[ News ] [ Geeks Only ] [Fluid ] [ Links ] [ Old Pages ]

News

27 March 1999
Apparently, Fluid may not work unless your desktop is set to 16-bit colour prior to running it.

09 March 1999
Updated my Links section, and added a link to my old set of web pages, in case you're interested in how these pages used to look before I decided on the current simple theme. Beware of numerous broken links on those old pages! Also, Fluid has been taken off my suspended list.

15 October 1998
Augh! I just found out that the reason I've been having trouble sending large files over a network (either my LAN or the Internet) is because of the Win98 drivers for my Realtek adapter. According to Microsoft Support Online: "If you use a Realtek network adapter, the network adapter may send an occasional corrupt data packet." If you're in the same boat, get new drivers from Realtek. The only reason I continue to use Windows is for all the games available for the platform.

29 September 1998
After several frustrating weeks, I believe I've finally solved a problem I've been having with IE4. Certain pages were always causing IE4 to hang. Well, it seems like the culprit was GetRight. If you happen to be having similar problems, go to the GetRight configuration, select the Monitor tab, and don't let GetRight monitor clicks in Internet Explorer. One of these days I think I'll abandon IE4 and try out Opera.

15 September 1998
That's it. I'm sick of trying to come up with a good page design. This is now just a plain and simple page mainly to showcase my game-in-progress. This page should even be viewable in text browsers (such as Lynx), though I've only ever tested it in Internet Explorer. Yes, sad as it may be, I've converted to IE as my browser of choice. I hate to admit it, but IE seems to have more features than Netscape Navigator, and loads pages faster as well. Unfortunately, IE also seems to have an insatiable appetite for resources. If you're looking for an alternative to IE or Navigator, I've heard good things about Opera.

Geeks Only

Here are miscellaneous tidbits that might be useful/interesting to geeks like me:

• [Added on 17 September 1998; Updated on 18 October 1998]
  Are you stuck with a set of .BIN/.CUE files that you can't burn with CDRWin because CDRWin doesn't support your CD burner? I know of two possible solutions:
  
  
  • use BinChunker or bin2iso to convert them to ISO and WAV files, and use whatever program you want to burn your CDs. Or,
    
    
  • use Cue4Ide available from New Guy's PSX Backup Page. The program produces a .PRJ file that can be used with WinOnCD. Note: I tried it once, it doesn't seem to work. I didn't try very hard though, so you're welcome to put more effort into it than I did. After loading the project file, WinOnCD seems to think I want to burn more than 4000M!
  
  
  
• [Added on 15 September 1998]
  If you're trying to make use of the Independent JPEG Group's JPEG software in your C++ program and you're getting a bunch of link errors about "undefined external symbols" or some such nonsense, then instead of just doing #include "jpeglib.h", enapsulate it within an extern "C", like so:
  
  extern "C"
  {
  #include "jpeglib.h"
  }
  
  And of course, don't forget to link with the .lib file (or .a file if you're using gcc/g++).
  
  
• [Added on 15 September 1998]
  Just as a 3x3 rotation matrix can describe the orientation of an object in 3D space, so can unit quaternions (4D vectors). The main reason I use quaternions is to perform interpolations between orientations, but there are certainly other reasons why you might decide to use quaternions. Take a look at an article on Gamasutra about Rotating Objects Using Quaternions.
  
  Note: My math ability leaves much to be desired, but I have nevertheless been able to successfully make use of quaternions. I can't say that I understand all the math behind them (nor do I have any particular desire to do so), but I do understand that unit quaternions can describe orientations, and that's what I use them for. However, matrices remain a staple in my game code.

Fluid

Fluid is the working name of my game-in-progress. Why did I call it Fluid? I dunno really...I just thought it was kinda cool when I named the project. Now I'm not so sure, but that's ok. I can always change it later if I want.

I suggest reading the associated README file before trying Fluid. Fluid doesn't really do enough yet to warrant being called a game, but I have nevertheless made it available. If anyone actually decides to try it out, let me know if you find any bugs. I don't want to hear anything like "What the hell is this crap? It doesn't do squat! All it is is one big bug!" I already know it doesn't really do anything, and so would you if you'd read the README. There's a reason why it's only at version 0.0.1! Please be aware that I'm writing Fluid primarily as a learning experience, and your expectations of Fluid may not be the same as mine.

I will likely maintain two lists of changes made to Fluid from one version to the next: CHANGES.usr and CHANGES.dev. These files are empty at the moment, since there is currently only one version.

Download Fluid v0.0.1 for Win9X/NT (134,968 bytes)

Remark: If Fluid doesn't work for you, try setting your desktop to 16-bit colour.

(For those of you interested in my previous effort, feel free to examine cheeze003_src.zip. As a forewarning, the code gets kinda messy at times. I didn't like the way Cheeze was coming along, which is why I decided to start over with Fluid.)

Links

Here's a copy of my favourites/bookmarks. I should warn you, it's big and it's messy, but it's available in all its glory.
[Updated on 09 March 1999]