Well, last semester I wrote a raytracer for class. Now I'm currently adapting it to other projects this semester, and working on it to be fast enough to become the default renderer in GameLib.
It's amazing how much a month of neglect of code brings out all the flaws. Rested mind, I easily found spots where the logic was questionable - and impossible to enter if statements. And all that in the core ray-shooting code.
Right now I'm adding amortized rays, and removing bad code. The program is somewhat faster - from 0.8fps -> 1.8fps max on a 256x256 texture. I had hoped for more than just a single fps gain - so will revisit the code next week to improve subdivisions.
The implementation from last semester used Altivec to amortize rays - the problem being that if rays diverged paths then a lot of useless calculations would be done (the higher the resolution, the better the benefit, or so is the bet).
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Review of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Apart from scaring the person at the counter in the electronics department at the local grocer as I bought the game the day it came out; I've been quite pleased with the latest installment in the series.
Compared to Advance Wars DS and Advance Wars 2, this game seems even easier. I have managed to get through the first dozen levels with mostly S-ranks all over the place. The AI doesn't seem to defend their home base making capturing it a much more trivial affair (my favorite strategy involves a dozen War Tanks surrounding the enemy base while it's being captured). For example, the first level with boats, the AI moved all of its forces to attack my tank leaving its base free (about 3 moves away) - long enough to load up a lander (moving with 3 decoy ships that couldn't attack - they were destroyed, the lander survived) and they had enough time to dock and capture the enemy's HQ. In a subsequent level, the HQ was defended by missiles (the things only useful against air units) - again, with a lander (boats carrying units) it was trivial to bring two tanks to hold off the attack and a motorcycle to take care of the HQ.
The audio is good, but the music for certain COs feels like noise - but it doesn't feel out of place either. Actually, put on headphones, it sounds less like noise.
The graphics are much better - except for the wooden areas which look more like grass. But given this game's strength is not graphics (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 looks much better); I don't really care as much.
The battles scenes are nice, but feel slower. For example, in DS they would be zoomed in or out then attack. In Days of Ruin, opposing forces appear on a different screen - the first attacks, while the second waits for the bombs to arrive.
The story within the campaign is good, and easy to get into. The amount of text to read to follow the story can seem tedious, so if you lose hit start to skip all the text. (something I've noticed with Intelligent System's games as I've been recently playing Fire Emblem for Wii - where they go to a point of mocking that fact in Paper Mario).
Downloading maps and uploading them was very easy. Too easy some could say. I have yet to see if playing against random opponents compares to playing against the AI (this is primarily a game I play on the bus)
The gameplay is standard Advance Wars fare. Some units found a new name, and some now can do more. Also, CO powers a not to be found in the first 17 or so levels in the campaign - meaning you can't rely on a CO power to save the day - which is a good thing in my opinion. The motorcycle units are extremely useful and remove the need for the transport/mech combination used to initially capture properties.
In the end, I'm really enjoying this game - except for the fact that I haven't sumbled onto an overly difficult level yet (still have hopes that one will slow me down).
Compared to Advance Wars DS and Advance Wars 2, this game seems even easier. I have managed to get through the first dozen levels with mostly S-ranks all over the place. The AI doesn't seem to defend their home base making capturing it a much more trivial affair (my favorite strategy involves a dozen War Tanks surrounding the enemy base while it's being captured). For example, the first level with boats, the AI moved all of its forces to attack my tank leaving its base free (about 3 moves away) - long enough to load up a lander (moving with 3 decoy ships that couldn't attack - they were destroyed, the lander survived) and they had enough time to dock and capture the enemy's HQ. In a subsequent level, the HQ was defended by missiles (the things only useful against air units) - again, with a lander (boats carrying units) it was trivial to bring two tanks to hold off the attack and a motorcycle to take care of the HQ.
The audio is good, but the music for certain COs feels like noise - but it doesn't feel out of place either. Actually, put on headphones, it sounds less like noise.
The graphics are much better - except for the wooden areas which look more like grass. But given this game's strength is not graphics (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 looks much better); I don't really care as much.
The battles scenes are nice, but feel slower. For example, in DS they would be zoomed in or out then attack. In Days of Ruin, opposing forces appear on a different screen - the first attacks, while the second waits for the bombs to arrive.
The story within the campaign is good, and easy to get into. The amount of text to read to follow the story can seem tedious, so if you lose hit start to skip all the text. (something I've noticed with Intelligent System's games as I've been recently playing Fire Emblem for Wii - where they go to a point of mocking that fact in Paper Mario).
Downloading maps and uploading them was very easy. Too easy some could say. I have yet to see if playing against random opponents compares to playing against the AI (this is primarily a game I play on the bus)
The gameplay is standard Advance Wars fare. Some units found a new name, and some now can do more. Also, CO powers a not to be found in the first 17 or so levels in the campaign - meaning you can't rely on a CO power to save the day - which is a good thing in my opinion. The motorcycle units are extremely useful and remove the need for the transport/mech combination used to initially capture properties.
In the end, I'm really enjoying this game - except for the fact that I haven't sumbled onto an overly difficult level yet (still have hopes that one will slow me down).
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