February 2012
6 posts
Question: Optimized Libraries
Here’s a programming question for you.
I’m put Bootil on my linux and osx build servers, and have it building automatically every 15 minutes. It builds 4 different versions, a dynamic release, dynamic debug, static release, static debug. Then it commits any changes to SVN.
This all works great except for some reason the static release changes every time it’s compiled (on both...
Version 49 Models
Today I got version 49 models working in GMod 13. It involved a bit of hacking around. The problem is I don’t have the source code to the Portal 2 engine so I couldn’t really see what was going on in the new format. Then just when I was about to give up I searched google for “STUDIO_VERSION 49” - which shows up code from the alien swarm base. It gave me what I was missing.
...
Improved Shadows
I tweaked some of the flashlight code a week ago - and didn’t really realise how much it improved the rendering until I fired up GMod 12 today.
Here’s some comparisons..
I was only trying to change a bug reported by maxofs2d - in which the flashlight lit the world as if it was always started projecting from the player’s eyes. This illustrates it I think..
You see...
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quick tool: bundler
I made a quick tool yesterday to convert a program with a bunch of other required files into a single exe. I did some searching for a similar tool but everything I found was either shareware (the phrase shareware on a site usually means it’s from 1996), or expensive with a load of unneeded security features.
Bundler is pretty much as simple as it can be. It creates an exe, then zips up your...
Weight Loss
I’ve been trying to lose weight over the last month. And it’s been going well, I think I’ve got it under control. Here’s my weight loss tips.
Don’t go crazy
Diets are a temporary thing. You’ll never last if you try to only eat bread or whatever. It’s not sustainable and you’re always going to end up breaking. Don’t try to lose too much...
Workshopping
This week I’ve been working on a tool to upload workshop addons for GMod. It’s a pretty simple task but I decide to do it using GWEN.. just to make things a bit more challenging.
Why? Well, it makes it easier to make cross platform (although I could have used VGUI, or another widget toolkit). Plus it gave me a chance to ride through GWEN and round off anything that’s a bit...
January 2012
7 posts
More Stuff I did
I feel like rambling about the stuff I did. So here goes.
Addon System
I made a single file addon system for GMod. This is what it sounds like - a single file which contains a bunch of other files. It gets mounted on the filesystem so that the game sees no difference between files in the addon and files in the normal folders.
This is a lot faster than the old way of mounting folders....
Cool stuff I did this week
Got Visual Studio 2010 working with the Source Engine
Got OSX installed on Virtual Machine so I can compile on my PC
Made a Steam Workshop based addon system for GMod 13
Shaved My Pubes
MegaUpload
It seems a lot of people are outraged that MegaUpload has been shut down and the owners face jail. I don’t totally understand the outrage. Maybe it was because I never used sites like that - and hated when people tried to make me download from there. Why would you make me fill in Captcha’s and wait 20 seconds for the download link to appear - and then try to fool me into pressing the...
Oops
So I wanted to get 3 monitors going, and someone on Twitter alerted me to the fact that you can put any graphics card in your computer and run a 3rd monitor from it - you don’t need to SLI them or even be the same brand.
So cool - I grab another graphics card and jam it in.. but it doesn’t work. The computer doesn’t even boot. Then I realise that the power PCIE cable I’m...
SOPA
yawn.
Family Tree
I’ve been playing a game this week. Basically you put your name and birthday in this website, then your moms and dads, then their mom and dads.. and then this green leaf appears..
Then you press on the leaf and you find out who their mom and dad are. I got my dad’s family back to 1490. Their original family name was “Daft” - but changed to Newman some time in the...
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December 2011
9 posts
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Top 6 Games of 2011
In retrospect I haven’t played many games this year. I’m not sure whether that’s because not many games were released.. or whether it was because the games that were released weren’t my thing.
Where’s Minecraft
I know I know. I still haven’t played it. For the same reason I’ve never played WOW. I’m scared that once I start playing it I won’t...
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Ant Farm 2.0
I made an ant farm a while ago. I made it out of plastic and wood. And while it tecnically worked - it wasn’t good enough for me. The plastic was bulging at the center. The gap in the middle was too wide.. so once the ants burrowed I couldn’t see shit.
So here comes ant farm 2.0. This time I’m making it out of strip wood and two table tops from ikea (which was cheaper than...
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Coding Evolution
I think over the last 10 years I’ve evolved as a coder. Here’s some of the milestones I achieved.
You Start Using Source Control
You spend half a day trying to find what you changed in your code that has suddenly made it stop working. You realise that your current form of source control (CTRL+Z) isn’t doing you any favors. You spend an hour learning about source control and...
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Holly Holly, Get Dolly
I got audio working in Holly yesterday. Check out the output here. (tumblr won’t let me embed it, blargh). I now know a lot more about raw sound data.
I made a quick web tool to embed a raw sound file into a c array. I know tools like this already exist but now another one does.. ONLINE. This is the kind of ouput. That’s the sound file you’re hearing in the video above. I...
mklink - symbolic links for windows
I found this feature the other day and it’s made my life easier. When compiling GMod the source is in a folder called src, and the generated binaries go in a folder next to src called game. To test it out I had a script that copied the binaries from game to sourcemods. That way I can run the development version of Garry’s Mod as a Mod on Steam.
Well with mklink I can create a link...
Video
I went off on a tangent last week. I started messing around with video. I implemented Google’s webm stuff into GMod, and I got it spitting out video.
It’s fast - but it’s not super fast. It’s not Fraps or anything. Frankly I don’t know how Fraps does it. Black magic or something. I couldn’t even get Fraps’ speed just reading the screen - nevermind...
Blog update
Blarghhh. I know I suck at updating my blog. I’ll post something soon. You could always follow me on twitter if you can’t get enough of reading words I post.
November 2011
16 posts
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Ass Kicker
I’m kicking ass in GMod right now. I’m reshaping it and bringing it up to date. The next version is version 13. The logic behind this is that 9 was the last free version, 10 was when it went retail, 11 was when it went orange box, 12 was when it went mac and now we’re at 13 because now it’s undergoing some of the biggest changes since version 10.
I’ve got some Google...
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Other Stuff
IRCCloud
I love IRCCloud. It’s awesome. But there’s a few things I don’t like about the design, so I made a skin for it.
Pitch Poll
We were working on a game idea in which you used your voice to control a character. The game idea didn’t come off so we shut it down, but it wasn’t a total wasted effort because we’re selling the tech on the Unity Asset Store.
...
Stuff done did
I had a few successful coding sessions this week. Here’s what I’ve been up to.
I fixed SuperDOF. A lot of it. I fixed it crashing when multicore rendering was enabled. This crash was mainly caused by not having any idea how multicore rendering worked back in the day when I converted to Orange Box. I fixed it not rendering water properly too. This was caused by the aspect ratio being...
I done maths
I’m really happy with the Widgets I added to GMod. They’re working really well. They’re fully predicted so they feel smooth and awesome in multiplayer, just the same as in single player.
I started coding them completely clientside. The vision was GUI type controls in a 3D world. I’d pretty much done them and they worked really well - except for one thing. On actually...
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PC Specs
Since I livestreamed Battlefield 3 at 1920x1080 at full settings people keep asking me for my PC Specs. So here they are.
CPU: i7 920 @ 2.67 GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 (1536 MB) MEM: 6GB
This is my home PC. The CPU is probably out of date now, and I could do with some more memory. The hard drives aren’t very fast - but I have 7TB of storage (I went for size rather than...
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October 2011
15 posts
Battlefield
I got Battlefield 3 on Friday (because that’s the day it came out in the UK). I am now loving the fact that I upgraded my graphics card. Full settings, full everything, full AA, full screen 1920x1080 at 60+ fps. Even when livestreaming!
I played a bit of the single player. Then I tried the multiplayer and I’ve been on that ever since. Ranking and unlocking. I love it. Wonder what the...
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Beta Keys Depleted
All the beta key are gone, so don’t waste your time by emailing me. I’ll let you all know when I get another batch.
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Coding & Beta
Been doing some awesome stuff in GMod lately. I’m not going to talk about it though because none of it is finished and the stuff that is, is too nerdy for you to care about.
The Garry’s Mod beta has started. It’s live on Steam and I have keys to hand out. So if I told you I’d give you a key once it started shoot me an email at garrynewman@gmail.com and I will sort you out...
How To Buy Hardware
I used to know all about graphics cards and CPUs. I could have conversations all day long about which were the best and which ones I was saving up to get. At some point in the last 6 years that stopped and now I know nothing.
So this is how I buy hardware now.
Basically you want the one at the top. If you can’t afford that then the next one down. Repeat until you can afford one.
...
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Bodygroups
Today I made the icon editor able to edit the skin and bodygroups. This also alters what the icon spawns. So for example, you can copy GMan’s icon and edit the bodygroup so that he spawns without the briefcase. Then you have 2 icons, one spawns with, one spawns without. Awesome.
The HL1 and TF2 models use bodygroups a lot. And now we can :)
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Progress
I’ve been pretty productive over the last few days.
Garrysmod.com
I moved garrysmod.com over to tumblr. Seemed stupid self hosting it when you can throw it on tumblr. I like tumblr.. especially their online theme editor. I made the design completely using that.
You can submit news to it too. I’m going to start posting community news to the main site again. I had hoped that a...
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Numpads and gibs
Sarah let me work today. I did some good coding.
Numpads
You know in GMod how you make a wheel, and you choose which numpad keys to control it? Well I got rid of that today. Now you can choose any key. Including any joystick or mouse buttons.
HL1 Gibs
I fixed HL1 gibs not spawning properly :)
NPC Tab
NPC icons are now like regular spawn icons. The tab is gone, instead of there’s a...
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Spawnmenu update
I’ve finished doing a major change to the left of the spawnmenu, so decided to show you what I’ve done. I’m only going to be talking about things that are coded and working. I have other plans to be added to this side of the menu - but I’m not going to talk about those until they’re reality.
So basically I’ve moved the navigation from the top to the left of the...