[Snowman]

Just playing around with on-the-fly compiling. 

[Freddy]

I like it 

So you could find a bot written in C# and plug it into UltraHal, that's clever

[Snowman]

I spent the last week working on some of Athena's utilities. I started off creating a function that encrypts data, then I made another that compresses it. Finally, I made a utility that accesses a zip file, reads and writes to it. I figured I could use it as a nice little database file.

I ended up moving my utility class along with my XML and Database class to a DLL.

I painfully inched my way through my database manager coding to work out some bugs. So far I think I've cleared out most of them. It seems to be working fine now. I set it up so I can load a database either from a zip file or an XML file. I can load anywhere from a single column up to many databases.  I did some serious streamlining, I removed lots of needless code.

One thing about working on this kind of stuff, its very tedious. I end up spending hours stairing at my computer screen before I finally figure out why something won't work... blah. Over the last few years I think I have re-coded my database code many times. I think the first one I played with was msi files. I then moved on to Microsoft Access. However, it didn't run as fast as I needed it to. I then made a database using plain textfiles. That proved to be ultra fast, but it wasn't very neat and tidy. I later built an xml parser from scratch. That was actually fun to do, it felt very rewarding when I finished it. Eventually, I made a database manager which will load both an XML database as well as a textfile based database zipped in a compressed zip file.

It seems that everytime I work on things like this I tend to slip away from reality and disregard human contact. Only this time I am determined not to slip away too far as to no longer keep you guys updated. I think it might be draining me of all humanity... nah, not this time 

I have made various updates to my coding throughout the years. Now and then I need to go through all of it to bring everything up to speed.

Here are some areas I am working on. I am working on an avatar system, I need to update my conversation chain software, I need to make a new table type for Athena, I need to work on the NLP. I'm in the process of rebuilding the UI in C#. And I know there's a lot of details in all of that. You have already seen what I've done with the on-the-fly compiling. It only gets more complicated from here on out.

So far So good.



 

[Art]

Aaron,

Like my friend who wasn't going to buy a computer until they got it right...you've just got to plunge in and go with what you've got.
If you keep waiting for the latest, fastest, greatest application or programming language, you're likely to be waiting for a very long time.
And then, the world still will not have an Athena to learn from, experiment and play with.

You go guy!! We're clearing the way for you...keep driving!!

[Freddy]

Thanks for the update Aaron, sounds like it's going well.

Of course, I am interested in how you are going to build your avatar

[Snowman]

Yeah, that's one of my downfalls. It feels like I always spend too much time on the little things. Although, I don't really think I'm being a perfectionist. Its just that I started off knowing so little, and as I grow I discover better ways of doing things. At this stage I'm not sure I can truly improve my database library any further. Its pretty slick.

One of my major goals of Athena was to create an Ai library that was both powerful and user friendly. I could have just made code that only I could understand but ultimately I want others to participate in modifying Athena.

Ultimately, I think the most time consuming thing about Athena is the conceptual phase. That is where I go for long walks and attempt to dream up a new or better way of making an Ai. Coding is a step my step process but brainstorming takes a torrent of ideas coalescing into an orchestra of thought. Trying to convert your ideas into logic so you can actually code something is a bit painful.

As for the Avatar thing. Every time I think about the cube idea I think of some other reason why I like it. A lot of people fell in love with minecraft, and therefore people discovered the beauty and potential of cubes. There are several games build out of cubes nowadays because of minecraft's example. The companion cube from the Portal series and EmoSpark are other examples of cubes done right. So I'm thinking one could put some faces on it to show moods, as well as possible color changes and it would turn out to be a very cute avatar. It would be funny to see a minecraft block of dirt with a smile on it, a tuff of green grass as its hair, hehe, or something like that. Also the potential of skin modification would be significant. Of course it should be an easy task to change skins based on keywords, ie. a smile for happiness, a frown for sadness. Adding animation on skins would be great to. I have a nephew who is in college for graphic art and I bet I could get him to create some outstanding skins. I would just need to outline my guidelines. 

A cube would be simple to do, easy on a computer's graphics, something I could personally maintain. So I will see if I can pull it off. I'll never know if it will work until I try it.






 

[Freddy]

When I am doing a lot of coding I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas and then hastily scribble them down. Sometimes it's gibberish other times it might work   

I like your idea of that cube and what it may do. I was thinking about my morphing cube again the other night and had some ideas about how to do it. Since I cannot distribute the models provided with Daz I thought the cube instead could serve as the model in a tutorial. The process of morphing is the same, just a different model, which I can distribute.

Documenting the Daz side of things will take me a while, because it has got so involved now at a much lower level. But I built some tools that help. I'm just waiting on Daz to report back on an issue I had with the model I want to use.

[Snowman]

The last few days I've been playing around with OpenTk and the cube idea. I seem to be figuring things out slowly. I haven't been using any models. So far I've been drawing the cube from within the code and adding textures. I've spent the most time on making an engine for it. For instance, I made a function where I tell the cube to move to a certain location on the screen at a certain speed. Then once it has reached that location then move to another specified location. Basically, I can easily make a script for the cube to follow. I also made a function that makes the cube randomly look around. Right now I've been trying to use math to slow the cubes speed down as it approaches its destination point. It will give it a more natural feel as it moves around.

Freddy, I would love to know how to morph the cube. All this is still new to me though, so I'm just learning as quickly as I can. Ultimately, this cube idea is teaching me lots about OpenGL. Eventually, I might be able to actually work with much more complicated models, like one of your Daz characters. I hope so.

[Snowman]

Cubtastic   

[Freddy]

I like it 

Reminds me of Minecraft. I bet you did have fun with this too, I know I would as well.

The movement speeding-up-slowing-down thing works really well I thought.

Well done !

[Art]

A real "Chip off the old block", I'd wager!!
Ohh...someone had to say it! Heh!!

Yes, it is reminiscent of Minecraft!
Who would have thought square lego block people would ever become so popular! AGAIN!!

[Snowman]

Thanks Art and Freddy for the support.

Although....who you call'n a block-head   (hehe) .

Yes, I am a minecraft fan. I like the whole "voxel" approach to gaming that minecraft really capitalized on.
Have you ever looked up 'voxel engines' and 'cloud point data' on youtube? It really shows an interesting future for gaming as a whole.
 
Currently the texture is a 320 X 320 png file (for each side) , so any picture will work as a texture, but I kind of like the blocky look. However, the cube's texture design can be taken in any direction. It's sort of an abstract pallet just waiting to be explored.

I think a lot of the old pixel games are coming back into popularity as more people discover how game content can override high-end graphics. People really started to understand this through minecraft (although some games are still bad no matter what generation its in).

I wonder if computers the size of rooms will ever become popular again 
Maybe even bag phones

[Art]

Yeah well I'm still waiting for PONG 2.0!!
Same mono game but for internet play with another remote friend!

Hey! That's not really a bad idea....

[Snowman]

I did a google search and found this:

www.ponggame.org/

Its pretty cool.

I also looked up "online multiplayer pong" and found this:

http://www.unionplatform.com/?page_id=1229

If you want to test it out I could get online at a specific time to see if it actually works .
I have to agree with you Art... the WWW needs an internet pong tournament. As the game progresses the ball could increase in speed or something like that. lol

[Freddy]

That pong game was good, but it annoys me if I play for any length of time 

Anyway, the point I was in this thread - how goes the Athena project Snowman and hows that graphics programming going ?