Month 2 - Day 1

It's the beginning of a new month, and that usually would mean new classes, and new instructors. This time it's different; same class, same assignment, and the same team. SGP Month 2 is said to be the most hectic time during the time spent at FullSail second only to final project upon graduation. Before I go any further into it, this past weekend was a blast. Granted we only get a measly three days to recover, time that is hardly ever used entirely for resting, we had organized another cookout. Combined with the month ahead, it consisted primarily of the month ahead. Me and Jim Leonis had brought meat that he had done a pretty good job preparing at the park. Meanwhile we organized a soccer game, that was fun but lasted maybe fifteen minutes before people ran out of breath. Well what can you do, when all the time spent is sitting on your arse looking at a flickering tube. Overall it was a lot of fun, and I intend to try and organize it again next month.
This weekend was also Magic night, myself, Taylor, Sigsby, and Mat all drafted the new Morningtide expansion, which got me interested in Magic again. I can't wait till I can sustain that hobby of mine.

The leisurely weekend ended Sunday as I dove back into programming, fleshing out more of the AI Engine but more particularly the functionality that will allow for a testable environment and SVN. Casey being occupied with Super Bowl XLII I stopped work short and went to bed for a 9 am class.

I woke up earlier than planned, about 6 am or so. I debated going back to sleep, but choose not to. Realizing that I still had lots of chores left unfinished I got up and went into the shower. After I came out, I decided not to wait precious energy on chores, packed my laptop and headed out. I figured I should try and squeeze a few more lines of code, before integration.

Me and Casey pretty much worked hand in hand the entire day, and completed a very impressive chunk of code. Finishing up the GameStates we are now left to patch up holes in the system.

All this would be fine and dandy until we realized that the .x files exported out of Maya 8.5 using cvxporter don't save vertex coloring, which is ultimately crucial for our vertex shader. And so the search begins, we confirm the problem, and I begin looking for alternate solutions. Obviously using an alternate 3D modeling tool is always an option, but it's not something we want to do for two reasons. First the unit scale would be totally off and we would need to adjust the dimensions of each model by hand. Second, their is a learning curve to using an unfamiliar 3D modeling tool.

So back to cvxporter, Chad Vernon decided to switch up his plugin to run through Python. Since I am totally unfamiliar with the language, and I know few people who are; I say, what the hell let's give it a try. I install Python24 for windows. Grab the ctypes that Chad mentions in his instructions (mind you I know how to follow them). Set up the Environment Path for PYTHONPATH, and it the cvxporter.py simply doesn't work. Wow, a fantastic time sink, but hey! Their is always tomorrow...