Watch out for articles, pictures and videos!  BAKBAKAN NA MGA KAPATID!

Image Metrics, the people who made the animations in Grand Theft Auto IV, have released the fruits of this endeavor of theirs to reproduce human facial actions down to the most minute detail. The results are absolutely amazing. See for yourselves.

The genius behind this masterpiece is the capturing of a person’s face down to the smallest muscle. This is then rendered and recreated using today’s most advanced graphic renderers (cards like Nvidia GTX 260/280 and ATI’s Radeon 4870×2 I’d bet).

The old way of capturing the subtleties of the human face is to put dots on it and observe how the dots move. Image Metric’s way is to observe the human face right down to the smallest pixel. From eyes to eye brows to the tips of the lips.

Mike Starkenburg, the head of the team in Image Metrics states that 90% of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real.

I must admit this is a little too freaky for me. But I am however excited when games with graphics like these come out in the near future. Hell yeah!

Virtual Rally found at http://www.virutalrally.net is lead by Senator Mar Roxas alongside the launch of his blog http://www.marroxasblog.com. The objective is to draw filipinos to sign-up and join a virtual rally to more effectively air our sentiments on the issues affecting our daily lives.

The rally is focusing on fuel price. Senator Mar Roxas is inviting Filipinos to join the protest against high prices of oil products and to support the removal of 12% VAT on oil so to significantly reduce gasoline prices. Here’s the message posted on the site.

About the Protest

The 12% VAT on oil was imposed in 2005 when the world price of oil was only $30 per barrel and public deficit was at an all-time high. Today, the situation has revered itself. The price of oil has exceeded $100 a barrel and is still rising while our budget deficit has been tamed. In 2005, at the time government sought a higher VAT, the intention was clear: to put our fiscal house in order. Today, at a time when people’s incomes remain largely stagnant against soaring prices of food and oil, it is government’s turn to make the supreme sacrifice of leaving money in our people’s pockets. Stop collecting the oil VAT. This will immediately result in savings of P6 per liter of gas and P66 per LPG tank. Such savings will be felt more by the poor than the rich. These savings will also benefit the government since whatever we buy with it would be VAT-able anyway.

Senate bill 1962 filed by Senator Mar Roxas in 2007 proposes a 6-months suspension of the 12% VAT on oil. This bill has been heard in the Senate but has not move at all in the Lower House. The administration which controls the majority bloc in the House has become an immovable force on this issue. The only thing that could break the impasse is for our people’s voices to be heard, loud and clear. Suspend the VAT on Oil!

Oil, as of this writing, is now around $120.00 on the world market. Minor and major oil players here in the Philippines are already lowering their oil prices but has not made any significant price drops. What’s holding them back? They say it’s because of the under recoveries they still need to regain.

Nevertheless oil prices are slowly going down and hopefully when Diablo III is released, we will have saved enough to buy the game.

This post is not entirely game related but still might affect gamers travelling using their cars or motorbikes from home to gaming cafe to play games with friends. Kulang na nga pera pang-arkila eh babawasan pa ng malaking gastusin sa gasolina. So if you’rr interested then click on this link and you will be directed to the virtual rally site

The gaming industry’s market nowadays is expanding dramatically, just look back to the time when we were still using our crusty old family computer consoles (Nintendo Famicom)  and even the so-called brick games. In the present times, the gaming has evolved much from its humble roots, proudly boasting various technologies and features so as to cater to the typical gamer’s fantasy of having a worthwhile and excellent playing experience he/she will hardly forget.

The RagnaBarkadahan! (RBK) Staff believes that games are not only pieces of technology or merely a genre, but rather a more convenient and friendlier means of connecting various players within a single common ground - the gaming world. We also believe that there is more to simply being hooked on a single online game, the same game that bound us for years now. The same game that made us meet acquaintances and also provided us with a sense of camaraderie. And with this in mind, we think that it is now time for us to expand and reach out to other aspects of gaming - other online MMORPGs, latest games, game consoles, gamer reviews, new features, new game markets, new strategies, game walkthroughs and most especially - new gamers. Overall, a new and more exciting area of discussions for the gamer’s mindset!

The new community project of RBK, Pinoy Gaming Network Forums (http://forums.pinoygaming.net) will now focus primarily on mainstream gaming and real-life discussions aside from Ragnarok matters. In lieu of this, the new forums will have improved content format to better suit the Pinoy gamers’ needs and new features that you peeps definitely have to watch out for!

Worrying about another registration hassle? There is no need to re-register! Simply log in with your current RBK Forums’ usernames and passwords and you’re done!

RagnaBarkadahan! Forums will still be there to accommodate your RO queries and discussions though.

The migration will take effect full blast this coming 1st or 2nd week of August. The forum is currently in its BETA phase and some reconstruction and modifications are being done.

For any comments and suggestions, please feel free to post them here. Come join us in a new, exciting page of gaming!

About Pinoy Gaming Network

Pinoy Gaming Network aims to foster and develop a community of Pinoy gamers for all gaming platforms. The content of this website focuses on the Pinoy point of view on games.  Articles are written in Taglish to further inject the Pinoy perspective and character.

For the new Pinoy Gaming Network
RagnaBarkadahan! Administrative Team