In the last provincial election (what was, oh, about a year and a half ago, I guess) I made no secret that I voted for the Liberals and also made no secret that my sole reason for doing so was because they'd promised to create a new statutory holiday in February. Well, I don't remember if they actually specified the month, but regardless, shortly after they were elected they did just that, so my expectations were met - not, I suppose, that they were terribly high to begin with.
While the actual holiday is called Family Day, I've always maintained that they could call it, "Wear Your Underwear on Your Head Day" for all the difference it really makes. I just wanted an extra day off.
So, yesterday was second annual "Wear Your Underwear on Your Head Day", though I did not, in fact, wear my underwear (or anything else) on my head. And now, as a university student, it's Reading Week.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Project Preview
Back during my month off between work and school I started a new programming project. (Yes, another one - for me the trick isn't starting projects, it's finishing them.) This project I have dubbed the "Quasi RPG Tools" (QRT) and it is intended to be similar to RPG Maker 2000, at least in its goals, though it will likely vary in a number of key points on its implementation.
I haven't spent a lot of time on it since starting back at school, though I'm still plugging away at it from time to time. Now that FASS is over and I've more or less settled into my school routine, I'll probably start spending a bit more time on it.
The project itself will use 2D tile-based graphics (as with RPG Maker). I decided to go this route as it makes it a bit easier to deal with the graphics, both programming wise and for me to create them (or borrow them from elsewhere until I've had a chance to create some) and lets me focus more on the design tools. I think I would eventually like to do a 3D version, but if I design things well, much of the back end stuff like creating character classes, items, scripting and so on should be more-or-less reusable with other graphics engines in the future.
So far, I've been working on the tile set editing features which is almost finished. As is typical of me, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by allowing tile sets to have a flexible layout rather than a fixed layout like RPG Maker. While I think that this added flexibility will be a good thing in the long run, it does complicate the UI design an implementation somewhat. It will also make use of the tools more complicated, which is one thing I'd like to avoid, so I'll also include a simplified fixed tileset layout to allow for ease of use with the flexible layouts offered as an advanced feature.
While the project as a whole is still a long way from being complete, what I've got so far is, I think, more advanced than the map editor I created for my FR project back in highschool.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I haven't spent a lot of time on it since starting back at school, though I'm still plugging away at it from time to time. Now that FASS is over and I've more or less settled into my school routine, I'll probably start spending a bit more time on it.
The project itself will use 2D tile-based graphics (as with RPG Maker). I decided to go this route as it makes it a bit easier to deal with the graphics, both programming wise and for me to create them (or borrow them from elsewhere until I've had a chance to create some) and lets me focus more on the design tools. I think I would eventually like to do a 3D version, but if I design things well, much of the back end stuff like creating character classes, items, scripting and so on should be more-or-less reusable with other graphics engines in the future.
So far, I've been working on the tile set editing features which is almost finished. As is typical of me, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by allowing tile sets to have a flexible layout rather than a fixed layout like RPG Maker. While I think that this added flexibility will be a good thing in the long run, it does complicate the UI design an implementation somewhat. It will also make use of the tools more complicated, which is one thing I'd like to avoid, so I'll also include a simplified fixed tileset layout to allow for ease of use with the flexible layouts offered as an advanced feature.
While the project as a whole is still a long way from being complete, what I've got so far is, I think, more advanced than the map editor I created for my FR project back in highschool.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Friday, February 6, 2009
Adventures in Proctology (And Other Random Things)
So, I've been meaning to write something about the state of being a student again, but I've been a bit remiss so this could end up long and rambling as a result.
Anyway...
I've been back to school for about a month now and am starting to get settled back into a bit of a routine. With only two courses, it's much more laid back than when I was an undergrad, a bit moreso even than when I was doing my Masters since I had three courses per term (for the first two terms) at the time. Even with marking, it's not bad since marking (so far) is pretty easy, just boring. Eventually I'll have research to do as well, but I'll probably be pretty much done my classes by the time I really get into that full swing, and I expect I'll be taking at most one course at a time after this term anyway (unless I see more than one thing that I really wan't to take).
As to the courses I'm taking, the Networks course is one of the ones that I've often thought, in retrospect, that I'd have liked to have taken when I was in undergrad (a lot of the 4th year courses are also cross-listed as grad courses) compared to a couple of the courses I did end up taking (databases, I'm looking at you) and, so far, that opinion seems to have been confirmed. So, it's nice in a way to be able to actually go back and take the course.
The other course is about colour in computer graphics and is not cross-listed as an undergrad course (though there is an undergrad in the course). So far it's been pretty interesting with lots of stuff about how people perceive colour. Haven't really gotten into the computer graphics bit yet, but I'm sure we will eventually.
As to the TAing, I'm marking for a first year CS course for non-CS majors, so it's easy (as noted above) but dull. The annoying thing is that they use scheme in the course and I'm not really fond of scheme. The first midterm was this past week, so we spent a couple days marking exams (half days for me as I had classes and whatnot). Again, it was rather boring, but we got some free pizza out of the deal, so that's ok.
In regards to the midterm, I had my first experience proctoring an exam as well. It was, well, uneventful which, I suppose is good, since I don't think I'd really have wanted to deal with anybody cheating or fire alarms or anything, but as a result it was rather boring. I mean, two hours of watching people write an exam in not exactly the most riveting thing in the world.
I did, however, find myself thinking that "proctoring" sounds somewhat like "proctology" and wondered whether or not they shared the same root. I rather doubt it, but the thought amused me nontheless.
So, yeah, that's my first month of returning to student life. It's also been a bit interesting reacclimating myself to the unix/linux environment that the school uses since I've been pretty much exclusively in Windows land for the past five years. I'm a bit surprised how much I actually remember, but it does seem to be coming back relatively quickly.
Anyway, that's enough for today.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Anyway...
I've been back to school for about a month now and am starting to get settled back into a bit of a routine. With only two courses, it's much more laid back than when I was an undergrad, a bit moreso even than when I was doing my Masters since I had three courses per term (for the first two terms) at the time. Even with marking, it's not bad since marking (so far) is pretty easy, just boring. Eventually I'll have research to do as well, but I'll probably be pretty much done my classes by the time I really get into that full swing, and I expect I'll be taking at most one course at a time after this term anyway (unless I see more than one thing that I really wan't to take).
As to the courses I'm taking, the Networks course is one of the ones that I've often thought, in retrospect, that I'd have liked to have taken when I was in undergrad (a lot of the 4th year courses are also cross-listed as grad courses) compared to a couple of the courses I did end up taking (databases, I'm looking at you) and, so far, that opinion seems to have been confirmed. So, it's nice in a way to be able to actually go back and take the course.
The other course is about colour in computer graphics and is not cross-listed as an undergrad course (though there is an undergrad in the course). So far it's been pretty interesting with lots of stuff about how people perceive colour. Haven't really gotten into the computer graphics bit yet, but I'm sure we will eventually.
As to the TAing, I'm marking for a first year CS course for non-CS majors, so it's easy (as noted above) but dull. The annoying thing is that they use scheme in the course and I'm not really fond of scheme. The first midterm was this past week, so we spent a couple days marking exams (half days for me as I had classes and whatnot). Again, it was rather boring, but we got some free pizza out of the deal, so that's ok.
In regards to the midterm, I had my first experience proctoring an exam as well. It was, well, uneventful which, I suppose is good, since I don't think I'd really have wanted to deal with anybody cheating or fire alarms or anything, but as a result it was rather boring. I mean, two hours of watching people write an exam in not exactly the most riveting thing in the world.
I did, however, find myself thinking that "proctoring" sounds somewhat like "proctology" and wondered whether or not they shared the same root. I rather doubt it, but the thought amused me nontheless.
So, yeah, that's my first month of returning to student life. It's also been a bit interesting reacclimating myself to the unix/linux environment that the school uses since I've been pretty much exclusively in Windows land for the past five years. I'm a bit surprised how much I actually remember, but it does seem to be coming back relatively quickly.
Anyway, that's enough for today.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
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