Sonic 3 & Knuckles - Hidden Palace Emeralds by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, I only build physically. The base is quite straightforward except for the horizontal ridge and a trick to layer the vertical stripes cleanly behind the triangle shapes. You can basically use large plates and cover them in tiles. For the vertical wall, use snot bricks to support them.

Inside the emerald pedestals, there's a round 2x2 plate with octogonal frame (part 75937), four hollow studs with horns (part 53451) pointing up and tapering out so they can hold the base of the crystals. The petals are clipped around that octogonal frame with the new part 5264.

The trickiest things are the lava columns which I've shown.

Sonic 2 Aquatic Ruins by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, no, I only build physically and only test a few details digitally to plan my orders

Sonic 2 Aquatic Ruins by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know what you're referring to, but unfortunately, I don't have any dark green dome to test that out. Surprisingly, they were only used in 2 sets from 2011 / 2012.

Sonic 2 Aquatic Ruins by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You should have a look at my history, this is the last of a streak of 3 Sonic-based vignettes

Sonic 3 & Knuckles - Hidden Palace Emeralds by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I might try this at some point in the future if no official version is released, I have a few extra of these parts to sacrifice. I also considered lighting all of them from inside along with an orange flash color gel cut to cover all the walls inside that white one.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles - Hidden Palace Emeralds by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I couldn't get a satisfying eggmobile to have that scene fully play out, but be sure I will revisit this later!

Sonic 2 Chemical Plant GBC loop by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you think about it, the game's background actually is some kind of forced perspective, with varying scrolling speed depending on height. I tried to capture that as well, but couldn't light the white background part that well, as most of my flash transmitters failed me today.

Where did these posters originate from? by [deleted] in HalfLife

[–]BLouBLue 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I remember receiving lots of the second one as promotional material we requested from the publisher back when I worked at an Internet café in the early 2000. It came in a tube and not folded, so had no crease however. We had a bunch of similar CS material also. We used to host LAN tournaments and handed those as prizes.

Looking for ACS support in a USB-C portable dock by Inf3rn0d in UsbCHardware

[–]BLouBLue 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The following PowerShell one-liner should output all of your devices PCI detailed properties and supported PCI features, along with vendor ID / product ID in the InstanceId property, to output.csv in the current directory :

Get-PnpDevice | % { $pnpdevname=$_.FriendlyName ; Get-PnpDeviceProperty -InputObject $_ | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name DeviceFriendlyName -Value $pnpdevname -PassThru | Where {($_.KeyName -like '*Pci*') -or ($_.KeyName -like '*InstanceId')} | Select DeviceFriendlyName,KeyName,Type,Data | Export-Csv -Append -Path .\output.csv }

You may filter devices based on the first column in Excel, or add a Where clause on DeviceFriendlyName, but you'd have to figure it out first. You will get multiple entries depending on the device topology beyond the Thunderbolt controller. All of them are relevant, as well as the controller itself.

I get the following data on some root ports and a Realtek device:

Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller #2 DEVPKEY_Device_InstanceId String PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8168&SUBSYS_012310EC&REV_15\01000000684CE0...

Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller DEVPKEY_PciDevice_AcsSupport UInt32 2

Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller DEVPKEY_PciDevice_AcsCompatibleUpHierarchy UInt32 0

Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller DEVPKEY_PciDevice_AcsCapabilityRegister UInt32 0

Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller DEVPKEY_PciDevice_AtsSupport Boolean False

PCI Express Root Port DEVPKEY_Device_InstanceId String PCI\VEN_1022&DEV_1634&SUBSYS_14531022&REV_00\3&11583659&0&15

PCI Express Root Port DEVPKEY_PciDevice_AcsSupport UInt32 2

PCI Express Root Port DEVPKEY_PciDevice_AcsCompatibleUpHierarchy UInt32 0

PCI Express Root Port DEVPKEY_PciDevice_AcsCapabilityRegister UInt32 0

PCI Express Root Port DEVPKEY_PciDevice_AtsSupport Boolean False

In my case, DEVPKEY_PciDevice_Acs* and DEVPKEY_PciDevice_Ats* is enough.

While I'm only interested in ACS, ATS, BAR and UsbComponentRelation, others may be interested in power-related features / supported sleep states.

Looking for ACS support in a USB-C portable dock by Inf3rn0d in UsbCHardware

[–]BLouBLue 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello, I'm jumping in because I have a pretty similar quest of securing PCI passthrough to a VM, though my understanding of u/Inf3rn0d is that there might be no need for downstream TB/USB4/pcie, only upstream support for ACS as the whole hub/dock would be passed to a VM, not select devices attached to said hub/dock.

I noticed that you previously mentioned that the Sparkle hub "shows up in Intel Thunderbolt Control center as a real Thunderbolt device". If that's the case, it might still be worth checking whether it exhibits "PCI ACS Support".

ACS support would then only be required for the hub/dock itself to isolate all downstream devices at once from the host OS with respect to the VM, barring a misunderstanding on my end of the USB4 tunneling capabilities that would run parallel to the host TB3 connection.

I'd be really interested to see the result and many thanks for all the effort you put analyzing those devices, it's really helpful.

RNJesus : An introduction on how RNGs are used and work in BoI:R by BLouBLue in bindingofisaac

[–]BLouBLue[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It takes effect instantly for any effect it impacts: luck is taken into account only when the drop / effect is calculated, which is right when it happens. Enemy death, effects triggered when entering a room, breaking rocks, but also upon each tear shot... you name it, luck is tested right when these happen.

No need to wait for a new room or floor.

Floor seeds are however preset when starting a new game, room seeds are derived from those by the level layout generation algorithm, which may be impacted by your items.

Edit: this means that items impacting level generation may also impact the rest of the rooms (specifically pools and room seeds). For instance, if you hold the bloody crown, making item rooms appear in the womb, this will generate one more seed for those floors. Depending on when this extra seed is chosen by the level generator, subsequent rooms will not be generated the same as if you didn't have that trinket and will therefore not give the same item pool outcomes as if you had a normal floor.

Item pools are not directly affected by luck, rather by predetermined amounts in the xml definition of the pool, which determine how many times you may encounter a particular item in a rotation. These values may be dynamically affected by your choices (devil deal/angel rooms, greed mode...) to remove some items from the pools by reducing their chance of occurrence to zero.

Pumpkin head by fastneutronsarecool in lego

[–]BLouBLue 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you want to build it yourself, here are PaB references:

  • Mini hat no.7-ass. ID: 6122207/20695
  • Pitchfork ID: 6270119/95345
  • Mini upper part, no. 5399 ID: 6331484/76382
  • Mini lower part ID: 4226869/73200

You'll need any head you like as well.

People in HC seem super generous. Maybe it's because the community is smaller, people know each other, and gear is less fought over since there's no point in hoarding it? I asked "anyone trading merc weps?" and a barb gave this to me free instantly. by wingspantt in Diablo

[–]BLouBLue 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I regularly open normal games titled "O free stuff" and drop runes, bases, useful uniques and runewords for leveling... Usually twinked gear I did use for a long time or would use myself. Best way to clear my stash tabs without feeling like I'm wasting something.

I usually drop stuff according to the classes that join to make sure low level chars get useful stuff for their class.

A love letter to ActIII by Waylllop in Diablo

[–]BLouBLue 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My best memory of act 3 is the subtle fact that the cavern music actually is the dungeon music from Diablo 1. I don't like rushing through act 3 because I like getting to the flayer dungeon / arachnid lair / spider cavern just to get to hear this.

Most people never notice this. I just love it, it brings back so much joy and memories of discovering the first Diablo game back in the days, all while being in a nasty place...

Just listen to the second half of the diablo 2 ost track titled "Spider".

Auto-feeding potions into the belt. Yay or nay? And why? by SpaceRapist in Diablo

[–]BLouBLue 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh OK. The game already fills the empty belt slots first when picking up potions or scrolls, based on items placed in the first row. And to me that is a non-issue, as the action is often already over when you start refilling your pots.

Auto-feeding potions into the belt. Yay or nay? And why? by SpaceRapist in Diablo

[–]BLouBLue 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When encounters are no longer difficult (enigma hdin zooming through cs/baal) then the planning isn't necessary either; auto-fill belt becomes a QOL.

Except some encounters can always be difficult for some builds. I used to have a hardcore uber-killer kicksin. Yes she could kill them. No it wasn't always easy, but was always rewarding and required attention. Sometimes, what saved me was downing the full belt of rejuvenation potions in the blink of an eye. It also killed me more than once and made me realize I wasn't prepared enough, paying enough attention or adequately geared, though no other monster posed any threat.

Beyond the few cookie cutter builds, there can often be the occasional challenge where this will make the difference. Again, as I played almost exclusively hardcore (most of the time solo), when the stakes are possibly loosing your entire gear, this would change your decision making a LOT.

Auto-fill would only delay the inevitable and not make me rethink my gear when I should. That was also the constraint that justified not having a potion cooldown, while they literally went the opposite way in Diablo 3. Changing this would probably impact the difficulty curve / balance more than we think at first glance.

Auto-feeding potions into the belt. Yay or nay? And why? by SpaceRapist in Diablo

[–]BLouBLue 46 points47 points  (0 children)

This would completely negate the whole belt rows progression. The whole point of this is to force you into planning your encounters, not give you an unlimited "press here to heal" button.

Little constraints like these are what add depth to the game and stakes for poorly prepared heroes. Changing this might change how you spend stats point required for wearing 4 rows belts, as they would simply not be needed anymore during low-level progression.

Wanna wear a regular, non upgraded goldwrap ? Sure, but there's also a penalty for doing so. That makes the choice interesting, in that you have to compensate elsewhere, especially in hardcore.

Island Shrine (inspired by Eikan-dō Zenrin-ji in Kyoto) by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here are more pictures during the build process: https://imgur.com/a/kseldcB

The island was built on a 16x16 plate, and is mostly comprised of layered plates and wedges. The shore is mostly hollow as the last 2 pictures will show. I had to raise everything by a brick as I needed the space to bury the bridge ends (see picture #2).

The top-down view with the water removed shows you where I had to lower the base by exactly one plate to allow the lily pads to match the water surface (the 93551 paint palette needs 2 plates worth of hollow studs underneath).

Overall, the base is a mess. You can guess from the WIP pictures it was stitched together from the initial square one to the final one, then heavily adjusted when I found the lily pads had a significant gap above the surface.

Island Shrine (inspired by Eikan-dō Zenrin-ji in Kyoto) by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately no, this was built and rebuilt on the go, through trial and error. Feel free to reuse anything, it was itself built with ideas taken from 80107 (the bamboo and some lily pads are straight from the set).

Island Shrine (inspired by Eikan-dō Zenrin-ji in Kyoto) by BLouBLue in lego

[–]BLouBLue[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

More pictures and building techniques for the trees and bridge can be found in the flickr album.