My notes

Her name is Shnelly...

2009-12-17T08:34:30Z

At least to us.

She's the mother to our little Holly kitty, who we found some time last year in late November.

She showed up early this month hanging around our carport, with very similar markings to our little kitty (which is one reason we know she's the mother).

To ensure that she stays warm enough in this cold weather, we put a box with a blanket in it near where she's usually seen to help keep her warm in this weather. After a couple days of not being seen, we found her curled up fast asleep inside the box.

She really seems to like that box now, and she doesn't really move much when somebody goes past.
(which probably means she's really asleep, then)

Anyways, since we don't know if she has a name right now, we're calling her Shnelly, after Mooch's girlfriend in Mutts.
(since we can only see her ears now =^.^= )

Part of my current wishlist...

2009-12-08T10:07:41Z

This year, due to the digital copy I've started of my wish list, I've separated stuff into several categories:

Music: Anything by the following artists:

Bing Crosby
Dean Martin
Michael Kaeshammer
Roger Whittaker
Fred Astaire
Ennio Morricone
Henry Mancini
Duvall's Volume and Density

DVDs:

The Incredibles
Wall-E
Cats, the musical
Kung-Fu panda
Flushed Away
Hunt for Red October
Clue
The Shrek Trilogy
Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow
Despicable Me (I know, I know, it's not out on DVD. But I can always hope...)
Robin and the Seven Hoods

Chocolate and candy:

Kit-Kat
Coffee Crisp
Caramilk Dark (apparently, this is a Canadian chocolate that isn't really available anywhere else. It also had a long string of Canadian commercials, including one that won an award)
Dark chocolate orange (as opposed to milk, and even mint, one of my other favourite chocolate flavours)
Bridge mix (lots, I hope)

Lee Valley stuff:

Other:

Lilliput USB monitor (a 7" LCD monitor that plugs into a USB port)
Small woodworking lathe (I can always hope)
Mini doughnut maker

More stuff will be added later, when it's not 2am in the morning and I don't have a final exam breathing down my neck.
(My two finals are on the 9th and the 13th, and yes, that's a Sunday)

UPDATE:
Yay! While I was out to the chiropractor, my Dad and I stopped by a store, and found a used copy of SkyCaptain and the World of Tomorrow! One thing to strike off the list!

carlfoxmarten @ 2009-11-27T19:45:00

2009-11-28T03:45:43Z

Despite the fact that it's not thanksgiving (Canadian or American), I can still be thankful for stuff:

I'm thankful that I was only stuck in bed one day
I'm thankful that my paper route supervisor is very understanding of any problems I have (she was fine with me delivering half of Wednesday's papers on the day and half the day after when I called)
I'm thankful that I can deliver papers late with nobody on the route complaining about a missed paper
I'm thankful that the neighbourhood I deliver in is safe, even at night
I'm thankful that I can deliver papers "late" (after about 5pm in the winter) and see people's Christmas lights
I'm thankful that the weather has been favouring me these last few days. While the weather report has indicated rain, it hasn't rained at all while I've been out.

carlfoxmarten @ 2009-11-25T18:44:00

2009-11-26T02:44:26Z

While I'm feeling a little better today, I'm still a little dizzy and the lump in my throat is still hard to talk around...
(started yesterday as a sore throat, today I stayed home from class, though I should have tried delivering newspapers anyway...)

New computer...

2009-11-16T09:47:05Z

So I finally managed to get back to the store to pick up a new case for my new heap of computer parts.
I think it looks really cool. :)

It took me some time, but I did manage to put it together properly. The single most difficult problem was that the motherboard was missing an important jumper (as in, if it's not there, it won't boot up all the way, claiming a short).

I'm planning on dual-booting Windows 7 Pro and Ubuntu Linux, and so far I have Win7 installed and even have some of the software I use installed already, including Steam and Team Fortress 2 (my current favourite 3D online game).
Currently installing Ubuntu on the other side of the box.
(apparently my CDs are a whole year behind the current version, so I have to upgrade twice to get to the current version)

My renders should run much faster due to the dual-core 2.9GHz processor, so it's definitely an improvement performance-wise.

Anyways, I still need to copy a whole bunch of documents over to the new machine as well as install a bunch of software, but it's starting to feel like my computer now and I'm able to do stuff on it too, so everything's good.

My new computer and Zope...

2009-11-07T09:07:16Z

As soon as I can get back to the store and get a new case, I'll be ready to assemble my new computer.
For just $40, I can get a fairly good looking case with an included 450W power supply, which is a pretty darn good deal, even without the power supply.

I must say, however, that I'm getting rather disappointed with how long it's taken to get to this point.
It must have been two or three weeks ago that I bought the first parts, with the hard drive a week after that, so the parts have been sitting on my floor for one or two weeks, doing nothing but take up space.
(though I suppose the advantage is that I've been able to earn some more money to replace the $350 I've put into it so far...)

I probably won't have to upgrade it for another four years, at which time we should have haptic holographic screens, but until then, I still need an LCD screen to replace the CRT screen I have now.

I need a better job than the paper route, so I can actually afford all this equipment...

Zope is what I'd call a pre-built web server application with a scripting engine jammed in the side.

It's also what I'm writing an assignment in (it's a contact manager website), which means I need to understand it to be able to make it work the way I want it to.

You know how most stuff you find has this weird thing called a manual?
Well, Zope doesn't really have one. It has more than one, which is part of where the problem lies.

Several incomplete manuals, to be exact.

If you ever try to build a website, DO NOT use Zope.
Use something better, such as Django or something, just not Zope.

This lack of a coherent, detailed manual (and the complete lack of a proper reference library) means that learning Zope has a very steep learning curve.

It took a team of four people (myself included) two weeks to try to figure out how to use Zope until part of it started to make sense.
(you know how most programming languages and stuff all have the same basic concepts behind them? Zope doesn't adhere to them, claiming security reasons. I think they were lazy... Or designed by an idiot, whichever works)

Anyway, I'm plugging along fairly slowly with the site, and enjoying the parts that make sense (this course is easier than all the other courses I'm taking right now) and really getting annoyed by the parts I haven't figured out yet.
(security is one thing that's really important in this course, so it's interesting trying to design things with as few holes as possible)

The final version of the site probably won't be available to see, as it requires a copy of Zope to be running somewhere I can access it, along with a MySQL database server.
(the course server won't be available to me after the course is over, and we've added a password to keep people from adding random stuff without our permission)

The final project my team and I are doing is going to be some kind of course registration system to address some of the problems we're experiencing with the current PeopleSoft-based system.
(we've been able to talk to the person in charge of the department maintaining the system, and some things just aren't going to be fixed due to some of the code being written in COBOL...)

I should point out that the software we're working with is actually Zope2, and there is a Zope3 available.
The only problem is the documentation for Zope3 is much harder to find than for Zope2, and they've changed things around so you need a good manual to find your way...

Almost all the parts...

2009-10-27T19:18:08Z

My current desktop computer was purchased over four years ago, runs well, but a little slow.

This was brought home to me a couple of weeks ago when I was working on one of my assignments that required me to render a 300x300 pixel image with 512 samples per pixel, which took about twenty minutes each for four images.

Not much, you'll probably say, but that's not the problem.
I only had about half an hour before deadline, and didn't have time to render them all.
(also some of the software I use on a fairly regular basis runs a bit too slowly)

So, last week I started buying parts to build myself a new desktop computer.
I think I have everything but a power supply and case, which means I have the following parts:

ASUS M2N68-AM SE2 motherboard
AMD Athlon 2 X2 245 dual-core processor running at 2.9GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM (I currently have 1.5GB of memory on most of my computers)
ASUS ATI EAH4350 graphics card with 512MB onboard memory
A 1TB hard drive

I also purchased a new Logitech keyboard (their Internet 350 model). As I'm currently using a laptop as my primary computer right now (which has no PS/2 ports), I haven't been able to use any good keyboards on it (most of mine are PS/2, and the laptop's keyboard isn't really that great).
I only bought the keyboard yesterday and I'm already enjoying using it.

My dad has a spare power supply I can buy off him, and there should be a spare case hanging around here somewhere that I can use.
(while I could use the old case and power supply I have now, I'd really rather not, as I wouldn't be able to use both at the same time, which to me is rather important)

For software, I'm going to use Xubuntu again (the Xfce desktop running on Ubuntu Linux), dual-booting with XP Pro.
(since my university is on Microsoft's Developer Network, we Computing Science students get some of their software for free, including some of their OSes. Right now I have a spare XP Pro key I haven't used yet, so this is where that would go)

Happy birthday, Stephan!

2009-10-26T07:15:35Z

Happy birthday, scottrell001!

This, that, and some other things...

2009-10-26T07:11:52Z

Recently I purchased a digital camera so I could take pictures wherever I am and get them onto my computer at a moments notice.
It's a Polaroid t737 with 7 megapixels and 3x analogue zoom.
(the most important features, you know)

Quality seems pretty good (though it's refurbished model, and is missing one screw from the side of the case), and the pictures are pretty sharp if you scale them down by about half.

I've taken a few pictures with it so far, so here are some flowers I found at my aunt's house:

A bee on some flowers:

Flowers:

I'll need to get a harder case for the camera than I have right now, as something seems to be rapidly pressing the power button, which seems to cause the lens cover to open and the lens to extend a bit.

I've been thinking about my Ani-Midi project again, and I've come to the conclusion that I need to rewrite it in C++ for performance reasons (Java just isn't fast enough).
Also, it needs to be a complete rewrite instead of just a port from Java to C++, as I hadn't focussed on the most important part of the software first (importing music).

Currently, I'm assuming I'll support the MIDI file format, as that's what I knew about first, but apparently that's not the only note-based music format.
According to Wikipedia, there are quite a number of note-based music formats, some of which are derivatives of the original Standard MIDI Format.
As I'll have my own internal music format, I'll just need to write import routines (and see if I can make a plugin system) so supporting a new format should be simpler.

I haven't quite decided how the instrument assemblies should be defined, as how I define it will determine if I can build the files by hand or have to write a script or program for it.
(I may just use an XML file and a bunch of Wavefront Object files, all zipped up to keep things small)

On the whole, the features I'm hoping to support will be something like this:

Support for MIDI music files (the more important format, but will probably include more formats later)
After reading the music file, it will offer the user options for where to put each instrument, and how each instrument is arranged.
The software will analyse how the instruments are played to figure out which instruments are played together to get an idea of sane defaults for where each instrument should go (instruments played together should be closer to each other)
The above-mentioned information will also be used to create some paths for the camera to follow during playback.
Scenery and props to make sure it doesn't look like a bunch of floating, moving stuff (appropriately positioned, of course)
Export of the settings used to create a video to some popular format so you can render it in an external rendering program for high-quality movies

I'm sure I have more features to list around here somewhere, but I've stopped loading Tomboy Notes on startup due to its insistence for showing its main window right after launch...

The hazards of raytracing...

2009-10-18T04:57:32Z

One of the courses I'm taking is called Image Synthesis, basically the creation of photo-realistic rendered images on a computer.

Most versions of this course require the students to write their own raytracer from scratch (or near scratch), but since you have to write everything (including the basic framework), you don't have time to fix any major mistakes you make.

Instead, I'm adding code to an existing raytracer called PBRT, which stands for Physically-Based Rendering Toolkit, to understand how major aspects of raytracing works, such as depth-of-field (as simulated by actual lens systems), space partitioning (for major speed boosts), and what are called "Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions" which dictate how a surface looks (and are usually based on how the physics works).

My current assignment is writing a new camera system for PBRT that simulates an actual lens system (not just one lens for simple depth-of-field, but multiple lenses for many different effects, from telephoto to fisheye lenses).

It took me the first week to understand just what I'm supposed to modify, the second week to figure out how to modify it, and this week to figure out just what I'm doing wrong.

I'm quite certain that my code to bend the light rays through the lenses is correct, as all light rays seem to be passing through all the lenses, but for some strange reason the weighting of the light rays seems to be way off, as the resulting image is always pure black.

Very confusing. >.<

Matthias Wandel, fun with wood

2009-10-04T08:56:50Z

Okay, somehow this came up in the related list of a domino video on YouTube, and it was so cool I just had to share it:

Somebody made a wooden marble contraption with an innovative "pump", in essence a block of wood with a "plug" that slides up and down as the block slides back and forth, effectively grabbing a marble and pushing it up into a stack of marbles.

Wooden marble contraption 1: YouTube, official page
Wooden marble contraption 2: YouTube, official page

The stuff he's done is pretty cool, and includes a Jenga gun: YouTube, official page
(you can find an earlier version on his original website through the links above)

One of his new websites (woodgears.ca) has a bunch of wooden devices, projects, etc., and he's even built his own wooden organ!

You can find his YouTube channel here, and his personal website here.

Cool stuff!

Wanted...

2009-10-03T06:13:14Z

I've probably posted about this a while ago, but I'm a fan of the Myst series of games and have almost the whole set, including the original Myst, the first sequel Riven, Myst III: Exile, Myst V: End of Ages, Uru: The Complete Chronicles.

Yes, you read that right, I don't have Myst IV: Revelation. And I think I'm missing it.

Not just to complete the collection, but to find out what happens in that part of the storyline.
I know what comes before and after (and something of what happens during, due to playing Uru), but during has me kind of puzzled.

I've spent the last week or so tracking down places that might have it (though I'm sure I'm missing a great deal of the proper places to look), including:

London Drugs
Staples (why not?)
EB Games (four stores)
GameStop
Zellers

Apparently, EB Games no longer buys and sells used games due to the advent of product activation codes (which prevent any secondary owners from using the game), so none of the four or so locations I've tried actually has it.
(interesting aside, one person I talked to said that if they did, it would probably cost one cent. Pretty good for a five year old game, I think)

Anybody have any suggestions for finding a legal copy?

Windows 7, I haz it

2009-09-28T06:11:57Z

I've heard many conflicting reports of Windows 7, so I thought I'd try it.
(as a Computing Science student at a university that is a part of the Microsoft Developers Network, I get some MS software for free, Win7 included)

Installation was a little odd at the beginning, but it made more sense later (to actually get to the installer, you have to press a key to indicate you want to install, which I wasn't expecting, otherwise it'd take you to your normal OS).

Out of the digital box, it had no drivers for my network card or sound card, so I had no sound or internet access.
This was fairly easily fixed by grabbing the drivers and running the installer, pointing it at the location they were extracted to, then updating all devices that didn't get installed properly.

By default, Win7 comes with I.E. 8, which I could only stand long enough to download a copy of Google Chrome (my current preference for web browsing).
(I avoid using I.E. at all, primarily due to the security, but also due to how ugly it looks)

The desktop looks pretty clean, but things have been made... larger... than previous versions, which also means more wasted space.
(I prefer things snugly nestled together with only a little space between them. I use Xfce as my desktop of choice)

I've installed AVG 8.5 so I'm protected against viruses and such, and I'm looking at what will run on this version of Windows, primarily games.
(MechWarrior 3 doesn't work, though I'm not surprised, as it didn't work under XP, and probably due to the age of the system, Luxor 2 doesn't run very smoothly. More application reports as I try them)

Right now, though, it's off to bed for me, as I'm currently getting on top of a cold that hit me on Friday.
(and I have class in the morning, too)

Project titles just keep popping up...

2009-09-24T07:50:29Z

Titles for projects of many types just keep popping to mind, and more are popping to in the last couple of weeks than I ever remember before.

Which is probably a good thing, though I really should be writing more of them down.

Here's a short list of titles (the ones I can remember right now) and what I think they might be about:

"The Last Kazoo", as a:
- Short film: Either a large battle between a group of people who want the last known kazoo destroyed and another group of people who want it preserved, or a small
- Game: very cartoony game about two or more teams of players working against each other trying to gain control of the commemorative Last Kazoo statue. Probably mostly city park-themed, with various weapons like bats, sticks, and the like.
"Star Well" (3D scene):
An old, crumbling well that has nothing at its bottom but endless space. I've started this one already, since the idea is still fresh in my mind's eye.
(I got the idea from a sign saying "Stairwell", but had lost the 'i' leaving "Starwell")

Requisite work-in-progress shot:

(any constructive criticisms on it are appreciated)

It's rather unusual, but I suppose as I let them happen, I'll eventually get a large file of ideas for later use, which would probably mean I'd be rather valuable to some company when I finally graduate.
(unfortunately, I don't think most companies I'd go into would quite appreciate this)

Technology, I haz it

2009-09-23T08:22:24Z

One of my classmates noticed that usually carry a bunch of tech toys/tools around with me, so I had a look myself and found out that I really do carry a bunch of gadgets around with me.

On an average day, I usually carry the following stuff around with me to class:

Cellphone
Watch (rather useful with the separate count-down/count-up timers and five alarms)
Laptop (either the huge Toshiba or the tiny EEEpc. Unfortunately there's no middle ground)
Digital camera (a recent purchase. I should start posting pictures sometime)
IBM WorkPad (basically a Palm III on IBM's hardware. Mostly used for games and sometimes for random notes)
Small number of laptop accesories, including a mouse, a USB hub, and the laptop's power adapter.
Two USB thumb-drives and a couple of SD cards for shuttling data around without a network.

An interesting list.
I suppose I do carry a bunch of gadgets around with me...
(I've also recently purchased a used Palm M500, but the battery doesn't seem to be holding a charge yet, and the memory keeps getting wiped out with each loss of power. In addition, there's a funny noise coming from the unit while on the charging stand, so something might be wrong with it)

Apparently, I don't always know when to say "No"...

2009-09-19T08:34:12Z

I should start by telling you about my Wednesdays.
(remember, these are my normal Wednesdays, and will remain like this until the end of the semester)

Starting at 10:30am, I have two 1-hour classes with a 1-hour break in between, followed by four hours to do the following:
A) Get home (about an hour and fifteen minutes)
B) Deliver my paper route (another hour and a half, more if it's raining)
C) Eat a very quick and late lunch
D) Get back to class (another hour or so, depending on the transit connections)
Follow that by a three-hour lecture on web-based information systems.
(so far we're just into designing static pages, though soon we'll get to learn about server-side scripting. Not much more for me to learn, though, as I already use PHP for some of my oft-used pages)

This means that I'm going to class, being kind of relaxed for about three hours, followed by four hours of rushing around on legs that are complaining about all the walking I did to get to and around campus, then followed by another three hours of sitting doing very little, and finally getting home around 10pm to eat dinner, do dishes, and go to bed.

This makes for unhappy feet...

And yesterday I got a call from my zone supervisor at the paper asking if I could substitute for another carrier on one of the larger routes in my area.
(granted, it was actually the one my brother and I started on, but now it's just me doing the route(s) as he's started doing temp work at a warehouse, which also means I have no backup in case I somehow can't do them in time or at all)

This makes for very late delivery on one route (in addition to needing three or four extra papers that I didn't have, as well as having to deliver Nature Valley samples that I didn't even bother trying to deliver on Wednesday).
I'm just glad I got in well before it started raining and that I have safety lights so I can see and be seen at night.
(unfortunately, some of the smaller streets on my route do not have street-lights on them, so I was more reliant upon those houses that had the motion-detecting lights to see. Apparently, I also need to change the batteries in my flashlight...)

Incidentally, I've also signed up for the local ACM qualifiers to get on one of my university's ACM ICPC teams, which (if I get picked) will probably take up my Saturdays as well...

How on earth can one tell when too much becomes (or would become if "Yes" were said) too much?

More about my courseload

2009-09-14T00:43:03Z

A "quick" update of the courses I'm currently taking:

Computational Vision:
Primarily learning about how to programmatically extract desired or useful information from pictures or videos.
Apparently I'll be using Matlab (or, hopefully, the open-source equivalent called Octave) to process images (I'm not sure we'll get to movies in this course).
Mostly, this will be applying some kind of Computational Intelligence algorithm to a 2D or 3D array (the third dimension represents colour) to identify the interesting information.

Machine Learning:
Primarily learning about algorithms that learn over time (both supervised and unsupervised, but mostly supervised), which mostly boils down to taking sample data and programmatically deriving a function that kind of fits the sample data (and hopefully real-world data too).
Again, I'll be using Matlab or the open-source Octave to write my assignments in.

Image Synthesis:
Computer-generated imagery, mostly about ray-tracers, radiosity engines, and if there's time, some information about non-photo-realism.
I'll be using C++ to extend a basic framework called PBRT (Physically-Based Rendering Toolkit) from the book "Physically-Based Rendering, from theory to implementation" by Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys.
(this is because most graphics students end up writing a ray-tracer and get bogged down in the basics of the framework, and if they make a mistake, there's no time to rewrite it. This framework doesn't just use Red-Green-Blue light transfer, but a full spectrum representation to support light temperature and effects such as prisms and CDs)

Web-based Information Systems:
Mostly working in a team to create a sample interactive website that stores and retrieves information in a database.
Exact subject of the site is up to teams, so we'll see what my team chooses to do.
(this should be the simplest of the four courses I'm taking. We'll see...)

Movies and video clips

2009-09-06T06:01:21Z

You guys might find it revealing if I list a bunch of movies I'd like to own:

The Incredibles
Wall-E
Kung-Fu Panda
Cats the musical (the Commemorative Edition would be fine)
Anything by Wayne and Schuster
Flushed Away (mostly for the singing slugs)
Monsters vs Aliens (I haven't seen it yet, though I'm interested)

There's more, but I don't remember much else right now.

Speaking of movies, I found this piece of artwork by Jolly Jack (of Collected Curios fame):

Easily Amused

It had several links to YouTube videos in which video clips from BBC's Natural History unit were transformed into incredibly hilarious clips:
Night-time/day-time
Ant alarm
Walk on the wild-side Alan
Funny Talking Animals
(the last one listed by JJ is country-locked so I can't see it, but I'm sure it's funny)

More Tetris

2009-08-28T04:14:58Z

I thought I'd post some of what's on my current TODO list for the tetris project:

Add a background:
Should include a sky and some ground, but levels can be indicated by the following:
- Trees
- Bushes
- Flowers
- Hills
- Clouds
- Cliffs (towards later levels)
- Waterfalls (usually off the sides of cliffs. May have some trouble animating them)
Add an Options screen:
I'm not yet sure what to put here, but something about background music, enabling sound effects, graphics detail, etc. would be a good idea.
Add sound effects:
A light thud for blocks landing gently, a slightly heavier thunk for blocks dropped from a higher height, some kind of explosion for when a row gets removed (or maybe a cool disappear sound, I'm not sure), etc.
Add background music:
A friend has offered to make me a Techno remix of the original Tetris background music, but you can be sure that if I include that, I'll provide an alternative option as well as the choice of turning it off...
Add an in-game menu:
To pause the game and let the user change settings without having to restart their game.
Add levels of difficulty:
Because one level isn't challenging enough.
Add a highscore list:
To record how well you've done. I'll probably use SQLite to keep things relatively simple.
Tweak or rewrite the font engine:
To add multiple brightness levels. Right now, fonts don't look that great and could use some extra zing.
Write a shaders module:
To allow me to use shaders on a variety of platforms and even on some lower-end systems, including low-end Intel graphics cards.

Current status is that things look and play fairly well, but certain aspects could be greatly improved, such as block textures (I'd like to use a bump map, but that requires I use a shader so far as I know, thus the need for a shaders module).
I also seem to have lost some of my enthusiasm for work on this project, partly due to finally fixing textures (now I don't have a big challenge staring me in the face, just a bunch of smaller ones).

I want something big and difficult! Not small and difficult!
(sounds weird, I know)

Finally!

2009-08-24T02:05:23Z

Textures work now! Woohoo!

Man, I really do prefer Java to C++, but since I've been using C++ more recently, I'm having to relearn things I took for granted with Java.

For instance, in Java, everything is not referenced directly, so when you create an object, you pass around a pointer to the object instead of passing around the object itself. However, in C++, you pass around copies of the object itself instead of pointers (unless you choose to work with the pointers, that is).

I'd created a class to help with textures by providing a simple interface for applying and disabling textures.
One of its features was a "destructor" that would tell OpenGL to drop the enclosed texture when any copy of the object was destroyed. Simply passing the texture to a sub-function or method would make a second copy that would destroy the texture when that method was finished...

Fortunately, if I don't delete the textures myself, it seems to delete them when my program is finished anyway, so removing the delete code has fixed the most elusive problem.

Now that textures are working, I can use them now to full potential, and my rounded-border stuff is working okay.
(it doesn't quite look right yet)

carlfoxmarten @ 2009-08-21T18:35:00

2009-08-22T06:51:40Z

From the "Why aren't they doing that?" file:

Personal Radio Recorder:
Most of us are familiar with Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) that let you pause, rewind and record live TV, but doing the same thing for radio would be a Very Good Idea™! It would also be fairly easy, and wouldn't require much of an interface.
(you might get away with a programmable MP3 player with a radio built-in. And no, I don't think an iPod would suffice...)

In other news, I haven't done much in the progress of Tetris-Power, I've still been thinking about it.

In regards to indicating levels, I've been thinking about a cartoony landscape that rotates sideways to hide the old level scene and show a new one.
(imagine that the background is a very large disk who's center point is a bit below the screen)

I'm not sure I want to change how the blocks look yet, but I should probably do something about realism with some kind of shadows...
The simple kind of shadows are when you draw everything twice, the first time you draw surfaces, while the second time you change how drawn objects are transformed so they fall flat onto a plane, which requires that you know where your lights and your plane are and where they're pointed. The disadvantage of this technique is that it works fairly well for projecting shadows onto a flat surface only, and to shadow other surfaces requires rendering everything once for every plane or polygon you want shadows on!
The other kind of shadows also require drawing things twice, but the first time is for shadows (looking from the position of the light, so it works best for sun and spot lights) and the data from that is used to render the actual surfaces. Which would actually require me to figure out how to do that...

I'm currently figuring out exactly how to draw nicely curved objects with OpenGL, and so far I think that a semi-circle texture is the simplest way to go. So far with a test program, this has proven very satisfactory, though I'll need to fine-tune a few things on it...

This, however, brings me right back to the problem of textures not actually showing up in the project... D:
I may have to cut the project apart and sew it back together again, adding pieces until textures no longer appear, assuming they show up again in the first place...

Not fun.

I've cut out the loading system to see if it's causing some problems (so far nothing), so I'll look for other stuff that doesn't make sense (which could be a lot of stuff).

Anybody know OpenGL or know somebody who knows OpenGL that would like to contribute to an open-source project and likes debugging? Anybody? Anyone at all?

Code name: Obsidian

2009-08-17T06:55:06Z

Some of you may be wondering exactly what I was talking about last time when I mentioned a game I've been working on for a long time.

Well, like Gil Williamson, I too have a game inside me, and I've had ideas for it for quite some time now.
(which probably started after I played Riven)

Anyway, I've been writing notes about the game and I noticed one rather perturbing thought: All I've been thinking about is the general design of the islands and absolutely nothing about those who inhabited them.
This isn't good. This may mean that I'll need to do some, *gasp*, Creative Writing!™

Seriously, it shouldn't be all that bad, but I've never been on good terms with creative writing.
(once I was supposed to write a tall tail, but it turned into a short story about a detective. I haven't really trusted myself to write anything really creative since then)

I suppose I should start by figuring out what kind of people would live on a group of islands. Draw a basic map of the islands, then write a story about how and why the people got there, what they did while they were there, and how and why they left.

Anyway, I have the basic structure of the game down, what kinds of technology to allow, what kinds of environments would be appropriate, stuff like that.

Another part I'm a little stuck on is transportation, or more to the point, teleportation.
All good games have some kind of long-distance teleportation. The Myst series had Linking Books and Gil is planning on using a kind of Chinese fan.

Here are some ideas for teleportation or fast transit:

Hula hoops that act like portals? (or maybe slim hoops that act like the teleporter in the movie Stargate?)
Huge rock portals? (that one's been used before, in Star Wars: Of Gods and Men)
Large catapults? (these must be aimed, though, and this is a rather low-tech option)
Magnetic-Levitation train? (I have a rather different concept than found in most other places, but haven't got very far in its design yet)
Linking Slates? (Although Myst V: End of Ages did use a slate, it wasn't for teleportation so much as for communication)

Anybody have any other, possibly wild, ideas?

Sample maze game

2009-08-15T01:20:31Z

After seeing the Amazon Systems blog yesterday, I decided to try my hand at creating a small maze game, using HTML and JavaScript to navigate.
(I chose this because all the "hot spots" would be exactly the same for each position)

Blender made creating the initial maze very easy (modelling it, at least. Textures were a little trickier), though I had to position the camera manually for each shot.

I gave each position a two-digit number, with each digit ranging from zero to four (a five-by-five maze, so twenty-five positions) and another digit indicating the direction the camera was facing (four directions each, making two hundred images total).
This format made figuring out navigation extremely simple, save for walking between positions, which I wrote out by hand...

The final touch was adding text to the ending position's images to indicate when you finished the game.
(have a look around when you're done to see what I mean)

Anyway, here's a portal to the game:
(links will open in a new window or tab)

Restart

I'm planning on using a more advanced version of this system for a game I have in the back of my mind.
We'll see how it goes...

Of games and such

2009-08-13T23:50:22Z

Today I decided to browse POV-Ray's website, and found an interesting news article:

Gil writes to tell us of his quest to develop a Myst-like Java game with graphics made using POV-Ray. Those interested in helping should visit the Amazon Systems blog.

(those of you who regularly use POV-Ray may have seen this before, but I bet you haven't read his blog yet)

Apparently, he's been programming since 1964 (about 45 years or so), and he has ideas about a Chinese Myst-like game.

From here, it looks very interesting, and his ideas about the environment and storyline can be found here.

The really interesting part is what he thinks the goal of his game should not be:
a) Lord of Evil - destroy him... NO! b) Imprisoned Princess - free her... NO! NO! c) Save the Planet... NO! NO! NO! d) Find the Ultimate Treasure... NOT AGAIN!

Very cliche stuff, and a good idea to avoid them, but that also means that you have to work harder to find a good, meaningful goal for the player to work towards. This usually requires knowing what your world is like before writing your goal so it doesn't look contrived.

However, another thing to consider when writing a game is there are always two stories: One is the story of how the world the player is exploring got to be the way it was, and the other is how the player finds it. Both are important to ensure that things have a good reason for being the way they are.

I suppose with my background in Java I should send along a few tips about working in Java...