"Seeing Double" Contest

Gamedev.net is hosting a [new contest].

“Create a game prototype based around two simultaneous views of the game world. These could be as simple as two simultaneous camera angles (forwards and backwards, side and top, etc), or could look at presenting different families of information about the game world, such as an infra-red or x-ray view, visualisation of sound or smell, or even things entirely specific to a fictional game world. The views do not have to be equal sizes, but both views should be presented to the player at the same time throughout gameplay, and the game design should favour a player who will make use of both displays equally (so both views must be equally useful – a minimap in the corner of a regular game display is probably not sufficient). Views should be primarily graphical; text is permitted provided it is not over-used (i.e. a simple text listing of health and position of monsters in the level will not be acceptable).”

I have an idea about creating a Pacific Northwest Salmon demo. You are a fish and you need to spawn. You navigate rivers using star positions while also battling upstream current. And if you happen to make it upstream, it’s spawning time!

Import/Export Ogre Meshes

First of all you need a modeling tool and [Blender] is freely available.

You also may need the [Ogre conversion tools] (make sure these tools are in your path).

Blender uses these Python scripts to [Import] and [Export] Ogre meshes.

These scripts should be copied into the blender scripts directory.

You may need to install the latest [Python].

And you may have to install some of [Blender’s pre-compiled plugins].

Also you’ll notice when you export the skeleton that the axii are inverted. You can remedy the problem with this:

// Flip axii
Ogre::Vector3 tempPosition = Ogre::Vector3(bonePosition.z, -bonePosition.x, bonePosition.y);

Sector13 [Next Feature]

This is a screenshot of an effect that I am reproducing in my next task for [Daetrexx engine glows]. The Ogre version will be slightly different, different color, length based on speed, and more concentrated. That is… if I can pull spare time out of my hat.

The original effect can be achieved by adding a solar flare, using an animated texture for the exhaust, adding some volume with funnel textures (4 axis aligned billboards), and a face texture (as seen from the back). Now the face texture actually needs to be just behind the solar flare, otherwise it would appear as an out of place artifact.

The effect in action:

Maya Personal Learning Edition

“[Maya Personal Learning Edition] is a special version of Maya® software, which provides free access to Maya for non-commercial use. It gives 3D graphics and animation students, industry professionals, and those interested in breaking into the world of computer graphics (CG) an opportunity to explore all aspects of the award-winning Maya Complete software in a non-commercial capacity.

Available for Windows® 2000/XP Professional and Mac® OS X operating systems.”

Run SUSE 10 with free VMWare player on Windows or Linux

Story originally from [KDE Developers] and OSNEWS].

Download the [Free VMWare Player].

“Announcing something which has been cooking already last year but got delayed by POTS bandwidth shortage over the holidays:

VMware released a player for free with which you can run pre-built virtual machines. Somehow their virtual machine center offers under “Novell” only SLES and NLD images. Puzzled I created an image which contains a standard KDE desktop installation of SUSE Linux 10.0 OSS, upgraded to KDE 3.5 including KOffice 1.4.2 excluding non-KDE applications. It’s a fully working installation so don’t forget to install and try some additional KDE applications – and to run the security update when you’re asked to. Eye-wink

You can download it from [developer.kde.org] archived either as 588 MB flavor for Microsoft Windows or 537 MB for Linux.”

And it works like a charm: