|
| |
|
|
|
Graphical Trinkets
One of the major pleasures of programming, and one
that has sustained me through some of the more arduous
stages of my complex projects, is the construction
of simple graphical demos, easily produced, and
satisfying and pleasing in themselves. Many of these
have no function whatsoever; some of them were produced
to test a particular aspect of the graphics engine,
or to give me some experience in using my own or
others libraries. The original function of most
of these programs is, however, now long forgotten,
and only the hundreds of executable files on my
hard disk, some of which I don't dare run, are testement
to their existence. After having spent a an amusinbg
hour trawling through my compiled folder, I have
descided that I have sufficient material to set
up these pages, where I'll attempt to allow you
access to the best demos I've come accross. In many
cases I'm lucky, and all the source code is still
available in its original form; in others, the files
used have been modified, and the program source
code is uncompilable. There are some gems in here
however; check out the original version of the Trooper
II engine, designed to test the levels that I originally
hard-wired as constants into the code, and the first
time I put my new SVGA graphics engine into action,
in the Wizzy demo. There are some quasi-mathematical
models, such as the collision engine and the model
of heat flow (not available yet, but watch this
space), some programs written purely for aesthetics
or amusement, such as the Eyes palette fade
demo, and some relics of past games, such as the
never completed Worms, which was going to
be a puzzle game (nothing to do with venerable team
fighter), a flawed 3D spaceship game, which nevertheless
has a wonderful scrolling star-spangled background
and quite an interesting space ship, and the aforementioned
version of Trooper II, which offers some insights
into which parts of the game are most deeply wound
into the engine. Also worth a look are the MandelBrot
generators, that are not quite as sophisticated
as the Delphi versions, but sure run a bit faster,
and the simulation of Richard Dawkins' biomorphs
experiment, where the user is allowed to select
randomly bred computer generated creatures, and
so natural selection should occur to those that
are most aesthetically pleasing. Finally, make sure
you check out the Mandelbrot animation in DirectX,
which is simply mindblowing, and was very easy to
construct. I've had a lot of fun digging all this
stuff out of the recesses of my hard disk, and it
would be a real shame if I forgot about it, so I
hope you enjoy the programs, and maybe someone out
there might even find the code contained within
instructive. Most of these demos do give a pretty
good example of how my engines are supposed to be
used, so if you're stuck for inspiration, feel free
to manipulate them how you wish. Each individual
demo is listed in the sublinks box to the left;
each has a short page with descripting, instructions
for use, a screenshot and download links. Hope you
like them - Jon |
|
|
| |
|
About
me
