New page released

I just made a tutorial to build and install all the dependencies to run the Deep Learning network I'm studying for fluid simulation, right here. For now, I can just execute it and visualize the results. The presentation video can be remade on your computer if you follow all the steps, no skipping or changing the order (please).

Soon I'm gonna find out the next step.

If you are interested on this topic and you want to work with Disney, check out the lib this project uses: Partio. And also, the SPlisH SPlasH that uses it.

Where was I?

Hello, future me.

In case you are wondering where did I go these days since the last post, I've been busy studying many different things, from deep learning to gamification. Both are courses from Coursera, where you can watch the videos, but in order to get the certification, you must pay. Fair enough.

Also, I upgraded my Ubuntu version to 20.04, and it is a lot prettier. Now my simple laptop is faster and my desktop cleaner. Luckily, I manage to compile Yade DEM from source to activate the Potential Particles computation, which once was a real headache. But not before installing 1GB of dependencies. I know I probably wont use Yade anymore, but I found a workshop from a Ph.D in rock mechanics that opened my eyes for certain details when dealing with DEM:

1. If the particles are getting high velocities, decrease the time step for numerical stability;
2. If the real sample exhibits plastic behavior, select the simulation material that can recreate it;
   
3. Know the shape and size distribution of the grain of the material you want to simulate.

Besides, my sensei recommended me a YouTube channel that teaches Japanese in Japanse. The name is 日本語の森, and they teach grammar of any level.

So, I need to watch some of these videos, test Yade, and get the Deep Learning networks for rigid registration, that I found here, working.

I'm feeling like a workaholic. If it wasn't for my dog getting my attention, I would be lost.

PS: Today the blog completes 1 month! 

Square Enix job opportunity

I finished the translation of the Square Enix job opportunity with the supervision of my Japanese teacher¹. 

In a nutshell, there will be an online briefing session in July 25th via Zoom where you can interact with Square's employees and ask whatever you want. But since this is also a recruitment, you need to have some skills they listed for a Game Designer, Artist and Game Programmer. I'm interested in the latter one, as you may guess.

I think I'll try to participate this. Even though this sound a bit scary. But you can't win the lottery if you don't buy the ticket, right?

I'll keep you informed about what happens.

See you later!


Edit: update here.

¹ If you want to learn Japanese too, my teacher has a YouTube channel in PT-BR.

 

Wicked Engine

Wandering in YouTube again, I found a video about game development from scratch announcing the new version of Wicked Engine. It has a simple user interface but a lot of things implemented. Check it out:

Wicked Engine gets more... Wicked!

When I open the official Engine website, I see the Nazaré meme on the top. It made me wonder if it was made by a Brazilian, but no. Anyway, it made me laugh. 

The 'About' section states that that Wicked is a Game Engine, but if you don't want to use it that way, there are some programming tips, hopefully useful for the reader. That's what I want for my Arena Engine too. Also, one of the Wicked's features is the possibility of using it through C++, or the scripting language, Lua. This is important to me because if you are a better C++ programmer than a Lua one, you are not obligated to learn it, or if you don't want to deal with C++, you can create something faster with a higher level language. 

So, this is another Engine code available on Github for my study alongside with Hazel, as a source material. Hope this is useful for you too.

C++ and its Creator

I've been reading and watching videos about C++ to start my new page about it and I wanted to begin with a background history. I noticed that we study the creation but not the creator of it. Maybe because he or she lived a long time ago, there is not enough information of them, or we already have so much to learn that the author becomes irrelevant or only deserves a footnote. But in computer science, we can find some big contributors of this field alive. 

The first time I realized it, was at the SVR 2019 conference, which I participated to present my paper. There was an international guest for the main lecture (also the first of the event). It was very interesting, funny, and the audience made relevant questions in the end. Then I searched for his work to know more, and I found a wikipedia page telling that he was the author of the Perlin Noise, which I heard about in my class of Image Processing. Then I remembered that Ed Catmul, of the Catmul splines, is also alive. The same happens to the creator of C++, Bjarne Stroustrup, and until 2018, at least, he stills lecturing about his main creation (or the one that made him famous). 

Maybe you really don't mind about the people, but for me, this brings the creation closer to me and makes me more curious and inspired. Because people are the ones that make changes. 

If you're interested too, here is a video of Bjarne talking about the creation of C++:

The Design of C++, by Bjarne

Basic Materials

This is a list of materials I use for studying programming. The first ones are the book for modern C++ by Scott Meyers (Effective Modern C++: 42 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of C++11 and C++14), and the book for Python by Mark Lutz (Learning Python). You can find them online but I find it better to have them on my hands. The C++ book is available in portuguese, but the Python one, only in english for the most updated edition (and over a 1500 pages... Ok, better have it as ebook).

When I'm tired of reading, there are these two YouTube channels I follow:

• The Cherno
• Bisqwit

The Cherno has a playlist for C++ and Game Engine creation. I'll basically follow his instructions and adapt it to my goal of building a visualization tool before the game engine. And Bisqwit has videos about programming many sort of things, yet related to my interests in maintaining this blog, which are rendering and C++. Some other subjects as compilers, games cracking, and emulators are curious to me. For now I'm not going to dive into these ones, or I'll loose focus.

Any other relevant channel, book, or paper I find will be credited as well.

See you soon!