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    15 May, 2002

    Just a little teaser of an update just to let everyone know I'm alive! A quick hallo to Cow In The Well, good to hear from you again bud, will put up more news here when I get time (hopefully tonight). I know it's been a long time coming, but I will soon post up the URL of my new site (own domain and all) for everyone to go to, but I don't want it to be available half-finished like this one constantly was.

    Far more importantly, Amanda and I celebrated our six month anniversary yesterday, and things are better than ever. Don't worry, I'm not going to get all mushy here, that's for home! Looks like she's the one ... jealous? :P

    29 January, 2002

    Dear Lady! What an unbelievable amount of time between updates. A lot has happened in that time, and a lot of new people have come into my life.

    First, we have the love of my life, a beautiful woman by the name of Amanda (see right), for whom I packed up and shifted half way across the country to be with, and with whom I have moved into a new home.

    Next we have all the new friends that came part & parcel with Amanda, namely Tania (hey chicky), Alice (hey sweetie), Mikey (gidday!), James, Shannon, Fiona, et al., not to mention the unofficial additions to my family, Mel, Lester, Rangi, Ray, and the boys Tamahae & Felix!

    Phew! Now for my buddy's over at Hecate's Cauldron : Kathryn, Tracey, Guinevere, Pearl, Lissa, Richard, Turtle, and all you other cool peeps! I'm missing you all terribly, but won't be long, and anyway, the Festival is coming soon, so I'll always see you then ;)

    2 November, 2001

    My, long time no update. Well, I guess I'll have to start doing something about that. Starting now.

    First, hello to all you new people who have found your way here. Sorry it doesn't contain much in the way of information relevant to the sites you've linked from, but I plan to rectify that by resurrecting an old site of mine that did, and piggy-backing it onto this site. If you wish to set a bookmark, then you may click here.

    Right, my creative phase. Still going strong, although I've finished the desk & case, and taken to my mouse & monitor with vinyl dye (cool stuff). I haven't done any programming in a while, and won't for a wee while yet either, but I have enlisted the aid of a friend to work on the graphics for LotA for me. Currently, I'm working on a present for a friend of mine (a short sword), and am also designing some clothes (!) for an event I've got coming up.

    Speaking of events, I'm going to the New Zealand Pagan Festival next year *does a little dance*. Hehe, it's going to be cool, and I'll finally get to meet more than a handful of nutters like myself.

    Ah yes, more creativity. I'm currently working with a good friend of mine to develop an online store, and boy, had I forgotten how much I hate ASP. But, I'll grit my teeth and bear it, and hopefully soon we'll have a nice new store to suck all your money into ;)

    Last, but certainly not least, this is the first chance I have had to mention that I got the latest Garbage album, and although I love it, it's not as good as the original. Which is a shame, but something I'll just have to live with.

    So, thanks for dropping by, I'll catch up with some of you in TA, some of you online, and the rest in RL. Stay peachy ;)

    29 September, 2001

    Well, discreet have finally released gmax, a free version of their best-selling 3D Studio Max. If you're a game developer, and want to make some cool 3D models, get it now.

    w3 :: http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/

    Well, the holidays are here, which mean children abound. It also means it's time to start looking for a new job. Anyone want to hire me?

    I'm really bored. So I'm modding another case, building a Linux box, and getting a ROM-based boot loader to work. Oh, and I'm building myself a new desk. It's a clone of this desk. I'm not selling it, so screw copyright, but hey, it's cool, and it looks like I'll get it built for less than $100. Which is always a good thing.

    "Mary had a little lamb, her father shot it dead. Now it goes to school with her, between two chunks of bread."

    23 September, 2001

    Couple of things : I've pulled out my Final Fantasy Tactics engine and have been working on it. I'm probably going to throw up a bit of code soon, so keep your eyes out for that. Also, I've signed up with PayPal, and have been sorting out some sort of donation system (made slightly more difficult by the fact I'm not in the US), so once I finally get anything of use on the site, you can send me a dollar (or more if you're so inclined) so show some appreciation.

    I've been working on this idea for Tactical Hive Minds, (need to think of a catchy acronym), where your opponents always consists of squads of enemies, which are linked together in a spoked-wheel structure. I'll add a diagram soon, since it's hard to expalin, however, for now I'll give it a go:

    Each unit in the squad is linked to (and controlled by) the Hive Mind. Each unit is also linked to the two closest units, directly to provide support to or request assistance from without having to go through the Hive Mind. Movement is controlled by flocking, but instead of each unit controlling its spacing & collision checks, the Hive Mind controls it (resulting in fewer loops, checks, jumps & variables). The Hive Mind also handles enemy LOS, instead of having each unit check (which is very CPU intensive), as well as weapon & tactic selection, so it can choose a combination of melee & ranged weapons & tactics which results in the appearance of real intelligence, and tactics which will blow you away (literally).

    To code it, you have a circular double-ended linked list, with a 'central' node, which links to each of the lesser nodes. Think of it as a Sergeant controlling a squad of Corporals. You can also further associate the Sergeants into a Hive Mind form, with a Lieutenant as the controlling 'central' node (and so on, and so forth). But I prefer just keeping it at the squad level instead of the command level.

    So, to summarise, what are the benefits?

    1. It's faster than handling individual units.
    2. The units literally work together to achieve their goals.
    3. The units move in a coordinate fashion, but not necessarily in a group.
    4. You don't have to give the units a specific order, they can figure it out for themselves.
    5. It's easier to have them learn, since you only have to teach the Hive Mind, rather than each unit.
    6. Implementing a 'memory' of the terrain is easier on memory, again, since you only need to do it once.
    7. Pathfinding is only done once, instead of for each unit, etc.

    I'll put up some example code in a few hours. Hope I've stirred your curiosity 8)

    "Too often we lose sight of life's simple pleasures. Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and slap the mofo in the head."

    9 September, 2001

    This is just a temporary fix, don't worry about a thing ;). I'm only really here to show off this, a screenshot of my 64K Sokoban clone.

    "Some people say : 'Life sucks, then you die'. I disagree. I say : 'Life sucks, then you get cancer, go into chemotherapy, you lose all your hair and you feel bad about yourself, then the cancer goes into remission but you get a stroke and you can't move your right side anymore, you get hit by a truck and then MAYBE you die."

    3 September, 2001

    Well, some of you may have noticed that Geocities deleted my sites. I still don't know why, and probably never will. But I'm back now, and will make an extra effort to behave (yeah right).

    You may also notice a new design. Don't know if it's permanent yet.

    Not much to report at the moment, I'm still waiting on the results of my job application, and if that doesn't eventuate then I think I'll sell up and try moving somewhere more conducive to the type of work I'm after. Which most likely means I'll be emigrating.

    And last, but not least, I'm putting up the Beta of my TA Client (the Mundane version, you're not getting the Royal one). Click here to download (28K).

    25 August, 2001

    Okay, how long has there been a Witchblade TV series, and why didn't anyone tell me? I just found out about it when I went to Top Cow comics' web site, and saw the ad for it being on TNT. If you've seen it, mind letting me know what it's like?

    Just a quick note to let you know the TIA is back in the Library, and that I've added a couple of photos to the Artwork page, namely Alyson, AMD Cube & Charlotte. The rest are still down until further notice (or I watermark the things).

    14 August, 2001

    Update : OMG! I must have been dead to miss this : Garbage is set to release a new album worldwide on October 1st. It will be called 'beautifulgarbage' (yes, that's one word), and will feature 13 new tracks : Shut Your Mouth, Androgyny, Can't Cry These Tears, Til The Day I Die, Cup of Coffee, Silence Is Golden, Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!), Breaking Up The Girl, Drive You Home, Parade, Nobody Loves You, Untouchable, and So Like A Rose.

    I have been waiting for this a long time, and I know it's going to be worth it, since the word is they've gone back to the style of their debut album, and concentrated on the haunting voice of the gorgeous Shirley Manson. I think I'm going to go stir-crazy having to wait for another month & a half!

    Well, I thought it time I update the news again, even though I have nothing really important to say. The POP3 program is working wonderfully, although I ended up with a final executable size of 16K (stupid icons - why can't they have RLE?). I've been working on a new client for TA, and it's down to 26K. No MFC, no VCL, just raw Win32 programming. I'm rather stoked, actually. If you want to be involved in a beta test, just send me an email.

    The 23rd Hugi Diskmag has been released. 1.3 megs of art, music, articles, tutorials & the latest on the demoscene. Download it now from w3 :: http://www.hugi.de/

    Seems to be the month for establishing friendships. Greets go out to my cyber-grrl Tammakay and my buddy Taylor, who I've finally got in touch with after an extended holiday. Congrats to Tammy on your engagement, he's an insanely lucky guy, and further congrats to Missy who has made it into the running for this year's Honour Roll -- you deserve something expensive ...

    Geocities has begun making new policy decisions, and so it seems unlikely that I will continue to be hosted by them for much longer. I'm currently looking into my options, so I'll keep you all posted. I also plan to finally get the newsletter working, so if you want to be notified of when the site is updated, keep an eye out for that too.

    I've gone over to the dark side, I'm afraid. I finally installed (gulp) MSN Messenger onto my computer. Setting up the firewall to block the ads was a pain, and then I discover you can download a Plus! pack for it that does all that for you. Why don't people tell me these things? So, if you wish to chat that way, try putting an @ between mind_phuq & hotmail, and throw a .com on the end for good measure. I just might say hi ... 8)

    I've decided to add a few more recipes to the Library, so I think I'll have to set aside a dedicated section there to accommodate them all. And to all those who have been asking, I have disabled the images on the Artwork page because certain unscrupulous individuals have decided to take said images without asking and use them on their sites, with one case even requiring a membership at the site to view it. Needless to say I was not amused, and they have now removed the images. But until I find a surefire way of preventing that happening again (and I don't particularly want to use watermarks), they will remain unavailable. Sorry, guys & gals.

    10 August, 2001

    I've added the recipes for Guarana Fudge, Vodka & Chocolate Cupcakes and Mead to the Library, and am just putting the finishing touches on the Swordmaking article.

    I got bored and wrote a small e-mail checking app. The challenge is to get it under 6K. I don't think I'll make it, since I like hi-colour icons ... It's less than 10K already, though, so perhaps that's good enough. Keep an eye out for it ...

    It has come to my attention that Borland are giving away the personal edition of Delphi 6. Being a Delphi advocate, I must say that if you haven't tried it already, now might be a good time to find out what you're missing ... w3 :: http://www.borland.com/delphi/personal/

    6 August, 2001

    I've been glaringly absent recently, and my utmost apologies to all those people who were (and still after) replies from me. I've not been on the Net for a month and a half, so I'm a bit behind. I am, however, back for the duration, so things should be getting back on track pretty soon.

    So what am I doing here, then? I've uploaded the A* Pathfinding Tutorial, have tidied up the Linked List & Octtree tutorials in the Library, just throwing up a quick update for a couple of peeps re: Lords of the Aethyr.

    I've completed the Animal AI and graphics. The final list now reads : pig, cow, deer, sheep, goat, chicken, rabbit, horse, dog, wolf, bear, cougar, bee, bird, and butterfly. Bees produce honey, chickens eggs, sheep wool, cows & goats milk, and the first seven can be killed for meat.

    I've settled on 15 basic types of Armour, thirteen of which have variants depending on their enchantments or materials. The two that do not are types which can only ge gifted, not bought, and have been balanced so that even though they have superior armour levels, they have inherent, albeit minor, negatives to compensate against power-maxxers.

    I sped up both the Pathfinding & Particle Modules about a third, and wrote a wrapper for DirectDraw to automatically call a Critical Section whenever I start rendering. So much cleaner, and still nice and fast.

    I'm working on a new version of the Font Engine, which uses compiled sprites to draw text rather than the current clipped bitmaps. I suppose the existing version is fast enough, especially since I started using a custom StrLen routine, but not only will a new version make it faster, the font data files will be smaller too.

    The hardware-assisted Collision Detection is almost ready for final testing, and not only is the 2D check already waaay faster than the old 2D rectangle version, but so is the 3D Octahedron test.

    And last, but certainly not least, I'm getting my own domain name very soon.

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