available, too, later on? :)

Peace and respect,
V.

[Consortium]

Thanks for the kind words!

Yes, absolutely - there can be not only a download link, but a downloadable copy of the archive here, if you so desire. I also have some other GUI goodies in the offing that are designed to go with this set. It's really to celebrate the release of 2097 for OS X...

As for Wip3out and Fusion, that's the same question Talos at the 'factory asked me when he saw these! He said "Where's all the other ships?". Problem is, I have to get the games and play them first! :-)

(I already have stacks of great hi-res reference for Fusion, btw)

Maybe for late summer...

Actually, I toyed with the idea of putting some fan ships in as well... Söderström, Hyena-Wyvern, etc.... but the set has to get done sometime, and also I'd get stacks of letters from people asking how to get those ships in their copy of the game!

c.

[Lance]

.
wow! those look great! excellent work!
.

[Thruster2097]

Perfect!
That is totally outstanding work, fellow pilot!
If I could give you a medal, I would. But I cant... so I give you my respect.
From someone who has tried to draw a feisar before, I know it is hard work to get right.
But oh so rewarding when it comes together.

please keep us informed as soon as the icons are online!

[Consortium]

Thanks again for the praise!

I will... the Auricom is almost done... I'm experimenting with more realistic shadow techniques for all the craft....

c.

[Consortium]

Oh, btw, since I needed to make vector art versions of the team logos to apply to the ships, I'm thinking of going ahead and making team logo icons from that art... it's easy enough to do, but I just want to make sure it looks good...

c.

[Wamdue]

veery nice! i like it! cant wait!! :D

[Bob Todd]

Brilliant previews, Consortium! Can't wait to see the results.

[Nathan Adams]

wow dave, awesome
love all your work actually - i breeze by the iconfactory almost daily hoping to score myself some more icons (im sad aren't I?? LOL)

and if you want team logos - on my old pc (ick) i've got all the wo3 team logos in swf format. If you would like them, give me a buzz and i'll see if I can dig them off for you.

oh, and as an unrelated thing, it's always amused me that you have a series of desktops named "NuWorld".....heh heh heh

[Consortium]

Thanks, Nathan!
And thanks for the kind words about the other icons, as well.

Yeah, those SWF files would be great, if it's not too much trouble. Sorry for the delay in replying to this. I came down with a sore throat last Friday and production has fallen off a bit....

Oh, btw, grab your namesake NuWorld pix while you can - I am upgrading the Pixelhaus soon and removing a lot of the older pictures...

Did you know I even had a "NuWorld" logo? :-)

Dave

[Nathan Adams]

update of pixelhaus? wild - can't wait! (oh, and I already have the desktops ;) )

ok dokey - i'll grab the swf's probably tomorrow morning for you. Just takes a while as the pc has no zip, or burner..... and my my mac of course has no floppy...haha (so i use another pc as a middle man o_O)


oh, and what would this nuworld logo look like **nathan gets incredibly curious**

[Nathan Adams]

ok, here they are.
sorry it took so long - had troubles getting the PC to recognise the parallel port zip drive i borrowed... but anyways

http://homepage.mac.com/nuworld/wipeout/AGsys.swf
http://homepage.mac.com/nuworld/wipeout/assegai.swf
http://homepage.mac.com/nuworld/wipeout/auricom.swf
http://homepage.mac.com/nuworld/wipeout/feisar.swf
http://homepage.mac.com/nuworld/wipeout/goteki45.swf
http://homepage.mac.com/nuworld/wipeout/icarus.swf
http://homepage.mac.com/nuworld/wipeout/pirhana.swf
http://homepage.mac.com/nuworld/wipeout/quirex.swf

enjoy!!

[Consortium]

Okay, wipers, I promised, and now here they are - you all get as advance a preview as I could manage. These get released tomorrow at the Iconfactory and Dotico.com, but I'm setting up a quick link tonight for all of you. Sorry I couldn't get more lead time for you, but I worked on them right up until the last minute!

For Windows XP:
http://www.pixelhaus.com/wipeoutzone/2097_icons.zip
(they make heavy use of alpha channels, so you really need XP)

For Mac OS 8.5 through OS X:
http://www.pixelhaus.com/wipeoutzone/2097_icons.hqx

Also, in just a few hours, I'll be updating the Pixelhaus with some custom 2097 desktops, so look for those later tonight...

Enjoy, fellow pilots! :-)

Dave
ps - Lance, Infoxicated, Wamdue, I'll gladly set up a special download archive for here at the 'Zone for you if you still wish... just let me get through the release tomorrow first....

[infoxicated]

Nice one, man! :)

Any chance there will be some for regular windows users?

[Consortium]

I'm sorry, my friend... but there is simply too much reliance on alpha channel transparency to make these work, and only XP can display 32bit transparency. There aren't any low-bit versions, unfortunately... they are really designed for OS X, which shows them in 32bit at 128x128 pixels.

I'm really sorry about that, but designing 8-bit versions would be a whole different enterprise!

dave

[Lance]

.
as a Windows98 user, i must simply sit and cry, not a very manly thing to do, but wtf

did you know that with webTV, i could make any 24 bit jpg transparent from 0 to 100 percent by 1 percent increments and view it as such? but only other webTV users could see it that way. Windows 95 and 98 users couldn't
.

[Consortium]

Don't cry, pilot! Head over to http://www.pixelhaus.com and grab the 2097 desktop - it's up now!

Also, if you want to thrash the site around a bit, let me know if you find any problems. It's all CSS and PNG files now, and I've tried my best to debug it, but deploying a new version is always a chore...

dave

[Lance]

.
will do, but i am very very loyal to my WO3 AG-S wallpaper

went there. it looks very good! i got the 1024 cos there was no 1280 available, the max i can see all of on my monitor. the 1152 was not linked
.

[Nathan Adams]

fantastic
the qirex one absolutely rocks
and a nice little set of bonus icons there!


on to the new site design - i like the update!
it all displays perfectly, but it's bringing up a strange bug in chimera where when you go to another open window, and take the focus off the pixehaus logo - it doesn't want to go behing the window that is now in focus (in other words, it stays in front). That's probably something the chimera boys have to sort out though.

also noticed you've got tiny little iMacs on the downloads - any chance of some bigger ones? (im thinking a 32x32 one with screen down - to replace the old iMac icon they use in the finder toolbars)

[Consortium]

Lance - I stayed up late making some larger versions of the desktop, just for you! Enjoy, my friend!


Nathan wrote:

"on to the new site design - i like the update!
it all displays perfectly, but it's bringing up a strange bug in chimera where when you go to another open window, and take the focus off the pixehaus logo - it doesn't want to go behing the window that is now in focus (in other words, it stays in front). That's probably something the chimera boys have to sort out though. "

Yeah, it sounds like their browser. I have no special scripts for anything like that, and I don't use Java. I try to keep things rock simple and fast. In fact, there is only one trick I pull that doesn't conform to WC3 standards for HTML 4.0.1, but that doesn't involve the title bar.

I tested the site in Mac Explorer for 9 & X and in Omniweb, and everything checked out. I've heard that IE for Windows can have some trouble with PNGs, but I have no confirmation on that... my CSS validated, so I am pleased with that!

Oh, and yes - I now have the official world's smallest iMac icons! I do have bigger ones for OS X (up to 128x128) but I will generate a toolbar version just for th euse you mentioned!

Thanks for the feedback!

dave

[infoxicated]

Dude, I'm on IE 6 on a PC and I just visited the site - after about a page length, all of the paragraphs are clipped on the right site, with the text flowing "under" the margin you've set.

That's a weird one... wouldn't want to have to solve that! ;)

[Consortium]

Hey, can you send a screenshot of that? I doubt I can do much about it, but if i can see what's happening, at least I can try...

thanks!

c.

daveSPAM@iconfactory.com and take out the "spam"

[Lance]

.
dave, thanks for the effort!

the site seems to work fine in Opera 5 and 6. the graphic at the top of the screen is a bit slow to load on a dial-up because it's 113 kb. in Opera, it displays everything straight down the center of the screen, no noticeble weirdnesses.
.

[Nathan Adams]

http://www.thinksecret.com/features/jaguarnewupdates/images/infounderfilenames2.html

oh looky... looks like apple has done it for us!

(check out some of those other shots of Jaguar... this should be ace - here's hoping the file info under names can apply to any file - sizes and colour depth and type (cmyk vs rgb) for pics would be fantastic!)

[Lance]

.
i've been looking at macs online yesterday. oh my! i would most definitely like to have a G4 powermac 500 dual processor model [yes, i know dual is the only way they happen, just wanted to emphasise :) ] or possibly the new 1 gHz dual. hm. quicksilver doesnt seem to be a really practical face design, but it sure looks nice. i prefer the slate-blue face, though. that bit of colour for contrast is very good. the side logo isnt enough. so nice to see a machine that is so super in bOth ability and style.

signed,

Win98 user

p.s. : currently also lusting for 22'' cinema display
.

[Nathan Adams]

The quicksilver face is just as pratical as the graphite one, just looks a hell of a lot nicer in person :)

and why get a 22" cinema when you can get the 23" cinema (with a much higer max resolution)? heh heh.... *lust*
(also note, that it's an 'undocumented feature' that the cinema displays can actually be used on a pc with the right connections)

[Consortium]

Since the 'factory is an Apple developer, I actually have a build of Jaguar, but unfortunately I can't even get the install disks to mount....

Oh well... have to wait for August like everyone else!

:-)

c.

[Lance]

.
nathan: um... :oops: , cos i didn't know about the 23; i'm not very knowledgable about macs.

about quicksilver: what happens when the eject button software gets corrupted and doesnt work? how practical is it then?
[this happened to one of the reviewers]
.

[Consortium]

Yes, despite what Mac evangelists would have you believe, the Mac is not without it's pitfalls and possible hard/soft failures. On the older Graphite G4 (which I have) and the older Blue & White G3, there's a little hole beside the drive where you can stick in a paperclip end if all else fails (Macs have had this since 1984 - I don't know if they discontinued it).

There's also a *big* hole you can make with the business end of a clawhammer if you get really pissed.

:-D


c.

[Lance]

.
well, Windows machines certainly aren't without flaw, though i have to admit that 98 seems to recover well when something goes wrong.

i love the look of apple's aqua interface. i wish there were a way to get that on a Windows system.
hm, i suppose it could be at least partially done for a browser. opera can use any pic for a window background, and likewise a separate [if desired] pic for the browser borders. and the browser buttons can also be changed.
i've got a couple of aqua skins for WinAmp

btw, Dave, the wipeout 2907 fullscreen 1280 wallpaper has become longterm on my machine. thanks. what did you use for a source? it clearly has more detail and fewer halftone screendots than the gamebox covers
.

[infoxicated]

Of course... Macs never crash...

Except for the whole building full of 'em when I worked at that publishing company in London. They crash just as much as PC's do... in different ways, maybe, but they still crash...

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/27/1023864600494.html

It's the age old debate, isn't it - I'm not a Windows evangelist by any stretch, and if I could get all my web tools on Linux I'd switch in a flash. Recently when I checked out Apple's "Switch" campaign on their site... I read through a page or so and then they claimed "Mac's don't crash" and I decided not to read any further. I've had M$ lying to me for almost ten years about performance - I wouldn't want to give another company the chance to do the same.

If your product is decent, I'll buy it - if you lie to me from the word go, you'd better be glad your iMac is nice and curved and shiny... and lightly greased too, 'cos Steve Jobs can stick it where the sun don't shine if he thinks he can bullshit me into owning one. :)

[Nathan Adams]

that building full of macs that crashed all the time were probably running 9.2, or older.
i've never had os x crash - never. (lets give it up for protected memory and unix! hooray!)

but yeah, macs until recently had the pinhole... they're absent on new iMacs too :(
however, all discs are ejected on startup anyway - so if in the case you have a cd drive that refuses to open or whatever, just reboot and it will spit it out.

and don't worry about not knowing about the 23" - Apple only introduced it a couple of months ago, and it replaces the 22". Same price as far as I'm aware.
Now if only we could be like the lucky buggers that get to run dual 23" monitors........

mounting problems with the jag disc? have you let apple know that, since it's probably a bum disc (or discs - the latest build is on 3 discs isn't it?)

[Consortium]

Hey, I've been using Macs since the start in 1984. I had access to one of the very first ones, since my first job out of high school was at Motorola. I've always loved the Mac OS, the way I love a certain friend of mine who is bi-polar. I can tell you the following things with assurance, without hyperbole or partisanship:

- Macs definitely crash, especially running OS 9 or earlier. Anyone who says they don't is self-delusional, or lucky in a statistically anomalous way.

- OS X is very, very stable compared to 9. Apps may crash, but they won't scram the whole system, and I've never had a "kernel panic" in six months of heavy everyday use. UNIX was the way to go.

- Apple can ship you bum equipment and they're not so great on follow-through. I've been very lucky in this regard, but there's a lot of war stories out there from people who've really had to go through the wringer.

- The one thing Steve Jobs is above all else is a master showman. Consequently, everything he says should be taken with a grain of salt, if not outright disbelief. I remember one keynote when I couldn't coherently hear Phil Schiller trying to blow smoke up my ass about how amazing streaming Quicktime was because the Quicktime stream of the keynote broadcast was disintegrating under the load. Moral: wait for a large cross-section of user reviews before purchasing.

- Apparently, there is a way to jam up the CD drive in the new iMacs so badly that you have to take the thing apart. Bring back the little paper clip hole! Lo-Tek can be good.


The new Macs with OS X are sweet, and lightyears ahead of the old system, as well-made and stable as anything else comparable on the market, and they're the sexiest thing going. There's risk, yes, but no more than buying from any other hardware maker.


Nathan, about the Jaguar discs: yes, it's on 3 CDs. I have laugh, because it reminds me of when System 7.5 or so came on, like, 15 diskettes.... and Word used to be on about 12 or so as well! remember that? I also remember System 6.0.8, that was only 153k and fit on one diskette with plenty of room left over. Times were simpler, then... *sniff*...

Happy Tuesday!
c.