Belyle's Bilous Banter

ME 567 TA - extra special edition

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:50:00 +0000

CS 550 Term Project

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:48:00 +0000

Objective/goal
Demonstrate competency with features of OpenGL programming including, but not limited to, material properties, lighting, textures, and animation by building a simple Monopoly game demo. Model pieces and dice in Blender, and provide random dice rolling and piece motion. A sub-goal is to have fun while proving competency. (author's note: Monopoly © 2007 Hasbro. All rights reserved.)

Methods
Pieces and dice were modeled using a free 3D modeling program called Blender. For the dice, a simple cube with subdivided faces was used. On each face, the subdivisions were collapsed then extruded (backwards) to make the spots. Once the rough outline was achieved, a subsurface was generated to make rounded edges and circular spots. The car was modeled in much the same way. The block that roughly resembled a car was first built, a subsurface was applied, then a lot of manual adjustment to get the shape right was done.

Each of the other pieces used the same method: rotation then manual adjustment. The dimples on the thimble were created the same way as the spots on the dice, first collapsing the vertices to a point in the center, then extruding that point back into the solid to create a hole. When the subsurface is applied, it rounds the corners, so some re-creasing was done to maintain sharp edges where needed.

The pieces were first loaded into a known working code so the lighting and material properties could be set without other variables. Three material properties were decided: a flat silver, or pewter, a shiny gold, and a flat green-blue plastic look. There is a single light for the pieces, place very far away so each piece is affected similarly no matter where on the board it sits. This is to help reduce the specular "glare" from a light source that is close to the pieces.

The textures were generated using pictures of Monopoly boards that the author owns. Each picture required some cropping and perspective correction, as well as being resized to a power-of-two size for OGL to read. The texture loader is based on example code from NeHe productions. Once the board is drawn and the textures applied, it is rotated to an aesthetically pleasing view and a separate, board-only, light is rendered so the board is well-light and visible.

The dice rolling is handled using a (very) simple random number generation that uses srand() with the current computer time to give somewhat random numbers. While it is not true random number generation, it does ensure that each time the program is run a different random number seed is used. The dice roll is (1 + rand()%6), and is stored globally so the piece movement subroutine can access the dice rolls, too.

To animate everything, a sleep function was used to control timing. This is not the most optimal way to control animation speed because it used 100% processor while between frames, but it works for this project. The dice rolls and piece movement (translation) are both animated.

Finally, camera rotation is handled using gluLookAt() with a fixed eye location. The camera automatically looks towards the active piece location, using the vector describing the piece location from (0,0,0) as the "up" vector. This is updated for each step in the animation, giving a smooth camera rotation that is centered on the active piece.

Challenges/roadblocks
There were only a few big challenges to overcome with this project. The first challenge was learning Blender. Fortunately, there are literally thousands of tutorials for learning Blender on the Internet. After an entire day working with tutorials, the piece modeling was somewhat easier, although anything beyond basic shape formation is still beyond reach.

The second challenge was getting the right lighting. Initially, lighting was implemented in the project code, which had to be recompiled with each lighting parameter change. The problem was that all the pieces are imported each time the program is run, leading to a lot of wasted time just to see that the lighting is wrong. The other problem is that lights that work well for the pieces don't adequately light the board, and vice-versa. The solution was to work on lighting in a separate program then re-integrate, as well as using two different lights: a diffuse light for the pieces, and a strong light for the board that is turned off when rendering the pieces.

The final big problem was getting the piece translation correct. This would be a non-issue except the board is rotated 30 degrees about x-axis and 225 degrees about y-axis to make a nice view. This presented some challenges when trying to line up the piece location with a specific space on the board. To get the translation correct, the entire view is rotated back to 0, then the pieces are translated in x- and z- directions, then everything is rotated to the nice view. Another complication is knowing where the piece is on the board, not just its location in space. To keep track of this, an integer is stored with the piece object structure, and a switch case is used to make sure the piece moves the right direction depending on the side of the board the piece is on.

Results
Well, this isn't exactly a data-collection project, but there are still results. In short, everything works as described above. Since the results can (and are) altered just by changing a couple of variables in the code, only the latest version's results are reported here. The lighting is satisfactory, although the gold and plastic materials are somewhat too washed out looking. The pewter looks great, though.

The textures for the boards turned out better than expected, as the space names are still readable when zoomed in. The four boards used are the "vintage," "heirloom," "french," and "star wars" editions. The dice rolling is still a bit too simple, as the dice only rotate around a fixed axis some random number of times to get to the rolled number. However, since rotation is non-communicative, it would be somewhat more difficult to get very nice dice rolls in OGL without some creative programming.

The piece motion is not exact, although it is always clear on which space the piece rests. This is because the spaces are not integer width, nor are they an easy to find width. At this point, the space width is hard-coded. Another small thing is that the window does not support resize at this point. While this would be easy to implement, there were many other high priority goals.

You can see some videos of the demo in action below.

Concluding remarks
While the results are not a playable game, it would not be difficult to add money handling and property purchases to the game demo, at least on a text-based level. To add the images for each of the monies and properties (as well as chance & community chest) would take some time, but would be doable. There is no intent to turn this into a playable game, though, as the author would like to avoid having his ass sued by Hasbro.

Some improvements could certainly be made to the program, some easy, some not so much. One aesthetic thing that could be fixed is when pieces are on the same space, program an offset so their location does not coincide. Another good addition would be to program the remaining (5-7) pieces to show off modeling ability and add a little variety to the demo.

Another improvement that could be made is some more tweaking on the material properties of the pieces and dice to make them a little more realistic. However, one must keep in mind that this is meant more as a proof-of-concept type demo than an actual release. Finally, it would be fun to add some more board textures, as well as some different camera views (maybe one viewing in from outside so the space names are right side up?).

Overall, this was an enjoyable project. The results definitely meet or exceed the goals set out for the project. There is camera motion, adequate lighting, variable piece materials, texturing, and animation. All that is left is polishing, but even without incremental refinement, this project is complete.

Linux is (still) awesome (again)

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:48:00 +0000

What's up my reader (hi mom)? I'm stoked cause I finally got my webcam on my laptop working in Linux. For the bookkeepers at home, I'm running Ubuntu 6.10 (edgy eft) using linux kernel 2.6.17.10-generic. The dude/team behind the old spca5xx driver finally got gspca411 out as a filler until the even better and more generic gscpa412 that will be out later this year. What this means is that the orbicam on my acer laptop works now in linux.

On the awesome note, after updating to edgy, beryl (the pretty maker) updated a lot and now there are some new effects to wow my friends and relative: fire to close windows and transparent desktop cube when switching workspaces. Unfortunately, beryl is a bit unstable on my system, but it is VERY fun when it works.

Other than that, just keeping on keeping on. I wrote my first solo Fortran code the other day. It worked. I've written a few since then, simple numerical methods stuff, things like solving a differential equation using backwards differencing and explicit time stepping. Nothing too exciting. Here's a couple pix from my newly working webcam:

Why the Wii Will Win

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:23:00 +0000

Let me preface this by admitting that I am a Nintendo fanboy. Always have been, always will be. I have all of their systems, from the NES and old klunky gameboy to the gamecube and DS lite. I'm already planning my stakeout of the local Fred Meyer to get my Wii on Sunday. But enough about me, I'm going to tell you why the Will will win the console war.

First of all, for the one of you who reads this post, I'm going to assume that you already know about the features of the Wii: build-in wireless ethernet, wireless motion-sensitive controllers, ability to play Gamecube games, and access to "classic" gaming through Nintendo WiFi. What makes me so sure that Wii is the eminent leader in the console wars is the fact that Forbes, an old-, rich-, conservative-person magazine did several articles praising the Wii for its revolutionarity (yeah, I just made that up).

This article is the biggest one I'm talking about. I read it this morning and just about cried tears of joy. Finally, someone saw the same thing in the Wii as I do. The author, David M. Ewalt, says, "A colleague and I booted up Wii Sports, a collection of simple sports games that comes bundled with every console. It wasn't long before we were completely immersed in Wii Tennis. The simple mini-game replicates an actual tennis match as well as any I've ever seen: Since you're actually swinging the remote like you would a racket, you can hit with varying force or apply spin to the ball, depending on how you move your body."

He goes on to say that, "Within minutes, we'd drawn a crowd, and only a short while after that, most of the editorial staff was packed into the conference room, laughing, enjoying the show and pushing for their turn at the remote." Now, if the Wii can bring a bunch of middle-aged white rich guys together and have them fighting for the Wii-mote to play a video game, it can do the same for almost any demographic. This is what makes the Nintendo a winner.

In Ewalt's further testing, he states, "After the hard-core gamers got their turns, less videogame-savvy editors took a shot, too. And it was here where the intuitive motion control system really proved its worth. There's no sequence of arcane button combinations required to throw a baseball: You just wind up and mime an actual throw. Suddenly, videogames are fun for everyone--old or young, male or female, regardless of prior gaming experience. I lost count of how many times I heard non-gamers say, 'Wow, I want to get this.'"

By breaking down the barrier between the hardcore button-craving video gamers and the not so tech-savvy, casual gamers, Nintendo has captured their old fanbase, and is moving on to everyone else. By making games intuitive (and less expensive than the exorbitant PS3 and Xbox 360), Nintendo is dropping the hammer on Sony and MSFT, saying, "hey! gamers don't need the absolute most expensive, lifelike graphics to have fun! We made a console that's fun and easy for everyone! You can take your 16 button controllers and bluray and shove it up your ass!"

Ewalt wraps up his article by saying, "But if my early experience with the console--and the smiles on the faces of friends and colleagues--are any measure, Nintendo's got a huge hit on its hands." I couldn't agree with him more. Nintendo has figured out how to keep video games fun. They are keeping them games. Sony and MSFT are focusing on their hardcore gamers who no longer play to have fun, and that is why Nintendo Will will outlast and outsell either of the other consoles in this newgen console war.

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:31:00 +0000

Olbermann's Special Comment on GOP Fearmongering

I've never seen this guy before, but found the link through Beaverchat. He basically sums up my thoughts on Bush and the RNC in general. He pwns Republicans.

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 22:02:00 +0000

Unicycle try-all X treme

This is pretty much one of the most hardcore things I've ever seen. Add to that a great song in the background, and this is truly blogworty shit.

Grad school update

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 03:17:00 +0000

Dang, long time no post for me. I've been busy with grad school which is, let me tell you, much harder than undergrad class was. You'd think, 9 credits, only three classes, easy peasy. Yeah, right. I study more for each one of my classes this term than I ever did for all my classes any other term in undergrad. I'm not talking about just homework time, I'm actually talking about studying, like sitting down, reading the book, rereading my notes, working the examples, etc. Very time intensive this way, but it is good to be challenged finally.

Other than that, I got a new processor for my computer, and it kicks ass. A lot of ass. I bought an Athlon 64 x2 4400+. My only complaint is that it took so much more power out of my system than my old proc that I had to buy a new power supply to feed it. It's worth it, though. Photoshop runs like a demon now, and my games look even better with more things turned on. I didn't realize how much of a bottleneck my processor was on my old setup.

Been at dixon again since school started, too. I've dropped about 10 lbs of fat off my frame and gotten stronger. woot for working out.

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 03:17:00 +0000

Pictures of my laptop in linux

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:04:00 +0000

Linux Linux, it's the man, if it can't do it, well then I'll keep trying till it can

Well today, I have a tale of suspense, agony, murder, marital bliss, the divorce, the weekend visit with the kids, and finally old age. Ok, well I'll skip the suspense and old age parts. gotta keep this shortish.

Like many linux users, I've been using a PC since before I could properly form letters with a pencil on paper (no joke, my parents had a computer in the house before I even started elementary school). My first hacking was on a DOS box, which I managed to crash and ruin many times to the great chagrin of my parents. As I progressed through school, I was shuttled with the other kids to touch-typing class on Apple IIes, then progressed to word processing using Word. Long story short, I learned microsoft products very well and how to draw with the "turtle" on the Apple II. In high school I used my knowledge of windows to bypass all the internet security on the school computers so I could surf whatever sites I wanted. I built a game in visual basic for my senior project. When I started college, Linux was still something for the elite computer science people, so I worked on getting damn good in Windows.

Here's the agony part: I was always tweaking in Windows. Like many Linuxites, I like tweaking more than I enjoy actually using my computer. Well, Windows doesn't take well to tweaking, so I was constantly losing my data, reformatting my Windows partition, reinstalling, etc. It was pretty much a monthly occurance for me to spend a weekend reformatting. But I thought I was living the good life, my marriage to windows was a happy one, despite the high mortality rate of my keyboards (a couple good slams and they die for some reason).

About a year ago, I started having an affair with Ubuntu. Windows could sense the presence of an "other" in my life and filed for divorce by sharting all over itself and forcing me to install AGAIN. Well, I signed the divorce papers late last summer, keeping a minimal install of Windows just to support my kids, by which I mean my games. Now, I'm forced to use windows at work, but I bring my ubuntu laptop in for a conjugal visit almost every day, just so I can tinker in my downtime at work.

Epilogue:
Well, there you have it, agony, murder, marital bliss, divorce, visiting rights. I've been a pretty intense Ubuntu user for about 5 months, and a more than occasional one for over a year. Am I as comfortable in Ubuntu as Windows? Well, depends on the sense. I am more comfortable tweaking linux because I know that if I fubar my system, there is always recovery mode where I can most likely fix whatever I messed up. I'm still learning all the ins and outs of linux, and probably will be for years to come, but it doesn't get stale, like windows did, because of the endless customization and tweaking.

To the windows experts out there that are pissed cause linux isn't "like windows," you should give linux a chance. No, it's not like windows. Yes, you'll feel a bit foolish for awhile using linux. However, the community is awesome, and I have to give props to everyone here at UF who has helped me fix my computer. And in linux you gain something that you'll never have in windows: absolute freedom over your computer. No microsoft suggestions, no microsoft activation, no microsoft bloat. Divorce your windows and come have free Ubuntu. If I can do it, anyone can.

Here are some screenshots of my linux machine:

Dominating the West!

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Tue, 16 May 2006 00:49:00 +0000

After weeks of hard work and testing, the OSU Mini Baja team has emerged victorious over our opponents at the Baja West competition held at Washougal MX track. Our team took first place in marketing, design report, and design presentation, and 19th for our (accurate and expensive) cost report, helping us start the weekend in 1st place! After the 2nd day, we were still in first due in a large part to our 2nd place finishes in rock crawl (see picture above) and maneuverability (Tim Hahn is the MAN!).

For the final day of competition, we placed 4th in the endurance race (official results pending), leading to our 1st place overall finish! We have a bigass trophy now and about a dozen plaques for all of our accomplishments. Now, we need to clean the car, tighten all the nuts and screws and get ready for Midwest Baja competition in Wisconson next week. I'll post more pix and vids as I get them!

Muthaf**in poison oak!

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 04:02:00 +0000

The inevitable finally happened: while hiking all over the Corvallis area, I got poison oak. I have never itched so much in my entire life. I was fortunate to recognize what it was early on in the infestation, so started washing everything I touched for a week. My left leg (shown) is the worst. My right leg looks similar, and is basically a mirror image of my left (big surprise there).

I noticed a couple spots on my arms this morning, but I washed everything again and I'm desperately hoping my arms won't look like my legs in a week. The good news is that the 5-7 day period is the worst itch, then it just looks nasty for another two weeks. I've had it for a week, and have been tempted to cut my legs off, but I am noticing a decline in itchiness.

So, for everyone in the Corvallis area, when hiking in and around Chip Ross Park, Dimple hill, and Bald hill, watch out for poison oak! If you get it, make sure you wash everything that there is even the remotest possibility that the poison oak touched. The resin from the poison oak can last several months on clothing, boots, backpacks, etc. and can reinfect you until it's all gone! Safe hiking!

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:56:00 +0000

You will want to see this video. This is the 2005 Baja car doing a sweet jump over one of our team member's heads. Personally, I think he's lucky he didn't get his noggin knocked off, but it is a cool video.

It's called grammar. Use it dumbass!

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 03:41:00 +0000

I was in Borders the other day, just browsing the books before classes started and came across a cool little book entitled Eats shoots and leaves. The premise of the book is that the English language, specifically punctuation, is deteriorating to the point where it is difficult at times to understand what thought a person is trying to convey when they write. I had to agree with the book, despite my less than perfect grasp of the English language, because I have graded numerous papers for my job and have first-hand experience at trying to decipher WTF someone is trying to say with botched punctuation and grammer.

Now, I am not suggesting that we all go back to how English was written and spoken 50 or 100 years ago. And heaven forbid we go back to Middle English. English, and really all languages, are always evolving and changing to meet the demands of the populace. However, I think a lot of the problems in the language today come from two sources: ignorance and laziness. Ignorance of proper conventions is the fault of elementary schools who either don't have the resources or are too damn lazy to teach grammar at an early age. Laziness is the fault of the person (obviously) who is writing. Is it really so hard to proofread?

A tertiary, albiet probably more important, source of language problems is that people today just don't read! Ask yourself, when was the last time you read a book for fun? How many kids (and by kids, I mean people my age or younger) do you know who read on a regular basis something other than a magazine that convinces them to attempt to become something they are not? That's a topic for another post, but the point remains that basic grammar and punctuation is slipping. In the words of the famous poet, Jay-Z, "Pick up a book you illiterate sonofabitch and step up your vocab."

First blog post

noreply@blogger.com (Belyle) — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 03:33:00 +0000

I never thought I'd be a blogger, but here I am randomly spouting crap on the internet so other people can (if they so chose) read my innermost thoughts. Basically, I'll probably use this blog as a rant and maybe as updates for my senior project the OSU Mini Baja car (woot). I may also post random cool pictures or thoughts I have. Basically, I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon and I'm procrastinating work right now... What a slacker I am.