Lewies Blog

Back in high school, I felt that half the stuff that I learned past basic math was pretty much pointless. It was drilled into me that I would end up using this knowledge when I got a job. I couldn’t imagine how.

Computer related jobs were the answer to most questions regarding where that knowledge would be used. Today I program with computers, and I’m pretty good at it. Actually, I had been programming since I was 12. Still, I couldn’t figure out where I would use the knowledge half the time and just made assumptions.

Within the past week, I have been creating a six-sided building in a virtual world called Second Life. The features available to me could only assist me so far. I had to judge with my eyes to get things done until they looked about rite. A week has passed and my mistake has started to come back to haunt me. Things are just not lining up.

The result of everyting is based on a few triangles that I didn’t set the proper measurements for. It’s so simple, really. I had to go back and figure out how to get those measurements. I knew the length of 10 meters at one side, and an angle of 60 degrees for the side opposite of it. I remembered that there were special formulas for it, but I just didn’t know what those were.

The one thing that I did remember was that the sum of all angles of a triangle always equal 180 degrees. So now, I had some notes with a triangle drawn having 10 meters at its base, and 60 degree angles. Well, all the angles were the same so I could assume that all sides would be 10 meters, but I needed the height of that triangle. Splitting the triangle in half yeilded me with angles of 60, 90, 30 and lenths of 5 and 10 meters. Good - a right triangle. I knew there was a special formula for this one. I found on the internet that the formula and started to get to work:

• a² + b² = c²
• 5² + b² = 10²
• 25 + b² = 100
• b² = 75

Now came the hard part. How do you figure out the square root for a number that doesn’t return a whole number? I ended up finding a web page that would calculate the square root for me as 8.660254037844387.

So I found out how to do all the grunt work of comming up with measurements for my triangles. I figured there must be an easier way at this. I found a triangle calculator that did just the trick.

It is so easy to find things on the internet to assist you in math (or any subject for that matter). Last year I learned some trigonometry on my own and made a simulation of our solar system with JavaScript. I don’t know how todays schools are working, but I do hope that they have some classes instructing students how to use the internet to find the knowledge that they need.

Tringo appears to be making its way out of SecondLife and onto the internet.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see this program made for a mobil device such as pocket PC’s or even cell phones.  This game goes much faster in the flash provided on the website.

I’ve had a few ideas for a game myself that involves physics.  The physics engin using Havok is in bad need of an upgrade.  I hear rumors that they may upgrade to Havok 2, while version 3 has been out for some time now.  I don’t know if I should work with physics or wait.  I could end up with a talking homesick fish floating through the air for a few months again.

There are some software programs out there that let you create different animations and poses for you 3D models. Second Life only allows you to upload poses and animations for the BVH format. This motion capture format was originally created by Biovision and lets you work with bones and joints within your models.
The most popular software that I keep hearing about is Poser from e frontier. This program goes for about two hundred and fifty US dollars. An open-source program that also supports the BVH format that is available is called Blender. I tried out Blender once and it was very confusing to use. On top of that, Blender is not focused specifically on posing your models. It’s an entire 3D modeling suite.

I recently discovered a little program called Avimator. It is a simple tool specifically for animating avatars in Second Life. On top of that, it is free and recently released as open source. I was able to quickly position the character and animate it in the program the way I wanted it to move. I uploaded the BVH file and was able to see it in action.

I have problems opening my saved files. I can’t position the body so that the feet don’t move when doing a hula hoop animation. The program is still faily new. Really, really new. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this program get a lot of functionality added to it over the course of time. So far the creator has been pretty helpful. The author is accepting donations as Lindens in the game.

I was browsing through a few entries on New World Notes, (a Second Life blog). I came across one article (Graphic Content) on the old site regarding a Graphic Novel done with in-world screenshots. Someone got a hold of some software called Comic Book Creator and built some really nice strips.

I liked the layout of it all and the idea of simplicity behind it. I viewed some video tutorials of how to use the software. It’s pretty simple and at a price of $19.99, I was sold. A free trial is available for download that also takes a license key if you want to upgrade to the real thing. You can also purchase it at Gamestop.com and EB Games. I went with the option to download rather then purchase a CD. I had it up and running in no time at all after the download completed.

I had an idea of using the comics to help promote some of my products. I threw some screenshots together and went to work. I was able to export the comic as JPEG, Bitmap, HTML, and even PDF (Using Ghost Script). I uploaded and sent the image to a few of my friends in Second Life and they loved it. A few people didn’t get the joke behind the comic, but it still looked cool to them as well.

If you play Second Life (go ahead, it’s free), you can buy some of my items at my store (Dedric’s Magical Marvels) or buy them through the following websites:

• SL Exchange
• SL Boutique
• Second Server

I’m comming up on my 5 year anniversary with my current company.  Along with it, 5 years that I’ve known my wife as well.  I met her after I got hired, but just before my starting date.  I got an email regarding a recognition award notification.  I went over to the website and noticed lots of clocks for the 5 year employees.  There were watches, pens, glassware and even a set of eating utensils.  I went with a nice silver clock.

Before this job, I hadn’t lasted anywhere longer then a year.  I would always move on.  This is the first company that I’ve been with that actually has people who make a career at it and retire.

My wife made some wings for herself in Second Life. I hadn’t seen them and she came over to my place to show them off. They were pretty awesome. My avatar is a naturally a high-tech kinda guy, since I’m always scripting. Out of many wings I have seen in the game, these just set there at the top.

She gave me a set of wings and I changed the colors a bit to suite the colors that I generally go with for my avatar. I even took a few of my existing attachments and changed the colors to keep more of a general color scheme going. My cartoon halo looks a lot more like metallic gold, and I colored my wristpad gold as well. The look reminds me of a high-tech egyption scheme.

She doesn’t script much, but I do. I have some ideas to make the wings even more impressive. We are going to work together on this little project and see if we can get some money rolling in.