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• Migration

  It took me a while to think about it but I am officially migrating my project over to http://www.lostindev.com/ I will make sure I have a "/longinus" or a "longinus.lostindev.com" type directory. I will have the official sf page link over to the project page in time.

  posted by nint22 719 days ago

• Lost in development?

  Not to say I am lost in development (actually, I am doing pretty good on the alpha 2, just lagging behind due to school) but I wanted to introduce my new, finaly official, site: http://www.lostindev.com/ (Some may not reach it as the DNS servers are still propagating it across the web)

  posted by nint22 722 days ago

• Pixel-Art and physics

  Physics is fun. Physics 211 & 212 is not. Its almost like that Mark Twain quote (forgot what it was but its something like this): "Don't let school get in the way of your education". The reason why I mention this is that I am working on implementing the physics into the new version of the Magi2 engine and am realizing again how much fun physics is. I love it! It made me realize how much school ruins things for you. The point is the new physics library will be implemented with simple connections to pixel-art (Simple 2D graphics) so that its easy to test. Later on I will develop better interfaces to the core classes as well as open it up to different rendering methods (still within DirectX). I had a friend create me a dummy human sprite composed of 11 different components all linked dynamically with constraints. The demo is amazingly fun! I'll be posting a picture and videos soon.

  posted by nint22 725 days ago

• Codenames

  I read an interesting post from my favorite development blog (http://www.codinghorror.com/) about software project names. I had no idea so much effort went into the title of a project, but then again upon reflection I realized how complex but important it truly is. Many people, including myself at times, do not understand what my two codenames are and how they represent their respective projects. Magi was originally a Java 3D Graphics engine created as a High School Senior-year project. Three core classes were used (object model loading, 3D model abstraction, and world rendering). Magi related to the three wise men from the east described in the Bible, similar to the three important classes in my Java software design. Though the project has completely changed to a hardware accelerated graphics engine with an advanced feature set, the same project name was kept since I liked it so much. Longinus, the first project to implement the Magi2 graphics engine, derives from the name of the Roman soldier who speared the heart of Jesus. I wanted consistency in the names but sadly it convoluted their meanings and the projects they represent. Hopefully this clears things up.

  posted by nint22 727 days ago

• Development progress report

  There has not been an update for a while. My rule of thumb is to never build up content for weeks at a time and never say anything. I like to give many, but short, updates. Unfortionatly I broke that rule since I had exams and quite a bit of work for the last few weeks. I'll make sure I have things to report about in the future. Most of my work has been for the PSU-Minigrand project since I am the lead developer. I have a great friend and partner that has done a huge amount of work this semester on it, but as soon as next semester comes I will be fully committed to that project. Visit http://psu-minigrand.sf.net to learn more. Also, I have (today) just looked at the Android platform release by Google for the Open-Phone-Aliance. I can say that I am greatly impressed by what Google is bringing to the table, but I worry for two reasons: Will the hardware manufactures really step up to the quality thats needed to launch this OS and will there be enough support where the average user can load up extra features and content as well as easily interface with their current applications (Outlook, pictures, etc...). Microsoft has cornered the mobile market simply because they are the industry standard. If Google can adapt to that, they can easily take a huge portion of the market. As for the Magi2 engine: I can summarize my latest work as pure research and testing, not truly developing code. I now better understanding the texture management system as well as how to do per-pixel mapping, and can now implement new features. I am in the process of re-designing the UI (for the unknown time at this point). I also have created a decent collision detection algorithm that I will soon implement in conjunction with the physics engine. All I have to say is verlet integration is not that bad. Another soon-to-be added feature is full API documentation. I am currently going through my code and formating it so my comments will, with Doxygen, generate an entire library documentation. I am also documenting private functions so that others may better understand how the engine works. Expect a website soon, such as one based on Drupal. (I need to find a good theme before I do anything.)

  posted by nint22 728 days ago

• Magi2 Alpha2 Dev started

  The development of Magi2 Alpha 2 has started. The "branch" has already been loaded into SVN. There is a new file directory standard that should makes downloading the source and running it much more simple and easier to browse online. Also, resource are now embedded into the *.dll This was a feature I got working at the very last minute in Alpha 1 that will be more efficiently implemented into Alpha 2. In this alpha, we will be implementing a full website, with installing and usage tutorials as well as documenting the source with Doxygen. One last note: We need your support! We need a software developer, a graphics artist (for the GUI + other features) as well as a web developer. I can't do the code AND document the entire project (Well, I am being smart about it and using tools like Doxygen)! I doubt anyone would want to join this early on but it would be so helpful even if they did not have that much experience to start with.

  posted by nint22 755 days ago

• Mag2 Alpha 1 Debug Release

  Check it out! Alpha 1 finally released! There is quite a bit more work to do but this is a HUGE milestone! Resource files are embedded directly into the DLL. Hope this will work for everyone... From the README.txt in the release file: ================================================================================ ---MAGI2 DIRECTX GRAPHICS ENGINE--- Author: Jeremy G. Bridon Penn State - Computer Science (Year 2) jgb5034@psu.edu or nint22@gmail.com Date: October 14th 2007 Version: Alpha 1 (Debug Release) Info: Please read the below documentation Copyright 2007 by Jeremy G. Bridon ================================================================================ ABOUT THIS RELEASE The Alpha 1 release of the Magi2 is a bare bones implementation of the project. It currently contains rought implementations of all basic features of the engine as well as a full-featured GUI library. Graphics and physics functionally soon to be fully implemented. PLEASE NOTE this is a debug build of the *.dll and performance is limited. There is currently no documentation of the functions other then the lines above each function and variable in the *.h. A document management system will soon be implemented. ABOUT THIS SOFTWARE Magi2 is an open source DirectX Graphics Engine designed to be a tool to quickly deploy a DirectX rendering environment, complex GUI, per-pixel rendering, two-dimensional rendering and three dimensional rendering. Magi was originally a Java based rendering engine as a school project to implement the mathematics of a 3D rendering engine from the ground up. The engine was strictly developed using GDI 2D drawing functions and quickly evolved to handle textures, back face culling, face ordering, *.obj models, and many more features. Magi2 is its successor, developed in C++ and unmanaged DirectX. The two goals of Magi2 is: A) To learn more about hardware accelerated computer graphics as well as B) Release tools that simplify the development process of DirectX applications. HOW TO USE Place the Magi2_Alpha1.dll file either into your executable directory, link to the Magi2_Alpha.lib and include the "include" folder. Please remember these namespaces: MUtil - Utilities functions MPhys - Physics Core MGui - GUI Core MGrfx - Graphics Core MConsole - Advanced Console Graphics Core A quick and messy implementation of all GUI features in included as a binary in the root directory of the release with source included in the "Demo" director.

  posted by nint22 757 days ago

• File released: /Magi2 Alpha 1/Magi2 Alpha 1 Debug/Magi2_Alpha1_Debug.rar

  posted 757 days ago

• Magi2 Alpha 1 Magi2 Alpha 1 Debug file released: Magi2_Alpha1_Debug.rar

  posted 757 days ago

• Alpha_1 packaged release expected soon

  Development, due to mid-terms, was halted for a week but I still delivered some sparse updates. Thankfully, development has started again and I expect to have a packaged and stand-alone Alpha_1 release soon. I am not sure, but one to two weeks seems like a good time. I do not think I will be able to integrate the GUI graphics files into the DLL, but that will be done quite soon in a branched release after Alpha_1. The features of this release will include: - Full header library to work with - Stand-alone DLL/library file - Small executable demo - Fully implemented GUI library (All controls are now working though some conflict with one-another) - All GUI, physics, and graphics base classes are existing - Sprite, Sprite2D, Sprite3D fully working - Flexible add/remove GUI functions at the Grfx::Window (engine) level Don't expect much from Alpha_1 other then the beginnings of the 3D engine. Now that we have a working and powerful GUI, I expect the next major features to be in the physics engine as I clean up the GUI code. We need people to try it out, so PLEASE download and test the library for bugs! I know there are plenty of bugs and design issues to start on. I noticed in the project statistics that on October 4th, we had a record high of 75 visits (compared to the usual trickle). I expect this traffic is directly resulting from my two presentations (and final one on Thursday) in Dr. Fomitchev's class here at Penn State. It was a quick introduction to the Console::Console class and its uses as a simple graphics environment. Bless those Freshmen souls! I hope they might use it and look into the Magi2 graphics engine at the same time.

  posted by nint22 763 days ago