omegadelta.net renewed
And with 8 days to spare :)
/me thinks about renewing a year ahead for safty. the “omegadelta” domains are popular I’d hate for the omega-delta.net dude to try and snatch mine :)
”
Record expires on 07-Jan-2004.
Record Created on 07-Jan-2001.
”
Omegadelta is almost 2 years old :D I shall have to have a party *wink*
Will.
DirectX vs OpenGL
An interesting (but long) debate:
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/09/25/0318217.shtml
Of course most slashdotters are heavily linux bias, and from reading it i’d say 80% have never coded a 3d program in their life – but still, some people there hit it on the head I thought.
Will.
This and That
Thanks paul for adding some more quotes :)
balin, my IRC bot has some new features – “!whereiswill” which gives you a prerecorded message of where I am, and “!tellwill a message” which will leave me a message – just /msg or say those commands in a chan he is in…
Off to the coast today.
TankSoftware.com upgrade immenent…
Will.
Test
Test
Jokes
Due to popular demand new Jokes are now available at forums.tankammo.net -
http://tankammo.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
IRC Bot
More work on my IRC bot.
Is getting pretty cool now.
Here’s a post on Java Date formatting for you java buffs – http://tankammo.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=767#767
Will.
Next Year
So many choices – what will I do??
I have just today officially requested a change to the BInfTech 3 year degree – so assuming that I have the nessesary credit (I better damn well have) I shall officially have a degree by May (and unoffiically in the mean time =). That gives me trememdous flexibility – I can up and go at any time and I still have a degree, makes applying for a job easier etc. I am even considering that should I get a good programming job (prefrably gaming…. but can’t be too picky) I may even do my honours year part time…
Then there is the other options I have such as doing the accelerated Quantum gaming course (1 yr) which I have had several people recommend and leaving honours for now (you can do it up to 7 years later apparentally – if you so wish).
So yeah – I am a bit unsure. The current idea is that do honours for the theoretical foundation and learn more 3d programming on my own.
On that note Java3D underwent it’s greatest challenge today (something linux encountered several times but emerged victorious – thankfully). While I really like Java3D in all areas such as Model loading, high-levelness, sound, interoperability, the unfortunate fact is that it is an emerging technology which has yet to be fully embraced by the gaming community. In terms of performace and all it holds it’s own quite well with some of the disadvantes of the virtual machine (and notable garbage collector) being offset by gains due to scene graph optimisation.
I have looked at the two other choices OpenGL (which I have played in and have somthing to show for it) and DirectX. OpenGL has several advantages interms of portability which is attractive (for reference, Quake was made in OpenGL and can run on Windows or Linux) but DirectX is more in the league of Java3D being that it is a comprehensive package – you get DirectDraw (2D) – Direct3D (3D) – DirectSound and more just like you do with java (Swing, and the 3D sound libraries). Both a fairly high level (java being more so) – the main difference is that one works only on windows whereas the other can work on other os’s as well (both are propietry like OpenGL, Java of course being slightly more relaxed with more community input). OpenGL fails to cut it for me unfortunatally as there are no native object formats or loaders, no sound, and fairly low level. DirectX has it’s .x format with meshes and some animations, and Java has it’s Loaders interface with very good support (obj’s, vrml, x3d etc). The biggest thorn is that DirectX is Windows (grumble).
Alas most commercial games use DirectX – so that is what I need to learn in conjuntion with my more cutting edge Java3D knowledge. I held off buying a book on the subject today as while I thought it was good – some stuff in it I didn’t need, and it was published in 2000. There was one book “Tips of windows game programming guru’s” which is the textbook for a subject at uni – but it doesnm’t really cover Direct3D in much detail, more game making in general (apparentally the second volume does but). I am after a good DirectX/Direct3D book if someone knows of one but.
On the topic – I have been playing Battlefield 1942 a bit and it 0wnz. It feels a lot like counterstrike to me (not that I have played that a heap). But it is very fun. Their handeling of tanks is also very cool *grumble* I feel a bit daunted now making TC3-d. Since there is no way a single university graduate can match the combine powers of 7 or so professional programmers, I am going to retarget my expectations. Maybe I could gear it as a web game or somthing, that you can play as an applet (ie. with a smallish download), and I shall definitally be going down the accuracy path.
I hope I havn’t bored many people with all my 3D talk (I know I probably have). Basically I still think Java3D 0wnz and my current planned future work will be in that but I do intend to get some DirectX skills to make me more employable as well.
bf1942 also ownz – you need a pretty good computer but – chuck lags a bit, bob isn’t even in the running (even as a server) but tank knocks it on the head nicly (fitting since it is “tank” afterall). Quite an inspirational game actually – the graphics rule.
</rant>
Will.
Arrgh
Do’h why didn’t anyone tell me my PNG looked shit on IE >:(
The transparency appears to be stuffed….
I guess I should have tested it on IE. Lucky for me everything else appears to be working which is good. But I hate how IE displays my tables!!!!!! They look so much cooler in Moz. I shall try including the lightborder and darkborder attributes for IE to spruse it up a bit (they are IE only attributes – not HTMl4.01…).
Honestly I think 90% of the people who use IE would switch if they knew just how many cool features Moz had… (and about 100% of JavaScript programmers). Mozilla.org :) – download
Will.
