I cleaned up the fire tutorial code. It should be more readable now.

I've been working hard on Spark, putting in many hours over the last two weeks. OpenGL is cool! I'll post some more stuff about Spark (in the Spark section) once we start to get some major things accomplished.

Wow...it's been a long time since I last updated... School has taken up a lot of my time.

I've been working on L-systems and fractals, specifically IFS. Part of the inspiration was the Verses demo by EMF, part was my own interest, and part was extra credit for math ;).

Anyway, I'm off to E3!

After working Friday night and all day Saturday and 13 hours later, Transitions is done. I'm happy with the results. The next demo will have a very different look (I hope). Compared to the demos that placed higher than ours (and all the others in the demoscene) ours look very amaturish. Dominus and I have discused this and have come up with stratagies that will help our demos look better and more professional.

Get Transitions, the new Fusion Industries demo.

There's only one more week until SB99 and I've barely started on the demo. I've been very busy with school that I haven't really had a chance to do a lot of programming. Most of the programming I've done has been for Spark. Sooooooo, Transitions will be based on the source from the FusionDEV birthro, with some additional effects that I've created that I haven't used yet.

I don't have any plans for the last half of spring break, so I plan on spending most of it working on Spark. I'm really looking forward to it =)

I love OpenGL! The code is very clean and well thought out. I'm even thinking of getting a bumper sticker that says "I <heart> OpenGL", much like the "I <heart> DOS" stickers that I've seen around.

I've just finished generating a simple canyon level for Spark (it looks likes a bundt pan). Right now I'm working with an *awesome* function for controlling cameras (gluLookAt()). The camera will eventually evolve into the camera following the player's ship flying throught the canyon.

Since I'm going to be focusing on OpenGL and Windows-based programming and moving away from DOS demos, I'm going to post most of the DOS-based effects demos that I've created over the last two years. Look for them after Spring Break '99.

My zip drive developed "the click of death" a month ago and warranty had expired the year before, so I thought I had to go spend another $90 to get a new drive. I happened to come across a web site today that talks about getting the zip drives replaced -- it turns out that Iomega will replace Zip drives with the Click of Death for free, reguardless of the warranty! Not only that, but they pick up the shipping charges too, both ways, leaving your total cost at $0.

For all the info: Zip Click of Death Resource Page.

Also at the site is an awesome diagnostic utility that will tell you if your zip drive is going to fail, so you'll know before its too late.

Last Sunday my car overheated, and as a result (or the cause of), my head gasket blew. I took it in for an estimate -- the repair will cost almost as much as the car's worth! In light of this fact, I'm probably going to fix it myself, which will take at least a whole weekend. I'm going to get some other estimates; if the price is right, maybe I won't have to fix it myself. Anyway, I'm hoping for the best.

I saw this on pcxl.ign.com about the UltraHLE

N64 Emulator 86'd
"People Might Pirate Games? We're Shocked!" Say Designers

hehehe, well, at least I thought it was funny.

I got my OpenGL book today -- the OpenGL Superbible. It's very well written and I'm looking forward to learning from it.

As you've already read, FusionDev has been formed as the game development division of Fusion Industries. Under FI, Dominus and I will still create demos, but under FusionDev, we will work with Steel and create games.

Currently I'm using MSVC 1.0 to write DOS-based code, but I'm going to switch to DevStudio 6.0 and start coding using DirectX and OpenGL. 3d programming should become relatively easier (compare to creating a whole new 3d engine from scratch), as well as the fact that the code accelerated by many of the current video cards. I don't think I will be using PTC (except maybe for demos) because of the fact that it's not nearly established as DirectX and OpenGL are.

In other news, I'm getting close to finishing the distro, although I haven't heard from the person I'm creating it for, so I don't know if it will be released. Parts of it will probably show up in the next FI demo, so you'll get to see it in one form or another.

I've been working on another effect, a dot tunnel. It's basically a starfield in the shape of a tube, although it could be any shape. It looks good so far, but it needs a lot of work. I'll finish it eventually.

I've been working on a distro over the last week. Right now I've got the text sprites working and soon I'll have some other neat features.

I'm still working with 3d. I can't procede with texture mapping, backface culling, lighting, and the likes until I figure out how to organizing the point and edge lists. I can create point and edge lists manually, but this only works for simple objects (such as a box). The goal is to be able to read files from 3dStudio and apply effects to the models.

I've been to two lan parties since the last update, and I'm going to two more in the next few weeks. They're cool, but it's such a pain to move my desktop :P What's really nice is that I've met some of the people I used to BBS with, including HellSpam, Henry, Smeagol, and Stretch. My handle used to be Fozzie Bear |<:*P

Did you BBS in the 510 back a few years ago? Send me email.

Yea! I finally was able to rotate a box in 3d! This was a goal of mine that I've been working towards for a long time. Now I can start working on a whole bunch of effects and techniques, such as backface culling, shading, and even using 3dStudio models!

In the middle of August I began working on The Game of Life (a special type of celluar automa). I worked on it a bit for a month, then put it aside. Last night I pulled it out again, and in about two hours I had it working!

For those of you who don't know, Conway's Game of Life is a cell-based world in which each cell lives or dies based on its surroundings. A good overview and explaination can be found at www.tech.org/~stuart/life/rules.html.

Update: I actually met Dr. Conway one year at the Game Developers Conference. Very cool (in a geeky kind of way)!

For some good examples of the wide variety of images that can be created using celluar automa, take a look at psoup.math.wisc.edu/shelf.html.

In other news, I'm looking into using the Prometheus True Color graphics library in our demos. Goodbye 320x200x256, hello hi-rez! As an added bonus, I'll be using the Win32 version of PTC, so that not only will anyone be able to see the demo, but they'll be able to hear the music to go with it! If you're wondering, I'll probably use the Win32 version of Midas for the music.

Friday night Dominus and I went to the San Francisco 2600 meet at the Embarcadero. We had a good time talking to some of the people about Linux, Microsoft, and the future of programs. Afterwards I went back to Dominus' house and we had our own private "demo party" :P. I spent the whole night coding the laserfield, while Dominus installed Linux with the help of some friends. Greetz go to Dan and Ian.

The laserfield looks excellent so far. Right now I have the laserfield moving up and down while it forms an animated sine wave. Not only that, but it also strobes like the real thing...

I've got a bunch of ideas for the laserfield, such as rotation, distortion, or even using an L-system to define shapes that the lasers should draw.

Right now I've got a couple of projects I'm working on -- bump mapping, pixelizing (like Quake II cutscenes), and inspiration for a demo (or at least an effect) based on the lazer effects at the Cyberfest 98 rave. I also managed to aquire the Zen of Graphics Programming, by Michael Abrash, and I've been burying myself in the information. In other words, look forward to some neat effects and demos in the future. The only limiting factor is time.

I've archived all the previous code news prior to October 98. You can find it under Archives

I finally earned my Eagle rank in Boy Scouts! Yea!

I finally finished my level curve program; it looks really cool. It displays over 30 interactive patterns, allowing the user to change the palette, rotate the colors, and increase the speed of animation. While I wasn't planning on publicly releasing it, if you mail me I'll post it and send you a copy.

In other news, I finally went ahead and bought Doom, Doom II, and the add-on levels. Let me tell you, even if the game is getting old, it is still damn fun. I've been playing a lot of Quake II lately too, and I'm getting pretty good, so watch out for me at the next Talon lan party...

Wow! I can't believe a week has gone by already. I didn't enter my snow sim into the Co3 programming compo for the simple reason that I didn't have enough time to complete it, and I didn't want to enter a half-finished product. My coding skills are reflected in the programs I write, so I want to release the best products that I can. If you're really curious and want to see the latest version of the snow sim, mail me. Otherwise, I'm going to put the snow sim aside and work on it some other time (when I've figured out linked lists ;)

I've been working on another program lately that draws level curves, which can be thought of as a contour map. So far I'm getting really great results; I just need to polish up the interface and try out different color schemes and the likes.

I've been working on a snow sim over the last few days for the Co3 programming compo. So far, the snow movement looks good, but besides that it needs a lot of work. The deadline is Monday, so I'll be done after today. Check back here Monday for my snow sim entry!

Today I turn 18! I'm not doing anything special for it tonight, but I am going to the Talon lan party and seeing Tori Amos on Tuesday, which is doubling as my personal celebration. =)

Last week I bought a Ricochet wireless modem. We bought it because we found that it was cheaper to buy the modem and pay for the service versus paying for a phone line and a service.

Here's my review of it:

Overall, the Ricochet modem was easy to install and easy to use. Although I found it was slow for transfering large streams of data, I think it's well suited for general web browsing and other internet related things that don't required a steady stream of data. This makes sense as the modem is mostly designed for laptop users.

The full package came with the modem (28.8k equivilant), software, cables, and Ricochet stickers. Installing the Ricochet modem was a snap -- plug the cable in a com port, turn the modem on, and run the setup software. I used it with my desktop, so I bought a 10 foot cable for the modem to keep it from interfering with my speakers.

Connecting to the internet was very quick and fast. The modem beeped a few times and then I was on. One nice thing was that I would always connect at 38.4kbps, a large improvement of my normal 28.8kbps connection. Although I was connected at a faster rate, the transfer rate wasn't necessarily that fast. The transfer rate varied greatly, usually transferring in bursts, sometimes big (2.3kbps), other times small (0.2kbps<), or sometimes it wouldn't transfer anything. I found that the rate varied depending on the time it was being used. During the day, I averaged about 2.0kbps, while during the evening I averaged around 1.3kbps. (These average values are from transfering large files under NetVampire from different servers). I also found that it had a harder time managing multiple connections (i.e. having 5 browser windows downloading information) than using my phoneline-based modem. However, it did work nicely when only one or two browser windows were open.

Would I recommend it to anyone? Sure, as long as they weren't constantly transferring large file. Everything worked nicely with no problems. The battery life is as long or longer than some laptops' battery life -- 4 to 6 hours on one charge. If it weren't for the slow file transfers, I'd keep the modem.

I'll give it a 7/10 rating (10 being the highest) for being very convienent and easy to use, but a slow transfer rate prevents it from getting a higher rating.

Dominus and I started college today. I'm only taking three classes, but they're very hard. I'm not going to have as much free time as I used to. Oh well... only 18 more weeks to go :P

Here's something I was thinking about last night:
To do 3d rotations, a 3x3 matrix is required. This makes sense, after looking at the rotation equations. What I didn't understand is why everyone uses a 4x4 matrix with | 0 0 0 1 | in the last row and column. It turns out that the 4th column allows us to translate the object! The 4th row is included just because it is nicer to use square matricies.

I think I've also figured out why all my attempts at 3d rotations have failed (shrinking and spiraling into the screen). The reason, I believe, is that I'm using INTs instead of FLOATs for my position variables. I'll have to try this out sometime and see if it works.

Other things I've been working on:

• Conway's Game of Life / Celluar Automa
• Two new Fusion Industries logos

We'll see how it goes...

I finally got the "Hello, Windows 95" code to compile! It turns out that I had to add the location of two libraries in the compiler options area. I am getting more comfortable with working with Win95 code.

Here's an analogy for you: Windows coding is like learning how to ride a bike -- you can read about it, watch shows about it, or even listen about other people's experiences with it, but you'll never learn until you actually try it for yourself.

A while back I mentioned I entered the Co3 Coding contest. Well, the results are in and I took (drumroll please...) 9th place (out of 11 entries)! That ranking isn't very good at all, but I'm not disappointed with it either. At least I didn't place last =)

The contest right now is simulating firecrackers, but I haven't had time to work on it, which is a shame, because it would help me learn particle systems. Oh well...there's always the next contest.

In other news, Dominus, Superfro, Sethia, and I saw Pi last week at the Embarcadero in San Francisco. That had to have been one of the coolest movies that I've ever seen. The beginning looks just like a demo, and techno music plays throughout the movie. The music was so good that I even bought the soundtrack. When I get some free time, I'd like to made a demo styled after the beginning of Pi. We'll see what happens...

Today was my last day at my job! It was my first official job; I held it for two years. I quit because I needed time for school, relaxation, and coding. Although I am happy to have a bit of freedom (until school starts in a little more than a week, at least), I am sad to go because I enjoyed the environment and being around the people I worked with. If you're wondering, I basically did office stuff -- filing papers, updating prices, checking inventory, billing customers, as well as recommending and troubleshooting the computers for the company.

I've been working some more with Windows 95 programming... well, that is, doing a lot of reading. The good news is that I'm becoming comfortable with the way the source looks and reads and the idea of an event-driven system vs. a time-based one. The bad news is that I tried to compile the "Hello, Windows 95" source that came with the book, and managed to get 3 linker errors. Oh well...

Here's an interesting(?) story of where I got my Win95 books from. A reviewer who worked for a magazine (such as Microtimes or Computer Currents) donated three or so big boxes of brand new books and software to the science department. My physics teacher, Mr. Carter, put it up for grabs, allowing people to buy the books from him for a few bucks. To make a long story short, I walked away with about 15 books dealing with C, Windows, and game programming. This took place 2 years ago, and now I'm finally using them; I consider them an invaluable resource.

If you're curious, I'm working through "Programming Windows 95", by Charles Petzold, and have "Programming Windows 95 with MFC" and other references in the que.

My original goal was to have learned enough Windows programming to be able to port the Fusion Industries SB98 intro to Windows before school started. Now I'll be happy if I can get some basic Windows code working before school starts. I've been working the whole summer and that has taken up most of my time for coding. I'll leave it up to the reader to figure out what I did to free up time for coding... and I'll give an answer in a few weeks.

E-mail me (Calvrak) with your guesses!

A lot of the recent coding news has found its way to the the main page, it seems. I coded a pseudo-intro during Dominus' lan party from 3am to 10am Saturday morning.

I also finished my entry for the Co3 eclipse sim on July 1, 1998.

I've been spending all the free time I can get on the eclipse simulation.

So far, the eclipse features:

• Texture-mapped sun and moon
• Color-changing sky
• Stars during the full eclipse

Although it doesn't sound like or do much, it took a lot of hard work (Almost 17 hours!) to code a quality simulation.

Look for the simulation in the next few days!

Two days ago I came across the Co3 - Educational Programming Contests Division. This is a biweekly contest for modeling nature, and the winner takes home $25! ;). Past effects have included lightining, waterfalls, and clouds. The one I'm working on is modeling a solar eclipse. So far I've put in 6 hours; I'm sure many more will go into it. The deadline is July 5, which isn't too far away. If I finish, I'll post the results after I enter my program.

So far I've figured out a few key techniques that should help with my graphics programming in the future, including edge tables and texture mapping. I'm pretty excited about the posibilities with them.

The tutorial section is now up! We'll be starting this month with a tutorial on the fire effect.

I've done quite a bit with the distortion effect and I am very happy with the results. In fact, I've started to work with 3d, again, in hopes that I will be able to figure out how to rotate objects in 3-space and ultimately end up being able to do all that neat phong shading and cool 3d effects that you see in demos.

I think part of the reason I'm having a hard time is that I don't quite have the maths behind all the matrices and transformations needed for 3d stuff. Fortunately, I'll be starting linear algebra this summer, and that should help me figure out how to do effects in 3d properly. Rotating an object in 2d is no problem; you can see that I've managed to do it in our first demo, but when it comes to 3d, it becomes a little bit trickier. I've got some of the theory down, but it's implimenting it that has me confused.

Anyway, I've got the whole summer ahead of me, and that should give me plenty of time to figure it out. If not, I'll at least figure out other effects, finish putting together another demo, and/or do some Windows programming.

In other news, DominuS and I graduate this week! (Calvrak does a little dance around his computer). On the other hand, we're both starting college (if you can call it that) in the summer, therefore we get a 3-day summer vacation before we start school again ;)

I've put the motion blur aside for right now and started to work on distortion. Right now I'm getting some very good results. This will definitly be in the upcoming demo.

I'm going to post the first Fusion Industries tutorial on the fire effect next week...so be on the lookout for it.

I've decided to post a log of what I've been doing for the upcoming demo, starting with the developments from last week (below).

Most recently I've been working with the feedback effect. The theory behind it is easy to understand -- it's just like taking a video camera and pointing it towards a TV -- but it's a bit trickier to code effectively.

I've got a physics final on Wednesday, so I've had to put off working on the demo for a few days. Once I'm done with the final I should be able to devote more time towards it :)

These are the comments right out of the motion blur/feedback file.

• May 13, 1998 Time spent for the rest of today: 1 hour
  I got the effect working..but that's it. It works, but not really well.
• May 13, 1998 Time spent today (so far): 3 hours -> v0.001
  I've been playing around with the feedback concept some more. I worked some more with transparent images. The main trouble was with Photoshop, mainly trying to assign the right colors to the right parts of the palette. I added a blur() function to the effects.c psudolibrary so I don't have to use the fire() to get a blur. Now the program scales something and gives me a neat "smoke" effect ;) I'm going to leave this as v0.001 and move on to v0.002.
• May 12, 1998 Time spent today: 0.5 hours
  The feedback theory is somewhat in effect. One buffer scales to the other and is blurred. It needs a lot of work. I spent most of the time today writing a fire tutorial (about 1 hour). I know I should have put more time into this, but it needed to be done and I felt like writing it. It'll be posted on the Fusion Industries site =)
• May 11, 1998 Time spent today: 1.5 hours
  Created. I'm using the source from grad0002.c and modifying it to work with. I figure that all the right functions are in place, so it's just as easy to modify this than start a new one. All the comments up to May 9, 1998 in grad0002.c apply to this code, so I included them, although I'm "resetting" the time put into this code.
• May 9, 1998 Time spent today: 2 hours
  The year sprites (notice the plural sprite*s*) are now working. When one year zooms past the camera another starts off in the distance to takes its place. Before I was having a hard time reading the bottom half of the pcx array into the sprite array. It turns out that the x and y coords are relative to the sprite_width and height and therefore with a 320x100 image the Grab_PCX_Image(frame, x, y) is (frame, 0, 1) instead of (frame, 0, 100). I hope that wasn't too terribly confusing <g> Refer to the graph4.c file to help understand the solution. I've put two hours alone into getting this to work properly.

If you haven't seen them yet, you can look at pictures from my Mt. Whitney trip.