I am proud to announce that I have completed my Master's thesis on relighting real-world scenes using high dynamic range photographs! The thesis and high-resolution images are available at www.fusionindustries.com/default.asp?page=thesis

Update March 28, 2007:
My experience (as illustrated by PhD Comics).

When it comes time to select a new project or to do some new research, it's important to find out as much as possible about the subject area. Often times lots of research has already been done and written up as a journal or conference paper ("technical paper").

I discuss the expectations and value of technical papers and how they are used to compliment new or extended work.

Continued...

I'm currently writing my Master's thesis, which comes after spending the last six months studying and writing programs that leverage high dynamic range images.

I feel that a PhD is within my reach but I'm ready to move on into industry. Perhaps later on in life I'll have a topic and desire to devote an additional two (or more) years on research, implementation, and writing up a dissertation. Right now I'm excited about working in industry and becoming a truly professional software engineer.

Want to start using Cg or HLSL to write shaders? nVidia has just posted a paper I wrote on getting started with Cg.

Check it out at developer.nvidia.com/object/hello_cg_tutorial.html

I've created a Cg and HLSL FAQ for those who are learning or working with the shading languages Cg and HLSL. It covers topics such as profiles, semantics, vertex and fragment shaders, and interfacing the languages with C/C++.

Any comments, questions, additions or corrections are encouraged and welcomed and can be sent to me at alexz@FusionIndustries.com

The FAQ can be found here

I've recently been working on cloud lighting and rendering, based on the dissertation by Mark Harris at UNC.

We consider a cloud to be a collection of points which collect light from the sun and scatter it back to the viewer. I represent the cloud as a particle system with cloud particle billboards and light it using equations based on Harris' paper.

Images (work in progress):

Front	Back

On a related note, I've probably spent more time (four days)really making a good, flexible design than the actual coding (refer to the software design article). After all, coding is about thinking, not typing.

Not even two days had passed when the phone rang. I answered and on the other end was Microsoft.

"I have some good news for you. Both groups want you!" my recruiter said.

I've decided to work with the Tablet PC group for the summer. I'm really excited and I can't wait to go. I'll be working with the latest technologies and creating things that will be used by many people.

I feel an incredible amount of temptation to move into industry, but I'll definitely finish grad school first.

For a brief moment, I was part of the jet set.

Microsoft flew me up to Redmond on Monday and flew me back home on Tuesday so I could interview for a summer internship. This was called by Slashdot.org, "The Internship That Students Drool Over" (along with a link to an article and great discussion about it).

I spent the entire day interviewing separately with four developers in two groups. Each person gave me one or two programming or logic problems, which I solved with relative ease. (Examples include: given a set of numbers, remove the duplicates, optimize the sqrt out of a circle-drawing routine, minimize comparisons, and real-life work problems that my NDA probably won't let me discuss).

Everyone I talked with (from developers to recruiters to the shuttle drivers) was very approachable, friendly, energetic, and sincerely passionate about their job. Even better, I could talk with them at a comfortable technical and personal level too.

I'll find out at some point next week if I get an internship from one (or both) groups and when I do, I'll post it right away.

For more information on internships at Microsoft, visit www.microsoft.com/college.

Have you ever wondered about how software was written? In my latest article, I describe the planning and design process I go through when I'm writing software, and encourage other programmers to plan before programming.

Check out the Software Design article in the updated Lore section!

Happy 5th to Fusion Industries!

I've been working on visualizing surface flow over an aircraft over the last year and I'm writing a paper on it. I've posted a preview of the current project at: www.fusionindustries.com/alex/flow.

The Game Developers Conference experience is so great that I want to share it with others. The Volunteer form is up, but hurry! Applications are due by Jan 31!

After all the stories and pictures from the event, how could you not want to do it? Best of all, its free (in exchange for your time), so it's accessible to students, indie developers, and even game developers who can't get their company to pay for the conference.

The principles of linear algebra ("matrix math") are central to the ideas of graphics and simulation programming and used extensively in code.

In the latest tutorial, I describe what matrices are, the operations that can be done on them, and how that mystic 4th row and column are used in a 4x4 matrix.

The Matrix Math tutorial can be found in the Lore section.

Lisp: a language that we're told is great but does anyone use it? I spent some time earlier this year writing AI code with Lisp and gained a new perspective on programming languages and design.

Developing with Lisp requires a completely different way of thinking about programming, especially for those coming from a procedural language background (ie C/C++/Java) background. However, after playing with it for a while, it makes complete sense and its a joy to work with.

Find out why and how at: Intro to Lisp, in the Lore section.

It's amazing how a little bit of time, effort, and pampering can change your view of a company.

Yesterday, ATI put on a developer day at some fancy hotel in San Francisco. They served us this incredible buffet lunch, with soups, cuts of meat, and ingredients to make tacos, plus some neat little pecan pie desserts. During the break, platters of chocolate chip, peanut butter, macadamia nut, and oatmeal cookies were out, all very, very good.

Each person was given a binder with info, a fat, clear pen that lit up with the push of a button, and a little black notebook, a la Msft notebooks at the GDC, not to mention their top-of-the-line video card, the Radeon 9700. Definitely very nice.

Technical talks were given too, I think. But seriously, the lectures were interesting and helpful. Topics included Pixel Shader 2.0 coding, new features in DirectX9 (plus optimization), debugging shaders, and a workshop on using their shader dev tool, RenderMonkey. Being walked though it was definitely a great way to have developers start using it, and it really does seem like a great tool -- you can easily create and tweak effects, write shader code in it, and even attach your own engine to it so you can see how it would look in your game. What I have to wonder now is how nVidia's Cg dev tools compare to this.

By reaching out to the developers, ATI presents itself as a more desirable and worthwhile company to develop for (aside from the fact that all the chips out there are basically either by ATI or nVidia). nVidia's been aggressively reaching out to developers for a long time, so the developer really benefits from this dual-education competition.

I'm currently in Spain, checking out the architecture of Gaudi and Gehry, and the artwork of Dali, but I'll be back soon.

I'm studying in Italy for the summer, so the site's not dead, just on pause for a couple of months.

We're back from E3!

• Overheard about Super Mario Sunshine: "Mario's gone from a plumber to a janitor!"
• Ryan and I were talking with nVidia and as we left the conference room, we passed by Todd Hollenshead (CEO) and Marty Stratton of id (and wearing Doom III shirts), who were waiting outside.
• Saw Warren Spector on the show floor (of Deus Ex, among other incredible games).
• Saw DOOM III! We almost watched it with Tony Hawk but at the last minute he didn't come because he had to sign autographs.
• SimCity4: Incredibly beautiful, detailed, and fun! Great job, Maxis!

DOOM III

• At 8:30am Ryan and I waited at the side doors to get in to the expo.
• At 9:00am the doors opened and we ran to find the line.
• At 9:02am we were in line that had a 2 hour wait(!)
• At 9:30am all the showings in the day were booked (about 35 11-minute shows).
• At 10:05am we saw DOOM III.
• At 10:16am E3 was worth it.

My DOOM III impressions
I realize that DOOM III is still in development, but here's what I think about it so far

• Trent Reznor was quoted as saying, "we want to get inside your head and make it an unpleasant place to be." That's an understatement. DOOM III is incredibly scary (and gruesome too).
• The atmosphere is tense: Every second is dripping in agonizing tension and fear of what lies around the next corner or going to jump out from the shadows. As you walk through, pieces of metal might fall and create a scary clanging sound, making you think something is near.
• The industrial environment looked absolutely stunning and the detail and quality was way, way above anything we've seen before. The monsters, on the other hand, looked fairly shiny and plastic-like. We think this is due to the way bump-mapping is being used. This is just me, but the shiny fat zombies are just lame (even though their bellies jiggle when monsters eat their guts, literally)
• Scary Death Sequence: Huge salivating monster kills you and your head hits the ground and you can only see your arm and his feet as you black out. He then rips off your head (which you can still see though, of course) and then eat you. It's so disgusting but very well done.
• The console in the theatre was apparently from a Star Trek movie.
• Nice physics! Boxes tumble and so do monsters down the stairs.

We are making our annual pilgrimage to the awe-inspiring show that is E3 (or at least what it used to be). Top priority is checking out DOOM III! Although the movie they're showing will probably be posted online right after the show, it'll be so much cooler to see it real-time in a room right out of DOOM. Yes!

Here we can see the state of the economy as reflected in the amount of schwag I've been able to get each year. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the stuff from 1999, but let me assure you it was equal or more than what I got at the GDC 2000. (Note: schwag isn't a big thing for me any more after going to so many of these conferences).

2000 #1	2000 #2	2001 #1	2001 #2	2002

The decline of lavish spending can also been seen visually in the photos from E3 (including the ones I haven't posted yet). We're going to E3 this year and I'm really interested to see how it compares to past years, but I bet it'll be fairly low-key. More importantly, I want to find out who's taking over the Promised Lot -- arguably the best part of E3.

I went to hear American McGee talk on the whole production process of Alice at the GDC today.

I helped prep him for his talk. "The game is absolutely beautiful," I said, "but the gameplay wasn't so good." Almost apologizing, he agreed. American was just so chill, relaxed, friendly, and very approachable.

The first thing we saw was concept art and models from "American McGee's OZ"! It was incredibly cool and beautiful, however, what little we saw has the same dark twisted look as Alice (but that's a good thing, imo). These are just concepts, but the creatures and enemies might include wizards, witches, Quadlings (one leg, torso, and arm, I think), monkeys, the Tin Terror ("garbage can" with chainsaw & claw arms), plus locations such as the ice castle and the witch castle. After apologizing publicly about the lack of gameplay in Alice, he mentioned that gameplay was being worked on much earlier on for Oz. As for the status of the game, they're in the pre-production phase (which will hopefully be done around mid-May).

American's work is strongly influenced by music. After spending some time trying not to name the big-name musician for Oz, it was pointed out that the artist -- Peter Gabriel -- was mentioned in the credits for the demo reel! Slightly embarrassed, he said that the contracts hadn't been signed yet, but then confirmed the deal.

He stressed getting contracts written and signed with musicians (and of course everything else) before depending on it. Apparently Marilyn Manson wrote five tracks for Alice but then later on they weren't allowed to use it.

The contract between Id and Nine Inch Nails for the music for Quake wasn't signed until the day before the game appeared on store shelves. Had the contract not been signed, Quake would have had to be pulled from the shelves and all the already printed copies would have been destroyed. The story for Quake was written at the last minute (yeah, I know --Story? What story?!) just because they needed something to write on the box to describe what the heck Quake was.

At orientation last night the idea of the CAs having a family environment was covered. Ian joked, "Some people may be uncomfortable, but we're a bunch of people who don't usually interact with others... Hey! We're geeks, right?!" [note: a lot of people are programmers]

As for myself, I didn't have to work today so I spent my time getting some much needed sleep. This helped make up for sleep I didn't get and now I've stored up for sleep that I won't get between now and the end of the GDC.

Today we celebrate Fusion Industries' 4th year! Go us!

I've started up my own weblog at www.fusionindustries.com/alex so I can post things that I've been up to that aren't necessarily relevant to Fusion Industries itself. It will hopefully be updated more often than the main news page.

As for us at Fusion Industries, we're planning on going to the Game Developers Conference that's happening in March. We're looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones, plus all the other good stuff that comes with the conference (lectures, witch hunt, parties, CA's, and t-shirts).

It was my birthday on the 5th of this month (Scorpio, biatch) so now I'm a year older, joy. I'm not going to say how old though, rawr.

So I'm sitting here writing my nice little COM objects for a project I'm working on and I thought I'd post something. Why? Because I rarely do and it's about time I cut that out, I mean I pay for half of this site I should put it to use for god sake (whatever that means); you hear what I'm saying to you? Yes, YOU, the person who's actually here, reading this. Wow, you must be bored. Go DO something with your life...

If you're still here these are two good reasons to go away (not that I don't like the fact that you popped by for a visit, but this is the mood that I'm in; deal):
1) Nobody gets out of this alive.
2) Your whole life leads up to death, so make the most of it (life that is).

bye, bye now...

I don't really have any news or anything as official as that to post. I just feel like writing something, not much of something (ok fine), but something.

I've sent out a bunch of resumes in the past couple of days... I as I'm sure you've guessed I am looking for a job. And, given the current hiring environment, his is proving to be not as easy as it sometimes has been; yeah, I can just hear the violins (BM!)... Anyway, so that's one thing.

I'm in also into cars now. Which is something that's been in the making for a long time but for some reason I never cared about them before.

It's like this: I tend to give people a bit of a hard time if they don't know anything about their computer and I think it's well deserved on their part. I'm nice about it but it's just a point I'm trying to make with them. The idea being if you use this thing every day (and most people do), you rely on it to some degree (probably a high degree), if it fails you find it more difficult to get work done. Yet, you know almost nothing more than the base skill set to operate it; that's a bad combination.

So then I turn it around on my self, something I do fairly often (keeps me honest... as corny as that sounds), and I'm doing the same damn thing; but with cars. So no I'm becoming more familiar with my car. Which, btw, is a new-to-me '94 BMW 3-series (it's a great car, bit slow... but I like it) because my Maxima was stolen (f*ing bastards); as much as a I like my new car I miss my old one... No matter though, on ward and up ward (next up a 330Ci or MKIV Supra TT). Of course I'm just content with being conscious about a subject, nope, I've gotta take it a step further... because that's always where you get to do the fun stuff :)

So, it's now all about bigger, better, faster, more (hence the two cars I mentioned; that I will have)... if for no other reason it helps to get my mind off of other things; which at times can be the most valuable "tool." Everyone should have something that just gets their mind off of everything else; even it's just for a short period.

hmmm... ok, that's it for now.

It's been fairly quiet here at Fusion Industries. What's been going on? Well, I'm back at the university and I'm taking some very interesting classes -- Compiler Design, Analysis of Algorithms, Computational Models, and SCUBA diving. I've also been teaching myself how to play the guitar.

That's about it for now... Alex out

I just got back from Resfest (the cutting-edge digital film festival) in San Francisco. The short films and electronica music videos were simply amazing!

In the past (as recently as last year) people were showing off computer graphics almost as if they were shouting, "Look at me! We're using triangles! They're shaded and have textures!". This year I've seen a definite trend of using NPR (non-photorealistic rendering). If these films were talking, they'd be saying "Yeah, we're CG, but shhh! Don't let that be the focus." Everything's so stylized, and in some cases look so realistic, that you really can't tell it was created on a computer, even though you know it was. That's not to say everything shown was CG, in fact, quite a bit was live action or a hybrid, but at some point each one was digitally processed.

Really, the story and how it's expressed is what's important, and the visuals are secondary. In fact, one of the best short "films" I saw was a series of phone calls a guy makes and receives after a party. All that's on the screen is the text of what he says, slightly altered to say what he's thinking instead of what he's speaking. It was so well written and so funny. Still, incredible how-did-they-do-that imagery has its place and will continue to amaze us as long as there are minds to push it further (or until we can render images that are indistinguishable from real life -- so that means around 2005/Star Wars 3 ;)

So what's been going on? This past month has been very busy for me. I've written up a lot of notes and theory on code and programs I want to write but haven't had a chance to do that yet. I've mostly been traveling, seeing California (plus stops in Vegas and Tijuana), and putting around 3000 miles on my car. I also went to the 20th annual Large and Dangerous Rocket Ships launch event out at a dry lake bed to watch rockets (6 inches to 20 feet) fly into the sky. It's all about getting out and enjoying life.

I've just released TreeGen, an interactive 3d tree creation program!

I've been working with drawing plants, in one form or another, for the last couple of years. The first method I tried (back in 1999!) was a true L-system, where a list of drawing commands is generated and used to draw the tree. I've also explored using fractals, drawing the classic fern, among other shapes. The method I'm using now is recursively adjusting and drawing the tree, which might be considered a hard-coded L-system. In any case, I had a lot of fun writing and playing with this program and I hope you do too!

TreeGen v1.0 src + exe (about 165k)

Lavish. Larger-than-life. Lots of booth babes.

These are words that do not describe this year's E3. There were plenty of games on display, but the overall visual atmosphere just wasn't exciting, compared to past years. Having said that, we had a really good time. It only took us a day to see everything, with a day left to play the games that the rest of the world will have to wait to play for months.

And now for a few quick reviews:

Blizzard's cinematic division constantly amazes us, and this year was no exception. Their cinematics for Warcraft II and Diablo II Expansion were incredibly gorgeous. We actually had chills watching them.

We were talking to the SoF2 developers and they're in a friendly competition with the RtW team on who can have the best AI. In fact, the SoF2 guys actually hired one of the AI developers from the RtW team.

And now, completely because we have the bragging rights, here are some of the other games and systems we played with:

• XBOX
• GameCube
• Luigi's Mansion (GameCube)
• Sigma (pc)
• Halo (xbox)
• Super Mario Advance (Mario2) (gba)
• F-Zero Advance (gba)
• Amped (xbox)
• Project: Gotham (xbox)
• Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee (xbox)
• and more!

Photos will be up as soon as I can get to them. Until then, check out our photos from past E3s in the gallery!

This year's E3 is going to be HUGE! I'm looking forward to seeing Gamecube, Xbox, Duke Nukem Forever, and Commander Keen for GBA! Full report when we get back!

Freshly scanned for your viewing pleasure, we present our GDC 2001 pics! Check them out over in the gallery! Greetz go to all the CAs -- you guys rock!

We're back! GDC2001 was awesome and we're already looking forward to GDC2002!

Highlights include:

• Playing Witch Hunt with 30 people late into the night.
  "Dana's the witch!!!"
  "Tim's the witch!!!"
  "Kill them both!!!"
• Meeting lots of famous-in-the-industry people, including Will Wright(SimCity, The Sims), Warren Spector (Deus Ex), and Tim Sweeney (Epic Games)
• Watching Second Reality on the big screen!!!
• Snagging GDC signs
• Sigma! "We think a gorilla is really cool. [showed a gorilla] We think an even bigger gorilla is even cooler. [showed a giant gorilla] And we think a gorilla with the head of a killer whale is the coolest [showed exactly that]" - Alex Garden, Relic Ent. [Update: Sigma became Impossible Creatures]
• Facial animation session given by ILM with lots of SW:Ep1 animations, showing Jar Jar and Boss Nass from concept to 3d model to composite in the movie
• Seeing friends becoming part of the industry
• Playing with an XBox dev kit
• Horse trading (trading work times with others): "If you're a programmer, think of a pointer chain. If you're an artist [pause] just remember the original person" - Ian MacKenzie

Now, I'm not sure why they keep throwing parties in clubs. You know it's a game developer party when there are basically only guys and they're playing hackey-sack on the dance floor instead of actually dancing. A lot of people just stayed back and played Witch Hunt instead, which was really a lot of fun.

We'll post the photos as soon as I get them developed and scanned (I really need a digital camera!). Until then, check out our past GDC and E3 pics in the gallery.

We're at the GDC! Full report and pics when we get back!

Andy Voss posted this on comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos today:
"As of March 14, 2001, Digital River took most of the ftp.cdrom.com directories offline, including /pub/demos, aka The Hornet Archive. We're sad to see it go, but not all is lost. There is a fully operational mirror at ftp.scene.org/pub/mirrors/hornet. Digital River now charges for use of its space, but that fee doesn't justify returning the demos directory. We may revive the archive someday, on our own hardware, but for now we will let Hornet pass."

It's sad to hear that, but then again, it's been closed since September, 1998, but this feels more like its final death. The Hornet Archive webpage is still up, but downloading from the address we all know and love, ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos, just doesn't work anymore. Long live ftp.scene.org and its Hornet mirror!

Today, 3/14 at 1:59.26 pm, is National Pi Day! Check out the Exploratorium's Ridiculously Enhanced Pi Page for a ridiculous amount of info on pi.

Fusion Industries will be at this year's GDC! We're looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones, plus going to all the parties, of course. Hopefully the Aquabats will play again this year; they put on the craziest show!

Today marks Fusion Industries' third year! We've come a long way since our first demo for SB98 and the future looks great! Granted, we haven't released anything publicly, but trust me, we're doing some amazing things.

Personally, I've been exploring new graphics effects and learning Java. It only took about a week to get up to speed with Java since I feel I have a good understanding of C++ and OOD. I really like C++, but I'm absolutely in love with Java. The language is cleaner, has garbage collection, has all sorts of well-structured and useful libraries, err, packages, and runs everywhere.

As I look back on some of my initial Java code, I can definitely see the C++ influence on it. I think my future C++ code is going to reflect my experience with Java. This is also true for Spark v2, where all the C++ code has a heavy influence from C-style programming. However, the more recent code is structured better, for I've learned a lot more about C++ and OOD since we've started.

Happy New Year everyone!

Ok, so every time I go to E3 and places like that I always see ads for Battle Bots but I've never been able to actually go out and see the events. However, on Comedy Central these days they've been showing Battle Bots tourneys and so I've been tuning in every week to watch the bots beat the cr*p out of each other. Good Stuff.

Ok, now a side note. I was at a LAN party a couple of weeks ago and you know what happens when you get a bunch of geeks together in the same room? Well they get to discussing things, usually dealing with computers, and often going of in other directions like, say, robots (especially if they happen to be watching a marathon Junkyard Wars on TV at the time) and Battle Bots came up. Of course everyone thought it would be great fun to build one, or some, of course, I mean what's not to love about fighting robots?! And talk being, just that, only talk nothing much really happened after that.

Now back to today, or at least more recently. I was watching the finals of the competition and I've been taking mental notes through out the competition to see what bots did better, based on designs, driving skillz, etc. What it all comes down to is I've begun designing a bot and will hopefully be getting Alex involved in the process as soon as I've sketched things out a little better and make this into an "official" FI project. (Of course I'm in this to win so it will be cool or nothing at all.) WhoooHooo!

I was walking home from class the other day and on my way pasted the ducks that live in the duck ponds by the science buildings. Normally they're just chill'n in there eating and sleeping and whatnot, but not today. Apparently it's mating season for ducks because a whole slew of new ducks have shown up over the last few days and I believe they're all male. Anyway, I suppose two of these newly arrived males had a disagreement about something-or-other because man where they going at it. They where just tearing each other to pieces, no-holes-barred fighting, vicious. At one point one of the two fighting ducks tried to get away from the other duck, because he was losing, and the other guy just kept chasing him around biting him every time he caught up enough. Wow.

About the XGDC:

The XGDC was pretty cool this year. We had a good time seeing and talking with people that we'd hadn't see since the GDC or even the last XGDC. We also picked up some books from our favorite bookstore, Computer Literacy (aka, Fatbrain.com). I love that place so much that I've even got a photo of me in front of it.

Cool link of the day:
Isometric Screenshots
"A series of drawings from an isometric perspective, in the style of a computer game"

These images are still very powerful, even though they look like something out of "The Sims"

The title seems appropriate since that's about how much we've been updating the site. Which, though unfortunate, is just how it is right now.

XGDC: We'll be going to the XGDC this month and well part of next month... being that it's on the 30th and the 1st. I'm personally looking forward to that (and I'm sure Alex is too), since it was fun last year and I expect it should be even better this year. While we're down there (or I should say while I'm down there, as Alex is already down in that direction; at school) we hope to visit a friend from the GDC, Tim B., who happens to be the person who runs an integral part of the GDC; pretty cool!

Spark: It's really pretty much done... which is a good and a uh, not-so-good thing. Good because it'll be officially complete (something to show off), but not-so-good because it's not all that we once hoped it would be. Though, as we like to say, it was a wonderful learning experience and we're already looking towards our next, bigger and better, project. However, it's going to be a while before you hear anymore about the next project as we're keeping our lips tightly sealed about that for now.

School: I'm in it, so is Alex, lots of work (I'm taking 7 classes, that's 19 units), spare time spent programming... that's all I have to say about it.

Till next month...

We're back in HEAVY development!

Currently I'm working on adding checkpoints, the start and finish line, starting positions, and powerups. Dominus is working with the architecture, music + sfx, and the skybox.

We estimate that the game is about 60% of the way done. Some features have been dropped or put on the list of things to do "if we have time". The game is still in alpha, and it probably won't go beta for another few months, for those wondering.

I spent most of July trying to solve some problems (such as collision detection with the track, steering, etc). I was also probably a little burned out from the intensive development that we've been doing since April. So I took a break, played some games, and went to Hawaii. I didn't feel the desire to code until the beginning of August. But now I do feel it and I'm getting a lot done.

Pretty slow up here lately, why?

Well for me there are two reasons, first is school. I'm taking summer classes and they're taking a HUGE amount of time. In what little free time I have I play the current most addicting game in the world, Diablo II. I love this game.

I have done a little more work on Spark, and I believe Alex has as well, but in general things have hit a lull... back in heavy development SOON ;D

Q: What's the best way to soothe a sore throat?
A: BEER.

The upcoming games look spectacular! Black and White was very impressive, from the graphics, to physics, to the giant zoom, to breakdancing tigers! Interplay looks like they have a good lineup; their 20-minute demo of all their new games was way cool and funny! Sigh... no mention of Fallout 3. Sony had a cool ice-cave n' laser intro for PlayStation2, however the rest of their booth was pretty dead. The place to be though was at GOD Games! We're looking forward to seeing what they have for next year, both for their games, and in their booth!

Our E3 photos are now up! so take a look!

We went to the Nine Inch Nails concert last week -- it kicked ass! Check out the ticket stub!

As I'm sure some of you have noticed there have been very few updates. So, you might ask yourself, "What in the world have they been working on over the last few months?", and "Why don't they have anything to say about it?". Well, to fill you guys in, here's what we've been doing:

October 1999 - March 2000:

• A good chunk of the game written in C / C++.
• Wrote a converter to convert 3dStudio MAX files to format readable by Spark.
• -It did the work for both levels and models, as well optimizing the data (as much as a first run can be optimized ;D ) to save memory (using instances).
• Track and terrain following. So that ship would follow the contours of the track and terrain. As with almost everything it's easy when you know how, not so easy when you don't. This took a couple of weeks to get it to work.
• Made a Quake-style console, for easy interaction with the game's systems without exiting the game.
• Added physical properties to the world and ships.

• Attended the Game Developers Conference (GDC), which helped to get us motivated again, and gave us some new ideas about how to go about doing things, both in the game and on the business end.
• Researched new techniques and data structures.
• For a while we considered using the Quake III: Arena engine or something like Crystal Space. In the end, however, we decided to rewrite the whole game.

• After Deciding to start over we had to go back to theory for a while, which took a couple of weeks. Then after coming up with what we considered (and still do) a good Client-Server Frame work we started building. Now everything is written in C++ and fully object-oriented.
• Rewrote the converter... a few times... that's a whole different story.
• Because of the client-server nature of the game networking was implemented from the very beginning, unlike the original when we frankly hadn't even thought to much about the fact that it was supposed to some how be a multiplayer game.
• Console reimplemented.

There is, most almost certainly, stuff being left out, but that is a good summation.

Just in time for this year's E3, we bring you our 1999 E3 Photos! We're going to this year's E3 also, so you might see us on the show floor, or hey, we may see you first.

Fusion Industries was featured in the DVC paper last week! We made the front page, complete with a big photo of our office. Some of the quotes and descriptions are reversed, but overall it's a pretty good article.

In other news, it looks like our mail server and web site are finally stable! If you tried to send us email at fusionindustries.com in March or April, there's a really good chance that we didn't receive it. So, if you sent anything and didn't receive a reply, please, resend it. Thanks!

Photos of the Game Developers Conference are now up in the gallery! You can find them here! More photos will be posted periodically, so check back for new sets.

Development continues on Spark; more on that later!

Ok, I don't have any in-game screens to post, HOWEVER, I do have some shots of ship some models to tide you over. I'm working on getting 'toon rendering implemented and as soon as that's done I'll get some in game shots up.

Check 'em here.

We're proud to announce that we've brought on a 3d artist, Michael, for Spark. Michael specializes in low-poly modeling and he'll be modeling the levels and the ships. We're very happy to be working with him.

With the GDC only 12 days away we're working very hard to get a demo (publishers only, sorry) out the door. This means screenshots for everyone else though :)

Anyway, the real reason for this post is to call attention to a new addition to this site (as of a few weeks), the "lore" section. The idea behind it is pretty simple, while developing spark and through other means (usually just plain curiosity) we've come upon some pretty cool stuff and we'd like to share it with people. So, while there isn't much there yet, we have a HUGE and I mean a massively large amount of stuff to put up there which we will be gradually doing.

Note: Most updates to the lore section will be posted only on the main lore page, however, some larger things (tutorials and such) may make there way here (the news page) as well.

We're proud to announce that we've brought on two musicians, Doug and Brandon, for Spark. We're very happy to be working with them.

Other news:

• Fusion Industries celebrated its 2nd year of existence on Feb 12!
• Dominus and I will be going to the Game Developers Conference in March! For those who don't know, this is THE place to be if you're a game developer.
• Screenshots are coming soon! (no, really... we mean it this time)

I've be messing with photoshop (since we don't have a dedicated graphics person yet) and thought people might like to see some of what I've done...

Work continues on Spark. I've been working on the engine and some tools to convert scenes from 3dStudio to the game format. Once the base engine is more complete, we'll get some screen shots up here.

We're still looking for texture artists, low-poly modelers, and musicians. Want to work with us? Email us with the position you're interested in.

WHOOOHOOO!!! First Post! and a New Site Design! weeeeeeeeeeeeeee... I thought we needed to simplify. And, frankly, that other design... looked pretty 2 years ago... So here we are with some thing a bit more timeless, just your basic cool looking graphics. Which I might add are completely from scratch, completely. I hope you all like the new look... only thing missing is the music, which I'm going to add later, I just wanted to get the main site up and running.

Happy New Year everyone!

• Spark - Development continues... it's starting to get really exciting, and that is unfortunately all I can say for now.
• Quake III Arena - Yeah it's out, but I'm sure you all know that. Go buy it.

As I'm sure everyone knows the Q3demoTEST is out (get it here). Now about the console, I'm *NOT* going to update the whole list. why? A very good reason. The q3a console is so easy to use now that there is hardly a need to have giant console listings...

For example go to the console and type 'cg_' and hit TAB, you'll see a listing of all of the console commands starting with cg_ (use pageup and pagedown to scroll). Obviously the more you type the shorter the list will be until it will either auto complete what you want or (if you miss typed) nothing will show up. The cvar and command names are all pretty self-explanatory and if you don't understand something you probably shouldn't screw with it anyway (go learn about whatever it is then come back and decide if you need to mess with it). I'll be posting my config up here (now only 7 files due to some improvements in the naming system) so you can see where things generally fit in. Scripts are different, and I've got quite a few in my config... you are welcome to check them out.

• For a list of commands and cvars try: cmdlist and cvarlist.
• TAB does auto complete and cmd/cvar lists.
• ALL commands are now pre-seeded by a slash (forward or backward), damn useful when you want to send someone a command and are messaging through the console...
• Colored TEXT (not just names anymore) is in the format ^# (where # is a number 0 - 7). Color can be used in messages, names, etc, and viewed everywhere (menus, crosshair, etc) with one exception... no black in names :(
• A few console commands have new names, most importantly:
  • cg_gun => cg_drawgun
  • fov => cg_fov
  • etc... they're easy to find.

Finally! We have obtained FusionIndustries.com ... In case you didn't know, about 2 or 3 months before we went to register FusionIndustries.com someone else jumped in front of us and grabbed it... which is why we had been using FusionIndustries.net & .org. However, just recently, for some reason we don't know, it became available again! So we grabbed it!

First of all XGDC was awesome! The topics were very interesting, ranging from lighting techniques to evolutionary learning algorithms. IOHO the best talk we heard was given by Reichart Von Wolfsheild (hi!). He covered porting, from PCs, consoles, or even the Altair ;)) as well as general game development (This guy was just packed full of knowledge!).

Aside from learning new techniques and checking out what people in the gaming world are up to one of the main reasons to go to something like this is to make contacts. We talked to people from Miller Freeman (they run Game Developer -Magazine-, GDC, and Gamasutra.com). As well as a couple of developers from Mathengine (the physics engine we're planning on using in Spark), "Houston" from Beat-Down, and many others!

In case you don't know it Andre recently released a new book, "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus." What a great time to get it, as we could even get it signed! We went to Computer Literacy (a computer book store who runs fatbrain.com) on Saturday, and they had just closed... damn. So the next morning we arrived back at Computer Literacy 15 minutes before it opened. We drooled over the massive selection, and waited impatiently to get in. We both bought copies of "The OpenGL 1.2 Programming Guide" (the red book) and "Tricks of the Windows...". Not cheap... but well worth it.

Did you know that it's impossible to find Jolt in Santa Clara on the weekends? We spent almost two hours driving around Sunday morning going to every quickie mart and store we could find and no one carried it! If anyone knows where to find it in Santa Clara, let Calvrak know!

Calvrak and I just returned from the XGDC, it was lots of fun! Of course I only got about 4 hours of sleep all weekend, doh. Look for a write-up about what happened at the XGDC and more info on spark soon!

Ummm... ok, as of a long time ago (a few weeks or something) it was made pretty clear (by id) that the next Q3Test wont be the demo, arg. So, I will do an update one the console list _soon_ (meaning I'm not waiting for the demo anymore). Soon is relative and as always I'm a busy person so... uh... whenever I get around to it. I'll be adding some other cool stuff that I've implemented in my config (vstr stuff). So, that should be cool for those of you into that.

My current config is 4 files long, if you don't include the calling config and names. Why? Cuz at one point Q3A actually give me an error because the second file in my older config exceeded the max file length. So I had to split it up into chunks. Also there are about 6 (or so) name files, which is a work around. Since you can't have colored names in a vstr, so what to do? Call another config that is one line long, or more, but you get the point. Hence my config ends up at around 15 files long (including everything) :)

In case you haven't heard there will (probably) be no more Q3Tests released. The next release will be the demo and shortly after that the retail release. So, seeing as some of the syntax keeps changing I'm not going to do any more updates on the console listing till the final release so that I don't need to keep going back and changing things. When the final does come out I'll be doing a large update.

In case you didn't see the late night update, I'll repost it today and I changed it a bit from last night too. I've made a really basic .reg file that will make .PK3 files automatically opened by winzip (or whatever your zip prog you're using). [Dec 12, 2005: File no longer exists]

I've made a really basic .reg file that will make .PK3 automatically opened by winzip.

I did an update on the console commands... you'll find it's not pretty since I haven't integrated it yet, but you can get it in raw text format. Read the header on the Console page, it's all there.

I finished updating the gallery... just to let you all know. If you don't see the changes, don't forget to refresh.

I'm in Florence, Italy right now! There are FIVE Internet points within five minutes walking distance from my hotel room that I know of! I didn't think Italy was so wired. I'll be back home soon, and then I'll get back to work on Spark.

ARMAGEDDON 1999 is coming up! This is an alternative game developers conference that Andre LaMothe is running, so it'll definitely be good. Fusion Industries will be there! Here's the official word:

Xtreme Games LLC is proud to present ARMAGEDDON 1999, a Mini Game Developer Conference (XGDC) to be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center October 2nd and 3rd. The conference is open to the public and targeted to all levels of game developer from the newbie to seasoned professional. The XGDC is a technical conference lecture series, no marketing, no business, no exposition, just hard core game programming, techniques, and tricks to advance the art and share knowledge. For more information about the XGDC visit the Xtreme Games LLC site at www.xgames3d.com or www.xgames3d.com/armmain.htm

I've updated the Gallery, all the images are full size now when you DL them... cuz they where just way to small. Again, plz let me know if you're going to use them, thx. Also, cuz I will send out versions without text on them if requested. I'm not quite done with updates but I thought I'd let you all know that much at least.

FYI: Calvrak is on a trip to Europe as of today, sooo... he's not working on spark. I, however, am. Just thought I'd let you all know.

Also, In case you're blind, you probably noticed that the site is ever so slightly different. The changes I made are simply to ease the load for those with lower end systems. Even though you *should* update your hard and software, I'll be a little nicer about it... I guess ;)

Ya, that's it for now...

We have registered both fusionindustries.org and fusionindustries.net. cool, eh? fusionindustries.org is up and running... but I don't think .net is yet, but that should be taken care of soon. fusion.techcore.com probably wont be going away either, in the near future anyway... but we'll see.

Spark stuff:

I installed linux (again, f*cking windows installs...), and wow did redhat make 6.0 easy to use. In fact it was too easy... almost boring. I do have a point to tell you this, I was sitting there thinking "you know it would be really cool to write a linux version of spark..." Then I tried to compile a linux demo ("loop" from SB'99, if you must know), and omg it's been so long since I've used a command line compiler... blah. That sucked... I think we'll stick with windows for now ;)

While I'm here though... Development continues on our new engine. We've got a bunch stuff working and working really very nicely. We're still in pre, pre, pre, pre, pre, pre, pre, pre, pre, pre, alpha stages though, so no releases yet.

Quake3:Arena... I recently found that some people where/are distributing my console listing. I'm totally cool with that. Although, I would like it if you'd do what I asked when you do distribute it. DO NOT remove anything! If you've got stuff to add, ok... but I'd really rather you send them to me so I can add them... so that everyone has the same thing. Also, please tell me when you're going to distribute it with something. I'm not going to charge you or do anything stupid, I just want to know about it. Thanks.

Sorry about the lack of updates. We've been working very hard on Spark. So far we have a world that we can race in. Dominus wrote a cool resolution changing program and right now we're both working on texture mapping.

btw: The Spark section has been updated ;)

Ok, so I'm late... sorry 'bout that... but I did pretty much finish the formatting of it, all the important stuff anyway. I'm going to *try* to add all this stuff that's been piling up here later today, or tomorrow...

As far as updating the Spark section... it just hasn't happened yet =Þ

For those of you that continue to care that we still have the largest list of console commands, even though given the fact that I haven't updated for more than a week now, I'm sorry for the lack of updates. But, you know how life can be and I'm not getting paid for this, so even though I enjoy doing doing it sometimes it must suffer. I'm going to try to update later today. However, I'm installing Win NT5 beta3 (no, I won't call it Win2***) as I need it to finish up a project I'm working on... but if that goes smoothly, I should have time tonight.

Oh, and we may actually get some info up about spark! That'll all be in the same update, WHOOOOOHOOOOO!!! ...hopefully ;)

WHOO!!!HOOO!!! I'm off to see the first showing of Star Wars!!!

The list has been updated a bit... I have a bunch of stuff sitting here I still need to add but I just haven't had the time since finals week is next week, arg. But asap I'll have like 50 or 75 new commands in there... sorry for the delay.

Ok, just for all of you I stayed up to update the cvar list. I changed the format a bit because there is just getting to be so much info in there. I'm probably going to convert it to html but only if I can find the time.

We're back from E3, that was good stuff :) I saw some new Q3A maps and damn they kick ass! I can't wait for the final. While we where there we met John Romero, and even if he's not still part of id it's still damn cool (cuz Daikatana kicks ass). I'd like to give a Special Thanks to: Tars_Tarkas! who sent me a kick ass mail with a bunch of new info. So, I have a bunch of new stuff to add, which I'll do this morning (it's really early though and I'm tired after the long drive) or later today.

Just posted another pretty significant update, check it out in the Downloads Section. Thanks to Vithar, [SOD]Lightsaber, [TLN]Gone, Combo, & Mads for all their input.

Calvrak and I are off to E3 tomorrow, unfortunately only for the last two days :( , but then at least, we're going :) Keep that mail coming in and i'll update asap when i come back.

Twice in one day =)

After some hex editing i found some more stuff and added it to the list. Get the new console commands listing here.

Also, i've been compiling a list of Q3:A console commands... you can get it here. It currently has about 170 commands, check it out.

Not much has happening with Spark, partly because of Steel not living close by anymore and cuz we're still learning OpenGL so hey, we never said it would be soon. I can't say it enough, this is really just a learning experience for us anyway... However, I don't want to make it sound to bleak. We have worked a lot of stuff out, I'm just saying we're still a while from even a pre-alpha.

Also, I'm sure you all know that Q3A Test was released for the Mac over the weekend, rumor has it that it will next be released for linux and then Windoze. Though I really don't know for sure, check Q3Arena.net for the latest info. Just thought i'd let you know if you didn't already ;)

The demo is now on the server.

Get Transitions, the new Fusion Industries demo.

Btw, I have pictures of my car packed with equipment and of SB99, so I'll post those as soon as I can.

Well we've returned from SB'99 intact, which is really pretty amazing considering the fact that we managed to pack 3 computers and 3 ppl into Calvrak's eclipse :)

Once again it was great fun and though this year we didn't win first place in any of the compos, Though do I think we learned a lot. I've already started planning for next year myself (if there is an SB 2000???). Maybe a demo for spark? or something totally different? we shall see...

As for this year we racked up straight 2nds, my animation took second, of 2... and our demo took 2nd, to last. Not the seconds one might hope for, but a second none the less :) However, I was a small part of the WINNING demo. I did some last minute graphics for CSR and got a special thnx in their demo. I must say their demo was truly the best one there, OMG it was pretty :)

I'm not going to upload them to our server yet, cuz frankly i'm not sure how long it will be our server (gulp)... but i'm not going into that either. So, if you'd like to check out the SB'99 stuff (or any other scene stuff for that matter) check out: scene.org.

Hello all... two of you :), hehehe... well, for all of those that are faithful enough to continue to come here I'm going to try to give this place a face lift in the near future.. but if it didn't happen i wouldn't be that surprised... But even if this main info page isn't changing much, i believe Calvrak is updating the coding news section, so be sure to to check that as well...

As for myself, i've been doing a fair amount of coding (whenever i can fit it in between school and work) as well. As Calvrak said to me once, "i hurry through my homework to try to get some coding time in...", or something to that extent... Soooooo... if i start getting anything meaningful to say i'll put it on the coding news page as well. Maybe we'll make the coding news the main page and we can scrap this one... or maybe not, only the future will tell...

As far as graphics go, i stopped working on all of my current projects for the time being and am focusing on coding. If anyone is interesting in seeing my unfinished projects let me know and i'll throw them up here... i have about four or five scenes started...

This morning i got up, went to SlashDot and though there is often stuff up there that's funny... this hit first thing in the morning and i couldn't stop laughing...

"Microsoft [was] trying to buy out 3com's PalmOS to help advance CE ahead of PalmOS. 3com said no. The world rejoiced."

Well... the contest dead line has come and gone... and i made a really big mistake, i let it go too long. Frankly i think people forgot to check back, as i know i probably would've. The main reason i think this is because i got mail from a few people that where working on entries, yet they never submitted their material... Well... ok, so if we have another contest, which i hope we do, it will be done better...

However, I am going to leave the FTP site open so that if you'd like to upload what you might have done you may do so, and get some recognition for it :). Please don't miss use this FTP site, as it's really not worth it... i.e. there is only 5 meg available. One last time here is the FTP information: ftp.xoom.com L: Dominus P: 696969

The FI Audio/Video Contest is due to end in only a few days... if you have an entry be sure to get it in. Also after putting something on our FTP site it would be best if you notified me about it (mail me)... that way i'll be sure to go get it ASAP...

Here is the FTP information:

Today is a sad, sad day. The Hornet Archive is closing. Is this symbolic of the state of the demoscene?

The final goodbye letter has been posted on the site.

I believe (according to the letter) that the archive is being moved to ftp.scene.org, but I don't know what will happen to it.

Fusion Industries, however, will keep on creating demos. Finding time to work on another demo has been tough, that's why nothing has been released for a while. I'm working on my schedule to make time to work on another demo. Hopefully I can get a 3d engine working; Dominus has created some 3ds models that he wants to use. Check back here to see how it's going.

Dominus, Superfro, and I went to ResFest 98, digital film festival, last night. It was really cool. ResFest was held at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. We were all in awe of the giant dome and columns illuminated by the moon and lights. We saw five films, each about 15-20 minutes. They were all good. In particular, our favorite was "Naked Pavement", a film about a NY film photographer who gather people who were willing to remove all their clothes, lie on a street, and have their photo taken (as an artistic work, not porn).

The films were also inspirational; I want to get working on another demo.

Ya, so it took forever... i'm going to give you all access to my xoom acount... because i suck, and my site isn't up. There's only five meg of space up there... but it should be ok. I don't know how many people entered the contest so i don't know if it will be full or not... if it is please don't delete other people's stuff... mail me and let me know... i'm going to check it every night, but as i said i don't know how many people are doing this... hell there might only be one of you :). PLEASE ZIP, RAR, or LHA your entries...

Some of you have noticed that it's past the 15 and i still haven't said anything about my new FTP site... What can i say... i suck. I'm working on it... but i'm very busy with school right now... so ASAP, and no sooner.

I've got scrn shots of quakeII at talon... which of course are the ones when i came in first on an given map... but hey, what did you expect? I'll try to get them up here... but as above... i'm busy and barely have time to write this.

This past weekend Dominus and I went to the Talon lan party. Let me start off by saying that it was damn cool. It started Saturday morning and went to Sunday evening. About 25 people came to the party. We played 18 straight hours of Quake II deathmatch and mods, plus a little Unreal on the side, on the first day. In the deathmatch games, Dominus ranked 6th; I ranked last :P

Most people went to bed around 3:30am, but Dominus, Steel, and myself kept on going -- playing with LiteStep and doing some programming -- until 7:30am, which is when we finally crashed. Everyone woke up around 11; we played some more Quake II until we left at 4pm.

I took a bunch of photos with my real camera, Wizbang took a bunch with his digital camera. In addition to screen shots, I'll post some photos as soon as I can get them developed and scanned.

Ok, i'm getting a cable modem on the 10th so i should have an FTP site up by the 15th... just thought i'd let you all know, i didn't forget ;)

If you don't know yet about the FI audio contest go here... and for those that do...Mbr.

Sorry it's taking me so long to update things, i just started school again and that's taking most of my time... Anyway, questions where asked about what format i want entries in, that depends on what you're capable of. I'd prefer it if you'd integrate the sound into the video... using something like premiere or sound forge and then just keep it in .avi form. However, if you don't have something like premiere or sound forge then i'd prefer it in .wav format... if you can't do that let me know what format you're going to use or i may not be able to view/hear it. Also if you just send me the audio file i have to sync. it, and i don't want to... yes, it takes up upload and download time... that's why i'm getting a cable modem ;)

About where to upload your finished entry. i'm in the middle of getting a cable modem and if that happens soon enough i'll just have everyone send it to my ftp site... but if it doesn't happen by sept 15 i'll post another site to use...

oh, and just in case... do NOT sync the audio tracks to the gif on the contest page... that would be a BIG mistake... it's only there to be viewed without the download of the .avi. I bring it up because someone did it (you know who you are... hehehe <g>).

The iCECon photos are finally up! You can find them in the gallery section under iCECon.

Wireless modems? Are they as good as it sounds? Take a look at my review of the Ricochet wireless modem in the Coding News!

Well... it's been a few (million) months but i finally put a couple of new things up in the gallery, located under the "NEW" tab. Though i didn't put to much up this time i plan to do more soon... i hope, i just have to find the time. No, i still don't have animations up... i'll try to get that up also...

Also, don't forget about the FI audio contest!!!

Update: Right now the iCE Con photos are still in my camera, so once I finish up the roll, I'll get them scanned and posted right away.

The Coding News page has been updated too!

The iCE Con was on Monday, the 27th, in San Jose... at, of all the places in the world, Chuckie Cheese's. Don't ask me why it was there, except maybe for the games... not that we played many. However, we did get to meet the members of ACiD and iCE so that was cool... pictures were taken and will be posted asap.

Don't forget about the FI audio contest.

Well, a long time ago i said that i was working on an animation for FI. I actually finished it a long time ago but it's just now showing up on our site. Why? Because i couldn't figure out what sound to put with it, and i'm only ok at making my own sounds. In other words everything i came up with didn't sound right and so it never got released. So to fix this FI is going to hold a contest. If you're interested in learning more go to the Contest page.

Also, a friend is starting a company which hosts LAN games at any location. They would provide computers for people as well as hubs/switches/tables/chairs/etc. and a dedicated server, they would charge something like $10 a computer/per hour, with a lower charge for those that just wanted to plug their own computer in to the LAN. Question is would you pay for this? Please let me know, they need to know interest level.

The Coding News has been updated! See what Calvrak has been up to! Don't forget to take a look at the Download section and get all of the Fusion Industries releases!

The organization of the site has changed a bit -- the "Quick Links" can now be found under "Download" on the side menu.

A quick note on LiteStep, it is a shell replacement for win95\98\NT... if you don't know what a shell is you probably shouldn't be running it. Anyway, i suggest you check it out if you're interested. It loads faster than explorer and uses less memory... it's not real easy to configure, but that's because it's still in beta but don't let that scare you away... it's seems to be more stable than explorer is anyway <g>. http://litestep.computerheaven.net

Dominus held a lan party yesterday afternoon and it lasted 'till noon today. Eight people in total came, which was a good amount; the garage and Dominus' room was filled up. Needless to say no one got much sleep (I only got a half hour). It was pretty cool -- we set up our lan and played a lot of Unreal, Quake, Mech Commander(!), and others all through the night.

While for the most part everybody played games for the whole event, I was oblivious to them and put together a quick pseudo-intro for the event, entitled "Sleep?". It took about 7 hours to do (from 3am to 10am Saturday morning). In hindsight I should have put it aside and played some more games (after all, it was a *LAN* party). I don't remember doing most of the coding during the night; perhaps that would explain why I spent the rest of Saturday sleeping ;)

Download Sleep? (aprox 53k).

The eclipse simulation is finally finished! Actually, it was finished on July 1, but I didn't have enough time to post it. I'll be the first to admit that it's not spectacular, but it does use a bunch of tricks and new techniques that took a while to figure out. (How's that for a promo... :P )

Look for a Yorkin Borkin Tu/Canada page either tomorrow or Sunday; I'm almost done with it.

I'm back from a week in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada! Be sure to check back here over the next few days as I get some stuff posted about it.

Quick clarification: When I was talking about a webtro, I meant that it would be a .exe file that advertised our web site. I don't know any java, so I wouldn't be able to make one for the web (and have a real webtro) ;)

Check out the latest coding news!

Well...it's been three months since the last demo. I feel this quote from the Future Crew Info v1.21 best sums up when our next demo will come into existence:

All of us do little experiments on their freetime and when a "critical mass" is achieved the making of a demo begins more seriously.

The Coding News has been updated! Read this for insight into the world of Calvrak and the latest info on his coding.

We like feedback! If you have any comments about the site, anything you like or dislike, or anything that you would like to see in the future, please don't hesitate to contact us.

The tutorial section is now up! We'll be starting this month with a tutorial on the fire effect. You can look at it following the "Tutorial" link on the menu or you can download the fire tutorial.

Coding news can now be found under "Coding".

The tutorial section will be up sometime this week -- we'll be starting with the fire effect.

Well here you are at fusion.techcore.com. Things to know just for you information... Calvrak is working on a tutorial section for coding and is planning on updating the news more often. Plus as stated once before there is a demo in the works. So keep checking back, stuffs going on and you don't want to miss it.

For a while nothing has been posted... well that's cuz there's not much to say. However, don't leave forever because we're working on our second demo. So come back in a while and i'll try to have some info posted about the up and coming demo!!!

Also in the queue is a Fusion Industries Intro Animation (avi/flic/mov)... So far it's pretty cool... when it's done it will also be posted.

This site makes it's first show to the world...
It's all new and i kinda rushed a lot of it, so if you find an errors or things you think could be better, plz contact me. Still trying to get a (good) java counter, plz, let me know if you've got a good one.

The intro made for Spring Break is now available. You can try to find it in the The Hornet Archive, or you could get it off of our server.

Fusion Industries breaks into the demo scene!!!

Our first demo was put into the compo... it got fourth, of course there were only five entries... Winning over one that did not run all together. Not the point though... we were there and we plan on going again. We're going to WIN too!!!

DominuS won the gfx compo...