http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/index.xhtml?c=14&p=1 Copyright mindalex 2012-2015 Coding http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=88 I decided to take a break from game programming. Will probably come back to Pong Revival later on, but user interfaces and building uppon the animation engine are actually less of a challenge now that all the other pieces are in place. The time had come for me to come... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=87 In the last article I was talking about the reasonably complex 2D collision system I had in place for the Pong Revival project. In this second article we're going to think of nice extensible ways of putting that system to good use, by adding a bit of physics in the... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=86 I decided to put a lot of time in the Collision Detection and Physics system, mostly because I yet again felt like being weirdly cautios and complex about the whole thing. So these two posts (one with collision and one with physics) will go through my small journey in the... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=85 With my Hardcore Programming needs fulfilled for a short while, I decided to come back to PongRevival. The board layout is very close to perfection. The only thing that bothers are the small details that can turn the game into an unfair, unplayable game. The way it was left, there was... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=81 While most game elements are well in place, and the infrastructure code is done, there was one major issue that needed to be tackled, namely asset scaling. A game where you have 4 player positions and two of the players just watch is not much of a game after all. With... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=80 With considerable progress being made on the Pong Revival XNA Game Engine wrapper, it was time for some more fine-grained blender and 2D twaking. That being said I decided to take some time and make a really nice glass container for the Pad Loading mechanism. The design and purpose of the... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=79 With the asset pipeline in place, time had come for some real actual game programming. And as it goes with all programming starts, the first step is always the most code intensive. Shaping up XNA for Pong Microsoft's XNA Framework is a very general use Programming Framework. That carries with it a... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=78 With our modeling and materials in order it's time to get everything preped for XNA magic. And while that sounds like an easy task, lots of thinking and preparation goes into getting all the artwork from 3d to 2d exports to workable in game sprites. Some Initial Thoughts Most of our game... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=68 The first month of Mind Alex and Mind Alex Remote has brought some nice articles as well as some nice improvements. As promissed in one of my earliest posts, I really wanted to take some time to go through one of the nicest design aspects of MindAlex and that is... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=66 Well I am glad I was telling you how my blog was getting more media show friendly. Well it did for a very short time by using the number one Javascript Pop Up, TopUp. The library didn't really agree with my development style at all, nevermind it not really working well... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=65 I anounced this with my last post, and I don't like to keep people waiting too much, so seadle up for what is going to be most likely the longest article I wrote so far on this blog, while also hopefully being the most interesting. If you're not yet sure if... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=55 It's been a while since my last game deving post and that's not because of the summer warmth at all. Hobby coding took a full new direction after the realisations shared in the last post. The need for a propper game scene editor had just become real, but in order... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=52 While playing around with shaders and meshes, and trying to get an interesting touch on shader based game development I have stumbled on a very nice shader effect. It all started when I tried to get more detail out of meshes by simply doing texture based shader extrusion. Since hlsl... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=51 After the post of yesterday I just couldn't sit still and I just had to get into the material scripts. This is where the not being in touch with all the 3d math has proven to be quite the set back and also where I temporarely felt defeated by my... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=49 After the addition of Chaos Tabs to the Ogre/CEGUI/Lua setup from my previous posts, I actually took a bit of time to consider the next step. Though keeping the possibilities for the first game based on the engine still wide open, and subject to my parallel discoveries in Drawing and... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=46 I've been cooking this idea for quite a while now and you will not find it at all inconsistent with my game prototyping ideas I've posted so far. So let's get back to where we had a prety good extensible engine base made out of Ogre and CEGUI together full... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=43 I actually anounced this as an interesting potential discussion topic when I was talking about my game engine base. Once you get a scripting language integrated, the first instinct is to script everything in there, because integrating scripting language support in c++ or I am betting any other programming language... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=42 This is a bit of a follow up on a couple of my earlier posts, and it will basically go through the process of setting up a nice Game Engine base with Ogre, Cegui and Lua. As oposed to my other posts so far I'll start with the end result.... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=41 While playing around with quite a few engines, though mostly combinations of Ogre, ODE and CEGUI, I have stumbled on something that is missing, and I for one don't know why. It's also something you don't read about a lot since everyone is wondering how to get that great rendering... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=40 And since I've been doing some random C++ ing recently, I couldn't help organizing up a nice workflow for large C++ projects (yes, I've been playing with game engine component integration again). So without further postponment, here goes the post : The Problem You have a lot of C++ projects, with lots... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=36 As few of you might know, my whole post-bachelor programming life has been marked by the code generation sign. And not because most people don't ever consider it early in their software design methodology, which makes me the weirdo some of the times in software design decision making, but because... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=33 Through all my interaction with people actually involved with software development and perfectioning of software oriented business models, there is one frightening discovery I made and since everything in computer science and software development follows a steep exponential growth curve, I assume this is going to come back and take... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/index.xhtml?c=15&p=1 Copyright mindalex 2012-2015 3d-Modelling http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=91 While not trivially achieved, the main dragon body modelling offered quite a bit of improvisation base. Time had come for the head and the tail to be attached to the winged dragon body. The rough preview of the two pieces was reasonably easy to put in place, with just a few... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=90 With the end of the year dawning upon my hobying experiences, I decided it was time for something a bit less targeted at programming applications. So I decided to park my current hobby programming efforts and leave them as possible further directions for next year's hobbying. I decided to go for... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=77 So the modelling is done, there's one more detail we need to take care before jumping into XNA asset pipeline and game programming, and that is a general material scheme. The animations can wait, and to that respect more refined textures can emerge from asset skinning, but we definatelly need... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=76 After the last post, it was time for some last minute fine tuning and rounding off. At least that was the plan, before that last minute ounce of creativity kicked in and produced quite an intensive last pad modelling session. It all started simply by thinking about the cannon's loading mechanism.... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=75 With the base design all set, it's time to get the pad design to a working state. The final design decisions still had to be made, before a clear modelling track could have been followed. Most decisions revolve around the positioning and the motion possibilities of the power cannon of course.... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=74 Oposed to my primary instinct of just texturing up and 2d-transforming the already made 3d assets, I decided to continue the 3d-modeling track on the Pong Revival Project. With the main scene setup in place, it was time to build the pads. This is the part where not going too fast... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=73 With the introduction of the base animation mecanic of our Pong Revival project we have been presenting in the previous post, one major issue still remained untackled, and that is chain motion realism. The chain system itself is built around a pretty good realism-fantasy compromise. That is to say the chain... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=72 It's time to take the Pong Revival Project one step further. In this session, we'll model out a chain to go with our wheel system. This chain system will form the base for all our user controlled game elements. The Chain I think I had given a glimpse of the initial chain... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=71 With the start of the Pong Revival Project, lots of modeling needs to happen in order to create the game environment and game elements. As we mentioned in the project anouncement post, our game development approach revolves around building everything in Blender, and then rendering everything to 2D sprites. This... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=62 This weekend has been marked by a great milestone in material technology for project Optimus. After quite a bit of tweaking and tinkering with the Blender Material editor, watching node editor tutorials, which I might add was a very entertaining activity, I finally stumbled on a nice plastic recipee. The uv... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=61 And yes, I am prowd to present what looks like the final Optimus Prime Transformer Model. Legs and Arms, joints and all the neety greety detail work has been done, now it's just materials and getting it all nice and shiney in game. Here are some renderings of the robo mode: And... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=59 Entering the last few modeling miles for the Optimus Project have boosted understanding of Blender Meshes and combining primitives in single meshes. While the in-game result doesn't look impressive at all without propper materials this time, playing with the model in Blender itself has given me quite some joy. Here we... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=58 And it has been another busy hobby-ing session over here on the Optimus Prime Project, which is taking shape quite nicely. As expected modelling speed is picking up, though here and there normal mistakes slow down progress. All in all really good progress has been made, which lead to the... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=57 Yes, as expected, the scene composer has boosted activities around the optimus prime project. Modeling in Blender is taking off a bit as well. This time a lot more mesh modifications without the use of any external plugin scripts which made me prety happy. Getting used to checking mesh normals... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=53 It's been an interesting hobby week to be sure. Started working again in getting the modeling right for another piece of the auto-bot, namely the jet wing setup. The modeling part was by far the nicest of the whole adventure, and resulted into some nice reactors and wings. Getting the models into... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=50 It's been a long time since the last time, and that's only because all my hoby time was filled with Blender tryouts. And it's about time. The engine has enough code to hold us for a while now, the interface skinning will not pose much more difficulties and of course... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/index.xhtml?c=16&p=1 Copyright mindalex 2012-2015 Drawing http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=48 Just 5 minutes ago +/- writeup delay, my first photoshop eye has been created. This one has been a challenge, it's amazing how much more complexity there is to discover when you start drawing with a set goal in mind and reference drawings. But I prevailed and the result is... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=47 Today's been a good day for drawing, after one day full break from the computer (and yes, those are needed too once in a while). While being away from the computer, had a great talk about how lighting effects are important and hard to get in everything. So I decided... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=44 And yes, I figured with all the coding, I needed to do some more Photoshoping to keep everything balanced out (And yes, coding for work and hobby can get balanced out by a couple hours of drawing). This time there was even less of a plan or inspiration than normal.... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=37 Following on the evil rotor, I figured there was time for another random drawing moment sharing. This time I started from a reference idea. I can't seem to find the photo I saw online, so I am going to attach a different one (see left). The starting idea was a... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=32 Drawing is actually a pretty handy skill to have, at least basic drawing, and I am not one to think that you can grow talent by practice, however practice does help to bring out that minimal survivial kit in all domains. So how far can basic drawing be perfected to... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/index.xhtml?c=17&p=1 Copyright mindalex 2012-2015 Rants http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=45 Haaah, yes, this one's going to be alarmingly ranty, so strap on your minds around this one "Don't fear new ideas, it's the old ones that need to be feared". Why, it's brilliant! I love marketing circles. They are the best and most forthcomming form of marketing, and yes it... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=39 Yes, it is a good morning indeed when you log onto facebook and you see this link waiting to be clicked. So if you're already on my facebook list, share it, it helps awareness for one of the largest web discussions out there. Actually the article includes more than just... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=35 It was a random occurence as all best things in life are. I just see this comming up on facebook... Look at that screen! It is shiney, Alex want! (I am pretty sure that's how my Facebook reaction actually just about sounded too...) Think of the stuff you can view on... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=34 I guess just like Bill's speech in Kill Bill 2, right before the final battle, we can draw a parallel between Actors and the Superheros they play. Although the superheros are technically called roles, I think a point can be made that action film star roles are in fact superheros,... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/index.xhtml?c=18&p=1 Copyright mindalex 2012-2015 Reviews http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=92 Quite a bit of time has passed since my last review. Also most of the reviews I posted so far were mostly experimental and concerned recent movie endeavours. This being said, I decided it was time to break the monotony and cover a bit of home lecture as well. Lately I've... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=67 With all blog extensions I've been working on lately (RSS and Pad support is up yay, more on that when pics also work), I almost missed the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. Fortunately hower that didn't happen and I decided to sneak in a quick review article before getting back... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=60 And yes it was that great! 100% action with great plot evolution from the First Expendables movie. Of course not a lot can be said about the contents of the film, since the greatness of it lies in the mix of action scenes and the great set of action movie... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=54 A good break from all the 3d-modeling and game development I thought, and a nice weekend activity as well, I've just seen Prometheus and I must say it was an intreaguing movie. Let me start with the plot, cause that's where it all starts. Evidence of the human creator species is... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=38 I believe this will be my first review, and it will probably shape the definition on what a review on this blog will look like, which is, mainly what I think about the movie, without any further reference to imdb, actor names, their previous roles, the director of the film,... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/index.xhtml?c=19&p=1 Copyright mindalex 2012-2015 Revelations http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=64 I'm going to start with the story this time. About 3 years ago, I met a guy who was a web freelancer. One beer led to another and I got an invite to his studio, where despite proving against my will that pure flash websites need a half an hour... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=56 I knew it!!! With all the creativity and work and a bit of the implied isolation one does feel the need to reason about everything and it is in these moments that one stumbles on interesting quotes that are wasted unless shared... My quote of tonight for you is: "Of the... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/index.xhtml?c=20&p=1 Copyright mindalex 2012-2015 Miscelaneous http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=70 As anounced in my previous post, there will be quite some game programming and 3d-modelling going on on MindAlex in 2013. And since my thoughts have mostly gone in the direction of an old XNA experiment of a couple of years ago I decided that the first MindAlex project of... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=69 After quite an interesting year for MindAlex, including a full rewrite of the initial CMS choice and the birth of some interesting projects and ideas, the time for a more focused, yet still varried extension plan had come. As one could expect, not every second of the last couple of months... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=63 It has been a long time since the last update, almost two months if my calculations are correct. So most of the more frequent MindAlex readers will probably have either forgotten about it or are dying to find out what has been happening. And I am sure that I will not... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=31 Hello everyone and welcome to Mind Alex, my very own and personal Web Blog! This is the first post in what I hope will form a regular habbit in my day to day life. I was just thinking a few days ago that with all this working and every now and... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/index.xhtml?c=21&p=1 Copyright mindalex 2012-2015 Hard-Core-Development http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=84 The last development week turned out to be quite an eventful one. After my weekend of sun and fun, I had decided to turn my attention to the actual kernel development. Development on the compiler will definitely continue, as Cube OS will be entirely compiled with its help. Some Background Reading First... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=83 I'll try to keep this post as short as possible as I'm dashing to a short weekend break from my hobby empirium first thing in the morning. As I said in my last post, the arm c compiler was way under way with 5klocs being writen and both arm assembly and... http://www.mindalex.com/MindAlex/article.xhtml?a=82 It was time for a summer break for Alex this june, which inevitably caused a short period of relaxation and evaluation. It was time for something new, something that would take me back even one more step into the depth of Computer Science and Development, to the one corner where...