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Different parts of America are like entirely different countries, sometimes even on a state-by-state basis. I live in eastern Oklahoma, an expanse of land with many manmade lakes, rivers, hills, forests, plains, and even mountains. Once I almost ran over a bald eagle because it had killed something in the road and I drove up on it over a hill. Luckily (it's a felony to kill one) I didn't hit it, but it was directly in front of my car and its wingspan was much wider than my hood.. an amazing creature.

Do you really make that "parties" in the funerals, american guys?

A lot of people request that up-beat music be played at their funerals, so that their death isn't so much mournful as it is a celebration of the time that they were here. Funerals are social events.. but not really parties by any means.

Do you really shake the hand of the girls?

Yes, and I don't consider it sexist or weird, it's a business tradition. You can hardly hug or kiss a man whom you expect to take you seriously as a business person, why a woman?

Do you really know guys who carry guns to school?

No. People around here respect weapons, they grew up with them and were taught the dangers. Many people hunt here, as wolves were killed out long ago and the deer/turkey/etc population gets out of hand if there isn't any hunting. One time there was a gun in my school during hours.. our Agriculture teacher had been teaching a safety course the night before and forgot to bring it home. There was a big scandal over it for a bit and a newspaper story, but soon everyone realized the idiocy of being upset because of a gun being in school for a gun safety course. A kid in Fort Gibson Oklahoma once brought a gun to school and shot it off, with no deaths. He was the son of a local Pastor. These are usually depressed kids who hate how stupid Americans can be sometimes.

One of my teachers would always ask the class to raise their hand if they had a gun in the house to freak out foreign exchange students.. then he'd ask them to put their hands down if they had less than three.. then five.. and as the hands mostly stayed up the foreign kids would shift in their seats more and more. It's more a perceived danger than an actual one, unless kids aren't taught about guns, only told to stay away from them (and fostering the want to know a secret).

Country music is more popular here than any other kind, and after that any kind of Christian music. In fact, if you want to hear a live band within 30 miles of me it is going to be a Christian band or a Country band (more likely Christian). This is the heart of the Bible belt and nearly everyone attends church and calls me a satanist.

America is often seen as an advanced civilization with paved roads everywhere and tall buildings.. however, I live in a more .. undeveloped part. The main roads are paved, and so are city streets, but everywhere else is a huge network of dirt/gravel roads. The first picture is the road I lived on and the second is the highway I took when I drove 3 hours back to my home from Oklahoma State University.

http://img32.photobucket.com/albums/v96/shbazjinkens/CamPic52.jpg
http://img32.photobucket.com/albums/v96/shbazjinkens/CamPic27.jpg

It rarely snows. (2-3 times a year, very light)

Oklahoma was the last large Native American territory.. I live in Tahlequah, the Cherokee Capitol and one of the five civilized tribes to be sent across America on the Trail of tears (use google ) Recently they issued the first gay marriage in Oklahoma, they are able to do this because they are a nation within a nation and many of their laws supercede US law. Unfortunately (IMO) they won't be doing it again, it only happened because of a loophole and they are patching it.

Things I hate about Oklahoma are similar to what others hate about America, but less urbanized.. the cowboy culture is generally one of people who are arrogant, rude, and aggressive in my eyes. They don't tolerate people who don't worship God and they don't change their minds about anything unless the Bible proves them wrong (and most of the time they will ignore that, unless it allows them to demonize a minority).

My area code is 918, and I've dialed 911 before on accident and hung up to try again. They call you back, because they're required to return hang-up calls in case of emergency.

I don't know what americans learn in school, but I can very well imagine how the outcome of ww2 is presented.

You can imagine, but in my case, you're wrong. No, I don't remember those quotes in my textbooks (I hardly remember any quotes, actually), but I certainly knew their importance and suffering. I had great history teachers, if the major events had American involvement we learned about them. There's a lot I don't know because of the lack of broader world history, but your insinuations that our textbooks are tainted with propaganda are frankly rude. Our mistakes are more well-known to us than you realize. I think you selectively pick the fools to base your generalizations on.

If Americans are somehow trying to magnify their importance, what are you doing that's more noble?

I went to 4-H camps (you may or may not know what that is) for a few years, it was always fun, regardless of the crappy things that would happen (like bats in the cabin we stayed in).

AI isn't 3d dependant though, just looks better in 3d and maybe easier to program.

The fact that the d-day was NECESSARY does not imply that it was made CORRECTLY.

Farl, they lost fewer lives than they projected, despite the failures in the paratrooping equipment and landings and other things that went wrong at the beaches. D-day was not a failure by any means, it was a calculated move and there were expected losses. There was no other way at the time besides a massive move like that, and the circumstances worked for them in other ways. The Germans really did not expect an attack in the middle of a storm that they projected would last an additional day. Their leader was away to see his wife for her birthday, because he thought there was no chance the Allies would invade that day.

The Canadians alone liberated dozens of towns, and there are statues of Canadian soldiers in some of those.. from a quick google, here is a caption, "... In total, the Allies lost 2,500 troops on D-Day, but the mission was a ... was to last
almost three months, a campaign that left 20,000 Canadians dead or wounded. ..."

I'm not volunteering any opinion on the US' involvement

But overwhelmingly, the victory against Nazi Germany was the Soviets', and it's only the legacy of Cold War Historiography that prevents that being seen.

Why not?

I was actually taught a lot about the Soviet involvement, despite many other faults I can find in my education.

Farlander, yes, Canada. The Canadians were a major component of the D-day invasion and many lost their lives with the rest. Give credit where credit is due..

While you may disagree with Stalin's ethics (and I don't dispute that) the Russians lost more lives than any other country in the war, and civilians were fighting and dying in the streets.

Interesting fact:
After the Pearl Harbor bombing Canada officially declared war (on the same day). America followed up the day after.

heh did you read the book that comes with the game? it's all explained in there

Working on it now. 

I played it a long time ago when it was first released, solved a couple of puzzles, and then gave up on the pushbutton thingy.

I'll play it and get back to you.Ã, 

EDIT:
Oh wait, I played that. I had no idea how to use that system though. 

I would label that as a special effect or an interaction. If you label that as a GUI, then you label everything you see as a GUI. Possibly technically correct, but confusing terminology.

I know you're not picking at me. Do I seem defensive?

or maybe you're just not thinking cleverly enough...

a GUI doesn't just have buttons on it for saving games as AGSers have shown, why can't i have lighting change on my GUI or normal mapping?

Then just let me say that I personally don't see it as necessary.

I guess you're referring to the type that hover around the character as floaty things, or other innovative types that get on my nerves.

Guis didn't [don't?] take advantage of alpha blending and people want it, so saying that the gui is unimportant isn't correct.

Saying that you can make a 2d GUI is like saying why use a 3d character. Since it can all be done in 2d why go 3d? Silly arguements I know but so is saying GUIs aren't important

to... uh... make my point twice apparently

With a 3d character you can change the viewpoint to any angle you please and not need to redraw the character 40 times (assuming 4 frames of walkcycle animation and 8 directions, plus standing still) just to achieve that. The animation is smoother. You can turn in more directions. Once refined, the lighting changes, you can apply normal maps, and the character becomes part of the environment.

With 3d GUIs, you can have some kind of special spinny effect possibly. Maybe zoom in on an item inside an inventory menu in 3d. The latter is the only part I'd find useful.

I see this as very similar to the guitar solo someone posted a while back.. technically amazing but musically boring/irritating.

On 3d GUIs.. In all of the Blender games I've played, they actually emulated 2d GUIs by using an orthographic camera and rendered textures. I don't think people care so much about the GUI being 3d.. I mean, it's relatively unimportant.

I agree about not talking about game making. With anyone I talk to regardless of who they are, it's always the same (well, disregarding people who are interested in making games).

"You do 3d art?"
"Yes."
"Wow! That seems so complicated, how do you do it?"

Then after the first, maybe second sentence of explaining how and why it's not so complicated they change the subject, or if I continue talking very quickly show that they are not interested at all.

I've little advice for you really, I'm friends with many girls but boyfriend for none of them. Hard to find anyone to relate to where I am right now.Ã, 

Me for one, I'm dissapointed by "gravity simulators" in the spaceships of Star Trek, Star Wars etc.Ã,  Why not design your ship for your characters to float around in it and take advantage of passages in the walls and ceilings.Ã,  Ã, You could even design rooms similar ro Escher's sketches.

See Space Quest for examples of animating in a zero-gravity environment, btw.

Well, yeah, you're pretty much correct in that regard (that it won't be worth much until improved upon lots).

The thing to gain is that once it is there the ease of use will be LOADS better than other freely available game engines.

But there's a big drop in expressiveness and animation quality between amateur 2d and amateur 3d games imo, I'm not sure more fluid animation would really make up for it. (it's possible a great 3d animator could make a game with it, but it's not very likely imo)

Once again, I'm going to be forced to respectfully disconcur.

Please look at one of my walkcycles

The expressiveness is in the style and textures.

This is well within the range of amateurs, I did this totally with free programs (pardon the textures, which Yufster did in Photoshop). Those who can't figure out the supposedly obfuscated 3d app I use will pirate another, like many have and will continue to do. The same results are feasible from any half-respected 3d app.

Yes to both answers...

Sweet. I wish I could get myself to Mittens.Ã,