xphere's thoughts
demoscene, coding and more
qoob modeler
2Reviewing some posts of demoscene, I found some nice posts in the Graphic Size Coding blog, with an interesting modeler for 64kb intros, called “qoob”, something similar to the object generator that I was designing (which will be replaced soon by proclab).
I recommend to visit the page of the author: Auld^Titan, with great articles with the techniques that the modeler uses, meanwhile, enjoy this beautiful models!
The fbo benefits
0When I started using openGL and making some nice effects, I started to use the typical “copy to texture” functions: glTexImage2D and glTexSubImage2D. But the technology evolves, and, hopefully, someone implemented in the OpenGL extensions the Frame Buffer Objects (fbo), wich provides us a way to render a scene to a different buffer but the frame-buffer.
Anybody should know that writing to a frame-buffer is much better than writing to a buffer by “the old way” (glTexImage2D), but… can we express this in real numbers?
I was doing some experiments with Shadow Mapping and I did what everybody does: search for tutorials! 
I found 2 really good tutorials: Paul’s projects tutorial, and Fabien Sanglard’s tutorial. Both tutorials are brilliant, but the first one is a little bit outdated (it does not use fbo’s or shaders), and the second one has some ugly Moiré pattern effect which I was unable to make it disappear, despite it uses recent techniques (fbo’s and shaders).
The Moiré pattern can be appreciated in the image below (and the effect is much more spectacular in movement):
Due to that, Fabien’s tutorial was not an option for what I wanted to do, so I gave a second chance to Paul’s tutorial, but instead of using the typical glTexImage2D, I used the fbo (it took 5 minutes of my time to modify the provided example), the results: 562fps vs 630fps (both peak values)!, almost 70fps more! more than 10% of diference!
So please, next time, spend 5 minutes of your time and do not use glTexImage2D, use fbo’s!
Generating Cellular textures
2One of my hobbies is the generation of procedural textures (yes, sounds weird!), and for years, I’ve been trying to generate a nice Cellular texture. I kept in my bookmarks the blackpawn’s tutorial, but I never had time to check it in deep.
Today I’ve spent some minutes reading it and… boum! cellular texture implemented!!!! The results are quite nice, but now is time for tweaking the formulas, and try to make more combinations.
I’ll post the full code soon, but meanwhile, you can check the results in the image below:
If you are one of my followers 
you’ll think “hey! you already had some code to generate cellular textures!!!”, yes, you’re right, but the code was ugly, as well as the generated textures!! this new code is much more simple and effective!
Adding music to your mac intros with protrekkr!
2Do you want to make 64k intros with cool music but you know a shit about music? protrekkr is your solution!!!
I’ve prepared this small tutorial, describing step-by-step what do you need to do in order to add music to your intro. Happy coding!
Rainbowduino… a virus in my Arduino!
3I’ve started playing with the Arduino platform and is really amazing the possibilities that this open source platform can offer, from beginners to more experienced users!
Recently, I’ve ordered Rainbowduino and a 8×8 RGB led matrix. Rainbowduino is essentially an Arduino designed for controlling an 8×8 RGB led matrix, with some features (I2C protocol suport, cascading).
Let’s get to work!
The first problem that I faced was to make it work: I don’t have a serial port (and rainbowduino cannot be connected via USB, as Arduino does), after 1min search in google, I found this post, with good instructions about how to use Arduino as a host for programming it. In the same page, you can find the mtXcontrol program, very useful for starting drawing with your rainbowduino!
new server!!! new domain!!!
2627 days
by xphere
in Uncategorized
After some problems with the old server, I’ve decided to move the entire site to a new super-server sponsored by silenci 
and, I’ve done a thing that I should have done many years back: get a domain. I’ve chosen xphere.me, I don’t know why, I don’t have any reason, and even if I had one, you’ll be probably not interested in knowing it!
new site!!
1636 days
by xphere
in Uncategorized
wahooo!!! I’ve moved all my blog to wordpress and I hope I’ll be posting more often now!!!
wordpress rocks!!
procloab is on the way!
2Hi all!!!
The Procedural Lab program (integrated Texture Generator / Library and Object Generator) that I’m developing is available here!
At this moment is barely functional… lots of features are still missing!! Only one part of the Texture Generator is ready 
Feel free to destroy my dirty code!
It’s defect speaking
0Great letter extracted from here: http://www.testinggeek.com/index.php/testing-articles/188-defect-speaking
I am defect. For some people I am a mild inconvenience and for some I am their worst nightmare, probably a life threatening nightmare. For many years, people like you have treated me as a hunting target and treated me as a non-living entity – without any emotion, say or dreams. Till now, I kept my silence but now I had it enough. TestingGeek has allowed me to tell my story to the world, to tell you truth about me and my feelings. (more…)
Sobre els drets d’internet
0Avui llegint Codepixel m’he trobat amb la següent notícia, que és digne de llegir:
Hoy me he encontrado con que la Royal Society de Inglaterra, para celebrar su 350 aniversario, ha puesto a disposición de los internautas varias publicaciones históricas de gran relevancia. Una, para mí, fundamental, es una carta de Isaac Newton, comentando sus experimentos con los prismas de cristal , dónde descubre que la luz está formada por un espectro de color, y marcando así el inicio del estudio moderno de la energía. Leyéndo la carta, el lector se contagia de esa ilusión y asombro que le producen sus nuevos descubrimientos. Al final de la carta, pide al resto de los miembros de la Royal Society, que por favor, prueben estos experimentos, y se le comunique cualquier avanze. Isaac Newton no montó un gran negocio, ni fue extremadamente rico, pero es una de las piezas clave que ponen a Inglaterra en el mapa de la historia.
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