Eve

New Additions

I don't know why I'm always up so late. I couldn't fall asleep earlier due to a headache the size of Texas, and now I'm sitting here making it worse by taking part in what probably caused it to begin with.
Today was pretty uneventful, I've been sick the past few days, so I've been trying to recuperate. I slept most of the early part of the day, but woke up not feeling any better so I made a rash decision to take two hours out of Arthur's lecture. This probably wasn't a very good idea to begin with because Arthur is very similar to Shane who doesn't waste a single breathe without spewing out something important or at least mildly interesting. Still the part of the lecture that I missed were dos commands, and basic batch file applications. The topic became quickly more complicated as we dowelled deeper into the subject with binary iostreams. The practical on the subject had me worrying as I spent the entire Lab trying to perfect myself on the subject. As far as I am aware, only one person got a 100% on this one (Dan), and I believe Taylor also did pretty well. Me, personally, well I think I did well. Basically speaking, I know the material covered very well now.

The practical was simple actually, it involved opening up a binary file, reading in the arguments passed to the program and than printing them back out. The part I missed involved reading back from the file. When I read in a string, I had missed the null terminator and had assumed that it would be copied over to the char* in my program. Well to make the long story short, I'll probably talk with Arthur and see if he can be a bit more lenient when it comes to grading these practicals, as there is a heavy penalty on each section that doesn't work even it was caused by a very minor error.

I also spoke with Arthur about maybe being able to put some of these practicals up on the blog for others to check out and try out themselves but he made it pretty clear that it wouldn't be a very good idea to distribute any FullSail related content. So I might try and replicate the examples if I have time using my own versions.

Well that about wraps up this update, last but not least I wanted to mention that this site might have a new writer. Payton Gannaway has been a supporter of StrayStudios for some time now and I asked if he would be interested in blogging here along with me. Hopefully he'll find the time to do so, and provide another point of view.

Prepping for Resistance

Well give me time :D

FX Composer 2 Beta 3

This news came from Gamedev.net, but I simply must pass on the news. After diving back into Maya and 3D I'm starting to see the power and potential of a tool such as this. So this is simply a quick share. Go check it out here.

Exceptions

Last weekend was really busy, I barly got a chance to play any video games between the XNA Tutorials, and the additional FullSail homework; more work was given on the conecutive Monday and Tuesday.

On Monday I was given a fairly rude awakening as it's a lot harder to keep up with normal classes when you don't get extra practice. The topics covered in PG3 were Templates and a review of Linked Lists. Here are a few intresting things I picked out from my notes.

Container – the usual name used for Linked Lists or objects that hold other objects.
Every virtual function is put into the virtual function table
Because the virtual keyword uses more memory we try to shun from it when it’s not appropriate
Templates need to be all inside the header file.
CCYA - Check Cover Your Ass. Check for copyright code.

and some useful VC++ shortcuts

CTRL K, S - surround your code with a snippet
CTRL K, K - Bookmark a section in the code
CTRL K, N - Move to the next bookmark

I did pretty well on the Practice Test for Physics, and things began to look up from there on. So that pretty much takes me to the today's topic, Exceptions. Although not a new topic for me, I had no idea how little I actually knew about the subject, but all's well that ends well as I aced the practical on the subject that night. This practicular practical was kind of fun to make and I'll remember to ask for permission to put it up for download. So that's it, I'll wrap up tonight and go to sleep with some more snippets from my notes.

• 
  Nesting classes


• Nested Classes are not in any way related to one another


• Access types are as default (classes::private)

• 
  Exceptions


• 
  
  throw


• Syntax:                 throw variableName


• The moment you throw, the stack unwinds


• The stack unwinds until it reaches a catch


• If there is no catch than the stack unwinds to main, after which it
  will call Terminate and then abort()


• 
  
  Exception Specification


• throw(int it)


• A way to better notify the catch what your trying to throw


• 
  http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2006/03/22/558390.aspx


• try


• 
  
  attempts, otherwise unwinds


• catch (dataType)


• 
  
  if the dataType matches exactly, it’s as if the exception never happened


• specifying a variable to dataType such as catch(dataType num) allows
  for manipulation of the thrown variable


• 
  
  catch(…) also known as ellipsis


• will catch all dataTypes


• 
  
  can not be given a variable


• 
  
  throw bad_;


• 
  
  ex: throw bad_index(“Naughty subscript”);


• #include <exception>


• 
  
  struct bad_index : public exception // : is a base list, public
  inheritance “is-a” an exception


• 
  bad_index(char const * const message) : exception(message)
  { }


• .what()


• 
  
  by adding a (gcnew String(instance.what()) is a trick to go from managed
  to unmanaged exception handling.


• 
  
  finally()


• will execute regardless of try / catch block


• this will execute even after a re-      throw()


• Only works in the focal


• 
  
  CTRL + F3


• 
  
  Set a keyword and search down


• 
  
  F3


• Search Down Next


• SHIFT + F3


• Search Up Next

Learning is Exponantial

Everyday we learn a little about something, or else the day is wasted and we start tomorow no different than the day before. We learn unconsciously most of the time, and because of this, the knowladge passes through us like wind. Still human potential is boundless and when a person becomes self aware of his potential and the ability to learn, things become limitless.

In the past few days, to be more exact in the past week or so; I've learned so much about what can be done, that I have a hard time sleeping at night, just thinking about what else I could be doing this very instant.

Below I'd like to share some of the fastest knowladge I've managed to get my hands on this weekend.

XNATutorial.com
A collection of 30 videos covering both XNA and CSharp syntax. The final videos cover the Farseer Physics library which further pushes what can be done in very little time.

Although XNA is a fantastic tool for many, I'm not a fan of managed code, and although I plan to continue learning all that can be done as well as with time exploring the rest of the .Net framework.

What's to come:
http://playstation3-homebrew.blogspot.com/
http://ps2dev.org/ps3/Tutorials

Too Slow

I'm certain that I checked my e-mail at around 8pm eastern today and had no new e-mails to speak of. Than my outlook bin updates itself at 1:42 am and I get an e-mail from EA asking if I want to fill out a survey concerning C&C3. Having actually purchased the game I was thrilled to do so. Only to be told ~ "Sorry we got all the opinions we needed"

: <

736+ Pages in 28 Days

A few days ago I posted a picture of the two new text books that we received for June. One of those books is a Physics for Gaming book. FullSail doesn't expect us to completely memorize the text but we are expected to do as much as we can outside of class. This month's personal ambition of mine is to read it all. So below I've outlined the 736+ pages.

CH1 & CH2
Chapter 2 covers Basic Conepts which will mostly be review of Newton's laws, and forces. I expect this is where we'll spent at least three classes.

CH3
Rigid Body Motion, here comes the calculus.

CH4
Deformable Bodies for chapter 4 looks like the first heavy chapter as it covers basic spring systems, and the more complicated control point deformation among other things. I'm saving this for the weekend.

CH5
Physics Engines, obviously we're not going to be making one this semester and although this is a very math heavy book the chapter covers all the fundemental techniques, depending on what we learn in PG3 I might tinker a little if I can follow this far.

CH6
Chapter 6 is titled Physics and Shader Programs. Sounds simple enough, well here is an in depth preview.
- Pixel Shaders
- Skin and Bones Animation
- Rippling Ocean Waves
- Refraction
- Fresnel Reflectance
- Iridescence
Well I'm excited!

CH7 & CH8
This is the halfway point and dives back into Linear Algebra and Calculus. We will most likely dive deeper into the following chapters in class.

CH9
Numerical Methods as a name suggests will be a very boring and slow dive into concepts like "Higher-Order Taylor Methods" and other famous old people's methods of number tricks. Heck their is even a section called "Stiff Equations."

CH10
The last official chapter of the book is on Quaternions and rotation. I expect that we will cover this in depth near the final days of Physics at FullSail.

Hackers

Hackers is a fantastic movie that in a quirky way is kind of cool. I know that I'm one of the few that hasn't seen it, but I can see how some of my peers got into programming after seeing this movie, I know I would have.

June

Just picked up books for June classes.


I'm looking forward to this month a lot more than the previous. Although the skimpy C# book that we got hardly accounts as a text book, our instructor Arthur is someone to look forward to.

10 Reasons why I want a new Desktop

1. Unreal Tournament 3
2. Alan Wake
3. Hellgate London
4. Halo 3
5. Shadowrun
6. Left 4 Dead
7. BioShock
8. Crisis
9. Haze
10. Half-Life 3

Playstation 3's Merit

A recent article on gameindustry.biz titled Striking Balance speaks about the possibilities of a price cut on the system and what if anything it could possible do to improve current sales.

I'm in agreement with Rob Fahey. In fact I really can't say it any better.

The final element which Sony needs to turn the PS3 around, sadly, is one which is in short supply. That element is time.
Time for high definition televisions to become more widespread. Time for games to finish development and woo audiences. Time for services like Singstar and Home to be launched and to mature. Time for Blu-Ray to establish itself, and become a desirable element of the console. Time for the arrogant-sounding and widely reported comments of executives like Ken Kutaragi and Jack Tretton to be forgotten by a vocal audience who don't forgive easily. Time for consumers to tire of their PS2s and look for the next big thing.
Time, sadly, is a commodity Sony may not have in great measure. The Wii continues to build a market - and Microsoft may have slowed down for now, but it would be foolish to assume that Redmond will never learn how to build mass-market games and services.

Having purchased the system only three months after release I am still a proud owner. I have confidence that the system can still produce games that will not be matched on the competition, thanks to the SPUs. I am confident that graphics are still a wowing factor when it comes to gaming. I'm also certain that things like @Home are not a gimicks, and that the internet will soon see a whole new level of interactivity. Modeling a character who looks like yourself than taking it into the virtual GAP store and trying on some thrifts on a virtual "me" is an appealing idea for anyone.

Wishing to contribute to the cause, I'll be one of the first to pick up the dev kit when it's available and create my own extention to called StrayStudios.

Authenticity

Nowadays I spend my time mostly preoccupied with FullSail. Outside of class & studies I find myself playing a ton of video games. I've played every game out on the PS3 so far, when I run out of PS3 games to pick up from gamefly I'll take a classic PS2 game for a spin. From rewarding experiences like God of War II to the disappointing Enchanted Arms I'm slowly getting a grip over what makes a great game. In my eyes it's the quality of the title, and how seriously it takes itself. A game should be no different than a quality book, or movie. A great form of entertainment does not mock itself.