Manual : Done
Posted on January 26, 2006
| Sascha
As I already mentioned (a dozen times or so…) writing manual for your own software is not only utterly boring but also not a very easy task. Why? Well, I’ve been working on the NewtonPlayGround since 2004 and I know it in and out (when you write your own applications, that’s what it should be) and now I had to write a rather large document (it’s in HTML form, with a TOC and so on) that should get people knowing nothing about the NewtonPlayGround started with this application.
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NewtonPlayGround is basically done
Posted on January 15, 2006
| Sascha
Yes, the application itself is finished! I’ve spent almost all time I could spare since my last posting (on average several hours a day) for finishing and fixing the last few things/quirks that were left and it’s finished as of now. There were many small things that annoyed me, which needed improvement/fixing and that was what I spent those hours on. It’s somehow frightening to see how those small things consume time fixing them, as there were so many.
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Media Update
Posted on January 10, 2006
| Sascha
Well, I’m still working hard on the NewtonPlayGround to get it out of the door not too long after the final bugfix release of Newton 1.5, so here is a media update to inform you on what’s up with it.
And so to show how much I did with the PlayGround, here are some screenshots : And here are the descriptions (from left to right) : Shot 1 : This is the most recent scene, and I just finished it some minutes ago.
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Bugs here, Bugs there, Bugs are everywhere
Posted on January 7, 2006
| Sascha
So every programmer out there knows them and as more complex your programs get, the more likely you’ll encounter them. But what also happens is, that you often (at least when doing hobby development) don’t catch those bugs since they don’t occure to you, but only happen for other users. And especially with a complex application like the NewtonPlayGround, where there is no real limitation in what to do for the user, it’s hard to catch all those bugs.
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Newton 1.5 is finally out
Posted on January 3, 2006
| Sascha
Yes, it’s finally out! Though it’s no longer called 1.35, but 1.5 instead due to the huge number of changes/additions. So go to the Newton Page and download it ASAP.
And then get the Delphi/Pascal headers from my Newton Subdomain. This time, it’s not only the updated header, but it also contains a translation of the custom joints that are included in the Newton SDK (see my last news post for more info on what that actually is).
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Newton's custom joint interface
Posted on December 28, 2005
| Sascha
So one of the most interesting features of Newton are the so-called custom joints, which basically expose Newton’s low-level functionality for joints and allow you to create all kind of joints. In the end, this means you’re not bound to the given set of pre-defined joints (like it’s the case with other engines, even most commercial ones like Novodex) and so if you need a joint that Newton doesn’t offer you just create it yourself.
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1.35 is around the corner
Posted on December 14, 2005
| Sascha
Newton 1.35 Believe it or not, but the 1.35 release of Newton is almost upon us! We SDK-developers are getting constantly updated SDKs (almost every two days or so) and it looks better and better with each SDK. The only thing that’s really left for the Newton makers is now the overhaul of the vehicle container and some tweaking and testing.
Julio (the main man behind NGD) already said that he wants to release 1.
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New Newton Beta SDK
Posted on November 28, 2005
| Sascha
So much for the regular updates, but the last weeks have been very dull in terms of coding (did almost nothing with Delphi or any other programming language).
But this weekend we SDK-developers got another beta of the Newton 1.35-SDK to try out, so I fired up Delphi, updated the header to the recent beta-SDK and also fixed some minor bugs in the NewtonPlayGround to test it with the new SDK.
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Life goes on
Posted on November 10, 2005
| Sascha
One of the bigger things that have been finished was the Direct X .X fileloader. After creating some complex objects and scenes and importing them into the PlayGround, I noticed that lighting wasn’t looking like it should and so I added a small debug-function to the X-loader for outputting the vertex normals into the vertex color to see if normals were loaded correct. And guess what? I forgot to multiply the normals by the rotation part of the meshes’ matrix, which caused them to point into wrong directions.
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Not much happening
Posted on October 23, 2005
| Sascha
Note: As with the last entry, this is not about programming, so skip if you came for programming information.
So as told in my last post I got that new shiny GeForce 6800 and I decided to play some newer games and replay some of the recent ones with the higher details I can now set. Sad thing is that I have almost no free time due to personal reasons, so it’s about 1 or 2 hours of spare time a day in the end.
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