Parasol is a very minimalistic tool for helping me quickly test out shaders while learning GLSL. Parasol itself just displays a single window with the utah teapot with settings specified in the config file. It watches three files: a config file, a vertex shader, and a fragment shader and when one of these files changes it will reload the file and apply the changes to the view. I plan on expanding this as I need to while learning. I’ll probably need some way to specify uniform variables for input into the shaders so that may be next. I plan on putting it on github soon.

• Learned how to use blender to create 3D models
• Created a model for the player/robot in Block Composer (You can see it on the right without its texture)
• Wrote (my first) python script to export 3D models out of blender into a custom binary format for Block Composer
• Replaced all hard-coded models in Block Composer with models exported from blender
• Created textures for new models
• Game intro screen is now 3D and rendered using the game engine
• Level selection now shows the levels themselves instead of just the name
• Implemented animation of blocks and player
• Refactored the code base because it was getting ugly
• Spent some time looking into how to play MOD files but it was more work than I had thought

However, I’ve still got some bugs to work out before the next release. I’d like to get a release out by next Saturday.

My current projects and their statuses

• Block Composer is a block pushing puzzle game kind of like a mix between Tetris and Sokoban. This game is currently available in the Android market for free and is fully playable. I do not see much of a future for this game, but there are a few things I’d like to add to it before I stop working on it. What I’d like accomplish this week:
  • Implement animation of blocks and the player
  • Create new player model
  • Create one additional level
• Symbolic Wars is a turn based strategy game. I am a huge fan of Advance Wars and wanted to create something similar but different enough that it wasn’t just a clone. The design of the game has been more challenging than I had originally expected. What I’d like to accomplish this week:
  • Work out how the game will work on paper
  • Add UI for attacking other units
• Joplin Public Library is an Android app for my local library. This can be modified to work with other libraries that use the Horizon Information Portal. I’ve really only spent a few hours on this project and mostly wrote it while procrastinating on other projects, but I think it is worth spending some more time on. What I’d like accomplish this week:
  • Search by scanned barcode
  • Book view activity

#!/usr/bin/ruby

x = `xclip -o`

if x =~ /^[ \t]*https?:\/\/.*/ # Goto web address
	`gnome-open #{x}`
else # Map location
	`gnome-open http://maps.google.com/?q=#{x.gsub(/[ \t\n]+/, '+')}`
end

In order to install the script, copy the script above and save as $HOME/bin/controlshiftz.rb and make it executable. To bind it to a key combination in gnome use the following two commands. By default this will cause control-shift-z to activate the script. You will also need to install the xclip package.

gconftool-2 -s /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/command_1 -t string $HOME/bin/controlshiftz.rb
gconftool-2 -s /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_1 -t string '<Control><Shift>z'

If you extend the script in an interesting way, comment or send me an email about it.