getting it into maya -> getting imported bsps from Blender into Maya. 

Two tool posts in a row. Well, this is more of a micro-tool...it's a little bit of python code which lets you turn a directory of files into a pak file on the command line:

http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/makepak-py

In case the usage isn't obvious from the code: save the text to "makepak.py" then call it like so:
makepak.py mydir pak1.pak

There's no error checking or anything, it's a 40 line program, but it's kinda neat. 

cool stuff. Whilst I do all my Quake stuff in Windows at the moment (not that I've been particularly active over the last few months), I am gradually trying to switch my pc use over to linux. I realised that although there are a couple of Linux editors (notably Trenchbroom, YAY!), there aren't m/any tools for working with pak files, wads, mdls etc.

Given how easy writing these kind of tools is, I thought it might be worth making a few simple applications to do so. Good to see you made a pak creator. Can it extract files and list pak contents too? 

It's a very one-time bit of code, written to do a single task cheaply. It's probably not too hard to adapt it though, if you understand the "struct" module in python.

The quakewiki entry on .pak files is also very good:
http://quakewiki.org/wiki/.pak
It has some sample c code for accessing pak files and extracting a particular file, which would be very pretty easy to adapt. 

http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/quake/spec/quake-spec34/qkspec_3.htm#CPAK0

I normally use this page for quake stuff, even though it's out of date and contains a few errors since it was made before the final version of Quake was released.

To extract pak files, this works: http://pastebin.com/8hxV0vvk 

http://pastebin.com/JhJTNTkj

does actually work. 

http://www.quakeforge.net/ has nice commandline tools. I added some more to http://quakewiki.org/wiki/Quake_tools#PAK_Editors

I can recommend both QF's pak and par. 

 

Next year it gets legit:

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/142741/out-of-the-blue

;) 

Referring to the conversation about Macs and operating systems above:

I sincerely hope your boss wasn't really offering to buy you a Powermac, because the last model came out in 2006. He probably ment Mac Pro, but that too is a silly choice: the current model is vastly outdated - a new Mac Pro is coming out later this year and if you need/want a powerful Mac workstation right now, a fully decked out iMac is a much better choice.

As for operating systems, as long as it runs the software you need it to run, it's just a matter of taste. Windows 7 and MacOS X are both great.

That being said, unless Microsoft comes to their senses sometime soon, it might now make more sense than ever to consider switching to a Mac. Win8 is shit and in the coming 8.1 update instead of listening to the userbase, they are actually doubling down on the things people hate. 

I believe we are reaching the point (and in many cases way past it) where operating systems are irrelevant as both Windows and Mac can easily do what 99% of computer users need and more and more things traditionally handled locally on a computer are moved to cloud services.

An example: why on Earth would I want to manage photos locally using some application, when I can instead use Flickr and automatically back them up to Dropbox for good measure?

Hardware is also becoming similar (as long as you don't do something monumentally stupid such as buying a computer without an SSD in the year 2013). For most users, questions such as "what CPU does this have" are replaced with "is the battery life good enough?" and "do I like how it looks?".

If you are not a gamer, a mid-to-highend range computer from 4-5 years ago is absolutely perfectly suitable for most tasks of today. 

An example: why on Earth would I want to manage photos locally using some application, when I can instead use Flickr and automatically back them up to Dropbox for good measure?

Privacy would be a good argument.... 

Privacy would be a good argument....

Privacy concerns are becoming more and more of a fringe case. I do understand your worries if your name is Brad Pitt, however:

If you routinely work with images and photos that genuinely constitute monetary value and/or valuable intellectual property, chances are you are using "the cloud" anyway, except you are using your employers private/internal CMS instead of a public service like Flickr.

Flickr does offer privacy settings.

Are you REALLY that concerned that some Flickr employee would be browing pics of your naked girlfriend that you set to "Private"? Using the vast amounts of free porn on the web makes a ton more sense than committing a felony and risk getting caught. 

guantanamo now! 

i' m talking about some bored nsa analyst...
just the possibility makes me really concerned...
what if they tapped the sexcalls of their gis?
oh wait, they did that..!
for national security of course. 

 

 

Four years overdue. Had been planning to do this right after my review of Bastion of the Underworld back in 2009. Things got in the way and it never got done.

Finally got around to replaying the map and posted up a review just now: http://taw.duke4.net/2013/06/quake/the-marcher-fortress/ 

I would not upload pictures of my kids anywhere on the internet. You simply do not know where they'll end up. That's why I'm never going to manage my photos online.

And there are plenty of other things which I would prefer not to do in the cloud either. But I'm not an average user, so the generality of these arguments is limited. 

There's always file encryption... 

But I'm not an average user, so the generality of these arguments is limited.

So is me, concerned bout the possibilities i am.
This should be enough to make evrybody go wild.. 

An example: why on Earth would I want to manage photos locally using some application, when I can instead use Flickr and automatically back them up to Dropbox for good measure?

There is many, everything has always more than one con.

- Availability, if i put them in flick i need Internet, and it isn't always available everywhere, or the servers go down, or many other problems more than to the ones on having them on your computer.

- You depend only on yourself: if they are lost in the cloud, you can't do as much as if they are lost in your computer.

- There is no need to wait for them to uploador download to use them.

- You depend on a single application, if that fails, you have no other way to see them.

- And i can remember at least 5 more reasons, but there is many more. It all depends on what each person values the most. 

http://www.sporcle.com/games/Leaveittosteven/quakemaps#

15/38, guess I have to stand in the corner for a day or two. 

... I completely drew a blank. :(