Steerin' Behaviours

http://unity3d.alvinvfx.com/space/

Still in the downtime between job contracts, so I'm spending it by learning new stuff and pretending to be an author. The later isn't going too well, but I have been making good progress learning more about steering behaviours!

It's great fun figuring out how all the forces react, maybe one day I can get to use it for some kinda stuff at work.

Logitech M310t review

So, this is a review about a mouse! XD

The previous mouse I was using, the Logitech M505 has been a bit unstable of late, the cursor gets very unresponsive, and I've definitely have freshly charged batteries. I still have my old microsoft mouse - which is the best - but sadly it appeared to have died from disuse :(

Went down to the nearest IT shop, and I was frankly quite amazed to see one of the 4 walls covered with mice. A quarter of it appeared to be Microsoft, another quarter Logitech, and the last half heavily contested by various gaming mice, together with the brandless mice.

I must say the gaming mice were really tempting, and the entry level contestants weren't that expensive, but they were all wired. There were some wireless options, so my first instinct was: OMG MUST BUY COOL WIRELESS GAMING MICE.  Sadly, the reality was: CANNOT JUSTIFY WIRELESS GAMING MOUSE PRICES.

The prices were almost double what the M310t was, with the priciest wireless gaming mouse almost 200. Uh, no.

So then, that's out of the question. Next, to check out what I like to call "consumer" grade stuff. Yeah yeah, hit me, I used to be a gaming mouse snob. Anyways...

Lots of the wireless mice from logitech and microsoft were what I think would be in the so-called "travel" or "laptop" kind. Which means it's just a tad shorter at the back, but it's just enough so that the rear of my palm is always hovering in the air. Like when I was using the M505.

The M310t stood out from the pack simply because a) It was a full size wireless mouse b) It only required 1 AA battery, and c) it was affordable (SGD36). Win!

The packaging was also simple enough that I didn't cringe, and it was actually very easy to open. Great design Logitech people!

The mouse itself is great. Even with the battery in, it weighs almost as light as my now-dead Microsoft Mouse (It's the cheapest of the intellimouse series, and personally, I thought it handled the best). Has a little slot in the battery housing to stow away the usb dongle if it's not in use.

Other than that... it operates like any other mouse. It doesn't make tea or coffee, and it sure does not try to impress you with Quad Core CPUs or AMOLED displays. Heck, I doubt it even has a hipster commercial.

It's perfect for use with Houdini or Unity, and I really enjoy using it. Definitely something to consider if you have full sized paws like me XD

Jos Stam's Stable Fluids

Finally, omg, after many years of wanting to implement this algo, I finally did it! The last few days were really good, I learnt lots, as well as figuring out what I don't understand, and where to focus my efforts.

For example, the advection of the density field it was quite eye opening to see how the reverse lookup worked, and then how the sampling is done by bi-linear filtering. On the flip side, the pressure projection I really have no idea what's going on. That, was utterly a black box for me. It has _something_ do do with the gradient of the velocity field, or so it seems, so maybe another look through the code would help.

It's been fun, perhaps I can find a simple sph simulation I could cobble together.

Gray-Scott Reaction Diffusion

Unity Webplayer link here :)

Reaction Diffusion has peaked my interest on and off, and I thought what the hell, since I was on a coding high, might as well take a stab at it. I followed this tutorial, which was marvelously well explained, and got it working very quickly.

Jerry Tessendorf's iWave in Unity

Interactive build for Unity Webplayer here.

It's one of those days when you get struck by inspiration, and I was like "OMG OMG! I must implement this in Unity". So I tried, and with some luck managed to get a version of it done. The source code was attached to "Simulating Ocean Water", which frankly, most of it I am puzzling over.

Adapting the code to C# was quite straightforward, however, there was a function used to generate a 13x13 kernel that utilized a j0() function. I was like.... was that some kind of typesetting error? Some googling indicated it was a bessel function. This does not appear to be part of C#'s math libraries, but it is for C/C++. Odd. Anyways, I found - after much searching - source code for the j() function in C that I adapted for C#.

Don't really know why this kernel was chosen, and I was wondering how different kernels like Gaussian would work. Something to explore another time.

The emission also uses a kernel, but only a 3x3 grid that I put in some pre-calculated values. A better solution really, would be to interpolate between positions. Now that I've figured out stuff like this, it's time to explore other stuff!

Descent: Freespace

It's one of those games where I could not play it because my machine back in the day didn't have the specs for it :(

So finally, after almost 2 decades, I got my grubby paws on it from gog :3 It reminds me totally of the wing commander series, even the same dragging-the-mouse-all-over-the-table just to catch an enemy dogfighter. Miss my saiteks.

Playing on medium, there were only a few missions that were annoying to win (recon mission in enemy fighter was one) and some protection missions, but thanks to the mission hints during the debriefing, it was not too difficult to win after a few tries. Overall, it was fun, almost an arcade experience.

For one, the spaceship you fly is really hardy. Starting out, there are no shields, but crashing at over 100m/s into a capital ship just gets some hull damage. With shields, the ship is able to take some serious damage, unless you just ignore the ships on your tail. I remember on xwing having to equalize or set the shield configuration and management all the time, here I mainly used the equalize, and for rare occasions, the boost front/rear shields.

The wingmen (is there a more gender neutral term? Wingpeople? Wingpersons? Those-who-follow-my-lead?) are really good, they are even able to respond to more intimate commands like Disarm capital ships (destroy enemy weapons), or Disable (shut down engines).

Combat, was really very wing-commander like. If not for kilrathi and unknown aliens I'd say this was wing commander. Missiles don't seem to track very well, I rarely see my missiles do proper damage like the guns, but on the flip side, it is quite possible to dodge enemy missiles with the afterburners together with the countermeasures. Even being hit by a missile doesn't seem to do _that_ much damage.

The storyline, honestly is quite straight laced. Attack this, defend that, escort this, blow that up. I think what's missing from WingCommander are no strong characters. You don't really know who the commander is, you don't know who's flying off your wing. It's not like WC where you get hobbes and maniac flying with you for years (why did you kill of hobbes, origin, why?!). I think having characters that grow together with you gives a feeling of protectiveness over your wingmen. I do send my wingpeople home in Freespace when they are in the red, but I'm just not as attached.

The final mission to destroy the big bad invulnerable capital ship, I somehow wasn't able to play (this is dosbox on osx). I could only hear what's going on, but the view of space was blank, with only the hud displayed. Luckily, thanks to my amazing people-who-fly-with-me-on-missions, they took down the big boss with only an "Engage Enemy" command :P

The game also came with the expansion pack. Played the first mission and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Playing as covert ops, we're supposed to silence our own people for the greater good. Bleh. Cmd-Q, thank you very much.

Overall, I thought this was a very enjoyable game. May have to play it again and lose the secondary objectives on purpose to see what happens :P

Transformers 4: Damned enjoyable.

As with the last few transformers films, I went in with little expectations, just wanting to drool over the guaranteed-to-be-awesome vfx, but this was a surprisingly enjoyable film. This is the first Herr Bay Transformers film that I didn't pull out my phone to check how long before the movie ended.

-> Warning: Spoilers ahead.

I thought the pacing was great, and oh my melted cheese cakes, the annoying lead actor from the previous three films was gone. I really, really disliked that whiney character, and the new human representatives were pretty good.

Things I thought were interesting (or lame):
- Optimus Prime was first encountered as the old skool peterbilt design. I was like weeee so cool! He stays and fights in that form for a fair while too, which was great. I didn't groan when he switched over to the "new" design.
- Triple changer samurai robot is sooo cool! Not a fan of the car logo on his chest though.
- Not sure who the green autobot is, but robot with robotic cape and built-in parachutes is just so damned cool.
- Seems like they've reduced alot of the transformation sequences - many shots were like, jump cuts to finished/near finished.
- That reminds me, too much advertising in this film, I was particularly rolling my eyes on the beats speakers. That said:
- Rainbow Dash was in the movie! Squeee! XD
- Unknown robot mastermind has a really damned cool sniper rifle transformation sequence.
- Galvatron is a truck. Like, supposed to be the human controlled, upgraded better version of prime. Mucho differnt from his g1 space gun form, but it kind of makes sense, to be parallel to prime, and the explanation of galavatron/megetron kind of actually makes sense.
- "New" transformation sequence by galvatron and the upgraded robots remind me of the Vexille Jags. Even my friends not in the film industry thought that was very low budget lol.
- Hong Kong as a location is pretty cool, nice change of scenery.
- I'm not even sure if the dinosaur bots are dinobots. They like, suddenly got released by prime, prime did a dominance fight and they joined up. They did not speak at all! I was on my seat hoping to get one liners like this:
- Humans are overpowered in this show. Optimus barely holds his own against the bad guy bent on retrieving him, but the lead human character, damn, actually defends himself against the bad guy with a little gun sword! I would have expected the sword to just slice off his head or something. And he was doing some _serious_ damage to the bad guy with just the gunsword. Imagine if all 3 human characters were firing on the bad guy, he'd be taken out like _easy_.
- Optimus gets stabbed by his own sword, but is flying - excuse me, flying, minutes later, with seemingly no damage? And best of all, only minutes later, he attains escape velocity and flies off into space. Uh, so what, did he like forget he could fly?! Since when did could prime fly?! Was it after he because that "Knight" thing with the dinobots? Even so, why didn't he like, fly around earlier?! That was so, so lame.

Some of the destruction sequences were just so drool inducing. I want to work on destruction of that scale one day.

Lamenting Calculus

Some new music I wrote, as well as some videos of my experience at the Niagara Falls :)

Sinsonido AS-101C travel guitar

Learning a musical instrument is tough, and with life as a vfx td, I may need to travel between contracts, which makes things annoying. Small supremely portable instruments like the flute, are not very neighbour-friendly as they cannot be muted; similarly for the saxophone.

Digital pianos are great in this respect as you can play 'em with headphones at 3 in the morning and no one would be the wiser. However, a digital piano is not very move friendly. I got a digital piano whilst I was in Montreal, as I was expecting to stay a few good years, but decided to move after a year's contract. Had to sell it for a fair loss of money, but that's the way things roll.

A few small, and quiet instruments were the target of my search. Violins and Violas are great choices as they are relatively small and very lightweight. In addition, with a metal mute, they are very quiet.

Electric guitars are another possibility, and I decided to go with learning a classical travel guitar - classical guitar seems to be quite interesting, lightweight and strings are easy (and affordable!) to get. One of the more affordable travel guitars - that looks pretty darn cool at the same time - is the Sinsonido AS-100 series. They've got classical and acoustic models, and I went with the classical as that's much more up my alley.

Being in Singapore, I checked the local distributors but they did not carry the Sinsonido. So, don't say I don't support local hor! Googling online, I came across Play Away Guitars in the UK. After a short email convo asking about my needs, I got the Sinsonido from them.

Shipping was remarkably fast; I made my purchase on Monday, and the guitar arrived in Singapore on Thursday. The guitar also came with some nice surprises; a new set of strings as well as a method book!

So that's about it. I've played a few notes on it - I'm not a guitar aficionado, having only "learnt" on my sibling's guitar for hours - and to my newb ears, it sounds great over headphones, but it is still quite audible.

Let's see where this new journey will take me. Here's some pictures of the guitar and the kit it came with.

Lenovo Flex 2 in "standing tablet" mode

So, I've been a week home, and I've not really been productive as I was when working! Like today, I spent most of the day taking apart the laptop, then... I'm not sure what. I am far more productive when working abroad for sure; I'd have a schedule to work on music or what not (well I did touch on the guitar for a quarter hour today....), but I'm like.... blargh, not getting my productivity engine engaged. And I have so. much. to. learn!

Anyways, so just before I left Montreal I was watching some online video tutorials, one of which is the series on Calculus on Open MIT. Thought that instead of watching videos on the teeny tablet, to watch it on the laptop in the standing mode, with it's 14 inches of IPS glory. Some things, didn't work as well.

First, when the Flex2 14 in the standing tablet mode, the physical keyboard (plus touchpad) is of course, tucked away from you. So, it's rather annoying when the virtual keyboard does not automatically pop up for desktop applications, which my web browser is. The only way I've found is to just manually swipe from the right to bring up the "charms" (why are they named that?!), then go to settings, and bring up the keyboard. It works, but that's so many steps!!!

In addition, I like to work with my task bar auto hidden - unless of course when I'm at work (boo hoo hoo I'm so unemployed) and have proper lcd screens, then I don't - and it is really finicky to actually bring up the task bar on the touch screen. One would think an upward swipe from the bottom of the screen would raise the task bar, but noooo. There are some instructions on how to do that online involving finger tips at the edge of the screen but I've never got it to work consistently.

So yeah. Windows 8.

Lenovo Flex-2 14 "teardown"

For some strange, unknown reason, I had to find out what kind of hard drive was inside my Flex 14. Btw, evidently the model I got is the Flex-2 14, a newer model that does not have a detachable battery.

Taking the laptop apart was not too difficult after I located the Flex2 14 Hardware Maintenance Manual (google it!).

The Flex14 has several steps to perform before getting to the innards (unlike say my macbook pro or m6400 (its dead and recycled!) which only required removing the underside panel) - first, the keyboard had to be detached. Not a fun thing I assure you, as it's held in place by clips to the laptop. I had to pry a portion of it using a flathead screwdriver, then used my hands to pop the clips off. Some kind of cable attaches the keyboard to the motherboard, but it's simple to remove.

Once that is done, to remove the rear panel requires the removal of 3 screws hidden by the keyboard (why?!), one of them which has a warranty seal of sorts. 9 other screws are also attached to the bottom panel. Even after removing those screws, the panel was firmly clipped in place, but some finger nail action pried the back panel apart.

There is seemingly space for one more memory dimm, but I'm already at 8gb of ram, and the lenovo website indicates 8gb ram max so... hmm.

In any case, I've had a bit more time to think about the laptop, and I'm not sure if I still want to upgrade to an ssd.

First, the laptop now works pretty reasonably fast even in Balanced mode. I can see the cpu range from 1ghz to 2ghz+ depending on the load, and performance mode just makes it heat up for no point. Evidently, Windows 8 has some kind of cache system that works pretty well, so long as you don't restart the machine. If I do a restart, it takes forever (hyperbole) for the icons to appear on the desktop, and it just feels very slugging. Just shutting down seems to do some sort of hibernate which keeps things very fast.

Right so, back to the upgrade part. I'm not sure if I still want to upgrade to an ssd. It's running fine for what I need now, but, if I see a 128gb samsung hdd that comes with the notebook upgrade kit, I might change my mind. We'll see...

Lenovo Flex 14 "quick" review

So, a month ago I finished up my work contract and didn't bother to ask for an extension. Working for over half a year for mostly 6 days in a row, with several 7 days over 50+ 60+ hrs wears you out. Badly. Since then I've spent the time off exploring Toronto, New York and London.

Now, finally back in the Land Of Shopping Centers (Singapore), where I'm dying of the humidity. I'm mostly recovered, physically, from the work schedule, and have some time off now till my next gig to get myself updated with the latest happenings in Houdini 13, as well as to explore the Houdini Engine.

Houdini Engine at the moment, only runs on Windows, so I decided to break down and get a windows laptop to run stuff. I was suggested running virtualization - but it seems the open gl is software only - plus it might be good to explore windows 8. (cue laughter)

Anyways, one of the infamous "PC Shows" was up the weekend after I arrived. Went down there today to check out all the possible models, and decided on the Lenovo Flex 14.

Several models were tempting my tastebuds:
- AfterShock - A local singapore brand probably has the only "proper" laptop (my words) at the show. Matte IPS screen, Quad Core mobile processor, several drive bays, proper geforce card, not one of those entry level mobile gpus - perfect for the TD messing about at home that wants a super lightweight rig (the 13.3in model weighed in at 2kg!).
- Asus - One of their ultrabooks was highly tempting, with a very good price. IPS screen that was matte!
- Lenovo Flex 14, that I bought. 

I was going to keep my budget under 2k, and I was actually quite shocked at the prices of laptops these days. A i5 laptop that will be perfect for day to day use runs less than SGD700. I was like.... what?! There are mobiles and tablets costing more than that!

The Flex that I bought, has an i7 processor, 840m gpu (4gbs of vram!), 8gb of main ram as well as a 1tb drive (going to swap that out for an ssd soon...). SGD1149.

Why the flex? Because what I want to do - explore houdini engine - is just that, exploration. Not full on work. Which was why I had to give the AfterShock PC models a skip, those are great machines, and if I really needed a working windows machine, they are my top choice, easy.

The Asus Ultrabooks were really nice, the model I wanted priced just around 1.3k.

I had a long think about it (the asus was 1.45kg, vs the flex at 1.9kg, which helps when flying!) and decided to go for the cheaper Flex, since I was not so sure how in depth into Engine I was going. Long story short, I actually picked an even cheaper Lenovo Flex 14, at 999 (this was an i5), and I also opted for a 20 upgrade to 8gb of ram. Fine and dandy, it was a damned good price!

But, when I was collecting my machine, I was told by the manager that I should not have been sold the upgrade, and the ram upgrade was not something that could be done on the spot (I was like, uh oh). He then offered me to step up to the i7 model, which does have 8gb of ram, and the i7. It seemed like a good deal, so I went for that.

The machine I got had some teething issues, booting up, the keyboard didn't work. I was like.... >.>

Thankfully, removing the keyboard driver miraculously allowed the keyboard to function. Oh, I forgot to mention, this laptop has a touchscreen (!!!!!) so if necessary, I could just use the touchscreen on the laptop, not the physical keyboard.

Apart from that, the screen's corners have some white light bleed areas. Maybe they'll go away after awhile, maybe they won't. Since I'm not going to be working on photographs on that screen I'm like... whatever. Which is sad, as its supposedly an IPS screen!

The machine was also rather sluggish out of the box, which was quite vexing, but after putting the power options to performance, yeah, it was running at a good clip. The disk though, is a 1TB platter, which, I'd guess is a 5k rpm (or slower.) Houdini and Unity took *forever* to install, unlike on the mac where they install in seconds. I will break down and buy a SSD...

The speaks on the Flex 14 are quite loud and bassy, which might make for rather enjoyable movies... after i buy a usb dvd drive. These ultrabook wannabes don't have dvd drives built in. I think it does sound rather boomy, compared to my mbp's more mid-ranged focused sound.

Oh, I also have a major gripe with the keyboard! The Return key has a bunch of home/end/pg up/pg dn buttons to the right of it, so it takes a fair bit of effort to not hit those keys when typing! Blargh. If not, the keys are actually pretty darned good. Mine are not backlit sadly, but hey, I'm cheap. I'll bet I will pull my hair out when I'm coding in monodevelop....

What else... Windows 8 of course. My first experience with Windows 8 on my dad's laptop a year ago was a disaster... I had to google how to shut down that infernal machine >.>

Trying it this week on a surface tablet was actually really good, but on a laptop, there is a disconnect of the user experience between desktop applications, and the tiled home screen.

All in all, I think the tiled screen was forcefully shoehorned in. I really don't need it.... but what can I do apart from buying Microsoft and imposing my will on the UX/UI teams? Nah, not my thing. Plus, if I had that kind of money, I'd rather be funding materials engineering and wildlife/ecological conservation. Space Elevators and Space Wolves! But I digress.

So yeah, not a fan of Windows, if you can tell :P

Honestly, I'd love to get a newer generation macbook pro, but
a) The 13in mbps no longer have discrete graphics
b) Only the 15ins have nvidia graphics, and for what I do, I cannot justify the cost.
c) I probably can't justify the cost of a new 13in anyways.

We'll see what this new baby brings :)

Excess Baggage/Relocation/movers in Montreal

Looking up the internet, I contacted several local movers, but I never received a reply - probably because all I wanted was just shifting a few boxes back home. Thankfully one of my colleagues gave me a good hint: Seven Seas Shipping.

This is my last work week, and I am still rather busy at work. Combined with over half a year of crunch, you can say I'm not in a very good headspace. So, I was slightly panicking this week when I have boxes of books/dvds/figures to ship home, but couldn't find a local shipper.

I called Seven Seas Shipping late last night, expecting to just leave a voicemail, but was very surprised to hear a voice at the other end of the line. Extremely friendly, and I actually got the quote done over the phone, and even got the email with the quote while I was speaking to the staff.

Now I haven't actually had my stuff shipped through them - they don't have a branch in Montreal, so DHL (or was it UPS) would be the one doing the pickup next week, and I'll update it as things go.

They appear to have the same kind of modus operandi as Excess baggage in the UK (which, is also an excellent relocation company) - they will ship you high quality cartons, bubble wrap as well as tape for your packing, and they will pick it up another day.

Lots of things I want to post about the year here, but just too damned tired. I basically go home, read book or play some mindless games and sleep. Iterate that over the last half year. Stopped my music lessons, and basically in the office mostly 6 days a week. So much fun.

Lego Movie water test

Testing stuff in houdini :3

Memories of Moto

Testing out the 2D workflow in Unity. Play the game here: http://unity3d.alvinvfx.com/memoriesOfMoto/

Doooome.

Wind in the Leaves

Little piece I wrote last weekend for my orchestration course. Pulled close to 60hrs this week, so tired.

Food and Weather

The weather was warmer last week, but this week it's back to the proper winter cold. I think I'm getting used to it, as -10C is like.... whatever. It's the temperatures below -20C that annoy me, and it's mainly just about my face feeling like it's falling off. The rest of me is fine. It was snowing when I was out and back from work today, and it's probably still going on. The snow is fine, but the problem lies with after, it becoming ice and becoming a hazard. Oh well.

I recently found some nice places. First up is Leméac. Really fine steak here (costs a bomb though). The fries are really good too. While the serving looks small, it is a really filling meal. Looking forward for the next payday for this again :)

Just besides Leméac is Mikado, which does japanese. I only tried their Katsu Chicken, which I found really good. The chicken found here in Montreal is something, I think all the places I've had chicken are just damned good. Somehow, the meat here is just amazingly soft and tender.

There is also the chain, eggspectation, that I occasionally visit. I think of the many breakfast kind places I've tried, it's probably the one I enjoy visit the most.

To counter the "omg food here so good" etc etc, I must say that there are many other disappointing places I've visited. There was a place that always had a long queue during lunch time, so I was thinking it must be damned good food there. Once, I wandered by and there were some places at the bar, and I had lunch there. I have no idea why people queued up for this. I could cook better, and I'm the best at cooking instant noodles. Seriously.

Asian food here has been disappointing as well, I have no idea why the reviews are so glowing. Apart from Nonya, which I heartily recommend, I've yet to have a good chinese meal. Even the recommendations I got from people faired pretty sad. Ah well.

Moar strings

Something I worked on for my orchestration course this week, to arrange a piano piece for string orchestra.

Spring Snow

Piece I wrote for my orchestration course! XD