http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html It's only pretending to be a wiki. en-us Copyright 2006-2008 TomForsyth Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:56:39 GMT Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:56:39 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss TomForsyth and Notepad++ I've always hated two things about sprintf. The format descriptor is separate from the actual values, and it's not type-safe and bugs can cause scribblers. I looked at a few other libraries and they scared me. So I did what any decent coder would do - I invented my own damn wheel. Blog Coding http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BA%20sprintf%20that%20isn't%20as%20ugly%5D%5D Tue, 09 Aug 2011 02:55:00 GMT I finally finished a fairly tedious but necessary part of [[Dwarf Minecart Tycoon]] - save and load. Why did I do this so early in the game's state, and how did I make life easier for myself? DMT Coding Blog Debugging http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BSaving%2C%20loading%2C%20replaying%20and%20debugging%5D%5D Sun, 24 Jul 2011 02:16:20 GMT Thanks for the recent random StarTopia fan love, but there's people you should thank far more than me. Blog StarTopia http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BStarTopia%20love%5D%5D Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:52:31 GMT Some rambling thoughts about finding bugs as soon as possible with the least amount of work. Blog Coding Debugging http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BLogging%2C%20asserts%20and%20unit%20tests%5D%5D Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:28:25 GMT I wade into the Data Oriented Design flame war with a can of deodorant and a lighter. Blog Coding Rants OffendOMatic http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BData%20Oriented%20Luddites%5D%5D Sat, 01 Jan 2011 02:50:14 GMT An explanation of just why the seemingly unstoppable Moore's Law is coping so badly with these new-fangled dynamically-typed languages, why the Data Oriented Design folks are so angry about it, and why it might not be such a bad thing in some places. Blog Coding http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BMoore's%20Law%20vs%20Duck%20Typing%5D%5D Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:51:14 GMT Don't rely on the size of int, use something like sint32 instead. Blog http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BPlatform-agnostic%20types%5D%5D Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:18:29 GMT A discussion about how texture streaming off disk interacts with things like Sparse Virtual Texture systems Blog Streaming Rendering http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BTexture%20streaming%20systems%20with%20two%20levels%20of%20cache%5D%5D Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:52:49 GMT When streaming data from disk, it's important to know what LODs to load and what LODs you can unload. Here's a slightly rambling list of the things I ran into. Blog Streaming Rendering Lod http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BVisibility%20and%20priority%20tests%20for%20streaming%20assets%5D%5D Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:12:45 GMT In DTM, should I use squares or hexes? I decided to use hexes, and here's why. DMT Blog http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BSquares%20or%20hexes%5D%5D Mon, 10 May 2010 23:18:07 GMT As a hobby, I've started writing a little game, mainly in order to write code I've never written before. DMT Blog http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BDwarf%20Minecart%20Tycoon%5D%5D Mon, 10 May 2010 23:06:38 GMT I gave a talk at Stanford University recently, and it reminded me that I should make a list of links to public Larrabee info. Blog Larrabee http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BLarrabee%20talk%20roundup%20and%20media%20attention%5D%5D Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:36:50 GMT GDC was entertaining. Michael Abrash and I did our talks, a bunch of Larrabee documentation and code libraries got released, and I saw Rune's talk on locomotion. Larrabee Blog Research http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BGDC%2009%5D%5D Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:55:21 GMT Rune Skovbo Johansen has developed a really cool character locomotion system that copes with all sorts of terrain, arbitrary user input, and uses very few animations. Blog Research Simulation Rendering http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BHow%20to%20walk%20better%5D%5D Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:16:13 GMT Michael Abrash and I are finally going to talk about the instruction set we helped develop for Larrabee at GDC 2009. Blog Larrabee VideoCards http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BLarrabee%20ISA%20unveiled%20at%20GDC%202009%5D%5D Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:45:55 GMT A neat paper on cloud simulation with a really really cheap CA. Blog Rendering Research CA Simulation http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BCAs%20in%20cloud%20formation%5D%5D Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:04:00 GMT Ignacio Castano recently looked into some explicit ordering methods for regular grids, and it was kinda neat to see that my algorithm does really well considering it's cache-size-blind. Blog Rendering Research http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BRegular%20mesh%20vertex%20cache%20ordering%5D%5D Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:36:51 GMT Siggraph Asia 2008 course notes are available so you can get a bit more info on Larrabee. Blog Larrabee Siggraph Rendering http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BSiggraph%20Asia%202008%5D%5D Sat, 10 Jan 2009 07:38:34 GMT Benedict Carter made a fun zombie-killing game and put some Cellular Automata fire into it that was inspired by an old article of mine. Cool to see it actually working in a game. Blog Games Research http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#Plague Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:10:16 GMT Siggraph papers, talks and the Larrabuzz Blog Siggraph Larrabee Rendering http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BSiggraph%202008%5D%5D Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:23:57 GMT Wolfgang Engel and Eric Haines have managed to get the ShaderX2 books made free and downloadable as PDFs. Blog Rendering http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BShaderX2%20available%20for%20free%5D%5D Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:34:00 GMT Enough about raytracing already! Blog Rendering Larrabee http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BLarrabee%20and%20raytracing%5D%5D Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:56:39 GMT Sorting by renderstates is a common topic of conversation, so I thought I'd write down my thoughts on this annoyingly complex subject. Blog Rendering http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BRenderstate%20change%20costs%5D%5D Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:06:24 GMT Who was that masked man? Blog Larrabee http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BLarrabee%20decloak%5D%5D Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:59:35 GMT Bonus karma points to Ben Garney of Garage Games who spotted a silly math error of mine in [[Knowing which mipmap levels are needed]]. Now corrected. Ta Ben. Blog Errata http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#Errata Wed, 02 Jan 2008 07:51:00 GMT If you're going to add this blog to your blogroll, and thanks very much for doing so, please use http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html, and not the address you actually see in your browser - that one will change if/when I move ISPs. Thanks. Blog http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BBlog%20linkage%5D%5D Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:24:00 GMT Graphics used to be where great coders showed their worth. Now, it's tools. Or at least it should be. Blog Toolchain http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BSmart%20coder%20priorities%5D%5D Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:54:00 GMT Deano Calver's comparison of raytracing vs rasterising led me to make my own sententious pronouncements on the subject. Blog Rendering http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BRasteriser%20vs%20Raytracer%5D%5D Thu, 27 Dec 2007 03:49:30 GMT DXTn is good, but takes ages to compress. Here's some alternatives. Streaming Compression Rendering Research Blog http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BTexture%20formats%20for%20faster%20compression%5D%5D Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:04:00 GMT How to avoid loading data the player can't see. Streaming Lod Rendering Blog http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BKnowing%20which%20mipmap%20levels%20are%20needed%5D%5D Sun, 19 Aug 2007 13:18:00 GMT