Website may be up and down over next few months. I'm currently doing a complete overhaul of everything. Going back to simple individual .htm pages, new overall site theme, sanitizing and cleaning up html of all pages and blog posts, attempting to implement a new tooling and publishing system etc etc.

I just added a new full resolution 720x480 video to the media page called Freedom. It was a rendering I had made some time ago and am only now posting on this site. The video is intended to explore reliable, cheap, safe, and alternative means of reaching orbit, and of course get the idea out there in peoples heads.

I also have the low res streaming video hosted on youtube.


Well I just uploaded Release 2 of my Zider game engine. You can download the source code from the Zider page. I have also posted xFripperyXNA Release 1, xGameConsoleXNA Release 1, and AxiomXNAControllers Release 1. These three libraries are used by the zider engine and are included in the Zider Release 2 download.

I have also posted a introductory video for the xGameConsoleXNA library that you can watch here. Now that the preliminary zider engine is working, I will try to spend some time making a series of video tutorials that will walk through how to use the zider engine as well as the related projects that zider makes use of.

And just to change the subject, a few minutes before posting this I had started watching the first 20 minutes of National Lampoon's Pledge This! ... Good god, that series of flicks has gone down hill. I'm glad I only wasted 20 minutes of my life (that I'll never get back), rather then watching the whole movie. Wow,... I didn't think they still made movies that bad.

I have not made any blog posts in the last week or so. I have been working on getting some minor issues worked out of the Zider engine. I am planning to make availible release 2 some time very soon. I also have been getting my xFripperyXNA and xGameConsoleXNA projects converted and up and running so I can post the first releases of each library.

I am also starting to make a few tutorial videos that will walk through some of the various aspects of each of these projects. Stay tuned for more details...

First Zider blog post

Published 1/15/2007 by createdbyx in Games | News | Programming | XNA
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I have just made public a new project that I have started called the Zider game engine. The Zider game engine will be a 2D/3D hybrid game engine focusing on 2D side scrolling, and top down game play styles.

Below lists the current status of the various features that are either currently working or on the drawing table.

Working features

  1. Load/Save Maps in xml format
  2. Edit map blocks with left and right mouse buttons
  3. Can pan the map to expose other parts just by moving mouse near edges of screen or use WSAD keys on keyboard
  4. Supports full screen and windowed modes
  5. Basic, easy to use GUI system with anchoring support like in windows forms
  6. Texture selection, and block selection so user can choose specific blocks to use for drawing with

Features on the drawing table

  1. Layering. Currently Zider only supports one map layer.
  2. Moving platforms (elevators, falling platforms)
  3. Particle system using the Mercury Particle Engine
  4. Ability to erase blocks
  5. Characters, Actors, Items etc
  6. Move over all sprite based drawing to full 3D geometry primitives.
  7. Animation systems
  8. Implement Farseer Physics Engine for physics, or develop custom phisics implementation. I may have come up with a superfast way of doing 2D Collision detection/response in the works.
  9. Possibly an in game console. I already have one written but it's in VB.NET and MDX so it will have to be converted to C#.
  10. Purchase a XNA creators club subscription and get code working on 360.
  11. Keep all data files in xml format for easy of use and ease to editing. Notepad!

The Fart Sniffer tutorial will walk you through creating a number of flies that will fallow a scent trail, that you draw on the screen using the mouse. It will be designed to show how easy it is to code AI to achieve simple path finding / fallowing "fly like" behavior.


Gargh! Finally!

Published 1/12/2007 by createdbyx in News
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So as I had mentioned in an eirlier blog post I have been working on making a skin for this site. Finally after hours and hours of frustration, and endless tweaking, packaging, uploading, testing I have settled on this skin.

Well at least it's better then DNN Blue!

A time lapse video of me and my brother taking down my mushroom camp at the end of the 2006 season. You can download the full HD 1080 resolution *.mov file here.

OMG! ROFL!

Published 1/11/2007 by createdbyx in News
If you have a sense of humor and a nostalgic yearning for old Canadian nature videos visit this link now! http://www.filecabi.net/video/spiders-drugs.html

Now that I finnally getting around to adding all my pictures to my site here are two more galleries I just added. All galleries can be found on the Gallery Page.

First mushroom camp
Some pictures of my uncles first mushroom camp where me and my family go mushroom picking each year. This camp was built a number of years before there was a logging road to where we setup camp now. We used to camp on the other side of the nass river then use river boats to get down river. Then we had to climb up the river bank a ways to get to this camp. When you got to the camp you still needed to fallow the trail another 200 feet or so, up a side hill, and travel another 15/20 minutes, down the trail before reaching the good picking spots. 

Various animals
Various animal pictures I have taken.

I have added a contact page to the site, that contains my contact info, as well as my resume and a about me section. You can view the contact by clicking the "Contact" link on the navigation bar for the site.

Created by: X

Just another personal website in this crazy online world

Name of author Dean Lunz (aka Created by: X)
Computer programming nerd, and tech geek.
About Me -- Resume