Graduation Time!!!

Graduation is just around the corner and I’m excited, but at the same time a little nervous.  The future seems very uncertain for me, but I continue to strive to fulfill this dream of mine.  I have decided to take these past experiences as a way to grow.  I will use them as a way to remind me of what I have forgotten and what I must learn or even relearn.  I don’t believe that I’m necessarily not qualified right now to work in the industry, but that I need to do a refresher of things I have learned years before I am fully prepared to work in this industry.  In addition, I have learned so much these past two years mainly in the area of physics-based animation.  I do hope that what I have learned will not go to waste when I finally join the industry.  And I do hope that my time to join the industry comes very soon.  For now, I will continue to interview and hope for the best…

Adding a userDefineLang to Notepad++

Here’s another one of those entries I’m using because I keep forgetting how to do something and end up spending a good 20 minutes trying to find out a site with reasonable instructions.

To add a userDefineLang (user defined language) to Notepad++, first locate the AppData folder which contains Notepad++.  You can easily navigate there by running the following:

%APPDATA%/Notepad++

Now that we’re in the folder, either modify the existing userDefineLang.xml file or move the one that you downloaded.  If there already exists one.  Open the new userDefineLang file, which contains the language you want to add, and copy everything in there aside from the <NotepadPlus> and </NotepadPlus>.  Now paste it inside the existing userDefineLang file either before or after the existing languages.  If done correctly, you should be able to see the new language under “Language”.

If you’re trying to follow this and it’s unclear feel free to make suggestions.  I’ll try to make things clearer by using your suggestions.

Final Project for Physics-based Animation

I should have posted this about a month ago, but it’s better late than never.  This was my final project that I submitted for my physics-based animation class.  I wanted to do something different this time and instead of programming everything, I just used Fume FX to create an interesting (to me at least) effect.

Jan 11 fxphd term!

I just signed up for the Jan 2011 term for fxphd.  I’m pretty excited that Allan McKay is teaching Fume FX this semester.  Also excited to be learning more about Mari and also the new Maya Lighting and Rendering class.

I also have to work on my demo reel to submit for a summer internship.  I “should” be able to come up with some decent stuff to submit.  Hopefully I can get most of it done within this month.  If I do get a summer internship, then that would really make up for many things that have gone wrong this past year.  *crosses fingers*

Deformable Bodies

Implemented a basic non-linear deformable bodies simulator based off of the “Graphical Modeling and Animation of Brittle Fracture” paper by James F. O’Brien and Jessica K. Hodgins.

http://graphics.eecs.berkeley.edu/site_root/papers/Obrien-GMA-1999-08/

Particle System

I implemented a particle system which has a vortex and attractors which form an object.

Project 1 – Particle Simulator

My first assignment for the Physics-based Animation class is to implement a particle simulator and apply one of the algorithms mentioned in class. I’m considering doing a waterfall scene, perhaps flocking, or even just using attractors to write out my name. This project is due on September 8th and I hope to have it done by this weekend.

Installing GLUT on Visual Studio 2010

I decided to do this write up for both myself and others who might be installing GLUT in Visual Studio 2010. I’ll include pictures if anyone requests it, but I think this is fairly straight forward.

First thing to do would be to place all the files in their correct directories.

glut.h: ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\GL\’
glut32.lib: ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\lib\’
glut32.dll: ‘C:\Windows\System32\’

For 64-bit machines, you will want to do this.

glut32.dll: ‘C:\Windows\SysWOW64\’

Same pattern applies to freeglut and GLEW files with the header files in the GL folder, lib in the lib folder, and dll in the System32 (and SysWOW64) folder.

1. Under Visual C++, select Empty Project.
2. Go to Project -> Properties. Select Linker -> Input then add the following to the Additional Dependencies field:

opengl32.lib
glu32.lib
glut32.lib

NOTE: If you will be also installing GLEW be sure to place, “#include <GL/glew.h>”, before the include for GLUT.  Also place “glewInit();” after your “glutCreateWindow”.

NOTE: This is where things differ a bit between Visual Studio 2010 and the previous versions. In the previous versions we would just add into the VC++ Directories, but they have since done away with this and replaced it with Property Sheets.

Go here to learn about Property Sheets.

This link discusses VC++ Directories in VS2010.

3. Go to View -> Property Manager.
4. Right click and Add New Project Property Sheet. I just named my new Project Property Sheet as ‘GLUT’ and so I will be referring to our Property Sheet as ‘GLUT’.
5. You should now see ‘GLUT’ under Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user in both the Debug and Release section of the Property Manager.
6. Right-click ‘GLUT’ select Properties, then select VC++ Directories.
7. Select Include Directories and choose ‘Edit…’
8. Either enter this directory ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\GL’ or browse to it.
9. Everything should work now! Please leave a comment if it worked or ran across any problems.

For future projects, you would need to select ‘Add Existing Project Sheet’ in the Project Manager in order to get GLUT working.  You can also edit the Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user sheet and add GLUT to the VC++ Directories, but then GLUT would be applied to every project you create.

Currently working on a new ray tracer

My last ray tracer rewrite was not as great as I had expected so I’ve been working on a new one. My programming pipeline wasn’t set up very well and made things a bit more difficult for adding new things. I think the new one I’m working on will be awesome.

Simultaneous touch + pen = pure awesomeness

Watching this makes me excited about the Microsoft Courier assuming this technology is also included.