Orange Box Countdown

[Dragoon] · Oct 5, 2007

Since the image thread was locked, and subsequently pushed down, I figured I'd repost this.

mindless_moder · Oct 5, 2007

neat , i was actually searching for that.
off-topic: which host did you finally settle on ?

Baal · Oct 5, 2007

Well now how does that work...

Very neat

The Monkey · Oct 5, 2007

4 days???

I thought it wasn't released for another two months.

[Dragoon] · Oct 5, 2007

mindless_moder said:
neat , i was actually searching for that.
off-topic: which host did you finally settle on ?

http://www.bigbluehost.com/

Seems to be working well so far, though I haven't done much with it yet. That countdown image has probably gotten more traffic than anything else I've hosted so far.

soulslicer · Oct 5, 2007

The Monkey said:
4 days???

I thought it wasn't released for another two months.

sorry?

The Monkey · Oct 5, 2007

soulslicer said:
sorry?

I said that I thought it was released in two months.

DreamThrall · Oct 5, 2007

wouldn't it be better to write a little javascript bit so it would be updating in real time rather than having to refresh? I did that for the HL2 release, but I'm too lazy to do it now.

Bad^Hat · Oct 5, 2007

The Monkey said:
I said that I thought it was released in two months.

What's the rent like under that rock of yours?

phantomdesign · Oct 5, 2007

Crysis doesn't come out till Nov 16th, maybe that's what he's thinking about.

Dalamari · Oct 5, 2007

Orange Box was planned for Christmas when they delayed it, I think that's what he's on about

Dynasty · Oct 5, 2007

Not until the 19th here in the uk i think? Such bollocks, Steam ftw then.

Tyguy · Oct 5, 2007

yay, i finaly gets to see whuts gordon freemans has been doin! Alyx is such a cool carickter and dog is SO cool!!!111

I cant wate to play epesode 2 and own peoples online!!!lol ROFL!!!!!

i came

Krynn72 · Oct 5, 2007

Tyguy said:
yay, i finaly gets to see whuts gordon freemans has been doin! Alyx is such a cool carickter and dog is SO cool!!!111

I cant wate to play epesode 2 and own peoples online!!!lol ROFL!!!!!

i came

You...

Wha...

I...

...

SHUT THE F*CK UP

[Dragoon] · Oct 5, 2007

DreamThrall said:
wouldn't it be better to write a little javascript bit so it would be updating in real time rather than having to refresh? I did that for the HL2 release, but I'm too lazy to do it now.

Yeah, but I did this mainly to learn more about PHP image manipulation.

Unfocused · Oct 5, 2007

The Monkey said:
I said that I thought it was released in two months.

...

Surprise!

mindless_moder · Oct 5, 2007

DreamThrall said:
wouldn't it be better to write a little javascript bit so it would be updating in real time rather than having to refresh? I did that for the HL2 release, but I'm too lazy to do it now.

wouldnt that put a lot of load on the server?. i need to learn a bit about optimizing refresh calls , my ajax chat becomes almost unusable after a few messages.

CyberPitz · Oct 5, 2007

Unfocused said:
...

Surprise!

Those are always the most pleasant surprises.

Unfocused · Oct 5, 2007

CyberPitz said:
Those are always the most pleasant surprises.

Better than waking up all "aww shit gotta get up for classes/lectures/work/whatever" and realising it's a work-free day. :cheers:

[Dragoon] · Oct 6, 2007

mindless_moder said:
wouldnt that put a lot of load on the server?. i need to learn a bit about optimizing refresh calls , my ajax chat becomes almost unusable after a few messages.

Not sure what you mean, but with javascript the countdown code would be run client-side, not server-side. The only bandwidth used would be the initial page download.

The Monkey · Oct 6, 2007

Bad^Hat said:
What's the rent like under that rock of yours?

It's expensive as hell, and the view ain't worth nothing either. Maybe you could recommend another rock?

phantomdesign said:
Crysis doesn't come out till Nov 16th, maybe that's what he's thinking about.

Nah, it's just that I haven't really follows the process of Orange Box's release, so I had no date in mind. I had a sensation in the back of my head that it was gonna be relased in December. Suprise indeed.

soulslicer · Oct 6, 2007

zomg, monkey my god..i thought you were joking..

i guess you really live under a rock don't you..

[Dragoon] · Oct 6, 2007

In case anyone's interested in the code (I think someone mentioned it in the image dump):

PHP:

header("Content-type: image/png");

include("include.php");
$time3 = countdown(5, 2007, 10, 10);

$base = imagecreatefrompng("original.png");
$color = imagecolorallocate($base, 0, 0, 0);
Imagettftext($base, 20,0,20,510,$color,'treb.ttf',$time3);
imagepng($base);
imagedestroy($base);

The file that's included is a countdown script I found online, so I won't bother posting it. The function used in the next line, countdown(), is in that file.

Operational · Oct 6, 2007

Nice pic, I'll be visiting it every now and then until the release. I like how I don't have to take time zones into account like the SWF one somebody posted.

PvtRyan · Oct 6, 2007

One question: how come browsers don't cache pictures like this? When you reload, the new countdown is displayed while you would think a browser would store the picture and just load the old one when you refresh it.

[Dragoon] · Oct 7, 2007

PvtRyan said:
One question: how come browsers don't cache pictures like this? When you reload, the new countdown is displayed while you would think a browser would store the picture and just load the old one when you refresh it.

Not sure. I don't know much about browser caching, I usually keep it turned off if the browser allows me to.

DreamThrall · Oct 7, 2007

There are headers that are sent with HTTP requests that can control whether or not the browser uses a cached version or retrieves a new one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_cache

mindless_moder · Oct 7, 2007

[Dragoon] said:
Not sure what you mean, but with javascript the countdown code would be run client-side, not server-side. The only bandwidth used would be the initial page download.

i thought he meant code that would update the image not a javascript clock..

DreamThrall · Oct 7, 2007

mindless_moder said:
wouldnt that put a lot of load on the server?. i need to learn a bit about optimizing refresh calls , my ajax chat becomes almost unusable after a few messages.

[Dragoon] said:
Not sure what you mean, but with javascript the countdown code would be run client-side, not server-side. The only bandwidth used would be the initial page download.

mindless_moder said:
i thought he meant code that would update the image not a javascript clock..

Yeah I meant you'd use CSS to superimpose an HTML clock over the image, and then use javascript to update it. I suppose if you wanted it to look nicer, you could even have images for the numbers (like one png for 0-9) and have the javascript change THOSE images - which would still be really fast once each of them were loaded once.

[Dragoon] · Oct 7, 2007

DreamThrall said:
Yeah I meant you'd use CSS to superimpose an HTML clock over the image, and then use javascript to update it. I suppose if you wanted it to look nicer, you could even have images for the numbers (like one png for 0-9) and have the javascript change THOSE images - which would still be really fast once each of them were loaded once.

That would be possible, but not as a stand-alone image (like this one) that could be added to forum posts, blogs, whatever. There's no way to make the image reload itself, as far as I know, without extra code (which wouldn't be possible on a forum, at least).

The only way to update the countdown is to reload the image.

[Dragoon] · Oct 7, 2007

Updated it. Text is now more accurately centered, and bold.

Orange Box Countdown

Vortigaunt

Tank

Tank

The Freeman

Vortigaunt

Tank

The Freeman

Newbie

The Freeman

Tank

Tank

Space Core

Space Core

The Freeman

Vortigaunt

Companion Cube

Tank

Party Escort Bot

Companion Cube

Vortigaunt

The Freeman

Tank

Vortigaunt

Newbie

Party Escort Bot

Vortigaunt

Newbie

Tank

Newbie

Vortigaunt

Vortigaunt

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