Author Topic: The good news and the bad news.  (Read 19672 times)

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Offline brandx0

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  • The Angriest Angel.
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The good news and the bad news.
EDIT: I don't think this needs to be stickied any longer.  Topic locked

Well, I've got some news, some good and some bad.

Let's start with the good.  I've got a new computer finally!  I'm very happy with it and with the vastly increased power I'll be much more efficient with modeling and texturing than ever before (Think: My preview render times have been cut to about 1/10th of the previous amount, plus faster interface with Max and Photoshop)

Now, the bad news.  It's very bad indeed.  I moved my old hard drive from my old computer to the new, and the connection was rather difficult to remove from the old computer.  As a result, it looks as if one of the rods in the power socket was bent, which I didn't notice when plugging it into my new computer.  When I fired up the new computer with this hard drive in it, some kind of power surge occurred.  I'm not sure of the specifics.  So I took the HD into a computer repair shop, who then contacted Maxtor when then couldn't fix it themselves.  What it looks like is that this power surge completely fried the Hard Drive.  Completely fried it.  As a result, it's looking as if all my data is gone.  I had some backups, but most of it is so old that it's not worth even pulling out, and mostly consists of models I've already redone.

So the long and short of it is that the last 2 years of work I've done on modeling and texturing is gone. 

Pretty bad news, eh?  Well, All I can do is look to the future at this point.

So here's how we can look at this:

I'm a much better modeler than I was before.  I can probably redo all of the models lost much more quickly than they took before, and create a better result.  I've developed new techniques in texturing that'll increase the quality of the textures as well, which has made things more efficient and visually appealing.  Will it take me 2 years to redo all of these that I've lost?  Not by a long shot.  I'm not giving a time frame, but I know that I can do better.  Ultimately all this is for me is a challenge (As well as a lesson:  Backup on a separate HD.)  The first draft is done and gone, that was a great chance for me to learn and grow in my art, now it's time to get to work on some really amazing stuff. 

So what can I say other than that?  It's a tough thing to see so much work lost, so many hours, but all we can do is look to the future.  So expect some great stuff coming up from me, I haven't lost hope yet.

As a result as well, though, I'm going to be making FotG my sole priority model wise.  Thus I must apologize to the other teams I've joined recently (Diaspora, Echoes of the Past) that I must resign my tenure with your two groups.  It's been great but my heart has always been with Fate of the Galaxy and that's where my attention is needed most right now.

Now, let's get to work.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2009, 04:14:13 pm by brandx0 »
Former Senior Modeler, Texturer and Content Moderator (retired), Fate of the Galaxy
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Offline Wobble73

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
I just kicked the cat in anger!  :mad:
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
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Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
Very bad news. 

One question did they try finding another hard drive of the same model and replacing the controller board?  The data is probably still there but the controller is fried.  Might be worth a shot to look on eBay for a cheap used drive you can swipe the controller board off of. 
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Re: The good news and the bad news.
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Maxtor... is CRAP, same thing happened to my HD, How many models have u lost???
Dont tell me that tha Star Destroyers , X-wings, Tie-Bomber, Y-Wing is gone  :( :( :( :( :(

I#ve waited for models like that since 10 year now..... anyway I'll promote ur page and forum everywhere, maybe we can hook some guys from the Xwaupgrade.com page....

 

Offline brandx0

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
So I've still got my old laptop HD, so I may be able to salvage a couple older models, the X-Wing, Y-Wing, E-Wing, And most of the ISD I.  More to come on that later
Former Senior Modeler, Texturer and Content Moderator (retired), Fate of the Galaxy
"I love your wrong proportions--too long, no, wait, too short
I love you with a highly symbolic torpedo up the exhaust port"
-swashmebuckle's ode to the transport

 

Offline Angelus

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
Indeed bad news, for everyone involved ( you, the other teams- especially Diaspora ...)

I know what it means to loose data to HD errors, had that too.
I can't say how often i had to start from scratch with my missions and mod.

Anyway, i'll try to ignore the bad news, and hope to see new stuff soon.

 

Offline newman

  • 211
Re: The good news and the bad news.
That sounds really bad, I'm sorry to hear it. This is why I keep backups in 4 locations :)
Anyway, team Diaspora just has one tiny request that Kara asked me to convey..



No animals were harmed during typing of this post.
Yet. :D

(seriously tho we got the max file so it wasn't lost. If you can still finish it, that'd be awesome)
« Last Edit: January 07, 2009, 06:26:04 pm by newman »
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 

Offline Angelus

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
 :lol:
Now THAT'S a really interesting way to make requests. Have to remember that...


Yeah, don't let them harm the dog...  :lol:

otoh, a hot dog would be nice now...with onions please  :p

 

Offline brandx0

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
Well as for the Basestar, I know the model is still there, but it's about prioritizing my time.  I don't mind if someone wants to continue the Basestar model on their own, but I simply won't have time right now with doing up so much for FotG
Former Senior Modeler, Texturer and Content Moderator (retired), Fate of the Galaxy
"I love your wrong proportions--too long, no, wait, too short
I love you with a highly symbolic torpedo up the exhaust port"
-swashmebuckle's ode to the transport

 

Offline newman

  • 211
Re: The good news and the bad news.
Ah, shoot. Being a dog owner I was fully bluffing - no way I could harm one :)
Sorry to hear about that, brand, but I suppose it's understandable.
At any rate, good luck!
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 

Offline Shade

  • 211
Re: The good news and the bad news.
Sorry to hear about the hard drive :blah: It's totally understandable that you'll want to focus on one mod when you've got that much work to redo, so as far as I'm concerned, don't worry about us... I'm sure we'll get a basestar done anyhow, and you did give us a solid start on it :) Anyway, at least your new computer will be able to do stuff faster, so over a period of a couple of years you might actually come out ahead compared to if you still used the old one :p

You do realise though that crashes without good backups come at a price, right? Having lost models, you're legally required to make the replacements at least 20% more awesome, or else you'll face 5 hours of watching Jar-Jar Binks singing karaoke as a punishment. So better get stock up on coffee and smokes and then hunker down with that ISD, cause I know you don't want to face that punishment :D
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Offline newman

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
...or else you'll face 5 hours of watching Jar-Jar Binks singing karaoke as a punishment.

Now that's way beyond the sphere of "cruel and unusual punishment". I don't think
anyone could ever be quite the same after 5 hours of that..
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
You do realise though that crashes without good backups come at a price, right? Having lost models, you're legally required to make the replacements at least 20% more awesome, or else you'll face 5 hours of watching Jar-Jar Binks singing karaoke as a punishment.

Whoa, Whoa, you want to punish him in a way that he learns from it, not turn him into a gurgling puddle goo that you can no longer flog for more pretty stuff in 3D.
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Offline Shade

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
Actually, the goal was to scare him enough that it would never come to pass ;)
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"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh ****ing great. 2200 references to entry->index and no idea which is the one that ****ed up" - Karajorma
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct." - Niels Bohr
<Cobra|> You play this mission too intelligently.

 

Offline TopAce

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
Quote
Now that's way beyond the sphere of "cruel and unusual punishment".

No, if you drink in sufficient quantities beforehand.

Anyway, and what about your planets? Will you just "download" them from the ModDB?
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Offline chief1983

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
Anyway, and what about your planets? Will you just "download" them from the ModDB?

Those were done before his laptop died it seems, so if he wants them he may be able to get those from it as well when he tries to salvage the X/Y-Wings.
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Offline aRaven

  • 28
Re: The good news and the bad news.
Just redo the X-wing completely...didn't like the last one so much :)

the ywing is awesome though

 
Re: The good news and the bad news.
Dang, I'm sorry to hear about the HD, it reminds me of when my Maxtor bit the dust, though I didn't have anything nearly as cool on it. I wish you luck on replacing your models, and suggest sending backups to the rest of the team from now on (chief, et al).
We all know you'll be able to do some completely mind-blowing stuff.

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
This is why you should have an online FTP for each mod team, or an SVN in which
you keep updated in case your personal computing world goes *poof* overnight.
No one man kills the project if all the files go under.

That said, there's a bunch of companies out there that I researched back when I had  major drive failure.
Didn't end up resorting to using them.. but it's a good possibility they can take the drive apart and pull the data
from the physical platter. It may just be the electronics portion of the drive, and perhaps a small section that would
have been written to when it fired up.

If you want to discuss it further I can go into more detail. I've got a couple recovery utilities too if the thing can actually turn on,
although I'd really really, suggest a professional physical data recovery if what you described has happened.

Most of them have a free or cheap evaluation to see if it's even worth trying to go after. Might save you many man hours.
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Offline Mobius

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Re: The good news and the bad news.
Awww.... :(

*backups all missions created in the past 2,5 years.
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