Quadcopter Simulation in Unity

Having very little bandwidth left this month, I thought, hey, let's see if we can get a quick and dirty quadcopter simulation in Unity... this was the result.

Hubsan X4 H109C Quadcopter!

Last week, whilst repairing my colleague's earphones, I went over to Jaycar to pick up some spares and happened to see some of their quadcopters on sale. Incidently, Jaycar is sort of the RadioShack equivalent here in Australia, lots of DIY parts and stuff to purchase.

There were a few quadcopters at the shop front, but cost more than I'd fork out and I usually just go "oooo lust" and the price tag would make me go on my merry way.

That fine day, I went to check out the r/c toys section (ha) and found tiny palm sized quadcopters that didn't bust the bank. Surely, these were more than toys. Or were they?

After getting home, and doing much googling and youtube watching, I decided to get the Hubsan X4 as my first quadcopter. It had many things going for it - small size is good, as I'm going to move to Vancouver shortly - good price - 720p camera (!!!) - controller is seemingly well built.

Bought one online last week and it arrived this afternoon. The charger is a tiny USB affair, and the included battery took about half an hour to charge up. The instructions are rather well written, and apart from the 'copter and controller, included a detachable guard for indoors flying, as well as additional propeller blades and a small tool to pry 'em off the 'copter.

Runtime of this baby is maybe 5-6 minutes, I didn't really time it. I'd suggest buying a few extra batteries. On the topic of buying - you'd need a micro SDHC card for the camera, as well as 4 AAAs for the controller (I wish they used AAs - I don't have any rechargeable AAAs on me)

I must say, flying it is quite a challenge. The two sticks control 3 key controls: the left stick controls how the 'copter rotates along its vertical axis, as well as controlling the speed of the motors, making the copter go up and down. The right stick moves the 'copter forward/back/left/right.

Doing it all at once - maintaining the copter at a certain level, turning and moving - is something that I'm sure will take me awhile to sort out. I've got a few more batteries arriving shortly in the mail (I hope!) and I am planning to spend some time during lunch practicing, as I'd like to get some video footage of the beach before I leave this fine country.

Repairing a Velodyne V-Pulse

Disclaimer: This is NOT a tutorial. You mess up your repair following my experience, it's not my problem.

So, my co-worker's Velodyne Vpulse's join to the connector started to go wonky, and I was all "Hey! I could replace that with a new connector!"

Should not have done that >.<

The cables inside were *tiny*, and best of all, I was totally dumbfounded when I tried measuring the resistance and everything came back as open. Evidently, every single strand of wire appears to have some kind of insulation. Tinning them was a pain. I ended up buying the flame tip for my soldering iron to just melt off the insulation before the solder could bite.

In either case, after a good few hours, I got it working (whew!). As you can see from the cable above, there are lots of tiny bundles of wires, each probably like half a mm or so. Not. Fun. To. Work. With.

There are:

• Red
• Blue
• Green
• Twisted Blue/Copper
• Copper strands
• Two strands of thread

Also, as this headphone is for IOS, the cables seemingly required the following connections to the TRRS connector:

Tip: Blue
Ring 1: Green
Ring 2: Copper Strands + Twisted Blue/Copper
Sleeve: Red

From my tests, Blue/Green are the headphone outputs, and the copper strands their ground. Red with the twisted blue/Coppper are for the mic.

So glad I got this working, as it was a pain to deal with such tiny cables >.>

My Shure SE215s have appeared to hold up pretty well so far, and if their cables get damaged, I'm so glad they can be user replaced. At least when I recabled my grados, they were a rather straightforward.

Strathalbyn Ballooning Regetta

Using BSP Tree to generate random levels

Quick thing I wrote over the weekend. Previously I wrote a version inside Houdini that utilized stamping various shapes to see if they would fit inside a grid. Works great, but rather slow. This version is inspired by this tutorial, and uses the concept of a BSP tree to divide the space into smaller and smaller grids that will not overlap.

I've also tested this on mobile devices, however, it's excruciatingly slow. I need to figure out what's wrong. I wrote this as a recursive function, and there have been some blips on google about mobile platforms and small heap sizes, but nothing conclusive.

Tomorrowland

What I got out of this movie: Keep chasing your dreams, no matter what. And please, don't be a dick to your planet.

Can't say I would wanna watch it again, but it was rather inspirational. Is that the right word? Maybe hearty? But whatever, it was a reminder to keep on learning and creating! Thank you Brad!

Little Mouse Run

Work slowed down last weekend, and I took Sunday to write this short piece. This is my first full piece with Symphony Pro, and I generally enjoyed it very much! I am quite surprised, as I didn't expect it to work so well on a touch screen. The stock sounds also sounded great for an app this size. Supposedly Notion for Ipad works better, I'll have to try that when I get in the mood.

Sequencing was done in Logic X, VSL Solo Strings for a quartet. The mix was done with Vienna Suite and MIR Pro 24.

Destroy. Mobile. Phone.

Friggin' had it with the Nexus 4 I've got. Many issues have been cropping up lately and it's pissing me off.

Dialing out to a number, I've experienced where I can't  hear the opposite party. Rebooting the phone, and it works.

Some times, when receiving phone calls, the swipe to answer the phone call just does not work! The only thing that works is the power switch, which serves to mute the ring tone.

Again, rebooting the phone works.

Sooooo blooody annoyed with this phone! That's it. Saving up for an Xperia or Iphone.

Rain!

Last weekend, I ran my hardshell through Revivex to revive its water repellent layer, and finally "tested" it out on a shower on Saturday. I'm very glad to report that it worked very well!

The rain wasn't super heavy, was only in it for about 10 minutes, but it's heavy enough that you'd want to duck under a building for shelter.   (My jeans and shoes were drenched, of course)

There were several times I had to wait at traffic lights, and the water beaded up quite well. I don't remember ever having been in such a shower when the hardshell was brand new, so I can't say how well it was compared to when it still had the factory coating.

When indoors, what water was on the shell evaporated rather quickly (yay Adelaide's low humidity).

Due to this little experiment, I've been looking at "waterproof" clothing more carefully, and also looking at what kind of clothing people used back in the day before high-tech fabrics. Waxed fabrics were one, as well as super tight weave fabrics like Ventile.

After all this, I think I may actually sell this hardshell and move back to a softshell; I enjoy wearing a shell out on cooler days, and the softshells I've tried before from Arcteryx and Mountain hardware are generally much more comfortable and are wind proof enough. As much as I would love to be toting a "waterproof" garment,  the fact is I am don't need it for my mostly-city usage.

Verily, I'm probably going back to what I was wearing in montreal when the weather was just above 0C, a fleece + softshell (did I wear thermals? I can't remember.... probably need to check my older posts). And.... bring along a super lightweight rainjacket for the times it is really wet.

Or.... use an umbrella. The joke is... I bring an umbrella with my pack... and I have never used it, always lending it to those with me caught in the rain.

Oh well :)

Trying out Revivex

Having had the Juho for over half a year now, and the DWR coating that sheds water is kinda gone. Haven't been in a major shower yet - the rain thus far have been quite light, and the Juho, while it does absorb the water, still keeps me dry.

With winter properly coming up in South Australia, I thought it be best to re-coat it. Got some Revivex together with Granger's 30 Degrees Cleaner, and it seems to do the trick. Water definitely beads up, but will have to wait for a real shower to see how it performs :)

Fiio X1

First up, no pictures here as there are so many reviews and photos of this MP3 player online.

The MP3 player that has been with me for almost 5 years, a Cowon D2+ has been having hickups lately, not reading the external sd card. Plus it's suffered lots of trials and tribulations - falling off tables etc. and having to be taken apart so as to move the buttons to their original positions etc. It's had a good long run.

While I would love an MP3 player that is top of the line, perhaps one of the Ibasso things, my mp3 player is mainly to be used at work, on trains, on planes etc so while I do want good sound quality, superb sound quality would be a waste. Hence, the X1. It's priced very affordably at USD99 (I bought it for AUD138 with shipping from Minidisk australia), and is touted to have some good quality DACs. So how does it stack up agains the D2+?

First impressions were: detailed, but not as exciting as the D2+. However, after some fiddling with the D2+ and disabling the EQ, I must say the X1 and D2+ are around the same level. Good, but different. I felt that the D2+ was slightly warmer, with a touch stronger bass response.

The X1 on the flip side, sounded sharper, more detailed. This was with my Grados SR80. I tried doing some comparisons on my daily use IEM - the Shure SE215 and kinda gave up as seriously, I find the SE215 so boring compared to the SR80. The lack of highs also put me off so I went back to the SR80s.  I tried fiddling with the X1's EQ to match the EQ of the D2+, but the differences were very minimal to my ears, unlike the D2's EQ that is very readily audible.

The main reason why I use the SE215 on a daily basis at work is because of its good insulation, and that while it is very boring (i.e. detailed), it is not tiring, as it does get with the SR80 after awhile. Also, it packs down into a tiny case around the same size as the D2+.

I'm also wondering if the X1's DAC pushes as much power as the D2+ - the D2+ has my SR80 around 15/100 of the volume, while the X1 needs about 30/100 to get the same levels.

Interface wise, the X1 has this round circular control up front reminiscent of the older ipods. It works ok, though I tend to overshoot the menus. One annoying thing I've found is that when the display is powered down, only the volume control buttons still work. I'd expect the next/prev buttons to work, but I don't think they do with the display off. Very annoying. A setting in the menus allow you to choose which buttons are active when the player has its display turned off.


One other niggle, which is not fair to the X1 as it's not a touchscreen - is that the D2+, and its touchscreen, allows you to jump to any part of the song at a touch - with the X1, you'd need to hold down the next/prev button and wait as it traverses the timeline. There is no A-B function either, so if you are a musician wanting to practice with that, no go. And yes, that's something the D2+ has. And I've only used it like once, so...

The package comes with a silicone cover (great! No need to spend $$$ on extra cases), and has the screen protector already applied. And with 2 extra screen covers too.... were they expecting this mp3 player to be exposed to lots of scratching? Like maybe cat owners? I honestly cannot see the need for 2 extras... Additionally, there are stickers to attack to the player to give it a carbon fiber look, a wood look, or an American flag look. Some kinda warranty thing in the box, as well as a usb charging cable.

What else.... oh, the X1 does not have any internal memory, and uses micro sd cards.

Overall, the X1 suits my needs very well. For the price, it is neigh impossible to complain with what it delivers.

If there is any big niggle, for me it'd be the interface. Having to press the power button just to change tracks is annoying. And the navigation on the D2+ with its touchscreen is just lightyears faster and more accurate. Again, sticker price - the D2+ probably cost twice the price of the X1 when I bought it.

Orico W9PH4

I wish companies would name things better! W9PH4 is soooo descriptive! As bad as Casio and their watch naming. GAH!

Anyways, I realized my usb hub, a tiny Targus portable thing was only USB2, so I thought it'd be nice to step up to a USB3 hub, especially with my USB3 drives.

Visited the usual shops along Rundle Mall, but nothing that was unpowered caught my eye (incidently, I went to the Apple Store to see if they had any nice usb hubs, nada. I did try out the Apple Watch though, it's really a fun gadget! I really like the concept of having a watch on my wrist, so I bought a Casio. But that's another story.)

Made a trek down to MSY, another computer retailer at the edge of the Adelaide CBD and picked up this Orico brand 4 port usb thingy. They actually had two Orico unpowered 4 port hubs, and I basically picked this one simply because it was smaller.

The power buttons are a mystery though, this is the first usb hub i've had that had individual buttons to turn on each port. I really think it's unnecessary, and the mechanical switches add a layer of possible failure. In any case, I'm leaving them all switched on as USB is hot-pluggable.

I hope.

On the flip side, it's very well built (compared to some of the other more flimsy units I saw in store), and the usb cable is permanently attached, and is quite thick. I'm hoping this thick solid cable means its delivers the full USB3 power spec, and being built-in means I won't lose the cable when moving between places.

Did some quick transfer tests with my Touro S and doesn't appear to be much difference when transferring a 1gb file through the hub or with the hdd directly connected to my laptop.  Guess its good!

Touro S

Popped out at lunch to get this little baby. So far, it's proving it's mettle, a 1gb test file wrote in about 7~8 seconds, pretty damned fast for a bus powered portable drive! Writing from the Touro S to my desktop took about the same time.

I still need to transfer my vsl samples - I didn't realize I've got 600gb of samples just from vsl >.>

What a joke, spent so much on vsl and I'm not using them at all. Oh well. I'm sure I'll get back some day or another. Sample lust is a thing.

Harping for a thunderbolt external drive. Nah.

I've been meaning to move my Caldigit FW800 drive that houses all my samples over to a portable thunderbolt drive - mainly to reap the speed benefits, as well as to lose the power adaptor (plus I have 2 thunderbolt ports doing... nothing), and I went down to (probably) the only place in Australia you can buy it - the Apple store. Sadly (thankfully!) they were out of stock. A bit bummed, I ran around the usual suspects, Harvey Norman, Dick Smith, JB Hifi etc. They carried mainly WD and Seagate stuff.

WD portable drives form the bulk of my backups, and the are a damned good bang for the buck for what they are. However, for my sample drive, I want something faster to stream my samples. Now, I'm quite thankful for the thunderbolt drive being out of stock, as I realized that thunderbolt is kinda pointless for a single standalone 7.2k rpm drive. After looking at specs, even usb3 won't get maxed out by a single 7.2k drive.

After some hunting around, it seems MSY has in stock some HGST Touro S drives. 7.2k, usb3, 1tb. Just what I want. Probably going to pick that up over lunch tomorrow. Once I get rid of this Caldigit housing (it's not bad, fw800 + usb3) and move to the bus-powered Touro, I won't have to wait weeks for the sample drive to arrive by post - and save on postage!

Unity 5.0, my kindle, and a banana.

No, they are not related at all. As the self-proclaimed Most Boring Person with a Blog, I have to put in something more boring in addition to the boring stuff I post.

I ate a banana today*.

So, with regards to my Kindle - it's the 3rd generation keyboard, 5 years old now? - has been acting up recently. Freezing and resetting suddenly. Been _slightly_ tempted to used this excuse to upgrade to one of the new ones with the backlight - would be super to read in bed without the ceiling lights on.

But anyways, as I'm saving up for my dream aircraft carrier and can't really justify buying a new kindle, a quick google search had me taking the kindle apart, and lo and behold, the rattling that was going on inside, was due to loose screws! Those little buggers must have been the cause of my freezes. Got them screwed back in what I hope are their correct positions. Will know shortly if this is truly the cause, or if I truly need to speak to my banker about buying a new kindle.

For all the electronic toys I have, the kindle is probably the one I keep in the highest regard, and will definitely replace if lost or damaged.

Finally, Unity 5 got released today! Surprisingly, the free version (rebranded to "Personal Edition") comes with many coveted features only previously available in the pro editions - which cost a pretty penny - the profiler is now available, as well as render to texture and other nifty toys. This is apart from the new toys released in 5. And it's "free".

Basically, if you earn more than 100k gross a year, you need to get the pro version. This is perfectly fine for dabblers like myself, but many people are grousing that the key feature that they want, in the pro version is the removal of the Unity logo at the start up of apps and games.The cost to remove the logo can run up to several grand, in order to obtain the pro version. And now, with all the key pro features available in the Personal Edition, and not everyone needing the pro features, makes it sort of a tough sell. This, is from someone on the outside looking in.

Drawing a parallel to Houdini, which has 3 tiers - Apprentice, which is Non Commercial, Indie (my license!) which is valid for those who gross less than 100k a year with minor restrictions, and of course the full blown commercial licenses for Houdini/FX. Indie has got to be popular, I got it mainly to support sidefx, and because its 200 bucks. It's finally finding use with Unity.

I would think Unity would gather a fair bit of support (and maybe revenue!), if there was a middle tier that caters to devs who earn less than 100k, but would like the logo removed. It would slot right in perfectly with Hindie. But that's the random pitter patterings of the Most Boring Person with a Blog.

Right, unity's finally downloaded. Time to launch!

*and bananas are delicious.

Jupiter Ascending - what's up with it?

I honestly think my tastes must be at some perpendicular angle to most people. What's wrong with Jupiter Ascending? I absolutely enjoyed every minute of the show! For some reason, it gave me very familiar feelings, similar to that when playing Final Fantasy - to be brought into another world. And I really enjoyed my visit.

Spoilers Ahead:

Loved the ship designs, loved the detail inside so many of the sets, loved the otherworldly architecture. It's quite a universe. The technobabble at some parts just gave me a big grin.

On the flip side, there were things I that were poking in my mind like: why didn't the processing plant or whatever it was inside Jupiter like collapse like paper when wolf-dude cracked through it? The gravity that deep inside a gas giant has to be crazy. Even if the main structure is able to survive, I do not see how regular people could survive - the atmosphere should have vented near-instantaneously.

And what's more, what's with that processing plant doing inside jupiter? Like the bad guy wasn't supposed to harvest earth for awhile longer until he learnt about Ms Jones. Or do such processing plants just standard operating procedure when a planet for harvesting is seeded?

The story also felt somewhat rushed, I thought the idea of 3 siblings trying to figure out what to do with the re-born empress was quite undeveloped, and generally just not very cohesive. I get what's going on, but maybe more time could be spent developing it.

Defo would love to watch it at another time. Don't think I got my name in the credits though. Boo....

Houdini Random Dungeon Generator

Title says it all :3 My long term plans are to use this to generate some kinda data as input into Unity.

Houdini - Unity - Vertical Cross from Lat Long map HDA

Bit of fun this evening :) Writing out vertical cross maps from a lat long map input. Have a few times I've been needing to do this, so might as well create a Houdini Digital Asset to streamline stuff to one-click.

Houdini OpenCL kicking butt!

Spent some of this evening moving stuff to my new laptop, and also got the latest production build of houdini to play with. H14 now runs absolutely smoothly on osx 10.10 - previously on 10.8 houdini would crash when I select a point! According to forums this is a open gl 3.3 thingy, not available on the older osx. Should have upgraded, but I had too many fun mini-projects going on to deal with a major os upgrade.

Last I did major upgrades of osx... nothing happened. But you never know, and dealing with os upgrades and stuff like that - I avoid it if possible.

OpenCL also works a treat! Running a smoke solver with openCL make a tremendous difference in sim speed. On the flip side, in order to get that speed, we're not supposed to use caching and other things, which affects workflow. Perhaps simming at mid-res on the cpu + cache will be good for judging the performance, then running the full sim at high res with OpenCL...

That said, my gfx card only has 2gb of ram; it's not going to do sims as large as what the main cpu memory can handle.

EDIT: OMG Grain solver runs pretty swift on opencl! RAR RAR RAR!

Big jump, houdini 14. Can't wait for Unity 5 to be released then I can play with Houdini Engine :3

Houdini + Unity FTW

Testing out how a character in Houdini can be brought over in Unity. Appears to be quite straightforward, and once inside Unity, the rig is picked up automagically! Afterwords, setting up an animation controller to retarget some random animation clips into the imported rigged character is very straightforward.

No idea what I'd do with this info hmm.