The code blog of tag2 
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Welcome to the code blog of TAG where you'll find a growing web log of strange thoughts and concepts for novel development ideas.
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2003.08.28 - Site
The new site is finially online. The last thing for me to do is configure hypermart to automatically redirect here. I'll need to put a link to this page on the hypermart site beforehand. That will cause Google's bots to spyder the link and wind up here, inadvertantly adding this site to their search engine. I can tell Google's bots apart from the visitors on this page because it seems like 25 of them hit this site each day. Take a look at the unique log and it is easy to see them.
2003.08.25 - Site
Migrated the site over to the new style. As soon as my access clears up, I'll be posting the changes at http://tgraupmann.uwvcd.com. Hypermart was sold by INSP and bought by new folks that want $$$ for a site that was previously free. When the new site makes it online, I'll have Hypermart automatically redirect you for as long as freely possible.
2003.08.18 - SimpleGLEngine / OpenGL Script Parser
Redeveloped the SimpleGL Engine into a more efficent OpenGL script parser. Script execution evolved from parsing an internal string buffer to casting variable length byte structures using unique id tags. Commands can be interpreted at execution time with user/file input. The following functions are supported. {glBegin, glEnd, glVertex3f, glRotatef} Download the .NET source here.
OpenGL Runtime Parser  OpenGL Runtime Parser
2003.07.27 - Star Map 3D
Added texture mapping to the stars to make things look a bit nicer. Increased MAX_SPHERES to 10,000. Added a nice feature that will throw the camera back in a shockwave if the center sphere is approached too closely. Download the updated .NET source here.
 
2003.06.29 - Star Map 3D
Added the correct implementation for rolling the camera right and left. This caused me to re-evaluate how the up view vector is calculated. Now if the mouse rotates its position, then the up view changes as well. It makes sense, because if you rotate your camera then you would expect that the top of your camera points somewhere else. Take a look at the source. There's stuff in there that does the cross product of a cross products amoung some other tricky math calculations. Download an update to the source here.

2003.06.19 - Las Vegas -- Fall 2003
We took a nice vacation down in Las Vegas for 5 relaxing days. Here is Linae outside the Excalliber in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2003.06.14 - Nanosim 3D
Here is a couple concept drawings of the spindlor nanobot.
- Spindlor: Threads element spools into circuit components.
2003.06.07 - Star Map 3D
After seeing the game play preview for the newly released game Eve Online, I decided to see how difficult it would be to create a similar star mapping application. The star position data from the Star Position Database was most helpful. The GSC2 Database seemed a little too large (43 million objects with 40GB of astronomy data). I used a frustum because things get slow trying to render 9096 stars at the same time. Also added a FPS calculation to rendering to make movement more smooth. Download the source here.

2003.06.06 - Contests
There has been several programming contests announced lately that look promising.
Epic's $1,000,000+ MOD Contest - July 15, 2003 Deadline.
NeHe Two Towers-2003 - September 1st, 2003 Deadline.
NeHe Mini Demo-2003 - N/A Deadline.
2003.06.02 - Site
*Finially* converted all the pages of this site to the new Perl 'ad free' style. Let me know if you see any ads. ;)
2003.06.01 - 3DS Animation Part III
*Excellent NEWS* I completed another .3ds tutorial. Part III shows how to load .3ds animations that include grouped animations. I.e. objects with parents that are groups. Download the source here. I will be making a post to Gametutorials shortly.
2003.05.31 - Site
Converted the Development Projects page to the new 'ad free' style.
2003.05.31 - Global Community
While visiting Rory Woodford's Website (creator of the SCARAAB model), I found that he had a mentor and his mentor had a mentor. And so on... Eventually I ran across Neil's Links. It shows a large directory of excellent artists on the web.
2003.05.31 - CPU Specs
I decided to do price research into how much it would cost to build an equivalent machine to the one I built a year ago, today. ($369.32) compared to much more a year ago.

Recommended:
PCI Micro -- $63.80
$43 MSI GeForce MX440 64MB
$10.80 Microsoft Optical Mouse
$3 PS2 Keyboard
$7 Sony 1.44 Floppy

ArsenalPC -- $242.53
$42.51 MSI KT3 ULTRA (MS6380E) -- Motherboard
$67.58 AMD ATHLON XP 2000 -- CPU
$8.18 Volcano 8 FAN
$61.04 Samsung 512M PC2100 -- RAM
$63.22 WD 40G 7200RPM

QBitPC -- $58
$29 DVD/CDROM -- free shipping
$29 Screwless CASE -- free shipping

Computer123 -- $4.99
$4.99 10/100 Network Card -- free shipping
 Alternatives:
Cable Mart
$139 Very Cool Transparent Computer Case

ComputerBrain -- $94.94
$61.99 AMD ATHLON XP 2100+
$32.95 Volcano 7 FAN

JustDeals
$37 MSI KT3 ULTRA (MS6380E)
2003.05.30 - Art
This week at INSP we had a Photoshop joke rally going. I posted a few contributions that I made during the week. See the digital manipulations here.
2003.05.29 - Site
Redesigned index.htm and all its dependencies *.pl, *.css, *.js, and misc. content as a single index.pl page. This way all the content is pre-packaged on the server side and is easier for you to download. Additionally, this defeats the popup and exitpopup ads on this page because there are far less insertion points to intrude on this page.
2003.05.25 - Gametutorials Forum
Having ongoing conversions about loading 3ds animations regarding "Pushed" keyframes. Check out the conversation here. Halloko even posted a 3ds animated model of a "Pushed" keyframe. References to axis locking and linking in the trackheader. 

	// (unsigned short) Trackheader flags have the following meaning:

	// bit 0x0 : Single -- duplicates keys	

	// bit 0x1 : Smooth -- smooths the last key to the first key.

	// bit 0x2 : Repeat -- repeats keys

	// bit 0x3 : Loop -- loops keys

	// bit 0x8 : Locks X axis

	// bit 0x10: Locks Y axis

	// bit 0x20: Locks Z axis

	// bit 0x100: Unlinks X axis

	// bit 0x200: Unlinks Y axis

	// bit 0x400: Unlinks Z axis
2003.05.24 - Site
Added site statistics to this page. I know counters are dorky and really shouldn't be added to pages, but this is a sophisticated counter. What you see is a table that shows how many unique users visit this site by day going back 10 days.
2003.05.20 - Site
Fighting the war with popup ads on this site and loosing. Trying javascript popup killing, trying popup cookie manipulation,... and failing... Most of the time popups are killed. The real tricky ones are using a random number generator in the window name. There is no possible way to get a handle to a popup window without knowing the window name. To be concluded....
2003.05.16 - 3DS Animation (Linux/GLX)
Added support for grouped object animation. Fixed minor bugs where some OpenGL calls were being made prior to OpenGL initialization. Added support for bitmap textures. Download the source here.
2003.05.15 - Linux/GLX
Configured GLX DRI Direct Rendering on Mandrake Linux 9.1 with my ATI Rage LT Pro 3D Card. I installed the Linux kernel source, compiled the ATI drivers from RetinalBurn, made some XF86Config-4 changes, and that's all that was necessary to get 3D acceleration working for XFree86 4.3. The process was exceptionally easier than the alternative: dri.sourceforge.net and gatos.sourceforge.net.

XF86Config-4:



Section "DRI"

    Mode	"0666"

EndSection
2003.05.14 - Site
Wrote a nice Perl script that spyders the web to covert visitor's IPs to countries. This tells where visitors browsed the site from (when the information is available): logip.log. In the case that users browsed from behind a firewall, traceroute could be used, but that's way too much information.
2003.05.13 - 3DS Animation
Ported the "3DS Animation II" tutorial to Cygwin and Linux/GLX. Download the source here. Includes additional documentation. Added light diagnostics. A robost BMP loader is still needed.
2003.05.11 - 3DS Animation
Ported the "3DS Animation II" tutorial to Linux/GLX. Download the source here. A lot of documentation still needs to be added. Most features are supported. A robost BMP loader is needed.

Linux/GLX Port
2003.05.07 - Model Creation
Added tail wings and jamming latice to the Signal Jammer model.

Jammer