So I’m sick. I’ve been sick since August and coming back to Hull I got even sicker. The problem is that it’s no more than a common cold, although I had flu this weekend. On top of this, despite only having a week’s worth of classes, I’m slightly behind on work.

Now let me tell you an interesting story. I have never programmed a music visualizer, or done any real sound engineering. So doing a music visualizer as my 3rd year is probably the smartest thing I could probably do. But that’s not the point. When starting off my research I decided to look for FFT libraries in C# that would help me build this thing, and I found a few, and figured “I’ll keep these saved until later once I get closer the the year starting” (This was around July). Upon coming back and doing more research, I find out that the libraries are old and will not do the task.

From there I looked at more common audio libraries like FMOD. New problem; not in C#.

And then, like a fucking fish in the face; during one of my lectures last week, the lecturer mentions that OpenTK (OpenGL wrapper for C# and the graphics library PlayStation Mobile uses) has a bunch of audio tools as an add on from OpenAL (The audio library stuff from old OpenGL – 1.1-ish). So here I am, stunned, that the thing I wanted to get was right there in front of me this whole fucking time, and I wasted several days of my life looking for shit I already had.

Fuck this shit sometimes.

Anyway, my first week was alright. Even if I am down with the sickness.

OOOO-WA-AH-AH-AH!

In completely unrelated news, this laptop I’ve had for about a year is apparently a toaster. Opening up multiple Chrome tabs seems to push the CPU towards the highend, and most 3D games released 8 years ago struggle to get an ideal framerate on this thing. Even low-end Unity games have issues. So I ordered an ITX PC. I should have it within a week or so, but there might be a problem with the order.

Anyway, see you later.

-Adam

As I thought would happen, I’m going to have to do two resits later in August. I’m not surprised, I’ll just have to manage my time better.

In terms of projects, there’s two I’m working on. One is a music visualizer, which I’m doing for my dissertation next year, and the other is a instant messaging program that doesn’t suck. For the former, I’m currently in the process of getting my head around FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) which I’m using to get the frequency of sound every 20ms or so, and then producing that as an image on screen. I haven’t done much in the way of note taking so far, but I have found a library for it which I might use to save time on development.

As for the instant messaging program, I’m more or less doing it as a test for more networking stuff. I never got my head around it as much as I would have wanted, so I figured doing more stuff on it would help. I’m still figuring how much stuff I want to put into it for the prototype. I’ll definitely give an update later on once I start making some more progress. The more worrying thing about it at the moment which I haven’t looked into is security. That should be fun.

In terms of other things, I’m working my way through my Gaming Backlog. Currently jumping between Deus Ex Human Revolution DX, Yakuza 3, and Ni No Kuni. Although recently Tabletop Simulator became available, and I’ve been looking forward to trying that for a while. Somewhat related, I bought a 144Hz monitor, and it is fucking sweet. Everything is super smooth now. I might boot up Quake Live and see if it makes a difference.

I also played some stuff on my PS4, so I might give some impressions on that console at some point, along with the WiiU which I promised to do ages ago.

On a sadder note, MGC is shutting down. I will probably archive the History of MPU stuff on this site. The podcast will stay up though, but I’ll rename it with MoA stuff in mind. The Steam group is also unaffected.

It’s a very sad thing to close down something that a long line of people have kept alive over the years, and it was fucking awesome talking to every one from MPU, and helping start MGC. I wasn’t there for MPC, but everything about it sounded great, and speaking to the people who have stuck around since that time gave me a lot of perspective on the whole thing. But everything must come to an end.

That’s it for now. See you when I see you.

-Adam

It really has been a while since my last post. Fuck it, I’ll stop taking notice.

So yeah, I’m done with my exams and coursework for this year. It’s been tough. Last couple of weeks before the exams were a nightmare. Partly my fault though, I spent far too long trying to get my 3D coursework working that I neglected my other work. Unfortunately, I’m probably going to have to do a resit for at least one thing. That being Advanced Programming, which mostly consists of C++ work, which I had barely used until I decided to start my coursework. So yeah, that was great. If all goes well though, I should get my shit together properly for next year. I’m taking all my stuff back this Summer, so I’ll have less distractions.

I FINALLY MADE SOMETHING OF SOME POSSIBLE USE. I made a Magic Eight Ball program, which depending on what kind of life you live; may become useful. Personally, I’ve been using it to decide on what food to order.

I might have mentioned this before, but you should listen to The Pillows. They’re a really awesome Japanese rock band. I spent quite a bit of money getting a few of their albums. I’d embed an example, but my WordPress stuff is kinda fucked up right now. I’m probably going to rebuild it in the next few weeks after I get back home.

So about the Summer. Basically my plan, like last year, it is try and periodically make blog updates about things I’m working on. This year should actually work out seeing as I have coursework to do, but also have a good idea of software I want to make. So hopefully you’ll get something on that. Hopefully.

That’ll probably do it for now. I’ll make a games and anime focused post later next week or something. Also, E3 is happening, so look forward to that I guess.

Later.

-Adam

University life continues.  Exams have been out of the way for a while now, although I’ve never cared much about the results of those, seeing as I care more about what I’m learning versus some arbitrary number grade. But anyway, the second semester started and I’m looking more into networking, 3D graphics, and a continuation of AI. Prolog isn’t proving to be that bad yet, understanding recursion is probably the most difficult part, but once you’re past that, it’s relatively understandable. At least so far.

As for networking, understanding the theory of how that works is really interesting, learning a lot of the protocols, systems, and whatnot that we all take for granted. However the implementation networking through C# code has not been easy. I’ve had to ask for help from a friend of mine on multiple occasions. This is partly due to the pretty hideous layout of the coursework specification and non-explanation of what the fuck I am doing. Finally 3D graphics is OK. That one is sort of on the back-burner because of the networking coursework.

So how have I been? OK I guess. I really need to exercise more, and I was pretty sick a week or so ago. Actually oddly enough, I had a pretty awful nosebleed Thursday last week. Blew my nose after waking up and my hands were covered in blood. Not great.

As for things I’m working on… Well I guess I should write up my impressions of the WiiU at some point. I’m also working on a novel with a friend, it’s still early on that. And these days I’m playing “Bravely Default”, “Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc”, and a copy of “YS: Memories of Celceta” turned up this morning. I also had a good crack at the “Titanfall Beta”. It was fun.

Sorry about the 2-3 month gap, I honestly forgot about it and had quite a lot of stuff to do. Till next time I guess.

-Adam