X files rendering

After a week wrestling with DX 9 again I got an x file to render. When I tried this last Christmas it wouldn't render for the world of me. Apparently the tutorial in the DX sdk are a bit out of date. When I started looking at the function calls involved I found that I wasn't supplying everything. It now renders although I have minor camera problem with the rendering so thats the next step to figure out.
Remeber in the following screenshot light is on in the first and off in the second to show that textures are also working:

Resurrection

Today we finished the team project which this time has an installer so you all can try it out at home.
Do read the readme though as this installer needs to install OpenAll first if it isn't present on the machine and if it has to you need to run it again to install the game.
Link is here. And link for the redistributable msvcrt.dll is here. Copy the contents of the folder in the second zip over to the installation directory.

AI

I finally found the bug in my AI ACW last night after 3 solid days of working on it, as I fixed it I am now at a winning rate of 5/5 for no, 1 and 2 ghost 4/5 for 3 ghost and now testing 4 ghosts. At least is can win now it didn't do that for the last couple of days.
The first version I had could complete the no ghost one, but the next versions couldn't even do that. And i think i still have a minor bug in the path finding when it can't find a path with a value now it always goes to the left bottom corner instead of searching the full grid to see if it can find a path with a dot in it. I also think I need to decrease the value for the bonus when there aren't that many dots left. It will now almost always go for the bonus. I definitely have a problem in the full search as you can see from a the screen shots.
Ah well here is a screen shot:

Applying

Today I applied for a job at Bizarre Creations and Blackrock Studios (formerly Climax). Now it's hope and wait until I get an answer. Later this week I will also be applying at Rebellion, Codemasters, Ninja Theory(although they dont have an opening they do however understand the importance of cake) and Frontier.
Tomorrow I have to go to a Game Republic event and a showcase in the morning. I have to go to this showcase because my professor couldn't find any volunteers to go. So he figured while Sam and me have to be at the event in the evening anyway why not make them go, Sam is a fellow student who like me has gotten a Game Republic Bursary. The showcase isn't all bad luckily there are cash prizes involved for the winners and it's a good way to show game studios that are there what you can do. Lets see if I can do some shameless self promotion there and score some interviews with some other companies.

On a side note I finally handed in my Shaders project for some more screenshots go to this website. And go to the shaders thing, as of now that are the only screens online later this week I'll put some more up that so the final product.

Portofolio, Family Visits

Well today and yesterday i have been working on my portfolio site, which is now almost done and the link to it can be found on the right.
From tomorrow on till 25th of March I will finally be having a bit of vacation as my Mother and brother are coming over from NL. This semester is even worse than last one as they have given us so much todo and not enough time to do it in. Well at least i got my Shaders almost done and Physics is coming along nicely as well.

Shaders Continued

I changed the shader i showed you yesterday into looking a bit more realistic. This is done by actually texturing the terrain with its approriate texture instead of assigning colors to heights, although that approach is still used for the water color. I also added a transparent reflection map for the water implemented as a pixel shader, i later still wish to add refraction to it so it looks more realistic. Here is a current screen shot:

Birthday and Shaders

So last Friday i held my birthday party here at Cranbrook Avenue, it actually turned out to be a better party than i had expected. I got so drunk that i cant even remember the last part of the evening, its all a blur now. And to finish the birthday we went to a metal club last night, which is always good as the drinks there are cheap.

On another note i have been doing a bit of shader programming and here is a screen shot of a procedurally colored terrain: