Category: Code

[OnLive] is the next generation of game delivery that makes [Steam] and [Direct2Drive] obsolete. OnLive will also make a dent in the hardware market, by remotely hosting your games, effectively lowering your hardware requirements. OnLive has beefed up servers that play your games at full resolution and max detail while piping an image back to you. This type of technology is going to require the Internet infrastructure in the US to upgrade. If you have a slower Internet connection, this service won’t be for you. If you’ve got broadband, the game video will be piped in at standard tv resolution. If you have fast broadband, you’ll be playing in HDTV quality.

These beefed up servers are based on cloud computing which pushes the envelope for server hardware. [Slashdot] reports servers with 384 GB of RAM are becoming available.

[Gimp] is an open-source image editing clone similar to Adobe PhotoShop. Version 2.6.6 has released and can be freely downloaded.

A new version of [Mozilla Thunderbird] has released, but I want to know when will the [import/export mail features arrive]?

Modo has an issue where the pixels are showing black when the alpha channel is ignored. The RGB values should show instead.

Forum: [post1]

[post2]

[Microsoft WorldWide Telescope] is similar to Google Sky. Planet transitions might just teach you where planets are.

I was thinking about building a new desk so it fits my stuff.

Using 0.25″ boards:

Shelf Sides L Shape X 2: (62″ X 10″) and (30″ X 10″)
Shelf Keyboard: 60″ X 20″
Shelf Monitors X 2: 60″ X 10″
Shelf Brace Back: (60.5″ X 62.5″)
Shelf Braces X 6: (60″ X 3″)

One adjustment:

Lips under the shelves in the front and back for weight support:

Room below the monitors for the keyboard and papers:

Space around the monitors to allow room for adjustment:

Forum: [post]

[Sage] is a newly formed biotech company formed in Seattle that aims to [open source] cancer research.

[Gimp] has an issue when merging layers that looses your RGB values for pixels that have a zero alpha. Here is a [HowTo video]. that I recorded to help remember how to keep the RGB values on zero alpha pixels.

Normally textures have filtering modes like: none, bilinear, trilinear. I want to know how to change these via the [RenderMonkey UI].

Ahhhhhh! Apparently you double-click the texture item inside your pass and a texture state editor opens.

I also want to log [print statements] in my RenderMonkey shader when I need to debug.

[Yuuguu] is a free desktop sharing client for Windows and Mac.

Oasim sent a couple cool training video links on [conceptual drawing] and [character rigging] that I want to check out when I have time.

Initially I wasn’t seeing the folders I was sharing on the Mac from my Vista PC. There’s a little checkbox under options to enable SMB and walla I can access Mac folders from Vista. Reference: [File sharing in Leopard]

I’m trying to figure out how to [reduce the amount of disk space used by serialization].

I ended up using BinaryReader and BinaryWriter to compact the data and remove the serialization meta data. I used bitwise operations to compress information further. [Example]

The [64-bit Vista Drivers] for my [M-AUDIO Audiophile 192] finally released!

I tried the [Bubble] collaboration tool again. [Video] The tool is almost useful if updates were in realtime. Maybe if they fixed some of the load/save/refresh bugs. {OmniGraffie] appears to be a better diagram tool, but it’s not multiuser.

My Asus P5N-E motherboard went down New Year’s Eve. My computer lives again. I’m now running with an [Asus P5N-D] motherboard (spec), which is better and more stable than its counterpart. Now I just need to download and install 100 megs of Windows Updates.

I was looking at the Wavefront OBJ spec and it doesn’t save vertex color information in the OBJ file. The color information is saved in the MTL file.

I was hoping Modo would save in the proper format, so I could copy the syntax. But [that] isn’t correct either.

[VertexMonkey] has some IO scripts and I could chunk out a script, but it would eat my weekend.

I wrote the [import script] anyway. I ended up using the Modo OBJ loader and then suplementing the color and uv set maps. It runs slow as heck and should be done using the Modo SDK.

Forum: [post]

Posts: [Unity Wiki ObjExporterColorUvs] [Unity forum post]

[Reverse Everything] has some highly sophisticated examples of how to hack your Kindle 1.

Devin, our cat Tick-Toc, and Tim were walking along the forest service road and saw this UFO. Best guess algae or snail sack. What’s a snail sack? Slide show, here’s a 25′ X 25′ one. This whatever is growing in the hole left by an upturned evergreen tree. [SlideShow]

In [Modo 401] there’s a new ability to transfer vertex maps to a new mesh. So this means you can model expressions on a human and transfer them to a dog (alien or monster).

I didn’t really understand how the [Twitter] site worked until I saw this video, [Twitter in Plain English]. Tune into some of the other videos, “Wikis in Plain English” and “Zombies in Plain English”.

The [Global Game Jam] started January 30th at 5pm. They have video cameras setup at the various locations as game makers create based on that location’s theme. It seems to be a secret what that theme might be however. Tune in [irc.freenode.net/#globalgamejam]. Follow [GlobalGameJam] on Twitter.

Linae’s [HP a6177c-b] computer had a bad graphics card. HP shipped a replacement card and everything is working normally. HP had sent the wrong part, so it’s the first time I had to replace the graphics card face plate to get the card into the AGP slot.

We’ve had two weeks of snow and frequent power outages. Even though I have each computer on a UPC, two of them died recently. I suspect the power supplies. The [P5N-E] won’t even power on (3 year warranty). And the [HP a6177c-b] keeps rebooting (2 year warranty). HP is sending a new graphics card but I suspect both will need to go back for repairs.

I found [Ubuntu Linux] easy to work with for the past couple months. Shortly after running Linux, it’s common to want to play games and run office on Linux. To run games on Linux there are three options: 1) Wine 2) Cross over games and 3) Cedega. [Wine] is a Windows emulator that is free and game setup is done by manual setup of config files. 2) [Cross over games] is a commercial product built on Wine that facilitates the manual process. [Cedega] is also a commercial product built on Wine; check the [game database] for supported game information. Cross-over initially created a product to emulate Windows so that MS Office could be installed on Linux and it looks like they want a piece of the gaming market as well. So far Cedega appears to work better for games. Cedega also comes bundled with “Spore Creature Creator” so obviously they are the better choice. Cedega doesn’t support MS Office as far as I know. I installed MS Office 2007 with CrossOver Office, but found MS Word 2007 crashes on startup and the product is still working on support for Office 2007 SP1.