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- The Ultimate 3D Coding Tutorial (C) Ica /Hubris 1996,1997,1998
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8. Utterly Important Crap

This part was made during Idlation '88 Hubris meeting which was held 18th - 21th December, 1998 - see the invitation intro here. My head aches of smoking a huge cigar in a closed room and of coding 3d. I'm getting weird ideas like this one and I honestly feel like sitting in the corner.

Chapter 8.5 added at the Abscence Hubris meeting in May 1999.


Figure 8.1: Chapters 8.1 and 8.2 implemented

8.1 An Effective Algorithm for Generating Torus Objects

Here at Idlation '88 Martti (nimi muutettu) came up with an idea how to generate torus-like objects: simply sin(3b*5xt/sqrt(log(rand(4)+5.3z*y))-e^4(32-f5*cos(tan(sin(cos(b)-2))))^(-1)). You can define the variables as you wish, it won't make sense in any case. An effective optimization trick (you won't notice any difference in the result) is to use rand(). Pseudo:
[generate vertices] ; here we generate the vertices
[use them]          ; here we use them
A working scheme example:
(define (make-vertex x y z)
  (list 'vertex x y z))

(define (get-coor)
  (- (random 100) 50))

(define (make-torus vertices)
  (if (<= vertices 0) '()
      (cons (make-vertex (get-coor)
                         (get-coor)
                         (get-coor))
            (make-torus (- vertices 1)))))

(define (get-face vertices)
  (list 'face (random vertices) (random vertices) (random vertices)))

; example:
(make-torus 10)
(get-face 10)

Please notice the flexibility and usability of Scheme for this particular purpose.

8.2 Phong Illumination Model Using Gamma Approximation and Evenly Hashed Gaussian Distribution not Forgetting LaRusse Fireclouds

As you all know, real Phong shading is far too costly to perform in realtime, so we need to find a good approximation function.  Our calculations have proved that any random number from 3.27 to 15.1+3i filtered with evenly hashed Gaussian Distribution and dropped through a bunch of LaRusse Fireclouds brings a good approximation which can be compared to gouraud shading (ok, you can compare anything to anything). Unfortunately, the operation takes 10 times more time than calculating real phong but hey, that's the cost!

8.3 Coding Tips by our Graphician

1. The most important thing to have is an online-tutorial. We recommend a good irc-client and that you should get to know someone who unlike you really knows about coding. Then you can ask anything until he/she gets bored and you have to find a new friend. Remember to use a fake name so you won't get  more llama-points than you already have.

2. Don't upset the voodoo-gods. If you upset them, you're code won't work no matter what you do.  Please read chapter 23.1 "How to not upset voodoo-gods."

3. Talk about your coding with someone who knows even less about computers than you do so that you won't feel yourself so stupid. Your mother or family pets will do fine.

4. Have a life. If you have a life your code isn't that important to your social status.  Hang around with women no matter how disgusting that might feel.

5. Go to make your military service. If you're in the army, no one really expects that you're gonna finish any code in next 6-12 months. During that time you can use your every spare time for trying to learn something you claim you already can do.

6. Backup your code normally but tell everyone your computer crashed and you lost everything that you had written in last year. That gives you more time.

7. Read a book called "PC Kaeyttaejaen Kaesikirja" which author is Petteri Jaervinen, a famous finnish guru. Try to find the real roots of wisdom and connect yourself to higher spirit.

8.4 How to code your own Hubris-membah  -Tamagotchi

Okay, all you little lamers out there, here's a tutorial on how to code your own Tamagotchi featuring a Cute Little Hubris-membah! Okay, if you have DOS 6.x, just go to the command prompt and type 'QBASIC'. The type the following two lines to the editor and you're ready to run your Tamagotchi and after that you can check how your Ica, Tweeker, Delic or < whoever you decide the little bastard to be > is doing.
10 PRINT "He's idling"
20 GOTO 10

8.5 How to make a Demo Production

People responsible of this chapter: Chem, Kod, Acute, Rondo, and The MEGA-Anqqa. (eek they gonna hang us :-)

As you know, we Hubris members are really experienced in demo-making and after a long and painful discussion (darn, Twk, I gonna pay you the last one!) we decided to share our knowledge with you poor beginners. We remember how hard it was to make the first production (the Idlation '88 invitation intro); the planning work of months, the endless hours of trying to locate mysterious bugs in the millions of lines of pure Visual Basic code, the extreme pain of creation of the graphicians and musicians, ...

Years passed, we gained a lot of experience and we actually did develop some methods which made our huge projects easier to organize.  As many of you our faithful fans know, we've been on a huge demo project for a long time. Managing such a big group of people (actually we call ourselves "The Orchestra") and the huge amount of information is very difficult. As everybody surely knows, when managing a huge amount of documentation, project files, dozens of megs of source code and refreshments containing caffeine, some of it gets lost. Bad sectors, stolen equipment and other unfortunate occasions which slow down our unlimited creatonism which is of course running wild. We can eliminate all of this with good organizing. Let us share our methods with you.

1. The first step of making a production is to organize a meeting with the group so that everyone can share their visions and opinions. Well, it isn't so important that everyone of the group is actually in the meeting. Like here, at Absence'99 we had only three of our loyal members visiting, and the organizers had (once again) some problems with the party network (which party network?! --ica, the Network Manager).  And we didn't actually have any discussion about productions, but the cigars and beer were ok and Delic told some humorous stories to the rest of us. Jollygood, a good beginning.

2.  At the meeting, it's always a good idea to make yourself feel comfy. First of all, conquer the biggest and/or softest bed or sofa in the apartment. After you have made sure no one else can lay down on your territory (a small amount of landmines wisely placed should do the trick), start setting up your Hi-Fi equipment. Once your favorite music (preferrably trance or ambient) is playing loud enough, you can start thinking about where to put your keyboard. Of course, you have taken only your keyboard with you because your stereo and food took almost all of the space in your teeny-weeny Suzuki (hey what do you have against my limousine?! --ica). After all, who needs the rest of the computer? Everyone can code using a computer, only real pros can code with just their keyboard (which of course is missing almost half of the keys and on which you have installed a funny 'any key' button).

3. The meeting is over, everyone goes to their homes. By now everyone knows their duties and responsibilities. It's a time of magic and hard work.

4. Months have passed and somehow it appears that 95% of the group have forgotten something. Just wondering what it was... The rest of the group are calling around and asking how things are going and when they're gonna be finished. Um... what?

5. Some members of the group actually get jobs or girls and they brag about it to the rest...

6. A mayhem occurs, when the organizer finds out that no one has done anything for the demo. No code, no graphics, no music. Goto step #4 until bored or dead of age.

7. If still alive and sane, start another project!

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