Update on next tutorial/example

Here's an update on what I have planned next.

I wanted to jump right into shadows next, but I realized that there's a few prerequisites before we get to that. One of those is rendering to a framebuffer/texture, and another is getting a depth map from another camera. So, next up is handling both of those. In addition, cube maps would be needed to handle shadows from point lights, so that's another topic to add.

However, my job is going to be picking up soon, and these require a lot of changes to the existing code that would take a lot of time to make as another tutorial in the series. Like before, I'm considering doing examples instead of tutorials here on out, so we can cover more topics in less time. The examples would still break down the new stuff, but they won't follow the process of adding it to the previous topic's project files.

Here the TV screen is showing the view from a second camera (the second camera is at the arrow)

Here it is rendering the depth information from the other camera

Progress Update

It's been a while, and I want to fill everyone in on what/when the next tutorial will be. This weekend is the first time I haven't had a million other projects I should be doing, so I was able to make some real progress.

The next tutorial is going to be broken into two parts (for length's sake, but Part 1 will be useful on its own). 

The first part will handle loading more complex OBJ files, and loading materials from MTL files. The OBJ loader we already had only works on really, really simple OBJ files, and it won't cut it for loading most models with texture maps.

The second part will put this to better use by adding some simple lighting to the project.


Expect the whole thing before the end of the month. After the next tutorial, I plan on making a model viewer example to show what can be done.

Tutorial Files Now Available on Github!

The project files from the first 5 OpenTK tutorials are now on GitHub. I've been commenting them with excerpts from the tutorials where I can, which should help people follow along. The code could use a bit of cleanup, but all the required code is there and tested.

This format has a few advantages for me. It's easy to upload to (and unlike file hosts, is accessible possible to upload to from my university without a VPN) and filters out files that don't need to be uploaded. It also means that if there's something that needs correcting, it's possible for someone else to submit the fix (and get credit for it!) without much work on my part. If anyone sends a pull request/issue that improves the tutorial content, I'll modify the tutorial here to match the new changes.

Sorry for the Delay

I'd like to apologize for how long it's taken to get the last part of the newest tutorial up. My eternal excuse is that I'm busy with work, which is true (but it's always true, welcome to life), but I don't want to put it off much longer. If I can't get a real break soon, I'll probably just make a more barebones version that has all the code, but much less commentary.

Minor tutorial update

Since OpenTK 1.1 is officially out now, the tutorials have been updated to use it. There's a minor change to the Program class in all of them, which is required for them to run (thanks to an anonymous commenter for pointing it out). Other than that, Tutorial 5 is the only one with major changes, which make it no longer reliant on System.Windows.Forms, instead using the new OpenTK.Input classes.

Good news!

Small update here, but I figure some good news is definitely better than no news.
 
OpenTK 1.1 will be released later this week. It includes a lot of fixes and a lot of changes, so my first priority will be to update the old tutorials to use it. A commenter pointed out that none of the code will work without changes, due to something that was modified in how GameWindows work. Even the newest one needs some fixes (the OpenTK.Input classes completely change how we'll want to handle input), but it should be a very short process.

Navigation changes

Quick update here, changed the blog navigation (at the top) to make things a little nicer. There's a list of all the tutorials so you won't have to search anymore (it'll end up being a bigger issue as time goes on), a downloads page for older tutorials (content being uploaded as fast as I can) and a list of expected future tutorials too. I'm still really busy with work right now, but the next tutorial will get hopefully not take too much longer to be finished.

My New Year's Resolutions

It's that time of year, so I'm going to set some goals for the near future. I've been really busy with work lately, but I'd like to post more content here:

Keldian: The Outbound Campaign

   There's a band I'm a big fan of that I'd like to give a shoutout to here. Keldian is a fantastic melodic sci-fi metal group from Norway. They love to make music (and it shows), but with the high quality they consistently put out, albums are expensive to make. They've been working on a new studio for recording, but that cost money, postponing the newest album to make future albums easier and less expensive to produce. So now they're turning to their fans for help. They're doing a crowdfunding project to help get the drums and mastering for the new tracks done as soon as possible, while also making limited edition copies of the CD for backers. I was able to donate, but I'd like to help even more (so I'm spreading the word). If you have the time, please go check them out.

indiegogo - Keldian: OUTBOUND

The Keldian Blogspot - The Outbound Campaign

Dwarfpunch Mapper is now at 0.5.5!

Download available on Bitbucket (it's only 0.5.5, so it's not exactly perfect, just working)

   Dwarfpunch Mapper has been progressing nicely. Thanks to the documentation on his process kabookie was able to give me, I had a functional version up and running within a few days. However, it was actually quite lacking in the interface department. It was purely functional for a very basic version of the program. Now we're looking at this:

   Now users can toggle various layers on and off as we add more to the program. Some people on /r/dwarffortress were asking about glacier/tundra areas being visible as ice. 

   Since Dwarf Fortress has this "biome" output option, it's actually really easy to do something like this in a future version. Of course, it's going to be completely optional so you don't need to have ice and deserts if you don't want to.

  This version also started filling in the settings dialog, with some options for color added to the previously lonely image scale setting. This was originally meant to help testing, but it actually can make some kind of interesting fantasy landscapes possible:

   The top priorities now are getting the output more refined (matching the original Photoshop script more), replacing more of the hard-coded values with settings, and finding out what other layers can be added to the map, in that order.