Obligatory New Years Post and Stuff and Things

A happy (day late) New Year to everyone out there!  I haven't posted in more than a month because of finals, and I'm lazy, and I'm lazy.  But hey.

I made a few resolutions that are really open ended and stuff so I'm sure to at least make progress on them.  A couple concrete ones have been made, but there's no real reason to share what they are (also, this).  Also, I got a Kinect for Christmas, and Dance Central 3 is awesome.  Just sayin'.

Also also I got a gift card to Guitar Center from some of my friends, which is rather fortuitous (and they totally just knew this, I didn't say a word to any of them.  nope.  not even one.) since I've been in need of a new electric!  Super good times.

Moving along, I haven't done much cool stuff with any of my projects this break.  I kind of started on a level generator that had a couple rough spots, such as it deciding that when it generated sand, it would actually put water there.  It was kind of stupid, but I put it in its place.  *puts whip away*

I also started working on a script to pull apart dance videos and generate wireframe models of them to make some stuff easier.  It's not going so well because image analysis algorithms are pretty crazy.  But we'll see where that goes.

Now, I can't just leave my dear readers with nothing but vague updates on this post.  So I'd like to take a couple minutes (just sit right there) and I'll share a couple pieces of technology that have made me want to punch babies this break.

Ogre 3D

Ogre3D is a 3D graphics engine primarily made for C++, though wrappers have been made for other languages such as Python.  It's been used for a lot of games, including the Torchlight series, Pacific Storm, and others (here's a list that I'm sure isn't comprehensive).  So it's obviously pretty useful.

What's wrong with it then?  Well, the introductory tutorial is was inconsistent yesterday...it uh...it seems to be fixed today.  That...welp.  I'll try it again when I get home and see if it's still wonky.

Anyway, it tells you to download a zip file that has four files: BaseApplication.cpp, BaseApplication.h, TutorialApplication.cpp, and TutorialApplication.h.  They're to be used so you can just get all the compiling and stuff done with a very basic project, which is fine.  The problem I had was that the same page with the download was under the impression that the zip file had a whole different set of files, in a marvelous subdirectory structure of ./include, ./res, and ./src.  The four files I downloaded were just kinda there, splayed out in their glory.

This annoying page also said some .cfg files had to be moved from the OgreSDK directory itself, which is fine, but it didn't mention the .dlls that also needed moved.  And THEN the .cfg files, which were basically lists of resource locations, were all based on the SDK directory and had nothing to do with the project structure that it had the user set up.  At this point I got so frustrated (partly due to working in Windows, I kind of use bash scripting religiously now) I just played more KotOR, because I decided to run through it for old time's sake.  Fuck kath hounds.

Ubuntu's Unity

Unity is a desktop shell (or something, I'm bad at UI terms) that aims to bring a more innovative user experience to the forefront of "easy Linux", Ubuntu.  I'd say "read the picture", but it's about as unintuitive as Unity itself.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Ubuntu.  I've had every computer I've owned dual-boot it since freshman year of high school because it's easy to install, has always looked pretty, and it comes with a lot of stuff so I don't have to sit around running "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install only-getting-used-once" for absolutely everything ever.  It IS easy Linux, and I am okay with that.  If I need something lighter, I have Crunchbang on my laptop as well.  It still doesn't run Dota 2, so I'll need to wait for that before I can just never use Windows again.  

Even so, I can not get used to Unity.  You can't move the launcher dock.  You can hide it, but that's worse than the old GNOME option of putting it on a panel.  The lack of panels forces you to relegate your shortcuts to the desktop or deal with the incredibly obnoxious Unity launcher.  That, or you can enjoy searching for your desired program every time you need to run it.  Sure, there's Alt+F2, but it's hard to beat the "point-click" simplicity, especially if you're not a frequent Unix-er.  It's also bloated and alt-tabbing takes noticeably longer with Unity than it ever did previously.

So instead of dealing with it for the rest of the work day until I get home to put a new distro on this guy, I downloaded Gnome 3, which basically does what Unity was trying to do, but it's so much...better.  Rather than the pervasive launcher that makes you carefully edge your mouse to that thing you need to click on the left of the screen, you get an Overview that pops up when you mouse to the top-left corner and shows you...pretty much everything you might need.  Your current workspace windows, your Favorites launcher, windows on other workspaces, a notification space at the bottom-right, probably some other things I'm missing.  

But anyway.  Rant has gone on long enough.  Long story short, if you decide to get Ubuntu and don't like Unity (if you do, that's fine, I personally just can't stand it), try Gnome 3 before discounting Ubuntu for good.  It's reeeeeeally pretty.

I should have some actual updates on projects next time.  Until then, my readers!