Looking at this really brought back some memories. I remember recieving the first edition of the famed "Unix Programmers Guide" by K. Thompson and D.M. Ritchie. It was released November 3, 1971. The guide included over 60 commands including famous ones like boot, chmod, mv, cp, and ls. If only I still had it today...
Does anybody have the original programming manuel? It is indeed a classic piece of memorabilia to own especially if you're a Unix fan.
It seems like the calculator market has been dominated by TI's products for as long as I can remember. They certainly remain supreme in the graphing calculator business. While high schools continue to recommend the Ti-83, it isn't going to be easy for any other company to sell their calculators. It is probably best for HP that they end their adventure into the calculator market.
For those of you who use Windows, Cristi Posea has written a nice window docking code. It allows you to dock objects inside ActiveX containers. Until recently there were some major flaws in the code. However, Greg Winkler has fixed them all with this. You may want to take a look at it: Docking CSizingControlBar objects inside ActiveX containers by Greg Winkler.
Update to that, I researched their rendering methods a bit more and found that Pixar uses their own 3D interface (created for the sole purpose of photorealistic rendering) called RenderMan. You might find it interesting that even though the styles seen in Final Fantasy and Pixar's movies are much different, they both used RenderMan for a majority of the rendering.
Pixar's style is a lot different than what we've seen in other full-CG movies including Final Fantasy: TSW and even Shrek. So how do they do? What kind of process to these guys follow?
At Pixar, there are four key stages to making a movie. They start with development, move on to creating the storyline (they don't just make the graphics). First, a text treatment (short document summarizing the main idea of the story) is written. Then the storyboards are drawn the old fashion way. Pixar begins to scout for voice actors and then get them into the studio to get some recording done. The editorial staff then begins making reels. If you aren't familiar with reels they are basically videotapes with cleaned up storyboard sequences on them. Finally, the art process begins. The art department at Pixar begins illustrating the world and the characters. They also design sets, props, and visual looks for surfaces and colors. These are reviewed and then the 3D process begins. The models are sculpted and articulated (not sure if this is done on SGI OCTANE workstations, but I do know that the actual rendering and animation is done on them). After the models are adequately designed, the sets are also built in 3d. Now they can begin adding models into the backgrounds and setting the stage according to storyboards. The shots are then animated and shaded and lighting is added. This is where Pixar's RENDERFARM is put to work. For a Bug's Life, 150 dual-processor Silicon Graphics OCTANE[tm] workstations and an Onyx2[tm] visual system were employed. [If anybody knows if the same were used in this, please respond.] After everything is rendered, sound and other final touches are added. Boom! There is your movie.
From my first hand use of the interpreter, there are two major things I'd like to see:
1) It would be nice with a more smooth scrolling method, like creating the whole background as an SDL_Surface, if that will cause no problems with the other objects which need to be drawn.
2)Any chance of putting sound support into the next version? Speaking to Serge (of SCUMMRev fame who also attempted a similar project to this) he says that although this would be hard to implement, it would fix a lot of timing errors in iMUSE games, especially MI2 which features heavy iMUSE usage.
Also, I couldn't get FOA (CD or Floppy Disk) nor MI1 (White Label CD Edition or Bounty Pack edition) to work. It comes up with this error for MI1:
1 1, 2 2, 4 4 4, 20 38 21 10 20 19464
Error(0): askForDisk: not yet implemented!
Press a key to quit.
I'll answer any questions you guys have about it, and anyone else have any experience or can help me out? Thanks.
For the past 2 years, WorldForge has been able to provide for all of its own infrastructural needs. We have been experimenting with SourceForge for a few weeks, and it has some nice features yet may be too limited for our future needs.
Should we continue use of SourceForge for functions not yet provided by the WorldForge infrastructure, or should we strive to provide those same functions under our own control, ourselves? Would it be worth setting up the
SourceForge software on a WorldForge infrastructure server for purposes of managing the sub-projects within WorldForge? Definitely something to think about this weekend.
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Looking at this really brought back some memories. I remember recieving the first edition of the famed "Unix Programmers Guide" by K. Thompson and D.M. Ritchie. It was released November 3, 1971. The guide included over 60 commands including famous ones like boot, chmod, mv, cp, and ls. If only I still had it today...
Does anybody have the original programming manuel? It is indeed a classic piece of memorabilia to own especially if you're a Unix fan.
It seems like the calculator market has been dominated by TI's products for as long as I can remember. They certainly remain supreme in the graphing calculator business. While high schools continue to recommend the Ti-83, it isn't going to be easy for any other company to sell their calculators. It is probably best for HP that they end their adventure into the calculator market.
For those of you who use Windows, Cristi Posea has written a nice window docking code. It allows you to dock objects inside ActiveX containers. Until recently there were some major flaws in the code. However, Greg Winkler has fixed them all with this. You may want to take a look at it: Docking CSizingControlBar objects inside ActiveX containers by Greg Winkler.
Update to that, I researched their rendering methods a bit more and found that Pixar uses their own 3D interface (created for the sole purpose of photorealistic rendering) called RenderMan. You might find it interesting that even though the styles seen in Final Fantasy and Pixar's movies are much different, they both used RenderMan for a majority of the rendering.
Pixar's style is a lot different than what we've seen in other full-CG movies including Final Fantasy: TSW and even Shrek. So how do they do? What kind of process to these guys follow? At Pixar, there are four key stages to making a movie. They start with development, move on to creating the storyline (they don't just make the graphics). First, a text treatment (short document summarizing the main idea of the story) is written. Then the storyboards are drawn the old fashion way. Pixar begins to scout for voice actors and then get them into the studio to get some recording done. The editorial staff then begins making reels. If you aren't familiar with reels they are basically videotapes with cleaned up storyboard sequences on them. Finally, the art process begins. The art department at Pixar begins illustrating the world and the characters. They also design sets, props, and visual looks for surfaces and colors. These are reviewed and then the 3D process begins. The models are sculpted and articulated (not sure if this is done on SGI OCTANE workstations, but I do know that the actual rendering and animation is done on them). After the models are adequately designed, the sets are also built in 3d. Now they can begin adding models into the backgrounds and setting the stage according to storyboards. The shots are then animated and shaded and lighting is added. This is where Pixar's RENDERFARM is put to work. For a Bug's Life, 150 dual-processor Silicon Graphics OCTANE[tm] workstations and an Onyx2[tm] visual system were employed. [If anybody knows if the same were used in this, please respond.] After everything is rendered, sound and other final touches are added. Boom! There is your movie.
From my first hand use of the interpreter, there are two major things I'd like to see: 1) It would be nice with a more smooth scrolling method, like creating the whole background as an SDL_Surface, if that will cause no problems with the other objects which need to be drawn. 2)Any chance of putting sound support into the next version? Speaking to Serge (of SCUMMRev fame who also attempted a similar project to this) he says that although this would be hard to implement, it would fix a lot of timing errors in iMUSE games, especially MI2 which features heavy iMUSE usage. Also, I couldn't get FOA (CD or Floppy Disk) nor MI1 (White Label CD Edition or Bounty Pack edition) to work. It comes up with this error for MI1: 1 1, 2 2, 4 4 4, 20 38 21 10 20 19464 Error(0): askForDisk: not yet implemented! Press a key to quit. I'll answer any questions you guys have about it, and anyone else have any experience or can help me out? Thanks.
For the past 2 years, WorldForge has been able to provide for all of its own infrastructural needs. We have been experimenting with SourceForge for a few weeks, and it has some nice features yet may be too limited for our future needs. Should we continue use of SourceForge for functions not yet provided by the WorldForge infrastructure, or should we strive to provide those same functions under our own control, ourselves? Would it be worth setting up the SourceForge software on a WorldForge infrastructure server for purposes of managing the sub-projects within WorldForge? Definitely something to think about this weekend.