El primer curso que tomé, fue uno sobre AI (Inteligencia Artificial pues) en XNA, encontramos como está dada la estructura para que corra un videojuego sobre esta plataforma, y a pesar de que el instructor llego tarde, la "quick guide" que recibimos fue bastante buena, por lo menos ya no me siento tan perdido en el ambiente de XNA. Encontré dentro de esto, tantas aplicaciones de temas aprendidos en la clase de Álgebra linea y cálculo multivariable, desde el hecho de porque es importante una matriz identidad hasta el origen de las matrices de rotación. Tanto XNA y Direct X son "left handed", pues la coordenada Z entra en la pantalla, algo que es muy importante para los movimientos de cámara. Encontré también como es que podemos programar un modelo 3D para que encuentre el camino más corto a un punto objetivo en un espacio con obstáculos, pero eso es algo más complicado, en caso de que quieran conocer más sobre esto, siéntanse libres de dejar un comentario y con gusto puedo pasarle el source code de este ejemplo.

Y bueno, sobre Direct X, vaya que es todo un mundo nuevo sobre la programación de gráficos, desde el meshing que hay que hacer de manera manual, hasta las animaciones que deben de ser programadas, Direct X mostró ser un lenguaje de programación bastante pesado, pero muy, muy flexibe en comparación con OpenGL por ejemplo. Lo visto en el taller fue la creación de esferas con movimientos de rotación y traslación simulando al sistema solar. Desde como importar las librerias para que Visual Studio C++ reconozca los encabezados de Direct3D, descubrimos todo lo relacionado con las propiedades de un vértice y la descomposición por triángulos, pues a pesar de que nuestra geometría este como Nurbs, DirectX la descompone en triángulos para poder procesarla. Bueno esto es lo poco que puedo comentarles sobre mi experiencia aquí en días previos a Cranimax, nos vemos luego.

Y sobre el curso de Unreal Engine, parece ser que los únicos que teníamos el perfil para tomar el curso, eramos un profesor y yo, al final el curso no se dio y es por ello que estoy entrando a los demás cursos referentes a videojuegos.

Nowe karty będą do nabycia za 59 USD co trzeba przyznać - jest ceną jak najbardziej atrakcyjną. Za niecałe 60 USD dostaniemy bowiem 64-bitową magistralę pamięci, pełną obsługę DirectX 10.1 oraz obsługe UVD 2.2. Najlepsze odmiany Radeona HD4350 uzbrojone nawet zostaną w pamięci typu GDDR3 w rozmiarach nawet do 512 MB.

Nowości od ATI - do nabycia w sklepach już na dniach!

wp.pl

Sono state rilasciate ieri, le directX (9 e 10 in uno stesso pacchetto) di Agosto.

Raccomando SEMPRE di aggiornarle, poichè migliorano notevolmente la stabilità e le prestazioni 3d.

LINK per il download

Auf der GamesFest 2008 in seattle kündigte Microsoft heute Direct 11 an.

Haupt features sind:

- Full Support von Windows Vista (kein XP Support, kein wunder ^^)

- Kompatibilität mit Direct X 10 und Direct X 10.1 Hardware.

- Neue Shader Technolgie

- Multi-threaded resource handling

[Kotaku]

Oricum sper ca jocul sa nu ma dezamageasca si sa iasa chiar un joc interesant nu vrajeala ... demo-ul a fost palpitant cand a fost :D sa vedem ce zice jocul ^_^ ... incurand scriu despre cum a fost jocul (dupa ce il termin) ... 2 zile ?

Have Fun and play

Shadow of Chernobyl was a masterpiece of visceral entertainment, made all the more authentic by it's Ukrainian development team. Their efforts in representing the lost Soviet city of Prypet, which stands largely intact to this day, along with the areas surrounding the Chernobyl NPP like the Red Forrest are astonishing and deserving of praise. The only real drawback to the game was the overall lack of polish, particularly with the mission scripting which could be a bit hit and miss.

The lack of any online cheat protection and clearly designed multiplayer modes really disadvantaged the online experience. I have played many hours on some of the large maps enjoying the mixture between fast paced battles in Agropom as well as some of the other maps where slow methodical stalking was the best strategy. But in the end I stopped playing do to the imbalanced nature of the action.

It was with great excitement that read a number of months ago about the planned prequel that has been in development, practically since the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. For those of you not keenly following the game release sites, the name of this prequel is Clear Sky and it is set in a time before the (fictional) second disaster at Chernobyl. What was it that a wise man once said? To have one containment breach is a tragedy, to have second seems like carelessness?

Rather than unravelling the master quest by searching for the identity of this mysterious Strelok character, instead, you play a free agent in "The Zone" tasked with assassinating Strelok. He really appears to be persona non grata doesn't he? This is only a small part of the game with the player becoming inextricably embroiled in a multi faction conflict in the zone. What worries me a little is the number of factions rumoured to be in game : NINE! Bandits, Duty, Freedom, Clear Sky, Mercenaries, Internal Troops (Military), Scientists, and Lone Stalkers and the player can choose to align themselves with any of them (although presumably only one at a time). Whilst having multiple factions is a good thing, it promotes diversity and gives a potentially huge degree of replay-ability, with so many factions it is very difficult to make them sufficiently unique and appealing. Especially with the degree of overlap in their motivations and objectives as judged by Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl.

The X-ray engine has received an upgrade to version 1.5 which will include Direct X 10 support as well a variety of particle, textural and AI upgrades. I found a video a few days ago showing the weather system in action. It looks very impressive, from oil black nights to realistic weather effects and shadows. I am very much looking forward to this, and to exploring the expanded / tweaked zone, so what awaits you Stalker, in the zone that changed?

UPDATE: According  to wikipedia, the E3 demo was leaked to a variety of torrent sites today. I can only hope this does not impact on the work being done getting the final build ready for the August release date.

Uno dei problemi del pinguino è la carenza di giochi validi per questa piattaforma. Per fortuna tramite Wine è possibile eseguire programmi (e quindi anche giochi) windows direttamente da Linux, permettendo così di giocare ai propri titoli preferiti anche sotto la proprio adorata distro.

Per farlo è necessario installare wine, possibilmente la versione più aggiornata, oltre ai driver per la propria scheda video e alle librerie grafiche directx.

La procedura è abbastanza lunga (tanto è vero che ho diviso questa guida in tre parti), ma se avrete la pazienza di seguirmi sarete premiati da risultati tipo questo che vedete nella schermata qui sotto :)

DISCLAIMER: Le informazioni di seguito riportate sono prese da altri siti, tradotte, raggruppate e testate sulla mia Linux-box. Sebbene i siti in questione siano più che attendibili, non posso garantire che quanto riportato funzioni correttamente su tutti i computer. Insomma, usatele a vostro rischio e pericolo :D

Il primo passo da fare è installare i driver più aggiornati per la propria scheda video. Per farlo in modo semplice e indolore ci viene incontro Envy dell'italianissimo Alberto MIlone. Il programmatore è italiano ma le istruzioni sono scritte in inglese (...), quindi vediamo un po' di riepilogare il tutto nella nostra madre lingua:

Cos'è Envy?

Envy è un' applicazione per Linux che riconosce automaticamente la tua scheda video (solo per modelli ATI e NVIDIA) e installa i driver opportuni prelevandoli direttamente dal sito dei produttori. Il programma consente anche la configurazione automatica di Xorg. Può essere usato direttamente da GUI (interfaccia grafica) oppure da console.

Sul sito del programmatore sono disponibili pacchetti per distribuzioni Debian derivate (Ubuntu, Linux Mint e Debian stessa), gli utilizzatori di altre distro si dovranno adattare ad utilizzare i sorgenti, non dovrebbero comunque avere visto che il tutto è scritto in Python + PyGTK.

Le istruzioni per installare il tutto sono disponibili nelle FAQ, prima di installarlo accertatevi di avere abilitati i repository universe e multiverse (nel caso utilizziate ubuntu). Se non sapete come fare date un occhiata qui.

Una volta installati i driver controllate che l'accellerazione 3d sia abilitata digitando da terminale

glxinfo | grep rendering

se vi risponde

direct rendering: Yes

è tutto apposto. Nel caso di scheda grafica ATI potete configurarla dall'ATI Catalyst Control Center, cercatelo nel vostro menù.

Se tutto è andato a buon fine passa a leggere la seconda parte della guida in cui vediamo come installare Wine.

Cheers

DX9                                                         DX10

Pogo's Vue:
I'm not really impressed.

Most of the DX10 shots make the world look so much darker.  Is there a reason to need to have shadows everywhere?  Why not spend the money on doing something fun for the game itself?  What this tells me is the publisher is thinking 'If we make it look good they will come'.   Some of the DX10 shots (to me) make the game look WORSE.  Granted it looks a little more detailed.  But for the price needed to run DX10 apps, are you really getting your money's worth? 

Nope.

O pessoal estava aqui a tentar meter o PES2008 a correr e deparamos-nos com um erro sobre a falta do ficheiro d3x9_30.dll. Como o vicio é muito e já vi por ai muita sugestão disparatada para resolver o problema aqui fica a real solução. Saquem o ficheiro dxwebsetup.exe (DirectX End User Runtime Web Installer) e corram. Problema resolvido, o vosso DirectX estava desactualizado.

Já agora a demo é porreirinha.

Se ficaram perplexos com o desafio de ontem podem ver aqui a solução.

Upon deciding to upgrade my game machine, I started poking around to see what components where out there now. I subscribe to several magazines, like PC Gamer and Maximum PC. I also check out sites like Toms hardware, Game Spot and GameSpy. I usually just glance around, keeping myself up to date on most things, like how fast the new hard drives, whats the new killer video cards and how big the LCD monitors have gotten.

I usually don't get to involved in the numbers till it comes time to upgrade. So, I ventured out on a few sites and checked what was rated well and what people in general were using for the new age of gaming machines. While doing this investigation, I discovered some information that ... well...pissed me off.

It appears that Microsoft will not be releasing Direct X 10 on XP. They have decided that to fully use DX10 the way they want, and for any future use, it can only be available for Vista users due to the coding that is involved. This wouldn't bother me at all last year or even the beginning of this year, if I had upgraded then. But now the video card companies are releasing the newest and greatest cards to the market, and the majority are being made DX10 ready.

Now, I know what your saying "Why not just upgrade to Vista on the new machine and you'll be all set." Well the answer to that is, again, Microsoft decided to release an unpolished product and the consumers have to be the beta testers. At work, we have two Alienware computers with Vista installed. Half the software I get for them won't run and the other half runs but very inefficiently, or I have to wait till they release a Vista version of the product. I have tons of games now that I want to be able to play once I get my new machine together. I don't want to have issues with them not working cause the OS is crap.

Besides, from all the specs I have seen, games run much slower on Vista than XP. I'm not a huge number cruncher, but when it comes to spending over 1k to build a computer, you want to spend your money wisely. I like to build systems that will stand up for at least 2 - 3 years with only minor upgrades. I don't want to invest in Vista and then spend most of my time playing all my old games on my old machine, because they just don't run, just to wait till Microsoft gets the OS up to par. Again, the consumer is at the mercy of big business.

I just think its highway robbery, when Microsoft can look at a customer and say you have to upgrade if you want to have access to stuff that we aren't making available to all our other OS products. I'm sure there is sound reasoning for them not to release DX10 for XP, but they should have some plan in the works to release an upgrade to DX9 that will take advantage of some of the cool features on these new cards coming out on the market that are DX 10 compatible. Course, I'm living in a dream world where I think the consumers should be the priority of big business instead of cash flow. Also, I heard that game company's are making Direct X 10 only games. Now I might be wrong. But doesn't that shorten the number of possible sales, if half your customers don't have Vista and can't install DX10? They could produce two versions, a DX9 and a DX10, but unless they can supply that on the same disc or in the same box, isn't that a bit costly?

If I'm wrong about all this, please let me know. I did hear a rumor that there would be a new version of DX9 that would make use of some features in the new cards, but it wouldn't be as good as DX10. There was even some article that said, some group was working on their own to provide a XP version of DX10. If a separate group of software people can work the code, why can't Microsoft. Oh yea, I remember, its not beneficial to their bottom line to keep supporting XP, while Vista is sitting on selves.

If your looking to upgrade soon, and Vista isn't what your looking to install, then do some research. You might want to wait on that DX10 compatible card till you are ready to install Vista. For me, the plan is to get a 8800 GTS 680mb card and install a copy of XP Pro. Since its cheaper to buy an OEM version of an OS when your buying hardware, I'll probably get a copy of Vista, since its cheaper than a copy of XP Pro.

Again, this is more of a personal rant against the Man. The man being Microsucks and their practice of screwing the public for their own good. If someone can convince me that Vista is better than XP, I'll welcome any kind of input or if I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill about DX10 not being supported on XP, then tell me.  Most of this may not be news to the gaming community. I pretty much live under a hardware rock till its time to upgrade and for a short period of about 4 months every 2 or so years, I know more than I need to about computer hardware. lol But if anyone wants to suggest some stuff, or let me know what rigs they are using with Vista and what games do work on that OS, I'd like to hear that too.