Well I know it was coming but did not expect to come so soon. My finances have begin to run dry so it's that time to store them up again. I will be moving out of province to Edmonton, AB (The home of http://www.bioware.com/) and will not be able to bring my computer with me. I may even be traveling as far as Fort McMurray, AB. But don't fret, I will still have limited access to the internet and may even make a few blog entries from time to time. I will be relying on a computer drop in company (for lack of a better desc). For a few cents on the dollar you can drop in and use a computer with a internet connection. My brother also lives there, and I could also use his internet connection there too.

I will not be able to get internet access myself because I will be living out of a travel trailer that will be parked on the job site most of the time. What kind of work will I be doing you ask? Installing Vinyl siding, on houses and duplexes. Edmonton and other places like Fort McMurray, AB are booming right now, with new subdivisions going up like wildfire. And with that demand for housing comes the demand for a workforce to build them.

If I end up renting a house at some point then I will get reconnected to the internet, but I don't see that happening any time soon. I am also hoping I can find a cheap decent/used notebook while I'm there so I can continue to work on my programming projects.

A few new files to be aware of ...
You can find the new release of DXTools release 6 here
My 90% completed WikiCompiler app is available here
A new support library that I will be starting to use is available here

Well until next time I make blog entry, laterz all...

I have uploaded the current state of the DX9Tools library as well as the DXTools tester application that contains demonstration code.

The library is not yet documented but should be easy enough to understand just by using the object browser.

I am hoping by the next release the library will come with better documentation as well as the possibility of some demonstration videos.

DX9T6.zip (7.51 mb) 

Well I took my trip up the mountain the other day. I have uploaded some of the pics I took from on high ...Thornhill Mountain Pics I made it to the top in about 3 hours (8 hour round trip) and there was still 4 feet of snow up there. Should have brough some ski's for the way back down.

I know, I know. Crappy low res cmos images. But hay it's all I got right now. I am thinking about saving up some money an getting a Sony DVD camcorder, with built in still picture functionality, but with all the extra necessary equipment a person would need for it I think +-$2000 is a little much. Especially when I can practically buy a decent new computer system for that price. I'm just concerned that if I buy one that, by the time I get around to actually getting some use out of it it will have become out of date hardware.

I am still plugging away at my DX9Tools (release 6) library. I am thinking I am going to make a release soon regardless weather or not, it is 100% complete. It's taking too long to release it and I may be heading out of province in a few weeks for work, so I will be sure to release it before then. It's working as it is now, but it does not contain any XML comments, and the code could use some clean up and more testing. As always I am developing my DX9Tools tester app along site the library to test out functionality as I develop it.

I am struggling right now, and trying to decide to turn the library into a DX API wrapper or try and turn it into a half breed graphics engine. (Not quite a game engine library but more then just a API wrapper) I am also considering changing the name to something more distinct then DX9Tools.

I have also added a new picture gallery called Mics Pics. And I have updated the Links page and added 2 sub categories under it called Content Sites and Free Software.

Was checking my old email accounts to make sure no one had send mail to them,And I see yahoo is soon going to have 1gig email storage as well. lol They still can't beat google. Check out gmail.google.com 2115.287 megs of storage and counting ! Yea !

I may decide to take a hiking trip, up top of the mountian tomorrow. Take some pics, see the sights, get some excersise. Thinking I should do it now and get it over with before the summer heat kicks in. It reach 20+ celceius today. There is still snow at the highest point of the mountian so hoping it will be cooler up there! I have been thinking of taking a walk up there for some time now but never got around to it. The other day I walked from my house, halfway up the mountian in only 1h45m. I was surprised I made it that far so fast, and just walking. But had to turn around and come back. Silly me, neglected to bring any water, food, or survival gear. If I take some pics I will be sure to post them on the site. If I don't make any posts for a while, fell free to assume that my new home is in the belly of a grizzly bear. lol

Been busy with many thing as of late but hope to start making some releases soon ...

This video walks you through creating a basic shader that can fade, and tint the color of the rendered object. It also demonstrates how to animate the texture coords from within render monkey.

I have also included the render monkey project in the zip. I have also modified the project slightly and have added a better solution to the effect shown in the video. This new effect called "TexturedFixed" uses two render passes. The first render pass renders the back facing polys, and the second render pass renders the front facing polys.

Also my blog does not seem to be getting displayed on my main web site page. I am currently trying to fix this.

ATI Render monkey basics

I have just released a new untility I have made for doom 3. It allows you to select the doom 3 folder, then perform a search for files within any of the *.pk4 files in the Doom3 folder. (or any folder for that matter). There are hundreads if not thousands of files that make up the doom3 game and this utility is very usefull for searching for tracking down cirtian file(s) you are interested in. As far as I know the Doom3 editor does not provide this functionality.

This utility may become one of a number of tool I may make for Doom3.

CBXDoom3Tools.zip <link to file missing>

Oh god make it stop make it stop, it's so painful to watch. I'm watching it right now for the third time and it's just so lame! I definitely got to redo that video. My apologies if any of you have suicidal thoughts while watching it.

I'm really really sorry! What ever you do don't watch this video on basic DX9 shaders! BasicShaders.zip <links to missing file>

Video demonstrating basic intro to DX9 HLSL shaders using VB.NET.

This video walks you through everything from start to finish, creating a VB.NET app, writing the Managed DX9 code to render a mesh, as well as writing a simple HLSL shader program from start to finish by hand. The video runs about 49 minutes. I kept the technical stuff to a minimum, this video is just intended to introduce you to shader programming and how to go about getting started using them. It is not intended to be a detailed analysis of the process.

Goto Video Page

I have just started up a contest on my site at http://contest.createdbyx.com/

You can win a copy of VB.NET 2003 standard and more! Go check it out!

I have also been doing some research and looking into making a mod for a game engine. I have doom 3 and it's great for modding, but the unified lighting engine has issues and it does not have built in support for vast outdoor terrain. The lack of drivable vehicles is also an issue.

UT 2004 which I also have, is good, and a worthy candidate. It has drivable vehicles as well as flying ones. It has support for both terrain and indoor areas. It also does water, something doom 3 doesent do easily.

The game I think I have decided upon, to use for modding is FarCry. It does everything I need it to do, Realistic water, outdoor terrain, indoor environments, phisics, vehicles both land and air, and comes with the tools and utilities that I am most familiar in using. Mainly 3DS MAX.

I am still hoping to get a copy of Half-Life 2 and check that out and see if it can do everything I need it to. But for right now farcry is my game of choice for modding.