Re: Ocean Simulator: The research continues...

simonharvey · Post by **simonharvey** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 2:01 am

levon wrote:hey simon hows this all going? i know its not the 30th yet, but its such a cool project

Hi Levon,
Things are going well, when it comes to this projects things are going very
slowly. As you may know I am designing and building a digital camera for
my Masters.

Masters Camera Output

I have only manages to get a semi-focused image from it and get its
thermal regulation sorted out in the last week or so.

As for the blender project I added in support for debugging and error
management during the weekend. I have also added a generic resource
framework which I am probably going to have to remove just to reduce
some of the complexility. In terms of adding functionality to get to a
minimum BMX working I am not very far away. but I dont think it is going
to be the 30th June. Over the next few days I will devote as much of my
TV relaxing time to blender coding to see what I come up with.

This project still has not been abandoned.

Visually, the first preview release isnt going to have things majorly different to the
2.34 version apart from a splash screen with a moving status bar along
the bottom of it. There will not be any extra BMX added functionality.

Because of this even though alot of code has been written (for me anyway)
There hasnt been any expierence required in order to shape the behaviour
and style of its internal interface (for other blender developers to use) - so
this part especially is going to be incomplete and underdeveloped.

However saying this the basic architecture of the release will be there and
will allow other developers to have a gawk at it to see what I have
been getting at.

Kind Regards
Simon Harvey

simonharvey · Post by **simonharvey** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 10:40 am

http://wiki.blender.org/bin/view.pl/Ble ... ModBlender

I have published some of the documentation for my project.

Because the computer that I use for the internet and the computer that I
develop on are not the same (seperated by about 4km) I have had to recite
this from memory, so there will be minor errors, but no gross errors.

Kind Regards
Simon Harvey

Note: 95% of the functionality that is listed there has been coded, all that is
waiting is just compile time errors and finially runtime debugging.

macouno · Post by **macouno** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:53 pm

Thanks for the update simon... it's still one of the most innovative directions anyone's taken blender in... can't wait for more.

simonharvey · Post by **simonharvey** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 4:18 am

Hi I have been having some compile time errors that I just can't get my head around and I am wondering if anybody else has seen these GCC errors before:

error: type specified
error: Storage class specified

This occured right I moved all of the structure data into their own header file (MOD_intern.h) and It occurs when I am declaring variables paameters.

Kind Regards
Simon Harvey

simonharvey · Post by **simonharvey** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 11:21 pm

I am going away on a week long church camp so I wont be able to do any hacking on the code.

I have decided to move the guff from the headers back to the C source files (Any header stuff can be done in the future).

I trust that you will all have a good week.

Kind Regards
Simon Harvey

simonharvey · Post by **simonharvey** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 11:18 pm

Well here is a bit of an update:

I have moved the structure definitions back to the module-core.c file and in doing so found that it was my prototypes that were busted (causing the storage class error) so now that that has been completed we can now move on to finish the rest of the compile time errors.

Just a note about development time: because I am desperatly trying to get my thesis finished I cannot devote as much time to the project as what I did what the project was just starting up. So it is going to be suspended for a while (possibly until I have handed my thesis in). I am sorry about this especiallly to all of the blender heads who couldnt wait for this to be completed but this is the reality of open source development.

Kind Regards
Simon Harvey

Dani · Post by **Dani** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:00 pm

Hello!

This message is just to show that there is interest in your project!

But first, finish your thesis, I beleive it's really largely more important!

keep it up!

Dani!

simonharvey · Post by **simonharvey** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 1:22 pm

Here is some good news:

It now compiles, and the new splash screen drawing code works correctly (so far anyway).

As you can see the alpha transpearancy and text will need to be tweaked and ModBlender
will need to be debugged (I have put a getchar() in the road right before ModBlender crashes)
but you can start to see the fruits of my labour!!!!!

Yay!

Kind Regards
Simon Harvey

edit: Im not sure what is up with the bottom of the screenshot, I have checked with the
GIMP and it showed up on there meaning that it was some sort of a GNOME thing.

harkyman · Post by **harkyman** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 1:32 pm

Oh man, I am so glad this was not abandoned.

gabio · Post by **gabio** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:14 pm

Did you took a look at current cvs? Most probably your effect will have to enter in the modifier stack.

gabio · Post by **gabio** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:14 pm

Did you took a look at current cvs? Most probably your effect will have to enter in the modifier stack.

simonharvey · Post by **simonharvey** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 11:51 pm

gabio wrote:Did you took a look at current cvs? Most probably your effect will have to
enter in the modifier stack.

I am currently working just to create a demo. When the design has stabalised a bit I will port
it to a more updated version of blender and then I will have a look at the current codebase.
This won't be that much of a problem since the current code dosen't require very many
modifications on the rest of blender in order to function.

Kind Regards
Simon Harvey

simonharvey · Post by **simonharvey** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 11:52 pm

gabio wrote:Did you took a look at current cvs? Most probably your effect will have to
enter in the modifier stack.

I am currently working just to create a demo. When the design has stabalised a bit I will port
it to a more updated version of blender and then I will have a look at the current codebase.
This won't be that much of a problem since the current code dosen't require very many
modifications on the rest of blender in order to function.

Kind Regards
Simon Harvey

gabio · Post by **gabio** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:48 am

pff no need to double you post too.. sshh.
Take care then..

Koba · Post by **Koba** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 4:28 pm

This sounds like great news for potential Blender developers.

I am no programmer but I would have thought that to learn to code Blender, a clean consitent API is not enough. Tutorials and documentation are key if people with moderate programming skills are to get involved. I am not knowlegeable enough about Blender's structure (or of C++ for that matter) to be able delve into Blender's source code at present. A well documented API would give people like me (with no formal programming education) the courage to at least have a go.

Perhaps I have got the wrong end of the stick here. I have never even compiled a .dll file but hopefully a little guidance and perhaps a good tutorial, less talented but enthusiastic programmers can start to experiment and eventually contribute something useful to everyone.

Keep up the excellent work.

Koba

EDIT: I suppose it is the internal API that needs documentation too. I don't know where people like me can even begin to understand these things.