A lot has happened in the last two weeks. It was Thanksgiving here in the States last week, at which point every single American decides to go to the airport or the motorway to try and get home for a turkey dinner. I managed to avoid most of the travel problems and headed to Antigua for a couple of days to meet up with my parents and Louise who had been there for a week. It was fantastic to see them but it was all too short. Luckily its Christmas holidays soon so I shall be back in (freezing) England to see everybody in about three weeks.
A couple of days before that trip the Xbox 360 was released here and I was one of the lucky few to snag one on launch day. I've been tempted to put it up on eBay, but the profits are not that great... and I really want to keep it anyway. I only have Perfect Dark Zero right now, but it is a lot of fun, especially in multiplayer. Last night me and some of my friends here at Full Sail got together along with someone else who managed to get a 360 and played 7 man multiplayer system link (we were short a controller...) for hours on two huge HDTVs. It was really good fun. I just think I should pick up an extended warranty since I move the console about so much. I think I have only played it at home twice!
Speaking of warranties, my laptop has died, (well the screen has,) so that is in for repair. Rumours are flying around the school that HP will not be able to honour all of our warranties since they have acknowledged this laptop model is terrible and has been discontinued. They have been running out of replacement parts, (mostly motherboards,) and don't want to help us out. When mine failed, it was one of three laptops in our class that hadn't broken down. That leaves two of nearly 70. Apparently Full Sail are now getting lawyers involved and are trying to get all of us affected upgrades to the next model. Time will tell if this is all true, but some people in my class have been without their laptops for more than 3 months while waiting for repairs.
Since Console Development has been removed from the course, we are in Engine Development and Networking this month. ED seems like it could be a waste of time, but it is a chance for us to work on a personal project for 2 months. I am going to try and work on something useful for final project and either do Skinned Mesh Animation or create a Launchpoint Exporter from Maya and render the results in a 3D world. At this point I am leaning towards the second, despite the fact I have found a decent amount of info on skinned meshes online. Networking seems simple enough, (after just one class,) but the teacher throws it at you fast and there is a lot to take in! I'd best get back to it.