tim – Page 127 – TAGENIGMA LLC

Flickr

A new service from [Yahoo] called [Flickr] offers a free intuitive way to manage and [publish your photos].

Sector13 [Screenshot]

Increasing the detail of my planet shader using a combination of textures, multi-pass pixel shaders, and fragment shaders.

Well I got a promotion as a ‘Graphics developer’. That is in addition to already being a ‘Game developer’ for Reactor Interactive since June. I gotta say this stuff is pretty fun. Well back to experimenting with shaders.

Transgaming on Mandriva

This is all there is to installing Transgaming on Mandriva:

[tgraupmann@athelo ~]$ cd Desktop/
[tgraupmann@athelo Desktop]$ ls *.rpm
cedega-4.4.3-1.i386.rpm  Point2Play-2.0.3-1.i386.rpm
[tgraupmann@athelo Desktop]$ su
Password:
[root@athelo Desktop]# urpmi Point2Play-2.0.3-1.i386.rpm

installing Point2Play-2.0.3-1.i386.rpm
Preparing...                     #############################################
      1/1: Point2Play            #############################################
[root@athelo Desktop]# urpmi cedega-4.4.3-1.i386.rpm

installing cedega-4.4.3-1.i386.rpm
Preparing...                     #############################################
      1/1: cedega                #############################################
[root@athelo Desktop]# exit

Ogre on Linux (Mandriva)

To get [Ogre for Linux] running on [Mandriva], the first thing to do is run the [Easy URPMI] script.

You’ll need [zziplib]

urpmi zziplib0-devel

You’ll need [libsdl]

urpmi SDL-devel

You’ll need [Devil]

urpmi libdevil1-devel

You’ll need [Cg_Toolkit]

wget http://download.nvidia.com/developer/cg/Cg_1.4/Cg-1.4.0-4.i386.rpm
urpmi Cg-1.4.0-4.i386.rpm

You’ll need [GTK+]

urpmi gtk+-devel
wget ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.8/atk-1.10.1.tar.gz
wget ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.8/glib-2.8.3.tar.gz
urpmi libcairo2-devel
wget ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.8/pango-1.10.1.tar.gz
wget ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.8/gtk+-2.8.6.tar.gz

You’ll need [Mesa3d]

urpmi libMesaglut3-devel

You’ll need [Crazy Eddie (CeGUI)]
[CeGUI Source]

* * * * * COMPILING OGRE * * * * *
The configure script [logged this output]:

./configure --prefix=/usr

The ‘make ‘ script [logged this output].

The ‘make install’ script [logged this output].

The binaries appear here:

ogrenew/Samples/Common/bin/

Keeping Remote Desktop from auto logging out

Well I had to work this weekend, but luckily I can remote desktop into work. The problem is the network policies. If you leave you machine unattended let’s say with outlook open, it will auto log you out after 2 minutes. But as long as the mouse is moving or some action is happening then everything is fine.

So I decided to use the ‘think out the box’ guy and crank up the fan to keep him going while he pushes keys on the keyboard or taps the mouse.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t get sufficent velocity to cause any action. And I think the tap mechanism is heat sensitive.

So I tried the optical mouse. The fan does cause the guy to move. The optical mouse does detect the movement, but not enough to move the mouse cursor.

Oh well maybe if I can get a 35/45 music turn table and set the optical mouse on that. Maybe the mouse will go in circles. Stay tuned…

Ahhh… Found a working solution. By placing a battery on the up arrow of the keyboard with plyers for weight, this successfully leaves the remote desktop session open.

Moon

I took this shot of the moon with a [Olympus Stylus 800] digital camera looking thru a [Tasco Luminova] refraction telescope (40-114675, D=114mm, F=900mm, Coated Optics) with a 20mm lens. The fog had just started to roll in, blurring the moon and creating a small halo.

ZBrush

Getting into the halloween spirit.

HLSL Shaders in Ogre

The HLSL shaders that you create with Render Monkey are interchangible with Nvidia Cg shaders. The code is pretty much identical. All you need to do is take your HLSL vertex shader and pixel shader code and put it in a Cg text file. Then you reference the Cg file from an Ogre material file. The Ogre [Manual] explains how to pass custom variables into your shaders. Or you can link directly to your HLSL shader. The benefit of using Cg is that it will work on more than just Windows. Although HLSL will work on the XBox 360. But I don’t that’s true for Nintendo or Sony products.

Cg Toolkit

[NVidia] also has a [Cg Toolkit] similar to Render Monkey.

Render Monkey

I’m really getting into ATI’s [Render Monkey] 1.6. This program makes it really easy to create and edit HLSL shaders. And it’s free!

Sector13 [Screenshot]

Added a nice plasma shield around the ship. The Ogre engine makes [Animated Textures] so easy for this kind of thing.

         texture_unit
         {
            wave_xform scroll_y sawtooth 1.0 -0.05 0.0 1.0
            texture raven_shield.png
         }

Mandriva 2006

[Mandriva Linux 2006] came out a few days ago. After a nice [bittorrent] of downloading, I installed the newest version. The installer looks better than ever. I prefer Gnome as my window manager. Here is a peek at the new version.

“Don’t forget urpmi”

3) Type this in a console as root

urpmi.addmedia plf-free ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/plf/mandrake/free/2006.0 with hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia --update updates ftp://ftp.caliu.info/pub/distribucions/mandrake/official/updates/2006.0/main_updates/ with media_info/hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://mandrake.contactel.cz/Mandrakelinux/official/2006.0/i586/media/contrib with media_info/hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia jpackage ftp://mandrake.contactel.cz/Mandrakelinux/official/2006.0/i586/media/jpackage with media_info/hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia main ftp://mandrake.contactel.cz/Mandrakelinux/official/2006.0/i586/media/main with media_info/hdlist.cz

ZBrush

Just something weird I was working on during this morning’s bus ride.

Sector13 [Screenshot]

Capital ships are starting to enter the arena.

Autodesk acquires Alias

This is pretty big. Autodesk maker of 3d Studio Max acquired Alias maker of Maya. Here is the [press release]…

Application Integration with Verse

“[Verse] is a network protocol that lets multiple applications act together as one large application by sharing data over a network. If one application makes a change to shared data, the change is distributed instantly to all the other interested clients.”

“[Blender] is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU Public License.”

There is also an active community supporting [Python scripts] that enhance Blender.

“[The GIMP] is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.” Download the Gimp/Verse plugin].

Verse is a network technology that can connect multiple applications together in a managable way. Verse works on multiple platforms (Linux, Mac, and Windows). On the Blender Wiki, you’ll find [Detailed Documentation] showing how to start a Verse server and integrate it will Blender. In the [Verse Download Section] you’ll find downloads to connect Verse with even more applications.

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.blender.org:/cvsroot/verse co verse

The verse project also has a free OpenGL 2.0 renderer that you can get with from CVS.

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.blender.org:/cvsroot/verse co quelsolaar

Visit these sites for more info:

purple.blender.org

verse.blender.org

www.quelsolaar.com

www.elmindreda.org/verse/

www.uni-verse.org

Sector13 [Screenshot]

I just realized I haven’t posted a Sector13 gameplay screenshot in sometime. One of the cool things we are adding is dynamic skyboxes which will contain shaded and bumped meshes to look even more realistic. Within the coming weeks we will start to expand with some great AI.