Death is Only a Door
Death is Only a Door (Cloud Atlas OST) by Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil
296 unique view(s)
| Blabberbox: | Random blog-like posts by pftq and his related selves. |  |
God's Image
So many say we're created in God's image, yet act more like the shadow that merely follows. We call Him the Creator, yet so few carry on the work of creating.
206 unique view(s)
Arrival of the Birds
Arrival of the Birds by The Cinematic Orchestra (@TCO_Official)
191 unique view(s)
Octonions
One of the more interesting articles I've read in a while... didn't realize quarternions used in game development had actual significance in physics and there was a step further called octonions. As usual, learning more working on games than I ever did in school.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-peculiar-math-that-could-underlie-the-laws-of-nature/
https://www.wired.com/story/the-peculiar-math-that-could-underlie-the-laws-of-nature/
173 unique view(s)
Happiest Memory
The happiest memory in my life is not one I could ever share with anyone else. Because it isn't a moment from within my real life but instead one from within a dream, a dream that occurred almost ten years ago.
In that dream, I spent my childhood alongside someone who would race me neck-to-neck as we leapt from rooftop to rooftop before eventually taking to the skies. If one of us began to fall, we would catch each other and throw ourselves even higher than before, laughing maniacally as we did. At the end of it all, we would sit atop an abandoned post that towered above the clouds and watch the sun set, not against the Earth, but against the sky itself, the ocean of clouds below reflecting the sun like a mirror.
The sensation of flying is something that would recur throughout my dreams. It felt more natural to me than any movement on the ground. It took effort instead not to float upward and drift away. Usually...[More]
In that dream, I spent my childhood alongside someone who would race me neck-to-neck as we leapt from rooftop to rooftop before eventually taking to the skies. If one of us began to fall, we would catch each other and throw ourselves even higher than before, laughing maniacally as we did. At the end of it all, we would sit atop an abandoned post that towered above the clouds and watch the sun set, not against the Earth, but against the sky itself, the ocean of clouds below reflecting the sun like a mirror.
The sensation of flying is something that would recur throughout my dreams. It felt more natural to me than any movement on the ground. It took effort instead not to float upward and drift away. Usually...[More]
66 unique view(s)
Video Game AI
Just found out the #AI behind Black and White was in fact designed by @demishassabis, co-founder of @DeepMindAI. Too ironic given I often cite #videogames as most influential to my own ideas (incl. Tech Trader and Creating Sentient Artificial Intelligence). Was not expecting it to be so literal.
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177 unique view(s)
Full VR Multiplayer Replication Complete
Ready for rematch. 
A lot of people have constantly tried to convince me multiplayer alone is a hard thing to do and VR in multiplayer is even harder, but I'm not finding that the case so far. If anything, it's a lot of time and attention to detail, but nothing really seems to come across as overwhelming or rocket science. I certainly wouldn't hire someone just to take care of multiplayer networking now that I know what it entails.
If anything the hardest part was just finding out how to connect to another instance of the game in the first place, which was just poorly documented.
After that, it's a lot of figuring out what you need to replicate or not replicate in the course of the game using remote procedural calls. This thread in particular was most helpful: https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/blueprint-visual-scripting/102591-turn-the-first-person-fps-template-to-a-multiplayer-experience
Beyond that, if you want to improve performance, you'll want to run code simultaneously on the user's computer at the same time it is doing a call to the server to run it. The topic itself is called client-side prediction. Still working out the best practices for this, but it's all fine-tuning and optimizing from here.
A lot of people have constantly tried to convince me multiplayer alone is a hard thing to do and VR in multiplayer is even harder, but I'm not finding that the case so far. If anything, it's a lot of time and attention to detail, but nothing really seems to come across as overwhelming or rocket science. I certainly wouldn't hire someone just to take care of multiplayer networking now that I know what it entails.
If anything the hardest part was just finding out how to connect to another instance of the game in the first place, which was just poorly documented.
After that, it's a lot of figuring out what you need to replicate or not replicate in the course of the game using remote procedural calls. This thread in particular was most helpful: https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/blueprint-visual-scripting/102591-turn-the-first-person-fps-template-to-a-multiplayer-experience
Beyond that, if you want to improve performance, you'll want to run code simultaneously on the user's computer at the same time it is doing a call to the server to run it. The topic itself is called client-side prediction. Still working out the best practices for this, but it's all fine-tuning and optimizing from here.
213 unique view(s)
Transfat Ban
Transfat is supposedly banned as of 2018, yet I just saw transfat-free cookies at the store with partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredients. I guess they just banned the name.
199 unique view(s)