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• Starting to create a MathBuilder framework, help to start creating the design

  - by Darf Zon

  Let explain what I'm trying to create. I'm creating a framework, the idea is to provide base classes to generate a math problem. Why do I need this framework? Because at first time, I realized when I create a new math problem I always do the same steps. Configuration settings such range numbers. For example if I'm developing multiplications, in beginner level only generate the first number between 2-5 or in advanced level, the first number will be between 6- 9, for example. Generate problem method. All the time I need to invoke a method like this to generate the problem. This one receives the configuration settings and generate the number according to them. And generate the object with the respective data. Validate the problem. Sometimes the problem generated is not valid. For example, supposed I'm creating fractions in most simplified, if I receive 2/4, the program should detect that this is not valid and must generate another like this one, 1/4. Load the view. All of them, have a custom view (please watch below the images). All of the problems must know how to CHECK if the user result is correct. All of this problems has answers. Some of them just require one answer, anothers may require more than one, so I guess a way to maintain flexibility to the developer has all the answers he wanna used. At the beginning I started using PRISM. Generate modules for each math problem was the idea and load it in the main system. I guess are the most important things of this idea. Let me showing some problems which I create in a WPF standalone program. Here I have a math problem about areas. When I generate the problem a set to the view the object and it draw it. In beginner level, I set in the configuration settings that just load square types. But in advance level, can load triangles and squares randomly. In this another, generate a binary problem like addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. Above just generate a single problem. The idea of this is to show a test o quiz, I mean get a worksheet (this I call as a collection of problems) where the user can answer it. I hope gets the idea with my ugly drawing. How to load this math problems? As I said above, I started using PRISM, and each module contains a math problem kind. This is a snapshot of my first demo. Below show the modules loaded, and center the respective configurations or levels. Until momment, I have no idea to start creating this software. I just know that I need a question | problem class, response class, user class. But I get lost about what properties should have to contain in it. Please give a little hand of this framework. I put much effort on this question, so if any isn't clear, let me know to clarify it.

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• Microsoft TechEd 2010 - Day 2 @ Bangalore

  - by sathya

  Microsoft TechEd 2010 - Day 2 @ Bangalore Today is the day 2 @ Microsoft TechEd 2010. We had lot of technical sessions as usual there were many tracks going on side by side and I was attending the Web simplified track, Which comprised of the following sessions :   Developing a scalable Media Application using ASP.NET MVC - This was a kind of little advanced stuff. Anyways I couldn't understand much because this was not my piece of cake and I havent worked on this before ASP.Net MVC Unplugged - This was really great because this session covered from the basics of MVC showing what is Model,View and Controller and how it worked and the speaker went into the details of the same. Building RESTful Applications with the Open Data Protocol - There were some concepts explained about this from the basics on how to build RESTful Services and it went on till some advanced configurations of the same. Developing Scalable Web Applications with AppFabric Caching - This session showed about the integration of AppFabric with the .Net Web Applications. Instead of using Inproc Sessions, we can use this AppFabric as a substitute for Caching and outofProc Session Storage without writing code and doing a little bit of configurations which brings in High Scalability, performance to our applications. (But unfortunately there were no demos for this session ) Deep Dive : WCF RIA Services - This session was also an interactive one, in this the speaker presented from the basics of WCF and took a Book Store Application as a sample and explained all details concepts on linking with RIA Services   Apart from these sessions, in between there happened some small events in the breaks like Some discussions about Technology, Innovations Music Jokes Mimicry, etc. And on doing all these things, the developers were given some kool gifts / goodies like USBs, T-Shirts, etc. And today I got a chance to do the following certification : (70-562) Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in .NET 3.5 Web Applications Since I already have an MCTS in .NET 2.0, I wanted to do an MCPD and for doing the same I was required to do an update to my MCTS with the .NET 3.5 framework and I did the same I cleared it and now am an MCTS in .NET 3.5 Web Apps And on doing this I got a T-Shirt and they gave something called Learning $ of worth 30$. And in various stalls for attending each quiz or some game or some referrals we got some Learning $ which we can redeem later based on our Total Learning $. I got 105 $ which i was able to redeem and got a Microsoft Learning BagPack, 1 free Microsoft certification offer, a laptop light and an e-learning content activated. And after all these sessions and small events, we had something called Demo Extravaganza like I mentioned yesterday. This was a great funfilled event with lot of goodies for the attendees. There were some lucky draw which enabled 2 attendees to get Netbooks (Sponsored by Intel) and 1 attendee to get X-box (Sponsored by Citrix). After Choosing the raffle in the lucky draw they kept it on a device called Microsoft Surface which is a kind of big touch screen device and on putting the raffle on that it detected the code of the attendee and said intelligently how many sessions that person has attended and if he has attended more than 5 he got a Netbook and this was coded by a guy called Imran. Apart from they showed demos on : Research by 2 Tamilnadu students from Krishna Arts and Science college, taken 1200 photographs of their college from different angles and put that up in Bing maps using silverlight and linked with Photosynth, which showed a 3d view of their college based on the photos they uploaded Reasearch by Microsoft on Panaramic HD views of the images. One young guy from Microsoft Research showed a demo of this on Srivilliputhur Andal Temple, in Tamil Nadu and its history with a panoramic view of the temple and the near by places with narration of the historical information on the same and with the videos embedded in it with high definition images which we can zoom to a very detailed level. Some Demo on a business app with Silverlight, Business Intelligence (BI) and maps integrated. It showed the sales of a particular product across locations. Some kool demos by 2 geeks who used Robots to show their development talents. 2 Robots fought with each other 2 Robots danced in sync for the A.R. Rehman song Humma Humma... A dream home project by Raman. He is currently using the same in his home too. Robots are controlling his home currently. They showed a video on this. Here are the list of activities that Robot does for him When he reads a book, robot automatically scans that and shows that image of that person in the screen (TV or comp) in front of him. It shows a wikipedia about that person. It says that person is not in linked in. do you want to add him If he sees an IPL Match news in the book and smiles it understands he is interested in that and opens a website related to that and shows the current game and the scorecard. It cooks for him It cleans the room for him whenever he leaves the house when he is doing something if some intruder comes inside his house his computer automatically switches his screen showing the video of the person coming inside. When he wakes up it automatically opens up the system, loads his mails and the news by the side, etc. Some Demos on Microsoft Pivot. This was there in livelabs but it is now available in getpivot.com its a pivoting of the pictorial data based on some categories and filters on the searches that we do. And finally on filling up some feedback forms we got T-Shirts and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit CDs. Whats more on TechEd??? Stay tuned!!! Will update you soon on the other happenings!! PS : I typed a lot of content for more than a hour but I pressed a backspace and it went to the previous page and all my content were lost and I was not able to retrieve the same and I typed everything again.

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• Silverlight Cream for December 18, 2010 -- #1012

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Mark Monster, Kevin Dockx, Jeremy Likness(-2-,-3-), Timmy Kokke, Den Delimarsky, Mike Snow, Samuel Jack(-2-), and Renuka Prasad(-2-). Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Trigger a Storyboard on ViewModel changes" Mark Monster WP7: "Microsoft Push Notification in Windows Phone 7" Renuka Prasad Shoutouts: SilverlightGal sent me the link to The Silverlight Dossier ... I think it's a pretty good start... additions I'd like to see are ways to submit to the various areas. Michael Crump put up a contest that runs from now to January 1st... Win a set of Infragistics Silverlight Controls with Data Visualization!... pretty cool, Michael! If you visit WynApse.com, you'll see I have a subscription to LearnVisualStudio.net... and now they have posted a batch of WP7 videos... 64 of them to be exact... wow!: New video series From SilverlightCream.com: Trigger a Storyboard on ViewModel changes Mark Monster has a great post up about triggering Storyboard on ViewModel changes using the DataTrigger from Blend... cool stuff, and you can also do GoToStateAction or other actions or build yourowndang Trigger Action... fun awaits! ... sorry it took a while to post, Mark... been a tad overloaded here! Working with the Silverlight Rich Text Box control Kevin Dockx has had a post up for a while at SilverlightShow where he takes a good look at the RichText control and it's various capabilities, including source so you can give it a dance yourself. Lessons Learned in Personal Web Page Part 3: Custom Panel and Listbox Jeremy Likness's part 3 of his Personal Web Page lessons learned is covering the tres-cool 3D Panel he did... and he's got it all explained out... building from scratch via a custom panel and a Listbox control... A Silverlight MVVM Feed Reader from Scratch in 30 Minutes Jeremy Likness has a video tutorial showing building an MVVM/Silverlight feedreader in 30 minutes ... plus a couple mods that he noticed after the fact... beat that HTML5 :) Jounce Part 8: Raising Property Changed In Jeremy Likness's latest post, he has number 8 in his series on his MVVM platform, Jounce. This time he's explaining the property changed notification, has a very cool way of doing it, and some interesting comments from readers. Dependency Injection, MVVM, Ninject and Silverlight Timmy Kokke has a great tutorial up with associated demo project on Dependency Injection in MVVM and Silverlight. Some hidden features in the Windows Phone 7 emulator Den Delimarsky shows how to get some of the hidden features on your WP7 emulator like the Call History, Call Settings, and Details about the numbers. Playing sound effects on Windows Phone 7 Mike Snow's latest tip is playing sound effects on your WP7 ... a little bit of XNA here and there, and badabing, badaboom, you got sound! Day 3 of my “Build a Windows Phone 7 game in 3 days” Challenge Samuel Jack has a couple more posts up about his 'Build a WP7 game in 3 Days' challenge... first up is Day 3 from 8:50 to 22:30 ... wow... long day! ... but he's got something good going now... some good external links also Day 3.5 of my “Build a Windows Phone 7 game in 3 days” Challenge Samuel Jack's 3rd day ended with another half-day added on to put on some finishing touches... again, some good external links... and he finished with this Say hello to Simon Squared, my 3.5 day old WP7 Game Microsoft Push Notification in Windows Phone 7 Renuka Prasad has a bunch of material up that I've not been aware of (how did that happen, people??) ... here's the first of a couple of his posts on Code Project ... a very nice tutorial on the Push Notification process... great diagrams and external links. Windows Phone 7 – Toast Notification Using Windows Azure Cloud Service Renuka Prasad has another WP7 post on CodeProject... this one on Toast Notification... and he's using Azure and WCF all rolled into it as well... great diagrams, descriptions and all the code. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• St. Louis Day of .NET 2010

  - by Scott Spradlin

  Register now at http://www.stlouisdayofdotnet.com/registration.aspx The Date This year's conference will be held on Friday and Saturday, August 20-21, 2010, at the Ameristar Conference Center in St. Charles, Missouri.  Sessions will begin at 8:00 a.m. and run through 4:30 p.m. on both days.  Registration and sign-in will open at 7:00 a.m. on Friday morning, and will run throughout the event. The Venue Based on the almost unanimous feedback from last year's event, we are very excited to bring our conference back to the Ameristar Conference Center. The Ameristar has worked with us to offer a great rate on their large suites, should you be traveling from out-of-town -- or are just interested in a night away from home.  Attendees can book a suite at a discounted rate of only $139/night, which is a substantial discount from their standard rates.  We encourage you take the opportunity to hang around, spend the night, and enjoy the social events and networking opportunities that we have planned. If you are interested in taking advantage of the discounted hotel rate, you can reserve your room online at Ameristar's Online Registration Site, using the special offer code: GDOTH10.  You can also call the hotel's reservation number at (636) 940-4301 and let them know you are attending the St. Louis Day of .NET 2010 to receive your discounted rates. The Content All attendees will have access to over 80 technical sessions by many great regional and national technology experts, covering a wide range of .NET development topics.  In addition to refreshments throughout the event, all attendees will be provided with breakfast and lunch on both days of the conference. You will find sessions on many of the most current .NET development topics including: Visual Studio .NET 2010 Silverlight 4.0 Windows 7 Series Phone Development ASP.NET MVC DotNetNuke SharePoint 2010 Architecture Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) And much, much more... This year's event will also include many informal "Open Space" sessions where all attendees with similar interests can discuss current trends or issues they are facing in today's real-world development environments. Finally, all attendees are invited to a social networking event at the HOME Nightclub at the Ameristar, which will be held on the Friday evening of the conference. The Cost The cost of this year's conference is $200 per attendee.  However, for a limited time we are offering a $75 discount for early registrants. To take advantage of this discounted rate, you must register on our site prior to July 10, 2010.  We accept Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.  In addition, this year we allow for a single user of our site to easily register multiple attendees at once. To register, please visit the official St. Louis Day of .NET site at www.stldodn.com, and click on the "Registration" tab. For More Information And for the most up-to-the-minute information on the event, please follow us online: Twitter:  @stldodn Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/stldodn We strongly encourage you to share this email, as well as the attached flier, with your peers and colleagues, and anyone else you think might be interested in this exciting event. If you have any questions regarding registration, you can email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to address them. Sponsors We are extremely thankful to the many great sponsors who are partnering with us this year to help make the St. Louis Day of .NET 2010 a huge success. (There are still sponsorship opportunities available. For complete information, visit the sponsor page on the web site.)

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• Great event : Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Launch @ Microsoft TechEd Blore

  - by sathya

  Great event : Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Launch @ Microsoft TechEd Blore   I was really excited on attending the day 1 of Microsoft TechEd 2010 in Bangalore. This is the first Teched that am attending. The event was really fun filled with lot of knowledge sharing sessions and lots of goodies and gifts by the partners Initially the Event Started by Murthy's Session. He explained about the Developers relating to the 5 elements of nature (Pancha Boothaas) 1. Fire - Passion 2. Wave (Water) - Catch the right wave which we need to apply. 3. Earth - Connections and lots of opportunities around the world 4. Air -  Its whatever we breathe. Developers.. Without them nothing is possible. they are like the air 5. Sky - Cloud based applications   Next the Keynote and the announcement of Visual Studio by SomaSegar. List of things that he delivered his speech on : 1. Announcement of Visual Studio 2010 2. Announcement of .NET 4.0 3. Announcement of Silverlight later this week 4. What is the current Trend? Microsoft has done a research with many developers across the globe and have got the following feedback from the users. Get Lost (interrupted) - When we do some work and somebody is calling or interrepting by someother way we lose track of what we were doing and we need to do from the start Falling Behind- Technology gets updated  phenomenally over a period of time and developers always have a scenario like they are not in the state of the art technology and they always have a doubt whether they are staying updated. Lack of Collobaration - When a Manager asks a person what the team members have done and some might be done and some might not be and finally all are into a state like we dont know where we are. So they have addressed these 3 points in the VS 2010 by the following features : Get Lost - Some cool features which could overcome this. We have some Graphical interface. which could show what we have done and where we are. Some Zoom features in the code level. Falling Behind - Everything is based on .NET language base. 2010 has been built in such a way that if developers know the native language that's enough for building good applications. Lack of Collobaration - Some Dashboard Features which would show where exactly the project is. And a graphical user interface is shown on clicking which it directly drills down even to the code level. 5. An overview on all new features in VS 2010. 6. Some good demos of new features in VS 2010 by Polita and one more girl. Some of the new features included : 1. Team Explorer 2. Zoom in Code 3. Ribbon Development 4. Development in Single Platform for Windows Phone, XBox, Zune, Azure, Web Based and Windows based applications 5. Sequence Diagram Generation directly from code 6. Dashboards to show project status 7. Javascript and JQuery intellisense 8. Native support for JQuery 9. Packaging feature while deploying. 10. Generation of different versions of web.config like Web.Config.Production, Web.Config.Staging, etc. 11. IntelliTrace - Eliminating the "Not Reproducible" statement. 12. Automated User Interface Testing. At last in the closing of the day we had a great event called Demo Extravaganza, where lot of cool projects that were launched by Microsoft and also the projects that are under research were also shown. I got a lot of info about Bing today. BING really rocks!!! It has the following : 1. Visual Search 2. Product based search. For each product different menu filters were provided to make an advanced search 3. BING Maps was awesome!! It zoomed in to the street level and we can assume that we are the persons who are walking or running on the road and we can see the real objects like buildings moving by our side. 4. PhotoSynth was used in BING to show up all the images taken around the globe in a 3D format. 5. Formula - If we give some formula it automatically gives the value for the variable or derivation of expression Also some info about some kool touch apps which does an authentication and computation of Teched Attendee's Points that they have scored and the sessions attended. One guy won an XBOX in lucky draw as a gift. There were lot of Partner Stalls like Accenture,Intel,Citrix,MicroFocus,Telerik,infragistics,Sapient etc. Some Offers were provided for us like 50% off on Certifications, 1 free Elearning Course, etc. Stay tuned!! Wil update you on other events too..

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• IE9 not rendering box-shadow Elements inside of Table Cells

  - by Rick Strahl

  Ran into an annoying problem today with IE 9. Slowly updating some older sites with CSS 3 tags and for the most part IE9 does a reasonably decent job of working with the new CSS 3 features. Not all by a long shot but at least some of the more useful ones like border-radius and box-shadow are supported. Until today I was happy to see that IE supported box-shadow just fine, but I ran into a problem with some old markup that uses tables for its main layout sections. I found that inside of a table cell IE fails to render a box-shadow. Below are images from Chrome (left) and IE 9 (right) of the same content: The download and purchase images are rendered with: <a href="download.asp" style="display:block;margin: 10px;"><img src="../images/download.gif" class="boxshadow roundbox" /></a> where the .boxshadow and .roundbox styles look like this:.boxshadow { -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; } .roundbox { -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px; -webkit-border-radius: 6px; border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px; } And the Problem is… collapsed Table Borders Now normally these two styles work just fine in IE 9 when applied to elements. But the box-shadow doesn't work inside of this markup - because the parent container is a table cell.<td class="sidebar" style="border-collapse: collapse"> … <a href="download.asp" style="display:block;margin: 10px;"><img src="../images/download.gif" class="boxshadow roundbox" /></a> …</td> This HTML causes the image to not show a shadow. In actuality I'm not styling inline, but as part of my browser Reset I have the following in my master .css file:table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; } which has the same effect as the inline style. border-collapse by default inherits from the parent and so the TD inherits from table and tr - so TD tags are effectively collapsed. You can check out a test document that demonstrates this behavior here in this CodePaste.net snippet or run it here. How to work around this Issue To get IE9 to render the shadows inside of the TD tag correctly, I can just change the style explicitly NOT to use border-collapse:<td class="sidebar" style="border-collapse: separate; border-width: 0;"> Or better yet (thanks to David's comment below), you can add the border-collapse: separate to the .boxshadow style like this:.boxshadow { -moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; box-shadow: 3px 3px 5px #535353; border-collapse: separate; } With either of these approaches IE renders the shadows correctly. Do you really need border-collapse? Should you bother with border-collapse? I think so! Collapsed borders render flat as a single fat line if a border-width and border-color are assigned, while separated borders render a thin line with a bunch of weird white space around it or worse render a old skool 3D raised border which is terribly ugly as well. So as a matter of course in any app my browser Reset includes the above code to make sure all tables with borders render the same flat borders. As you probably know, IE has all sorts of rendering issues in tables and on backgrounds (opacity backgrounds or image backgrounds) most of which is caused by the way that IE internally uses ActiveX filters to apply these effects. Apparently collapsed borders are yet one more item that causes problems with rendering. There you have it. Another crappy failure in IE we have to check for now, just one more reason to hate Internet Explorer. Luckily this one has a reasonably easy workaround. I hope this helps out somebody and saves them the hour I spent trying to figure out what caused this problem in the first place. Resources Sample HTML document that demonstrates the behavior Run the Sample© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in HTML  Internet Explorer   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Normal maps red in OpenGL?

  - by KaiserJohaan

  I am using Assimp to import 3d models, and FreeImage to parse textures. The problem I am having is that the normal maps are actually red rather than blue when I try to render them as normal diffuse textures. http://i42.tinypic.com/289ing3.png When I open the images in a image-viewing program they do indeed show up as blue. Heres when I create the texture; OpenGLTexture::OpenGLTexture(const std::vector<uint8_t>& textureData, uint32_t textureWidth, uint32_t textureHeight, TextureType textureType, Logger& logger) : mLogger(logger), mTextureID(gNextTextureID++), mTextureType(textureType) { glGenTextures(1, &mTexture); CHECK_GL_ERROR(mLogger); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, mTexture); CHECK_GL_ERROR(mLogger); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA, textureWidth, textureHeight, 0, glTextureFormat, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, &textureData[0]); CHECK_GL_ERROR(mLogger); glGenerateMipmap(GL_TEXTURE_2D); CHECK_GL_ERROR(mLogger); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0); CHECK_GL_ERROR(mLogger); } Here is my fragment shader. You can see I just commented out the normal-map parsing and treated the normal map texture as the diffuse texture to display it and illustrate the problem. As for the rest of the code it interacts as expected with the diffuse textures so I dont see a obvious problem there. "#version 330 \n \ \n \ layout(std140) uniform; \n \ \n \ const int MAX_LIGHTS = 8; \n \ \n \ struct Light \n \ { \n \ vec4 mLightColor; \n \ vec4 mLightPosition; \n \ vec4 mLightDirection; \n \ \n \ int mLightType; \n \ float mLightIntensity; \n \ float mLightRadius; \n \ float mMaxDistance; \n \ }; \n \ \n \ uniform UnifLighting \n \ { \n \ vec4 mGamma; \n \ vec3 mViewDirection; \n \ int mNumLights; \n \ \n \ Light mLights[MAX_LIGHTS]; \n \ } Lighting; \n \ \n \ uniform UnifMaterial \n \ { \n \ vec4 mDiffuseColor; \n \ vec4 mAmbientColor; \n \ vec4 mSpecularColor; \n \ vec4 mEmissiveColor; \n \ \n \ bool mHasDiffuseTexture; \n \ bool mHasNormalTexture; \n \ bool mLightingEnabled; \n \ float mSpecularShininess; \n \ } Material; \n \ \n \ uniform sampler2D unifDiffuseTexture; \n \ uniform sampler2D unifNormalTexture; \n \ \n \ in vec3 frag_position; \n \ in vec3 frag_normal; \n \ in vec2 frag_texcoord; \n \ in vec3 frag_tangent; \n \ in vec3 frag_bitangent; \n \ \n \ out vec4 finalColor; " " \n \ \n \ void CalcGaussianSpecular(in vec3 dirToLight, in vec3 normal, out float gaussianTerm) \n \ { \n \ vec3 viewDirection = normalize(Lighting.mViewDirection); \n \ vec3 halfAngle = normalize(dirToLight + viewDirection); \n \ \n \ float angleNormalHalf = acos(dot(halfAngle, normalize(normal))); \n \ float exponent = angleNormalHalf / Material.mSpecularShininess; \n \ exponent = -(exponent * exponent); \n \ \n \ gaussianTerm = exp(exponent); \n \ } \n \ \n \ vec4 CalculateLighting(in Light light, in vec4 diffuseTexture, in vec3 normal) \n \ { \n \ if (light.mLightType == 1) // point light \n \ { \n \ vec3 positionDiff = light.mLightPosition.xyz - frag_position; \n \ float dist = max(length(positionDiff) - light.mLightRadius, 0); \n \ \n \ float attenuation = 1 / ((dist/light.mLightRadius + 1) * (dist/light.mLightRadius + 1)); \n \ attenuation = max((attenuation - light.mMaxDistance) / (1 - light.mMaxDistance), 0); \n \ \n \ vec3 dirToLight = normalize(positionDiff); \n \ float angleNormal = clamp(dot(normalize(normal), dirToLight), 0, 1); \n \ \n \ float gaussianTerm = 0.0; \n \ if (angleNormal > 0.0) \n \ CalcGaussianSpecular(dirToLight, normal, gaussianTerm); \n \ \n \ return diffuseTexture * (attenuation * angleNormal * Material.mDiffuseColor * light.mLightIntensity * light.mLightColor) + \n \ (attenuation * gaussianTerm * Material.mSpecularColor * light.mLightIntensity * light.mLightColor); \n \ } \n \ else if (light.mLightType == 2) // directional light \n \ { \n \ vec3 dirToLight = normalize(light.mLightDirection.xyz); \n \ float angleNormal = clamp(dot(normalize(normal), dirToLight), 0, 1); \n \ \n \ float gaussianTerm = 0.0; \n \ if (angleNormal > 0.0) \n \ CalcGaussianSpecular(dirToLight, normal, gaussianTerm); \n \ \n \ return diffuseTexture * (angleNormal * Material.mDiffuseColor * light.mLightIntensity * light.mLightColor) + \n \ (gaussianTerm * Material.mSpecularColor * light.mLightIntensity * light.mLightColor); \n \ } \n \ else if (light.mLightType == 4) // ambient light \n \ return diffuseTexture * Material.mAmbientColor * light.mLightIntensity * light.mLightColor; \n \ else \n \ return vec4(0.0); \n \ } \n \ \n \ void main() \n \ { \n \ vec4 diffuseTexture = vec4(1.0); \n \ if (Material.mHasDiffuseTexture) \n \ diffuseTexture = texture(unifDiffuseTexture, frag_texcoord); \n \ \n \ vec3 normal = frag_normal; \n \ if (Material.mHasNormalTexture) \n \ { \n \ diffuseTexture = vec4(normalize(texture(unifNormalTexture, frag_texcoord).xyz * 2.0 - 1.0), 1.0); \n \ // vec3 normalTangentSpace = normalize(texture(unifNormalTexture, frag_texcoord).xyz * 2.0 - 1.0); \n \ //mat3 tangentToWorldSpace = mat3(normalize(frag_tangent), normalize(frag_bitangent), normalize(frag_normal)); \n \ \n \ // normal = tangentToWorldSpace * normalTangentSpace; \n \ } \n \ \n \ if (Material.mLightingEnabled) \n \ { \n \ vec4 accumLighting = vec4(0.0); \n \ \n \ for (int lightIndex = 0; lightIndex < Lighting.mNumLights; lightIndex++) \n \ accumLighting += Material.mEmissiveColor * diffuseTexture + \n \ CalculateLighting(Lighting.mLights[lightIndex], diffuseTexture, normal); \n \ \n \ finalColor = pow(accumLighting, Lighting.mGamma); \n \ } \n \ else { \n \ finalColor = pow(diffuseTexture, Lighting.mGamma); \n \ } \n \ } \n"; Why is this? does normal-map textures need some sort of special treatment in opengl?

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• 2D Selective Gaussian Blur

  - by Joshua Thomas

  I am attempting to use Gaussian blur on a 2D platform game, selectively blurring specific types of platforms with different amounts. I am currently just messing around with simple test code, trying to get it to work correctly. What I need to eventually do is create three separate render targets, leave one normal, blur one slightly, and blur the last heavily, then recombine on the screen. Where I am now is I have successfully drawn into a new render target and performed the gaussian blur on it, but when I draw it back to the screen everything is purple aside from the platforms I drew to the target. This is my .fx file: #define RADIUS 7 #define KERNEL_SIZE (RADIUS * 2 + 1) //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- // Globals. //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- float weights[KERNEL_SIZE]; float2 offsets[KERNEL_SIZE]; //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- // Textures. //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- texture colorMapTexture; sampler2D colorMap = sampler_state { Texture = <colorMapTexture>; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; }; //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- // Pixel Shaders. //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- float4 PS_GaussianBlur(float2 texCoord : TEXCOORD) : COLOR0 { float4 color = float4(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); for (int i = 0; i < KERNEL_SIZE; ++i) color += tex2D(colorMap, texCoord + offsets[i]) * weights[i]; return color; } //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- // Techniques. //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- technique GaussianBlur { pass { PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PS_GaussianBlur(); } } This is the code I'm using for the gaussian blur: public Texture2D PerformGaussianBlur(Texture2D srcTexture, RenderTarget2D renderTarget1, RenderTarget2D renderTarget2, SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { if (effect == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("GaussianBlur.fx effect not loaded."); Texture2D outputTexture = null; Rectangle srcRect = new Rectangle(0, 0, srcTexture.Width, srcTexture.Height); Rectangle destRect1 = new Rectangle(0, 0, renderTarget1.Width, renderTarget1.Height); Rectangle destRect2 = new Rectangle(0, 0, renderTarget2.Width, renderTarget2.Height); // Perform horizontal Gaussian blur. game.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(renderTarget1); effect.CurrentTechnique = effect.Techniques["GaussianBlur"]; effect.Parameters["weights"].SetValue(kernel); effect.Parameters["colorMapTexture"].SetValue(srcTexture); effect.Parameters["offsets"].SetValue(offsetsHoriz); spriteBatch.Begin(0, BlendState.Opaque, null, null, null, effect); spriteBatch.Draw(srcTexture, destRect1, Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); // Perform vertical Gaussian blur. game.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(renderTarget2); outputTexture = (Texture2D)renderTarget1; effect.Parameters["colorMapTexture"].SetValue(outputTexture); effect.Parameters["offsets"].SetValue(offsetsVert); spriteBatch.Begin(0, BlendState.Opaque, null, null, null, effect); spriteBatch.Draw(outputTexture, destRect2, Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); // Return the Gaussian blurred texture. game.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); outputTexture = (Texture2D)renderTarget2; return outputTexture; } And this is the draw method affected: public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { device.SetRenderTarget(maxBlur); spriteBatch.Begin(); foreach (Brick brick in blueBricks) brick.Draw(spriteBatch); spriteBatch.End(); blue = gBlur.PerformGaussianBlur((Texture2D) maxBlur, helperTarget, maxBlur, spriteBatch); spriteBatch.Begin(); device.SetRenderTarget(null); foreach (Brick brick in redBricks) brick.Draw(spriteBatch); foreach (Brick brick in greenBricks) brick.Draw(spriteBatch); spriteBatch.Draw(blue, new Rectangle(0, 0, blue.Width, blue.Height), Color.White); foreach (Brick brick in purpleBricks) brick.Draw(spriteBatch); spriteBatch.End(); } I'm sorry about the massive brick of text and images(or not....new user, I tried, it said no), but I wanted to get my problem across clearly as I have been searching for an answer to this for quite a while now. As a side note, I have seen the bloom sample. Very well commented, but overly complicated since it deals in 3D; I was unable to take what I needed to learn form it. Thanks for any and all help.

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• Manage Your Amazon S3 Account with CloudBerry Explorer

  - by Mysticgeek

  If you have an Amazon S3 account you’re using to backup your data, you might want an easy way to manage it. CloudBerry Explorer is a free app that runs on your desktop an provides an easy way to manage your S3 account. Installation and Setup Just download and install the application with the defaults. When the application launches you’ll be prompted to enter in your username and email to get a registration key. Or you can continue on by clicking Register later. Now you will want to set up your Amazon S3 account. Click on File \ Amazon S3 Accounts. Double-click on the New Account icon.   Next enter in your Amazon account Access and Secret keys, select SSL if you want, then click the Test Connection button. Provided everything was entered correctly, you’ll see the Connection Success screen, just close out of it. Browse and Manage files Once you have your account setup through the Explorer, you can start viewing and managing your files on S3. The left pane shows your S3 buckets and stored files, while the right side shows your local computer. This allows you to manage your files in your Amazon S3 buckets directly from your desktop! It’s very easy to use, and you can drag and drop files from your computer to the S3 account or vice versa. There is also the ability to transfer files between Amazon S3 accounts from within the explorer. Go into Tools and Content Types and you can control the file types by adding, removing, or editing them. If you end up messing something up along the lines, you can always select Reset to defaults and everything will be back to normal. There is a multiple tabbed view so you can easily keep track of your different accounts and local machine. It allows the ability to create new storage buckets directly in the Explorer. Or you can delete buckets as well… Different actions can be accessed from the toolbars or by right-clicking and selecting from the context menu. Here we see a cool option that lets you move your data inside Amazon S3. It is faster and doesn’t cost money by moving the files to your computer first, then to another account. However, if you want data moved to your local machine first, you have that option as well.   Not all features are available in the free version, and if it’s not, you’ll be prompted to purchase a license for the Pro version. We will have a comprehensive review of the Pro version in the near future.    If you ever need help with CloudBerry Explorer, go to Tools \ Diagnostics. It will run a quick diagnostics check and you can send the information to the CloudBerry team for assistance. Delete Files from Amazon S3 To delete a file from you Amazon S3 account, simply highlight the files or folder you want to get rid of then click Delete on the toolbar. You can also right-click the file and select Delete from the Context Menu. Click Yes to the confirmation dialog box… Then you can watch the progress as your files are deleted in the bottom section of the explorer. Conclusion CloudBerry Explorer free version has several neat features that will allow you easy and basic control over you Amazon S3 account. The free version may be enough for basic users, but power users will want to upgrade to the pro version, as it includes a lot more features. Using the free version allows you to get a feel for what CloudBerry Explorer has to offer, and is a good starting point. Keep in mind that Amazon S3 is introducing Reduced Redundancy Storage which will lower the price of data stored. The price drops from $0.15 per GB to only $0.10 per GB. If you’re a Windows Home Server user, check out our review of CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for WHS. Download CloudBerry Explorer Free for Amazon S3 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home ServerReopen Closed Tabs in Internet ExplorerPreview and Purchase Ebooks with Kindle for PCTroubleshoot and Manage Addons in Internet Explorer 8Beginner Geek: Delete User Accounts in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor

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• RC of Entity Framework 4.1 (which includes EF Code First)

  - by ScottGu

  Last week the data team shipped the Release Candidate of Entity Framework 4.1.  You can learn more about it and download it here. EF 4.1 includes the new “EF Code First” option that I’ve blogged about several times in the past.  EF Code First provides a really elegant and clean way to work with data, and enables you to do so without requiring a designer or XML mapping file.  Below are links to some tutorials I’ve written in the past about it: Code First Development with Entity Framework 4.x EF Code First: Custom Database Schema Mapping Using EF Code First with an Existing Database The above tutorials were written against the CTP4 release of EF Code First (and so some APIs might be a little different) – but the concepts and scenarios outlined in them are the same as with the RC. Go Live License Last week’s EF 4.1 RC ships with a “go live” license that enables you to use it in production environments.  The final release of EF 4.1 will ship within the next 4 weeks and will be 100% API compatible with the RC release. Improvements with the RC The RC includes several improvements and enhancements.  The EF team has a good blog post summarizing the RC changes.  Scott Hanselman also has a nice video interview with the data team that talks more about the release. One of my favorite improvements introduced with last week’s RC is its support for medium trust security.  This enables you to use EF 4.1 (and code-first) within low-cost ASP.NET shared hosting web environments – without requiring a hoster to install anything to use it. EF 4.1 also now supports validation with not only code-first scenarios, but also model-first and database-first workflows.  Upgrading from previous releases The RC does include a few API tweaks and changes from the prior CTP builds.  Read the release notes that come with the release to get a more detailed listing of the changes. John Papa also has an excellent Upgrading to EF 4.1 RC blog post that describes the steps he took when upgrading a large project he wrote with the previous CTP5 release.  The work to upgrade is pretty straight forward and easy – use his write-up as a guide on how to quickly update projects of your own. NuGet Package Rename One of the changes that the data team made between the CTP5 and RC releases was to rename the NuGet package name from “EFCodeFirst” to “EntityFramework”. They decided to make this change since the EF 4.1 release now includes several additions above and beyond just code first. If you already have installed the “EFCodeFirst” NuGet package, you’ll want to uninstall it and then install the new “EntityFramework” NuGet package.  John Papa’s blog post details the exact steps on how to do this (it only takes ~20 seconds to do this). More EF Tutorials Julie Lerman has created some nice whitepapers and tutorials for MSDN that show using the new EF4 and EF 4.1 feature set. Click here to find links to read and watch them. Summary I’m really excited about the EF 4.1 release that will be shipping next month.  It significantly improves the Entity Framework, and makes it even easier and cleaner to work with data inside of .NET.  You can take advantage of it within all ASP.NET projects (including both Web Forms and MVC), within client projects using Windows Forms and WPF, and within other project types like WCF, Console and Services.  You can use NuGet to easily install it within all of them. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Building a personal website using Silverlight.

  - by mbcrump

  I’ve always believed that as a developer you should always have a hobby project going on. I think a hobby project needs to contain at least one of following things: Something that you have never done before. Something that you are interested in. Something that you can work on in your spare time without affecting your *paying* job. I decided my hobby project would be an entire web application written in Silverlight that could be used as a self-promotion/marketing tool. This goal of the site is to provide information on the work that I’ve done to conferences, future employers and anyone else that wanted to learn more about me. Before I go any further, if you just want to check out the site then it is located at http://michaelcrump.info. So, what did I use to create it? MVVM Light – I’m a big fan of this software. The item and project templates plus code snippets make this a huge win for any SL/WPF/WP7 application. Jetpack Theme by Microsoft – I suck at designing so I used this template to help speed up this project. ComponentOne 3rd Party Controls – I have a license and really like several of their products. A User Control that Jeremy Likness created called DynamicXaml (used with his permission). I had created my own version of this a while back, but Jeremy’s implementation was simply better. Main Page – Designed to create my “brand”. This was built for a quick glimpse of who I am and what do I do.  Blog – The best marketing tool for a developer is their blog. I decided to go with an HTML page displaying my site and the user could pop into full-screen if desired. I also included my feed and Silverlight-Zone. (Another site I work on) Online – This page links to sites that I have been featured on as well as community involvement and awards. I also have a web service that I can update this information without re-compiling the Silverlight App. Projects – I’ve been wanting to use a CoverFlow for a really long time now. =) This page list several hobby projects as well as a few professional projects.  Resume Page – This page only exist because I got tired of sending companies my resume in e-mail. I can now provide a deep link to this page and the recruiter can print, search or save my resume. The PDF of my resume exist in a folder that I can easily update without recompiling the app. Contact Page – Just a contact page with a web service that sends the email. The Send button becomes disabled after a successful send. I thought of adding captcha to this page but in the end didn’t think it was worth it. Looking back at this app, I’m happy with how it turned out. I love Silverlight and I am already thinking of my next hobby project. (Thinking another Windows Phone 7 app or MVC3).  Subscribe to my feed

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• MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 3

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  I rolled over to the Mandalay for breakfast.  There I met a couple guys that were really excited about the new Windows 7 Phone.  They, as I, are also hopeful that the phone really gets a big push and some penetration into the market.  Not because we don’t like any other of the phones, but because this phone is so much better in many ways.  From a developer's perspective creating applications in Windows 7 Mobile will be vastly superior in ease, capabilities, and other aspects.  The architectural, existing code base, examples, and provisions to create things on the 7 Mobile Device are already existing as of RIGHT NOW.  There is no reason, except for fickle market conditions, for this phone to not just explode onto the market.  But alas, I won't hold my breath. Day three keynote had a whole new slew of things provided.  It also seemed that things got a lot more technical on this second keynote.  The oData was one of the very technical bits, yet it included almost no code.  Starting with a Netflix example and all the way to the Codename "Dallas" effort the oData Services provide some expansive possibilities. A mash up going 4 ways was then shown for finding a movie, finding local places to have a viewing, and information about the movie and were to prospectively find and buy additional movie bits.  The display was of course, in a Windows 7 Mobile device with literally a click to view each set of data.  The backend and the front end of this was beautifully smooth. The Dallas Project has a lot of potential for analytics in dashboard and scorecard creation also.  If there is a need or reason to provide data to a vast and wide range of clients, Dallas is a prime example of how to do that. Azure Clouds After the main keynote I checked out (while developing a working WPF & Silverlight Application for work) the session on deploying ASP.NET Applications, services, etc, into the cloud.  The session was pretty good, but I'll admit I got a little unfocused from it a few times.  It is after all hard to do two things at one time. I did take note that the cloud still is a multiple step process for deploying to.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  There needs to be more checks and verifications when deploying something into the cloud just for technical reasons.  However, I feel that there should be some streamlining to the process.  Going back and forth between web and Visual Studio as the interface also seems kind of clunky.  Deployment should be able to be completed from within Visual Studio in my perspective.  Overall, the cloud is getting more and more impressive in function as well as theory. That's it from me so far on the third day of MIX.  I'll be note taking and studying hard to have more good tidbits to provide. Thanks for reading, if you're curious about more of my writing, check out this original entry at my other blog Agilist Mercenary.

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• JavaOne 2012 Sunday Strategy Keynote

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  At the Sunday Strategy Keynote, held at the Masonic Auditorium, Hasan Rizvi, EVP, Middleware and Java Development, stated that the theme for this year's JavaOne is: “Make the future Java”-- meaning that Java continues in its role as the most popular, complete, productive, secure, and innovative development platform. But it also means, he qualified, the process by which we make the future Java -- an open, transparent, collaborative, and community-driven evolution. "Many of you have bet your businesses and your careers on Java, and we have bet our business on Java," he said.Rizvi detailed the three factors they consider critical to the success of Java--technology innovation, community participation, and Oracle's leadership/stewardship. He offered a scorecard in these three realms over the past year--with OS X and Linux ARM support on Java SE, open sourcing of JavaFX by the end of the year, the release of Java Embedded Suite 7.0 middleware platform, and multiple releases on the Java EE side. The JCP process continues, with new JSR activity, and JUGs show a 25% increase in participation since last year. Oracle, meanwhile, continues its commitment to both technology and community development/outreach--with four regional JavaOne conferences last year in various part of the world, as well as the release of Java Magazine, with over 120,000 current subscribers. Georges Saab, VP Development, Java SE, next reviewed features of Java SE 7--the first major revision to the platform under Oracle's stewardship, which has included near-monthly update releases offering hundreds of fixes, performance enhancements, and new features. Saab indicated that developers, ISVs, and hosting providers have all been rapid adopters of the platform. He also noted that Oracle's entire Fusion middleware stack is supported on SE 7. The supported platforms for SE 7 has also increased--from Windows, Linux, and Solaris, to OS X, Linux ARM, and the emerging ARM micro-server market. "In the last year, we've added as many new platforms for Java, as were added in the previous decade," said Saab.Saab also explored the upcoming JDK 8 release--including Project Lambda, Project Nashorn (a modern implementation of JavaScript running on the JVM), and others. He noted that Nashorn functionality had already been used internally in NetBeans 7.3, and announced that they were planning to contribute the implementation to OpenJDK. Nandini Ramani, VP Development, Java Client, ME and Card, discussed the latest news pertaining to JavaFX 2.0--releases on Windows, OS X, and Linux, release of the FX Scene Builder tool, the JavaFX WebView component in NetBeans 7.3, and an OpenJFX project in OpenJDK. Nandini announced, as of Sunday, the availability for download of JavaFX on Linux ARM (developer preview), as well as Scene Builder on Linux. She noted that for next year's JDK 8 release, JavaFX will offer 3D, as well as third-party component integration. Avinder Brar, Senior Software Engineer, Navis, and Dierk König, Canoo Fellow, next took the stage and demonstrated all that JavaFX offers, with a feature-rich, animation-rich, real-time cargo management application that employs Canoo's just open-sourced Dolphin technology.Saab also explored Java SE 9 and beyond--Jigsaw modularity, Penrose Project for interoperability with OSGi, improved multi-tenancy for Java in the cloud, and Project Sumatra. Phil Rogers, HSA Foundation President and AMD Corporate Fellow, explored heterogeneous computing platforms that combine the CPU and the parallel processor of the GPU into a single piece of silicon and shared memory—a hardware technology driven by such advanced functionalities as HD video, face recognition, and cloud workloads. Project Sumatra is an OpenJDK project targeted at bringing Java to such heterogeneous platforms--with hardware and software experts working together to modify the JVM for these advanced applications and platforms.Ramani next discussed the latest with Java in the embedded space--"the Internet of things" and M2M--declaring this to be "the next IT revolution," with Java as the ideal technology for the ecosystem. Last week, Oracle released Java ME Embedded 3.2 (for micro-contollers and low-power devices), and Java Embedded Suite 7.0 (a middleware stack based on Java SE 7). Axel Hansmann, VP Strategy and Marketing, Cinterion, explored his company's use of Java in M2M, and their new release of EHS5, the world's smallest 3G-capable M2M module, running Java ME Embedded. Hansmaan explained that Java offers them the ability to create a "simple to use, scalable, coherent, end-to-end layer" for such diverse edge devices.Marc Brule, Chief Financial Office, Royal Canadian Mint, also explored the fascinating use-case of JavaCard in his country's MintChip e-cash technology--deployable on smartphones, USB device, computer, tablet, or cloud. In parting, Ramani encouraged developers to download the latest releases of Java Embedded, and try them out.Cameron Purdy, VP, Fusion Middleware Development and Java EE, summarized the latest developments and announcements in the Enterprise space--greater developer productivity in Java EE6 (with more on the way in EE 7), portability between platforms, vendors, and even cloud-to-cloud portability. The earliest version of the Java EE 7 SDK is now available for download--in GlassFish 4--with WebSocket support, better JSON support, and more. The final release is scheduled for April of 2013. Nicole Otto, Senior Director, Consumer Digital Technology, Nike, explored her company's Java technology driven enterprise ecosystem for all things sports, including the NikeFuel accelerometer wrist band. Looking beyond Java EE 7, Purdy mentioned NoSQL database functionality for EE 8, the concurrency utilities (possibly in EE 7), some of the Avatar projects in EE 7, some in EE 8, multi-tenancy for the cloud, supporting SaaS applications, and more.Rizvi ended by introducing Dr. Robert Ballard, oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer in Residence--part of Oracle's philanthropic relationship with the National Geographic Society to fund K-12 education around ocean science and conservation. Ballard is best known for having discovered the wreckage of the Titanic. He offered a fascinating video and overview of the cutting edge technology used in such deep-sea explorations, noting that in his early days, high-bandwidth exploration meant that you’d go down in a submarine and "stick your face up against the window." Now, it's a remotely operated, technology telepresence--"I think of my Hercules vehicle as my equivalent of a Na'vi. When I go beneath the sea, I actually send my spirit." Using high bandwidth satellite links, such amazing explorations can now occur via smartphone, laptop, or whatever platform. Ballard’s team regularly offers live feeds and programming out to schools and the world, spanning 188 countries--with embedding educators as part of the expeditions. It's technology at its finest, inspiring the next-generation of scientists and explorers!

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• Friction not working for Vehicle in BulletPhysics

  - by Manmohan Bishnoi

  I am creating a vehicle using bullet-physics engine (v 2.82). I created a ground ( btBoxShape ), a box and a vehicle (following the demo). But friction between ground and vehicle wheels seems not working. As soon as the vehicle is placed in 3d world, it starts moving forward. START : Steering works for the vehicle, but engineForce and brakingForce does not work (i.e. I cannot speed-up or stop the vehicle) : I create physics world like this : void initPhysics() { broadphase = new btDbvtBroadphase(); collisionConfiguration = new btDefaultCollisionConfiguration(); dispatcher = new btCollisionDispatcher(collisionConfiguration); solver = new btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver(); dynamicsWorld = new btDiscreteDynamicsWorld(dispatcher, broadphase, solver, collisionConfiguration); dynamicsWorld->setGravity(btVector3(0, -9.81, 0)); // Debug Drawer bulletDebugugger.setDebugMode(btIDebugDraw::DBG_DrawWireframe); dynamicsWorld->setDebugDrawer(&bulletDebugugger); //groundShape = new btStaticPlaneShape(btVector3(0, 1, 0), 1); groundShape = new btBoxShape(btVector3(50, 3, 50)); fallShape = new btBoxShape(btVector3(1, 1, 1)); // Orientation and Position of Ground groundMotionState = new btDefaultMotionState(btTransform(btQuaternion(0, 0, 0, 1), btVector3(0, -3, 0))); btRigidBody::btRigidBodyConstructionInfo groundRigidBodyCI(0, groundMotionState, groundShape, btVector3(0, 0, 0)); groundRigidBody = new btRigidBody(groundRigidBodyCI); dynamicsWorld->addRigidBody(groundRigidBody); /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Vehicle Setup /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// vehicleChassisShape = new btBoxShape(btVector3(1.f, 0.5f, 2.f)); vehicleBody = new btCompoundShape(); localTrans.setIdentity(); localTrans.setOrigin(btVector3(0, 1, 0)); vehicleBody->addChildShape(localTrans, vehicleChassisShape); localTrans.setOrigin(btVector3(3, 0.f, 0)); vehicleMotionState = new btDefaultMotionState(localTrans); //vehicleMotionState = new btDefaultMotionState(btTransform(btQuaternion(0, 0, 0, 1), btVector3(3, 0, 0))); btVector3 vehicleInertia(0, 0, 0); vehicleBody->calculateLocalInertia(vehicleMass, vehicleInertia); btRigidBody::btRigidBodyConstructionInfo vehicleRigidBodyCI(vehicleMass, vehicleMotionState, vehicleBody, vehicleInertia); vehicleRigidBody = new btRigidBody(vehicleRigidBodyCI); dynamicsWorld->addRigidBody(vehicleRigidBody); wheelShape = new btCylinderShapeX(btVector3(wheelWidth, wheelRadius, wheelRadius)); { vehicleRayCaster = new btDefaultVehicleRaycaster(dynamicsWorld); vehicle = new btRaycastVehicle(vehicleTuning, vehicleRigidBody, vehicleRayCaster); // never deactivate vehicle vehicleRigidBody->setActivationState(DISABLE_DEACTIVATION); dynamicsWorld->addVehicle(vehicle); float connectionHeight = 1.2f; bool isFrontWheel = true; vehicle->setCoordinateSystem(rightIndex, upIndex, forwardIndex); // 0, 1, 2 // add wheels // front left btVector3 connectionPointCS0(CUBE_HALF_EXTENT-(0.3*wheelWidth), connectionHeight, 2*CUBE_HALF_EXTENT-wheelRadius); vehicle->addWheel(connectionPointCS0, wheelDirectionCS0, wheelAxleCS, suspensionRestLength, wheelRadius, vehicleTuning, isFrontWheel); // front right connectionPointCS0 = btVector3(-CUBE_HALF_EXTENT+(0.3*wheelWidth), connectionHeight, 2*CUBE_HALF_EXTENT-wheelRadius); vehicle->addWheel(connectionPointCS0, wheelDirectionCS0, wheelAxleCS, suspensionRestLength, wheelRadius, vehicleTuning, isFrontWheel); isFrontWheel = false; // rear right connectionPointCS0 = btVector3(-CUBE_HALF_EXTENT+(0.3*wheelWidth), connectionHeight, -2*CUBE_HALF_EXTENT+wheelRadius); vehicle->addWheel(connectionPointCS0, wheelDirectionCS0, wheelAxleCS, suspensionRestLength, wheelRadius, vehicleTuning, isFrontWheel); // rear left connectionPointCS0 = btVector3(CUBE_HALF_EXTENT-(0.3*wheelWidth), connectionHeight, -2*CUBE_HALF_EXTENT+wheelRadius); vehicle->addWheel(connectionPointCS0, wheelDirectionCS0, wheelAxleCS, suspensionRestLength, wheelRadius, vehicleTuning, isFrontWheel); for (int i = 0; i < vehicle->getNumWheels(); i++) { btWheelInfo& wheel = vehicle->getWheelInfo(i); wheel.m_suspensionStiffness = suspensionStiffness; wheel.m_wheelsDampingRelaxation = suspensionDamping; wheel.m_wheelsDampingCompression = suspensionCompression; wheel.m_frictionSlip = wheelFriction; wheel.m_rollInfluence = rollInfluence; } } /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Orientation and Position of Falling body fallMotionState = new btDefaultMotionState(btTransform(btQuaternion(0, 0, 0, 1), btVector3(-1, 5, 0))); btScalar mass = 1; btVector3 fallInertia(0, 0, 0); fallShape->calculateLocalInertia(mass, fallInertia); btRigidBody::btRigidBodyConstructionInfo fallRigidBodyCI(mass, fallMotionState, fallShape, fallInertia); fallRigidBody = new btRigidBody(fallRigidBodyCI); dynamicsWorld->addRigidBody(fallRigidBody); } I step physics world like this : // does not work vehicle->applyEngineForce(maxEngineForce, WHEEL_REARLEFT); vehicle->applyEngineForce(maxEngineForce, WHEEL_REARRIGHT); // these also do not work vehicle->setBrake(gBreakingForce, WHEEL_REARLEFT); vehicle->setBrake(gBreakingForce, WHEEL_REARRIGHT); // this works vehicle->setSteeringValue(gVehicleSteering, WHEEL_FRONTLEFT); vehicle->setSteeringValue(gVehicleSteering, WHEEL_FRONTRIGHT); dynamicsWorld->stepSimulation(1 / 60.0f, 10); However If I apply brakingForce to all 4 wheels (i.e. including WHEEL_FRONTLEFT and WHEEL_FRONTRIGHT), then my vehicle stops, but keeps sliding/moving forward very very slowly. How do I fix this ?

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• Application Development: Python or Java (or PHP)

  - by luckysmack

  I'm looking to get into application development, such as Facebook or Android apps and games. I am doing this for fun and to learn. Once my skills are to par I would like to have some side income from the apps, but I'm not banking on living off that (just so you know where I'm coming from and know what my end goals are). Currently I know and am familiar with PHP and frameworks such as cakephp and yii. However, I have been wanting to learn another language to broaden my horizons and to become a better developer. So I have narrowed it down to 2 languages. Python, and Java (I can already hear people cringing at the difference in the languages I have chosen, but I have some reasons). Python: closer to PHP that Java. Cross platformability. Also great as a general scripting language and has many file system level benefits that PHP does not. Cleaner syntax, readability, blah blah and the list goed on. Python will work great for cross platform apps and can be run on many OS's and is supported by Facebook for app development. But there is no support on Android (for full fledged apps). Java: a much stronger typed language, very robust community and corporate backing. Knowing Java is also good for personal marketability for enterprises, if you're into that. The main benefit here is that Java can write apps natively for Android and the apps can be ported for web versions to play on Facebook. So while I have seen many developers prefer Java over the two, Java has this significant advantage, where I can market my apps in both markets and in the future build more potential income. But like I said it is for fun. While money isn't the goal, it would still be nice. PHP: I'm putting this here because I know it already, and I'm sure a case could be made for it. It obviously works great for Facebook but like Python does not do so well on android. While it's mostly the realm of 'application development' that appeals to me, I do find Android apps fairly interesting and something that has a ton of potential to. But then again Facebook has a ton more users and the apps can also potentially be more immersive (desktop vs. mobile). So this is why I'm kinda stuck on what route to choose. Python for Facebook and web apps, with likely faster development to production times, or Java which can be developed for any of the platforms to make apps. Side note: I'm not really trying to get into 3D development, mostly 2D. And I also want to make an app with real-time play (websockets, etc). Someone mentioned node, js to me for that but Python seems to be more globally versatile for my goals. So, to anyone that does Facebook or Android development in either language: what do you suggest? Any input is valuable and I do appreciate it. And sorry for being long winded. EDIT: as mentioned in one of the answers, my primary goal is gaming. Although I do have some plans for non gaming apps such as general web based and desktop based ones. But gaming is my main goal with the possibility of income. EDIT: Another consideration could be Jython. Writing Python code which is converted into Java bytecode. This would allow the ability to do Android apps using Python. I could be wrong though, I'm still looking into it. Update 1-26-11: I recently acquired a new job which required I learn .NET using C#. Im sure some of you are cringing already but I really like the whole system and how it all works together between desktop and web development. But, as I am still interested in Python very much, and after some research I have decided I will learn Python as well as the IronPython implementation for .NET. But (again: I know...) since .NET is mostly a Windows thing and not as cross-compatible as I like, I will be learning Mono which is a cross platform implementation of .NET where I can use what I learn at work using C# and what I want to learn, Python/IronPython. So while learning and writing C#/.NET @ work I will be learning Python - Mono - Iron Python for what I want to do personally. And the benefit of them all being very closely related will help me out a lot, I think. What do you guys think? I almost feel like that should be another question, but there's not much of a question. Either way, you guys gave very helpful input.

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• Can't get LWJGL lighting to work

  - by Zarkonnen

  I'm trying to enable lighting in lwjgl according to the method described by NeHe and this post. However, no matter what I try, all faces of my shapes always receive the same amount of light, or, in the case of a spinning shape, the amount of lighting seems to oscillate. All faces are lit up by the same amount, which changes as the pyramid rotates. Concrete example (apologies for the length): Note how all panels are always the same brightness, but the brightness varies with the pyramid's rotation. This is using lwjgl 2.8.3 on Mac OS X. package com; import com.zarkonnen.lwjgltest.Main; import org.lwjgl.opengl.Display; import org.lwjgl.opengl.DisplayMode; import org.lwjgl.opengl.GL11; import org.newdawn.slick.opengl.Texture; import org.newdawn.slick.opengl.TextureLoader; import org.lwjgl.util.glu.*; import org.lwjgl.input.Keyboard; import java.nio.FloatBuffer; import java.nio.ByteBuffer; import java.nio.ByteOrder; /** * * @author penguin */ public class main { public static void main(String[] args) { try { Display.setDisplayMode(new DisplayMode(800, 600)); Display.setTitle("3D Pyramid"); Display.create(); } catch (Exception e) { } initGL(); float rtri = 0.0f; Texture texture = null; try { texture = TextureLoader.getTexture("png", Main.class.getResourceAsStream("tex.png")); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } while (!Display.isCloseRequested()) { // Draw a Triangle :D GL11.glClear(GL11.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL11.GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); GL11.glLoadIdentity(); GL11.glTranslatef(0.0f, 0.0f, -10.0f); GL11.glRotatef(rtri, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); texture.bind(); GL11.glBegin(GL11.GL_TRIANGLES); GL11.glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(-1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(-1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(-1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(-1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glTexCoord2f(1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glEnd(); GL11.glBegin(GL11.GL_QUADS); GL11.glVertex3f(1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f); GL11.glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glEnd(); Display.update(); rtri += 0.05f; // Exit-Key = ESC boolean exitPressed = Keyboard.isKeyDown(Keyboard.KEY_ESCAPE); if (exitPressed) { System.out.println("Escape was pressed!"); Display.destroy(); } } Display.destroy(); } private static void initGL() { GL11.glEnable(GL11.GL_LIGHTING); GL11.glMatrixMode(GL11.GL_PROJECTION); GL11.glLoadIdentity(); GLU.gluPerspective(45.0f, ((float) 800) / ((float) 600), 0.1f, 100.0f); GL11.glMatrixMode(GL11.GL_MODELVIEW); GL11.glLoadIdentity(); GL11.glEnable(GL11.GL_TEXTURE_2D); GL11.glShadeModel(GL11.GL_SMOOTH); GL11.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); GL11.glClearDepth(1.0f); GL11.glEnable(GL11.GL_DEPTH_TEST); GL11.glDepthFunc(GL11.GL_LEQUAL); GL11.glHint(GL11.GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL11.GL_NICEST); float lightAmbient[] = {0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f, 1.0f}; // Ambient Light Values float lightDiffuse[] = {1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f}; // Diffuse Light Values float lightPosition[] = {0.0f, 0.0f, 2.0f, 1.0f}; // Light Position ByteBuffer temp = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(16); temp.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder()); GL11.glLight(GL11.GL_LIGHT1, GL11.GL_AMBIENT, (FloatBuffer) temp.asFloatBuffer().put(lightAmbient).flip()); // Setup The Ambient Light GL11.glLight(GL11.GL_LIGHT1, GL11.GL_DIFFUSE, (FloatBuffer) temp.asFloatBuffer().put(lightDiffuse).flip()); // Setup The Diffuse Light GL11.glLight(GL11.GL_LIGHT1, GL11.GL_POSITION, (FloatBuffer) temp.asFloatBuffer().put(lightPosition).flip()); // Position The Light GL11.glEnable(GL11.GL_LIGHT1); // Enable Light One } }

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• Microsoft BUILD 2013 Day 1&ndash;Keynote

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/microsoft-build-2013-day-1ndashkeynote.aspx This one is going to be a little long because the keynote was jam-packed so bare with me. The keynote for the first day of BUILD 2013 was kicked off by Steve Balmer.  He made it very clear that Microsoft’s focus is on accelerating its time to market with products and product updates.  His quote was that “Rapid release” is the new norm.  He continued by showing off several new Lumias that have been buzzing around the internet for a while and announce that Sprint will now be carrying the HTC 8XT and Samsung ATIV. Balmer is known for repeating words or phrase for affect.  This time it was “Rapid release, rapid release” and “Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, …”.  This was fun, but even more fun was when he announce that all attendees would receive an Acer Iconia 8” tablet. SCORE! The next subject Balmer focused on is new apps.  The three new ones were Flipboard, Facebook and NFL Fantasy Football.  I liked the first two because these are ones that people coming from other platforms are missing.  The NFL app is great just because it targets a demographic that can be fanatical.  If these types of apps keep coming than the missing app argument goes away. While many Negative Nancy’s are describing Windows 8.1 as Windows 180 Steve Balmer chose to call it a “refined blend” as in a coffee that has been improved with a new mix.  This includes more multi-tasking options and leveraging Bing straight throughout the entire ecosystem. He ended this first section by explaining that this will also bring more Bing development opportunities to the community. Steve Balmer was followed by Julie Larson-Green who spent her time on stage selling us on Windows 8 all over again from my point of view.  Something that I would not have thought was needed until I had listened to some other attendees who had a number of concerns and complaints.  She showed a number of new gestures that will come with Windows 8.1, and while they were cool I was left wondering if they really improved the experience.  I guess only time will tell. I did like the fact that it the UI implementation to bring up “All Apps” now mirrors that of Windows Phone.  The consistency is a big step forward that I hope to see continue.  The cool factor went up from there as she swiped content from a desktop (mega-tablet) to the XBox One.  This seamless experience I believe is what is really needed for any future platform to be relevant. I was much more enthused by the presentation of Antoine Leblond who humbled us by letting us know that there are 5k new API.  How that can be or how anyone would ever use all of them is another question.  His announcement was that the Visual Studio 2013 preview would be available today along with the Windows 8.1 bits.  One of the features of VS2013 that he demonstrated is the power consumption profiler.  With battery life being a key factor with consumer consumption devices this is a welcome addition. He didn’t limit his presentation to VS2013 features though.  He showed how the Store has been redesigned to enable better search and discoverability of apps and how Win 8.1 can perform multiple screen scales depending on the resolution of the device automatically.  The last feature he demoed was the real time video streaming API which he made sure we understood by attaching a Surface to a little robot.  Oh, but there was one more thing.  Antoine and Julie announce that all attendees would also be getting Surface Pros.  BONUS! How much more could there be?  Gurdeep Singh Pall was about to pile on.  He introduced us to Bing as a platform (BaaP?).  He said if they (Microsoft) could do something with and API that is good 3rd party developers can do something that is dynamite and showed us some of the tools they had produced.  These included natural user interface improvements such as voice commands that looked to put Siri to shame.  Add to that 3D, OCR and translation capabilities and the future looks to be full of opportunities. Balmer then came out to show us one last thing.  Project Spark is a game design environment that will be available for Windows 8.1, XBox 360 and XBox One.  All I can say is that if my kids get their hands on this they are going to be able to learn some of what dad does in a much more enjoyable way. At the end of it all I was both exhausted and energized by what I saw.  What could they have possibly left for the day 2 keynote?  I hear it will feature Scott Hanselman.  If that is right we are in for a treat.  See you there. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows 8.1,Winodws Phone,XAML,Keynote,Bing,Visual Studio 2013,Project Spark

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• How is the gimbal locked problem solved using accumulative matrix transformations

  - by Luke San Antonio

  I am reading the online "Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming" book by Jason L. McKesson As of now, I am up to the gimbal lock problem and how to solve it using quaternions. However right here, at the Quaternions page. Part of the problem is that we are trying to store an orientation as a series of 3 accumulated axial rotations. Orientations are orientations, not rotations. And orientations are certainly not a series of rotations. So we need to treat the orientation of the ship as an orientation, as a specific quantity. I guess this is the first spot I start to get confused, the reason is because I don't see the dramatic difference between orientations and rotations. I also don't understand why an orientation cannot be represented by a series of rotations... Also: The first thought towards this end would be to keep the orientation as a matrix. When the time comes to modify the orientation, we simply apply a transformation to this matrix, storing the result as the new current orientation. This means that every yaw, pitch, and roll applied to the current orientation will be relative to that current orientation. Which is precisely what we need. If the user applies a positive yaw, you want that yaw to rotate them relative to where they are current pointing, not relative to some fixed coordinate system. The concept, I understand, however I don't understand how if accumulating matrix transformations is a solution to this problem, how the code given in the previous page isn't just that. Here's the code: void display() { glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); glClearDepth(1.0f); glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glutil::MatrixStack currMatrix; currMatrix.Translate(glm::vec3(0.0f, 0.0f, -200.0f)); currMatrix.RotateX(g_angles.fAngleX); DrawGimbal(currMatrix, GIMBAL_X_AXIS, glm::vec4(0.4f, 0.4f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); currMatrix.RotateY(g_angles.fAngleY); DrawGimbal(currMatrix, GIMBAL_Y_AXIS, glm::vec4(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f)); currMatrix.RotateZ(g_angles.fAngleZ); DrawGimbal(currMatrix, GIMBAL_Z_AXIS, glm::vec4(1.0f, 0.3f, 0.3f, 1.0f)); glUseProgram(theProgram); currMatrix.Scale(3.0, 3.0, 3.0); currMatrix.RotateX(-90); //Set the base color for this object. glUniform4f(baseColorUnif, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0); glUniformMatrix4fv(modelToCameraMatrixUnif, 1, GL_FALSE, glm::value_ptr(currMatrix.Top())); g_pObject->Render("tint"); glUseProgram(0); glutSwapBuffers(); } To my understanding, isn't what he is doing (modifying a matrix on a stack) considered accumulating matrices, since the author combined all the individual rotation transformations into one matrix which is being stored on the top of the stack. My understanding of a matrix is that they are used to take a point which is relative to an origin (let's say... the model), and make it relative to another origin (the camera). I'm pretty sure this is a safe definition, however I feel like there is something missing which is blocking me from understanding this gimbal lock problem. One thing that doesn't make sense to me is: If a matrix determines the difference relative between two "spaces," how come a rotation around the Y axis for, let's say, roll, doesn't put the point in "roll space" which can then be transformed once again in relation to this roll... In other words shouldn't any further transformations to this point be in relation to this new "roll space" and therefore not have the rotation be relative to the previous "model space" which is causing the gimbal lock. That's why gimbal lock occurs right? It's because we are rotating the object around set X, Y, and Z axes rather than rotating the object around it's own, relative axes. Or am I wrong? Since apparently this code I linked in isn't an accumulation of matrix transformations can you please give an example of a solution using this method. So in summary: What is the difference between a rotation and an orientation? Why is the code linked in not an example of accumulation of matrix transformations? What is the real, specific purpose of a matrix, if I had it wrong? How could a solution to the gimbal lock problem be implemented using accumulation of matrix transformations? Also, as a bonus: Why are the transformations after the rotation still relative to "model space?" Another bonus: Am I wrong in the assumption that after a transformation, further transformations will occur relative to the current? Also, if it wasn't implied, I am using OpenGL, GLSL, C++, and GLM, so examples and explanations in terms of these are greatly appreciated, if not necessary. The more the detail the better! Thanks in advance...

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• Relative cam movement and momentum on arbitrary surface

  - by user29244

  I have been working on a game for quite long, think sonic classic physics in 3D or tony hawk psx, with unity3D. However I'm stuck at the most fundamental aspect of movement. The requirement is that I need to move the character in mario 64 fashion (or sonic adventure) aka relative cam input: the camera's forward direction always point input forward the screen, left or right input point toward left or right of the screen. when input are resting, the camera direction is independent from the character direction and the camera can orbit the character when input are pressed the character rotate itself until his direction align with the direction the input is pointing at. It's super easy to do as long your movement are parallel to the global horizontal (or any world axis). However when you try to do this on arbitrary surface (think moving along complex curved surface) with the character sticking to the surface normal (basically moving on wall and ceiling freely), it seems harder. What I want is to achieve the same finesse of movement than in mario but on arbitrary angled surfaces. There is more problem (jumping and transitioning back to the real world alignment and then back on a surface while keeping momentum) but so far I didn't even take off the basics. So far I have accomplish moving along the curved surface and the relative cam input, but for some reason direction fail all the time (point number 3, the character align slowly to the input direction). Do you have an idea how to achieve that? Here is the code and some demo so far: The demo: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24530447/flash%20build/litesonicengine/LiteSonicEngine5.html Camera code: using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; public class CameraDrive : MonoBehaviour { public GameObject targetObject; public Transform camPivot, camTarget, camRoot, relcamdirDebug; float rot = 0; //---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- void Start() { this.transform.position = targetObject.transform.position; this.transform.rotation = targetObject.transform.rotation; } void FixedUpdate() { //the pivot system camRoot.position = targetObject.transform.position; //input on pivot orientation rot = 0; float mouse_x = Input.GetAxisRaw( "camera_analog_X" ); // rot = rot + ( 0.1f * Time.deltaTime * mouse_x ); // wrapAngle( rot ); // //when the target object rotate, it rotate too, this should not happen UpdateOrientation(this.transform.forward,targetObject.transform.up); camRoot.transform.RotateAround(camRoot.transform.up,rot); //debug the relcam dir RelativeCamDirection() ; //this camera this.transform.position = camPivot.position; //set the camera to the pivot this.transform.LookAt( camTarget.position ); // } //---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- public float wrapAngle ( float Degree ) { while (Degree < 0.0f) { Degree = Degree + 360.0f; } while (Degree >= 360.0f) { Degree = Degree - 360.0f; } return Degree; } private void UpdateOrientation( Vector3 forward_vector, Vector3 ground_normal ) { Vector3 projected_forward_to_normal_surface = forward_vector - ( Vector3.Dot( forward_vector, ground_normal ) ) * ground_normal; camRoot.transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation( projected_forward_to_normal_surface, ground_normal ); } float GetOffsetAngle( float targetAngle, float DestAngle ) { return ((targetAngle - DestAngle + 180)% 360) - 180; } //---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- void OnDrawGizmos() { Gizmos.DrawCube( camPivot.transform.position, new Vector3(1,1,1) ); Gizmos.DrawCube( camTarget.transform.position, new Vector3(1,5,1) ); Gizmos.DrawCube( camRoot.transform.position, new Vector3(1,1,1) ); } void OnGUI() { GUI.Label(new Rect(0,80,1000,20*10), "targetObject.transform.up : " + targetObject.transform.up.ToString()); GUI.Label(new Rect(0,100,1000,20*10), "target euler : " + targetObject.transform.eulerAngles.y.ToString()); GUI.Label(new Rect(0,100,1000,20*10), "rot : " + rot.ToString()); } //---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- void RelativeCamDirection() { float input_vertical_movement = Input.GetAxisRaw( "Vertical" ), input_horizontal_movement = Input.GetAxisRaw( "Horizontal" ); Vector3 relative_forward = Vector3.forward, relative_right = Vector3.right, relative_direction = ( relative_forward * input_vertical_movement ) + ( relative_right * input_horizontal_movement ) ; MovementController MC = targetObject.GetComponent<MovementController>(); MC.motion = relative_direction.normalized * MC.acceleration * Time.fixedDeltaTime; MC.motion = this.transform.TransformDirection( MC.motion ); //MC.transform.Rotate(Vector3.up, input_horizontal_movement * 10f * Time.fixedDeltaTime); } } Mouvement code: using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; public class MovementController : MonoBehaviour { public float deadZoneValue = 0.1f, angle, acceleration = 50.0f; public Vector3 motion ; //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- void OnGUI() { GUILayout.Label( "transform.rotation : " + transform.rotation ); GUILayout.Label( "transform.position : " + transform.position ); GUILayout.Label( "angle : " + angle ); } void FixedUpdate () { Ray ground_check_ray = new Ray( gameObject.transform.position, -gameObject.transform.up ); RaycastHit raycast_result; Rigidbody rigid_body = gameObject.rigidbody; if ( Physics.Raycast( ground_check_ray, out raycast_result ) ) { Vector3 next_position; //UpdateOrientation( gameObject.transform.forward, raycast_result.normal ); UpdateOrientation( gameObject.transform.forward, raycast_result.normal ); next_position = GetNextPosition( raycast_result.point ); rigid_body.MovePosition( next_position ); } } //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- private void UpdateOrientation( Vector3 forward_vector, Vector3 ground_normal ) { Vector3 projected_forward_to_normal_surface = forward_vector - ( Vector3.Dot( forward_vector, ground_normal ) ) * ground_normal; transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation( projected_forward_to_normal_surface, ground_normal ); } private Vector3 GetNextPosition( Vector3 current_ground_position ) { Vector3 next_position; // //-------------------------------------------------------------------- // angle = 0; // Vector3 dir = this.transform.InverseTransformDirection(motion); // angle = Vector3.Angle(Vector3.forward, dir);// * 1f * Time.fixedDeltaTime; // // if(angle > 0) this.transform.Rotate(0,angle,0); // //-------------------------------------------------------------------- next_position = current_ground_position + gameObject.transform.up * 0.5f + motion ; return next_position; } } Some observation: I have the correct input, I have the correct translation in the camera direction ... but whenever I attempt to slowly lerp the direction of the character in direction of the input, all I get is wild spin! Sad Also discovered that strafing to the right (immediately at the beginning without moving forward) has major singularity trapping on the equator!! I'm totally lost and crush (I have already done a much more featured version which fail at the same aspect)

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• How can I set my screen resolution to match my TV?

  - by Scott Severance

  I have a computer in my classroom that's connected to an LG smart TV (that's actually not so smart. I wouldn't recommend buying one.). For the touch interface, the TV wants a resolution of 1920x1080 at 60Hz. However, I can't seem to set the computer to that resolution. The display settings only offer 1024x768 and 640x480. The computer dual boots with Windows XP, where widescreen options are available in approximately the required size, but the exact resolution -- or even aspect ratio-- isn't available in XP either. I tried the following command: xrandr -s 1920x1080 -r 60 The response was: Size 1920x1080 not found in available modes Back in the old days, the solution would be to edit xorg.conf. However, since that file no longer exists, and I haven't found up-to-date info, I don't know what else to do. If it helps, this machine will never be connected to a different display, so resolution flexibility isn't important. Here's the output of lshw: *-display:0 description: VGA compatible controller product: 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 version: 03 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=i915 latency=0 resources: irq:42 memory:fe800000-febfffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:ecd8(size=8) *-display:1 UNCLAIMED description: Display controller product: 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2.1 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.1 version: 03 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz According to the system settings, my graphics driver is unknown and my "experience" is standard. This is 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise) Note: There are a number of similar questions to this one, but they didn't include any answers that helped me. Update After posting this question, I noticed one in the sidebar that I hadn't found through search but which appeared to contain the answer. Based on that question, I created the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file below: Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "X.org Configured" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" EndSection Section "Files" ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules" FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc" FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType" FontPath "built-ins" EndSection Section "Module" Load "glx" Load "dri2" Load "dbe" Load "dri" Load "record" Load "extmod" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "LG" ModelName "Smart TV" EndSection Section "Device" ### Available Driver options are:- ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False", ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz", ### <percent>: "<f>%" ### [arg]: arg optional #Option "DRI" # [<bool>] #Option "ColorKey" # <i> #Option "VideoKey" # <i> #Option "FallbackDebug" # [<bool>] #Option "Tiling" # [<bool>] #Option "LinearFramebuffer" # [<bool>] #Option "Shadow" # [<bool>] #Option "SwapbuffersWait" # [<bool>] #Option "TripleBuffer" # [<bool>] #Option "XvMC" # [<bool>] #Option "XvPreferOverlay" # [<bool>] #Option "DebugFlushBatches" # [<bool>] #Option "DebugFlushCaches" # [<bool>] #Option "DebugWait" # [<bool>] #Option "HotPlug" # [<bool>] #Option "RelaxedFencing" # [<bool>] Identifier "Card0" Driver "intel" BusID "PCI:0:2:0" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Card0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 #SubSection "Display" # Viewport 0 0 # Depth 1 #EndSubSection #SubSection "Display" # Viewport 0 0 # Depth 4 #EndSubSection #SubSection "Display" # Viewport 0 0 # Depth 8 #EndSubSection #SubSection "Display" # Viewport 0 0 # Depth 15 #EndSubSection #SubSection "Display" # Viewport 0 0 # Depth 16 #EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 Modes "1024x768" "1920x1080" EndSubSection EndSection According to /var/log/Xorg.0.log, my settings aren't being applied. In fact, I wonder if the config file is even being read. [ 1209.083] (**) intel(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 [ 1209.084] (==) intel(0): RGB weight 888 [ 1209.084] (==) intel(0): Default visual is TrueColor [ 1209.084] (II) intel(0): Integrated Graphics Chipset: Intel(R) G41 [ 1209.084] (--) intel(0): Chipset: "G41" [ 1209.084] (**) intel(0): Relaxed fencing enabled [ 1209.084] (**) intel(0): Wait on SwapBuffers? enabled [ 1209.084] (**) intel(0): Triple buffering? enabled [ 1209.084] (**) intel(0): Framebuffer tiled [ 1209.084] (**) intel(0): Pixmaps tiled [ 1209.084] (**) intel(0): 3D buffers tiled [ 1209.084] (**) intel(0): SwapBuffers wait enabled [ 1209.084] (==) intel(0): video overlay key set to 0x101fe [ 1209.172] (II) intel(0): Output VGA1 using monitor section Monitor0 [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): EDID for output VGA1 [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Printing probed modes for output VGA1 [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Modeline "1024x768"x60.0 65.00 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync (48.4 kHz) [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Modeline "800x600"x60.3 40.00 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync (37.9 kHz) [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Modeline "800x600"x56.2 36.00 800 824 896 1024 600 601 603 625 +hsync +vsync (35.2 kHz) [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Modeline "848x480"x60.0 33.75 848 864 976 1088 480 486 494 517 +hsync +vsync (31.0 kHz) [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Modeline "640x480"x59.9 25.18 640 656 752 800 480 489 492 525 -hsync -vsync (31.5 kHz) [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Output VGA1 connected [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Using user preference for initial modes [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Output VGA1 using initial mode 1024x768 [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Using default gamma of (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) unless otherwise stated. [ 1209.260] (II) intel(0): Kernel page flipping support detected, enabling [ 1209.260] (==) intel(0): DPI set to (96, 96)

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• UIView with IrrlichtScene - iOS

  - by user1459024

  i have a UIViewController in a Storyboard and want to draw a IrrlichtScene in this View Controller. My Code: WWSViewController.h #import <UIKit/UIKit.h> @interface WWSViewController : UIViewController { IBOutlet UILabel *errorLabel; } @end WWSViewController.mm #import "WWSViewController.h" #include "../../ressources/irrlicht/include/irrlicht.h" using namespace irr; using namespace core; using namespace scene; using namespace video; using namespace io; using namespace gui; @interface WWSViewController () @end @implementation WWSViewController -(void)awakeFromNib { errorLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init]; errorLabel.text = @""; IrrlichtDevice *device = createDevice( video::EDT_OGLES1, dimension2d<u32>(640, 480), 16, false, false, false, 0); /* Set the caption of the window to some nice text. Note that there is an 'L' in front of the string. The Irrlicht Engine uses wide character strings when displaying text. */ device->setWindowCaption(L"Hello World! - Irrlicht Engine Demo"); /* Get a pointer to the VideoDriver, the SceneManager and the graphical user interface environment, so that we do not always have to write device->getVideoDriver(), device->getSceneManager(), or device->getGUIEnvironment(). */ IVideoDriver* driver = device->getVideoDriver(); ISceneManager* smgr = device->getSceneManager(); IGUIEnvironment* guienv = device->getGUIEnvironment(); /* We add a hello world label to the window, using the GUI environment. The text is placed at the position (10,10) as top left corner and (260,22) as lower right corner. */ guienv->addStaticText(L"Hello World! This is the Irrlicht Software renderer!", rect<s32>(10,10,260,22), true); /* To show something interesting, we load a Quake 2 model and display it. We only have to get the Mesh from the Scene Manager with getMesh() and add a SceneNode to display the mesh with addAnimatedMeshSceneNode(). We check the return value of getMesh() to become aware of loading problems and other errors. Instead of writing the filename sydney.md2, it would also be possible to load a Maya object file (.obj), a complete Quake3 map (.bsp) or any other supported file format. By the way, that cool Quake 2 model called sydney was modelled by Brian Collins. */ IAnimatedMesh* mesh = smgr->getMesh("/Users/dbocksteger/Desktop/test/media/sydney.md2"); if (!mesh) { device->drop(); if (!errorLabel) { errorLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init]; } errorLabel.text = @"Konnte Mesh nicht laden."; return; } IAnimatedMeshSceneNode* node = smgr->addAnimatedMeshSceneNode( mesh ); /* To let the mesh look a little bit nicer, we change its material. We disable lighting because we do not have a dynamic light in here, and the mesh would be totally black otherwise. Then we set the frame loop, such that the predefined STAND animation is used. And last, we apply a texture to the mesh. Without it the mesh would be drawn using only a color. */ if (node) { node->setMaterialFlag(EMF_LIGHTING, false); node->setMD2Animation(scene::EMAT_STAND); node->setMaterialTexture( 0, driver->getTexture("/Users/dbocksteger/Desktop/test/media/sydney.bmp") ); } /* To look at the mesh, we place a camera into 3d space at the position (0, 30, -40). The camera looks from there to (0,5,0), which is approximately the place where our md2 model is. */ smgr->addCameraSceneNode(0, vector3df(0,30,-40), vector3df(0,5,0)); /* Ok, now we have set up the scene, lets draw everything: We run the device in a while() loop, until the device does not want to run any more. This would be when the user closes the window or presses ALT+F4 (or whatever keycode closes a window). */ while(device->run()) { /* Anything can be drawn between a beginScene() and an endScene() call. The beginScene() call clears the screen with a color and the depth buffer, if desired. Then we let the Scene Manager and the GUI Environment draw their content. With the endScene() call everything is presented on the screen. */ driver->beginScene(true, true, SColor(255,100,101,140)); smgr->drawAll(); guienv->drawAll(); driver->endScene(); } /* After we are done with the render loop, we have to delete the Irrlicht Device created before with createDevice(). In the Irrlicht Engine, you have to delete all objects you created with a method or function which starts with 'create'. The object is simply deleted by calling ->drop(). See the documentation at irr::IReferenceCounted::drop() for more information. */ device->drop(); } - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib. } - (void)viewDidUnload { [super viewDidUnload]; // Release any retained subviews of the main view. } - (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation { return (interfaceOrientation != UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown); } @end Sadly the result is just a black View in the Simulator. :( Hope here is anyone who can explain me how i draw the scene in a UIView. Furthermore I'm getting this Error: Could not load sprite bank because the file does not exist: #DefaultFont How can i fix it ?

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• Contricted A* problem

  - by Ragekit

  I've got a little problem with an A* algorithm that I need to constrict a little bit. Basically : I use an A* to find the shortest path between 2 randomly placed room in 3D space, and then build a corridor between them. The problem I found is that sometimes it makes chimney like corridors that are not ideal, so I constrict the A* so that if the last movement was up or down, you go sideways. Everything is fine, but in some corner cases, it fails to find a path (when there is obviously one). Like here between the blue and red dot : (i'm in unity btw, but i don't think it matters) Here is the code of the actual A* (a bit long, and some redundency) while(current != goal) { //add stair up / stair down foreach(Node<GridUnit> test in current.Neighbors) { if(!test.Data.empty && test != goal) continue; //bug at arrival; if(test == goal && penul !=null) { Vector3 currentDiff = current.Data.bounds.center - test.Data.bounds.center; if(!Mathf.Approximately(currentDiff.y,0)) { //wanna drop on the last if(!coplanar(test.Data.bounds.center,current.Data.bounds.center,current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center,to.Data.bounds.center)) { continue; } else { if(Mathf.Approximately(to.Data.bounds.center.x, current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center.x) && Mathf.Approximately(to.Data.bounds.center.z, current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center.z)) { continue; } } } } if(current.Data.parentUnit != null) { Vector3 previousDiff = current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center - current.Data.bounds.center; Vector3 currentDiff = current.Data.bounds.center - test.Data.bounds.center; if(!Mathf.Approximately(previousDiff.y,0)) { if(!Mathf.Approximately(currentDiff.y,0)) { //you wanna drop now : continue; } if(current.Data.parentUnit.parentUnit != null) { if(!coplanar(test.Data.bounds.center,current.Data.bounds.center,current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center,current.Data.parentUnit.parentUnit.bounds.center)) { continue; }else { if(Mathf.Approximately(test.Data.bounds.center.x, current.Data.parentUnit.parentUnit.bounds.center.x) && Mathf.Approximately(test.Data.bounds.center.z, current.Data.parentUnit.parentUnit.bounds.center.z)) { continue; } } } } } g = current.Data.g + HEURISTIC(current.Data,test.Data); h = HEURISTIC(test.Data,goal.Data); f = g + h; if(open.Contains(test) || closed.Contains(test)) { if(test.Data.f > f) { //found a shorter path going passing through that point test.Data.f = f; test.Data.g = g; test.Data.h = h; test.Data.parentUnit = current.Data; } } else { //jamais rencontré test.Data.f = f; test.Data.h = h; test.Data.g = g; test.Data.parentUnit = current.Data; open.Add(test); } } closed.Add (current); if(open.Count == 0) { Debug.Log("nothingfound"); //nothing more to test no path found, stay to from; List<GridUnit> r = new List<GridUnit>(); r.Add(from.Data); return r; } //sort open from small to biggest travel cost open.Sort(delegate(Node<GridUnit> x, Node<GridUnit> y) { return (int)(x.Data.f-y.Data.f); }); //get the smallest travel cost node; Node<GridUnit> smallest = open[0]; current = smallest; open.RemoveAt(0); } //build the path going backward; List<GridUnit> ret = new List<GridUnit>(); if(penul != null) { ret.Insert(0,to.Data); } GridUnit cur = goal.Data; ret.Insert(0,cur); do{ cur = cur.parentUnit; ret.Insert(0,cur); } while(cur != from.Data); return ret; You see at the start of the foreach i constrict the A* like i said. If you have any insight it would be cool. Thanks

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• Constrained A* problem

  - by Ragekit

  I've got a little problem with an A* algorithm that I need to Constrained a little bit. Basically : I use an A* to find the shortest path between 2 randomly placed room in 3D space, and then build a corridor between them. The problem I found is that sometimes it makes chimney like corridors that are not ideal, so I constrict the A* so that if the last movement was up or down, you go sideways. Everything is fine, but in some corner cases, it fails to find a path (when there is obviously one). Like here between the blue and red dot : (i'm in unity btw, but i don't think it matters) Here is the code of the actual A* (a bit long, and some redundency) while(current != goal) { //add stair up / stair down foreach(Node<GridUnit> test in current.Neighbors) { if(!test.Data.empty && test != goal) continue; //bug at arrival; if(test == goal && penul !=null) { Vector3 currentDiff = current.Data.bounds.center - test.Data.bounds.center; if(!Mathf.Approximately(currentDiff.y,0)) { //wanna drop on the last if(!coplanar(test.Data.bounds.center,current.Data.bounds.center,current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center,to.Data.bounds.center)) { continue; } else { if(Mathf.Approximately(to.Data.bounds.center.x, current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center.x) && Mathf.Approximately(to.Data.bounds.center.z, current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center.z)) { continue; } } } } if(current.Data.parentUnit != null) { Vector3 previousDiff = current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center - current.Data.bounds.center; Vector3 currentDiff = current.Data.bounds.center - test.Data.bounds.center; if(!Mathf.Approximately(previousDiff.y,0)) { if(!Mathf.Approximately(currentDiff.y,0)) { //you wanna drop now : continue; } if(current.Data.parentUnit.parentUnit != null) { if(!coplanar(test.Data.bounds.center,current.Data.bounds.center,current.Data.parentUnit.bounds.center,current.Data.parentUnit.parentUnit.bounds.center)) { continue; }else { if(Mathf.Approximately(test.Data.bounds.center.x, current.Data.parentUnit.parentUnit.bounds.center.x) && Mathf.Approximately(test.Data.bounds.center.z, current.Data.parentUnit.parentUnit.bounds.center.z)) { continue; } } } } } g = current.Data.g + HEURISTIC(current.Data,test.Data); h = HEURISTIC(test.Data,goal.Data); f = g + h; if(open.Contains(test) || closed.Contains(test)) { if(test.Data.f > f) { //found a shorter path going passing through that point test.Data.f = f; test.Data.g = g; test.Data.h = h; test.Data.parentUnit = current.Data; } } else { //jamais rencontré test.Data.f = f; test.Data.h = h; test.Data.g = g; test.Data.parentUnit = current.Data; open.Add(test); } } closed.Add (current); if(open.Count == 0) { Debug.Log("nothingfound"); //nothing more to test no path found, stay to from; List<GridUnit> r = new List<GridUnit>(); r.Add(from.Data); return r; } //sort open from small to biggest travel cost open.Sort(delegate(Node<GridUnit> x, Node<GridUnit> y) { return (int)(x.Data.f-y.Data.f); }); //get the smallest travel cost node; Node<GridUnit> smallest = open[0]; current = smallest; open.RemoveAt(0); } //build the path going backward; List<GridUnit> ret = new List<GridUnit>(); if(penul != null) { ret.Insert(0,to.Data); } GridUnit cur = goal.Data; ret.Insert(0,cur); do{ cur = cur.parentUnit; ret.Insert(0,cur); } while(cur != from.Data); return ret; You see at the start of the foreach i constrict the A* like i said. If you have any insight it would be cool. Thanks

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• Create Custom Speech Bubbles in Silverlight.

  - by mbcrump

  I had a reader email me the following question: “How do you create Speech Bubbles in Silverlight/WPF without adding any extra .dlls? Right off the bat, I know at least two ways to create the speech bubbles that look just like the ones in comic books. Using the Callout Shapes included with Blend 4. Using the free 3rd party control named FreeBubbles (I used this before Blend 4). Unfortunately, we cannot use either of these as they will both add extra .dll’s to the project. So why wouldn’t you want to use one of those? I can think of a few reasons: You do not want to increase the size of your .XAP by including extra .dll’s. You do not have Expression Blend or the license to the use the .dll’s. You want a custom Speech Bubble that is not included in the four “Callout” Controls with Blend. Instead of using one of these methods, we will create a Speech Bubble in Blend 4 using Path element and a TextBlock. Before we get started, lets look at the Callout Shapes included with Blend 4. Using Blend 4 you can simply drag/drop these controls onto your Silverlight application and you are ready to go. We can create all of these Speech Bubbles and even some of the modern bubbles used in recent comic books. Lets get started. Start up Expression Blend 4 and select the Pen Tool. On the Art Board, start connecting the dots like I did below. You can add a color if you wish. …keep going …complete Let’s go ahead and add some text to the Speech Bubble. Drag a TextBlock from the Panel and put it directly inside the Speech Bubble. Go ahead and set the TextAlignment to Center for the TextBlock. and give it some text. At this point, you could go ahead and create a user control if you want to reuse the Speech Bubble you created. Select both the Path and the TextBlock by clicking then while holding down CTRL and then Right Click them. Select Make Into User Control. Give it a name and then Build your project. Lets create another one using the Ellipse for the older comic book style of Speech Bubbles. Drag an Ellipse to the Artboard and give it a color. Now, grab the Pen and drag a triangle like I did below. Simply drag it over a corner of the Ellipse. Select Combine then Unite and you will have a Path. At this point, you can go ahead and add a TextBlock like we did earlier. Lets go ahead and create a rounded rectangle one by adding a Rectangle to the Artboard. Go ahead and set the RadiuX and RadiusY to 25 to give it rounded edges. Let’s create another path and drag it right on top of our rounded rectangle like we did earlier. …looking good Select Combine then Unite and you will have a Path. At this point, you can go ahead and add a TextBlock like we did earlier. So let’s look at what we’ve created today using the path element and TextBlock. As you can tell, it required more work but meets the requirements. This was actually fun to do and I encourage anyone that visits my blog to send in request like this.  Subscribe to my feed

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• VS 2012 / 2013 AccessViolationException

  - by Goran

  When I run the project (F5) I receive the following exception in IDE: An unhandled exception of type 'System.AccessViolationException' occurred in System.Windows.Forms.dll Additional information: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt. Stack trace reports at System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.SendMessage(HandleRef hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.SendMessage(Int32 msg, Int32 wparam, IntPtr lparam) at System.Windows.Forms.Form.UpdateWindowIcon(Boolean redrawFrame) at System.Windows.Forms.Form.CreateHandle() at System.Windows.Forms.Control.get_Handle() at Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunParkingWindowThread() at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart() I have never noticed receiving the same exception when running without debugger (CTRL+F5). This is a WPF project, but exception occurs before the App_ctor is executed, so this is external code, and my application code did not start to execute. This happens sporadically, sometimes it happens only once, and sometimes I run the project and get this message for several times in a roll. Then it does not pop up for 5-6 runs, and then starts again. Anyone knows why is this happening? I have just installed clean W8.1 64 bit, VS2013 and TFS 2013 (although I had the same problem with W8 and VS2012, but not as often).

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