Codehead’s Dev Blog

I’ve tried many devices over the years that claimed to be pocket computers or next-gen smart phones. However, I’ve always been disappointed with the limited capabilities of every one of my Psions, Journadas, PDAs and phones.

This week, I picked up a HTC Hero and I’ve spent the week with my jaw on the floor. So far it’s done everything I’ve asked of it with ease, the Android app store is crammed with useful add-ons and the SDK looks straightforward (even if it is Java based). I’m hugely impressed and will be enjoying exploring deeper over the next few weeks.

To illustrate the coolness factor, this post has been written and published right on the phone using the WordPress app.

My Xbox was away for a total of 8 days. I know Microsoft have had plenty of practice at this, but I’m still impressed at the quick turnaround.

Now to get stuck into Trials HD.

My XBox has died again. Argos won’t touch it (even with an extended warranty) so back to Microsoft it goes.

My shadow volume routine seems to be working, up to a point. I made a few optimisations and shortcuts that relate specifically to AMBER.

• I’m using uncapped volumes as the viewer will never be inside the shadow volume.
• The light source is distant,  so I don’t need to create a projected frustum, I can get away with just extruding the edge geometry along the light vector to produce a parallel projection.
• I don’t need an infinite projection, just enough to get below the ground plane. (The light source doesn’t move so I can use a constant extrusion value.)
• I couldn’t work out a good way of transforming the object geometry to the light vector, so I transformed the light vector by reversing the view rotations. That way, the shadow volume is placed correctly when rotated with the object.

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Following on from my last post, I got textured shadow maps working.

However, the resolution had to be kept down for speed and it looks pretty shabby. I wrote a filter to smooth out the edges, but it kept missing bits, leaving the odd pixel sharp and sticking out like a sore thumb. It also dragged the frame rate down even further.

I’ve found a few good articles on shadow volumes and I’m going to have a crack at them, and see if I can come up with anything.

I’ve been wanting to add decent shadows to AMBER for some time. I used this generic dark blob texture just above ground level when I first noticed that a shadow cue was needed.

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I’ve pulled the forums for the last time. Spambot registrations suddenly started getting through and I don’t have time to clean the board. There wasn’t much activity anyway, and I seemed to be battling the bots for nothing.

This blog will do just fine for feedback, Askimet is a great spam filter.

I’ve just started my second year of study with the Open University.  I’m taking M359: Relational Databases, to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge.

I’ve tinkered with a few databases over the years, I did DB design as part of my HND and I’ve been trained up on the Microsoft MS SQL Server courses. However, nothing could have prepared me for the theory being thrown at me by the course.

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I got my LAMP stack sorted and made some mods to the forum software. The forums are back and so far no spam has appeared. I’m seeing plenty of undeliverable reports in my e-mail, so I guess the bot registrations and spam are bouncing off due to the mods.

The spammers are back with a vengeance. I’ve disabled the board and am in the process of building up a LAMP server to make some mods to phpBB3.