Rusty, brain dead & unable to cope

[arsheesh]

Can't help with the techie question, given that my geek-mana is pretty low, but I thought I'd welcome you to the Guild all the same Bloodymage.

Cheers,

-Arsheesh

[bloodymage]

Well, long time no see. Won't go into details, but I struggled and strugled with this machine and just got fed up with Microsoft. So now I have Linux Mint and I'm struggling and struggling with this machine. This place ain't the paradise thought it would be mainly 'cause I'm too damned old to maintain a broken-down old trailer. Anyway, as far as the OS, haven't had it long, but it's already more familiar than Vista. I have lots o' resources to figure it out. One thing I did was pop for CrossOver which is Wine-based software designed to run Windows applications. I'm quite satisfied with open source software, but I still have my CC2 and CC3, plus a whole stack o' stuff I had loaded into my Gateway.

Well, one more month in this dump, then I'm going to a house, still in the hills, but with a foundation, some room, no steps, no jungle to hack down and hopefully, I can buckle down and put my brain back to work. So, just checkin' in for now.

Btw, I'm registered and reserved for GaryCon, so I'll likely see some peeps from here in attendance.

[bloodymage]

Well, I'm still fightin' technology, but now it's Win 7. I don't do too badly, but I just popped for the updates to CD3 and DD3 and I'm tryin' to wrap my poor brain around CC. I have a pretty good compound map for my next GaryCon excursion. I also have a B&W "handdrawn" map for a lost silver mine and now I'm tryin' to build me a city. I also have a start on a simple overland map for a Learn to Hack session. Got to hand it you cartographers. This stuff ain't easy, but then, I'm working at a considerable disadvantage. Anyway, Guess I should show my stuff before I die.


GF1a.zip
shooting star.zip
Wool Be Gone Map.zip

[jbgibson]

First - thank you for your service. Guys like you took a lot of abuse over the years (both before and after service!) so guys like me don't have to, so Thanks!

Second, I appreciate your persistence. Old & stubborn may beat young & energetic. Eventually :-).

Third, I'd love to see those maps but I can't open their file type. Will your software put out plain ol' .jpgs or .gifs?

I hope Win 7 works for you - it seems like Microsoft's major releases cycle stinker, ok, stinker, ok. Win 7 and XP are the OK parts of that - the people I work for, normally totally compulsive about updating software, just totally skipped Vista. Nay, not skipped - forbade. Yeah, it'll take more resources to run well than your old XP, but *maybe* not as much as Vista consumed, particularly if you disable some of the flash and bang, like translucency effects. On days that CC3 or DD3 frustrate you, try something else. There's plenty of useful software out there in addition to CC & DD, some of it cheap or free. Yeah, yeah - "can't teach an old dog new tricks".... but you can dang sure get an old dog to eat new food :-). Think of these tools as food to be consumed instead of foes to be fought, and gobble 'em up. I"ll bet three plugged nickels that you're already beyond the "burned-stick drawn on cave wall" level, and can produce useful, even pleasant stuff.

Hey, I would think for somebody disabled, The Gimp would be a natural , eh? :-)

[bloodymage]

Yep. I'll come back and post 'em in jpeg format, but for now, work progresses...

Finished the overland. I don't really have a lot of patience left for this stuff, so they ain't perfect...


GF roof.JPG
compound roof

GF3.JPG
compound towers

GF1a.JPG
compound ground floor

GF2a.JPG
compound second floor

shooting star.JPG
Lost Shooting Star Silver Mine

Wool Be Gone Map.JPG
Frandor's Keep overland map

And btw, I tried GIMP back when I had a brain and just couldn't get it. Not bad for a guy who really has no idea what he's doing, eh?

[bloodymage]

So, no comments? This is quite difficult for an old, brain-dead guy. Workin' on the City of Allis right now.

[jbgibson]

The buildings look pretty cool - I don't play any more, nor otherwise do much indoor layouts so I don't have any strong opinions. The resolution's a bit too low to be able to tell what's right or wrong.

One thought about the contour map - you have the V-something river running uphill a ways. Really, all the rivers are a bit iffy - those running down the side of the valley, you'd expect to have V's of contour pointing upstream, or at least U's; almost never to be riding on the brow of a rise. Likewise you won't see watercourses flowing sidehill - there *could* be something of a slot that trends diagonal to the general slope, but water's going to take the shortest path downhill. And those are fairly steep hills - if the units shown are feet, this isn't quite a canyon, but neither are these tributaries going to be navigable.

[bloodymage]

Yeah, learning this is a bit of a beast for me, but I'm determined. Stubborn is more like it.

[bloodymage]

OK, figured if I was going to be taken seriously here, I'd better make some friends, so I added a few folks to my friends list. I've also created a group for any stubborn-as-rocks old-schoolers like me. It the "School of Hard Knocks."

[bloodymage]

Ok, little experiment here.

So that's how a signature gets here. I gotta figure everything out the hard way.