Author Archives: Tape_Worm

You’re so primitive.

So, I’m moving to a new place tomorrow and work on Gorgon v2 is going to halt for a bit until I get my life back in order.  In the meantime, here’s a screenshot of the primitives (rectangles, lines, etc…) that have been making me insane (click it to see a larger version):

You can see the line (barely, I know, you can see it when it’s running for sure) and the rectangle, but I’ve gotten ellipses to work as well. Now, what’s the big deal you ask? (You are asking that, I demand it). And I’ll tell you.  Unlike the previous incarnation where the primitives were generated one pixel at a time (very inefficient), this time it’s using polygons to generate the primitives. So a line is using the line drawing on the video card, the rectangle and unfilled ellipse are using the line drawing as well and the filled ellipse is using triangles.  So all in all, they’re MUCH faster than the previous version.   For more details click the thingy at the bottom there…

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So, here’s some more proof that I’ve been working on the next version of Gorgon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFO6ZMdV2-A

As per the description on the youtubes:

An example showing the new version of Gorgon.

Currently this is just a simple sprite test using 1024 multi-textured sprites via shaders on Direct3D 11 hardware. It also shows a new feature that’s being planned (but not promising anything) to use the 3D stuff to allow perspective corrected sprites.

This video also shows depth for the sprites by walking a camera into the sprite cloud.

Currently getting about 1200 FPS with this (the selective multi-texturing really slows shit down).

Gorgon the 2nd

Just a quick note to say that I’m still working on the next version of Gorgon.  And it’s going swimmingly.  I got 100,000 textured, alphablended sprites (not animated, just blasting the polygons to the screen, so really, it’s 200,000 triangles ) going at about 30 FPS.  I’m pretty pleased with that.  I’m sure I could do better, but I’m lazy.  Anyway, back to work…

MSAA (Gorgon v2.x – Dorian)

So, to prove that I actually do work on stuff, I’ve uploaded a new video to the youtubes.  This one shows off the ability to use MSAA in the new version of Gorgon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhqrL3iVjDU

To get this effect, in v1.x of Gorgon, you’d draw a series of fading sprites (Alpha of 0 from the start position to an Alpha of 255 for the current position).  However, in this example I’ve used MSAA to simulate motion blur on a sprite.  Nifty eh?  On top of the nifty effect we also get full screen anti-aliasing, which is something the previous incarnation of Gorgon didn’t have.

Before you ask: no, motion blur will not be included as a function of the library, that’ll be up to the developer to implement.

The future.

I recently played around with my own library (see an earlier post about the sun effect) and I found it… well, lacking.  In my day job I do a lot of framework/library code for re-use amongst my co-workers and I’ve learned a great deal over the last few years of doing that professionally.  There’s a huge difference between writing a database/application framework and a graphics library, but, I’ve always been amazed how concepts from one architecture will map to another and as I developed Gorgon in my own time, I ported concepts to the framework code I write for my job and vice versa.  One major difference is that our framework code at the office is always evolving from project to project (granted, the pace of evolution has slowed somewhat), while Gorgon was written, and aside from bug-fixes, it never evolved because I never really used it except to prototype small things from time to time.  Until I wrote the Sun thingy….

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Issue… where’s my tissue?

I became aware of an issue with the FromStream method on the Image object a few days after I posted the new installer.  It’s been corrected and put in the SVN repository.

Please note that it is not included in the 1.1.4119.34319 installer, and won’t be until I release a new version.  Sorry about that, but I’m a busy boy these days.

New version of Gorgon – 1.1.4119.34319

Yep, finally.  I’ve rolled up all the updates/fixes that were in the subversion repository and put up a new version of Gorgon.  Version 1.1.4119.34319 is the latest version and you can get it from here.  You can view the change log in this forum post.

Enjoy.

Facebook

So, I’ve started to transition some things over to Facebook.  This may not go over too well for some people, but life is hard, you’ll get used to it.

I’ve moved the screen shots over to it, and ported the important parts of the wiki to the notes section.

It’s not a replacement for the site as a whole, but for parts of it, it makes sense.  The forums will stay in place, and the main page will stay in place as well, but the Wiki and the screen shots section are gone over to Facebook.

You may now commence with the “I HATES TEH FACEBOK PEAGES!!!” commentary…

 

Sun

So, I bet you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to lately…  You haven’t?   You selfish bastard.

 

Anyhow, I’ve gotten around to playing with this library I wrote for a bit.  I do so little programming on my own time these days and honestly, I never much cared for Gorgon (I felt it could have been better), that I haven’t bothered to try and write anything with it. That my users actually say it’s useful and well written comes as a complete shock to me. Anyway, this last week I mustered up some spare time and I created this abomination:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqPGa6P52LM

It’s not much, but it’s just a little thing I threw together to see if I could get a “bloom” type effect with a star.  I did.  And there it is.  Note how the surface of the star moves around and all that.  Neat hey?  No?  Shut up.

 

I’ve limited it to 60 FPS on purpose, but it is fairly swift.  I think at one point I was getting > 1000 FPS.  However, my vidja card is quite beefy, so take that with a grain of salt.  So… yeah…. that’s all I have to say.

Enjoy.

Spam bots

I’ve noticed a significant increase in spam bot registrations over the last few days. I’ve purged the accounts that I believe are bots, and added another step to the user registration to weed these bastards out.

If your account has been removed, and you’re a legitimate user, post a comment on this post and I’ll do what I can (or you can attempt to make another account).

Sorry for the inconvenience, but until we’re allowed to hunt down the people who make bots in a blood sport, this will have to do.

Kids… take my advice… don’t grow up

I’m sure people think Gorgon is dead.  Well, it’s not dead, but certainly not active either.  I’m pretty much done with writing for it (bugs being an exception).  If you’re interested in helping maintain it, please let me know via the forums.  My day job and my social life (which I’d neglected for too long) are a priority right now and I have very little motivation (or time)  to write anything related to Gorgon (or anything else).

That said, I do check the forums every day (at least twice a day).  So if you have a bug, or need a question answered, I will try to help.  Again, because of my “schedule” I may be a bit late in the replies (although ShadowDust702 has been doing a fine job of answering questions while I’m out drinki… er.. working).

Speaking of forums, forum member Cycor posted some code to convert GIF animations into Gorgon sprite animations.  You can view the code here (sorry for the late acknowledgment).