ricardocabellov5.5

Status:
17 days left until Inspire08
Music

No progress today :(

Now that we have the technology, it was about time to upload that 500Mb+ video to Google Video. So if you feel like watching a chair riot you can watch it now with ease ;)

Status:
18 days left until Inspire08
Music

Tried to compose something today but I didn't get too far :( I really need to get used to Aldrin, in the same time I've spent trying to get something listen able I would have finished a tune with Reason already. It also crashes from time to time, specially when importing sounds from freesound. Patience...

Status:
19 days left until Inspire08
OGG playback with Java?

OK, I've spent all night trying to play some music, I've tried with everything, but all seemed too complex for my novice level. Checked a lot of source codes from applications that used JOrbis, but there was no luck. When I was almost thinking of leaving it for another day I found Kevin Glass' EasyOGG which was easy to setup and will do the job until I get to the synchronisation part.

So... finally!! .OGG playback!!

I'm using Paniq's Saturday Bam as placeholder.

Also, now I'm also hosting some of the .jar that was downloading from sun before. Seems to work.

Some people asked regarding the MacOS issue on my previous post. Well, basically the problem was my hosting and how I have the .htaccess file setup. Seems like, on the MacOS version of the Virtual Machine (hello Apple), the applet launcher needs to download something and before downloading from somewhere else, it checks if the file its already in the hosting, and as my .htaccess forwards all the 404 to index page the Java client was getting html stuff instead of a 404 and it was getting stuck. I don't know what tries to download because Charles doesn't sniff those connections, neither I found any information regarding that on the iterweb. So, got rid of the 404 rule on the .htaccess and it worked.

Anyway... 8.48am, time to sleep :S

Status:
20 days left until Inspire08
Changing plans.

Processing+OpenGL+Eclipse+Linux seemed to be something too hard for me, compiling and handling everything, seemed a bit of waste of time. So, now that I'm already messing with Eclipse, I think it's about time to face the inevitable. I've been developing in Actionscript for years, and I've trying to get the best out of it, so, time to move to Java I guess, leaving Processing on the path.

So, checked with sole just to see if I was mad or what, and she quickly found me a tutorial to move with ease. Everything compiled easier and, in fact, the syntax was very easy to understand for my Actionscript3 background. So, today that I had more free time I spent a bit learning Java, OpenGL and testing effects to see the possibilities. And guess what?! There is not just screenshots today but also some working tests ready to run from the browser :D Well, seems to have some compatibility issues at the moment (doesn't work on MacOS), I'll handle that whenever I feel like ;)

The big mess cube (named by Theo)



The race of poligons



Those are just quick tests for fun, I don't think they'll made the final prod. But hey, there is finally something moving, now I better find the way of loading images and audio!! The VVVV system won't happen for this prod I guess.

Oh!! There is a bonus pic today too, just to prove that I'm doing all this with Ubuntu+Eclipse, here it's a snapshot (you can see the shitty code that creates the race of poligons effect btw):



EDIT: Just took 4 (stoopid) hours to "debug", but now the tests also work on MacOS. =_=U

Status:
21 days left until Inspire08
Setting up the code framework and additional tools.

I was able to sketch some ideas for effects using basic resources on a pad on the tube this morning. But honestly, apart from that, 0 progress. Real life™ won today.

Status:
22 days left until Inspire08
Setting up the code framework and additional tools.

More setting up. Today Aldrin, which was actually quite easy to set up (although the package was first corrupted but after a quick notification on the irc channel it got quickly fixed).

As it says on this page it was a matter of doing this:

How to use:
Add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list to enable the repository and refresh.

deb http://www.pohunek.free.fr/aldrin-nightly-builds/ubuntu/gutsy/ binary/

The repository is for 7.10, but worked fine with 8.04. This is how the app looks like (it's basically like Jeskola's Buzz):



Definitely a good Reason alternative o/

EDIT: Just to detail a bit on the install part, you have to put that line at the end of that sources.list file, then go to Synaptic package installer, search for Aldrin, and select it for install, and install :)

http://oxb.untergrund.net/music.html

Via.

Status:
23 days left until Inspire08
Setting up the code framework and additional tools.

Well, from yesterday's list... I mainly managed to setup the framework to use OpenGL (so size(800,500,OPENGL) works from Eclipse), and was able to draw 100,000 polys, it was a bit slow but the polys were massive, so I guess it's as it's supposed to be.

Then I faced the problem of not being able to actually generate a .jar that worked, then tried to setup it so Processing IDE for compiling and Eclipse for writing code, but again, no easy solution with comfortable work flow. Also tried with this EclipseP5Exporter but no luck (thx to sole for finding it tho). Seems to don't work to well on Linux yet.

I'll try today with Ant as some people seem to have had good results with it.

On the other hand, I still don't know any Open source alternative for Reason yet, so maybe the music will fail on that purpose.

UPDATE: Sole just suggested Paniq's Aldrin as a good Reason alternative. Another thing to test this weekend.

Status:
24 days left until Inspire08
Setting up the code framework and additional tools.

Just after writing the report for day 1, I thought I should setup the framework as soon as possible, so before going to sleep that's what worked on.

I'm also trying to do this pro with as much open source programs as possible. By now, I'm using (and/or planning to use) Ubuntu 8.04, Eclipse, Processing, Inkscape, Blender, ... and for the music, I don't know yet.

First on the list was making the Ubuntu-Eclipse-Processing framework er... work. For doing that I just had to follow this nice tutorial. After a couple of tries I had the setup done but it wasn't compiling yet, found out I had to install sun-java6-jdk from the synaptic repository, but still wasn't working as eclipse was using another VM, which was something more or less easy to fix from somewhere in the properties of the project. And changing the default VM from the console with this also seemed to help (with update-alternatives --config java).

So, this works, compiles and executes, there are some warnings on run time, but doesn't bother me yet, I'll find what's going on later.

Next things on the list will be to load/parse XML files (yeah, I'm still not a fan of hard coding), load/display/modify bitmaps, load/play audio, and, maybe, draw a triangle with OpenGL. So, hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to have the first screenshot :)