This is only my experience downloading and installing Steam and Valve games like Counterstrike 1.6 and TFC on Linux. Your experience may vary.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- A purchased copy of Half Life Platinum
(if you’re into the old versions of Counter Strike and Team Fortress Classic - still going strong with thousands of gamers on 24/7) and/or a purchased copy of Half Life 2. You won’t have to use the DVD/CDs in this tutorial (in fact I’ve never gotten them to work), you’ll just need the product key. Steam includes a lovely little downloader for Valve games (more…)
Gaming console emulation on PC is nothing new. An emulator is a program that mimics the hardware and firmware from a gaming console (such as the Super Nintendo), to play roms. Roms are just computerized copies of console games. For PSX and other CD-based systems Roms are called ISOs. This guide is just my personal notes on emulating the different game consoles on Ubuntu Linux (Feisty 7.04 in this article).
First, if you don’t have a gamepad, I suggest stopping by your local Best Buy and purchasing one. If you’d like to save some cash, there are plenty of affordable solutions online, and not to mention you can use the controllers from your existing consoles by using a USB converter. Personally, I use a Logitech Dual Action controller. There was no setup needed except plugging it into a USB port and defining the controls in the emulators. This controller is great for other non-emulated games as well, including VDrift. (more…)
If you’ve switched to Ubuntu (as I have) or any other Linux distribution, you may consider the following free (and in most cases open-source) games, as they’ve been favorites of mine for some time now.
1. Tremulous
Tremulous is an addictive first person shooter (FPS) that has countless gamers on at all hours from both the Linux and Windows worlds. As all other games in this article, Tremulous is free to download and play.
In Tremulous there are two teams: Aliens and Humans. Aliens can have such awesome feats as wall-walking (dizzying to say the least), pouncing from great distances, and spraying poisonous gases. Humans can obtain advanced weaponry and armor, and plant strategic devices such as turrets to defend their base.
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ImageMagik is something nearly all developers can all appreciate. It’s a little software suite that allows you to create or modify batch images on-the-fly from PHP, C, C++, Perl, Python, Java, and several other languages. It can be tricky getting used to, but I’ve located a guide that explains the basics. Once reading through this, you should be pretty familiar with ImageMagik, and how you might apply it in your applications:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-graf/?ca=dnt-428
This is a bit advanced, but the outcome is very cool. This process takes a black and white (or color) image, lets you scribble in some colors, and the colorization application accurately fills in and shades the rest. It can even do animated clips, as shown below.
More examples can be found at:
http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~yweiss/Colorization/ The application that does this can be downloaded from: http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~yweiss/Colorization/colorization.zip Please note that you’ll need a C++ compiler available to build the application, but it will compile on both Windows and Linux (view the README file in the download).
For those of you not familiar with the GIMP image editor., it’s a powerful cross-platform image editor licensed under the GNU GPL. Out of the box, GIMP is pretty powerful, but it can parallel (or as some might claim - exceed) the usability of Photoshop once you add some community-created plugins or scripts.
In 2006 a thread started at nintendo.com detailing some very useful tricks for the GIMP image editor. While the tutorials on this site are geared towards creating and editing video-game related images (signatures, banners, avatars, etcetera), the tips can be quite useful for all GIMP users.
The tutorial listings on this forum number in the hundreds, with such useful guides as:
Make sure you scroll through the entire thread. The majority of the how-to’s are on the replies.
I stumbled upon an interesting thread on stencilrevolution.com
Check it out. It outlines a process to inexpensively “tattoo” your clothes with a stencil and some bleach. The outcome can be really neat:
Quote from the thread:
“ This Japanese Koi design was created specifically for this tutorial. (my original drawing in fig. 1.) I wanted to create and instruct with a relatively simple design that translated well into a two stencil work. It is based on traditional Japanese Koi artwork (but I really just made it up, so I hope it’s more recognizable than it is offensive) due to the popularity of the symbol and design in historic and modern tattoos. Of course my bleaching work began when I was asked to “tattoo” fabric. The Koi also symbolizes luck, and I can use all of that I can get.
There are a few basic need-to-know items and suggestions that I can offer.
First: bleach will not work on most synthetic fabrics. You will need natural fabrics. The good news is that even the cheap tee-shirts are generally 50/50 Cotton and Polyester, and they will work just fine. 100% cotton will also work well, HOWEVER, bleach really weakens the material. If you get big, wet drips of bleach on 100% cotton, they will quickly develop into holes in the material. I do know that, for at least one clothing company, this is actually the desired effect but I prefer the stronger 50/50 blends for bleach designed clothing.
Second: I use Duralar material (.005) to create my stencils. Cardboard will only soak up your bleach and become a mess. Duralar is available at your art supply dealer or online and is only about $2.50 USD for a 32 X 40” sheet. It is thin, plastic, and clear and you will get a lot of mileage out of each of the stencils you cut out of it.
Third: Cheap bleach is fine. It is still a toxic chemical. Wear a respirator or work in well ventilated areas, or both. Don’t wear anything you love. You’re spraying bleach.
Fourth: Empty your spray bottle after you’re done. If you store bleach in it, it will expand due to softening of the plastic and gasses from the reaction between the chemical and the plastic bottle. This can be messy and dangerous.
In the photographs, I have tried to show you the spray bottle I use. It is a very common spray bottle and inexpensive (about $1.50 USD).
With stenciling bleach onto dark fabrics, you have to think in the negative. This is opposite the general process of stencil work with spray paint or roll-on paints and inks. The light colors are going through the stencil and the dark areas are being blocked by it. Otherwise, this process is darned close to the spray paint stencils more commonly created.
For this stencil, I created the stencil for the half-tone layer to be applied first. On the back side of the stencil, I used a repositionable spray adhesive. This is a 3-M product and makes the stencil sticky but easily removable. It leaves no residue on the substrate (fabric). This is used to prevent under-spray for those clean, crisp lines and edges. It is important to also select a spray angle with your wrist position and stick to it. The angle of your spray should remain consistent throughout the even application. If you roll your wrist at all, you’ll risk under-spray and inconsistent application.
In the second photo, you can see the shape of this stencil and compare it to the original drawing to see the areas I selected for the half-tone/lighter value layer. I also designed it to have a half-tone halo that fades into the background to enhance the outline. Spray this layer with the same, full-strength bleach but use a light mist for application. This mist will not be very wet. It is not to soak into the material. It is a fine mist that will lay atop the fabric and cause the effect. You will have to wait a few moments for the reaction. It will develop like a Polaroid. You can leave the stencil on for this effect in case you want to add a little more to make it lighter.
In the third photo, you see me using some paper towel to pat the stencil. This is to prevent droplets and drips from the chemical that is beaded up on the stencil from dripping onto the fabric when the stencil is slowly peeled off.
The fourth photo shows this layer completed and fully developed.
In the fifth photo, the second stencil is applied. You will see a black marker line that is drawn on the reverse side of the stencil for alignment and registration. It is drawn on the back because the bleach will erase it from the front. I add the island stencil for the eye and it has also been sprayed with repositionable spray-adhesive. You can see in the first layer, I included a little line, that is actually sprayed as part of the design, for registration of this separate eye stencil. This whole layer gets the same, full-strength bleach. A heavier application is employed to achieve a lighter value. IMPORTANT: this is still not soaked. If you soak it, it will saturate the material and seep under your stencil. You will lose all your detail if you spray too heavily. Keep it consistent. You can leave the stencil in place until it develops to see if you want to apply more bleach to lighten it.
As with most stencil work, you will almost never get the stencil to properly re-register/re-align for a second attempt. This means you really can’t expect good results from trying to reapply the stencil for another attempt. Try your best to get each layer in one shot.
In the sixth photo, I am again blotting the stencil with dry paper towel to prevent drips and beaded chemical from running onto the material.
I cheat sometimes. In the seventh photograph, I am using a Sharpie fabric marker (this has dye instead of ink) to add three details; the nostril and two “V’ shaped lines in the tail.
The last photo shows the completed design. I used a black cotton napkin for this, instead of a tee shirt, so the photos in the tutorial would be clear.
You should know that when the bleach dries, it may crystallize. These tiny crystals are still dormant bleach. If these are re-hydrated, they can continue to bleach the fabric. I highly recommend running the finished piece in a dryer to beat these crystals out of the fabric before getting it wet by washing or whatever else. Be careful washing this with other clothing until it has been beaten and rinsed once. “