Dependency Hell

Last login: Fri Feb 11 01:20:48 on ttys000

mac:~ user$ sudo port install libusb-devel +universal

--->  Computing dependencies for libusb-devel

--->  Dependencies to be installed: autoconf help2man gettext expat libiconv gperf ncurses ncursesw p5-locale-gettext perl5 perl5.8 m4 automake git-core curl curl-ca-bundle libidn openssl zlib pkgconfig p5-error python27 bzip2 db46 gdbm readline sqlite3 rsync popt libtool

You need all this shit just to get a usb library working? Opeen Soooouuuuuurce!!!!

Its like I'm really in Linux!

AssetBooruCh

Somewhere along the way we discussed the need to better organize our 3d models, reference images, concept sketches, fonts, music, and sound effects in the office.

This reminded me of ResourceSpace. I tried it out on a local dev test site.

I have to say, its meant by default for graphic design, web design and those areas. Properties like Country or Camera Model are useless to textures, while you need more information for 3d models, such as polygon count.

I set out planning a different digital asset management tool that would work for us.

Meanwhile, people in the ResourceSpace Google groups explained that thankfully you can add new resource types and change properties of existing ones. Seems like I may use ResourceSpace after all.

However, my plans started diverting from ResourceSpace and I really thought I should look into it more:

• Upload any kind of file. Plugins are made to handle a specific asset type, like images, 3d models, textures, fonts, etc. 3d models show interactive thumbnails, videos have streaming flash video previews, and fonts can be previewed interactively (edit the text that is displaying the font).
• Danbooru-style tag-based organization. Assets are tagged and a sophisticated search system can be used to search assets based on its tags and properties.
• Imageboard based commenting system. Comments can be quoted, replied upon, with images and links properly parsed.
• Voting system. Assets can be rated from 0 to 5. Using the search system mentioned above, its easy to find popularity trends of certain assets. Comments can be voted up or down. Upvoted comments appear at the top while downvoted comments are hidden by default.
• AJAX. Most user operations do not require reloading the page. Search result pages are loaded without needing to refresh the page, similar to Google Images. Inputting values for tags give suggestions based on the word currently being typed.
• History graphs. Show history graphs of changing values like number of times an asset was viewed, average rating of an asset, number of comments to an asset, etc.
• Bookmark search results or subscribe to them as RSS feeds so you can be notified of any changes.

I shall therefore call it AssetBooruCh, and I'm looking at releasing it as an open source project.

I am not your mom

Jan 30 17:49:32 <Tayfe> AnomalusUndrdog: mom, maybe i found the problem...
Jan 30 17:49:51 <AnomalusUndrdog> I am not your mom
Jan 30 17:50:03 <VILE> lol
Jan 30 17:51:04 <Tayfe> AnomalusUndrdog: mom - one moment pls^^
Jan 30 17:51:19 <AnomalusUndrdog> I am not even female
Jan 30 17:51:36 <Tayfe> AnomalusUndrdog: maybe it's a problem that i use the same code on the car, too?

Oh IRC chat, you so crazy.

Join in the fun: #unity3d in freenode.

In other news, from the same IRC chat, I just learned about partial classes. A way to split your class definition into separate files, which is what I did back in C++ Torque days as my classes get to be too big. In most situations, this is doing it wrong, because classes getting big is a sign that I'm putting too much functionality in one place and I should separate distinct functionalities into separate classes in the first place.

I'm not dead yet

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Long story short, I decided to get a full-time job in game development so my personal projects are shelved for the time being.

The company I work in, Dreamlords Digital, decided to use my test game, Zombie Fields, as an actual commercial game. So now I'm working on porting it to the iPhone and adding lots of polish.

A few, old, work-in-progress screenshots:

I'm actually grateful that the company I now work for allows me a lot of creative freedom.

Death Zone Zero: Sign 3d Model

Here's some artwork to help fill the lack of posts lately.


Its an old 3d model I plan on using for Death Zone Zero, perhaps I'll animate the sign swaying back and forth a little.

Made in Blender and textured in GIMP.

Death Zone Zero: Minor Update: Zone Lobby Gui

One thing I really hate about Unity is the lack of better GUI functions, something that would make use of the Model-View-Controller pattern, because right now, almost everything is done in code.

It took me quite a while to code a popup menu (aka context menu/right-click menu).

Using a CMS

So I thought of what I should use when the time comes to set up the website for Death Zone Zero.

I can roll my own hardcoded PHP web pages like I always used to, but this time I thought of trying out a CMS.

Firstly I needed a CMS that can provide a community forum plus a community wiki, besides having the ability to let users create accounts for the game itself, and be able to display static content, news, and perhaps blogs.

I also need the CMS to be fully themeable, as I want a custom look for the game's website.

I saw Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware and thought it provided just what I needed. So I started trying it out on my local computer.

Unfortunately I encountered a bug during the installation detailed here.

The workaround was to downgrade my PHP installation from 5.3 to 5.2 but it makes PhpMyAdmin crash the Apache HTTP Server. I ignored that and tried to continue the Tiki Wiki installation. I almost got it completed when it spewed out an error:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'DateTime::__construct() [datetime.--construct]

So I had enough and decided on trying a different CMS.

I saw Drupal, which a couple of guys on /g/ recommended, so I'm currently looking into that. It has modules (plug-ins) to enable a forum and wiki, and even the ability to use Facebook Connect and OpenID, so its a good thing for me.

Unfortunately it also has a problem with PHP 5.3, giving out errors:

Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in Drupal\includes\file.inc on line 926

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at Drupal\includes\file.inc:926) in Drupal\includes\install.inc on line 618

I guess I'll just wait for a fix.