Archive for August, 2006
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
No, not a typo - it’s not even a particularly funny joke. No, I’m talking about Microsoft’s new games development effort, XNA. In particular, the beta of XNA Express Edition which came out late yesterday afternoon (BST).
If you haven’t heard about XNA, then you should probably mozee on down to the XNA Developer Centre and the XNA Team Blog and read up on it. Basically, it’s what Managed DirectX evolved into, and the XNA Framework allows you to develop games for both Windows and XBOX 360 in one full swoop. With XNA, Microsoft’s actually made DirectX development a lot simpler but still as powerful, and this first beta of the Express Edition (which will allow anybody to try out games they’ve written with it on their own XBOX 360 for about $99 a year, or just on Windows for free - a better explanation can be found here) is actually looking very impressive.
The full release of Express Edition isn’t due until later this year, and this beta is for now missing the Content Pipeline which when it appears, should make it very easy to bring in various graphic assets (of particular interest to me is the use of the FBX format), but the beta is still well worth a play. All the coding for now is done with a little help of C#, a language Microsoft sees as being the one many will migrate to from C++ in the coming years, but I can live with that - there are plans to extend support in the future to other languages 
.
Microsoft appears to be taking games development very seriously (in a fun sort of way obviously), being able to develop for a console in this way is something that’s bound to be now worrying Sony and Nintendo. In fact, all this talk of XNA is almost enough to make me want to buy an XBOX 360. Oh no wait, crap - it IS enough 
.
Posted in DirectX, Programming, Software, XBOX 360, XNA | 1 Comment »
Monday, August 28th, 2006
One last post before the day is out. No Birthday is complete without a cake of course - this year’s comes courtesy of Jo(anna) Watt. No relation. She’s just my little sister.
More icing than you can wave a stick at!
Posted in Ramblings | No Comments »
Monday, August 28th, 2006
As I said in my first post, this blog will stray into the Computer Graphics side from time to time.
This is one of those times. I’m currently taking the ‘Mastering Maya: Advanced Modelling’ course over on 3D Buzz, it’s basically a HUGE course full of hours and hours of video training on everything you’d ever hope to learn about the tools and processes involved in making models within Autodesk Maya. It’s a course I’d certainly recommend to anyone who wants to get really tore into creating models using Maya - Zak Parrish (the main instructor of this course) really excelled himself with this.
Anyway, one of the many projects involved in taking this course covers making a model of a Lamborghini Murcielago. As a token gesture, I’ve created a Gallery section to this blog. Right now there’s not an awful lot there, but what you will find is a couple of renders that I did of my finished model of the Murcielago, which are currently residing in the ‘Work in Progress‘ section. There are also a few renders of a Dodge Viper RT/10 which I did as a follow up assignment for the course to prove I’d learnt something (both assignments passed if you’re wondering).
If you’re anything like me, cars won’t hold an awful lot of interest - but I did enjoy making these two models. I learnt a hell of a lot about Polygon modelling, and as a result, an awful lot about the ins and outs of these two cars.
Both models aren’t quite finished yet, that’s why they’re in the W.I.P. section. I hope to go back at a later date and do a few tweaks of my Murcielago (along with some proper renders), as well as do some pretty extensive changes to my Dodge Viper’s wheels (so it doesn’t look so much like a toy car).
Posted in Computer Graphics, Maya, Modelling | No Comments »
Monday, August 28th, 2006
Every blog has to start somewhere. I figured as today is my Birthday, that’s as good a place as any.
Not sure what’s going to appear in this blog in the future - it’s likely just going to be a place of random mutterings, things I’ve done or am working on in Computer Graphics at present, and maybe the odd music-related post.
It might end up being none of the above, or it might end up being nothing full stop. There’s also no guarantees it’ll be of interest to anyone, maybe not even me.
If that hasn’t got you excited enough to visit again, I don’t know what will
Posted in Ramblings | No Comments »
